Under The Mango Trees

Chapter Fourteen : In Between Toilet Hand Soap and Soda

Lila and Raul were dating. It was surreal how I found out, sitting blankly on the red stool of the bustling food court, smelling the aroma of greasy food and watching Raul enter with Anthony. Before they could even reach our table, Lila caught my gaze, spun around and leapt into Raul's arms with a squeal like the one when we had won the quiz competition. Within seconds, she wrenched away from him and announced, "Raul and I are dating!"

"Hey Tulsi," Anthony greeted me and focusing solely on him, I shook his hand.

"Isn't that great?" I heard Lila chirping almost to herself like the relentless singing of a foolish bird.

"It is," Anthony said, awkwardly disengaging his hand which I didn't realize I was clasping.

Raul didn't bother to acknowledge me as he continued to smile broadly at Lila, sitting next to her and finding some excuse or another to touch her hand or her hair. I met Lila's inquisitive stare with my chin up and refused to smile back at her when she beamed at me like a child whose pampering grandparents bought the toy which his parents had denied. My dry throat was burning and goosebumps were all over my arms, the sight of Lila warming up to that prick made me feel uneasy.

Anthony had got up from his seat and I hastily grabbed his wrist. "Where are you going?"

"Getting our orders," he blushingly referred to the colourful fast food stalls. "It'll take a-a lot of time to get food because of the crowd. We should get our food now. All of us can't get our food because someone else will take our table."

I let go of his wrist and got up too. "True. I'll come with you."

"It's okay---"

I was already two steps ahead of him. "You would want help to carry the trays, right? Come on, then."

I didn't care to check on the couple and strode squarely, knowing that Anthony was following me. There were groups of hungry customers everywhere- McDonald's, Subway, KFC, Sbarro, Dominoes. Red, yellow, green flashes all around like a broken traffic light blinking with all colours and setting off cars of people in different, haphazard directions. We joined the long queue at Mc Donald's and I saw Anthony's lips move, but couldn't hear him over the wailing of a baby behind us.

I stood on my tiptoes so my ears were near his lips and asked, "What? What are you saying?"

"I-I think you should go . . . way."

"Away? You want me to go away?" I barked in his ears.

"No, no, no." He pointed at Subway and repeated shamefully, "Subway. Subway."

Another cry of the baby pierced my ears and my toes started hurting. "Why?"

"To take Raul's order. It's a long line here and till then you could take his order from Subway."

"What? What?" I pretended to not hear and continued shouting in his ears.

"Raul wants a chicken teriyaki sandwich from Subway and---"

"What?"

"---coke. You can't hear me? Raul wants a chicken teriyaki sandwich from---"

"Forget it, I can't hear you!" I slumped down and feeling my entire, anxious feet touch the ground, I relaxed a little. Fortunately, the mother carried away the harassing baby and I could notice everybody's physiognomy become calm again like the stillness of water after recovering from the fractures of ripples. I could see that Anthony was breathing normally now.

"What I said was---"

"Never mind that. Tell me, how was your day today?"

He was perplexed, but he replied to my question first, "It was-uh . . . good. How was your day?" I scoffed at that to which he confusingly smiled. "Also Tulsi . . . If you don't mind, Raul wanted a chicken teriyaki sandwich from Subway so you could take that order till---"