Write me a love story, p.1
Write Me a Love Story, page 1
To Mom. For everything.
Contents
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
Three months later…
Acknowledgements
About the Book
About the Author
Copyright
1
‘Come on, guys! He’ll be here any minute now.’
Maaya’s tone was authoritative as she took charge of the situation. She had already explained everything to the team a week ago and yet, it seemed to her that not everyone had understood the gravity of the situation. It was so frustrating!
After all, his arrival in their office was a big deal. She had put in a lot of groundwork over the last six months to make it possible. And now that the D-day was here, the damn projector in the meeting room was still not working, and the editor she’d chosen to attend the meeting was yet to arrive.
‘And … what’s that? The tuna sandwiches, coconut cookies and banana bread are being served on plastic plates!? Oh God!’
After all, she had made it a point to order the snacks of his choice from his favourite confectionary, and this is what Kaka, the office cafeteria guy, had done with them.
Seeing the scrumptious snacks she had especially ordered from a high-end confectionary in South Bombay placed haphazardly on the chipped plates meant for the daily use by the office staff, Maaya’s blood boiled.
When are these guys going to become smart enough to differentiate between a special occasion and everyday affairs?
Thankfully, just as she turned towards the door, she saw Kaka passing by the meeting room. She immediately pushed open the glass door and called for him.
‘Kaka, please take this back and use the white Opalware crockery.’ Maaya was crystal clear as she gave him the instructions.
Sensing the anger and the urgency in her tone, Kaka immediately flung into action. He rushed into the meeting room and picked up the plates of snacks on the table, apologetically leaving the room with them.
‘And please bring everything along with coffee once the meeting starts, and not before,’ Maaya said to his retreating back.
She then picked up the intercom and made a two-second-and-three-word-long call. ‘Romance Room. Now!’
To an outsider this might have sounded strange, but not to the people who worked at PaperInk, a publishing house which had named its meeting rooms after the genres it published.
In less than two minutes, the IT guy came running into the room. Maaya glared at him and then immediately shifted her gaze to the projector installed overhead. The man understood exactly what that look meant. In no time, he was busy fixing the machine.
Half a dozen people stood around the giant table in the Romance Room, admiring Maaya’s ability to put things right so quickly. She commanded that place. And why not? After all, she had earned her position as the editor-in-chief of PaperInk. From the security guard at the entrance gate to the CEO in the corner office, people had come and gone in the publishing house’s decade-long existence, while Maaya had been its only constant. She had almost single-handedly fuelled the rise of the fastest-growing publishing house in the country.
PaperInk had begun as a vanity-publishing outfit, a place for debut authors who had been rejected by other publishers to self-publish their books. Gradually, over the years, it shifted its focus and transformed into a well-known traditional publishing house, thereby commanding more respect in the publishing world. To its credit – and a fact that was a source of pride for its employees – many of its successful authors were first-time writers. The company meant a great deal to Maaya, and she often felt it was a pity that she didn’t own it; that after all this, she was only an employee there.
She took immense pride in calling PaperInk her first home. It was where she would spend most of her day; one reason why she did everything possible to get the budget for the renovation of the premises approved, so that it could be redone as per her taste. At forty-three, she was doing very well for herself and, of course, for her employer.
The IT guy asked Maaya for her laptop. He had to connect it to the projector.
Maaya pushed it towards him and got up from her chair. She pulled out her mobile from the pocket of her red jumpsuit and pressed on the last dialled number. Holding the phone to her ear, she moved towards the door.
Outside the Romance Room was her tastefully designed office on the seventeenth floor of the Infinity Tower in the Bandra Kurla Complex.
The place looked breathtakingly creative. It was unlike any other office. Instead of the usual sense of order and drab efficiency of most workspaces, the interiors of PaperInk radiated joy and fun. There were no cubicles; instead long, dark teak tables, which rested on black cast iron frames, filled the space. Their surfaces were rough, giving an impression of being handmade by woodworkers who had chiseled them well but forgotten to smoothen them. The entire effect was rustic and charming.
Up above them, black cast-iron panels ran across the entire length and breadth of the extra high ceiling. And from them hung scores of thick jute ropes, all ending in LED filament bulbs. Suspended above the teak wooden workstations, the fashionable bulbs gave the whole place a retro vibe – a testament to the urban chic look that Maaya had had in mind.
Beyond the hanging lights was the exposed red brick wall which ran across the length of that space. While the other three sides of the office were glass façades, giving the employees a stunning view of the Mumbai skyline, it was this red brick wall that really defined the space. It was the creativity nest for PaperInk’s employees.
The left side of this wall was covered with a ten-foot wide floor to ceiling bookshelf, lined with hundreds of books. On the other end, the red bricks were covered with a big blackboard, on which, with coloured chalks, people had doodled their creative ideas, like book titles and cover design concepts. And in the centre of the wall, between the blackboard and the shelves, several cover designs of new releases were pinned up on a cushioned-board.
The dull-grey tiled floor completed the rugged, rustic look of the space. On the wooden tables, book dummies, printed covers, books and manuscript cluttered the numerous workstations. And then there were the usual laptops and personal belongings of the people who worked at PaperInk.
As Maaya stared at her sanctuary of creativity, she frowned. Her call hadn’t been answered, and the full ring had died its natural death.
Where the hell is she? Maaya thought and sighed in disappointment. Slipping her phone back into her pocket, she returned to the Romance Room and took her seat. She began to go over the plan with the representatives from the sales and marketing teams again. This was a big presentation, and she needed to know exactly what they were going to say. The CEO himself was only a call away, waiting in his corner office. Maaya would call the CEO once he arrived.
About a few hundred metres away from Infinity Tower, in the parking lot, a German-made luxury sedan circled the perimeter, trying to find a vacant spot. But it was already 11:00 a.m. – too late for anyone to find a parking space in Mumbai’s busy corporate sector. After spending more than five minutes circling the space in vain, the sedan also acquired a companion – an Indian-manufactured hatchback.
And then, in a sheer stroke of good luck, a car pulled out of its spot three lanes ahead of them, moving towards the exit gate.
‘Bingo!’ cried the sedan’s driver and picked up speed.
The hatchback followed suit. Inside the car, the ringing cellphone fell silent and a missed call alert chimed. ‘Come on! Come on! Come on!’ the hatchback’s driver mumbled, changing gears.
Thirteen seconds later, on the other side of the parking lot, the sedan in front of the hatchback found out that the recently emptied spot it had made a beeline for was slightly small for it.
‘Damn!’ the sedan’s driver said, hitting the steering wheel in frustration. But it was too early to give up. The driver looked around and wondered whether there was a chance to fit the car into the spot if the vehicle was reverse parked. But that would involve pulling ahead and then reversing the car. In a split second, the driver decided to go for it.
Just as the sedan was pulling ahead, the hatchback reached the spot. The hatchback driver noticed the sedan moving past the spot, and was overjoyed. Unfortunately, it was short-lived, because the sedan suddenly stopped moving. Its brake lights came on.
‘Oh no! OH NO!’ the driver in the hatchback screamed and honked.
The sedan began to roll back. But there still wasn’t enough space. It moved ahead again and then rolled back again. Once again, the car proved too big for the spot. The driver realized that this was going to be tricky and he’d have to be very precise.
The hatchback driver waited in disappointment. There was nothing else to do anyway. It didn’t have enough space to overtake the sedan and move on in order to find a new space.
Even after four tries, the sedan couldn’t fit into the spot, but with every new attempt of going back and forth
After a few minutes more, the driver in the hatchback had had enough. The mobile phone rang yet again – it was from same number that had called twice already. There was no way the driver could miss the call for the third time. The sedan rolled forward yet again in order to try another reverse parking manoeuvre – maybe this time it would finally make it. But no one would ever find out whether that was true, because just as the sedan turned its brake lights on to begin going, the hatchback zoomed ahead and took the spot.
Immediately, there was a loud, long honk from the sedan.
‘HEY!’ shouted the driver. He rolled down the window and looked back at the car that had taken his spot.
She climbed out of the hatchback and locked her car.
The woman, who must have been in her late twenties, was wearing a light-brown kurti and white palazzos. She had a diamond-shaped face, wheatish complexion and short-length hair that covered only the nape of her neck. She looked lean and just a little taller than the average Indian woman; perhaps somewhere between 5'5" and 5'6". Her sharp facial features, he noticed, were attractive. But that moment was not about appreciating her looks.
Talking to someone on the phone, she looked like she was in a tearing rush, enough to even ignore someone shouting at her.
‘HEY, YOU!’ he screamed, louder this time to demand her attention. When she didn’t stop or turn around, he stepped out of his car.
‘I’M TALKING TO YOU, MISS,’ he said, marching towards the woman, who was quickly walking away.
She finally stopped and turned around, abruptly finishing the call and hanging up on whoever was on the other end.
His face, she thought, looked familiar. If it wasn’t for those tinted aviators he was wearing, she might have been able to remember where she’d seen him before. But she was bad at remembering faces anyway. Despite the circumstances, she did notice that he was tall, dark and breathtakingly handsome. His dense curly hair bounced as he walked. He was wearing a dark grey blazer with a pink collared T-shirt underneath. His off-white chinos stylishly ended half an inch above his brown moccasin shoes.
His brisk walk came to a sudden halt just an arm’s length from her. She could smell the musky fragrance he was wearing. And the scent was refreshing.
She knew what was going to unfold. She was at fault and now she’d have to defend the indefensible. She suddenly wished that the person standing in front of her wasn’t so good-looking and did not smell so nice. Had that been the case, maybe it would have been easier to throw any vague reason at him, even at the risk of inviting his wrath.
Meanwhile, the man fumed. This lady had not yet acknowledged his arrival, at least not with words. He threw his hands up and finally spoke first, confronting her.
‘What was that?’ he asked, his body tense.
She took her time to collect her thoughts. I should apologize and let him know why I did this. After all, it was an emergency.
However, just when she was about to speak, his next words changed her mind.
‘Who the fuck do you think you are?’ he yelled, running out of patience.
Instead of accepting her fault, she frowned and asked, ‘WHAT? What did you just say to me?’ She paused for a second, crossed her arms and added, ‘Is that how you talk to a woman?’
‘Oh!’ he scoffed, smiling sarcastically. He looked up at the sky for a moment and then shifted his gaze back to her. ‘The woman card! What a perfect time to play it, isn’t it?’ And then, to her utter horror, he clapped slowly. Three times!
Anger may insult you, but sarcasm humiliates you. It sets your mind on fire. And then the only way to douse this fire is to give it back, word for word.
‘Men who don’t understand chivalry often hide behind words like “Oh, you are playing the woman card”,’ she said and tossed back her hair. Her eyes settled on his shades.
‘And that act,’ he said, pointing at her parked car, ‘deserves chivalry?’
She wanted to refute that, to say something – anything. But she miserably failed. How could she defend what she had done?
Instead, she tried to be dismissive.
‘Well, what do you want?’ she asked.
‘Oh! So, you want me tell you what you already know?’
So not only you are gorgeous, you also have a way with words. His manner of speaking and the style and confidence with which he delivered his biting comments impressed her. How she hated being at the receiving end of this man’s wrath, when she knew he was in the right! If only she could roll back time, she wouldn’t do what she had done. What bothered her even more was that instead of accepting her mistake, she had ended up defending it.
If I change tack now, what impression will I make on him? It would only make things worse, she decided, and continued to defend herself.
‘I did what I had to do. You cannot block my way and then take all the time in the world to fit in your big car, especially during rush hour!’
‘Blocked your way?’ he asked cynically. ‘Ah! And here I was thinking that this car comes with a reverse gear.’ He pointed at her hatchback.
It took her a couple of seconds to connect the dots and understand that he meant that she could have turned around and taken a detour. But when she did, she got onto a whole new tangent altogether.
‘Oh, so that’s how people with luxury cars mock smaller cars?’
He was momentarily shocked by her reply, uncertain about how she had arrived at that conclusion. And then he smiled a lazy, mocking smile.
‘Un-freaking-believable!’ He sighed, and then added, ‘You really will do whatever it takes to win this argument. Isn’t that so?’
Knowing that she had taken a route she wasn’t proud of, she didn’t reply. Instead, she kept staring at him. The whole situation was quite awkward but she preferred not saying anything, simply because nothing else came to her mind.
He shook his head in disbelief and chuckled. To argue any more was pointless anyway. He turned back and headed towards his car to find a new parking spot, if there was one left.
As she watched him walk away, she was filled with guilt and misery. That he had refused to indulge any further in the argument; that he had instead chosen to walk away from her; that she was completely in the wrong here – all of this made things worse, made her guilt multiply tenfold. She wanted to call out to him, to stop him and say sorry. But it was already too much of a mess and it was too late to clean it up. So she did the only thing she could. She let him walk away.
Her phone began ringing again, summoning her attention. She turned around and began running out of the parking lot. It was time for work, and this unpleasantness needed to be put on the backburner. Anyway, she would never see the man again and soon she’d forget what had happened.
2
‘Hiii Abhimanyuuu!’ Maaya sang in delight as soon as the person she had been waiting for so eagerly walked into the reception. ‘It’s such a pleasure to have you here in our office today,’ she added with a bright, welcoming smile.
‘Thank you!’ Abhimanyu said, extending his hand and adding, ‘I am so sorry for making you guys wait.’
‘Oh, don’t worry about that,’ Maaya said, intentionally ignoring the offered handshake and grabbing his shoulders instead. She went for a cheek-to-cheek hug. Abhimanyu hadn’t anticipated that and stiffened slightly, while she inhaled deeply, breathing in the scent of his musk cologne.
‘Traffic?’ she asked as she finally pulled back.
Abhimanyu shook his head. ‘Parking,’ he replied simply.
‘We should have sent him my car, Maaya!’
On hearing the confident, booming voice, Maaya turned around, a smile on her face.
Peter D’Souza, the CEO of PaperInk, had walked into the reception area too, just in time to welcome the leading romance writer in the country to their office.
‘Oh yes! I am so sorry! That should have occurred to me!’ Maaya said to Abhimanyu, briefly shutting her eyes and tapping her head with her knuckles in an exaggerated gesture of regret.
‘Oh, there was absolutely no need for that,’ Abhimanyu said as he turned to shake Peter’s hand. Before the door closed behind Peter, Abhimanyu got a peek at the office space stretching behind them.
