First Impressions

Chapter Eighteen

New York City,
United States

Before leaving the girl's dorm, she opened her cross bag; identity card-check, E-ticket-Check, purse-check, cell phone-check. Something important was still missing, she felt.
Ah, her earphones.

Rushing inside to her room again, she opened the front drawer of the table desk and grabbed her black earphones that were lying there. Without these, her day would be half ruined.

The vehicle was waiting outside for her and she tiptoed towards it. On her way, she caught her foot on something and stumbled, she was only in her boots with as much little heels she could manage. But whenever asked why she isn't seen with those long heels and stilletos , she would smile and go with her usual saying,"Erm I don't really like heels. I find flat boots way more cooler".
Fair enough.

After her luggage was loaded in the backseat, ( it was just a duffel bag) she sat inside and the vehicle started off.

Within minutes Paavni was out of the college campus. She was going home. Just for Five Days. Well, else she wouldn't carry the small duffel bag.Unless there are vacations, one isn't granted permission to go home.
Her dear maternal grandparents have come all the way from India. how could they return without seeing the apple of their eyes.
  Her grandmother, who had saved her over a hundred times from her Mother's remonstrations when she was a kid, whom she was always excited to meet, was coming to meet them.
Thus an Email was sent by Mrs Kale Aka mother of Paavni Kale consisting an application for four days leave to her home back in Minnesota.
The authorities agreed, obviously. Applications of Parents are rarely rejected.

While she was in the taxi, her phone rang twice.: The first time by her mother asking if she had left the hostel.
The second one by Eva. Since she wasn't at the dorm at the time, she couldn't say her goodbyes to her.

Paavni's life till now had been running quite smooth. As said earlier, she was a girl who spoke limited if not less.
Dressed in her jumpsuit, she arrived at the airport carrying her duffel bag. This wasn't the first time she was going alone on a flight. Yet she was hesitant and nervous, in the light of that she has never been a great fan of takeoffs and landings.

The check-in took shorter than she had expected and since her luggage was just a duffel bag, she was allowed to take it as a carry on.

Having done with the security check, She had grabbed The New York Times from the stand to spend her time and was waiting at the departure lounge since there was still much time left for boarding the flight.

'Rare harmony as China and U.S commit to climate deal.' read the headlines.
Political news could never prove to be interesting to her. She never understood why most of the newspaper readers she saw in the airport were usually stuck on the political pages. Maybe she hadn't grown enough mature yet, she thought.

She turned over the pages until she reached something that caught her
interest 'How many of these Italian foods have you tried?'

She leaned back on her seat, the carry on duffel bag beside her and read attentively.

Arabbiata Penne topped the list. Pastas and Pizzas were the first ones and she had already eaten them. In fact her breakfast today consisted of Alfredo Pasta. The pictures of the dishes seemed so tempting she felt like having them for lunch right away.

Out of all the things that she went through in that list, she made up her mind on two Italian dishes and decided that before the next month started, she had to try them.
The names were confusing though; chicken parmigani and carbonara. Their descriptions and the images made them really tasty and tempting.
She had heard of the latter earlier but where? Then it struck her. Yes, Sammy, one of her roommates who's a great friend had told her not once, but more than five times that she should taste Carbonara.
She wouldnt call herself a foodie but after all a human brain has a weakness for tasty foods.
So the next time she's going to an Italian restaurant (for that she has to find a good Italian restaurant first), she is right away going to eat the two dishes.
Before she could forget their names or misspell them, she typed it into the notes of her cell phone.