Ugly Woman Handsome Man

In A Pickle

Present

I stood in the background, keeping my gaze on the floor. He was pacing back and forth before me. Each time he passed me, his scent would ride up my nostrils, bringing forth too many more memories. I closed my eyes, trying hard not to cry.

***

"Yes, Chitra Aunty is coming," said Lallu, putting down her lipstick and glancing at me sympathetically.

I had read in many books where the lead girl always says, 'don't look at me with sympathy. I hate it,' but in reality, people tend to always look at me sympathetically. If they did not do that, they would not be able to look at me at all. In all the 'normal' people, I have seen that they have the tendency to pity those who are just not like them. They do not understand that to me, this is normal.

As with everyone else, I smiled at Lallu and said, "I will handle it. You do not need to worry about me."

Because at the end of the day, that was what it was all about. Her care for me.

*

After an hour, the house was brimming with people with barely enough space to move. I held the piece of cake apportioned to me and stood near the window, enjoying the occasional breeze that was blowing through. Lallu was standing at the other side, her face dipped low in embarrassment as people around her congratulated her every other minute.

"And she can dance very beautifully," my father was saying, his face smiling with joy.

People, who I assumed were my father's colleagues, smiled and one of them asked, "What is she going to do now?"

"She has joined college. I asked her to do engineering but she wanted to do Arts so I let her. Did I mention that she can draw well?"

The guys laughed and nodded as my dad puffed his chest in pride. I took a small bite of my cake, smiling to myself. Lallu's drawing skills were non-existent. She had taken Arts because she could not draw. Parents tend to exaggerate their kid's talent out of pride. My dad did not know that the one who had been doing Lallu's drawings were me. I had done all her records over the entire senior year. We had a great laugh behind his back over it.

Lallu caught my eye and gave a short grin. I returned it with a wide one of mine but her smile dropped and she bit her lip. Confused, I raised my brows but I got my answer almost immediately.

"Oh so you are still here."

I recognized that voice. I would recognize it anywhere. The slightly nasally tone, that would grate on my ears as she propounded things that tore my heart, was back to haunt me again. I turned with my poker face on.

"Chitra Aunty, how are you?" I smiled at her.

"I am not your silly mother's sister," she said cuttingly, "I am Lallu's aunt."

"Lallu is my sister," I whispered, keeping my eyes on my plate.

Chitra Aunty scoffed loudly. "Lallu is a princess. You were picked from a litter born to a bitch."

I gasped. Honest to God, her comment took me a few minutes to process. I did not mind being called a dog. Being called an ass-wipe by your father kind of makes you immune to insults. The one thing that nobody had ever done, even my father, was to insult my mother. It was the one single thing that still remained as a bond between us. Our love for my mom. Though he married another woman, I know my mom still resides in his heart. So what Chitra aunty had just done gave a weird emotion in me. I could not immediately place it. My chest hurt, my stomach felt hot and irritated. My hands fisted themselves and my eyes narrowed at her. It was so foreign an emotion that it was Chitra aunty who made me understand what it was.