The Bestseller She Wrote (20 page)

‘Now. Can you come quickly? Please . . .’ there was a pause interspersed with heavy breathing. ‘Hurry!’

Hastily Maya wrapped a stole around her night dress and rushed out of her room. She knocked on Minouche’s door and waited. Within seconds, she heard someone stumble up to the door. She pushed it open, just in time to see Minouche collapse on the floor. Her T-shirt was wet with sweat, despite the AC being on full throttle. And the room was stinking of vomit.

Maya panicked. ‘Minouche! What happened? Oh my God!’ She reached out to help her get up. Holding her by the hand, she led her to the bed and supported her as she lowered herself on the mattress. She wiped the sweat off Minouche’s forehead and gave her a glass of water. Holding her hand softly, she settled down next to her. Once she calmed down a bit and her breathing became more steady, Maya rested her palm on Minouche’s forehead and slowly ran her fingers through her hair. ‘What happened, Minouche?’ she asked.

‘I am so sorry I troubled you in the middle of the night, but I didn’t know what to do. I have thrown up four times in the last ten minutes. Now it seems like my guts will come out. It pains like hell when I vomit. For a moment, Maya, I thought I was going to die. I was scared. That’s why I called you,’ Minouche said through gasps. She had tears in her eyes.

Maya cradled her head in her arms and stroked her hair. ‘Don’t worry. It must be something you ate at the café. You will be okay by morning.’

Minouche asked Maya to pull her medicine kit out of her bag and popped a couple of tablets. The tablets put her to sleep. In no time she was purring away like a child.

Maya decided to hang around and sleep on the couch, just in case Minouche had a repeat bout of vomiting.

In the morning when she woke up, Minouche was still asleep. Effects of the sedative had not worn off. Casually, she walked up to the bed and touched her forehead. It was burning hot. She was worried. She tried to wake her up, but Minouche was delirious. She was groaning in her sleep. Maya couldn’t make head or tail of what she was saying.

She called the session coordinator for the conference, who arrived almost immediately and took over. When Maya didn’t leave, the coordinator told her that he would manage and asked her to go ahead as the conference was to begin in thirty minutes.

‘What about her?’ Maya asked. ‘I would prefer to be around.’

‘Your flight is in the evening, madam. You have to check out of the room and head to the conference. But don’t you worry; we will take care of her. Once the doctor sees her, we will decide on the course of action. I will ask her to call you once she wakes up.’

‘Please do,’ Maya said and walked back to her room with a heavy heart. As she exited the room, she saw Aditya’s book on the side table, a bookmark lying somewhere midway through the book.

Till the time Maya took her flight out of Paris, Minouche hadn’t called. Maya kept checking on her and was told that she had high fever. The doctors had sedated her to get the fever under control.

Maya left Paris, worried about her new friend.

47

I
T WAS A
torrid Monday for Aditya in Kolkata. A number of staff members gathered outside the room of the regional head, shouting slogans against the retrenchment decision. At one stage it looked as if cops would have to be called in. But thankfully some politically savvy staff members averted that situation.

Aditya was mentally drained by the time he got back to his hotel room. He quickly showered and changed into jeans and a t-shirt. He had fixed up with Sunaina for dinner. She was doing her political reporting in Kolkata.

Sunaina landed up in the hotel at 8.30 in the evening. Aditya met her in the lobby and they headed to the Italian restaurant.

‘You look tired,’ Sunaina started off. Even though she was coming straight from work, laptop bag on her shoulder and book in hand, she looked quite fresh.

‘Been a bad day. We gave out termination letters to forty-two people in Kolkata. The look in their eyes when they got those letters was killing, Sunaina. Grown-ups shedding
tears; I have never seen that before. This was the first
time for me in my entire career. There was a guy in there who got terminated today, who is getting married two weeks from now.’

‘Was there no way to save them?’

‘No. But please let’s talk about something else. I wanted to meet you because I wanted to forget all this crap.’

‘I guess this is what made Shreya come to you,’ Sunaina said. Aditya looked at her, blankly. ‘You are so intense that it reflects in your writing. She became your fan the night she read your book,’ she said with a smile. ‘Though she never read it with that intent.’

‘What do you mean?’

Sunaina recounted the entire story of how and why Shreya read Aditya’s books for the first time.

‘What a bitch!’ Aditya laughed out. ‘But for all the bitchiness she has turned out well, hasn’t she?’

‘You do love her, don’t you?’ Sunaina asked Aditya. He looked at her and smiled. Some questions don’t have an answer. This was one of them. ‘You are completely into her,’ Sunaina looked at him with admiration. ‘I hope she finds someone like you to settle down in life with—someone who has time for her tantrums and her idiosyncrasies. The way you handle her is amazing, Aditya.’

‘There’s nothing to it. I just listen to her.’

‘More importantly, she listens to you. That’s the key. Else she is quite pig-headed. The way you handled her when she wanted to go to Marine Drive, in the middle of the night was just so adorable.’ The look on her face turned mischievous. ‘The way she helped you write that erotic chapter in your book was just so romantic. I loved it.’

‘What?’ Aditya was shocked. ‘How the hell do you know about that?’

‘How else, Mr Kapoor? Girlfriends share all their secrets, including the length of their boyfriend’s . . . you know what! Hehehe . . . just kidding! Shreya and I don’t keep secrets from each other. She told me how you managed to pacify her the night she showed you the rejection letter. Her love and respect for you grew manifold that day.’

Aditya just shook his head. ‘Yes, I know. I wish sometimes that Shreya and I had a future together.’ He casually flipped through the book that Sunaina was reading—Wendy Doniger’s,
On Hinduism
. Aditya knew that it was a controversial book withdrawn by the publishers, though he had never read it.

‘Hmm . . . I know. I think she understands too. She knows that family comes first for you. She is happy with the way you are with her. She likes it that way. She has her independence as well as someone who loves her. Best of both worlds.’

‘It worries me to think what would happen when either of us would want both worlds to converge,’ Aditya sounded grim.

‘And also that she is a determined young soul who will wreck your life professionally and personally if she doesn’t get you. Right, Mr Kapoor?’

‘Hahaha . . . that’s not what I meant at all,’ he tried to cover up. ‘How do you read books like these?’ asked Aditya, trying to change the topic. ‘Don’t you find them too heavy?’

‘Nope. It’s brilliant. You should read it.’

‘I just don’t seem to be able to find time.’

‘I will give it to you once I am done. You can peacefully read it and give it back to your girlfriend. I borrowed it from her.’

‘Oh. It’s hers, is it?’ Aditya flipped through the book again. ‘Too big for me. There is no way I will be able to read it.’ While flipping through the pages he saw that the reader had scribbled a lot on it; doodled in fact. ‘I hate it when someone tortures a book like this,’ he said. He pointed to the doodles on almost every page of the book. Someone had taken a pen and scribbled random designs. The designs were very distinctive. He casually concluded that it must be the work of a bored reader. ‘I hate it when people don’t give a book its due respect—most of all, people who are, or want to be authors. Please tell your friend,’ Aditya finished with a smile.

48

B
Y THE TIME
Maya came out of the airport it was 1.30 am. Sanjay was there to receive her. Since Aditya was in Kolkata he had requested Sanjay to pick her up. He didn’t want Maya travelling alone at night.

‘Want to grab a drink?’ Sanjay asked her.

‘I thought you had a call early tomorrow morning,’ Maya responded. Sanjay had told her about his conference call with the regional office early next morning, wherein he was to give a progress update on the retrenchment project.

‘I do,’ he shrugged his shoulders, ‘but I thought you might be jet-lagged and find it difficult to sleep. And a drink with you is always a pleasure.’

‘Haha!’ Maya laughed. ‘No, I’m fine. I do not want Tim and Aditya screaming at me for delaying you nor do I want you to land up groggy.’

‘Whatever you say,’ Sanjay grinned. ‘I feel like having a drink but I guess I’ll have to make do with one at home.’

*

Maya dumped her luggage in the bedroom and plugged her phone for charging. She waited and the moment the phone turned on, she sent an SMS to Aditya.

Aditya called back immediately.

‘You still awake, Adi? I didn’t want to wake you up so I sent you an SMS. What are you up to?’

‘I couldn’t sleep. You know how it is for me when I am alone in a hotel room. Did Sanjay reach on time to pick you up?’

‘Of course he did. I would have killed him otherwise.’

‘He won’t mess around when it comes to you. How was Paris?’

‘Lovely. Didn’t get a chance to do much, but whatever I saw was breathtaking. Missed you there, baby. It is no fun without you,’ she lamented.

Aditya laughed. ‘What all did you shop for, baby? I lost count of the credit card alerts that I got.’

‘Rubbish. I didn’t shop using your add-on card, only because I didn’t want you to get the alerts. I used my own card. In any case, not much shopping happened in Paris. The big purchase was in Dubai.’

‘So you bought your iPhone6?’

‘Yessss!!! It’s lovely. Come fast and set it up for me.’

‘Ma . . . ya!’ Aditya dragged her name a bit, pretending to be cross. ‘You are an IIM graduate. You travel the world. You win international awards. And you want me to come and set up your phone. Just do it yourself. Don’t be such a techno-retard.’

Maya was about to respond when she heard a call waiting tone. It was not her phone. It had to be on Aditya’s. ‘Who is calling you at this time?’

‘Wait,’ Aditya paused for a moment before coming back on line, ‘It’s Sanjay. He is trying to call me. I guess he wants to tell me that he has dropped you off safely.’

‘Okay. Speak to him. Thank him again. Poor guy gave up his sleep for me.’

‘Okay, baby. Goodnight. I’ll call you tomorrow.’

After disconnecting the call, Maya got up to make sure all the lights were off and windows closed. The moment she got up, she felt dizzy. Holding on to the corner of the table, she balanced herself and sat down on a chair. She waited for a few moments and allowed it to subside, till she felt a little better and got up again. Low BP probably, she thought to herself and walked to the kitchen to get some water. She added a spoonful of sugar to it, just to get the glucose levels going.

Back in her bedroom, she tried to sleep but couldn’t. Her eyes were wide open. She mulled over her brief discussion with Aditya. It was not that she was a techno-retard; far from it. She just loved Aditya doing things for her. She decided to surprise him by setting up her iPhone6 herself. She connected her existing phone to their home laptop and backed it up. Then she connected her new iPhone6 to the laptop and restored it from a backup. It didn’t take her much time to get the iPhone6 up and running.

She walked to her bed, admiring her new phone. It looked sleek, comfortable to use and had a large screen to boot. The screen clarity was out of the world. She fell in love with her phone. She played with the icons, opened the Kindle app and tried to check out her books. She couldn’t. They were missing. She logged off and logged into Kindle again, using her ID. She checked the music on her phone. Her iTunes match was on, so all the music that she had on her laptop was on her phone too. She looked at the messages, just to make sure she had not lost any of them.

And she froze.

49

H
ER MIND WAS
blank. She didn’t know what to think or do. She sat on the sofa for a long time. Not able to decide on her next course of action. Finally, after a lot of deliberation, she decided to call Aditya and dialled his number. His phone was busy. So he was awake—speaking to someone and that too at 4.00 am!

She flicked open the messages folder, selected a number from there and called it. It went to call waiting again. Given what she knew, it was safe to hypothesise that Aditya was speaking to the person whose number she had dialled.

But how and why? She didn’t know this side of Aditya. Was Aditya gay? She didn’t have anything against homosexuals, but for god’s sake, not Aditya. How could he be gay? Aditya couldn’t be cheating on her, that too with a guy. She was furious, and upset at the same time. Was he bisexual? It’s not that they had a very active sex life, but whenever they did have sex, he was good at it. He never gave the impression that something was amiss. Her life was lying in front of her, in tatters. Would she be able to pull back from the brink that it had been driven to? She didn’t know whether to be angry, or feel sorry; whether to be aggressive or understanding; whether to call him again right now and scream or wait for him to return to Mumbai.