‘Wait!’ Leena ran to her. With her shiny eyes and glowing skin, Leena looked more like a high school student. All she needed was a school bag and a uniform to look like one. Lola stood still for a moment as if undecided on where to go. She was already in her thirties. Within a few years, customers would probably find her undesirable.
‘’Hey, what happened?’’ Leena laughed with youthful zeal, ‘’Shall we go to the town fair?’’
Lola smiled back, ‘’Of course. Come on.’’
The dusty streets were a relief from the perfumed, air-conditioned rooms. The scent of petrichor intertwined with the smoke from huge, flat-tired bikes made Lola feel ‘normal’. She wished she was one of those women seated in the passenger seat, leaning on the guy in the front, infusing warmth and responsibility into his recklessness.
Leena skipped as they neared the fair.
‘’Bro, show me those red bangles.’’ Leena pointed to the neatly stacked red bangles in a cosmetics stall. To them, every man was a bro in the daytime.
‘’Sheila,’’ a voice called out. Leena turned sharply around and stared at a little girl running to her mother.
‘’My name was Sheila, you know before I was sold to Dojak,’’ Leena whispered in a childlike voice. Then, within a second, the expression was gone.
‘’Come on, let us go on the Ferris Wheel.'’ They stood in the queue, which comprised mostly of children. By the time they reached the counter, there was only one ticket left.
‘’You go on.’’ insisted Leena, pointing to an empty place in the three-seater.
Lola slipped onto her seat. A young woman wearing red bangles sat near her. She stared covertly at the guy beside her; her face was almost the same color as her bangles.
They are probably newly married, thought Lola.
Lola’s eyes locked with the man’s eyes. He turned away, shocked. Lola looked on, half-amused and half-scornful. Oh yes, she remembered customers. He had come to her a couple of weeks ago. To practice? She did not know.
She glanced around. Dojak was walking around with a woman and two children. Dojak, the man who should have been in jail now. His wife laughed at something he said while his children skipped along happily.
Lola looked desperately around for her friend. Leena seemed oblivious to everything, holding colorful balloons and bantering with some sweet seller.
Lola blinked and turned her face towards the sky as the Ferris wheel moved slowly. She would not think about anything else; this was her day off. She inhaled the salty air, her lips twitching. She wondered if her smile looked as innocent as Dojak’s children's or as naïve as the woman next to her. The Ferris wheel took speed, leaving the ground far behind.