Today’s Sunday. The day of cleaning. If I want to be free by 5 pm to meet him, then I better get to work now, she thought. With headphones in place, she hit the play button on her iPod. It took 4 hours of hard work to clean the house spotless and looking around at all the order it was worth it. Now you can even shoot those ‘Colin’ ads in my flat, she thought. She turned on the geyser and now she had half an hour wait before the water became hot.
Drenched in sweat, she turned on the fan and sat cross-legged on the floor. She put her hand on the floor, it was cold. She laid on the floor and saw the box beneath the bed. It had been 3 months since our last meet. She’ll have to gift him something this time too. She dreaded these meets because every time she met him, she had to return a gift of his and she didn’t like it. This was the 8th time that she was going to do the ‘re-gifting’ thing.
‘Re-gifting’ or ‘space-making’ as he used to describe it was his idea. She had to gift him what he once gifted to her in order to make space for more gifts. ‘How will He give us more gifts if we have so many of them? He won’t and then there’ll be hard times, sad times. So, if you want a smooth flow of gifts, then learn to part away from some of them.’ ‘It’s not re-gifting, it’s sacrificing!’ ‘No pain, no gain, baby and you need to balance things to prevent chaos.’
She took out the box and thought what to sacrifice this time. 12 years of relationship had provided her with an array of choices to choose from. She narrowed the list to an anklet and a fake gold medal. He had gifted her the anklet after the Easter egg hunting. She had to find all the eggs and if she did then he’ll give her a gift and if she didn’t then, well, there was no chance that she was going to lose. But the fake gold medal was given to her when she had lost the National Tennis Tournament. She was in Delhi with him for the Finals and she was all set to win the medal. But she had lost by 4 points to Srishti Mathur. She couldn’t believe that she going to get silver not gold!
‘Congratulations babe! You went all Re-Ma-Se on the court baby!’ he said and hugged her. In Re-Ma-Se. Re was for Rehana (which he pronounced like Rihanna), Ma for Maria Sharapova and Se for Serena Williams. She didn’t like being compared to others so he had come up with this brilliant way of praising.
Against her will, he took her to The Grand to celebrate. She told him that she didn’t want to celebrate her loss but he said that it was a celebration of win over the bronze. During the celebratory dinner, the post mortem of the tournament was done and Rehana declared that had she been a bit more responsive, she would’ve been the winner and not that girl!
‘It’s not only me, but I’ve let you down too!’ she said and took a sip of water. Chris stood up and left the private dinner room without saying a word. ‘Great! I’ve annoyed him too! All dreams coming true!’
Chris returned after 10 minutes and asked her to close her eyes. ‘I’m not going to meditate or something!’ ‘Can you picture the gold medal?’ ‘Right around my neck!’ and she felt something cold touch her skin. She opened her eyes and there it was. The gold medal was around her neck.
‘But I didn’t win it! How did you get it?’ He held her hand. ‘You’ll always be the winner for me. I’m proud of you and I’ll always will be, no matter if you win or lose the Finals. I love you, Re, not your medals.’ ‘I love you, Chris!’ she hugged him. ‘I know, Rihanna.’ She laughed. ‘When will you earn to say my name right?’ ‘When we’ll be married.’ ‘My last name will change not first.’ ‘Yeah I know. I’ll call you Mrs. Taylor. Also, this medal’s not stolen. Your boyfriend’s not a thief if that’s what you’re thinking. He’s just smart enough to have a back-up plan and resourceful enough to carry it!’
Since then, no tournament’s win had equalled to the happiness of the loss of NTT. She thought of re-gifting the medal. She thought for a while and then put it back in the box. For later, she thought and picked up the anklet. Keeping the anklet on the bed, she rushed to the bathroom to get ready.
She was ready by 4:50 pm. She took the car keys and the anklet. On her way to the St. Paul’s Church, she bought a bouquet of yellow roses. She parked her car and got out.
She smoothed her yellow dress, took the bouquet, the ‘gift’ and went to meet him. The anklet was making a tinkling sound in her pocket. ‘The bells will notify me of your arrival’ he had said.
She sat beside him. ‘Here, I got your favourite roses to keep you company!’ she said and placed the roses on Chris’s grave. ‘I’m giving away the anklet this time. I’ve made enough noise wearing it around. I’ve even scared the hell out of a child. I was coming back after a late-night dinner with girls and the child got scared because of the tinkling. He thought that some witch had entered the building. I laughed when I got to know about it through Mita. You know how perfectly she enacts such scenes. I could see you faking a laugh right now, not funny now but I wish you could see how Mita did it.’ She said as she dug a hole beside his grave to bury the anklet. ‘I think soon I’m going to need a pit to bury all the gifts. Is there any way that I could get to know where does all these things go or you’re just going to let them get decomposed here?’ She sat quiet for a while and thought of all the other things buried around his grave. She didn’t want to see if they were there or not. She didn’t care.
‘I guess I missed my chance for the answer. I really miss you. Someday, I’m going to join you at your level, not above it. I love you. I just wish I could hear it back from you but not every wish is granted. I think mine always lands on the waiting list. Will you check them out for me? And if possible, can you move them a bit ahead?’ She said in a whisper. ‘Be useful baby!’ she said and lay down beside him. she looked up at the clear sky from where she believed he was looking back at her. Maybe, with a smile.