“Are you ready to order something?” Asked a waiter dressed in black.
“Not yet. Actually I’m waiting for someone.” Albie replied with a faint smile. The waiter nodded and moved to another table and repeated the question.
Albie glanced at his fastrack, it was only half past four. He double checked on his phone kept on the table. 4:30, the digital clock on his lock screen said. They had agreed to meet at four thirty. Any moment now! He contemplated.
It had started to rain outside, but he could not hear the sound of the rain, only the melodies of Yanni. ‘The Mermaid’ from the Greek composer’s album ‘Reflections of passion’ was going on. This place always played nice music, romantic mostly. Perhaps one of the reasons why it was one among the top hang out places for youngsters in the city. The place had such surreal ambience, overhead lanterns hung all over the place, their shapes resembling the paper lanterns that are floated into the night sky.
Albie glanced over to the table to his right. There was a boy and a girl at that table. Total silence at that table. Then finally the girl asked “Are you going to say something or what?” Albie couldn’t help smiling as it reminded him of another incident his friend Rima had told him once.
Rima had a friend back in high school who went by the name Bobby. He had not been in touch since high school. One day, out of the blue, he contacts her and asks her to meet her at the railway station. Out of shear curiosity Rima met him at the station. What happened there is what makes this ‘he-is-obviously-gonna-propose’ scene interesting because actually he didn’t. In fact he didn’t say anything at all. They just sat on that rusty bench at the railway station for about ten minutes, at the end of which her curiosity turned into remorse and she asked “Are you going to say something or what?” He just asked “How many platform does this station have?” and without waiting for an answer he boarded the train and never called again.
Albie always wondered if that incident was the reason that he proposed to Annie in such untimely and boorish fashion. He believed Bobby never said anything because he had realized it had been too late. But apparently he had rushed it. Annie was never ready to hear it and her first reaction was:
“So soon, bee?”
Annie used to call him ‘bee’ as in Al-‘bee’. One day while she texted him, she had typed ‘Albee’ instead of Albie. When he asked her if it that was his name in her contacts as well, because Albie was very stringent when it came to spellings, and she gave him an answer that amazed him.
Her text said. Your name in my contacts is bee. She even insisted that he gave her a sweet name too. He didn’t have to think much because though it had not been her contact name, he already had a name for her and it came from a text he had send her once.
Your online presence is like the sighting of a Shooting star, you know, gone before one even spots it!
She was like that. She would stay hours and hours on phone but not five minutes of online presence, but she always replied, only there would be hours between the question and the answer. And that’s how the name was born. A tad bit long for a nick name and does not even sound very sweet but for some reason she seemed to love it.
The rain seemed to have toned down a bit. It was probably still drizzling, he couldn’t tell through the wet glass. The door opened slowly, and Arvind and Archana found their way in. They looked great together, like always. Arvind was the first among Albie’s friends to get in a serious relationship, 4 years ago. Even in the era of WhatsApp and Messenger, they still used SMS,like an old school couple, even after both of them upgraded into smartphones.
“Hey dude, are you meeting with her? Why didn’t say anything?” Arvind asked as walked towards the table.
“Quick plans man.” Albie lied. He had been waiting for this day for long.
“I know your lying but I will let you of hook for now. We’ll be upstairs. Call if you need us.”
Arvind and Archana were looking adorable together. Albie conjectured if he and Annie would have like this if they had met 5 years ago when there was more chances of meeting each other than when they actually did. No one would believe them if they said they didn’t know each other back then. How ironic was it that they both went to the same high school and didn’t know each other? Or that they even had a hundred mutual friends on Facebook but there were not friends with each other on Facebook. Then he consoled himself with the dialogue Vijayan says to Dasan in the Malayalam movie ‘Nadodikatu’, “Ellathinum athintesamayamundu Dasa”. Everything has its time. Had they met then would things have turned out to the way they have now? Probably not.
Albie did not remember the umpteen times they may have walked past each other on corridors but he sure remembered the first day he actually saw her. It was during last monsoon, at a mutual friend’s wedding. He was not going to be invited, they had not been that close. But Annie coerced the friend into inviting him too. They had got to know each other by then. The 500 km between them had made meetings and their late night conversations had his sleep difficult.
Albie’s eyes searched for her amongst the crowd at the entrance of the church, and there she was, dressed in a violet gown, her hair let free, standing with her friends, behind the bride, looking all serious. He stood there watching her, unware of the people around him. It’s said humans can tell when they are being stared at, it’s called the “Psychic staring effect”. Though not a universally accepted theory, having experienced it more than once, he believed it existed and Annie turned to her right and saw him. He still remembered how her eyes grew bigger, how her jaws almost dropped, but then appreciating her surroundings, she quickly turned straight and walked with the bride and groom.
“I didn’t think you would come.” Annie confessed later that day with that enchanting smile of hers. Albie wanted to say ‘I would cross the seven seas for you’, but he didn’t want to jump the gun. So instead he said “I only make promises I can keep.”
In the words of St. Jerome, “The face is the mirror of the mind, and eyes without speaking confess the secrets of the heart.” Albie had spent the night wondering if her eyes had confessed something that day. May be it was just the surprise.
The WhatsApp notification on Albie’s phone went off.
Is Arvind with you
He is not answering his phone.
It was Nilly, mutual friend of Arvind, Archana, Albie and Annie.
He is here at the cafe with Archana. Albie typed quickly.
Every Love story has a matchmaker, many of them who become third wheels in the end. But there are some who are designated third wheels. Like his friend Raj. The general theory was that if Raj hangs out with a girl, that girl would fall for someone else and he would become third wheel in that relationship.
Here? Nilly replied back.
Im meeting Annie
Nilly was the matchmaker in Albie’s case. It was during the time WhatsApp had rolled out the picture status feature. Instagram users booed WhatsApp for copying the Insta story feature. Nevertheless, it received great response. If before that the so called ‘WhatsApp dares’ required one to change his dp, then after the launch of the status feature, all dares said:
Put_____ as your status
One such dares required the recipient to put the sender’s photo as status and write something about them. Both Albie and Nilly exchanged the dare. Nilly’s photo showed up on Albie’s status and Albie’s photo on Nilly’s. And so, Annie, who was a long-time friend of Nilly, came across Albie’s photo. And she asked Nilly to put her photo in her status as if it was a dare. And that is how it began.
Who is she?
She is a friend
She got a name?
Why? You like her?
Why do you care?
Bcuz she is my friend and good girl
So you won’t say.
Where is the fun in that?
I will give you a clue.
She is my school friend.
I am not going to beg you
Albie had decided that he was not going to beg, right from the beginning and now Nilly had given him that one thing he needed. He logged into Facebook on his laptop, pulled up Nilly’s profile and went to the friends section. She had 840 friends at that time and all he had was two clues.
1. That girl was Nilly’s high school friend
2. She was a Christian, which he assumed from the rosary she was wearing in the picture.
Thanks to the Developers of Facebook for grouping the friends list into various categories like work, college, high school etcetera etcetera. In less than 10 minutes, he had a name to the girl in Nilly’s status. Annie Ann Mathews.
Nilly was both marveled and pissed at the same time. Marveled, because Albie found her name and pissed because she didn’t get to toy him.
Some may find it too cheesy. But isn’t there some cheesiness in all love stories. If someone says others, just observe them when they are drunk and in love. You will be amazed by what you see.
Albie has friend Nishan, a tall, rough and tough guy. One day, he came hostel drunk and crashed onto the bed. His phone started ringing.
“Bro, your phone is ringing” Albie said. He grabbed the phone, didn’t even check the name and yelled. “Swathi, I love you. I need you. Don’t leave me.”
Albie stood there wondering, ‘Did that really just happen?’
Finally after the long wait, the door of the café opened and Annie entered, dressed in a yellow printed kurti with a red classic umbrella, locally referred to as ‘KaalanKuda’. With that alluring smile of hers, she walked towards the table. Albie wondered if she ever understood the hidden meanings of all those status, like one he put up that morning. May be she never did like she never understood what he saw in her or that it is more than just a passing fancy.
“Sorry, I’m late.”
“Waiting for the shooting star is always fun”
“You never run out of dialogues, do you?”
“Nope. So, coffee?”
And they both laughed it out. And that’s when he realized:
What is worth is not easy, what is not easy takes time, what takes time involves waiting and the waiting is worth it.
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