‘Yeah … Yeah, sure,’ Anu mumbled and bid goodbye to Dave. So, where did Sanju have the money for a BMW? Wouldn’t it cost like something obscene like 100 lakhs? Or at least forty-fifty lakhs? Once the wonderment came down, the worry started. Is he adding more to the already full EMI? Once that worry came down, anger built up. Didn’t he think he had to ask me before taking such a big step? Once that anger subsided, a form of cloudy depression began. Have we ended as a couple? She remembered the countless test drives they took before Sanju bought his XUV two years back.

She had no clue how she reached her apartment despite having a nonstop conversation with herself. But she did. She was home. Radha met her at the parking lot with a wide smile.

‘Vicky! You have become so tall in three months!’ She picked up Vicky and kissed him despite his many protests.

‘Akka, so good to see you. I missed you.’ Her eyes were moist. Anu smiled. She really was home.

‘I have kept the house clean. But there is nothing much there. How will you stay here until your furniture comes? Shall we ask Kavitha akka for some stuff?’ Radha spoke the words that were straight out of Anu’s worst nightmare. How was she going to live there? Forget the furniture, what about the money?

‘No. Don’t even tell Kavitha I am here. She will worry too much.’

36

36

‘What on earth!’ Shwetha shrieked the moment she walked into the house. ‘Is this your chosen life?’ She pointed at the flat cotton mattress on the floor in an otherwise empty living room.

Anu pouted. ‘Don’t mock the poor friend. Have you brought the drinks?’

‘Where is Vicky?’ asked Shwetha taking out the Sprite and Smirnoff and mixing them into their glasses.

‘Have left him at my mother’s place. Tomorrow I am talking to Sumitra aunty to get my old job back.’ Anu took a deep sip of the drink. The best part about drinking at home was that she didn’t have to worry about driving.

‘Have you told your parents yet?’ asked Shwetha. She had agreed to spend the night with Anu.

Anu rolled her eyes. ‘God, no. I need a break from the world. If I tell them, they will badger me into moving in with them. Then they will badger me into moving back to Verdant Green.’

‘A single Meena cannot scare you away, Anu. I will help you all the way but I don’t support what you have done.’ Shwetha was now serious. ‘You are not a saint to give up a good life to embrace poverty.’

Anu flashed her phone before Shwetha to show her the messages from the bank where she and Sanju held a joint account. ‘Look at this, Shwetha. I hadn’t read any of these in the past two months thinking they are routine messages from the bank.’