Sorting Out Sid (22 page)

Just as Sid was about to turn around and leave, the door started to open. Oh God … what now? Sid panicked and scrambled away from the door. He positioned himself in front of the opposite apartment, his back to Neha’s door, looking up nonchalantly towards the ceiling. He pretended to be waiting for Neha’s neighbour to open the door. What the hell was wrong with him? Neha wouldn’t fall for that. He worked up the courage to throw a quick glance behind him. Aha. It wasn’t Neha, but a tall, serious-looking woman in a plain salwar kameez … Neha’s maid, he guessed. Good. He could still escape.

Sid waited for her to leave but he could sense her presence as she stood patiently behind him. Why wasn’t she moving? He finally noticed the prominent lock on the door he faced and the pile of newspapers at his feet.

Dammit!

The maid finally spoke, ‘Ji, yeh loge to mahine bhar ki chhutti pe gaye hain.’

Sid turned to face her and said, ‘Oh? Achha! Oh hahahaha.’ His false laugh reverberated in the hall and made even him cringe. ‘Oh … maine toh shayaad galat ghar ki ghanti bajaa di … Neha madam yahaan nahin rehti?’

The maid looked too intelligent to fall for it, but was clearly well trained and so her face betrayed no emotion. If she disapproved of her employer receiving loonies at this late hour, she hid it well. Instead, she simply said, ‘Neha madam toh yahan rehti hai.’ Before Sid could stop her, she turned around to open the door. She stepped inside indicating politely for him to follow her. Now Sid had no choice. He took a deep breath and went in.

He heard the maid say, ‘Madam, aapko koi milne aaya hai.’

‘Oh?’ Neha’s voice floated out to him as he stepped into the hallway. She sounded surprised, but not unduly perturbed
–
just pleasantly curious.

Sid stepped further into the room and caught sight of Neha. She was sitting at a small dining table with some papers. Her hair was open, the black curls, falling around her face and neck, delicately bouncing around her almost bare shoulders. Neha was wearing what looked to him to be a sleeveless, aqua-green, evening gown. No wait, it was a nightie, only the most fashionable one he had ever seen. He gave her a tenuous smile, painfully aware of how awkward a situation this was. But Neha’s face lit up with delight. ‘Sid! How strange, I was
just
thinking about you. How nice to see you!’

She had just been thinking about him. It was nice to see him! Sid’s heart soared.

Following your instinct did pay off … he had known all along that it was a great idea.

Julie, the maid, served Sid a glass of cold water at the table where he now sat next to Neha, and then asked Neha, ‘Main ruk jaaoon, madam?’

Neha assured her that it was okay for her to leave. Sid got a feeling that Julie was a bit reluctant to leave the two of them alone although there was nothing in her polite expression to indicate this. Ah … he was just being a bit oversensitive.

‘So,’ Neha looked at him, her eyes alight with curiosity, ‘how come you’re here tonight?’

Sid had prepared himself for this, and, in fact, had been practising his opening line all the way in the car. ‘Oh, I was in the neighbourhood and was going to drop into Aditi’s for a bit. So I thought I’d just swing by and say hi to you and … Kippy.’ There, he said her name
–
that wasn’t so bad.

‘Well, Kippy’s asleep already, but you can say hi to me.’ Neha grinned. Then she frowned. ‘But aren’t Aditi and Krish in
Goa
? I thought the family was gathering there for her parents’ anniversary?’

‘Oh.’ This was unexpected. It had been his back-up plan, in case things got awkward, to say ‘Chalo, Adu’s expecting me’ and take off. ‘Right. Of course. I thought I’d surprise her, guess she surprised me. Ha ha.’ Sid wished he would stop making feeble jokes and then laughing at them himself. Neha’s warm smile didn’t waver though. He decided to change the subject by asking her the question that had been intriguing him. ‘You said you were thinking about me? How come?’

Neha appeared to recall something. She looked down at the papers on the table and said in an excited tone, ‘Oh yes … I’m thinking of getting my bathrooms remodelled. And I was going through these brochures for Roche and Jaguar, and … I thought of you
–
who better to help me decide than someone who works in toilets!’

Sid was too flabbergasted to ask her not to say it that way. She continued, ‘And now you’re here! Isn’t this a great coincidence? I love the way the universe works.’

Sid stared at Neha’s face. Oblivious of his reaction, she pulled her chair closer to his, gathering up the papers for his perusal. Neha was already chattering away to glory but he couldn’t really hear her.

That’s why she had him on her mind
–
the toilet connection. The universe definitely worked in mysterious ways!

After a short while Sid recovered enough to interrupt Neha and explain that just because he worked in marketing for toilet cleaners he wasn’t an authority on all things bathroom-related. His occupation did not make him some sort of ‘Bathroom Oracle’. So now they sat and just looked at one another.

Sid glanced at his watch wondering how soon he could leave. Ah … It had already been about … four minutes only? His eyes bulged. In desperation to find something to talk about he looked around. For the first time, he noticed the decor in her apartment and couldn’t help staring.

The drawing room might have looked bare with its minimalistic furniture. Apart from the small, round dining table they sat at, there were two low chairs, a pale cream sofa and a small corner table. But the paintings on the walls! They were in varying sizes and he felt he recognized the style. They were just like the teapot painting that Sid had noticed outside her front door the first time he had come to her apartment. All the paintings were deceptively real-looking likenesses, except that they were too perfect to be true; he knew from his photography days how hard it was to get such a perfect balance of light and shadow. They were all regular, everyday objects, but looked incredible. Sid had never been big on appreciating ‘Still Life’ but these were extraordinary because even though they were
all of inanimate things, there was nothing static about them. A stack of books, a pair of bright yellow lemons on a sunny kitchen counter and hey, was that a beer mug brimming over with foamy fresh brew? It was. For some reason this last one made him ludicrously happy and he stared long and hard at it.

Sid slowly rose from his chair and walked over to stand in the middle of the room unmindful of Neha’s gaze. He tore his eyes away from the beer painting and looked around again. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t noticed these as soon as he walked in
–
probably because all his attention had been on Neha.

‘Where did you get these?’ Sid finally blurted out. He had to find stuff like this
–
tasteful and unique. He planned to redo his place after Mandira moved out. ‘I want to buy ones like these, how much did they cost?’

Neha appeared amused, and said, ‘Cost me some time and material. But I loved doing them.’ Sid turned towards her to see if she was joking. She was an artist? Her face was serene, but her tone was mildly curious as she asked, ‘You would
buy
these?’

‘Totally.’ Sid was being completely sincere. ‘I’ll buy them all! How much?’

Neha looked at him for a moment and then started to laugh. Just this once, Sid was distracted by something else other than her laugh and his attention went back to the paintings. A luminous bowl of fruit. This one was … just a pair of red slippers. How could slippers possibly look so picturesque?

‘They’re not for sale, Sid,’ Neha said gently. ‘I’ve done these over the last many years. It’s just a hobby but I love it.’

‘A hobby?’ Sid repeated, tearing his eyes again off the beer mug painting to give her an incredulous look. ‘You could totally do this for a living, Neha.’

‘Well…’ Neha ran her hand through her hair. ‘I don’t know about that. I kind of enjoy doing this on the side, you know? It’s actually an amazing luxury to be able to sit down and do nothing but paint for a while. I wouldn’t want to try and make a living out of it. That would make it feel like work.’

‘You should at least do an exhibition or something sometime.’

‘Now that’s something I’ve been thinking about. A still life exhibition. These were done over quite a few years. I pulled them out while setting up this apartment. I did think they look like an interesting collection.’ She looked wistful. ‘It’s been a while since I’ve done something new. Maybe not since Kippy’s been born. I’ve just been so busy with her and with the divorce proceedings and all.’ It struck him that she could say the D word without even flinching, like it were something so normal. ‘Thankfully, Julie is a big help, but I still haven’t got around to painting anything lately. Maybe it’s just inertia or something.’

Sid looked around again appreciatively. ‘Well, if I could paint like that, you’d have to drag me away from my … painting place…’

‘Studio?’ she suggested.

‘From my studio,’ Sid said, nodding, ‘to get me to stop.’

Neha gazed at him, a thoughtful expression on her face. ‘You’re right, I guess. I should start again.’

‘You should? You must!’ Sid affirmed and then stopped. He felt a bit silly again, was he overdoing it? But he wasn’t pretending. Neha was so talented. Still, who was he to tell her what she must do? Now that the conversation about the paintings was over, Sid felt self-conscious and out of place again. So much for the comfort level he thought he had reached with her after that one night out.

He looked at his watch. ‘Hey, it’s getting late.’

‘Oh. Is it?’ Neha looked a little taken aback. ‘I was hoping you would stay for a glass of wine?’

‘Okay!’ As soon as he said it, Sid felt his ears turn red. He should have waited longer than that split second to at least pretend he was considering her offer, and not just blurt out his consent. How overeager could one get?

Neha smiled happily, not seeming to notice anything amiss. ‘Great! Red or white?’

Sid hesitated for a moment, and then decided to abandon all pretence. With a quick glance at his favourite of her paintings for inspiration, he cleared his throat and asked, ‘Er, actually … Neha, you got any beer?’

‘… he said it stands for chief toilet officer … And he thought that was funny!’

Neha broke into helpless giggles and Sid joined her, not even censoring himself for giggling, which was nowhere close to his social man-laugh.

Sid was comfortably seated on the floor besides the sofa where Neha was perched. For the last two hours he had regaled her with stories about characters in his office
–
from his boss, Akash, to enthu-management trainee, Ravi, to slightly guarded descriptions of Madame Meenakshi. Neha enjoyed all his stories. Sid loved an attentive listener, particularly one who consistently rewarded him with that amazing, open laugh. He didn’t even mind that Neha seemed not to have noticed his new French beard, even though he had deliberately fingered it several times before finally giving up trying to draw her attention to it. It was amazing how easily the conversation was flowing. Neha was so easy to talk to.