She Went From a Cute Crush to a Heartless Stranger

It was only a rumour — I tried to tell myself

I

She was the first person who loved me.

Claire.

Stepping out of the train, I bumped into someone. When I turned around to apologize, I stopped, finding the girl’s face to be strikingly familiar.

The fragments of memories began to coalesce and a face from long ago swam in front of my eyes.

“Claire Stephans!” I said, slowly.

“Oh my god! I can’t believe it,” she beamed, lunging onto me for a tight hug.

“How long it has been? Seven, eight years?” I asked.

“Nine years mister.”

“My God,” I said, thinking it seems only yesterday when we were in school.

The train behind her whistled and began moving forward. “Your train?”

“I’ll take another.” She held my arm. “It’s been so long. I won’t let you go. Let’s go for coffee.”

We headed towards the exit to the Starbucks outside the station.

II

Claire and I were in school together.

Ours was a typical story.

Two people who got on each other’s nerves at first ended up being good friends. She also had a slight crush on me and we could have ended up together if I wasn’t busy falling in love with another girl.

But still, it was Claire who I remembered after school.

She was one of the kindest and most gentle souls I have ever met.

Spectacled, she looked like a geek in a very cute way.

Her mother taught French in senior school and her father worked in the Embassy of France. So Claire had soaked in French at her home. She would pepper her talk with choice French phrases and could talk in a perfect French accent.

All this added to her allure.

She had a subtle way of expressing her fondness for me. Little hints she would drop that others could not pick up.

Like the notes that she sometimes gave me written in French without explaining what they meant.

Those were pre-Google translation days and I had to go Library and spend an hour or two translating the meaning word by word using a dictionary.

They turned out to be something about class gossip or some secret she wanted to share with me. Sometimes they were a piece of advice, at others some help in studies I desperately needed. And sometimes they were poems, indirect references to her feelings towards me.

She also made the dots over i’s and j’s in the shape of hearts. Only in these notes. Her notebooks had round vanilla ordinary-looking dots.

Apart from these little hints she didn’t ever impose herself upon me.

It must have been hard seeing me falling over someone else. But if she did feel bad, she never showed it. Maybe she prized our friendship more than her love for me.

And yet I would be lying if I say I didn’t notice how much she cared for me and did things to make me happy.

Only after when school got over, and we went to different colleges in two extremities of the country that I realized how much I missed her.

Only if I wasn’t on a wild goose chase I would have given us a thought.

But it was too late, right?

III

The cafe was surprisingly deserted for this time of the day.

We found a table in the corner and sat with two Capuccinos, two croissants, and a lemon loaf cake.

“Tell me,” she said after taking a bite of the cake, “what you had been for all these years?”

I told her my story in a quick gist.

After school, engineering college, then a couple of years of work followed by a post-graduate study break, and then back to work again.

“No girlfriend?” she asked.

I recounted the series of failed relationships, the one-sided affairs, the happy stories that turned into disasters, and my insecurities and pettiness contributing to those titanic-level relationship disasters.

She laughed.

She took a sip of coffee. “I can’t believe this is all you. You had such a good boy image. I always imagined you settling in with someone, living a postcard-perfect life.”

I waved my hand, not wanting to open the pages of my book of regret. “Enough about me. What about you?”

She told me she was dating this guy she had met on a retreat. From what she explained I gathered he was some kind of bohemian. An esthete with long locks of hair, and wore loose-fitting clothes. The artist kind who had found a way to get out of this system, and live a free life, unbounded, unrestrained.

And they were in love.

Happy.

Content.

And soon they were going on a trip to Paris. Everything was sorted. Only Visa pending. Once done, they will go on a year-long retreat.

I felt a pang of jealousy.

Which was absurd.

I didn’t give a damn about her feelings in the school, didn’t keep in touch afterward, and ten years have passed now — it was too late to get become Jealous-Julie. Right?

Thankfully, the discussion veered off toward career and other friends.

About forty minutes later we got up, exchanged numbers, and parted with promises to catch up again.

On the train I kept thinking about her, the little hearts she used to make on my cards and the geeky smile on her face.

IV

“I met Claire,” I told Danny.

Danny was one of the few classmates from school whom I was still in touch with.

Mostly it was to his credit.

He would call me once every three-four weeks. Even though he and I weren’t close friends in school.

Yet, he was the one line of connection I had with the school. It was through him that I got to hear stories about others.

Once in a while, he even managed to arrange a reunion and I got a chance to meet with others from the school.

“Claire! Claire!” he said, in a ruminating tone. I imagined him looking up and rubbing his chin with his fingers as if it was his habit.

“Oh yeah! Claire. I remember. You don’t say. How did you meet? When?”

I told him about our meeting.

“How much did she ask from you?” He said casually.

“What?” I said, surprised, finding the question weird.

“Oh you don’t know,” he said and then began telling how she had fallen into a bad group. And she owes money from many in school. And she and her boyfriend have a seriously bad rep and even more serious drug problems. They had been duping many by taking money in the name of doing charity. That they even have a court case filed against them recently.

I was shocked at what I was hearing.

I didn’t listen to much of what he said after that and felt relieved when we disconnected the call.

Even an hour after the call, Danny’s words still rang in my ears.

What had happened to her? Was she all friendly towards me just for money?

I tried to find traces of this revelation in my conversation with her. Some hint that would connect the lovely talk we had with her desperation for money.

I could find none.

After a while, I decided to do what I should have done at first.

Disregard it as a rumor.

Yes. I have had first-hand experience as a victim of rumors, how they start, and what shape they can take.

Of course, there must be some kernel of truth in what Danny was saying. But usually, such stories exaggerate that truth and take on wild proportions.

And seriously it didn’t matter.

So I decided to spend the evening on more productive things, like studying the new paperback I had bought three weeks ago which still lay untouched on my table.

As I slipped into bed with the book, I wished, one more time, that what Danny had told was a lie.

V

Claire called me a week later.

I had just returned from the office and was boiling water for Pasta.

The moment I heard her voice, Danny’s words came to me about her owing money from everyone.

I imagined her sitting in her room, with her hippie boyfriend beside her listening to our conversation, egging her to ask for money.

I felt ashamed for thinking this.

“You never told me, that you write,” she said chirpily.

I won’t call what I was doing the writing. Except those were words and they formed grammatical sentences.

“It’s just a blog,” I said casually. “And not a good one either. “

“You haven’t changed,” she said, “modest like a hermit. I read a couple. They were good.”

She then told me about her boyfriend and how they were planning to write a travel memoir.

“How does blogging pay?” she asked and followed with other writing-related questions.

I gave quick answers emphasizing that it was mostly a hobby that took more than it gave. Most people who wrote on the internet don’t earn any money. Then to change the topic asked, “how is the Paris trip coming along?”

“Oh perfect,” she said and explained their plan beginning with a backpacking trip from Nice to Paris, then settling in the outskirts.”

“There is one thing though — “ she paused.

I held the phone tightly in my hands as Danny’s warning returned to my mind.

“Yes, tell me,” I said.

“I might need your help. You know “

“What kind of help?” I asked, pressing the phone against my ears.

“I want your help with the memoir. You know. You can help by writing a bit for us?” she said, then added, “if it’s not much bother.”

“Oh, of course, Claire,” I said, letting out my held breath.

There was the sound of a bell ringing on her side. “Someone’s at the door,” she said. “Will call you again.”

After the call, I felt like drowning in an ocean of embarrassment.

What was I thinking? Despite deciding not to give much weight to what Danny had said, it was all I could think of during the entire call.

That she would ask for money at any moment.

Well, she didn’t, and I was an ass who kept on imagining this.

I turned down the cooker knob opened the refrigerator, and took out cut vegetables.

I was about to slice the carrots when my phone rang.

I wiped my hand on the towel and picked the phone up.

It was a message from Claire.

It said —

I need one more help. You know about the trip. We are falling a tad short on funds.

I didn’t need to read the rest of the message.

All I could think was whether anything she said to me was true?

Or all that she said was a nicely spun story to get money.

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