Oye guys sorry for the delay! Had my convocation ceremony and this OS was taking its own sweet time to get done!
--
When in Doubt, Call Gigi
Two weeks had passed since Mrinal had stopped talking to Jeremy, and because they'd lied to her about not coming she had extended the same courtesy to Onu and Nupur as well. The two of them knew they didn't need to worry much about it because (a) They'd assured her through another entire set of white lies that they'd really really been intending to join Jeremy and Mrinal in the park and couldn't find them, and (b) She had no inkling exactly how involved they'd been or what a conspiracy this really was - if she did, she'd have them for breakfast and their leavings for dinner.
It was Jeremy they were worried about. Mrinal was now returning his previous gestures by avoiding him like the plague, and Jeremy was virtually disappearing to the point where Nupur had ended up calling him The Incredible Shrink.
"One thing's for sure now, though," Nupur was telling him, happily attacking the plate of cookies Aunt Letty had laid out for them.
"What, that Jerry's going to shrink and shrink and keep shrinking till he transforms from star of the class to black hole?"
"No, silly. By God, you're too daft to ever notice anything," Nupur harrumphed.
"Badi aayi mere hi idea ko credit lene wali. I do all the dirty work and now she calls me daft."
"Oh, shut up," Nupur said. They sat in silence for a while before she answered.
"You know...I think Mrinal likes him back."
Onu raised his eyebrows. It was something he'd hoped for but wasn't certain about, which was why they'd arranged for the park episode in the first place. Jerry was supposed to tell her under pressure exactly how he felt...at best, she'd be all over him like a very bad rash, and at worst she'd gently turn him down and avoid him for a few days before things finally returned to normal.
"What makes you so sure?"
"I'd had this doubt for as long as you've been suspecting Jerry's feelings. Lately she'd been looking at him like she was going to eat him whole, bones and all." Nupur said this with a certain sense of fiendish relish.
"Eww...Nupur, that's not romantic, that's just plain gross. You make her sound like a freaking cannibal."
"All I know is that she looked like a freaking cannibal everytime she looked at him. I left them in the locker room once and when I returned there'd been enough heat in there to light a furnace for the entire year."
"Kids!" Aunt Letty called out from the kitchen, "how long will you be around?"
"Another hour if that's okay with you, Aunt Letty!" Nupur yelled back.
"Add another half-hour and you'll get some honey cake before you leave."
Onu, whose brain was already turning cartwheels trying to process the information he'd just received, was only too happy to obey.
"She didn't look very interested in him..."
Nupur smirked. "Guess you weren't looking at her hard enough." Another bite of cookie. "I have an idea..."
"I know you do, Noorie, but no. If they want to get together, they can jolly well do it themselves."
He'd learnt his lesson now. He'd self-appointed himself the big man, made plans for Jeremy and Mrinal without taking into account their feelings...and now all because of one stupid, hairbrained scheme that they weren't even aware of, their friendship was in shambles when it should really have grown stronger. And it had hurt Jeremy in ways that had made Onu too ashamed to want to look into a mirror again.
Oh, the guy took great care to make sure no one noticed him, but one could tell from the longing glances he cast at Mrinal that he would be willing to cast aside any hopes he had with her to get their friendship back.
"She's miserable too, Rags." Nupur's eyes had gone soft and sad. "And between the two of them they have enough pride to last a trip to the moon."
"But ' "
"I'm not saying force them to admit how they feel. That's their problem. I'm just saying we need to get our friends back, not these miserable glum-bubbles."
Onu sighed. "How?"
Nupur opened her mouth to answer and then stopped, her eyes focussing on something else behind him.
It was Aunt Letty, standing there with her arms casually folded, waiting for them to stop. How long had she been there? How much had she heard?
But by the crinkles etched deep in the skin around her eyes, you could tell that she had other, happier things in mind right now. And it made him feel warm and safe, because Aunt Letty and happiness ' he had learned ages ago ' were two lines that ran parallel to each other but never met. Whatever little joy she had she really was entitled to.
"Sorry to disturb you kids," she said, "but I hope you don't have much to do sometime mid-September?"
"We don't, Auntlet, and you don't need to ask!" Nupur said, grinning back at her, and Onu suppressed the urge to roll his eyes.
Auntlet, she called her, like it was a junior version of aunt, like a piglet was to a pig or an anklet to an ank (which was the way Nupur had put it, wilfully ignoring Onu's protests that there was no such thing as an ank).
"Good," was Aunt Letty's reply, and it was obvious that she was bursting with news today, "because my son is having a bit of a vacation and I'd like all of you to meet him '"
"Mikhael's training's over?" Nupur squealed.
Laughing, Aunt Letty said, "No...just a little bit of a break. And you know how is, he loves having you kids around..."
Nupur jumped up from where we sat and hugged her. "Don't I know it...and Auntlet, tell him to come around more often, it does wonders to your face!"
This was, of course, as much emotional contact as Aunt Letty could take, so she pushed Nupur gently back. "Don't forget to bring those two girls you always hang out with...the child with the long unpronounceable name and her little elf of a sister. I want to make his homecoming as bright and happy as possible."
Onu gulped. He couldn't burst Aunt Letty's little bubble of joy, not now. "We'll tell Mrinal and Gigi, Aunt, sure we will."
Her smile was wistful as she dissolved slowly into the darkness of the kitchen. "I've been wanting for him to see you, Motya..."
Nupur, in the meantime, was casting a wide-eyed, oh-my-god-inspirational-moment! look his way.
"ONU!" she almost yelled in her excitement, "That's it!"
"What's it?" Omg did she just call me Onu??
She looked at the kitchen. Then at him. Kitchen. Then him, and then...
"You're not saying..." No Noorie, please Noorie, that's a BEYOND-CRAZY idea...
"Ooh yes I am..."
Gigi!
--
Convincing Jeremy to go to the park again was like telling a fish to grow legs. But he'd managed because being Shekhar Ganguly's son meant you had that innate knack of getting people to do things your way without you having to snap a finger.
Mrinalini and Gargi were there too, courtesy of Nupur bribing Gigi to get her sister to come to the play area with her. Onu made a mental note to ask Nupur just how much of her pocket money had been sacrificed in her enthusiasm to buy the girl sweets.
Onu and Nupur, as usual, went to the other side of the considerably small playground and played spectator. They would have stayed, but Mrinal's gaze seemed to have the Gandhari effect on all three of them right now.
It didn't take more than a look at Jeremy for Gargi to start talking.
"Di?"
"Yes, Gigimoni?"
"What's wrong with Jerry?"
Mrinal looked away, scowling. "Ask him yourself."
Gigi was obedient only when you meant the opposite of what you said. "What's wrong with you, Jerry?"
He smiled, "Why do you ask, Gigabyte?"
She giggled at the sound of the nickname. Nupur turned to him, eyes round as saucers, mouthing the words, he calls her gigabyte?
"You look like you put eyeliner and slept immediately, that's why."
There was a strangled choke that seemed to emerge from Mrinal's throat. So much for stifled laughter, Mini, Onu said to himself.
Jerry laughed for the first time in weeks. "Bet I'm scary enough to grace a Halloween party in nothing but my normal clothes, eh?"
Gigi grinned and took his hand, "Not as scary as Mini Di looks first thing in the morning."
Mrinal gave Gigi her Gandhari glare, but her little sister was made of stronger stuff than stone.
Not to be upstaged, Mrinal said rather stiffly. "Gigimoni, tell your Jerry that we're going home once he's done laughing at me."
Gigi turned to him, mouth open, but Jerry wasn't one to stay quiet for long. "Gigabyte, could you be a darling and ask your sister what she means by your Jerry?"
Onu, in the meantime, decided to give Nupur the just so you know, this was your idea look. At least this time he didn't have himself to thank for another disaster!
"Tell Jerry I don't have to explain anything to him!"
"Gee, Jerry," Gigi said, "she means business."
"Are you taking his side?"
Gigi now looked a little like a goldfish.
"No, she's not!"
Mrinal's look was poison. "She'd better not be if she knows which side her bread is buttered!"
Onu and Nupur collectively decided to cover their eyes. This massacre was going to border on the scale of epic...
"For Chrissake!" Gigi seemed to have had enough of being interrupted to last a lifetime. "Does it look like I've lost my mouth? You tell me things and then don't give me time to answer! I'm not your page boy, so go send each other your own messages next time!"
Silence. Gigi took a deep breath before she continued.
"And Di, don't you even start talking to me about bread and butter and sides when you were the one who went all Grandma on me last week and put me on that no-butter-no-jam-no-fatty-stuff diet!"
From the other side of the playground, Onu and Nupur shook their heads. "Now that's what I call an explosion!" Nupur said in a voice strangled from fighting the urge to laugh.
The explosion had worked. Jeremy and Mrinal, now speechless beyond belief, looked at each other, then at Gigi, then at each other again. And laughed.
Laughed.
"Pinch me, Noorie," Onu whispered, more to himself than to her, "I have to have to have to be dreaming."
Like Gigi, Nupur chose to be obedient when you least wanted her to be, smiling her satisfaction as he yelped.
--
August 20, 2001.
Mishti,
Most of Jeremy's apology and Mrinal getting manaofied was offstage, though Nupur would have liked to hear it because underneath all that I-live-to-shock-people attitude she really is as gooey a romantic as the rest of us. But we've done enough meddling and I think we're lucky the two of them found it so funny. I don't think Jerry listened to half of what Gigs said, because the next time we met him (where, I'm glad to tell you, he looked much happier) the only thing he had to say about the entire fiasco was "Gigabyte remembered what I'd told her about page boys two months ago! Isn't that amazing?"
Hah, Gigabyte, indeed.
Everything's back to normal and we all lived happily ever after. The end.
Love,
Motu
P.S. By the looks of it, it looks like Jerry never told her the truth.
P. P. S. And I don't think he ever will. She won't either. Gah, birds of a stupid feather flock together.
P. P. P. S. Christmas just arrived for us four months early because Mikhael Cohen's coming to town! :D
P. P. P. S. Allow me to use this smiley some more because it's just that awesome...
:D :D :D :D :D :D :D
Edited by Elizabeth Darcy - 13 years ago
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