The Bathroom Vada Pav

The vada pav. I want to remember the vada pav. Suresh pulled up at the cafe and I ate it in the bathroom with the door locked and my phone face down. I was not eating vada pav. I was loading the gun and I don't know who I was loading it for.

He was shorter than his voice. He had a voice like a man who fills doorways and the doorway did not get filled. He looked at my collarbone for nineteen minutes and I kept thinking: is this rudeness or rehearsal? Is he practicing on me for someone else? Is the farmhouse gig a test and I am the test? I would rather be insulted than rehearsed on. At least insult has personality.

The fixer slid a printed rate card quoting Niharika's 20% undercut. Niharika. Of course Niharika. Niharika with the wedding and the corporate book launch and the Bandra haircut I could never afford because I was hosting her launch for free. Niharika's number was printed. Mine went on the back of a receipt in ballpoint that was running out of ink. I think the handwriting won. I will think about the 20% in the shower tomorrow and want to scream into a towel.

He promised one man and brought two. He promised safe and his sister would be there. The sister was nowhere. The cracked phone was face down on a napkin like a card in a game I had not agreed to play. I walked out with the door alarm still wrapped in plastic and my terms still on the table.

I chose the cafe. I chose Bandra. I ate vada pav in the bathroom like a coward and I walked out like a host. Both things are true and I do not know which one to be tonight. The rain is good. The toast was fine. The voice note is rambling. I should sleep. The door alarm plastic crinkles every time I move the tote and I keep moving the tote.