Edge Of Seventeen

4. The Friendly Neighborhood

"I'll see you on Monday then?", I asked mom.

"Er.. were you planning to go to your father's house after school tomorrow?", Mom asked peeping out of her car, looking concerned.

"Yeah of course..why?", I asked perplexed at this question.

I had always spent the weekends with dad ever since my parents divorced five years ago.

"Well the thing is..", Mom began bracingly "Zoya...you should understand this doesn't happen intentionally... your father is a busy man.."

I instantly knew what was coming next.

"So he's going off somewhere this weekend. Isn't he?", I asked sadly.

"Yes darling, it's for a very important meeting in Malad. But don't worry", Mom added hastily "You can certainly spend the next weekend at his house. And I made him promise to call you on Sunday evening".

"Right Mom", I said dryly.

"Zoya.."

"Mom, I'm fine".

"Okay", Mom gave up and it was an awkward moment as we said goodbye and she drove out of the society.

I continued to stand there feeling mutinous.

Made him promise?

Mom shouldn't be making dad promise to call me.

He should want to talk to his daughter.

This was the third weekend in two months that I hadn't been able to spend with dad.

After ten minutes, I realised me stubbornly standing there in the driveway wouldn't make dad cancel his meeting. There was nothing I could do except wait for the next weekend.

So I turned back and set off down the path back to A block to finish my calculus homework.

My room at our new house wasn't even fully furnished yet. Our suitcases were still half filled with clothes and things.

Mom and I had segregated all the stuff from our Bandra house, packed them into cardboard boxes and had stuck labels on each one so that unpacking would be made easier.

We had unpacked the boxes with the label KITCHEN on the first day because that was the most imperative one. We had also unpacked the photo frames and other personal stuff. After that, Mom had asked me to unpack one box each day from thereon.

But with one thing and another, I kept procrastinating and the boxes now lay all the way from my bed to the living room like stepstones on a garden walkway.

I did wish we had a real set of stepstones instead of boxes though it was impossible in a two bedroom apartment.

But Mom did manage to install a pot of purple hyacinths in the balcony after which she named the house as 'Heart Of Hyacinths'. Mom was corny, that way.

Ignoring the boxes jamming my room I huddled into a corner and was halfway through my first sum when the bell rang.

I skipped through the boxes and opened the door cautiously.

"Rahul?!" I exclaimed shocked on seeing him at my doorway.

"Oh you know my name now", he said looking surprised, "I wonder who could've told you".

"The Times Of India did actually", I said recalling the article I had seen on the bus, "I hadn't realised I was talking to a local celebrity at Tashan's that day".

"Celebrity?", Rahul laughed "I wouldn't go that far".

"Are you all famous people really so modest or is it an act?", I said "Anyway how come you're here?"