by Ajay Patel
“Oh brother!” Vijay groaned. “Just what I need! To meet someone who thinks like you!” he said to her in the elevator waving goodbye as the doors opened onto his floor.
Vijay entered his room and then sighed at the imperfect plans he had made with Mona. He pulled out Mona’s phone number and dialed. The phone rang three times and her answering machine picked up. Evidently, she still wasn’t home.
Vijay left a message, “Mona, this is Vijay. I waited for you but you never showed up. I hope everything is okay and nothing serious happened. Give me a call at the Plaza Hotel. I’m in room 1910. Bye.”
After leaving the message, he changed his clothes and went to bed, still upset, although now more at himself, for having wasted his first free night in New York.
The phone rang to wake him. Vijay looked at the clock next to the bed. It read 1:26. He had been sleeping for over an hour. “Hello?” he answered in the darkness.
“Hi, it’s Mona. I’m so sorry about tonight. I’m sorry about everything.” She blurted out her apologies all at once.
“What happened?” he slowly woke up.
“Something really important,” she answered. Vijay’s hopes were revived at the confirmation that she had a good reason for abandoning him. This feeling, however, was short lived. “At the last minute,” she continued, “I had to go with someone to some party to talk about my designs.”
Upon hearing her explanation, he paused to let the message sink in. He then became angry at the thought that a party had taken precedence over her meeting him. If it were an illness, an accident or similar tragedy worthy of standing him up, he might of understood. But a party? He began to feel that Mona was no different than Valerie, each of them treating the men in their lives without any consideration in accordance with the “Rules” so that they were drawn even closer to them. This thought angered him and he vowed to himself not to fall into such a trap.
“Believe me, though!” she said, perhaps realizing that going to a party might not have sounded like a credible excuse, “It really was important that I went, I had no choice! I wanted to call to let you know so that you could make other plans but I didn’t have a number to reach you,” she paused to further gauge his mood and then continued, “Can we try again and meet tomorrow so that I can make it up to you?”
“I don’t know…” Vijay said, still bristling at the thought that he had been stood up by Mona for no good excuse. “When you didn’t show up, I met up with someone else for drinks. She and I are planning to do something tomorrow,” he partially lied in the hopes of making it sound like his night was not a pathetic loss and that he might have better fish to fry. He desperately wanted to teach Mona a lesson.
“Oh,” she said quietly. “Well, let me know if your plans change. It would be nice to meet you since you’re all the way out here,” her voice trailed off.
Vijay paused for a second to think. He very much wanted to hand her a dose of her own medicine. He wasn’t quite sure how he would do that yet, but having been trained through his friendship with Valerie, he felt like he could surely withstand the likes of Mona and score a victory for men. Just as there was a book of “Rules” for women, Valerie had told him about the “Code”, which was the corresponding version for men. Here was his chance to put the Code to the test.
“You know what? I promised Valerie I’d take her shopping,” he intimated again about his “friend” from the night before giving her a name to add to the story, “but I’m sure we could meet up early in the morning before she gets up.”
“Great! There’s a bookstore right on the corner of the main square in the Village off of Broadway and 12th. It’s called the Strand Bookstore. How about meeting inside at 9:30?” she offered. She then followed it with a “It’ll be nice to meet you finally.”
“Okay,” Vijay complied and agreed. He then hung up the phone gently. He would get a second chance to meet Mona in person and was resolute in wanting to show her who was in control. He quickly called the front desk to have a wake-up call placed for eight that morning and lay down to fall asleep. Yes, he thought to himself with a Machiavellian smile in the dark, tomorrow was going to be a very eventful day. Mona would learn that he was not one to mess with.
“Valerie, good morning,” Vijay said softly in the hopes that she wouldn’t complain about his calling so early. It was a little past nine and he had already showered and was preparing to leave to meet Mona.
“Vijay?” her voice groaned on the phone in reply.
“I’m sorry that I woke you up,” Vijay said, “but I just had to talk to you before I left. Mona ended up calling me last night.”
“Uh huh,” she mumbled, still sounding drowsy.
“We talked a bit and she apologized for canceling,” Vijay offered, in the hopes of justifying her waking up to talk to him.
Valerie mumbled, “And…how good was it?”
“What? Her apology?” Vijay asked, not certain to what Valerie was referring.
“No, her excuse,” she groaned, having to spell it out for him. “Why didn’t she meet you last night?” She was only interested in how Mona played the game.
“To be honest, her excuse was kinda weak,” Vijay admitted. “She said she couldn’t meet me because she had to go to some party for the fashion show!”
Valerie showed signs of alertness, approving of Mona’s excuse in a way that only Valerie could. “An emergency fashion design party!” she laughed. “Not the best of excuses, but that’s why I’m beginning to like her already!”
“Yeah, well your liking her makes me even more sure she’s trouble!” Vijay grumbled. “But anyways, she wants to try and see me today to make up for last night. That’s why I was calling you.”
“Tell her you’re too busy and that you can’t meet her,” Valerie counseled.
“No, I already told her I’d meet her this morning in the Village,” Vijay replied.
“Wait a minute!” Valerie interrupted emphatically. “This woman, what’s her name? Mona? She stood you up because she had to go to some party and you’re now going to go crawling back to meet her? What’s going on? I thought you championed the cause against being the spineless man!”
“I don’t know,” Vijay said evasively. “There’s a part of me that just wants to meet her face to face. To see who it was that stood me up.”
“That’s not it, is it?” she asked in disbelief, then paused for a moment, almost as if her mind was whirring away trying to assemble the data so that it came out in a coherent pattern. “I know what you’re doing,” she said in a flash of realization, “You’re still a little mad at her, aren’t you? You want to teach her a lesson!”
“Well,” Vijay’s voice trailed off, signaling that she may have hit upon the truth.
“I just have one question,” Valerie said.
“What’s that?” Vijay asked.
“How can I help?”
Vijay laced his Nike running shoes and put on a baseball cap. He wasn’t dressing up for his meeting with Mona because it was all part of this game that he was now committed to playing after speaking with Valerie. Valerie instructed him to dress in a very casual way to emphasize he put no special significance in his meeting with Mona.
Feeling adventurous and wanting to be late, at Valerie’s insistence, he decided to take the subway instead of a cab. He got off the subway at the West 4th Street station and walked through the heart of the Village to the bookstore Mona had mentioned, looking at his watch as he stepped inside. It was well past the time that they were supposed to meet. Once inside, he didn’t see Mona immediately. He wondered if he could figure out where she might be based on his few conversations with her. Thinking of her fashion design background, he walked up a spiral staircase to the second floor and headed towards the Art Sections.
Once up on the second floor, he consciously read the subject headings for each aisle. The third shelf on his right was labeled architecture and design. Vijay had a feeling that this would be where he would find her. The aisl
e had tall bookshelves to the left and right. It did not come to a dead end, however, as a bookshelf along the far wall faced the ends of the side bookshelves, creating another aisle perpendicular to the one he had entered. Standing in front of this far bookshelf with her back facing him, he saw a woman poring intently over a book. Although he couldn’t see the woman’s face, for some unknown reason he knew that it was Mona.
She hadn’t heard or seen him and was concentrating intently on the book in her hands. Vijay quietly walked down the aisle, noticing her clothes. She wore an all white sheer dress, which added a sense of coolness to a day that was proving to be a warm one in the city. Her hair was no longer than shoulder length and shined and flowed as smoothly as the lines of her clothing, giving her an air of quiet sophistication.
Halfway down the aisle, he paused, but for a second, puzzled. For some reason, he had the sense that he was about to meet someone incredibly special. Although she had not turned around, he was already strongly attracted to her despite his concerted efforts not to be. How could this all be happening when he hadn’t even met her yet let alone seen her up front? He shook his head to try and make sense of it all, yet his heart began to beat quicker. And then, all thoughts of the game, acting nonchalant, and wanting to teach Mona a lesson slowly began to evaporate, despite his panicked attempts to focus and hold on. These thoughts were replaced by a vision of fireworks to come, not yet exploded, having just been launched from the cannon into the night sky. He was certain, however, that something special was about to reveal itself.
The woman sensed someone was approaching and slowly turned to look at him. Vijay first saw her profile and knew that he was right. She was beautiful. And those fireworks that he wondered so much about when he had first met Megha, they did exist. As she turned to face him, having heard him approach, the fireworks did explode for a second. But then, just as they blossomed into something amazing, they froze, as if the whole sequence were on pause. As he looked at this woman that he was immediately and inexplicably attracted to despite his best efforts, he realized this wasn’t the first time that he had seen her. He had seen her before at a party two years back. There stood Mona in front of him. But he knew her as the infamous Madame Ex.
8
Let the Games Begin
“Hi, Mona?” Vijay asked to confirm. It took all of his mental strength not to say Madame-Ex out loud. The woman who was alleged to have led men around, breaking their hearts and then searching for new blood stood right in front of him, perhaps looking at him as her next victim. He swore to himself then and there that he would not let that happen as the visions of firework were quickly erased from his mind.
“Vijay?” she responded slowly with a nod. “It’s nice to put a face to an e-mail. I’m sorry that I’m late,” he apologized half-heartedly.
“Oh, that’s okay,” she responded brightly, taking the apology for its face value. “I can’t complain after what I did to you yesterday. I’m just glad you still decided to meet me!”
Vijay laughed slightly in response, still reeling from the fact that Mona was Madame Ex. But then he thought about it some more and it all made sense. After all, who else but someone like her would stand him up after he had traveled across the country just so she could go to a party?
They left the bookstore and walked to Café Reggio, a small NYU student frequented coffeehouse a few blocks away that boasted the first cappuccino maker ever used in America over a hundred years ago. Vijay looked at her across from their table and thought to himself that it was important more than ever to play the game properly because he was dealing with a professional player. Fortunately, Valerie, a professional herself, had given him a crash course earlier that morning. The first step, he repeated to himself, was to tell Mona that he only had a little time to talk because he still had other, impliedly better, things to do during the day.
“Vijay, I hate to say this, especially after last night, but I can only talk for a bit before I have to go back to the fashion show to get things ready. I just felt, especially after what happened last night, that I had to at least see you,” she said to him before he could even get his line out. He grimaced, angry at himself for having been beaten to the opening punch.
“No problem. I’ve got other things to do too,” he tried to counter-punch. It was too little too late, and he knew it. He had already lost the opening round of the game.
“I still feel so bad about not meeting up with you last night,” she shook her head.
Vijay didn’t believe her. “Don’t worry about it, everything worked out for the best because I ended up meeting someone else,” he tried to give off the impression that she wasn’t even missed. Score one point for him. “I’m curious though. What happened to you?”
“I was with my friend working last night putting the finishing touches on the models. You see, my friend applies mehndi patterns on the models that match with my clothing designs. And before I knew what was happening, a writer from a local fashion magazine showed up to do a little piece on the show and saw what Anusha and I were doing. He asked to interview us for a side story about the show.”
“That’s good, right?”
“It’s so good I can’t even tell you! But it all happened so last minute, and in order to do it, we had to go with the writer to a pre-party he had to attend as a part of today’s show in order to finish the interview. And even though I know it wasn’t right to leave you in the lurch like I did, I just didn’t know what else I could do. I hope you understand?” she asked in a manner from which to try and coax a “sure I understand” out of Vijay.
“Sure, I understand,” Vijay complied, and added a “Don’t think twice about it,” for good measure. The story sounded plausible and he could see himself making the same decision she had made had their roles been reversed. But after he thought about it some more, he reminded himself that he was dealing with Madame Ex. Because of that, he couldn’t bring his guard down so easily, despite her excuse sounding much better now than it had earlier that morning when he had repeated it to Valerie.
“So tell me, did you always want to be a fashion designer?” asked Vijay, curious, changing slightly the course of the conversation.
“I guess I’ve always been interested in being a designer,” she admitted. “I’ve always pictured myself as a creative person, even when I was an electrical engineer.”
“You’re kidding me!” Vijay’s laugh came out sudden at the unexpected news. “I’m sorry, but I just can’t see it. You? An engineer?” he said, shaking his head.
“Let’s just say, deep inside, I didn’t think engineering was for me either,” she responded to his laughter with a smile. “But it was the standard Indian parent thing,” she responded with a roll of her eyes.
Vijay understood very well how a career in design would not necessarily have resulted in equal approval from Indian parents as would a career in engineering. “But what gave you the courage to make the change? I think now and then about ‘redefining’ myself and maybe becoming a writer or something equally as creative, but I don’t have the guts to do it like you seem to have been able to.”
She answered with a heavy sigh, “Let’s just say that a few years ago I came very close to making the biggest mistake ever. I was lucky and was able to get out of it, but in the process I realized there were a lot of things that I wasn’t happy about in my life. I was doing things because other people wanted me to, not because I wanted to. So when all this happened, I took stock in life and started doing things for me to be happy, like trying to be a designer.”
Her comment piqued his interest. Surely that life defining moment related to when she almost had married Jayesh. He wanted to somehow pursue it further, perhaps, he thought with a smirk, asking her where she kept the engagement ring Jayesh had given her. But before he could say another word, she let out, having glanced at her watch, “Oh my god, it’s been over an hour! I’m running late! I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go!” She rose abruptly from her chair, collecting her thin
gs.
Vijay, too, had lost track of time during their talk, having become engrossed in their discussions. He had also temporarily forgotten the purpose of his agreeing to meet her again—to play the game like she did. All in all, he had not fared well. She was now the one leaving, controlling when the meeting was over. Valerie would have scored this as a total defeat for him.
As Mona pulled her bag onto the chair, she opened it and took an envelope out and gave it to Vijay. “It’s an invitation to the fashion show. If you can make it…” she asked with a hopeful look.
“I’ll try.” Vijay said, only promising to “try” because that’s what Valerie would have wanted him to say. With a sudden inspiration, he went for broke, asking “Is it okay if I bring someone?” If he could bring Valerie as his escort, he would surely score a win in the game.
“Of course!” she stood up, not knowing the firepower this allowed Vijay to bring with him. She then said, “It was really nice to meet you and I hope I see you later today.”
“I’m sure we’ll see each other,” Vijay promised, rising to say goodbye. After a quick hug, she was gone. Vijay sat back down for a while collecting his thoughts after Mona had left. Madame Ex. Mona. What were the odds? He sighed, rubbing his temples, wondering whether he had a more shocked look on his face when he first met Rina as Shinki or Madame Ex as Mona. Either way, it was getting to be a little too much. He stood up, pushed his and Mona’s chair in, returned the now half-empty cups, and walked back to the subway station to report back to Valerie at the hotel. Despite his intentions going into this meeting, he had, if anything, fallen further behind in the game. But, as he looked at the invitation in his hand, he realized the game was not yet lost.
It was close to one o’clock when Vijay returned to the hotel. Valerie, impatient as always, had already left two messages.
