Shoma Narayanan - Secrets & Saris

She’d been at it for almost the entire day now, trying to transform her pistachio-green walls to a more cheerful pale yellow. So far she’d done exactly one third of one wall of the living room, having given up on the ceiling. In any case the ceiling was white—it didn’t matter if it looked slightly dingy. The colour on the walls would brighten everything up.

She was just dipping the brush into the paint when the door bell rang. Who could it be? She put the brush on its side and covered the paint tin exactly as they’d shown in the video on house painting she was using as her reference material. Then she pulled off the old dupatta she’d tied around her head and went to open the door.

Neil Mitra.

She felt the breath catch in her throat at the sight of him leaning against the door. The sun was setting somewhere in the distance and his brown hair glittered golden. While his face was in shadow, his eyes sparkled as he broke into a disarming smile.

Realising that she was still staring at him like a dork, Shefali cleared her throat. ‘Yes?’ she said, putting on her best dealing-with-irritating-parents expression—neutral, but completely in charge of the situation. It probably didn’t go very well with her paint-splattered T-shirt and jeans, but she could hardly run in to change.

‘Is this a bad time?’ Neil asked, his grin broadening as he peeked around her into the living room.

The furniture was swathed in the lace curtains that she was planning to get rid of anyway, and the stepladder stood perfectly aligned with the wall. OK, the room wasn’t exactly ready to be featured in a home décor magazine, but she couldn’t see what there was to grin about either.

‘It’s fine,’ Shefali said, not budging from the doorway. ‘If you’re not going to take too long?’

‘I won’t,’ Neil promised. He’d thought about this for a whole week before he’d decided to come and speak to her. ‘I just wanted to let you know—I’m not married.’

Right. Thrown off-balance more than a little, Shefali stared at him uncertainly. ‘You mean...Nina isn’t your daughter?’

‘She is.’ Neil gestured behind her. ‘Do you think I could come in? It’s a little weird, having to blurt out the story of my life on your doorstep. I’m a very shy guy, really.’

‘Really?’ Shefali said, but she stood aside to let him in. Her head in a bit of a whirl, she gestured towards the dining room. ‘We can sit here.’

Neil strode across the room, and Shefali took a minute to admire his athletic body from the rear.

‘I’m divorced,’ Neil said, as soon as he sat down, his blue-grey eyes looking up into hers.

Oh. For some reason that hadn’t occurred to her. She sat down opposite him, unconsciously smoothing her long T-shirt over her knees. ‘How long ago?’

‘Very soon after Nina was born.’

‘And Nina’s been with you ever since?’ Fathers very rarely got custody of the kids in a divorce battle, Shefali knew, and getting custody of a baby girl only a few months old had to be even more uncommon.

Neil shrugged. ‘Reema didn’t want her. We got married young, had a child early. She wasn’t ready for that kind of commitment.’

Shefali stayed silent, not sure how to react. She was hugely relieved, of course, to learn that she hadn’t kissed a married man. For the entire week she’d been seeing herself as a home-wrecker who encouraged philandering husbands. But the fact that he wasn’t married also meant that he was available, and she didn’t want to think of him that way. This part of her plan to get over Pranav didn’t involve men. And especially not madly attractive men like Neil.

The madly attractive man in her dining room was now surveying his surroundings. ‘A bit grim, isn’t it?’ he asked, gesturing around at the bilious walls and the mildewed framed posters of kittens in baskets.

‘That’s why I’m repainting it,’ Shefali said drily. ‘To make it a little less grim.’

‘Have you ever done anything like this before?’

She shook her head. ‘I’ve lived in my parents’ house till now. They’re not really the do-it-yourself type.’

‘I wouldn’t have put you down as the do-it-yourself type either,’ Neil remarked.

Shefali bristled immediately. ‘I’m not incapable!’ she said.

‘Not at all,’ he said smoothly, but Shefali got the impression that he was still laughing at her. ‘It’s just that every time I’ve seen you so far you’ve struck me as someone who doesn’t push her boundaries too much.’

Kissing a man she barely knew had definitely pushed her boundaries, and Shefali found herself resenting his remark.

‘Was that all, then?’ she asked. ‘You came to tell me you’re not married? I don’t mean to be rude, but I really do need to get on with my painting.’

‘I’ll help you,’ he said easily. ‘You’ve done most of the hard work anyway—it won’t take long to get the room done. And there are a couple of other things I want to talk to you about.’

Shefali gave him a cold nod.

‘Well, the first thing is that Nina’s taken quite a fancy to you.’ Neil said. ‘And she’s a little upset because she says you’ve been ignoring her. Apparently on the first day you spent quite a bit of time talking to her, but since then you’ve not spoken to her at all.’

Shefali felt her face heat up. She’d deliberately avoided Nina, feeling awkward about the whole thing with Neil. It had been unfair of her, but she hadn’t realised that Nina had noticed.

‘Look, I can understand why,’ Neil said. ‘The whole episode that night—I lost my head a little, and I’m sorry. Really, really sorry. I can now understand why you probably don’t want to see me again, with your wedding having just been called off... But I don’t want Nina to be affected by something that’s totally my fault.’

He was making her sound like a neurotic on the rebound. Plastering an over-bright smile on her face, she said, ‘Of course not. Nina’s a lovely kid. I’m sorry if she thought I was ignoring her—it’s been a crazy week. I’m still settling in, and of course I was feeling a little awkward about...you know...’

Her voice trailed off, and he nodded understandingly. ‘I had no idea you were going to be working in the school, otherwise...’

This time, it was his turn to leave a sentence hanging, but Shefali knew what he meant. If he’d known she was going to turn up in his daughter’s school he wouldn’t have come within a mile of her.

‘So that’s settled, then,’ he was saying. ‘I promise to behave myself from now on, and you’ll treat Nina like any other student. I’m not asking for special attention—she can be a real brat sometimes.’

Remembering how she’d told him that she disliked some children, Shefali said quickly, ‘Oh, she’s a wonderful kid—very bright and enthusiastic, no trouble at all.’

‘Not obnoxious?’ he asked, his eyes laughing at her. ‘Like some adults?’

‘Not at all like some adults,’ she said, getting to her feet. ‘Listen, if you’re really planning to help with my room we need to get going.’ She wasn’t sure if she wanted him around, given the effect he had on her hormones, but help with her painting was help with her painting. Difficult to get and impossible to refuse.

‘I’ll help,’ he said. ‘But one last thing—will you be OK with doing a small appearance on my show?’

Whatever she’d expected him to ask, it wasn’t that.

‘Appear on your show doing what?’ she asked.

‘Well, you’re a bit of an oddity, you know,’ he said, walking into the living room and picking up the can of paint and a brush. ‘A girl from Delhi, coming to live in a small town—you could say what you think of the place, tell people what made you decide to come here and so on.’