The Ice-cream Parlour Girl

I love the ice-cream parlour at the end of the road. Brightly lit and with plush seats everywhere, a myriad of colors and flavours in rectangular glass boxes inviting you, the air conditioned air with a mild fragnance, this was the perfect place to take out your girlfriend to on a summer evening. And it was only for the last reason that I loved it. I and Sunny( would come back to him later) often would go out to this shop to look at all the couples making out there. Initially, the waiter used to come and ask if we wanted something. But we were always ready with excuses like “Oh, do you have the exotica-de-olivia?” or “Shit! We thought you accepeted credit cards” or “Do you take orders for home delivery coz we dont eat icecreams at public places.” After some days, the poor waiter resigned to his fate and concluded that we were like those uninvited pigeons which inevitably came when you bought a house at the top floor. We would sit at our favourite place and rue the fact that the squint eyed guy was with “hot legs” or that the guy with eleven fingers always came with a different girl. But today was going to be different.

Sunny had been my best friend since the day I knew what ‘best friend’ stood for. He had the look of a rapper who had been forced to turn a schoolteacher. Always with his just-outta-bed hairstyle and his trademark red glasses, he blabbered nonsense incessantly and was annoying at most times. You had to try very hard to like him at first sight. And sights thereafter. My mother hated him. Back when I first took him to my house, my mother was sitting on the couch doing what housewives do best- watching soap opera while the maid cleaned the table squinting at the tv. Before I could introduce everyone, Sunny went, touched our maid’s feet. My mother had been hit where it hurt the most.The closest Sunny had come to a girl was three years ago when he often talked with a girl on the phone. They hadnt met each other but they were “very close”. When the girl met Sunny and asked him if she looked the same as he had imagined, he said,” Hell! You have way too smaller boobs.” That was the end of that. That's Sunny for you.

Today was a special day. Not because it rained on a summer evening, though it was a contributing factor. But because we met Sonali. When Sonali, soaked wet, enetered, every guy on every table looked at her. All the dogs, with thier tounges out were looking at a fresh new piece of bone. While others quickly realising that they were tamed ones, drew their tounges in, I realised I was a wild dog. It was the first time I was happy about sitting here with Sunny rather than a chick. Both of us were smiling at her. She smiled back and came and sat at our table.

“Hi I am Sonali.”
“I am Rahul and this is my friend Sunny.”, I said.
“You can call me Sunny.” Yeah, thats Sunny again for you.
“So, how come you are all wet?”, Sunny asked.
“Oh I was just going to my house when it started raining. I hate being all wet in the rain.”, she said wiping her hair with a napkin.
“Well, you can always pee in your pants during the rain. The warm liquid always feels nice against your thighs. And you dont even have to wash your pants again.”, Sunny said with a serious face.
Probably she took it as a joke and smiled.
“So you come here often?”, Sonali asked.
“Yeah sometimes when we are free and...”I was beginning to say when I was interrupted.
“Yes everyday, not to eat though. We come here just to watch the couples kissing.”
I forced a nervous laugh as if to say, “Nice joke”
We talked for a few minutes till the rain stopped. She promised she would meet us again tomorrow here.


The next morning, I went to Sunny and said I wanted to see her alone. He said he understood. Probably, he had been planning to say that to me before. I dont know why he did that. Sometimes, you think you know a person so well, but he opens a facet sompletely unknown to you. When I went to the shop, Sonali was already sitting there. She seemed dissapointed that Sunny hadnt come. I lied to her that he would come soon. Though we talked, she always had her eyes on the door. I was really jealous that she would like Sunny more than me. It was then that I realised that love is not all about appearance. Love is more about connecting with someone. Weird as it may seem, love is more like a plug and hole combination. If the plug is too loose, it falls off whereas if it is too tight, one or the other usually cracks. You just need the perfect connection to stay alive in a relationship. You may have the most decorated plug but if it does not connect, its useless. And Sonali had connected with Sunny. And “hot legs” had connected with the squint-eyed guy. And the guy with eleven fingers connected with everyone.

That night, I went to Sunny and told him that Sonali liked him. I was standing far off from him as I knew he would do his “I am so happy” dance crushing everything that came within his way. But he silently listened as if he had known this way too earlier. Why was he behaving differently today? Change often creeps me out. As soon as I closed the door, I could hear a vase crashing down. I was too happy that it was the same Sunny...


( To be continued...)
/fiction