Page 155 - Half Girlfriend

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We sat at a corner table and had our first meal together in three
years.The effect some people’s mere presence can have on you is

indescribable. Everything on offer in the rather ordinary evening
buffet tasted divine. The salty tomato soup was the best I had ever

had. The matar-paneer tasted like an award-winning chef had made it.
The lights from the traffic jam visible outside the window looked like

fireflies. I kept silent, worried I would say something stupid to upset

her or, worse, make her run away.
‘You’ve become so quiet,’ she said.

‘Nothing like that,’ I said. I looked at her. She looked, if possible,
even more stunning than she had been in college.

‘So. tell me, what have you been up to?' she said.
Over the next ten minutes, I told her about my life since college.

‘You run a school. And Bill Gates is visiting it,’ she said. ‘Wow.’
‘He’s visiting many places.’

‘Come on, don’t be modest.You are doing something so different
from the rest of our batchmates.’

‘I’m a misfit, I guess. Who leaves HSBC to come to Dumraon?’ I
said.

‘Cool people,’ Riya said. Our eyes met. I tried to read her,
considering she had said so little about herself. I couldn’t find

anything too different, apart from a touch of maturity. I wanted to ask

her about her past few years. However, I wouldn’t push it.
‘How’s Rohan?’ I said.

‘You remember his name? So what was that “Riya, Riya Somani,
right?” business in the lobby?’

I smiled. She had caught me red-handed.
‘Rohan should be fine,’ she said.

‘Should be?’
‘I don’t know. He must be.’

‘Rohan is your husband, right?’