First Impressions

Chapter Fifteen

"Who is it?" I hear Piya's mother scream while the two girls are forced to move back and let the guest come in.

A medium heighted fair girl enters the house in her white ballerina shoes, and her curly black hair tied into a ponytail. Her face held up a neutral expression as she stared back at the two girls.

Seconds later a woman enters the house behind her. she was in her mid-forties, wearing a modest Salwar Kurta.

"Indira! I was waiting for you. How are you Naina dear?. Come, Come inside." Piya's mother says, looking extremely happy to have them here.

"I am good Auntie."

"Where is the birthday girl?. Ah she is here. Piya bachha! Happiest birthday dear." the woman in salwar says and hugs Piya ever so excitedly while Piya gives her a faint smile.

"Thanks Auntie"

"She has grown up to be Eighteen. I can't believe kids are growing up so fast."

"Happy Birthday Priyanka." wishes the girl.

Piya puts on a forced smile which I can absolutely make out and replies, "Thank You."

The two women move together into the kitchen I suppose leaving the girl, who was the intrusive guest now alone with us.
She looks at all of us for a minute, her eyes looking into you like a puppy dog searching for something, or rather is it someone?

No one even bothers to strike a conversation with her.

"Hi Neha." she greets sweetly.

Neha replies with a nod and faint 'hi', clearly not happy with what's happening.

Thereafter the girl simply takes a seat at the farthest couch from us, a yellow coloured basket in her hand probably containing Piya's gift.

I let the sleeping dogs lie and therefore decided against uttering anything in the heat of the moment to anyone which might possible disturb the silent awkward situation.

Thirty minutes had passed by and we were sitting in the living, with Aryan and Neerav cracking stupid jokes and as of yet there were no signs of Swati and company. By the looks of it, it seemed as if Piya was getting quite impatient.

"Mohit isn't even picking up his phone."
She complained, her phone glued to her ear as she dialled his number for the third time.

"Relax. He must be driving. I 'll call Swati."

Neha called up Swati and Swati received the phone quite quickly.

"....Where are you guys?." Neha asks in an ushered tone.

After keeping her phone down, she tells us that they are still on their way, stuck in traffic and it might take them more fifteen minutes or so to reach here.

In the meantime I learnt from Neha, reconfirming my doubts that the girl who had come earlier was Naina, the one Mohit said he liked and the one whom Piya didn't. When I asked why she was here in the first place if she wasn't Piya's friend, Neha told me that their mothers were very good friends (now that was quite obvious) and they assumed that their daughters would also be, only if they knew little about what was going on. On top of that Piya and Naina both didn't want their mothers to know that they weren't on good talking terms, let alone be good friends. So all they had to do was act all nice and goody in front of them, while the mothers were completely oblivious to the true facts.

To kill time, Piya took us to her room and we started playing UNO cards, a great passtime and unwillingly Naina too had to join us since she had no option left. While she was sitting beside me, I tried to strike a small conversation with her asking general things as to where she lived and stuff and she turned out to be extremely polite and kind. There was nothing that could make someone dislike her, unless you have very strong feelings for Mohit. I wondered if Mohit had yet told her that he liked her.