Corner Store

“Which one? Alphonso or Kesar?” The grocer seesawed his hands, holding a different kind of mango in each, and eyed the cricket game in the far corner of the wall. He didn’t bother looking at me. I don’t think I minded that.

“Kesar is good,” I said, too fast. Did I know the difference? Barely. But the one I’d chosen looked plumper, and plumper surely meant tastier, right? I fumbled around with my phone while he packed them into a flimsy plastic bag that flaunted cartoon hands forming a sinister namaste.

“Thank you.” I took the bag from him over-graciously and made my way to the vegetable aisle.

This was my third visit to Corner Store in four days, and I’d only just moved to Mumbai. Each passing day, my homesickness lapsed into the comfort of constant bustle by night. I had thought it would take a while to settle in a new city, but strangely, I felt at home here already. Perhaps it was the anonymity?

I’m not sure what I liked about this place. Corner Store, I mean. It was a regular department store, like every other in my hometown: too busy for my liking, spread open to noisy roads, packed with bored staff that made no effort to conceal their judgment of customers.

But this store had interesting visitors. They made me curious. Back in my hometown, people rarely visited a grocery unless they had to grab essentials that had long run out at home. Socializing was certainly not a reason. I used to shop at night when the roads weren’t swathed in another electricity blackout, peering into stores to see if they had my cousin’s medicines, then rush home before street dwellers could prod me for coins I didn’t have. We were all taught to be careful, cautious, controlled. I had known then that I belonged somewhere better, but I’d slowly begun to view my freedom as a far away dream.

The quirks of Mumbai folk fascinated me because everyone seemed carefree and forward here. They each had a story of their own to tell—no one truly belonged, and yet they all did. Like the schoolgirl who spent her cash on secret brown packages at the counter, then paisas on calls to her boyfriend from the cashier’s phone. Or the street vendor who called himself “Corner’s Owner’s Brother” and left a peculiar trail of smell behind him when he came by to get change for petty transactions. Or the guy—

The guy.

The real reason I visited so often.

Speak of the devil. There he was, right there by the newspaper aisle! I spun towards the vegetable rack and pretended to be interested in a row of baby cabbages, donning a casual face and hoping he wouldn’t see me. Secretly, I hoped he would.

God, what was I doing? I risked a glance and caught him hunched over a copy of the Economic Times. He was holding the same brown tote bag that he always did, and his clean, simple loafers indicated style yet humility. He sported a polo shirt that I knew smelled good, and, on his hand, a smart leather-strap watch. He looked striking. Sharp. And yet, he looked ordinary. There was a familiar, endearing charm about him that felt like home.

The guy had smiled at me on my first day here. We’d been shopping in the same aisle, and I had felt his curious eyes on me. When I’d turned, he’d been startled. He had grinned kindly then, with a nod, and returned to his cart.

I hadn’t paid much heed to him but I saw him again the next day when I’d popped in for office supplies. He was picking agarbattis by scent. Something about a man my age mulling over prayer sticks in Mumbai while others hunted for electronic scratch-cards cried modesty but also confidence. Why, when I moved here, had I vowed to hide my love for my culture? The very values I grew up with? From then on, each time I saw the guy at Corner Store, I experienced tingles stronger than before. Last night, I had spent hours imagining irrational meet-cutes with him. Was I infatuated? Perhaps. In a matter of four days?

God help me.

“Maai’dam?” a store assistant burst my bubble of thought and surveyed me suspiciously. I’d been daydreaming for a bit, staring at the cabbages. He probably thought I was up to no good.

“Cashier’s that way.” He pointed towards the large counter towards the front of the store, sensing I didn’t really have anything more than the mangoes to buy. He was right. I didn’t. I’d been convincing myself that I needed mangoes when all I needed was a glimpse of the guy.

Oh well. Plump mangoes would do me good too.

“Yes, thank you,” I said to the assistant and walked away with a hot face, quietly slipping into the line that was beginning to form by the check-out area. Just when the cashier called for my turn, I realized that the guy was right behind me.

“Only mangoes?” the cashier asked coolly. He was loud enough for everyone to hear.

I grimaced in my mind. “Yes, please, thank you.”

“Okay.” He punched in some keys and put my mangoes into another large bag of namastes. “Do you want to donate?” He hovered his finger over a key unblinkingly, prepared to print the receipt like he always did, prepared to skip the donation, a response I later realized was the norm around here.

“Yes,” I blurted.

“Yes?” he looked at me, amused.

“Yeah sure, why not?” I laughed. Why had I said that? Why not? What was this, a gamble for free coupons?

“Okay.” The grocer punched in some more keys and asked, “How much?”

“Uh, how much is the usual?”

“Ten, twenty-five, fifty, hundred. You decide.”

“Okay, hundred is okay.”

The cashier seemed even more amused now. “Okay. Fifty rupees for mangoes. Hundred for donation.”

I felt my face get hotter as soon as I’d realized my foolishness. “Okay,” I said blankly. I was donating for a good cause, I told myself. Others might deem me a fool, but at least I understood the value of money. I knew from my childhood what even ten rupees could mean to someone. I was doing good.

It was only when I pulled out my purse that I realized I was better off vanishing into thin air. I’d forgotten my wallet.

It took me a while to say that.

“I forgot my wallet.”

The cashier stared at me. The line behind me got huffy and impatient, and I wasn’t sure if that was worse than the cashier’s sudden transformation, which was now a look of newfound pity. He ushered me aside with a frown and lowered his voice this time. “No matter. Just pay next time.” He must really have felt bad for me because he added, “No donation needed.”

I shook my head indicating that that wasn’t a problem, and peered into my purse to make sure I hadn’t missed it.

“It’s okay, I can pay,” an unfamiliar voice said from behind me. I spun around, startled, and came face to face with the guy. My heart stopped beating for a split second. Oh dear. This was just as bad as my meet-cute fantasizing.

“No, that’s all right,” I breathed.

“You can PayPal me later, don’t worry,” he said with a gentle laugh. His voice sounded just like I’d imagined, raw and natural, so warm to my ears that I felt myself give in to waves of tiny goosebumps. I shook my head to say no, slightly numb, bumbling something about it being okay and that I would just come back with my wallet.

“Well,” he hesitated, slightly bewildered. “It’ll be easier for you if you just PayPal me. But no worries.”

When the woman in line behind him heaved a sigh, the world finally came crashing down. What was I saying? I was wasting time. Overthinking as usual. Why had I said no?

I turned and looked at the guy in the eye. “I’m sorry, actually, do you mind paying for me?”

“Sure, yeah, of course not,” he stepped forward immediately and placed his card in the machine, completing the transaction. His slender, honey-colored arms moved calmly, making tufts of faint dark hair dance against the sunlight. I nervously traced the features of his face and lingered over his eyes longer than I thought I’d be able to. His hairstyle was ruffled, carefree, his stubble clean.

After handing me my mangoes, the cashier proceeded to swipe the guy’s items next. He asked if he wanted to donate, chuckling at his own question and eager to share a joke with the guy. But the guy glanced at me briefly, ignoring the jest, almost as if reassuring me, supporting me, before responding with a solid yes and passing the cashier a hundred-rupee note.

The next day, Corner Store flaunted an outdoor flea market. I’d overheard a store assistant advertising it to a customer yesterday, insisting that people mingled by the stalls and snacked on popular street food, and that she absolutely must come. I wondered if this was a holy opportunity from all the gods taking pity on me to meet him again.

There would be furniture too, the assistant had croaked with waggling fingers and eyebrows. Of course, furniture wasn’t on my mind. Anticipation was, and it made me giddy.

The streets were busier than usual with the flea stalls having taken up almost half the road. Green and blue tarp speckled the top of stalls, forming a striking pattern along concrete and offering shoppers temporary shelter from the heat. Windchimes tinkled under a hot breeze, syncing every now and then with the milkmen’s bicycle bells.

I was ready this time. Ready with my wallet, with my new Himalayan backpack, perfume sprayed onto the hidden folds of my tunic for subtle appeal, and a pair of sparkling jhumkis painfully tugging on my ears. In a quick moment of smugness, I smiled and wished I had done this more often back home. It was strange to think how my cousins and I had always been reluctant to dress up, let alone act silly every once in a blue moon. Instead, each week, we organized piggy banks and counted change for bouts of false assurance.

Then I finally got the job offer in Mumbai.

If there was one thing I knew, it was that I was ready to embarrass myself again today, but not without looking good.

It took me a while of mindless shopping to realize with disappointment that this was no holy opportunity. I still hadn’t spotted him. Defeated that the guy probably wasn’t going to come, I made my way through some more bobbing heads to greet my arch-nemesis instead.

“Hi.” I forced myself to smile at the cashier. He was organizing damp posters in front of a trailer that sold coconuts and sugarcane juice. The cashier took one glance at me and returned to his stale marketing.

“Hello hello.” The double greeting had an undertone of recognition, making it clear that he knew just who I was. Was that an eye-roll I sensed in his voice?

I beamed, overlooking his gibe. “Hello hello.”

He stared at me before letting out a chortle. “Copying me. What do you want, Maai’dam? Got your wallet today?”

I forced myself to speak clearly, bravely. “Yes, I did. See?” I zipped it open and presented a neatly folded receipt for the trinkets I’d bought at the flea stalls. “I was hoping you could help me.”

The man straightened his back and scratched his belly with an accompanying, noisy yawn. “Ask ask.”

“Do you know that man who paid for me yesterday?”

“Haa?”

“Do you know him?”

“Yes, I know him. He’s my good customer.”

“Will he be coming today?”

“Why?”

“I have to pay him back, remember?” I lied swiftly, surprising myself.

“Maai’dam. He’s my good customer and also my…good friend.” He waited for me to say something, but I didn’t quite understand his point. “Maai’dam, he told me you already gave him the PayPal.”

“Oh!” I stuttered. “Yes.” One thing I couldn’t do well was sustain a consistent lie, let alone tell a good one. I tried anyway. “Well, this is for something else. A different payment.”

“Hmm. Okay.” The cashier thought for a while and then popped into the trailer. He didn’t return.

The guy did.

My heart immediately began a gallop.

Wait. Had the guy had been in the trailer all along? Had he heard me? And just how well did this cashier know him?

The guy came walking towards me, wiping his hands on a checkered apron, and even though my cheeks were burning furiously, I managed to hold a steady smile.

“Hey,” he was smiling quite widely himself. “I see you got your wallet today.”

“Yeah,” I waved it around awkwardly. “So, you’re working in the trailer or something?” I pointed behind him and nodded like it made sense.

“Oh, yeah.” He seemed to hesitate for a while. “I’m helping out my brother-in-law.”

“That’s nice,” I grinned before realizing what he’d said. Brother-in-law? The guy worked for the cashier? Was he helping the cashier as a friend? Volunteering? Wasn’t he a regular customer? The next thought nearly gutted me. Did brother-in-law mean he was married?

“Sorry, that probably doesn’t make any sense to you.” The guy laughed with a hint of nervousness I was surprised to catch in his voice. “The cashier, he’s, uh, my sister’s husband. She’s expecting a baby soon so he needs to be home more often. I come here when it gets busy.” His voice shook ever so slightly. “It’s a little complicated.”

I swallowed a new surge of warmth and confusion. “That’s wonderful,” I managed to say. He looked at me with an expression I couldn’t read. I composed myself and reached instinctively for my bag. “That’s wonderful. Your sister must be overjoyed.”

He ran a hand down the side of his face, struggling to say something. “I know this isn’t quite what you imagined when you saw me at the store. I’m not quite the regular customer. I’m.. uh, I grew up in a poor village, you see,” he bluntly stated as if finally releasing something burdensome. I kept nodding while I felt through my backpack for the chit I’d prepared. His eyes searched for mine, trying to gather my reaction and to explain himself. Only he didn’t have to.

“Look, I’m sorry if you’re disappointed,” his words were jumbled. “My sister and I are the first in our family to get an education. We moved here years ago, though, and I’m happy that we’ve both made well. She fell in l— she met her husband in public school.”

I looked at him steadily, settling deep into his gaze. “I don’t understand. What are you sorry about?” Something had lifted off my own shoulders, something invisible. I didn’t have to worry or impress or overanalyze or pretend for a change. Even though we were different on surface, a person like me, with the past I’d escaped from, knew his. The guy and I were each trying to belong. And in that, we were the same.

I was free.

I passed him the chit. “Please read this. I wrote it for you. I was going to give it to the ca—well, I guess I’ve found you now.”

He opened his mouth to say something but reached for the chit instead. As he began to read it, slowly, gently, carefully, I felt myself stiffen, vulnerable under his sincere attention. I didn’t dare swallow.

When he finished, his eyes were glazed. He took his time removing his apron and placing it on the trailer countertop, and then looked at me and smiled.