Then Naina wrote: Saturday dinner? I may bring someone.
Three typing bubbles appeared.
Naina quickly added: No. Changed my mind. Too early.
Tanya stared at the message. For one disloyal instant she imagined Kabir arriving beside Naina. The image was so absurd she almost laughed.
Kabir called at that moment.
“What are you doing Saturday?” he asked.
“Dinner with the girls.”
“I have an event.”
“I did not invite you.”
“Defensive.”
“Accurate.”
He asked to see her Sunday. She agreed.
On Saturday evening, Naina arrived alone and said her person had work. Tanya did not connect the two absences. Why would she? Delhi was full of events, emergencies and men with irregular calendars.
During dessert, Meher asked everyone to describe her current romantic status in one word.
“Confidential,” Rhea said.
“Undecided,” Naina said.
“Promising,” Meher said.
They looked at Tanya.
She thought of Kabir’s toothbrush cup, his hand at her waist, the questions he avoided and the way he made ordinary evenings expand.
“Protected,” she said.
The others accepted the word because each had her own version of it.
The return to Delhi also required returning to temperature, traffic and family interpretation.
On the first Sunday after the trip, Sunita invited relatives for tea. Tanya understood this as punishment for coming home visibly happy.
Auntie Neelam wanted photographs. Ishita wanted unapproved photographs. Rajiv wanted the final taxi receipt because the driver had charged eighty rupees more than the estimate.
Meher’s approved album contained beaches, churches, food and four women standing at responsible distances from all men. Sunita scrolled through it twice.
“Only you four?” she asked.
“Mostly.”
“Who took this?”
The photograph showed them walking through Panjim.
“A tourist.”
“Tourist has good camera,” Rajiv said.
“Vikram,” Ishita read from the tiny photo credit in the corner.
Tanya glared at her.
“Who is Vikram?” Sunita asked.
“A photographer we met.”
“We?” Neelam repeated with immediate interest.
“There was a group from Delhi.”
“Boys?”
“Men,” Tanya corrected, then regretted improving the category.
Ishita covered a laugh with a biscuit.
Sunita moved to the next photograph. “Nice. You should print this one.”
The interrogation dissolved because the album offered no visible scandal. Tanya felt both relieved and dishonest. Nothing she had done required shame, yet she had removed it from the version shown at home.
After the relatives left, Ishita entered Tanya’s room and closed the door.
“Kabir,” she said.
“What about him?”
“There are seventeen photographs where you look at him or he looks at you.”
“You counted?”
“I study media.”
“You study surveillance.”
“Did you kiss?”
Tanya folded a shirt unnecessarily. “That is none of your business.”
“Yes, then.”
“You are not allowed to infer consent from refusal.”
“Excellent teacher sentence. Did you like him?”
Tanya looked at the suitcase. “It was a holiday.”
“That is a location, not an answer.”
Kabir had said almost the same thing.
“We may have coffee,” Tanya admitted.
“In Delhi?”
“Coffee generally requires a city.”
Ishita sat on the bed. “Tell me his full name so I can check.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Then if he has three wives, that is on your privacy policy.”
The joke would later feel less funny and more statistically ambitious.
The actual coffee began by coincidence and continued by choice. After Defence Colony, Kabir sent a message the next morning.
Yesterday was either excellent coffee or a five-hour scheduling failure.
Tanya wrote: Your events need clearer objectives.
Objective: repeat.
She waited twenty minutes, not six hours this time.
Thursday. One hour.
The one-hour meeting lasted four. They walked through Khan Market, argued about book covers and ate dessert before dinner. Kabir bought a novel Tanya recommended and made her write an assignment inside the cover.
She wrote: Read beyond page 40 before offering imaginative alternative interpretation.
He signed beneath it: Accepted under protest.
The second planned meeting occurred at a rooftop bar after one of Kabir’s installations. Tanya arrived early and watched couples choose tables according to privacy. She wondered which category they occupied.
Kabir arrived with paint on his wrist and fatigue beneath his eyes.
“Bad event?” she asked.
“Successful event. Same symptoms.”
He told her about the client, the rain machine and a decorative wall installed backwards. Tanya told him about Mrs Suri’s holiday email requesting a revised reading list.
“We have both worked during vacation,” Kabir said.
“I answered one email.”
“Slippery beginning.”
They drank slowly. When he asked whether she wanted to come to his flat, Tanya said, “Not tonight.”
“Okay.”
No persuasion. No wounded performance. He called her cab and kissed her goodbye near the lift.
The ease of her refusal made the next yes more trusting.
At his flat two days later, Tanya noticed the practical difference between holiday desire and Delhi intimacy. Goa had granted anonymity. Delhi contained neighbours, parking, work calls and laundry. Kabir’s bedroom window faced another building where a family ate dinner with curtains open. Tanya asked him to close the blinds.
“Romance defeated by urban density,” he said.
“Privacy protected by fabric.”
He asked again if she was certain. She said yes. The scene faded before explicit detail, leaving only the morning evidence: a missing earring, cold coffee and Tanya’s alarm labelled HOLIDAY READING LIST ringing at seven.
“You name alarms like assignments,” Kabir said.
“You set none and call lateness freelance.”
She found the earring beneath his pillow. It was hers. This fact would later influence how quickly she believed other jewellery explanations.
Kabir drove her home and stopped two lanes away at her request.
“Are you hidden from the entire neighbourhood?”
“My mother receives intelligence from three balconies.”
“Impressive network.”
“No due process.”
As Tanya stepped out, Kabir said, “I like Delhi you.”
She leaned back through the open door. “You have known Delhi me for one week.”
“Efficient curriculum.”
“Goa you had better shirts.”
“Delhi me owns them.”
She shut the door before smiling.
The girls’ first full reunion after Goa happened at Naina’s apartment. Meher brought printed photographs. Rhea brought wine. Tanya brought cashews Sunita had purchased before the trip and instructed her to pretend came from Goa.
“Domestic fraud,” Rhea said, eating them.
“Victimless,” Tanya replied.
They watched videos on the television: Sam falling during karaoke, Meher shouting about rain, Mrs D’Souza confiscating the bottle, Tanya and Kabir dancing in the background of a shot meant to feature Rhea.
“Pause,” Rhea said.
Meher froze the video.
Kabir’s hand rested at Tanya’s waist. Tanya’s face was turned toward him with an openness she rarely saw in photographs.
“Holiday thing?” Meher asked.
“Holiday thing,” Tanya confirmed.
“Past tense?” Naina asked.
“Geographically.”
Rhea watched her. “That is not past tense.”
Tanya reached for wine. “We had coffee.”
The room erupted.
Meher demanded location and duration. Rhea asked who initiated. Naina asked who paid. Tanya answered the least useful version of each question.
“Coffee became dinner.”
“He suggested.”
“We split.”
She did not mention the second meeting or the flat.
“Are you seeing him?” Rhea asked.
“No labels.”
Rhea’s expression changed too quickly for Tanya to identify.
“Good,” she said. “Holiday things become annoying when imported.”
“Speaking from experience?” Meher asked.
“Always.”
That was the closest Rhea came to revealing her own contact.