Queen of Spades and the Faint of Hearts

“And he hated himself and hated her,too, for the ruin they'd made of each other.” 

- Dennis Lehane

"Phileas. Mr. Phileas Rodriguez? Can you hear me, sir?"

He woke up with a start. Looked around the room like it was the first time he was seeing it. He was not. He had been visiting Dr. Sharma for the past four years now, ever since his first blackout. Though now he was just plain asleep and not blacked out. He sat up straight and rubbed his eyes and face to wake them up. He had a week’s beard on his face, peppered with white here and there. It did give him a sophisticated look, but itched like a flea-ridden mutt’s crotch.

Blackouts were nothing new to him; he knew very well what it felt like. They started a couple of years ago. It was very scary in the beginning. He checked himself into a clinic at his third incident and did all the tests they had there. No one actually came to any conclusion as what was wrong with him. They all wrote it off as a prodrome to something else and just decided to wait and see. So he waited, until a few weeks from his first incident he blacked out behind the wheel while driving back from work. Luckily no was hurt, but it sure did put the fear for his life into him and he started looking out for every possible avenues for help.

A friend suggested he try yoga, didn't help except his back never felt so good thanks to all the stretching. Another suggested him to drink a lot of liquids, that didn't help much either except that he had to get up from his desk more often to visit the restroom earning him a lot of catcalls from his coworkers. Then his younger sister, a physical therapist, suggested maybe his ailment wasn’t anything physical at all. Maybe it was all in his mind. That's how he had ended up in this place where he was presently sprawled on a sofa in the lobby of the shrink’s office.

"I'm sorry. Was working late last night, didn't get enough sleep", he replied to the receptionist who was looking over his computer screen to him smoothing over his flannel shirt and plaid pants. She never understood why this guy had to wear so proper all the time. It's been years she’s been watching him now, and she had never seen him in casual Tees and denims. He was very tall and lanky, would look great in jeans. Anyways, she kept her thoughts to herself and returned back to the social network site she was surfing on while pretending to work on her boss’s letters.

He walked past the receptionist's desk and opened the door to the good doctor's cabin. And as always, he was hit with the strong scent of roses. The room seemed to brimmed with it, there were pictures of rose gardens on the back wall, there were two pots filled with roses near the window, and there was always vase with a few more rose stems on the doctor's desk. His guess was she even doused herself in rose perfume before she leaves for work.

Right now, Dr. Sharma was seated behind her desk writing hurriedly in her diary. She kept one for every patient. She looked up and gave the very slightest of smile and signaled him to take a seat.

Phileas took his usual seat at the corner of the couch, closest to the doctor's chair. He was soft on her, and she knew it. Obviously she did, a woman didn't need a double degree in psychiatry to know if a guy is into her or not. But she was not one to break a doctor-patient relationship. And he was not her type anyway.

She was soon done with her notes, pushed the diary away and stretched while seated in her chair. Sitting all day in a chair all day listening to people’s problems takes its toll on a person’s vertebrae.

She turned to the stack of hardbound diaries kept at one end of his desk and shuffled through them to get to her patient's notes. Now she asked, "So Phileas, how are we doing today?"

"I am well, Ms. Sharma. This has been a good week. The trip to the capital was a much needed break from all the stress." He could never bring himself to call her Dr. Sharma. She looked so young to be called that.

"That's nice. Yes, I remember, you were going to attend an ex colleague’s wedding in Noida. How was function? Was there a lot of people present?" she asked, mildly bringing up Phileas's fear of crowds.

Phileas didn't take the bait, "No no, it was actually a small affair. Got to meet with a few old friends from my time in Amazon and also there was a band and a trip around old Delhi. It was really quite exciting."

"That sounds good. Hope you did not stress yourself out too much, sometimes a rush of old memories and emotions might become too heavy on one's psyche."

"No it really was nothing like that. I actually had a good time...”

Phileas started to fidget in his seat. The doctor could see that he was not saying the whole thing; he was hiding something from her. The fidgeting was his tell; he would be very lousy at poker.  She looked at him for a moment and spoke softly looking down at her dairy writing something, "Take your time, Phileas. There is no hurry."

"I don't think I have been completely honest with you, Ms. Sharma. About my reason, my incessant need to attend this wedding even though I hate public transport... I, um, the bride... Well, we used to be very close for a while. I mean. Uh. We were in love." He shifted his eyes from her and started looking at anywhere but in her direction. The doctor didn't seem to notice the change. She just waited there bowed down to her book pretending to read, waiting for him to continue.

He took a moment of quite, and continued.

"We met in an office party. She was a HR person dealing with recruitment. She was the one who had assisted me during my induction process when I joined the company. I'd never met her since in my nine months of working in the there, until that New Year's Eve bash. I still remember her wearing the beige pantsuit, with a tiny chain made of silver hanging around her neck. She looked beautiful. She was also the biggest klutz, you’ll see. So she was always tumbling over something or shoving to somebody else while passing. Still I liked her all the same, she was cute." Phileas was by now looking absently out the window behind the doctor's chair. His gaze was looking towards a different place a different time. He was opening up far more than he had ever done in the four years he had been her patient, Dr. Sharma was beginning to sense they were at the verge of a breakthrough.

"Somehow when dinner was announced we ended up at the same table; call it what you may, destiny or sub-conscious plotting by my side. But I've never had a better first time conversation with any woman ever. We sat there and spoke for hours, she told me about her life, her aspirations, about her work with a local NGO, and I shared my dreams and troubles with my sister. It was great. Soon it was past midnight and the party was dying. People were starting to leave with their spouses or friends. We both didn't have any so we decided to leave together and share a cab.

“Well one thing led to another, we kissed on the ride back to her place. I was 23, and that was the first kiss I've ever had. I was a very sickly kid when I was younger you see, no girl would come close to me by a ten meter radius. And it showed I think, because soon she was taking the lead in the whole activity. I was naive, and even I could sense that this wasn't her first time snogging in the back of a cab. But I was not complaining anyway, it felt too good to be true as it was."

Phileas stood up from the couch and walked over to the water cooler at the other corner of the room. "Another first", Dr. Sharma wrote in her diary. "Patient has deep-placed insecurity and was a chronic germaphobe. His attempting to move about the room in confidence to drink from a relatively public water supply is encouraging."

Phileas filled a cup and was sipping from it while silently looking at the pictures on the wall around him. He stood in front of a big glossy one, examining it. It had a little white girl, in rich pearl white clothes holding a big red rose to her cheek. He emptied the cup and walked over to the couch, only this time he sat at the other end of the couch furthest from the good doctor. She added another note regarding this in her diary.

"That's a good picture you have there."

"Which one?” she looked up towards the numerous pictures hanging near water cooler.

"The artsy one with the little girl," he pointed over to the picture in question. "I never understood why all those sorts of pictures always had clean white kids impeccably dressed holding roses or holding hands and such. Almost all of the cute baby pictures we see in a gynae's or pediatrician’s office are all of white children. Are our colored children any less cute? I only ever see brown kids, skinny and dirty, showing up in stop child labor or anti-poverty adverts. Why so?"

Dr. Sharma needed an escape pad here. "Oh I that picture. I don't know about the other doctors, but I simply liked the girl’s blush holding the rose. She's so cute don't you think, especially in her little white dress.” Dr. Sharma smiled and motioned him to continue. "Closet ethnic complex?" the doctor wrote in her notes.

Phileas settles into his place in the couch. "Where were we, yes the party. I did not expect to ever meet her again. I mean, why would she? The whole thing was just a fluke. She was probably just bored at the party and was just looking for some means to spend her time. But when I came to office the next day and opened my mailbox. I saw a mail from one Cecile Abraham. I could actually feel my pulse quicken. She had mailed! I hurriedly opened the mailer. It went something like - She had a good time last night, and that it would be great if we could have lunch later that day. I replied yes, obviously, and asked her when she would be free for lunch and the place. I was not worried about seeming too desperate. I am pretty sure she knew that already. We met up for lunch at two in the afternoon that day. And the next day, and the next. It had become a routine for us, and soon we were starting to make plans to meet outside of work. We started going to movies, and book shows together. We even started calling by our own little nicknames. She was - Moon of My Life. I was - Her Sun and Stars. We were probably the first people to read through the ASOIAF books, before it became the trending thing. We were just another couple of dorks falling in love.

"It was beautiful. I don't remember another time in my life that I was that happy. She kept saying how much she loved me and even when we're not together she'd keep thinking about our time together. We started seeing more and more of each other. We started making plans. We had both planned to find work closer to Delhi, were her folks lived. My sister was still in college getting her diploma back then so I could very well switch to another company in the capital and move there to be with her. Even marriage was spoken about without having to choke anyone into it. It was all so wonderful. And then...”

Phileas went silent. He’d started fidgeting again and rubbing his palms over his thighs. He was almost kneeled over bent towards to floor, blindly looking at it while his head was somewhere else. Dr. Sharma wrote in her diary, "Patient goes into a semi-fetal position while seated at the couch. Symptoms of defensiveness, call for help."

She let the room go silent for a moment. After a few moments were past. She removed herself from her chair and came around her desk to take seat at another chair at the patient's side. Sitting with him in the couch would be too much for him. She kept the diary on the table and gently reached over to his hands now resting on his knees. She noticed his whole body go stiff for a second when she touched his hand. But soon he was relaxed and he slowly began to sit upright again and they sat there like that for some time just lightly holding each other other's hands. Phileas loved the way Ms. Sharma's smooth moisturized hands felt on his equally small feminine hands. Dr. Sharma was knowingly holding his hands a little more tenderly; this was the first time she had known a grown man with such soft hands.

Dr. Sharma looked into his eyes attentively and said, "These things would take a toll on anyone's mind, Phileas. I can see that this was very tough for you to talk about. And let me just tell you know how proud I am for the progress you've shown here today. This has definitely been a breakthrough, I...”

"I am not done yet," Phileas interrupted. "I don't know whether I will be able to talk about this ever again. I would like to go on, Ms. Sharma. Can I?"

The doctor looked at her patient again, and could see how spent he already was but there was still some resolve left in his eyes. She let go of his hand, and leaned over her desk to pick up the phone to dial her receptionist. "Nagma, please cancel my 5 o'clock and move it to sometime early tomorrow morning. Phileas will need more time. Thanks."

She put down the receiver, picked up her diary from the table and turned to her patient. He had a grateful look in his eyes.

“Whenever you're ready, Phileas."

"Thank you. I guess why this has made it all tougher to come clean about is the fact that it has been ages since I've been able to talk about her to anyone. Actually the only other person who even knows about her existence is one of my exes. The one from Andheri, you remember, we've spoken of her." The doctor nodded, and gestured Phileas to go on. "Well, anyways. Um... I still remember that night. We used to talk a lot those days, for hours; every day when we woke up, every night before going to sleep. That night during my call with Ceci I felt something was amiss. She was just back from a company trip to Chennai, and so I just wrote it off to exhaustion. I was green as it was in the matters of being in a relationship, I couldn’t have picked up the signs she was giving me anyhow; as she would point out to be during her actual 'I am breaking up with you' speech.

“The thing went on for a few days. Our conversations started getting shorter and would end abruptly. She would be aloof all the time and never really spoke anything unless I asked anything; she would never ask anything about me. It was like talking to a robot. Then one day, I was in a meeting with my boss, I remember that day quite vividly. It was a Tuesday, a bit cooler than usual July afternoon in Bangalore. She had called me, something that she hadn't done for a while. Even her hello sounded cheery, that voice of hers was missed dearly for such a long time. Only later I would realize that the chirpy voice was not her natural happy happy one, it was of the sort that you would use when a distant relative calls you up out of the blue and inform you they happen to be in town would like to show up at your house, you use that chirpy town to turn them away saying some excuse. I wish I had heard it that in her tone back then.

"She informed me that she was getting off early that day and wanted to know if I could get a few minutes off work to get coffee with her in the food court in the plaza. I said yes of course, too eagerly. She said thanks, and hung up saying she better get her work completed soon then. Her last words were 'Thanks, Phileas'. No 'kisses', no 'love yous', no 'miss yous'. She even called me 'Phileas'. In all of the time that I have known her, I don't remember her ever calling me that, and I was always 'Phil' to her right from the beginning. I wish I had registered that little tidbit as well when I still had time.

"I got to work immediately and completely it all as soon as I possibly could to get off early. I remembered her asking for a just a few minutes of my time. But well in my frame of mind back then, I just thought maybe we would talk things over and everything would get rosy again and we might end up cozying up to each other again. I was wrong there as well.

"I completed my work in the most haphazard way imaginable and got my butt racing off to the cafe. I was already ten minutes late. I was praying to every God I knew of to let her be there in the cafe and not rush off in an angry fit just because I missed the appointment. I really did not want to mess things up more than it already was. I reached the restaurant and looked around; she was nowhere to be found. I panicked. I took out my phone and dialed her. Busy tone. Damn. I said to myself, 'Dude, she is going to be pissed. You had this one chance in a long while, and you blew it.' I tried her number again. Busy tone. I pushed the disconnect button and looked around again. She was not there. My mobile beeped, it was a message from here. 'RUNNING LATE. BUSY NOW. DON’T CALL.'

“Oh. She's running late. Okay. I thought that was good. Maybe. At least she didn't get irritate here waiting for me. So I went over to a table and waited for her. I kept opening my mobile in lieu of checking to see if there as any more messages from her. I only ended up opening her last text. All those CAPS puzzled me. Was she angry with me? The whole past couple of weeks went through in my head. What had I done wrong to earn her spite like that? Did I do anything bad to tick her off? Why wouldn't women fight over what happened today on the same day. Why do they have to wait to bring it up a month down the line when we men don't even remember what the whole thing was about anyway?"

Phileas had asked that looking over to Ms. Sharma, who was busy jotting down notes on her diary. When she noticed the halt in the monologue, she looked up to her patient and only smiled and said, "Not all women do that, Phileas. What happened next? Did she show up?"

Phileas just let out a sigh, and continued "Yea, she did. A little over a half hour after her text message. I must've burnt over 100 calories in nervous sweat in those 30 minutes. I saw her coming from the left exit, her side of the office compound. She walked over briskly, another thing that was new. She was lesser of a klutz now than she was when we had met. I hadn't noticed that earlier either.

"She scanned the tables for me, and waved to me when she found me. When she reached the table, I stood up and bent over to her to give her a kiss, but she simply tilted her face sideways to make the kiss into a peck on the cheeks. Okay, that was not good start. She took her seat and asked me to take one as well. I did so obediently, like a kid in nursery school. I guess, my body had realized that my mind was needed elsewhere than these simple motor actions and had gone into auto-pilot. She called over the waitress and asked for a lime juice. I just nodded my no. She looked at me funny and let the waitress go away.

“What came at me next was something I guess you would remember from that diner scene in 500 days... it was like a word to word replica. Everything was there. The same darn thing. The whole it's-not-you-it's-me routine. And I just sat there listening. I didn't utter a word. I didn't know what to say. You might say that I must've known that this was coming; I must’ve seen the signs. Well the truth is when you're in love. These signs don't actually register in your brain. They only come to mind as an after-the-fact bulletin.

“At that moment, I was in shell-shock. She had spoken her piece fast without taking a break, even if I had any protest in me at that point I probably wouldn't have found the voice to communicate it out loud. I was devastated. She simply drank her lime juice during the rest of the duration. All the while prodding away on her mobile, people watching, and playing with her straw in the glass. And I was gawking at her wide-eyed like a fool. She was done with the drink soon; put some change on the table to pay for it. Then when she finally stood up to leave she said, 'Well I have to go now, glad that we got to do this face to face. I do hope that whatever happened between us doesn't spoil our friendship. I hope we could still be on speaking terms. And if not, it is still fine by me. Please do take of yourself. I will write to you when I get to Delhi.'

"That was when I came to my sense. Delhi? What? Wait a minute. Was she going to Delhi? When did that happen? But by the time those questions were out of my mouth via my still recuperating brain she had got up and left the restaurant."

Phileas took a breather. He shuffled around in the seat, pushed him deeper into the couch. Dr. Sharma could sense that he was almost done with his narration. "I can see that this must have been a very difficult ordeal for you. And what came next must have been all the tougher. The coping with it all."

Phileas gave a crooked sheepish smile. "I am still coping with it, Miss. This happened in mid-February of 2013. It would soon be two years since that horrible day. And I am still coping with it. I have only gone out with two women since, and neither survived more than three dates with me. I am sure I even insulted one pretty brutally. I don't insult women, for me that am the worst thing a man can do. Well there must be worse things than that, but I just think everything bad that men do to women stems from the emotion of desiring to insult them. I'd always hated to be like one of those guys. And now I even hated myself for having let her go so easily. It was like insulting all that love that we had between us.

“But seeing the amount of progress that I have made with these sessions with you I figured I could take it, you know. Going to her wedding. And in a way it did work, I survived Delhi, didn't I? I really did not expect to. I had second thoughts right until till the point I actually reached Delhi. I was getting cold-feet about the whole plan. But then when the train did reach the platform, I saw her out there in the crowd searching over the top of the heads running around there. She was looking for me; she was the bride, to be married in three days; but still had come to the platform to receive me. And seeing her there and then made me oddly relax a little. The sight of her standing there in her plain white churidar and red dupatta didn't make my head explode like I thought it would.

“Actually I felt a smile crop up on my face. It was a relief really, an odd sense of warmth. I felt a huge weight lift off of my shoulder. I felt my heartbeats go smoother, my temple not wound up into a knot anymore. I felt good. I carried my luggage off the train and walked over to her. Finding me there amidst the crowd, she almost ran over to me. I put my right hand in front expecting to shake hers, but she just absently pushed it away and gave me a big joyous hug. She was happy. And that rubbed off on me.

"That was when I remembered something else. Yes, we were close. Right from the very beginning. I mean after all we did have our first kiss the night we met. She was smart, laughed at my jokes, cute as a button and a joy to be with. I enjoyed her company. And all throughout, I liked her more because soon she had become one of the best friends I’ve ever known. I guess for a long time, I was angry at her for breaking me. Then over time I felt the anger and hatred dilute away and leave only the nostalgia and sadness of the good times we had. I missed her friendship. I missed how I could confide everything with her. And right now, standing with her in the platform, hugging back I could feel all of that friendship fill back in. I was back with my friend. I could only remember the good things about her, because in the end that’s what we remember the most and not the bad things.

"The next two weeks I was there, went away like a breeze. I roamed around Delhi; saw the old forts and the usual tourist attractions with a few of her guests including we knew from our time in Bangalore. She was the bride, busy all day obviously. But still every night after dinner she would come and sit with me in the porch of their house for a few minutes. We would just sit there and talk about our day. She would tell me about her fiancé. I would talk about my office and my sister and even you, Ms. Sharma. She was really glad for me, that I am happy now. And I was really glad for her as well, that she too had found happiness. I stayed till the wedding was done, it was a beautiful function. Her fiancé was not really that bad a guy. Had a lousy taste for cigars though."

Dr. Sharma was openly staring at him now. Phileas had a bright smile on his face. Ever since he started speaking about meeting the girl in the platform, he had such a wide smile on her face. It was infectious. She found herself smiling in return as well. He had such a good smile.

"Phileas, I am really happy for you. And I am glad that you took this trip. You see in my profession I've seen that the solution to everyone’s problems is already within them. There is only a matter of opening up the knots one by one without harming oneself. And in your case this trip did that for you. I only wish I could prescribe a trip to Delhi to all of my syncope patients. My life would be so much easier."

Both doctor and patient chuckled at that.

They both knew what this meant. Their sessions here would be soon ending. Not today or tomorrow, there was still a lot of stuff to work through. They have both been able to achieve something by their relationship. Something good, and in today’s wicked world that was something.

Phileas looked over to the clock at the doctor's desk and said, "I've already took up a lot of your time, Ms. Sharma. I should get going."

Phileas smiled happily and got up from his desk, and walked over to the door. Before twisting the door knob and exiting, he turned to her and said "Thank you, doctor."

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