Anjali's Red Scarf Ch. 09

Without meaning to, I spent rather longer than might be polite looking over her shoulder, trying to work out what it was, before realising that I'd been staring so long it verged on spying on her. At that point there was only one thing to do.

"Excuse me, but if you don't mind me asking, what's the spreadsheet?"

"This? Oh." Anjali reached for the remote, and paused the movie in the middle of a song-and-dance number. "It's silly, but... I lose track of how often I've been in touch with my friends. Sometimes I'd just pick up the phone and call somebody to say hi, and they'd be very cross with me because I hadn't talked to them in months and they thought I was cutting them off on purpose. And sometimes I got anxious about one of my friends because it felt like it was always me calling her, never her calling me, so I worried that I was annoying her and she was trying to ignore me until I went away."

"Oh. Yeah, I can relate." It's something I've had great difficulty explaining to friends: how I can like somebody a lot, even love them, and yet forget about their existence for months on end.

"So I started keeping records. I update when I contact them or they contact me, and when we get quality time together. So for my friend Varsha, if it's been more than three weeks, it turns orange, and more than six weeks it turns red. Different time allowances for different people."

"Huh. That's... kind of clever."

She smiled sourly. "It would be if I wasn't awful at remembering to use it. And to update it when I talk to people. I didn't realise quite how bad things were going in Mumbai until I opened it the other night and saw a sea of red."

"I have to ask. Am I in it?"

"In theory yes, but I haven't figured out what the rules ought to be. Obviously we see one another every fortnight, but I don't know if it counts when I'm... working. Is that friends time too, or is it different?"

"Dunno. I think I'd need to ask a philosopher for that one."

And then we went back to the movie, and Anjali went back to info-dumping about the rivalry between Bollywood, Tollywood, Mollywood, and several other -ollywoods that I'd never heard of before. As her spreadsheet slowly turned from autumn colours back into spring, she began to sound a little less stressed.

For my part, I had to keep reminding myself to keep my hands off. It was strange; I'd grown so accustomed to having license to touch her as I wanted, and now I wasn't sure where the boundaries lay when we were together as friends. Hips touching as we sat side by side: probably okay. A hand on her thigh, probably not, and I almost broke that one a couple of times from force of habit. I was startled when she turned on the sofa and laid her legs across my lap, and she must have noticed, for she immediately twisted back to sit straight on.

"Sorry! My back is still a bit sore from travelling, I wasn't thinking. I'm so used to—"

"Oh, you too?" I grinned. "Look, make yourself comfortable. I won't tell if you don't. I promise not to get handsy."

So she lay back, legs across my lap once more—like friends who are just physically comfortable with one another, I reminded myself, not like that other thing—and we watched as good prevailed over evil, a treacherous rival was vanquished, and the beautiful people drove off into the sunset together.

* * * * *

I was working the next day, so I tiptoed past Anjali (fast asleep on my sofa-bed), leaving her with her spreadsheet and my Netflix password to keep her busy. Mrs. Kapadia called again late in the morning; I told her Anjali was back in the country, and I'd passed on her message but I didn't have anything more to tell her, and so sorry but I have to go to a meeting now.

Around afternoon tea-time, Lucy dropped by my desk. "Hey Sarah. There's a bunch of us going to a trivia night down at the Oak"—that was one of the local pubs—"and there's a spot for you in the team if you want to come."

"Oh, I'd love to. Only, I have a friend staying over." I didn't name Anjali, because I thought Lucy might start speculating if I did.

"Bring 'em along!"

"Well, I'll ask..."

I wasn't at all sure Anjali would be in the right state of mind to spend time with strangers, but I emailed her—she was still keeping her phone switched off—and to my surprise she said yes.

At about half-past five I finished up my work and drifted over to Lucy's area, where a handful of others had already congregated. "Everyone, this is Sarah," Lucy said. "Sarah, this is"—and she reeled off a bunch of names, most of which faded from my memory before she'd finished speaking. The team leader was Trev, a moustached pal of Lucy's from Legal who I'd noticed at the Christmas party, but the rest, mostly colleagues of Trev's, were all a blur.

"Nice to meet you, Sarah. Lu says you're bringing a friend?"

"Yeah, she's meeting us there."

Anjali, as usual, was early and waiting for us. As Lucy walked in ahead of me, I could see the moment of recognition before she turned back to me with a look that was half a question and half a knowing grin.

It's not like that, I thought. But I wasn't sure what that was.

We did the introductions—Trev remembered her from the party—and when the others were distracted with a drinks order I whispered to Anjali. "Didn't think you'd want to come. Let me know if it gets too noisy."

She stood on her tiptoes and whispered back in my ear. "I've been putting off calling my parents all day. Thank you for giving me an excuse to procrastinate some more."

I wasn't convinced that was a good thing, but I was hardly one to judge, and besides I could feel Lucy's eyes on the back of my neck as we whispered. So I didn't argue.

One of the unwritten rules of pub trivia is that your team has to have a comical name, preferably a pun, preferably smutty. Ours was "Quizzy Stradlin"—apparently Trev was a big G'n'R fan—and we were up against Quizzically Fit, Yer A Quizzard Harry, Multiple Choicegasms, and last of all Finding The Quiztoris, who I strongly suspected were yet to do so.

* * * * *

"Anne of Cleves, Anne Boleyn, Catherine Howard, Catherine Parr, Catherine of Aragon... who's the other one?"

"Jane somebody?"

"Yes! Jane Seymour, thanks Lucy."

I'd forgotten how much I enjoy trivia. It's where my ability to remember useless stuff really comes to the fore. Between Anjali and myself we blitzed the science, history, and geography content, with the rest of the team covering for our deficiencies in TV, music, and sport—though even there I managed to get one about Adam Goodes, thanks to my stepfather's devotion to the Swans.

After the second round of questions I had to whisper to Anjali again, "We should slow down a little and give the others a chance to answer," since I realised some of Trev's friends hadn't yet been able to volunteer an answer. By the half-time break we had a decent lead and along the way Trev had won a pitcher of beer for the table in a side contest.

While Anjali was trying out the beer, I slipped out to the ladies' room, accompanied by Lucy. We'd left our run a little late so there was a small line.

"You two have been brilliant tonight!" she chirped, as we waited in line.

"I'm glad Anjali's having fun. She's had a really shitty week."

"Oh no, that's no good!" A couple of women emerged and the ladies ahead of us went in, leaving us alone in the corridor. Lucy took me by the shoulder. "Hey, Sarah?" She was speaking just a little too loud for the distance.

"Yeah?"

"I know it's hard in a new workplace when you don't know people, but... it's okay to be yourself, it really is. You're among friends, nobody here is going to judge." She looked at me earnestly, perhaps over-earnestly.

"Uh, that's, I'm not really sure what you mean?"

"You and Anjali? You don't have to do the 'just good friends' act for our benefit. Nobody at that table is going to be bothered if you say 'girlfriend'."

"What—oh! No, Anjali's not my girlfriend."

"Really? Oh shit, Sarah, I'm sorry. My gaydar has failed me." She looked mortified.

"No no, it hasn't failed you, just... Anjali and me, we're not like that." At that point one of the Multiple Choicegasms arrived in the line behind us, eager to congratulate us on our sterling first-half run, and thankfully that was the end of that line of conversation.

We won the night by five points. Our reward was a victory dance from Lucy and a voucher for a hundred dollars of drinks, redeemable at next week's trivia.

"You'd better come back and help us drink it!" said one of Trev's friends.

"I can't make it next week," said Anjali. "But maybe in a fortnight?"

"I'll be there next week," I said. See! Definitely not a couple.

* * * * *

Anjali and I strolled back to my place together. From the Oak it was about a forty-five minute walk, but the night was warm and pleasant.

"You have fun?" I asked her.

"I did. Lucy is nice!"

"She is. Shall we do this again?"

"On what basis?"

"Eh?"

"As a hanging out as friends thing, or as a date thing?"

"Oh." I pondered that. "What would the difference be? I mean, I wasn't planning on, uh, you know, in the pub."

"Timing. If you want to make it part of our fortnightly bookings, that would be fine. But if it's a friends thing, on top of our dates, then I need to work out my time..."

"Fair enough." Doing a PhD doesn't leave one with an awful lot of spare time.

We walked past bookshops and coffee houses, past the twinkle of places that hadn't yet taken down their Christmas lights. I would have loved to have Anjali along on a regular basis—we made a great team—but I didn't want to commit all my date nights, especially since a Wednesday night would mean both of us needing to work the next day. "Shall we make it a hanging out as friends thing?"

"I'd be delighted! I will come when I can, but it might only be once a month or so."

We stopped for ice cream on the way home, at a little Italian place. It was already soft, and melting faster than I could eat it; by the time we got to the lifts in my building, I had a dribble of lemon-mango running down my hand.

As the sliding doors closed behind us, I said, "I'm sticky. You know what to do," and pressed my fingers between Lily's lips—

No. No, I didn't do that. Because she wasn't on duty that night. But god, I wanted to, and after I'd said my good-night to Anjali and left her on the sofa-bed, I lay there in my own bed and rubbed myself to a pleasant little shuddery climax imagining it.

Oh well. No reason we couldn't have ice cream another night.

I woke in the wee hours of the morning to the sound of the loo flushing, and my sink running, and then a familiar set of footsteps pad-padded towards my bedroom, and a familiar body settled in beside me under the doona.

"Anjali...?"

"Mmm?" I didn't know what to say, but after a few seconds she murmured, "...oh, I'm in the wrong bed, aren't I?"

"I suppose so."

"Sorry. Forgot. So used to..."

"I don't mind. You can stay if you like. Plenty of room."

"Should go back to my bed... just in a minute or two..."

By the time I'd counted sixty in my head, Anjali had long since settled back into sleep. I turned my back to her and folded my arms, just to be sure my own hands wouldn't wander in my sleep.

* * * * *

I was vaguely aware of Anjali's warm presence next to me during the night, but when I woke again in the morning sun she was already up. Neither of us raised the subject of her nocturnal wandering.

"That was a lovely night out," she said over breakfast, "but it's time for me to face the music." She'd been jotting down notes, things to say to her parents. "I need to do this before they come back home, otherwise they'll probably fly straight to Melbourne and start searching house-to-house."

"That's a lot of houses."

"Sarah, have you met my parents?"

"Yeah, point taken. Do you need moral support? I can call in if you—"

"No thanks, it's good of you to offer but I'll do it."

"Okay. Well, I'd better get going if I'm going to make my tram, but give me a buzz after if you like."

"Will do."

She messaged me around lunchtime:

Talked to them. Going home now. Thanks so much for your hospitality.

My pleasure. How did it go?

About as badly as I'd expected. But not worse.

I'm sorry.

(She would fill me in a few days later, when she had processed enough to talk about it. They had patched over the superficial things, resolving the messy business of Anjali's abrupt homecoming with a "let us never speak of this again". But the underlying conflicts were still there—"I can't even talk about these things with them, not really"—and Anjali expected trouble down the road. I thought she was probably right.)

That afternoon, Lucy caught me by the water cooler. She was rather more subdued than she had been the previous night. "Hey Sarah."

"Hey Lucy, how ya doing?"

"Hey, just wanted to say, I'm sorry for any offence last night. Sometimes I don't know when to shut up."

"No, no. We're fine."

"You sure? Only you were looking at me like I was on the nose, and you haven't talked to me all day."

"No, that's just... just how my body language is." At least, I assumed it was my body language, because that's usually the explanation when somebody misreads me. "And I've just been snowed under all day, things on my mind. I promise we're fine. If I had an issue, I'd tell you."

"Thanks, I appreciate that." She hesitated. "By the way, if you're interested, we have a Pride group here, meets once a quarter. I can get you an invite if you like. It's pretty low-key, but we have free biscuits."

"Sure, why not?"

* * * * *

So Wednesday-night trivia with Lucy, Trev, and the rest of Quizzy Stradlin became part of my weekly schedule. Most nights we placed in the top three, and when Anjali joined us one night in February we won again. On the other weeks I got to know some of my colleagues from other parts of the organisation, in a setting that showed me at best advantage, although sometimes I got the feeling parts of the conversation were going over my head.

"So you two knew one another already?" Trev asked us one evening in the scoring break between rounds.

Lucy nodded towards me. "I was at a concert with friends and I saw a lady wearing the most amazing dress. I pointed her out and my friend Thomas said 'oh, I know the woman she's with, the one in the boots, I'll introduce you'. So that was Anjali and Sarah. And then months later we bumped into one another at work!"

She was getting loud again—I'd noticed she had a tendency to get louder as the night went on—but then she dropped her voice and leaned in towards me. "I should have said back then, by the way. Nice boots."

"Thanks! I got them when I moved to Germany." I started telling her about how I got them, but after a little while talking I noticed she no longer seemed to be paying attention, so I let it slide as the host called silence for the next round.

Later in the evening, after we'd collected our second-place winnings (another voucher for more beer next week), Lucy escorted me to the tram stop. "You're good to get home?" she asked.

"I am. It's just a short tram ride." But I appreciated her solicitude.

"You know, Sarah... I just realised I didn't ask the right question last time."

"What question?"

"If it's 'not like that', with you and Anjali"—she did the air-quotes with her fingers—"then what is it like?"

I froze, and she shook her head. "Don't mind me. I'm just a nosy bitch and it's none of my business. Well, here's mine. See you tomorrow?"

"Tomorrow!"

It was in March, Anjali's third showing, that pub trivia was Ruined Forever. Our usual host had moved on to bigger and better things, so we had a new guy. He'd changed the format a little, adding a couple of new events where the team who guessed closest to his secret number got bonus points.

"It's not right," I grumbled, as the Yer A Quizzards edged ahead of us. "Trivia's supposed to be a contest of skill, not luck." Beside me, Anjali nodded, equally indignant.

Anjali perked up next round, when we were asked how many moons Jupiter had. "Oh, I know this one! Seventy-nine. I was just reading about it the other day."

But the answer, according to our host, was sixty-seven.

"That's not right," Anjali said.

"Excuse me?"

She stood up. "It's seventy-nine. They discovered twelve new ones earlier this year."

"Sorry, that's not what I've got in my answers." He pointed to his laptop, as if a thing being written in a document made it true.

"Well, it's wrong. I can find you Sheppard's paper if you want."

"I have to go off these answers. Otherwise it wouldn't be fair if I just gave away points every time somebody didn't like the official answer. Now, where was I? Question 7, the answer is... Liberia."

"But it's not fair now," muttered Anjali dejectedly, sitting back down. The rest of us nodded agreement.

"Trivia events really need a court of appeal," said Lucy, probably not entirely seriously. "Absolute power corrupts ab-so-lutely. Speaking of Absolut..."

Despite these setbacks, we managed to claw our way back to a tie with the Quizzards. "Sudden-death tiebreaker," said the Worst Host. "One representative from each team. First correct answer wins."

"Do you want to go?" said Lucy to Anjali, but she shook her head, still fuming over the Jupiter question. "Righty-o then. Sarah?"

I shrugged. "I'll give it a go."

I stood at the front alongside the head Quizzard, and Worst Host cleared his throat. "Which English poet was described as—"

"Lord Byron," I said.

"—mad, bad, and—what?"

"Lord Byron," I repeated. "Mad, bad, and dangerous to know."

"Okay." He walked up to me, lowering his voice. "Want to tell me how you knew the answer before I asked the question?"

"Excuse me?"

"Were you looking at my screen?"

"What? No." I was trembling now, suddenly in fight-or-flight mode. He was calling me a cheat, wasn't he?

"How could you possibly know the answer before I asked the question?" His voice had risen again, and although I didn't turn around, the quiet behind me told me that the other contestants were paying close attention to us.

"It's obvious, isn't it?" Apparently it wasn't. "He's the only English poet who gets 'described as'. None of the others has a line like that."

"Come on, you don't expect me to believe you thought through all that before I even got to saying what he's described as."

"It's the truth," I said, because it was.

The head Quizzard was shaking his head in disbelief, and I was trying desperately to think of something to say, when Lucy stepped up behind me. "This is bullshit. You're calling my friend a cheat?" Somehow, despite being shorter than the host, she managed to loom over him in her business suit. "You should watch your—"

"Lucy," said Trev.

She turned. "What."

"Elsa time."

For a few seconds she stared at him. Then she shrugged. "Whatever." She strode back to the table, threw her bag over her shoulder, and marched out. I followed, and Anjali followed me, and the rest of our team came after, spilling out onto the footpath as the conversation behind us rose to an excited buzz.

"Well that fucking sucked," Lucy remarked to nobody in particular, startling a hen's-night party who were just passing by.

"It did. Thanks for having my back," I replied. "You okay?"

"Just pissed off. He had no right."

"And he's a bad quizmaster," added Anjali, who I suspected was still holding a grudge the size of twelve small moons. "It's just not the same."

"It's only a game," Trev said, as his mates stood around looking as if they'd rather be somewhere else.

Lucy scowled. "Not a good one."

"Look, I'm heading home. You should do the same." And so we each went our separate ways.