All Strings Attached

Chapter Thirteen

"I'm not going to straighten your hair," I tell her, resolvedly. It'll take me a month to go through all of her thick, wavy tresses. "You'll have to do it yourself."

"I'm not asking you to," she shoots down my assumption. "I just need you to iron out my pleats," she says, bunching them up in her hand to show me.

I notice they're a lot more fluffed out than the pleats for any other saree she's worn. "Do you always do it yourself?" I ask her, leaning down to do as asked.

"No, it's just this material," she explains, "the pleats are hard to manage."

"What do I do?" I ask her, holding the pleats.

"Careful not to tug at the pleats," she mentions, "hold one pleat at a time—" she hands me a single pleat— "and just hold it with the straightener and pull the straightener through."

I look up at her, unable to configure the directions. "Huh?"

Sita sighs, and hunches down to my level, taking the straightener from me and pushing the hair out of her face as she demonstrates how to do it.

"I could just do it myself," she says, shrugging as if to accept fate.

I observe Sita's tired face, and how she struggles to keep her hair out of her face, and take the straightener back from her. "I can help."

I straighten her saree pleats with as much concentration as I can muster while she intently stares at me. "Do you want a picture?" I offer to her, standing up, once I'm done.

"Thank you," she says, taking the straightener back from me and turning away to face the dresser in front of her as I lean on the one behind me, placing my palms on either side of me to support myself as I watch her.

"Thank you, I'll take that picture or thank you for ironing my saree?" I ask her, just to keep the conversation going.

She looks at me through the mirror as she lines her eyes with Kajal. "Thank you, you're done here, you can leave now," she mimics my tone, implying a third option.

"I think I like it here," I let her know. "I can't take any more of the news anyway."

"You're lucky we have subscription to the rest of the channels on the TV, and all the OTT platforms as well," she replies. "They definitely would be more entertaining."

"Nothing's more entertaining than you are," I assure her.

"You treat me like a circus monkey," she accuses.

"No," I disagree, and add sweetly, "just the regular kind."

"Fucker," she cusses, shooting me a dirty look through the mirror.

I grin back at her, revelling in her annoyance. Sita seems to think the best thing to do would be to ignore me since she acts like I do not exist as she applies skin-coloured cream and then applies some kind of a cream out of a slimmer tube, using a tiny wand, before using something that looks like a bulb-shaped sponge to dab it on her skin.

"What's that?" I ask her, unable to keep off the curiosity.

"What?" She asks, holding up the tube, "this?" She picks up the tube that held her cream, "or this?"

"Both?" I offer, not knowing what either are. "And the bulb thing?"

Sita giggles cutely. "Bulb thing?" She repeats, holding up the aforementioned makeup tool. "It's a blender," she tells me.

"Like a blender?" I enact screwing the top on to the blender and switching it on.

"No, Reddy," she continues to giggle. "It's a makeup blender, for my concealer—" she holds up the slim tube.