The Wrong Number

49

Ring ring

Alankrita looked up from her little notepad. When she saw an old couple walk through the door, she sighed and went back to writing down her customer's order.

"Your order will be coming right up," she said with a breezy smile, and walked to the coffee bar, where Anu was sitting with her ankles crossed. Alankrita, fully recovered from her bout of illness, had returned to work at Chai Coffee, and Anu, who had not taken ill despite spending the last three days in Alankrita's presence, was visiting her at the little coffee shop on CMH Road.

"I don't think Ruhan grasps the meaning of 'brb'," Anu said, taking a sip of the frappe Alankrita had given her for free, "I mean, it's been three freaking days."

Alankrita shrugged wordlessly, handing the order to her co-worker Chandra, a lady in her twenties with a large nose ring. As an afterthought, she tapped her on the shoulder and said, "Hey, I'm going to take my ten minute break now, do you think you can handle my orders? It's table number five and twelve." Chandra rolled her eyes but nodded. Alankrita gestured to a nearby empty table and Anu hopped off the counter and the two of them walked to it. Anu sat down and set her almost-empty glass on the table and muttered, "You'd think I'd be your most valued customer seeing the number of times I come here but noooo, apparently I'm just someone who leeches off your employee discount."

Alankrita huffed, untying her little apron. She hadn't been paying attention to Anu. The truth was, she was worried. Worried that Ruhan wasn't going to do anything at all. He hadn't called or visited the two days she was sick at home, and the day she had come to school, he hadn't bothered to ask he how she was feeling. In fact, he hadn't spoken to her at all. It was almost as if he was ignoring her. And having the massive ego that she did when it came to things like these, she refused to be the one to talk first.

"Like, isn't that awesome?"

"Eh?" Alankrita asked, realizing Anu had been talking all this while, "Uh, yeah, it's totally rad."

To her dismay, Anu frowned. "I was just testing you to see if you were paying attention to me or not," Anu grumbled, "So, according to you, having marinated lizard innards for lunch sounds 'totally rad', huh?"

"Uhh..." Alankrita smiled sheepishly and Anu shook her head. "I mean, at least you could make it less obvious. You just gaze off into the distance like you're- OH MY GOD," Anu gasped abruptly and cupped her mouth with her hands. Alankrita furrowed her eyebrows at her in confusion as she stared at something behind her. She turned around and her eyes widened.

"Ruhan?" she hissed in confusion, and whipped her head around to look at Anu, "Get down!" she ordered, and ducked under the table herself. Anu scrambled down to the floor with her frappe in hand. "What are we doing?" she asked, and Alankrita signaled her to be quiet with a finger on her lips. "It doesn't look like he's seen us yet," she whispered, "Stay quiet."
"Why are we hiding?"
"I don't know, just sshhhhh."
"What is he doing here?"
"Sshhhh!"

Anu glared at Alankrita over the rim of her glass as she finished her frappe. Licking the froth mustache off her upper lip, she said, "I like how when you see him for the first time in a while your first instinct is to hide. I don't care if he sees me I'm getting up." Anu slid out from under the table and Alankrita watched as she walked to the counter and placed her empty glass on the counter top. "Ugh," she grumbled and gripping the table top, poked her head out from under it... and met Ruhan's eyes almost instantly. He was holding a large plastic box and by the look of his dishevelled hair and heaving chest, he'd been running.

"Alankrita?" he raised an eyebrow at the four inches of her head visible over the table. Slowly rising from underneath, she put on a smile. "Hiii..." She said shakily, as she pulled the white shirt of her work uniform straight. He walked to the table and set the box down. "Hi," he said shortly. There was a moment of silence and Alankrita said, "Would you like to place an order or...?"

He shook his head and said, "No, I came to see you." A cage of butterflies seemed to have been opened in Alankrita's stomach and she smiled. "Wait- I didn't tell you I worked here," she said suddenly. He laughed nervously and said, "Uh yeah, I actually went to your house first and your mother told me where you were. Sorry."
"No no, it's alright. Why are you panting?"
"I couldn't find parking close by. And I didn't want you to leave before I gave it to you."

Alankrita raised her eyebrows. "Is 'it' this... thing?" she said, pointing to the white box between them on the table. Ruhan let out another nervous laugh and said, "Yeah. I mean there is, like, something inside it, I didn't just get you an empty box," he added quickly. Without another word he opened the box to reveal what looked like a lump of clay with some writing on it. "It's a cake I made," he said, his voice shaking, "It's chocolate, and it's my first time using fondant so, um, yeah." Alankrita couldn't take her eyes off the cake in the box. Her stomach butterflies seemed to have multiplied and were now making their way up her chest. She squinted to make out the crudely iced purple letters on the cake. "'Darth'?" she asked, "Is this to do with the new Star Wars movie?"
"Uh, that's an 'e'," Ruhan said, pointing at the icing, "and that's not an 'h', it's a question mark."
"So...'Dare'?"
"It's 'Date'."

Alankrita's eyebrows climbed up her head. "Oh," she said, smiling widely. When she didn't say anything for a while, Ruhan cleared his throat and quietly asked, "So... what do you think?"
"You're pretty shit at icing."

"Come on," Ruhan whined, making her laugh. "Since you baked a cake and iced it in my favourite colour and everything, I guess I'll throw you a bone," she said, not even trying to hide the fact that she was blushing wildly.

"You guess?" Ruhan asked with a hint of a smile, raising his eyebrows. She nodded and crossed her arms, smiling. The truth was, she was trying to stall so that she wouldn't have to say anything. She didn't know what to say. She didn't even know if she had to say anything. This was a whole new experience for Alankrita Sundar, who had never had a boyfriend. Ever.

Sure, she'd never made a big deal about it, and it wasn't the most important thing in the world, but secretly she'd always wished of having a special someone of her own. She didn't want to tell Ruhan in case he'd laugh, but all the gears in her brain were having some sort of malfunction, and her stomach butterflies were leaving tingling trails of happiness as they raced all through her body. Ruhan laughed and said, "Are you just going to stare at me or what?"

It occurred to Alankrita that she was in fact just staring at him with a stupid look on her face and she pursed her lips and whispered slowly, enunciating each syllable, "I really like you, okay?"
Ruhan leaned forward a little and mimicked her tone. "I also really like you, okay? Now can you eat a slice of my cake?"

"I'll eat a slice of your cake."

Anu appeared from nowhere and lifted the box from the table. Ruhan laughed at the surprised look on her face when she struggled under its weight. "Did you make this with cement? It's so heavy!" she groaned and he took it from her hands, making Alankrita laugh. "It's the weight of true love, Anu, you don't know anything about things like this," he said with an air of superiority.
"Shut up loser, you took like, three days to make this and it looks like purple crap."
"You look like purple crap."

*****