One Indian Girl by Chetan Bhagat

I could hear crowd noises around him.
‘Where are you now?’ I said.
‘I came downstairs for a drink with my team.’
‘Debu? You were supposed to come to my office party for drinks tonight. I wanted to introduce
you to everyone!’
‘Stupid politics happening. I have to talk to people. I will come.’
‘When?’
‘In an hour?’
‘It’ll be over. Really, Debu? You had to do your office stuff on the one day I call you?’
‘I got stuck. I can’t tell you the backstabbing that happened here.’
‘Debu,’ I said, my voice confident after the champagne, ‘I don’t care about your office right
now. You said you would come.’
‘I thought I might. Listen, it’s just bankers, right? It’s anyway not my scene.’
‘Really? I am a banker too.’
‘You are different. But they talk about money and deals and.. .’
‘Debu, they are people too. Today, everyone has come with their significant others. I told
Craig you are coming. What do I tell him?’
‘That I am stuck at work. What else?’
‘So they’ll think I made up my boyfriend.’
‘What?’
‘Nothing. Bye.’
‘So should I come in an hour or not?’
‘Don’t. Drink with your backstabbing colleagues. It’s okay. Bye.’
I hung up. I picked up a glass of champagne and knocked it down bottoms up. Jonathan noticed
me.
‘Someone doesn’t like to go slow and savour their French bubbly,’ he said.
‘Hey, Jonathan,’ I said.
‘Craig told me your boyfriend is coming. Is he here? Would love to say hi.’
‘He’s stuck at work, sadly.’
‘Oh, that’s unfortunate. What does he do?’
I don’t know what the fuck he does, I wanted to say in reflex. His not showing up, the four
glasses of champagne and my realization I wasn’t as pretty as Amanda had all added to my
frustration. I took a deep breath to compose myself.
‘He works in advertising. On Madison Avenue,’ I managed to say.
‘Oh, nice. The creative type.’
‘I guess.’
‘The banker and the creative. Interesting combination.’
‘Yeah.. .where’s your wife?’
He introduced me to Clara, who told me she couldn’t believe how hard we all worked.
Forty-five minutes later the crowd frittered away from Harry’s. In smaller groups, people left
for their own respective dinner plans. I had none. I walked out into the freezing cold and tried to find
a cab. I couldn’t, given it was Friday night. I walked into the subway and looked at my phone. Debu
had not called or messaged. Dizzy with alcohol, I realized I had not eaten anything for a long time. I
came out of the train station. On the walk home, I picked up a pizza slice for myself from a small
takeaway deli. Even in my incoherent state, I wondered if that idiot Debu had eaten dinner. I packed