The One She Was Warned About. Shoma Narayanan

didn’t say so. He’d met Shweta’s father several times—he’d been on their school board, and had chaired the disciplinary hearing that had led to his final expulsion from the school. Nikhil didn’t hold that against him. He’d been on a short wicket in any case, given that the smoking incident had followed hard upon his having ‘borrowed’ their Hindi teacher’s motorbike and taken his best buddies out for a spin on it. But he had resented Dr Mathur telling Shweta not to have anything to do with him.

      The food arrived and Mariamma came across to ladle generous portions onto their plates. ‘Eat well, now,’ she admonished Shweta. ‘You’re so thin—you girls nowadays are always on some diet or the other.’

      ‘I can’t diet to save my life,’ Shweta said. ‘I’m thin because I swim a lot.’

      Mariamma sniffed disapprovingly, but Nikhil found it refreshing, being with a woman who wasn’t obsessed with her figure. His job brought him into contact with models and actresses, all of whom seemed to be afraid to breathe in case the air contained calories. In his view Shweta had a better figure than all of them—she was slim, but not stick-thin, and her body curved nicely in all the right places.

      ‘Like the food?’ he asked, watching her as she dipped an appam into the curry and ate it with evident enjoyment. For a few seconds he couldn’t take his eyes off her lush mouth as she ran her tongue over her bottom lip—the gesture was so innocently sexy.

      ‘It’s good,’ she pronounced.

      He dragged his eyes away from her face to concentrate on his own untouched plate before she could catch him staring.

      ‘Everything’s cooked in coconut oil, isn’t it? It adds an interesting flavour to the food.’

      Nikhil thought back to the last time he’d taken a girl on a date to a restaurant in Mumbai that served authentic Kerala cuisine. She’d hardly eaten anything, insisting that the food smelt like hair oil. She’d been annoying in many other ways as well, he remembered. Rude to waiters and refusing to walk even a few metres to the car because the pavement looked ‘mucky’. Not for the first time he wondered why he chose to waste his time with empty-headed women like her rather than someone like Shweta. He didn’t want to delve too deeply into the reasons, though—self-analysis wasn’t one of his passions.

      ‘Can I ask you something?’ Shweta said as she polished off her last appam. ‘Why were you out to get me in school? We used to be good friends when we were really little—till you began hanging out only with the boys and ignored me completely. And when we were twelve or something you started being really horrible. You used to be rude about my clothes and my hairstyle—pretty much everything.’

      ‘Was I that bad?’ Nikhil looked genuinely puzzled. ‘I remember teasing you a little, but it was light-hearted stuff. I didn’t mean to upset you. Maybe it was because you were such a good little girl—listening to what the teacher said, doing your homework on time, never playing truant... It was stressful, studying with you. You set such high standards...’

      He ducked as Shweta swatted at him with a ladle. ‘Careful,’ he said, his voice brimming over with laughter as drops of curry sprayed around. ‘I don’t want to go back looking like I’ve been in a food fight.’

      ‘Oh, God—and your clothes probably cost a bomb, didn’t they.’ Conscience-stricken, Shweta put the ladle down. ‘Did I get any on you?’

      Nikhil shook his head. ‘I don’t think so. If I find any stains I’ll send you the dry-cleaning bill.’

      She looked up swiftly, wondering whether he was being serious, but the lurking smile in his eyes betrayed him. ‘Oh, you wretch,’ she scolded. ‘I’ve a good mind to throw the entire dish at you.’

      ‘Mariamma will be really offended,’ he said gravely. ‘And if you throw things at me I won’t buy you dessert.’

      ‘Oh, well that settles it, then. I’ll be nice to you.’ He hadn’t really answered her question, but she didn’t want to destroy the light-hearted atmosphere by pressing too hard. ‘But only till we’re done with dessert.’