This Year's Love

She lost herself to memories again.Blame David Gray.

It was freezing.Beyond comprehension.It never ceased to amaze her,the absurdity of weather.How from profuse sweat you went to biting frost and both left you wanting more of the other.The grass always seemed greener.....

Among the clamour of what seemed like a million voices....she snaked her way towards him.Once near enough, she stopped short."What will i say?" She grappled for an appropriate subject, an opening statement, suitable words.....anything.It was he who broke the pregnant silence,"Drink?"he said , motioning to an abandoned whiskey glass.She shook her head in refusal and instantly chided herself for not speaking.

She went back to the sangeet.The older ladies threw her disapproving looks." Where have you been?" they thich eyebrows questioned.She looked away, too embarrased ,too hurt.She'd fail to make an impression. Again."The first impression is the last......"she told herself to shut up.
She stepped out again, this time to be by herself.Dressed in a flimsy , lavender chiffon salwar kurta, she'd gathered the ire of many a old hags bundled in pashminas.
Her teeth chattering , she wished she'd listened to them.
"You 're awfully cold..."said a voice behind her.She turned to find the object of her attention, leaning against the whitewashed walls of the corridor, still nursing his whiskey.She nodded in acquiesance. He smiled and offered her a sip.This time she took it.The bitterness flowed through her mouth and burned her insides.She din't grimace.Something about "first impressions" rang through her mind again.
He looked at her face and found her to be grown beyond her years.She was a typical dehli-ite.Tough, brazen, outspoken, public-school polished.His year at Stephens had taught him all he needed to know about them.Mess around, and be done with it......
But something about her seemed almost familiar.She was intrinsically earthy and her eyes bertrayed everything.He took a scrutinising look at her, her shimmery ,black hair,straightened especially for the occasion, her small nose, her funny pout and her crooked teeth,her smooth, creamy neck , her shoulders thrown back, her.......
Some commotion broke his reverie.He cursed under his breath.It was only a burst of sound from the semifunctional speakers.She realised what had happened and smiled.
And he knew exactly why he was risking pneumonia in the dead of winter.

**********************
Pressed together in a close embrace, he told her how pretty her eyes were.She looked away,embarassed.More becuase she knew it wasn't true....he was lying.Added to her attire now was his black coudroy jacket.The Mills and Boons romance had begun...desi style.
Walking down the deserted motel corridors, she felt her hand slip into his.They walked together a long time, long past the time the hotel staff had gone to bed.All that remained was dim glow at the reception, a discouraging sign to any misguided soul looking for a room on a cold december night.
It was mutual realisation of the conspiring elements, the ambiguity of it all.And to a silent audience of the night, the crummy sofa -set, the stained coffee table, the scattered newspapers and a dysfunctional lightbulb , they began a story without a definite end.
He drew her to him.Slowly but surely she raised herself on her toes, her high heels unsuccesful in bridging that height gap.At that very moment she could mintuely recall all the romance she had witnessed in pages flash before her eyes, her story tale had come alive.He kissed her.Softly.

******************************
It was sweltering now.Beads of perspiration snaked their from her determined chin down her neck, into her cotton blouse as she stood in front of the college of her dreams.The only difference was......dreams never came true. The cavernous corridors of Stephens din't seem friendly at all.The starkness of weather.It never ceased to amaze her.

This summer day seemed vaguely analogous to that cold december night where she'd begun dreaming in a motel lobby, wrapped in the arms of a stranger ,whose famliarity din't seem questionable at that time.
And now he was a perfect stranger.
"Don't you love me?" her eyes had cried the last time she saw him.He had merely looked at her, impersonaly, like you would, at a guest in your house.....wishing they'd leave soon, so you could go back to whatever it was you were doing.She 'd never forget the look in his eyes.The look of complete disengagement , of alienation from a world she'd envisioned with him.
The language of expression had obiliterated everything that had mattered to her over the past seven months.

This summer afternoon....so obviously different from that winter night.Not just because of the physical parameters of heat and cold.She'd travelled a long,unpleasant distance emotionally too.She knew she'd be okay in a awhile.The life with its unique humdrum qualities would prove to be larger than her.But right now, reeling with a hurt she never known before, she returned home.Her fantasy had ended.It was time to pick up the pieces.
Stephens had let her down just as he had.And now the perfectly pathetic comparison stared her in the face.

"This year's love had better last....."