When will Dragon wake up? I need to get to work and file that brief again.

My landline phone rings. I don’t answer immediately and hope that perhaps the ringing will finally wake Dragon.

I can’t tolerate the ringing after three minutes though and answer the phone.

‘Hello?’

‘Polly, it’s me, Ragini.’

‘Oh … Why are you calling on the landline?’ I ask.

‘I’ve called you twice on your mobile. Didn’t you see my missed calls? Are you ignoring me? If it’s about yesterday—’

‘I am not ignoring you, I’ve kept my mobile on silent—my mother-in-law didn’t want to be disturbed—and now I seem to have misplaced it and since I cannot hear it ringing, I can’t seem to find it,’ I say.

‘Bloody hell! I’d completely forgotten she was coming over. And why are you calling Dragon ‘mother-in-law’? Is she standing behind you or something?’ Ragini asks.

‘No, no, she’s still sleeping and I can’t say the other word because you’re calling me on the landline,’ I whisper into the mouthpiece. ‘What were you saying about yesterday, though?’

‘About that … yesterday … See, I didn’t mean to yell at you—’

‘Apology accepted,’ I say cheerfully and promptly. I don’t like fighting with Ragini.

‘I’m not apologizing. I yelled at you because of your own fault—if you hadn’t backed those bastards, I wouldn’t have had to yell at you,’ Ragini says.

‘But Ragini, you were—’

‘You were embarrassed to be with me Polly. If I embarrass you then I suggest you don’t—’

‘You didn’t embarrass me Ragini—I just didn’t want a scene because you know I don’t like confrontations,’ I say in a small voice.

‘But he was staring at my boobs and—’

‘I agree that he shouldn’t have stared at your boobs,’ I try to explain, ‘I just didn’t agree with when you said that all of them on the tech team were—’

‘But that’s the point. That’s the point, Polly—friends cannot humiliate each other in public and you humiliated me by backing them,’ Ragini says.

‘But I didn’t mean—’

‘You owe me an apology … I thought you were my friend,’ Ragini says.

‘Hey! C’mon Ragini, you know me! I wasn’t backing them. I am so sorry if anything I said or did humiliated you,’ I say.

‘That’s all right, what’s a little misunderstanding between friends?’ Ragini says with sudden cheer.

‘How’s that blogger story coming along, then? Comma just told me you’re doing the story. Any ideas how you’re going to proceed?’ she asks.

‘Nothing much yet. Maybe something about mothers-in-law since the blogger writes a fair bit about hers—’

‘If you want I can do that story for you,’ Ragini offers.

‘I think I will figure out something—’