Chapter 5

"Are you blind? I mean, are you totally, completely blind? Look at what you did, you idiot!"

Merlyn's voice rose higher with each sentence, until she was almost shouting. Partly because the traffic was so loud around her, but mostly because she was pissed. Majorly.

She walked around her Zen, examining the damage. As she did this, she massaged her neck and head. It was a wonder she didn't have whiplash. Or maybe she did and didn't know it yet. And look at the car. The rear end was badly scrunched, both tail-lights were smashed, the rear windscreen was shattered and held together only by the sunscreen film.

"I don't believe this crap! I just don't believe it! How can anyone be so blind!"

This had turned out to be such a day. The lousiest in years. Just when she thought she was getting a grip on herself, when the tears had stopped at least temporarily, when she didn't see Hemant's face at every curb, this had to happen. Some bade-baap-ka-bigda-hua-aulad in a big car in a big hurry had to ram her in the butt. She ignored the honks and curses of the vehicles swerving to avoid her and the crash as she walked right around the Zen, surveying the damage.

A car door slammed and she saw the villain of the piece walk towards her. He didn't stop to look at his own front fender -- although she could see some major damage there too -- but just walked straight up to her.

"Who the hell do you think you are? Don't you know basic road traffic rules? That you're supposed to signal when you're turning?"

"Turning? Who was turning? I was just driving quietly along, minding my own frikking business. You're the one that came out of nowhere and tail-gated me!" Merlyn could hear the fury in her voice, all the emotional build-up over Hemant venting itself.

"You changed lanes!" the man yelled. "You changed lanes and came into the right lane without signalling!"

"Listen, you arrogant creep! I don't know who the hell you think you are, but don't try to play mind games with me."

Merlyn had half a mind to drag this man off to Gamdevi Police Station and file an FIR against him. That's what these guys deserved. He looked like a rich brat. Young, not over 30, like her, hunky in a worldly kind of way -- even in her fury she registered that much. Really nicely built, excellent suit and tailoring. And the car was a Josh Machine. Yes, definitely upper crust. And the way he spoke, he had a definite trace of a foreign accent she couldn't quite place. American? Canadian? Something anyway. But what an obnoxious creep! She couldn't let him get away with this.

Which was why she was so surprised when the man made a visible effort to get a hold of himself, made a sudden choking sound like he was having an angina attack or something. And started laughing. Really laughing.

Merlyn almost grinned reflexively, then controlled herself. This was crazy, standing here in the middle of the road at Marine Drive, just before Patel Bridge, her car half-smashed by a reckless driver, and the man was laughing his head off. He had a nice laugh, full-throated, open-hearted, and he threw his hands out now, like a man beneath a waterfall, eyes shut, laughing like an escapee from an insane asylum.

"I knew it," she said half to herself. "He's a certified maniac."

And beside herself, she felt the laughter emerge from within her. Or maybe it was really grief at losing Hemant. Grief at wasting her whole fricking life. At wasting all those years on a career that suddenly didn't seem worth it anymore, at chasing the wrong dream for too long, at losing the only man who had seemed to understand all her contradictions, her messes, her crinkly sense of humour.

So she laughed. Like she'd never laughed before in her life. Except maybe when she was, like, a kid.

A traffic cop approaching from Chowpatty Bridge on a bike -- he must have received a message over his walkie-talkie that there was a crash near the Bridge -- looked amazed to see what looked like two cars scrunched up into each other, and the two drivers standing beside the crash and laughing their guts out.

The endless stream of commuters driving home after a long day's work, passing the crash, saw the good-looking man and woman standing on the road and laughing, but drove on by. This was Bambai, meri jaan.

And out of the open door of the Ford flew a little object, printed art card, square-ish, an invitation of some sort. It flapped wildly in the wind, as if in accompaniment to the helpless spasms of laughter, then settled on the road. The left front wheel of an Ambassador went over it, plastering it to the concrete. But even through the tyre treads, the words Sin City were visible.