Fashionably Yours

“I care,” I gulped.

“Maya!”

“OK. Fine. Leave it,. Anyway it’s not doing me any good thinking that he could get me kidnapped, murdered or at least arrested for peeing in his BMW. And while we are on this topic I am just curious to know that what the hell you were doing with a guy like him in the first place?”

“Well. He may be an asshole,” she started carefully but when she noticed my eyes bulging out of my face on her may be she quickly rectified her statement. “OK. Since our first date I knew he is not a guy with passable manners or even a decent character. But I knew that he would be a kind of guy who would buy me flowers without any occasion and take me to endless dinners, lunches, polo matches and even concerts.”

She took one glance at my scrunched up nose and carried on talking without waiting for me to say anything.

“He did pamper me like a princess. What else could a girl ask for?”

“It would have been better to ask for some respect and commitment as well,” I pointed out.

“Oh come on, Maya. He never disrespected me, not directly at least,” she added hastily as she looked at my unimpressed face.

“He had another girl sit on his lap. That was disrespect towards you and your relationship,” I stated the obvious.

“Maya, seriously it’s better to be with someone than to be alone,” she said irritably.

“And I thought they said that it’s better be alone than to be with someone wrong.”

“Who says this?”

“Errrr … Internet, books, movies …”

“That’s rubbish. Clichéd. OK, tell me what you get out of believing in this shit? You are twenty-five for fuck sake and you’ve never had a relationship. On Saturday nights you sit here and watch crap movies on TV when the entire city is out there; dinning, clubbing and having the time of their lives. I was with him because I didn’t want to be like you. Sitting here, waiting for Mr. Right and sulking. I preferred to be with Mr. Wrong and have fun. What’s wrong with that? He overstepped, I understand and I am so grateful that you stepped in and slapped him. I am happy it’s over but I don’t regret the time I spent with him. Come out of your dream world, Maya, and open your eyes to reality. Live your life for Christ’s sake. Go out, take your chances and have some fun with Mr. Wrong and for the trillionth time just sod-off your idea of the perfect guy. And let me have the honor of bursting the bubble you live in and tell you that there are no Mr. Right or Mr. Wrong. They all are just men and all men are same,” she let it all out.

Crap movies? They were my life. Now I was hurt.

“Anu …” before I could string a sentence together she shoved her hand in my face, signalling me to stop, gathered her stuff and stomped out of the flat.

5

June 2

On Sunday I woke up with a throbbing headache despite sleeping the entire day and night after Anu stormed out. My mind was still reeling from our conversation. Was she right? About the fact that in twenty-five years I had never had a relationship. But was it actually my fault? Suddenly my life started to feel like one big black hole. Hopping out of the bed, I made my way towards the kitchenette. This flat was more littered than ever. Maybe I should give it a thorough cleaning because I didn’t have anything better to do today.

Oh fuck! Is it actually mine? I wondered while examining whatever was left of the red-ish looking pants which might have served as breakfast, lunch or dinner to a bunch of rats at some point of time. I had absolutely no memory of possessing any kind of red-ish pants. Chucking it away in a black garbage bag, I made my way through the rest of my closet while praying in my heart that nothing too creepy jumped out of it.

After spending half of the day cleaning the closet, I realized that I didn’t have a single item of clean clothing hanging in there. How could I let things get so out of hand? I questioned myself in vain. Gathering all the dirty laundry from the bedroom floor, kitchen top and from under the sofa, I headed towards the bathroom and dumped all of it in the washing machine and emptied at least half a packet of washing powder in it. It needed a good wash. Once done with the laundry, I hoisted all the empty take away boxes from the floor and shoved them into the garbage bag. The next two hours were spent in changing the bed linen, stacking my magazines in one neat pile next to the sofa, arranging my movie DVDs, dusting the furniture, cleaning the kitchen top, washing the dishes, ridding my refrigerator of the weight of thousands of post-it notes, mopping the floor, cleaning the toilet, washing the tiles, scrubbing the washbasin and finally cleaning the shower area. By the time I was done with all the chores, my flat was looking like a home rather than the house of a garbage hoarder. Dragging three fully loaded black bin bags out of my apartment into the corridor for the garbage man to collect in the morning, I was dreaming about a very very long bath and then eating take away in front of the TV when the lift pinged opened in the corridor and in her super cute mini dress with pointy straight hair, Anu emerged from it. Fabulous, now I felt like shit!

“What are you doing here?” I didn’t mean to sound so rude and as soon as the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them.

“Have you ran a marathon or got someone in your bed? Why are you so sweaty?” she eyed me suspiciously.

“Shut up. I was just cleaning the flat,” I retorted.

“Cleaning? Oh fuck. Did I hurt you that bad?” she looked guilty.

“Yes. You called my movie DVDs crap. What do you expect?” I barked haughtily.

“DVDs? That’s it? Out of the entire conversation, all you heard about was DVDs?” Blatant shock was evident on her face.

“I didn’t mean to hurt you and I absolutely didn’t plan to say any of it, it just somehow came out,” she explained while glancing around my flat. Her eyes dilated. Yes, it looked that good.

“I know,” I said.

“You did all this on your own?” she was in a trance.

“Yes. I did.”

“Come on, Maya. Don’t talk to me in monosyllables now.”

“Anu, what you want me to say? Yesterday you made it clear that you think I am some unrealistic, irrational, dysfunctional woman and now you expect me to hug and kiss you? I mean I am not slapping you, isn’t that enough?” I stated the truth.

Her face hung open very unattractively. That was so un-Anu like.

“I didn’t at all say that you were some unrealistic, irrational and dysfunctional woman. All I said that you need to stop living in a dream. You can’t wait for Mr. Right to come along for your entire life. What if he doesn’t? What if you remain single, forever?” she said in the hushed tone.

Oh my, that did sound logical. What if she was right? Crap.

“I don’t want to talk about it at all,” I said and it was true. Talking about it was scaring the shit out of me.

“OK,” she nodded in agreement. “Let’s forget about what I said yesterday, I am so very sorry for that and I hope you know it,” she threw her hands around my shoulders and gave me a tight hug. I knew she was sorry. “Anyways, to thank you for showing that son of bitch his place, I want to take you out shopping,” she beamed.

***

“Ta-da!” She threw her arms in the air. Her face was the picture of pride.

“What are we doing here?” I asked while soaking in the sight of beautifully arranged clothes and shoes in Zara. I felt like Alice in Wonderland. Well, I felt like it every time I entered a showroom full of glittering jewelery, beautiful bags, high towering magical shoes and awe-inspiring clothes. Whenever I found myself in middle of all these sparkly goodies, I felt like as if they were looking at me with innocent eyes and are absolutely dying to have a conversation with me. Don’t get me wrong, but I could talk to clothes for hours and whenever I felt like crying I preferred to shed tears clutching a shoe to my chest rather than sobbing on Anu’s shoulder. Though there was nothing wrong with her shoulder, it certainly wasn’t as sparkly and shiny as a pair of shoes and that faint aroma of leather could calm me more than her assuring arm. Though I was grateful of having a friend like her, I was absolutely thrilled to have whatever significantly-small-but-still-beautiful collection of shoes and clothes I owned. Considering my salary I was lucky that I could at least afford high street brands, which was certainly better than collecting bohemian shoes and clothes from the flea market.

“Shopping!” she clapped her hands and started jumping like a very excited puppy.

“Are you bloody kidding me?” I threw my head back in the air and shirked.

“Why would you think I am kidding?” she eyed me suspiciously as if I was going to jump on her from my spot and bite her ear off.

“Well just to refresh your memory, last time when we went shopping, we learned the heart-ripping reality about me, I am fat now. Hence no clothes are going to fit me here.” I fought the urge to cry.

“You are not fat. God, are you still stuck there? Why don’t you buy just a bigger size and get over it?” she asked nonchalantly. There, that word was once again there, bigger. I didn’t know if I could ever forgive her for using that word for the third time in last two days.

“Anu, I don’t want to have this conversation once again,” I said firmly.

“OK,” she got the hint. “Then why don’t you just buy a new bag or shoes? I am sure you are still the same size in those departments,” she winked playfully.

Though I was tempted to buy a new bag, which God knows I did need more than anything else, letting Anu pay for it didn’t sound right and I for sure couldn’t afford it in my current situation unless I put the bill on my emergency credit card which was safely tucked away under my matress for strictly emergency situations and this, today, didn’t feel like an emergency situation.

“You know what? I don’t want to do any shopping. Let’s go home,” I said in a subdued tone.

“What’s up with you?” she asked with genuine concern.

“I just don’t feel like shopping. Can we go somewhere else?”

Anu looked at me with disbelief but agreed to put off shopping without much ado.

***

“What do you want to have? I am starving!” Anu patted her barely-there stomach while reading through the menu in Treats café and bakery in Bandra.

“Ummmm … I’ll have the skinny salad and the vegetable loaf,” I beamed without even looking at the menu.

I remembered their menu, everything from Banoffee Pie to Rainbow Jar, Red Velvet Tart to French Crepes and Caramel Shortbread to Cupcake Shake. I came across this cosy, little and absolutely beautiful place by accident on a very rainy day last monsoon season and while it poured outside, I sat inside in the comforting buttery aroma and had the most scrumptious meal of my life. But today I had no courage to even think about letting the gooey, sugary goodness passing through my lips. A moment on the lips, forever on the hips. In the situation like mine I couldn’t let it happen, not any more.

“No cupcakes?” Anu looked at me through considerably narrowed eyes.

“Err … I guess I’ll stick to the salad and bread. Healthy and tasty,” I wanted to sound excited and confident about my choice of food, but instead I felt nervous under her steely gaze.

“All right,” she nodded slowly before placing the order. Salad and bread for me, cronut and hot chocolate for her. Few minutes later when our order arrived, I started picking through my salad. I manged to get couple of forkfuls down my throat and was actually started to enjoy it. Then I saw the soft, fluffy, creamy custard oozing from the cronut Anu was digging into.

“I can’t do it,” I declared.

“What you can’t do?” Anu looked at me inquisitively.

“All this dieting malarkey, I can’t do it. I don’t care how healthy this salad is, I want that,” I pointed at her plate where the sweet, thick custard was running everywhere.

“Maya,” she looked at me sympathetically. “Who asked you to go on the stupid diet? If getting one dress size up is such a big deal for you then join a gym but don’t deprive yourself of the things you love,” she placed her hand on mine. “And to be honest, you look beautiful with curves in all the right places, no matter what dress size you are,” she said in a very reassuring manner but I knew she was just being nice.

Agreed, I had curves in all the right places but lately those curves had started to resemble dangerously bandy roads.

“You’re probably right. I don’t have to stop eating anything, I just have to figure out the way to get rid of the calories that come with it,” I said excitedly.

A couple of hours later when Anu dropped me off in front on my apartment building, instead of heading to my flat and vanishing under the sheets, I decided to sign up at the gym which was down the road. To be honest I wanted to do it before I could change my mind.

6

June 4

Today I was supposed to be up and ready by six-thirty for my first ever spinning class but when my alarm rang to life at six a.m. sharp, I failed spectacularly to haul myself out of bed.

Filled with remorse, guilt and anger on my failure, I walked into the smallest elevator of the world and squeezed myself between the four people who definitely belonged to the sales department. They dismounted on the first floor, into the same direction with a practiced, synchronized walk. Bizarre.

As soon as I found myself alone, I took a deep sigh because now I could adjust my knickers which were two sizes too small for me but were the only sexy knickers I possessed. The people who tell you to eat chocolate when you are sad or angry are not always right. Try lacy knickers in the right size and you would feel equally comforted and satisfied. Now, I didn’t buy two-sizes-too-small knickers to dupe myself into thinking that I was petite. I got them for free when they were sent to Style for promotions by a new lingerie company and everyone got to pick. By the time I came to know about it and had raced to the conference room to get mine, there were only two sizes left: S or L. I picked S.

Lifting my kaftan dress up and clutching its hem between my chin and chest, I was busy adjusting its digging elastic. Ah! What a relief! Suddenly I felt the lift going down instead of up where it should have been going. Before I could do anything about it the doors opened on the ground floor, revealing the very awful sight of my cellulite-covered thighs. I wanted to do die right there.

“Oh fuck,” I muttered under my breath.

A tall, lean, dishevelled and utterly gorgeous man with a sharp look was standing there, right in front of me, absorbing the horrible view of my horrible knickers and absolutely horrendous thighs. I was frozen in my spot. I had never seen a guy like him in flesh and blood ever before in my life. His angular jaw and perfectly sculpted face set my heart racing. I couldn’t bring myself to look away from his utterly gorgeous face

“Are you all right?” walking inside the lift, he asked in an impossibly gentlemanly manner. His voice gave me goose bumps, everywhere. It felt like the music to my ears. I looked at him shamelessly.

“Yes,” I finally found my voice and my senses and quickly averted my gaze. Pulling the dress down to cover my generous curves I mumbled, “Sorry about that,” and looked at the lift floor, willed it to split in two and swallow me whole. For the first time in my life I had met a guy like him and that too in this horrible state. Why did I have cellulite thighs