After this we also have a meeting with the print staff.”
I loved this girl. Anu wasn’t just the fashion features director at Style but was also my soul sister and confidant.
One hour later the meeting was over and as I was about to get up from my chair, Natasha got hold of my hand.
“If you don’t stop acting this irresponsible, I will take down your online column and your chances to write for the print version will be finished forever,” she said icily.
“I am so …” before I could plead an apology she let go of my hand, got up from the chair and walked out of the room as fast as humanly possible.
“Maya. Why do you do this all the time?” while everyone followed Natasha out of the room, Anu stayed back, just to make sure Natasha didn’t rip my head off and chop it into tiny pieces.
“I know it’s my fault,” I let out a deep sigh. “It was that stupid dream which didn’t let me wake up.”
“Again?” Anu knew about my dream only too well.
It all started when I was sixteen. It was the first time I accidentally flipped through the glossy pages of Glamorous which my aunt from New York had left behind at our place by mistake. Those pages changed my life forever. Two days later I bought the five-year subscription of the magazine and after that I spent every single day marvelling at the awe-inspiring photos, making notes of the amazing fashion tips and religiously reading fashion literature. In those moments of pure pleasure, I promised myself that one day I’d be part of this fashion bible. Hence straight after school, I enrolled into a fashion journalism course, much to the disappointment of my parents who always wanted me to be a CA. I remembered what Mom said the day I accepted the job at Style.
You have ruined your life.
“When will you stop it?” Anu questioned tiredly.
“Trust me that’s what I ask myself all the time. But I don’t think that I am strong enough to let go of this dream.”
Years of trying to get into Glamorous and I had failed each time. Result, every night for six months I used to cry till dawn at the thought that there was someone, somewhere, under the same sky who was living the life which I wanted.
Looking at my humiliated face, she inched towards me and flung her arms around my shoulders.
“Oh sweetie! One day you’ll get there,” she gave me a tight hug. Just when I was beginning to relax in her arms she abruptly pushed me away and turned me round to have a look at my back side.
“What happened?”
“The back of your dress is tucked under your purple knickers. You came all the way from your apartment to this room flashing them for the whole world to see?” her eyes popped out of her perfectly sculpted face.
“I did what?” I ran towards the washroom tucked away in the far corner of the conference room, turned around, craned my neck to have a look at my derriere in the floor-to-ceiling mirror pinned against the wall and prayed for death at the sight of my not-so-attractive and cellulite-loaded bum cheeks.
OH. MY. GOD.
Back in my cubicle I told myself, “This is it.” I had had enough humiliation for one day and I wasn’t going to do another stupid thing. I was going to show Natasha that I was not some floosy. I deserved something more than an online column, something better and bigger than Style — something like Glamorous. Yes, I deserved to be there and one day I would and that day she would realize what a brilliant writer she had lost and would curse herself for underestimating my talent. She would be on the floor on all fours begging me to forgive her and then I would tell her to go and put her magazine where the sun doesn’t shine.
Determined to pen a groundbreaking feature, I switched on the computer but nothing came on the screen. The computer was dead and even after slapping it a million times, I still couldn’t bring it back to life.
This day was rapidly rising on the list of the worst days of my life. First, I flashed my knickers shamelessly to the entire city, then made total arse of myself in front of Natasha and the whole office, and now my computer had crashed and my feature for the next issue was on it. Forget about the bloody humiliation, Natasha would sack me if I didn’t submit my feature before the deadline. I felt my heart falling all the way to the pit of my stomach. I had worked so hard to collect information about the best wedding destination venues in the country. It had taken me an entire month. A month.
When the rest of the writing staff was furiously typing away on their computers and was probably giving the final touches to their nearly finished stories, I was standing just next to my cubicle while the sickly-looking IT guy was trying to do some tricks on my dead computer.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him while repeatedly telling myself, don’t cry, not now, not here.
“What have you done to this? There are five thousand viruses on it,” he shot daggers at me.
“I have done nothing. I swear,” I croacked.
Oh my god! I knew I shouldn’t have downloaded pirated movies and songs on this computer.
“It is taking forever to reboot,” he said.
“Err … Will it ever work again? Can you do this?” I heard myself asking him questions in a voice I didn’t recognize.
“I am an IT guy. I can do anything,” he said, glaring at me.
“I would really appreciate if you could fix this whole mess, please. And quickly,” I said stiffly.
***
Later that evening walking into my flat, I dumped my old battered handbag by the door, kicked off my heels and crashed onto the sofa. The day had been horrible and what was more horrible was the thought of writing the feature all over again, especially when I had planned to watch recorded episodes of Gossip Girls while eating delicious Dominos pizza.
My office computer didn’t get repaired and would take another two days to be back in running condition. But as the submission deadline was tomorrow, I was left with no choice but to re-write the article. It had taken one whole month to research the story but now I had only one night to do it over again.
Pushing the horrific thoughts of doing so much work in a single night out of my mind, I got off the sofa, walked towards the bathroom and ran a cold bath. Dressed in cotton pyjamas and a decade-old UCB T-shirt, I planted myself on the sofa armed with two boxes of Hägaan Dazs, balanced my beloved laptop on my knees and prayed to the Gods that this night be the longest.
May 29
Last night I worked my arse off and I think it was around three in the morning when I typed the last word. More than once I felt a strong, sleepy wind wash over me but I wasn’t prepared for any more trouble. So I kept my eyes wide open, took a back-up of the article on a flash drive, just in case, put it safely in my handbag (oh my! I so needed a new one) and only then tumbled off the sofa, found my way through the ever-so-dirty apartment towards the bed and fell asleep. It was just past seven a.m. when I curled onto my side under the warm duvet blissfully unaware of the fact that how boiling hot it was outside my air-conditioned apartment. Since it was only yesterday that I had to listen to the long work ethic lecture from Natasha, I was not ready to give her the opportunity today. So resisting the temptation to stay in bed for just a few more minutes, I decided to get ready and reach office on time, just for a change.
Thirty minutes and a quick shower later I was dressed in an emerald green jumpsuit and Blue Parrot bellies with my hair tied in a chic ponytail and the right amount of makeup to give the perfect illusionary effect of high cheekbones. Just the way I like it. Being ready this early left me with plenty of time