Serendipity [Temporarily Discontinued]

Chapter 8

The clock was ticking like it was adamant of winning against her. The slow moving traffic was not budging even by centimetres. Meha was sure that there was no chance she was going to reach her office on time. She could bet on it with her life. Her first day of assignment was going to start on the worst note and she might be tagged the worst intern in the history of Sehr Enterprise.

As far as Meha knew, Latiff Khan was the epitome of punctuality. He was never late. It will do for him if he was early-be it even by minutes or seconds-but he would never in a zillion years be late. Meha banged her head on the steering wheel while cussing her luck in Gujarati. Her cousins from India used the words very often while chatting over on Skype. Meha took over the habit of cussing in her mother tongue while she was visiting them over a year ago. Her parents had dragged her to her native place in the hopes of making her realize that she might have to settle there one day. Meha had been initially horrified at the prospect and had even cried the initial nights because she wanted to go home. But as days passed by, her views changed and she was enjoying herself. For a couple of days she gave a serious thought in maybe moving to India someday. But with the dusty roads gone and replaced by the well planned, no-pothole road of Pennsylvania on her return back home, her serious thought vanished in a poof of air-much to her parents’ dismay.

Meha’s cell phone started blasting off the tunes of JLo, pulling her into the realms of reality and traffic jams. It was from Sehr Enterprise. With cuss words flowing out of Meha’s mouth like prayer during puja she received the call with sweaty and trembling hands. It was Latiff Khan’s assistant calling. She sounded like a sweet woman who was trying her best to be as stern as she could. Meha apologized profusely-because that is the only thing she could do at the moment. The traffic started clearing at a snails’ pace but it was enough for Meha to give momentary happiness. She assured the assistant that she would try to reach office as soon as possible.

When Meha finally reached the signal she could understand why there was a massive traffic jam. An idiot with his red Camaro had crashed into a parked car. The police was interrogating the idiot who she assumed owned the Camaro. He was standing with the most laid-back attitude she had ever seen anyone stand in front of police. It was like the dude didn’t give a rat’s ass about what the police were trying to ask him. Meha pitied the guy’s future and steered clear of the chaos to drive towards her own personal hell.

Never in her life had Meha ever hurried for anything so much as she was hurrying now. Maybe she did that time when was late for her best friend Tasha’s wedding. It was hectic. She had been a total bridezilla and had gone bonkers over her marriage. Of all the things that she wanted Meha to wear for the Maid of Honour dress was a sequined Michael Angelo custom made peach dress. The damn dress was delivered late and due to torrential rains that evening the delivery service were unable to reach them. Meha had to rush to the boutique to get it irrespective of the dangers to her life. Sheesh! The things she had done for Tasha. No wonder Meha was late and as she being the Maid of Honour the wedding wasn’t proceeding without her presence. With the least make up on her face and her hair in a mess, Meha had hurried to the church and made it in time.

Meha tapped her foot on the floor while she waited for the elevator. The lobby was filled with suited men and women with files in their hands. The espresso bar was surrounded by a bunch of black tie men who were laughing talking about some trivial fact. After the difficult decision of whether to take the stairs or patiently wait for the elevator, her wait was finally rewarded when the elevator dinged and the doors opened. She squeezed herself in between other employees and tried to avoid their stares as much as she could. Being new to a place sucked!

O-O

“Let me get this straight again,” Piyali stared at Viyaan incredulously. “You want me to meet your blond bitch, why?”