She really needs to get groceries, if only she had thought about this earlier, she wouldn't have had to step outside again. Stepping outside home, on a weekend felt extremely blasphemous -you've been waiting all week to finally sit down on that couch and do absolutely nothing and have no set deadline to sleep or wake up and to just basically laze. Weekends were meant for that - to treat her house with a little bit of love and care and some attention and company. She had brought herself from flowers from the nearby market. "It's been too long, we haven't seen you here off-late", Alicia her go-to florist at the local market proclaimed. "Yea I have been away, but I'm finally back and glad to be doing this again. You'll see more of me!", she says and pays for a gorgeous pink hydrangea and 3 stalks of lillies and some ferns to go along. "Oh I need something for the bathroom, what do you suggest - something that will stay for a bit longer?" she asks and Alicia hands her a single orchid - this is perfect she thinks to herself and collects the huge packet the Aunty has wrapped for her and heads home.
She picks out her vases and starts pruning the ferns and cutting the stalks as she sets up three vases and then decides she wants to keep a single lily on the other side of her bed - the one she doesn't sleep on - so she picks out one stalk and puts it in an empty pretty bottle of red wine she had meant to throw but forgotten (thankfully!). After all that is done, she really she still needs to cook herself dinner. And starts lamenting on the lack of planning.
At the supermarket for a change the weekend crowds don't bother her, she puts on her music and searches for what produce catches her eye for meals over the weekend. As she glides through the fresh veggies aisle, she picks out mostly greens and the fish counter catches her eye. There's fresh pomfret on the counter and she walks over and spends 4 minutes trying to decide if she wants to cook fish for dinner and walks away thinking it's too much effort and she wasn't planning on spending too much time in the kitchen tonight. And then walks right back and pick up the fish and asks the lady at the counter to weigh it for her and also cut and clean it.
As she enters home with all her produce, she realises her plants need watering - and suddenly remembers her mom and how she seemed to be doing many things at the same time - and she wishes she could marinate this fish and also water the plants ! She decides to deal with the fish first for the marinade to seep in. A quick cleaning and salt-rinsing and she marinates it with salt and turmeric and leaves the fish aside - she'll think about what recipe to make once she is done watering her plants. She spends the next twenty minutes talking to her plants, picking out dead leaves, sprinkling water on the flowers, watering the money plant and then finally looks dejectedly at her bougainvillea which has seemed to have lost all of it's leaves - her mother had told her that's a common thing to happen with that plant and that she shouldn't worry too much.
She spends the next 20 minutes organising her fridge with the groceries and checks out her cookbooks section for the Bengali recipe book she had bought long back - this was going to be a Bangla fish curry. Fortunately the ingredients were simple and stuff she had at home - no prior prep was needed and she could technically make this in 20 mins - so she would start in a bit. For now she was going to pour herself a glass of red wine from this wonderful bottle that a friend had gifted her as he was leaving Singapore and she was going to read a couple of chapters from the book she intended to finish this weekend.
A glass of wine next to her, she sat on her couch and picked up her book put her phone away and read for the next hour sipping slowly on her wine. She finally glanced at the clock and realised it was 8pm and decided it was time to cook. Slowly after she turned one last page and sipped the last bit of wine, she made her way to the kitchen and started chopping onions for this gravy. Her speakers played out a long forgotten song for her - You Belong to Me by Jason Wade, and she stopped for a tiny second from shock and surprise at hearing these lyrics after so long - and god that voice - she tried to recollect the words and then began crooning along and then heard a knock on the door. She tried to look through the curtains and couldn't figure out who it was - she was just wearing her oversized shirt and hair was all over the place and she truly wasn't presentable but she had to attend to whoever it was, so she tried calling out to see who it was - but no one replied, they only knocked again. She sighed and kept the half of the onion down and walked to the front door.
She certainly wasn't expecting him there - she had tried her best to not think of him at all this weekend - how dare he show up at her doorstep like this after she has had such a lovely day and how does he know where she lived? She didn't realise she had walked with her kitchen knife in her hand and just stood there behind those door grills staring at him with extreme hatred. When she finally found her voice, she broke the silence and asked him what he was doing here and he just grinned while staring at her. And then it hit her that she was holding a knife, was disheveled and must have look like a nightmare to the man she loved! She was brought up too well to let the situation get better of her manners - she apologised and ran in to grab her keys, opened the door and let him in, went back to the kitchen and kept the knife down. Turned down her speakers, which was now playing Saawali si Raat, her random playlist making this moment even more random. She stood in front of him now and then realised she still wasn't wearing anything half decent and turned to go to her room but he held her back and asked her to sit down. She asked if he would like anything to drink? Water? She was drinking wine, pointed to her empty glass still on the table and offered him a glass. He said no. And guided her to sit next to him.
He started with, 'I'm sorry' and she knew this wasn't going to be easy. She didn't want to listen to anything and she wanted to tell him that. The time to explain himself and to speak about this was over. It had been two weeks and he had seemed to withdraw completely when she had asked to chat about where they were. And now here he was on a Saturday evening at her doorstep, saying sorry? She couldn't even run away - where does one go from their own house? Why was he here anyway? He had said sorry a while back and she was thinking through all of these thoughts and then she shook her head and asked him how he had known she lived her?
to be contd....maybe
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