Hita - Anita Claire Page 0,22
the back of my head from the intense seasonings. I look up at Anil’s face and realize it’s not just my tongue as his nostrils flare and his face turns red. Drinking down his Kingfisher Beer in one big gulp, he looks around for more to drink calling out, “What in the Gods are you serving me? Have you gone mad?! Did you not taste this?”
I’m horrified, my mouth is open and my hands are fluttering in front of it, but then I start laughing; it must be some kind of nervous disorder that’s suddenly over taken me. He wildly grabs another bottle of beer drinking it down in one big gulp. He looks at me with his eyebrows knit tightly and says, “What kind of person tries to poison their guest?”
Unfortunately, this comment only makes me laugh harder. At the same time two scenes from Annie Hall play across my mind. The ones where Woody Allen buys live lobsters to eat. The first time he’s with Annie, the two of them are on the floor laughing since neither of them has the guts to boil the lobsters. The second time he brings live lobsters home, he’s with another woman who finds no humor in boiling lobsters.
I’m starting to think the princesses are Annie, and Anil is the other woman. Did Kristi know this about Anil? Did she have me watch Annie Hall as a prelude to tonight? As I try to explain this to Anil, he looks at me like I’m insane finally saying, “Shall we go to a restaurant since obviously cooking is not one of your skills?”
Taking a break from laughing, I say, “Actually, I made a third dish.”
His eyes get large as he looks at me horrified, “What, in case the first two didn’t do the job?”
This comment only serves to kick off another fit of laughter. While Anil looks at me like I’m a complete idiot, he finally says, “I hardly see the amusement in this.”
Thinking of how much time I’ve spent on my disaster, I tell him, “You go to dinner, I’m going to clean up.” Picking up the twenty-five alarm Sambar and reigning in some more laughter I finally sputter out, “I better dispose of this dish carefully or it will eat a hole in my pipes.” Then I start laughing again.
Anil looks at me with a flat line across his mouth. My mind flashes to Savi. I’ve now gone with Anil on a bunch of dinners. Until tonight I didn’t realize how humorless he was. I think you need a lot more than three dates to make a lifelong decision.
Actually the third dish was the charm. It came out great. Too bad Anil didn’t stay long enough to enjoy it.
Chapter 18 - Hanging with Kristi
When I talk to my mom I tell her that I had some friends over for dinner and attempted to make Sambar, but wound up burning a hole in everyone’s gut.
My mom chuckles in response telling me, “Oh, Hita, if Sambar powder is fresh, it’s very potent.”
Why didn’t the lady in the Indian store tell me about this?
***
Now that I have a car, I can do some of the things I’ve been hearing about but haven’t had the transportation I’ve needed. One thing I’d like to try is a coding night. Of course in college I spent a lot of nights coding, but I’ve heard that these coding sessions are a lot of fun.
Looking online, I find a group that meets at a coffee house not too far from me. Heading over after work, it’s not surprising that most of the people are guys in their twenties who all have that thin, pasty, bedraggled look like they spend their nights coding. Good, I was afraid it would all be brogrammers. The leader of the group tells us which language we’re using, and then sends us that night’s assignment. Of course, we’re in Cupertino, not too far from Apple’s campus, so the language is Swift. I’ve used Objective-C, C, and I spend my days programming in C++ and Python. Now I need to stretch my brain and not only solve the problem, but also learn the Swift calls. It’s going to take me a bit before I can do much more than hang on and see what the other guys come up with.
***
On Wednesday I don’t get a text from Anil. By that evening I find myself staring at my phone. It’s not that I want to go out