Crack The Job

2- Hope Shines

Payal

I woke up to the constant harmonic drumming of the rain against the window. I stretched my limbs, pressing one hand against my head. The throbbing pain surged inside me as I sat up, my eyes still closed as the hangover effect didn't leave me yet.

Rubbing my eyes, I stared at the patterning windows and the grey ceiling. I remembered then that I was at my sister's place. Yesterday's memories slipped into me and slowly I recalled how my boss threw me out of my job. It took him only one mistake to throw me out after all that I did for his damned company. 

I can't entirely blame him when I was the crazy one. 

I pressed my face down against the soft pillows as I suddenly felt the urge to hide inside a hole. I didn't want to face my sister at this moment. I looked up again just to see my face in the mirror right in front of me. 

For a moment, I was taken aback by the look on my face. My lipstick was smudged and my hair was all over the place, nothing better than a bushy nest. Sighing, I got out of the fluffy bed. 

"Oh, God! What's wrong with you?" My sister's voice startled me as I turned to her. She never learned to knock on doors even after being a married grown-up woman. She was horrified at my ghostly look. I shrugged.

"Did you get dumped or something? Wait, you don't even have anyone." And yes, she had to apply salt to my wounds. 

"I got fired from my job." 

She sighed. "Thought so." She looked me up and down before scrunching up her eyebrows. "Go wash up first. I told you so many times to wash up before getting on the bed. You never change." She kept complaining as she left my room.

After washing up, I went to the dining room. Her place was huge. The main attraction of this room was the famous and expensive white marble art sculpture of a woman in the corner of the house. There was a bookshelf in the corner filled with books of business and files.

I made myself comfortable on the sofa. "Now, tell me, what exactly happened? You were so drunk last night that I didn't bother to ask you." My sister sat across from me.

"Did brother-in-law see me like that?" I asked, to which she chuckled. 

"Do you think I would let him see you that way?" I let out a sigh of relief. Did I tell you that my brother-in-law hates people who drink? If he catches me drunk, I am surely done for. He has something against alcohol for sure.

Taking a deep breath, I told her everything about my misfortunes. She sighed. 

"I don't have a job and my landlord is pestering me to pay the rent. He must be still sitting in front of my house. So, I thought if I can stay here—" 

She cut me off in the middle and placed a hand over my palm. "It's okay. Of course, you can stay here. It was your house. And I will also give you some money. You can pay your rent and then come and live here." 

"No need for that." 

"Payal, you are my sister. I can do that much." Anvita Di has been the sister I was always proud of and happy about. Though her stubbornness was a pain mostly, she is the only one here for me in Mumbai.

After her marriage too, it never felt like she changed. And I am glad about it. She got married to the perfect man and this house became my second home from then. Honestly, I envied her too but that was until my parents insisted they get me married too, like her, to someone as great as my brother-in-law.

Marriage is not my kind of deal. 

"But where is brother-in-law?" I asked. As if on cue, a phone ringtone of the title song of Golmaal rocked the atmosphere. The hairs all over my body stood up as I saw a figure rising from behind the sofa. Just when I was about to scramble away in fear, I heard his voice, "I knew it!"