No Time for Goodbyes Read Free

it,’ I mumble and Suma looks at me, her lower lip jutting out mutinously.
    â€˜You mean we have to share our clothes and our room with her?’ she asks Ajji who looks at me sympathetically.
    â€˜Why didn’t you tell us about your luggage? We would have given you something comfortable to wear,’ she says.
    I sigh loudly. Will someone explain what is happening? But I can’t possibly ask these people without alarming them. That’s when I remember my Harry Potter book. And my cell phone.
    The book is right next to me and my phone is in my pocket. I pull it out without trying to attract attention but there’s absolutely no signal. Right. I don’t put it back inside.
    Suma’s sisters, my aunts actually do have names. But I have to pretend not to know them so I ask them for their names. They oblige happily.
    â€˜I’m Reena, this is Suma and that’s Vidya,’ my aunt trills and she looks at me expectantly. Oh, so they don’t know the pen-pal’s name? Should I take a chance? What if Suma knows?
    â€˜Tamanna,’ I say and for the first time, Suma smiles at me.
    â€˜That’s a lovely name,’ she says and I blush.
    â€˜Come, we’ll help you freshen up. But how did you find the house on your own? Why didn’t you wait for Manoj at the station?’ Reena asks. I’m confused. Who is this Manoj and what will I do when he turns up with the real pen-pal?
    I get up, brushing the seat of my pants awkwardly and note that Suma and her sisters are gaping at me. Yes. Tight jeans.
    â€˜What’s that?’ Suma asks when she spots me fiddling with my cell phone. I’m hoping that maybe it will pick up a signal somewhere and I can call my mother—the one who wears saris and actually looks like a mother, and ask her to get me out of this mess.
    Since I don’t answer, she asks me again. ‘Radio?’ she asks and I nod in relief. Vidya has picked up my book and is turning it around, over and over, trying to make sense of it.
    â€˜Such a fat book,’ is all she says finally before handing it back to me.
    I leave the kitchen with all its tantalising cooking smells, my Ajji bent over a grinding stone where she is rhythmically making a paste of something.
    Since everything about my house has changed, I am no longer surprised when the house seems longer and the girls take me to the end of the corridor. They turn there and that’s it. It’s their room. It’s nothing like the room Raina and I share. It’s sparse with just a bed and two mattresses lined up against the wall. There are two wooden cupboards and a couple of steel trunks on the ground. There’s a faint musty smell in the air. I sit down gingerly on the bed.
    â€˜You’ll want to take a bath,’ Suma says and I resist the urge to roll my eyes. Making me take baths even now!
    â€˜Actually, I’m good. I don’t need to change my clothes either,’ I say, hoping they won’t insist that I wear their flared pants.
    â€˜But … you just spent three days on the train!’ Suma exclaims and I sigh. She’s not going to let go. That’s when I notice that there’s a small square mirror hanging on the wall and Reena is standing before it, turning this way and that.
    Gosh, Reena Aunty was so vain, I think, trying to suppress a smile when I remember the strict Maths teacher that she’s become.
    Suma’s eyes follow mine and she shakes her head. ‘You idiot. The photo session is over. Stop preening. We should rename you and call you Preena,’ she says and I’m surprised at how funny that sounds. We all start laughing except Reena of course, who sulks.
    â€˜Wait a minute,’ I say suddenly. ‘What photo session?’
    Suma makes a face. ‘Manoj’s grandfather is crazy when it comes to photography. He has his own dark room and he constantly uses us as subjects. Just now before you came, he took our photo