Free The First Time (Love in No Time #1) by Bitsi Shar Page B

you are saying all this to me.”
    I was performing a cultural location in my reactions to this siren call. But I was also unperforming that location in the way I was actually responding to his siren call. I was fascinated by it. I was heeding it in order to make my own pleasure step out in the open. I know this was not a frivolous call. It was a thoughtful one. I think he was equally surprised by his own reaction to me and even as he conveyed it with much linguistic finesse and no restraint born of hesitation, he was also testing me. He was testing whatever he was feeling, I was feeling too—that we were both trying to understand that elemental blue fire that sparked between us every time we were anywhere near each other. Even when we spoke on the phone, with just our voices we were experiencing something beyond culture and culture could no longer restrain this fire. Culture’s favorite handmaiden, guilt, found herself useless in this emergent drama.
    “Ms. Sharma, a call for you.”
    I emerge from my cerebral reverie and experience a massive thud in my heart. I just know its him again. Phone and him have become synonymous in my mind. Ok, here we go. I wipe my sweaty hands on the side of my shirt and walk to the phone room.
    “Hello” I say and hear a very enthusiastic, “Ms. Sharma!”
    There is that voice caressing my ubiquitous last name and making it sound sexy. “Should we meet at the 100% café in CP at 1:30 p.m. Its noon now. This should give you plenty of time to finish up work and meet me there, yes?” He seems hurried—like he has somewhere to be or he is aware that I am at work.
    “Ok. See you there.” “Ok. Ciao.” And that’s it. We have set our lunch date in the most efficient and no nonsense way possible. But I am left with a vague sense of disquiet that I fail to understand.

Chapter Fourteen
     
    The 100 percent café in CP is a museum. It’s décor and layout is so expansive and gaudy that you are left confused about why exactly you are here. It is not a café in the NYC sense—small, bucolic, and intimate. It is a café in the Delhi/ Punjabi sense—loud, in your face, expansive with its red vinyl sofa and chairs and marble tables. It’s 100 percent Punjabi. Red velvet and crystal chandeliers span the ceiling in the shape of a plus sign or a cross, if you will. The lighting is not muted. The thousand watt bulbs pierce through the dark velvet/ dense weave and throw interesting animal like shapes on red walls with white square frames. The servers wear dark red uniforms, the color and texture of which looks uncannily similar to the red drapes on the massive floor to ceiling windows facing the busy CP circle. In fact, I am pretty sure that the uniforms are made of the same cloth as the drapes like Scarlett’s green dress in Gone with the Wind .
    The café is packed to the brim. There is no space to even stand. The number of bodies in this place has rendered the AC ineffective. It is hot and sticky inside like it is outside. I think to myself—why in the world did he choose the most gaudy and loud place in Delhi to make his apology?
    This place is so counter-intuitive.
    Don’t apology and intimacy go together?
    I am a little irritable now. I don’t like the setting and he isn’t even here. But then I am always early. I need to breathe. I need space. I run down the stairs of the café and out through the revolving doors to the simmering heat outside. I seek a shaded spot beside a massive white pillar where I decide to wait for Mr. apology. I take in a couple of deep breaths. And end up coughing instead the dust kernels I just breathed in from the dust cloud called Delhi.
    I am heading towards being miserable. I decide to give him ten more minutes before bailing out. I am stunned by my lack of empathy in this small matter concerning us. I am certainly giving him no benefit of no doubt like I need an excuse to reject him, even as I am entranced by his playing (trying?). Wow, the dance called