Between the Lines Chapter 5

I was standing near the doorway of the library watching aimlessly at people entering and leaving the campus. Undergraduates in shorts, business graduates in dresses and tidy trousers, and Ph.D. candidates in dreary supermarket clothes. I was handing over the pamphlets of a seminar to be organized by the whizkid society on campus next week. A guy from one of the master's courses in mechanical engineering had invented a compact solar panel, which was portable and relatively inexpensive to build. Another guy had built a portable fridge. Our seminar was focussed on innovation in science and allowed us to share our inventions with the campus to generate response and feedback from the student community. Genie, my Robot was still in her alpha phase of development, and I had to perhaps research and work further on her for a few more years before I could share her capabilities with the world. My thoughts about Genie, our projects, the library, the sight of pretty girls passing by, suddenly everything including my present environment became blurred.

I spotted her entering the library in her skin tight jeans, and orange blouse. She was dark, with jet black long hair, and jet black eyes. I rushed down the escalator to the boy who was handing pamphlets to the students below. "You carry on.I have to rush for a meeting", I said and hurried back to the library. She was behind a row of books, busy looking at her list and then looking at the row of books in front of her. "May I help", I asked her. She smiled at me, and replied, "I am trying to find these three books, I have checked their availability. Could you tell me which row I can find them in?". I was paralyzed. She was beautiful, her mouth like the petals of a lotus bloom. "I am afraid I don't work here. what's your name?", I blurted. I saw a faint sign of irritation on her brows.She pushed back her hair and was inspecting me now with her cold black eyes. "Why do you want to know my name?", she almost whispered. And then a bit loudly, "I mean if you don't work here", she remarked. I was taken aback by her rudeness. Her beautiful eyes were now like those of a furry cat about to plunge on a mouse. I apologized and hurriedly made my exit from the library.

I was a fairly good looking introvert man, and girls in the campus always wanted to know more about me. They would come to me and introduce themselves, sometimes hand me their handphone numbers. I hated going to bars, where drunk women approached me all the time to the amusement of my friends. I often heard girls whispering to themselves, "Wow he is so cute!", as I walked passed classrooms and seminars, or even university get together's. I loved the attention, but I preferred to be aloof. I had a girlfriend when I was in high school, but we broke up after a year of dating. She was too possessive, and I was too young.I was ambitious. and I loved my work, my research, friends, and my hobbies.I had friends, and they doted on me,  I went out with friends once in a while to bars and pubs.I was young and I did not want to miss out on the fun both in and out of campus. I was not among those who kept scores, I found that disgusting. But this one was different. Fuck man, she was rude! Who the hell did she think she was? 

I could not concentrate on my research that day. I just couldn't. That tiny little creature in blue and orange had aroused in me such emotions as I had never felt before. I hadn't had breakfast that day, and by noon I was starving. I went to the small eclectic Vietnamese cafe near our campus, to buy myself lunch. I remembered she was carrying a cheap cloth bag, a huge one, like one of those my grandmother, stitched at home for her knitting bags. I remembered she was looking for books on macroeconomics. Of course, she had to be an economic or business or finance student. I left my soup untouched, and hurried back to the campus, to the office of student affairs. The lady at the desk looked at me with suspicious eyes. "So you don't know her name, or her class or her department?", she questioned me. "No", I replied. "But it is an urgent message from her brother, and he told me her name, but maybe it is her short name or something", I added. I was lying, but I was confident and looked at her earnestly. "OK, give me her subject and her short name, let me see if I can help you", she said smiling at me. She liked me, women always did."She is Andy, and she has an economics major", I lied. "Do you know her race? There is no Andy in our list here, I am afraid", the lady said. "I think she is Mexican", I replied. I lied again. The lady at the desk apologized, "So sorry sir, We do not have any student matching these details in our list here". I thanked her and left.

The week was spent in mindless unproductive work and our science seminar was a complete drag.The following week also went by, and I had lost hope of ever finding her again. She would probably remain in my dreams for the rest of my life. and then I saw her again. I had met a girl in my favorite lunch hangout, who had persuaded me to go to the university drama club. She was chirpy, and she loved talking on and on. That Friday evening, I entered the hall where they organized their drama group gatherings, and saw her in the middle of the hall, reciting her dialogue.

She was playing the role of a nun, and it was a full dress rehearsal. Her hair was hidden in her costume, but she was beautiful nonetheless, and her speech delivery immaculate. She was talented, immensely I thought. When the act was over, everyone clapped. My friend from my lunch hangout was by now fiercely tugging on my arm. She loved drama, as much as I loved programming. She began telling me about their drama events, and how they had even won inter-university awards. "Guno is amazing, she is one of our best. At first, some of the artists in our group had refused to include her as she was Indian, and they didn't know how they could justify her involvement in our dramas which were mostly based on western acts.But then we asked her to audition, and then we knew she would be an asset to our group. Isn't she fantastic?", my friend asked.

So she was Indian. That could be challenging, I thought. "I think she is ok", I muttered. Guno had turned her attention to us by now. I thought I saw a faint recognition in her face, but she chose to ignore me! My friend, Olivia, approached her. "Hey Guno, meet my friend, Hubert. He likes Vietnamese food like me", she remarked. I shamelessly extended my hand. She shook them like a man. Her grip was firm and vehement. "Pleased to meet you Hubert", she said. She did not say her name.

Olivia and Guno chatted for a while. I noticed her catch a fleeting glimpse of me a few times, but every time our eyes met, she seemed to immediately ignore me, and look the other way. I felt tormented, like a serpent on parched land.

Olivia suggested to have coffee together and dragged me along. She somehow always kept clinging to my arms, as if I was her boyfriend. I could see disgust from the fleeting glimpses of those cat eyes, every time Olivia grabbed my arm and pushed me around. She was very friendly with Olivia but did not speak a word with me. I brought the coffee from the counter while the girls chatted. I placed the cups in front of the girls and sat opposite Olivia. Olivia dragged her chair closer to me and grabbed my arm again. "Hubert is a whizkid, you know", she said. "I see", she replied with a fake smile, the corners of her mouth twisting like the edges of a begonia leaf. a strand of her unruly hair kept falling over her eye, and she kept pushing it back with her fingers. The fierce cat-like eyes defied her soft-spoken ness. Her complexion was the color of earth. Her nails were painted dark red, but she had no makeup, not even a mascara. Her large eyes had even larger lashes, and they kind of fell over like the lid of a coffin over a dead body, but in this case more like a lid over a gushing waterfall.  She was perhaps not rude, just different. Yes, different was the right word. Olivia's friends from her drama class joined our table when they spotted us. Two boys and a girl. They knew Olivia and her friend. They chatted about their drama. But she was quiet, she mostly listened. I noticed she was uncomfortable with the other two boys as well. She seemed to get along very well with the girls. Was she different in her sexual orientation? God, I hoped not.She excused herself from the chat and said she had to head back to pick some groceries. Olivia and the other girl laughed. "You and your money saving strategies Guno", the other girl commented. "I am the real economist", she remarked. "Chow girls", she said and left. She did not say anything to the boys.

I got up almost immediately. “I better hurry back to my work”, I said, and followed her. She stopped to get a packet of candies. I bought a pack of cigarettes. We did not speak to each other. I took out my cigarette and walked beside her. As I was about to light it, she suddenly touched my hand with her fingers. Her touch was electrifying. “No don’t”, she said. “I hate smoking”, she added. I put the cigarette back in its box. We walked silently, as we passed the classrooms, the gardens and then to the parking lot. She spoke again suddenly. “Your girlfriend Olivia lives right next door to me”, she said. “She is not my girlfriend. She is just a friend I met her at the Vietnamese café outside our campus. We often have lunch together”, I replied.  She did not reply. I opened the door of her car for her. She got inside and drove off.

Love was a weird thing. I knew I liked her, or at least maybe hated her when I had first seen her. But after the second time, I met her, I knew it was much deeper than a like or dislike. She was my life, and I couldn’t live another day without her. Yes, she was beautiful, and yes, she was different. I did not even care if she had a different orientation. If she had, I would have to change that. I knew she was mine, and I could potentially turn the whole world upside down to get her.