One month later
‘Whole-wheat toast. Faa sang zoeng mat,’ I said. I had finally learnt to order breakfast at the
Goldman café. Neel and I were the early arrivals, at 7.30 a.m.
Neel took his black coffee and a bowl of oats. A month since our Philippines’ visit, we had the
term sheet signed. We had also reached settlement with the banks.
‘I can’t tell you the details. But I have good news,’ Neel said.
‘We have a buyer?’ I said, excited.
‘Shh!’ Neel said and placed a finger on his lips. ‘Yes. We could be going to meet Marcos soon
and finish the deal.’
‘Cool,’ I said. ‘Take over the loans on one side and sell the company on the other.’
‘What we call back-to-back deals. No risk on books. Best deal ever,’ Neel said. We gave each
other a thumbs-up. He reviewed the deal-closing documents.
‘Looks good. Fingers crossed. Buyer on board soon,’ Neel said.
I put the documents back in my laptop bag. These last few minutes of our daily café meeting
had become my favourite part of the day. It was when Neel and I discussed things apart from work.
‘How is your new apartment?’ Neel said.
‘I love it. Thirtieth floor, great view. Still doing it up,’ I said.
‘Check out IKEA, they have good home stuff. Neat designs, good price,’ Neel said.
‘Sure. Will go there. Need to join a gym too.’
‘Have you tried yoga?’
I shook my head. ‘Maybe at school in India,’ I said, ‘when it was compulsory.’
Neel laughed.
‘Check out Pure Yoga. They have a great studio. I go sometimes,’ Neel said.
‘Okay. My birthday is coming up next week. Maybe I will treat myself to a membership.’
‘Oh, great. Happy birthday in advance.’
‘Thanks. So you do yoga too. How do you do it all?’ I said.
‘If you love yourself, you will take care of yourself, right?’
I counted the twenty-six pink roses. The bouquet on my desk had a maroon ribbon wrapped around it.
It came from Armani Fiori, located in Central. Part of the Armani brand of Italian designer Giorgio
Armani, the bouquets in the shop would be no less than 200 dollars at least. I removed a small white
envelope tied to one of the roses. A card inside said, ‘Happy Birthday—From the team.’
I sat back in my seat, surprised. The hard-nosed and tough Distressed Debt Group isn’t known
for affection and flowers. Bianca passed my cubicle.
‘Happy birthday, Radhika,’ she said.
‘Thank you,’ I said, ‘and thanks for the flowers. The most beautiful bouquet I have ever seen.’