Mrs Goody Two Shoes VIII

On the prowl

Being a chaperone can be quite a challenge

The groom was there to see HER. SHE was the one batting her eyelids and trying to hook a rich, bulky, greasy software guy, or more like trying to hook his car and flat and money. So what was I doing there, in a multi-thousand-rupee georgette sari, stilettos and even a specially done au naturel look?
This was Latika auntie's daughter, all of twenty-six and eager to fall into the arms of her prince charming, which included whoever would wed her and bed her. Nothing wrong with that, of course. It was her life and if she could get a man who was interested in her dark magenta lipstick, almost gooey with being overdone, or her endless blabber about the kind of cuts that suit her "lissome", as she chooses to see it, or her bulging-at-the-sides, as I choose to see it, figure, then it was fine by me.
The hitch was while she was on her full-time mission of getting hitched, I was tagging along, like an old chaperone. Latika auntie had been teary-eyed, "No boy is understanding the worth of my sweet little beautiphool baby. Listen, if you go with her, like this sister, they will know how well-cultured my baby is." The baby, in the meantime, was trying hard to get into a dress that was bursting at the seams.
“Poor dress,” I was lost in my thoughts, while Latika auntie looked upon me as this paragon of Victorian morals, staring expectantly for a reply. “Oh ... yes... you were saying... oh yes...umm,” I spluttered. “So what was my role again?” my mind was adrift again trying to figure out what was being asked of me. But those many yes’es had already been read as a positive by Latika auntie. “Thank you, thaaaank you, beta. So tomorrow, wear an expensive sari, and go with her to the cafe, tell the boy about...,” a barrage of instructions assailed me. Well, I needed them for sure, never having attended one of these pre-nuptial rituals of getting the ‘boy’ and the ‘girl’ to meet. And since it would be insensitive on my part to get out of the pickle I was in, I found myself at the cafe on a sultry afternoon, wearing a heavy sari and stilletos, listening to:
“You know, I like chocolate ice cream sooo much!” [How WOULD he know, this was the first ever meeting!!!]
“That‘s sweet.”
Giggle giggle...
“Do you like Hindi films?” [She is right out of one, are you blind or what?
I sipped on the coffee, stared at the love birds, and heard the screaming in me head grow louder with every sweet nothing they whispered.