The holiday season had done wonders for Tara’s spirits, but the rest of winter had been depressing. She hated how her black coat weighed on her shoulders every time she went out. The first three months of the New Year were dreary: the trees bare, their boughs melancholy, the sun setting at five o’clock.
So when spring arrived in a burst of vivid exuberance, it was a season of revival in her, all around her. Purple, pink, and white flowers bloomed in every yard, the grass turned green with new life, and even the trees that lined West Hill Road were a riot of colors.
It was a season of rejuvenation for Alyona also, who dropped in one afternoon, her eyes dancing more than usual, her voice dripping excitement.
“I have a date!” she announced. “Please, please, please help me go.”
A handsome customer with thick wavy blonde hair, had asked for her business card last week. Alyona didn’t make anything of it, didn’t expect to hear from the guy. But he had called in the afternoon and asked her out, sending Alyona into a tizzy.
“How can I help?” asked Tara, smiling.
“Can you babysit Viktor on Friday night? Please say yes, please say yes!” Alyona had her hands clasped like in prayer, and the most imploring look on her face, but for Tara, it was hardly a straight, simple matter. She was in a quandary. She didn’t know how Sanjay would react to having young Viktor at home while he was around. But then, she didn’t know how to say no to Alyona, who had been so helpful to her.
“Sure,” she said, trying way too hard to sound cheerful. She had three days to worry about what she was going to tell Sanjay.
“What happens on a first date?” she asked, as Alyona did a noisy chicken dance, and stomped the living room carpet.
“Nothing happens. I’ll meet him at restaurant. We talk over dinner. If I like him, I will let him kiss me on my cheek. That is all. Then I come back home and wait for his call.”
Tara’s heart turned mellow with good wishes for Alyona. She told Sanjay, when she couldn’t not tell him any longer. Alyona’s big evening was less than twenty-four hours away, and within an hour they would go to bed. He reacted the way she thought he would. At first, he grunted, eyes glued to the laptop. Then he chewed his cud slowly, deliberately. When he finally looked up, a scowl on his face, she knew that to be a precursor to an hour of unpleasantness.
“So, each time the Russian bitch wants to get laid, you are going to babysit her son?”
“Alyona is not a bitch, and she is not getting laid.” It always irked her, the way he spoke about her friend.
“Right. She is only going to church with the guy. On a Friday evening.”
“She is only planning to have dinner with the guy.”
He sniggered. “Grow up, honey.”
Honey. An endearment uttered for the first time. But said in rancor. Which didn’t make it an endearment at all. Yet, she found herself foolishly, helplessly searching for hidden interpretations.
Alyona returned late, very late. Viktor watched TV, played Pokémon on his Gameboy, played a word game with Tara, and, when he could not keep his eyes open anymore, curled up on the sofa and slept. Tara pulled a fleece throw over the boy and turned off the lights in the living room. Sliding into Sanjay’s favorite spot, the recliner, she prepared to wait. Her many attempts at reaching Sanjay had been futile, until his recorded message—in his deep radio jockey voice—made her nauseous. He had never stayed out this late before. Doubts, suspicions, and anxieties multiplied with each passing hour. She tried to stay with the ebb and flow of air in her lungs, but her mind digressed to a frenzy of thoughts.
Every once in a while, she sat up because she imagined the sound of his key in the front door. When he finally walked in at ten minutes past midnight, she waited in the darkness with bated breath. A light came on in the hallway. She heard him shuffle straight to the bedroom, feet dragging on the carpet. Ghost-like, she followed him there. Sanjay was sprawled on the bed, his shoes still on, reeking of alcohol and stale cigarette smoke.
“Where were you?” she demanded.
He made an attempt to look at her with glazed eyes, and grinned from ear to ear like she had said something funny.
“You didn’t want me at home,” he slurred.
“Where did you go?”
“To the place men go to when they are not wanted at home.”
“Where is that?”
He laughed, closed his eyes. She bent over him and shook him by his shoulders.
“Did you go to a strip club?”
He laughed again, the obtuse, silly laugh of a drunk. Jealousy jabbed at her. She grabbed the front of his shirt and shook him harder “Tell me. Did you go to a strip club?”
“Let go, woman! I went to the bar with a couple of friends.”
Tara let go, relieved.
“Am I getting some love?” he slurred.
“No. There is a kid sleeping in the sitting room.”
Sanjay was snoring before she even got back to the living room.
Tara was upset with Alyona. Upset because she had come back so late to pick up Viktor, and upset because Sanjay had stayed away so late because of her. Besides, she had looked disheveled; hair messy, smudges of eyeliner and mascara below her eyes, and was in her pajamas when she knocked on Tara’s door at two in the morning. She offered no apology, no explanation, and Tara sought none, not when any conversation could wake Sanjay and stir up a hornet’s nest. But the next afternoon, it was the same bright-faced Alyona who knocked on her door, bursting with news.
“Greg is the one,” she announced. He was sweet, kind, considerate, and a wonderful conversationalist. They had hit it off instantly, and spent hours talking.
“You were at the restaurant till two in the morning?” Tara asked, unbelievingly.
Alyona stuck her lower lip out, threw her arms around Tara and buried her face on her shoulder.
“You took him to your apartment?”
“Yeah.”
“And?”
Alyona giggled.
“Oh my God, you slept with him?”
“It’s okay. He is perfect guy, and I am in love with him.”
“You don’t even know him.”
“I feel like I know him all my life.”
“Did he call today?”
“Yeah, twice.” She held two fingers up, sunshine on her face. “I am seeing him again tonight.”
Tara hoped Alyona wouldn’t ask her to babysit Viktor again. She didn’t, thankfully, because she wanted Greg to meet her son. Tara felt her annoyance dissipate. Alyona’s excitement was infectious.
“So, did your friend get laid last night?” Sanjay wanted to know that evening. Tara was amused that he was curious enough to remember and ask.
“Alyona is in love with Greg. She is sure he is the one.”
“Aha! See, I told you.”
Tara went red. “It’s not like that.”
“So, what is it like? Ooh, is it love at first sight? When Harry met Sally?”
“It wasn’t love at first sight for Harry and Sally,” she reminded him.
“Okay, whatever. You get my point. When this guy has had enough of her, she is never going to hear from him again. You mark my words.”
Sanjay was right. Greg broke up with Alyona even before spring had officially ended.