One Indian Girl(40)

I opened the door. It was dark in the living room. I switched on the lights. I wondered if anyone was home. Two bedrooms had their doors ajar. These belonged to Debu’s roommates.

I walked up to the third bedroom—his. I could hear music. Yep, Debu was inside. I knocked twice. I don’t think he heard it. Had he gone to sleep while listening to music? I checked the house keys. I tried them one by one on the bedroom door with my right hand since I held the bouquet and the blue Tiffany box in my left. One of the keys worked. I gently opened the door. I just wanted to slip into bed with him. A tiny bedside lamp was switched on. It took me a second to process what I saw: Debu and a white girl lay there naked, intertwined with one another. I couldn’t breathe. In hindsight I realize I should have shut the door and dashed out. Instead, I froze.

‘What the fuck. . .’ Debu said as he saw me.

‘I. . .I. . .sorry. . .sorry. . .’

‘Oh fuck,’ the American girl said as she saw me. She had a large tattoo of a bird on her left upper breast. She also had a pierced upper lip. I don’t know why I stood there and noticed all this and did not just run out.

‘Radhika?’ Debu said.

I started to shiver.

‘You know her?’ the girl said.

‘Huh?’ Debu said as he visibly wondered what to tell her. ‘Used to. What are you doing here, Radhika?’

‘Nothing,’ I said. My face was on fire with embarrassment. What the hell was I doing here anyway? With a bouquet and Tiffany box in my hand?

Then, in a second, I was gone. I turned around and ran out of his house. I don’t know if he came after me. I don’t think he did. Not that I looked back. I simply ran and ran, down the stairs and on the empty streets. I wanted to disappear into thin air. In the middle of the road I prayed for a cab, but none came.

‘Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry, Radhika,’ I mumbled, rocking myself. I had to keep it together until I reached home. Or at least until I found a taxi. My hands trembled, my knees wobbled.

‘Don’t, Radhika,’ I said out loud even as I let go. My legs felt weak. I kneeled down on the road and cried. I didn’t just cry, I howled. A couple of people from the ground-floor apartments peeped out from their windows to look at me. I didn’t care. Where did I go wrong? I looked at the sky. I am sorry, God, but what wrong did I do?

The image of Debu with the tattooed white girl wouldn’t vacate my head.

An NYPD police car came up on the road and stopped near me.

‘You all right, lady?’ a cop spoke to me from inside the car.

I looked up at him and nodded.

‘You live here?’

‘No. Tribeca.’

‘You want to go home?’

I nodded.

‘Come, we can drop you at the subway station.’

I sat in a police car for the first time in my life. Five minutes later, he dropped me at the Clark Street subway stop. I swiped my Metrocard and took the number 2 train to Chambers Street. Like a corpse I reached home. Once inside, I sat on the sofa and looked at my hands; I still had the bouquet and ring. I threw them on the floor and called home.

‘I miss you, mom,’ I said.

My mother sensed my sad, tired and devastated state.

‘What happened, beta?’

‘Nothing.’

‘Say what happened.’

‘Nothing. Just homesick.’

‘We miss you too.’

‘I love you, mom!’

‘Love you too, beta. It’s late, sleep now.’

‘Goodnight, mom.’

I lay down on the sofa and passed out.



‘Hey, what’s up, dealmaker? Come right on in,’ Jon said as I knocked at his office door.

I came in and sat down in front of him.

‘So, Jonathan told me,’ Jon said.

‘Yeah, I figured,’ I said.

‘Personal reasons?’ Jon said.

I nodded. I had sent in my resignation.

I had really tried to get back to normal. But New York wouldn’t let me. Every street, every nook, every inch of Manhattan made me think of him. Hell, I was such a wreck that every advertisement hoarding (because Debu worked in advertising, you see) made my heart sink. Every restaurant menu took me back to dinners with him. Even in my own house the kitchen, the couch, the bed, everything screamed his absence. I had no plan for the future. I only knew I couldn’t bear to be a minute more in this city, where I had loved and lost the only man who loved me. I looked out of Jon’s window. I saw the Hudson River, and the buildings of Brooklyn past it. Brooklyn—the word itself made my eyes well up.

I swallowed hard. I hate girls who cry in the office. Let alone in front of a Goldman Sachs partner. Don’t be a crybaby, I scolded myself.

‘Can I have some water?’ I said instead.

‘Sure,’ Jon said.

I poured myself a glass of water, took a slow sip but the tears slipped out anyway. I lifted the glass higher to cover more of my face. It didn’t help. My body shook as I started to cry. Some of the water spilled on his table.

‘I am sorry,’ I said.

‘It’s okay,’ Jon said. He passed me a box of tissues. If this were an Indian office, the boss would have asked five times what happened, and would require all the gory details. In strait-laced America, no matter what, they let you be, unless you want to share.