Helen Goes for Mr. Sunday

The Evening That Changed Everything: Part 2

The gunshot rang out in the air. "Next time it'll be you!" screamed the guard, running toward Helen.

"She's in this car. Ask her," Helen said to the guard, pointing to the car.

The black-tinted window of one of the back doors of the car rolled down, and the woman whose face was on the hoarding peered out. She was probably in her early-to-mid-sixties, stoutly built, and had a thick neck and large hands.

Upon seeing Helen, frown lines appeared on her forehead underneath her large red bindi.

"What's all this ruckus?" she asked the security guard in a deep, resounding voice.

A wave of nervous twitches seemed to sweep over the men and women in charge of guarding the place, and they exchanged quick, anxious glances with one another, while maintaining their respective positions.

Shaking, the guard scuttled toward the car window. "I'm sorry, Bhoir madam, but this young woman..."

Helen came over to the window. "Vidya, ask this idiot to let me in."

"So after all this long is when you come to meet the lady who raised you single-handedly and sacrificed everything for you," Vidya said, sneering.

"These doses of morality don't suit you-you have treated her way worse, so shut the fuck up!"

The elderly guard froze in disbelief. He opened his mouth to say something but was momentarily petrified. "Who do you think you are," he finally managed to jabber out. "Talking in that manner to a senior elected official of the Navi Mumbai municipal corporation?"

"Don't mind her combat mode," said Vidya to the guard. "She is an impetuous, brash idiot who thinks the whole world is always at war with her."

"You forgot the other adjectives," said Helen to Vidya. "I'm fearless. And I'm smart. And always in control. There isn't a situation I can't think my way out of."

Vidya snickered exaggeratedly. "You should be on a phone call with Karishma all the time. She's probably the only one who can stop you from compulsively getting yourself into trouble every 30 minutes."

"And one more thing," said Helen, ignoring Vidya. "I always have a plan B ready."

The head of a hulking man in his late forties awkwardly popped out through the car window. He had a boulder for a face, but otherwise tiny features, except for a massive lower lip. There were irregular streaks of gray hair on his head. He had been sitting next to Vidya, on the side of the other back door, but had leaned across her to peer through the window on her side.

Helen had a wry smile on her face.

"The witch is here, mom!" bellowed the man in a state of agitation. "Hate her, and make her hate you back! Do bad things to her!"

"I love you, Dhanu darling. Won't you love me back?" teased Helen.

The man gasped with a start. "No one talk to her! She is a bad person, just like Shurpanakha!" he called out to the police and private security personnel.

"Come, give me a kissy," said Helen, as though she were speaking to a five-year-old, and blew a kiss toward the man.

The man closed his eyes tightly, swatted the flying kiss away several times to make sure it didn't reach him, and turned his head toward the other back window.

"Get back inside, Dhanesh," ordered Vidya, managing to pull the heavyset man back in by his collarbone. He got back in his seat.

"She'll set Ravana loose on me," said Dhanesh, panicking. "I'm going to die!"