The Blue Bar (Blue Mumbai #1)(41)

“Your phone was switched off. What did you expect?”

“You believed them and left it at that. Why ask now?”

“Because you’re here.” He leaned toward her.

“Who was the woman at your table this evening?” So Tara wished to learn about Nandini. As a young girl, she’d listened to him, open-mouthed. This woman was entirely different.

“Answer me first,” Arnav said.

“If I do, will you tell me?”

“Quit hedging, Tara. Why did you go away?”

“Why does any bar girl leave? I’d had enough of it. Zoya was in trouble, and she wanted to quit.”

“You didn’t tell me.”

“Would it have mattered?”

“What if I’d gone away like that?”

“Look, Avi . . . I mean, Arnav, you made it clear we had an arrangement. I wasn’t your girlfriend. Did your friends know about me? I was a bar girl, a nobody. So I behaved like one.”

You were never just a bar girl. Did I not tell you that? He longed to shake her, make her lose her cool. From the corner of his eye, Arnav caught a glimpse of her toes. Yes, still curled into themselves, even tighter. She was holding her own, but she was also holding herself back, though the tilt of her chin would convince anyone she didn’t give a damn.

“You’re not telling me everything.”

“You’re going to go policewala on me. You’re no longer a constable.”

“How is that related? You ran away to follow Zoya? Because you were tired of bar work? And now you’re back?”

“Bars are getting licenses again, and Shetty needed dancers.” A faint stutter when she said that. Still lying. When did Tara get so good at it? Or maybe she’d been that way, and he’d never noticed.

The smaller orchestra bars had stayed open, but they didn’t earn as much as the erstwhile mega dance bars. That’s why Shetty had jumped back into the game by renovating the Blue Bar. He could earn sacksful, and maybe even help launder some underworld money on the sly. The bars would create their own ecosystem again—waiters, cloth and cosmetic suppliers, and the bar girls themselves—but owners like Shetty would gobble up most of the pie, not Tara and her peers. Tara was older now. Shetty wouldn’t pay her much.

“Why are you here, really?”

She paused for a while. The earlier Tara wouldn’t have met his eyes, but this one didn’t hesitate.

“Why do bar girls dance? Not for art.” She stood up. “Which reminds me, I have to return to the hotel.”

“This early in the morning?” Arnav checked the wall clock.

Nonplussed for a second, she stood straighter. “I’m the choreographer. I need to be fresh and early.”

“You’re a teacher? Why with Shetty? You can work with anyone. Many openings in the industry these days.”

With her obvious talent, she would flourish away from the bar scene. Times had changed in the past decade, with several dance competitions on TV and internet platforms. According to Nandini, a lot of them lacked good choreographers.

“Drop me back, please.” Tara made for the door.

Arnav touched her elbow. “I’m talking to you.”

“And I’ll listen. In the car.” She looked implacable, as if a headmistress had taken up residence inside her.

“You’ve changed.”

“It’s been years.” She removed his hand from her elbow. “What did you expect?”

She copied his earlier words and smiled, and that grin was all younger Tara—mischievous, warm, who fed him while they lounged in his bed, who teased him about his mustache.

“Must all policemen have mustaches?” She’d run her thumb over his lips, making him yearn to bite it.

“Most do. Not a rule, but I like it. Makes you look like a real man.”

“A real man is more than his mustache.” She’d grinned at him. “I can kiss you so much better without it.”

He wanted her to kiss him now. Would her lips yield against his, as before? He found himself leaning forward, and pulled back.

“Yes, it’s been years,” he said.

He lightly punched the air under her chin, in a gesture that his body remembered. His knuckles grazed her, and he drew them lightly across her soft skin. “I’ll take you to the hotel now, but I’m picking you up tomorrow after the show. No argument.”

No argument—another phrase from long ago. Tara had stilled under his gaze, and when he led her out with his hand on the small of her back, she didn’t protest.

Once in the car, they were silent again. He rolled down the windows because Tara had once complained that air-conditioning suffocated her. Riding the dawn breeze came the smell of flowers or rubbish or snacks frying in oil, depending on what road they drove on; the calls of men beginning to push off for the day on cycles, scooters, and carts. The sky loomed blue-gray, with scattered ribbons of clouds. Pigeons wheeled, landed, and took to the skies again. He liked how they didn’t discriminate and uniformly spattered the world beneath them with their droppings—the traffic islands, the forlorn statues and shrubbery, and the hoardings of the municipal corporation.

He parked right where he’d picked her up earlier. He reached for her phone, dialed his private number, and returned it to her.