The Girl of My Dreams

  Daman didn’t have an answer for that. He said, ‘Fuck it. Can we talk about something else?’

  ‘If I were Avni I would have strangled you before you used any other girl’s name in the book. I don’t know how she tolerates you. You shouldn’t have happened to a girl as nice as she is. Tell me, have you told her about the nightmares?’

  ‘There’s no need. She already worries about me a lot. And again, can we talk about something else?’

  ‘But promise me you will come to me if the nightmares get worse? We can put you back in therapy. PTSD is not to be taken lightly. The relapse of PTSD—’

  ‘Of course, Bhaiya. I will tell you.’

  Sumit took another big gulp of his beer. He said, ‘And stop being so sullen about the book. It’s not good for your mental health. It’s selling well you told me. So just enjoy your success.’

  ‘I don’t want to be another Karthik Iyer.’

  ‘Now who the hell is that?’ said Sumit, asking the waiter for a repeat.

  ‘He’s a writer who writes these stupid love stories. He must have written some twenty of those and it’s the same thing over and over again. Loser boy, beautiful, cheesy girl, they fall in love, a couple of funny scenes, a few intimate conversations, a tragedy and all is well that ends well. He keeps writing about his girlfriend, Varnika. They are supposed to be the perfect couple to base your relationship goals on.’

  ‘I would love to read him. It’s exactly what’s missing in the world. Love. You should write a cute love story.’

  Daman threw his hands up in protest. ‘Fuck me. It’s like the Matrix. Everyone is fucking Agent

  Smith. Are you sure you’re not Jayanti Raghunath in drag?’

  ‘Of course!’ said Sumit and cupped his man boobs and pretended to lick them.

  Daman told him it was gross and inappropriate. An hour later, Daman asked for Sumit’s leave.

  Avni was free from office early, what was now a rare occurrence, and they were going for the new

  Marvel movie. Daman left and Sumit waited for his date, the girl with blood-red lips.

  7

  Sumit passed the time by checking out the other women in the pub. Before long, a girl Sumit had thrown stolen glances most evening broke away from the rest of her group and walked towards him, a smile writ large on her face. In a little yellow summer dress and flats, she stood out in the dark pub. All this while she had been reciprocating his gazes with ones that lasted unusually long.

  If she had picked Sumit out from a crowd this would be a first. Without a word, she climbed on to the stool Daman had sat on earlier and thrust her hand out towards Sumit.

  ‘Hi,’ she said. Her thick, long hair streaked in bright brown and shocking red colours, was tied in a tight, high pony. There was an eerie twinkle in her deep, dark eyes. A dark shade of red lipstick glowed under the dim lights of the bar.

  ‘Hi!’ And just as he looked at her closely, it dawned on him. ‘Are you?’ The girl nodded. ‘So you’re not a boy? And you’re not a serial killer?’

  ‘I’m definitely not a boy. You can’t really say about the latter, can you? But if it came to it, I think I will enjoy a good murder,’ said the girl with a smile. ‘I’m Shreya.’

  ‘Sumit.’

  ‘I like your tie.’

  ‘I like your hair,’ said Sumit.

  ‘I just got it dyed yesterday. The red is a little splotchy and uneven. I am hoping it will get better. I was getting bored of the black.’

  ‘It looks perfect,’ he said. ‘Since when have you been here? I saw you—’

  ‘I came before you. I was with my friends.’ She pointed to her motley group of friends, all of whom were dressed in office formals and were drinking. ‘I saw you walk in minutes after we were matched on the app. Tinder isn’t really my thing. I’m more of a long-term commitment girl but I felt a little risqué tonight,’ said the girl, smiling and fluttering her eyelashes at him.

  Risqué indeed! thought Sumit. ‘So you were already here when we got matched. Why didn’t you come say hi?’

  ‘I didn’t want to interrupt you . . . Ummm . . . okay, I have to admit, I liked watching you and your friend talk. But I don’t want you to think of me as a crazy stalker who follows people and tries to know everything about them before she meets them. I’m totally not that person,’ she said and placed her hand on Sumit’s and smiled.

  ‘Of course not, why would I? And even if you were a stalker, I wouldn’t mind it,’ said Sumit winking.

  ‘Are you flirting with me?’ She giggled. ‘Yeah, you’re right though. Aren’t we all stalkers beneath our righteous selves? What are we if not curious?’

  Sumit smiled.

  She continued, ‘Was the person with you that writer whose book just came out?’ asked the girl, her eyes glinting like obsidian gemstones. ‘Daman Roy?’

  ‘You recognized him? You should have introduced yourself. He would have been so stoked!

  Have you read his book? Or the posts he puts up on the Internet? Oh. I totally forgot to ask if you want to drink something?’

  The girl smiled sweetly and ordered a Bloody Mary. Sumit asked for the same.

  She continued, ‘I might have eavesdropped on your conversation. It’s an old habit, I can’t help it. My ears pricked when I heard my name. So I thought you were talking about your date this evening.’

  ‘Your name? Oh! Shreya and Shreyasi. No, no, we were talking about someone else entirely!’

  The drinks arrived. Sumit reached out to pass a glass to Shreya but she slapped his hand away.

  ‘Ow!’ said Sumit.

  ‘Just precautionary,’ said the girl. Sumit looked at her, puzzled.

  ‘Rohypnol?’ she said. ‘Date rape drug? You would be surprised to know how easy it is to get your hands on it. You look like a decent guy but I make it a point to not let others touch my drinks. I wouldn’t want to feel dizzy and nauseated and wake up in your bed twelve hours later, naked and raped.’

  Sumit nodded and let her slide the drink towards herself instead. ‘So what were you and your friend talking about?’ asked the girl. ‘You seemed to be fighting about something.’

  ‘Oh. You wouldn’t want to know. It was noth—’

  ‘I would want to know. Tell me. Oh. Don’t be surprised. I’m an Aquarian. We are an inquisitive bunch, especially when drunk.’

  ‘Ah. It’s nothing, really. He’s obsessed about a girl he shouldn’t be. It’s not even a girl. He’s obsessed about a name. He used her name in the book and he shouldn’t have. She . . . she nearly killed him.’

  The girl gasped. ‘Did she? How?’ she asked, her voice took on a throaty, seductive tone.

  ‘Oh. It’s nothing.’

  ‘You can’t throw that statement at me and not tell me the entire story.’

  Sumit told her how on the last day of their trip to Goa a couple of years ago, Daman had taken a lift from a girl on his way back from the liquor shop. He told her about the accident, of how they found Daman in the mangled wreckage of the car, and of the time Daman had spent in the hospital fighting for his life.

  ‘What happened to her?’

  Sumit didn’t answer. After a long pause, he said, ‘She can burn in hell for all I care.’

  ‘You are angry, but I don’t understand why,’ said the girl. ‘Shouldn’t you be happy for your friend? It seems like you can’t respect that he still loves her. For someone on Tinder, you should know how hard it is to find love. Isn’t that why we resort to these hook-up apps? To find intimacy because we can’t find love? Swiping right at smeared-on lips, and professions, and About Me sections one can’t verify but hope to be true. I think he’s lucky to be obsessed about someone. You should support him, not berate him.’

  ‘What? What are you even saying?’ asked Sumit. He would have walked off had the girl not been so . . . sexy. ‘She nearly killed him. And yet he romanticizes that bitch.’

  ‘I think you should be more respectful towards women. And how do you know the girl was be bla
me? Maybe Daman was driving the car? Either way, you have no right to call her a bitch.’

  ‘Let’s drop this.’

  ‘Why? This is interesting. I do love a good love story. I told you, I’m a long-term girl,’ said the girl, clutching Sumit’s hand tighter. Sumit looked at her. She was way out of his league and it was becoming clear that it was she who would dictate the course of this date.

  The girl continued, ‘In your opinion, keeping aside your bias against this girl, you think he’s still in love with her, right?’

  ‘Of course not. The girl in the car is not the one he writes about. He just uses her name. The girl in his posts is a figment of his imagination, he has constructed her out of nothing. He remembers nothing about the girl in the accident. So it’s impossible for him to be in love with someone who doesn’t exist.’

  ‘What if she does exist? What if she’s exactly how he had described her in his posts on

  Facebook?’

  Sumit laughed. ‘Then I will ask Daman to be careful! The girl he created for those Facebook posts was horrendous. The one in the book Jayanti, his editor, created was still okay. That’s also what we were fighting about. Just in case you wanted to know,’ Sumit said frowning. ‘Are you sure you want to continue this date? Because I’m not the writer. I could give you his email ID if you want.’

  ‘Of course, I want to continue this date, baby. I matched you on Tinder, didn’t I?’ said the girl.

  Sumit didn’t know if she was being sexy or sarcastic. She continued, ‘So, from what I understand,

  Jayanti butchered the character Daman had created in the 860 posts he wrote after that accident or whatever. But then Daman let her do so. That’s not very encouraging, is it? Letting someone trample over your love story like that? But you wouldn’t understand and neither would Jayanti.

  What would you know of love and writing?’

  ‘Are you like a fan or something?’ asked Sumit.

  She was no longer holding his hand, he noticed.

  ‘He still loves Shreyasi, I know. He just needs to be reminded. How do you think Daman would react if Shreyasi, the girl in the car, comes back to his life?’

  ‘She wouldn’t.’

  ‘What if she does?’ she asked, eyes glinting.

  ‘I will send her back to where she would have come from,’ he snapped.

  ‘Would he dump his current girlfriend? Avni, right? I read his tweets and updates. He doesn’t mention her much. I’m sure he will dump her if Shreyasi would want him to. He doesn’t love her.’

  ‘What—’

  The girl said, ‘I need to go to the washroom real quick if you don’t mind. I will be back before you know it. I really like you. I see us meeting a lot more often, baby.’ She ran her fingers over his face.

  Before Sumit could say anything she had left, striding away from him into the crowd. She’s crazy! thought Sumit. Good sense told him he should bolt. But she’s hot, his heart said. So he stayed put and ordered another cocktail instead. Maybe more alcohol would make her more tolerable. He had one and then another and she hadn’t come back. He paid the bill and searched for her in the washroom. Her friends had left. He checked all the floors, jostled through the crowds calling out her name but couldn’t find her anywhere. Tired and angry, he decided to call it a night.

  He had just stepped out of the main door of Summerhouse Café when suddenly the world around him dimmed. His knees buckled and he had to grab hold of the railing to keep himself from tumbling down the jagged stairs of Summerhouse Café. He pried his eyes open but sleep came over them like waves. He tried fighting it but it was too strong. A numbness took over. His eyes closed. His hand came off the railing and he stumbled down the stairs like a dead man.

  He woke up bruised and bloodied on the pavement twelve hours later.

  His wallet was missing and so was his phone. He had a terrible hangover.

  Not from the alcohol but from Rohypnol, a popular date rape drug.

  8

  Jayanti Raghunath put everything together in a week—posters for social media, media interviews, the banners at the venue, and little ads in the newspapers. Daman closed his burning eyes and lay down on his bed. He had stayed up the entire night and a good part of the morning mailing personalized invites for his book launch to every subscriber. Earlier that week, goaded by Avni, he had agreed to do one book launch for the The Girl of My Dreams at the Oxford Bookstore in

  Delhi. ‘You should do it,’ Avni had said. ‘People love the book and you. It’s only a handful who liked the earlier version of Shreyasi. Jayanti was saying that book launches will help the sales.

  And you know that—’ Avni had stopped short of mentioning his money trouble and instead rubbed her soft lips against his neck and kissed him. ‘I will be there to smother anyone who says the book was bad, okay? But right now I need to smother you.’ She had slipped her hands inside his jeans and there was nothing else to be said that night.

  He slept for a few good hours. When he woke up, Avni had already left for work and he had three missed calls from his mother. They were supposed to have lunch together. He got up, washed himself quickly, put on a fresh T-shirt and left for his parents’ house. ‘Parents’ house . . .’ The words sat uncomfortably on his tongue. Only six months back it had been his house as well. Before long he stood outside the door, the house barely a ten-minute walk from his own. His mother got the door. He could smell the food and his father’s dissent as soon as he stepped in.

  ‘Ei to, eshe gaeche! (Look, he’s here),’ said his mother and kissed him on his cheek. ‘You haven’t eaten anything since morning, have you?’

  His mother called for Puchku, Daman’s thirteen-year-old sister, who came running to Daman, hugged him, told him she missed him, and then chided him for not replying to her texts.

  ‘I was writing, Puchku.’

  ‘Oh please, Dada. You mean to say J.K. Rowling or G.R.R. Martin don’t look at their phones for days?’

  ‘Fine, I’m sorry.’ He pulled at her cheeks and she slapped his hands away. She wasn’t six any more though Daman still treated her as a toddler. ‘Did you read my book?’

  Puchku shook her head. ‘You asked me not to. A couple of my friends did. They said it was nice.

  They even sent you messages on Facebook and tweeted you. You haven’t replied to them yet.’

  ‘I haven’t yet got the time.’

  ‘Oh. My brother is a big shot now. Do you have stalkers too?’

  ‘Very funny. No.’

  His mother told them to sit around the dining table. The food was getting cold. Daman’s father got up from the couch and settled at the table, still staring into the newspaper. Puchku and Daman joined him. Lunch was served. They ate in silence for the next ten minutes.

  ‘There’s a book launch this weekend. I want all of you to come.’

  ‘I know!’ shrieked Puchku. She looked at her mother. ‘Can I go, please? Please? Please?

  Please? Please?’

  ‘Of course you can. It will be fun. Get your friends along too,’ said Daman.

  His father kept the newspaper on the table. ‘There’s no need to encourage him. And Puchku, you have your exams on Tuesday. You’re not going to miss your tuitions.’

  ‘It’s only one day, Baba!’ she protested.

  Daman’s father glared at Puchku and then at Daman. ‘She’s not going.’

  ‘Fine, whatever.’

  ‘Shunchho. Look at how he talks. Is this how you talk to your father? After all we have gone through for you?’

  His mother’s shoulders drooped. Resigned, she looked into her plate, waiting for the conversation to run its course.

  ‘It’s just one day. You’re being unreasonable and you know that,’ said Daman.

  ‘I’m being unreasonable? You’re saying this? Look what your son is saying. You left your job for this nonsense. And then bought that car you didn’t need, and now you want to drag your sister into this and you call me unreasonable? I will not let you inf
luence her. Kichhu tei naa.’

  ‘What’s with you and my car?’ retorted Daman.

  Daman had heard how Baba had left the house with a tyre rod from his WagonR to wreck

  Daman’s new car the day it was delivered. It had taken both his mother and Puchku to restrain him.

  The accident hadn’t brought the father and son closer. It had torn them apart. His father thought that

  Daman should live his second chance at life conservatively, while the latter did not want to waste this new life that had been gifted to him. After the accident and the endless therapies, his father had a few nightmares of his own.

  ‘My book is a hit, Baba. It’s all over the newspapers. It would help if you read that too along with all the other nonsense you keep reading.’

  ‘So? So what? It’s there today, it will be gone tomorrow. Then wave the newspaper in the banks and ask them to give you money, okay? You know what the problem with you is, you got everything easy in your life. ACs in your room, there’s always food to eat and nice clothes to wear. That’s why you take everything for granted. You’re taking your life for granted!’

  Daman rolled his eyes.

  ‘Look.’ He pointed at Daman’s mother. ‘This is what he does. After all that we have done for him, this is what he does.’

  Daman shoved fistfuls of rice inside his mouth. ‘Maybe I should have just died in that accident,’ he muttered under his breath.

  Daman’s father banged the table. Before Daman’s mother could intervene, he rushed to Daman’s side and smacked his face. Daman tasted blood in his mouth as he staggered and fell out of his chair. He rubbed his palm over his singed face and clenched his fist. Hot tears flooded his eyes, his ears burned red. His father kept staring at him. Daman relented and, picking himself up, walked out of the living room. It was the only way he could have kept himself from taking a swing at his father. He slumped on the bed in his old room and wiped tears and snot off his face. I shouldn’t have cried. He wins if I cry. Why the fuck did I cry? The last time Baba had hit him was when he told him he had quit to be a writer. Baba had threatened to disown him then. Daman had retorted