The Way We Were

by Prajwal Hegde

Genres: Romantic Comedy

Synopsis

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Bitter rivals.

Reluctant colleagues.

Tormented ex-lovers.

Myra Rai is living her best life. At twenty-eight, she is a prominent journalist at the precipice of dreamy success and her dating life is the envy of the town. After all, jealous heads stir to probe her almost engagement to Ravi Rao, the gentleman heir to a roaring political legacy! Myra is well on her course. Until comes knocking the broad-shouldered, chiselled-face ghost from her past...

Andrew Brown is a headstrong political activist, unexpectedly back in the city after a winning stint in the US. Set to take over as the executive editor of Morning Herald, he is determined to revisit his past and reconnect with that one feisty journalist at work who hates his guts, hates that he is back, and hates that he never called...

Both Myra and Andrew have lost a lot over the years, including each other. But in the fierce race to best one another while pretending not to seethe in the hellfire of jealousy and suppressed passion, can they keep their barbs (and hands) to themselves? Right from the centre of a smouldering passion-fest, Prajwal Hegde tugs compellingly at the heartstrings and delivers a stormy rom-com that is all love (AND a whole lot of lust)!

"

Release date: September 15, 2023

Publisher: Hachette India

Print pages: 304

Sample

Chapter 1

I knew the scent. A cocktail of cigarettes, lust and Davidoff.

Then I heard the name. Andrew Brown.

Perched on tables, staring at the rotating chairs with a 360-degree take, colleagues were in conversation, a hushed exchange of exclamations and bumfuzzled expressions. Only the name rose above the din.

Blue jeans, weather scarred. A hoodie. A metonym.

I thought I had swept it all into that bin of forgettable art.

‘Myra,’ I heard someone call, but I kept going.

The amalgam of LED bulbs and 11 a.m. light was blinding. The window shades should be free to do their job.

‘Myra.’

I turned abruptly and crashed into a paper-laden office attendant. My iPad slipped from my grip, as did a file and my unzipped tote, the contents of which lay scattered around me like party confetti.

I don’t usually walk around like a porter, balancing bits and pieces of property. I’m organized, everything has a place, is in its place. But this was that kind of a morning.

My head was heavy, my feet were slow. A muscle-relaxant-fused interlude. An electric current speared through my spine shattering the lull.

Hands reached out to help, pick up my belongings, gather the pages that had fanned out across the slate-grey flooring.

‘Sorry,’ I said to no one in particular.

‘You okay?’ Neeta asked, picking up my tube of Clinique. With her Sherlock Holmes air, she was holding up my lipstick, looking for the number to determine the exact shade of my pink.

I nodded. This was not the time for words. Neeta didn’t need another peek into my mental state.

‘Deep,’ Neeta decided.

Intense. I threw a furtive glance around the cream-coloured interiors of our office space.

This was usually my favourite time of the day in a newspaper office. There’s a crackling freshness to 11 a.m. It was early, but not too early.

It was when I embraced the day. A bawdy Bollywood number playing on my computer, AirPods snug in its case. Caffeine coursing through my veins. Head unwrapping an idea. Fingers hot stepping on a keyboard. An opening para that grabs the collar.

It was also when reporters trickled in, talking on their phones, a persuasive edge to their tone as they attempted to get their day rolling. The swagger was for later, when they had the story to flaunt. The features team had just about swiped in and were catching the breath they had lost in the race to record their entry. Photographers were talking pictures and assignments, or checking people’s lipstick, like Neeta today. A few paginators were at their workstations, and the odd desk guy lingered, not quite knowing what to do. To commit to the day or not.

‘Hey!’ That came from across the office. I knew the voice. It was strong like the brew she was sipping.

‘My alarm didn’t ring,’ I said without turning.

‘That kind of a morning, eh?’ Sudha, Morning Herald’s business editor, enquired.

Sudha was perfectly groomed, as always. Her salt-and-pepper bob matched the grey of her freshly starched cotton sari, which finished in a heavy red border.

‘No coffee either.’

‘That’s brutal,’ Sudha sympathized, taking a sip of her Starbucks. Once a lover of filter coffee, she had eloped with espresso mid-sip when deployed in New York for a year.

‘Making a grand entrance?’ the resident editor said cheerily, walking past us.

Sudha and I laughed politely.

For the record, I was seven minutes late.

I was headed in the direction of my cabin with my editor on my heels, rattling like an overloaded bus. Talking but not making sense.

I needed a few minutes to fix my head and grab a coffee. Not in that order. Today was too-few-hours Thursday, not can-afford-to-stray Tuesday. The weekend supplement is put to bed early on Friday.

How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.

I exhaled. It was forced.

I had written most of my story, which was on the resurgent culture of street theatre in Bengaluru. Student groups used this informal presentation to capsule powerful messages, raising awareness on burning issues. My piece was the lead until the chief reporter called me this morning, waking me up with news of a recent shenanigan. A bunch of collegians had been picked up by plain-clothes policemen during a recent performance. They had been charged with selling drugs.

I didn’t need the company of a genial editor on a day like this. I was by my seat, facing my desktop. I refused to make eye contact with him, preferring to gaze at the xanthic panelling at the far end of the office.

I had ignored his knock, not that these subtleties ever worked in a newspaper office.

‘My dear, I need to have a word with you,’ he said, taking my iPad from my hand and placing it on the table.

Raj Kumar was a dapper 56-year-old, a thorough gentleman, which was the only reason his female workforce put up with his endearments.

‘I’m not going to take much of your time. I know today is a busy day for you,’ he said as he fiddled with a coffee mug that contained dry pens from maybe the last century.

‘I wanted to tell you myself,’ he said slowly, squaring his shoulders and straightening his back. ‘Andrew Brown is joining us.’

There was only one Andrew Brown in journalism.

I tried to nod, but my neck was frozen. I tried to smile, but my lips wouldn’t move. My eyes shifted between the computer screen and my boss before getting stuck on him. His chest had puffed, and his eyes sparkled with a weirdly happy look.

The scent was beginning to surround me. Again. Cigarettes, lust and Davidoff. Andrew Brown.

‘Here? Is he?’ Grammar had abandoned me.

Mr Kumar smiled. ‘Obviously, you are eager to meet him, and why not? He’s a good-looking chap,’ he said with a wink. ‘You probably know him. He did his schooling in Bangalore Scottish. You went there too, right?’

‘Yes,’ I said slowly. ‘He, too, went to Bangalore Scottish.’

My school. This is my city, and Morning Herald is my newspaper. I’m not dead; I just haven’t had coffee yet.

‘There,’ Mr Kumar said, smiling, rubbing his hands together, ‘I knew you’d want to meet him.’

‘I know Andrew. Who doesn’t?’ I said, summoning fake cheer, like the faux diamonds on my earlobe.

‘He was here, completing formalities.’

I was on my feet, and Mr Kumar followed suit. My face had broken into a demented grin in a determined effort to commune with my editor.

‘He’s joining as political editor,’ he said. Then added, ‘That’s for now; we have other plans for him.’

‘Of course.’ How about plans for me? That would be quadrillionth on the waitlist.

I waited for Mr Kumar to leave before dropping into my chair.

Hold on! When did this happen? My hand went to my desk calendar. January 2018. I only woke up 40 minutes late, not 40 years.

Until last week, Andrew was based out of New York, or so his column said. He was a successful journalist and co-author of the bestselling India: She’ll Unmask You, a sketch of the political climate in the country that was churning out captains, not leaders.

I had followed Andrew’s career as it skyrocketed. He had left Bengaluru eight years ago to do his master’s in legal studies at Harvard. Outside of interning at a boutique practice in New York City, he didn’t pursue the line he had chosen. What started as a dialogue on social media, when he was still studying, veered into a political blog. In an already simmering international climate, his aggressive stand was well received, not just in an informed global market, but more importantly, amongst the youth. Not long after, he was snapped up as a columnist by a prominent publication. There! I remember.

Rajesh Soor, the metro chief, entered my cabin without knocking or asking.

There was nothing Soor hadn’t seen or heard around Morning Herald, including events that had never happened.

I looked up reluctantly. I wasn’t in the mood for conversation. Not that my disinterest registered on him.

‘I think,’ he said, placing a steaming cup of filter coffee before me, ‘he’s taking over as executive editor.’

‘Who?’ I was irritated and let it show.

Rajesh had plodded into my cabin on the pretext of getting me an over-sweetened coffee he knew I wouldn’t touch even with my pinky.

‘Andrew Brown,’ he said, adding, ‘Didn’t Mr Kumar just tell you that? He has joined us.’

‘Oh yeah! He’s going to head the political bureau or some such,’ I said, my eyes going back to the computer screen.

‘That’s to begin with. He’ll be taking over – captain of the ship – in a couple of months, if my sources are right.’

‘Good for him.’ The king of clichés was grating on my nerves.

‘How can you say that? It’s so unfair; everybody is so upset,’ he said.

I was aware ‘everybody’ was probably just him, but he had stirred the pot, and I was curious. ‘Why?’

‘They should’ve taken someone in-house, like Sudha, or you maybe…’ he said, pausing only to take in my reaction, ‘or Saravanan.’

‘Saravanan…’ I shook my head. ‘Sudha would’ve been great.’

‘Or someone younger, like you.’

I smiled and decided to play along. ‘Or you.’

‘Or me!’ He was beaming as he lifted his ungainly self.

It had been ages since I had played pass the parcel, but it was good to know that my skills hadn’t softened.

I watched him leave my space laughing. On his way to another audience.

‘Right,’ I said. ‘Coffee!’

But before that steaming stab of caffeine, I needed some air. A quick turn around the central business district (CBD), feeling the January sun on my skin.

While sipping my morning brew, I wanted to chew on everything I had heard.

Andrew Brown, I tried to say, settling into a randomly placed chair at a takeaway counter that offered the odd seat. It wasn’t going down, not even with this scald-the-lips, burn-the-tongue concoction.

I’m in the business of news, and I had no idea. No fucking idea.

Chapter 2

I swiped in early the following morning. I was to rewrite some data-based copy on migrant labour. It was the best fit in terms of size and content to replace my argument on the case of students turning the street into a stage.

I was vexed at having to put my story on hold. I had done the reference and spoken to a dozen people. I had written most of the feature. But how do you fight an issue, especially when arrests had been made?

‘Myraah…’

The call crashed into my thoughts. It brought down the sheesham-panelled walls that flanked me. I didn’t need to look. Naked without the boundaries of construction or distance.

I recognized the voice. The way my name finished on his lips, a triumphant ‘ah’ rather than an ‘a’. A knock had preceded the call. I knew that too – one firm rap. He was conscious of his surroundings, wary of disturbing people. There was never more than one attempt unless it was an emergency.

I continued to work on my keyboard, which, like me, had known better days. I needed time to fix my expression.

When I looked up, I saw that God had framed the entrance to my cabin. All 6’4” of him. A black tee that said nothing and blue jeans that had weathered a storm. I wondered if the blue hoodie, stray filaments of which sat stubbornly on the right shoulder, was draped across the backrest of his chair. The sharply cut sleeves revealed sculpted, slightly hirsute arms. His lips had broken into a lopsided grin.

No, not cool, I wanted to say, except that I knew that wasn’t what he was trying to convey.

Andrew Brown wasn’t big on appearances. He would never use ‘handsome’ or ‘hot’ or any such lame adjective to describe himself or anyone else. If he liked something, he served it plain; embellishing wasn’t his style. Any time I complimented his looks, he’d change the subject even before I could catch the colour that stained his cheeks. His manners were faultless, but I can’t remember ever hearing a thank you. That’s how he had been, at least.

‘Myraah,’ he repeated as he walked into my cabin, crowding it. That loose-limbed, commandeering gait was engraved in my memory.

He had used my name twice in two minutes, which was already too many times for a month maybe.

The copy I was editing was forgotten; the hole in the page was lost on a screen that was now in sleep mode.

Myra Rai on deadline. That old stubborn she? I had no time for her.

The generous light of the midday sun flooded our editorial spaces, countering the aircon that had doubtlessly been turned to some permafrost temperature.

Andrew put his hand out, and I stood up to meet him halfway. It was a firm grip, just the way I had known it. Slowly, we broke from the hold – me first, I think. I may have fronted a blank look, but I was breathless. I needed water. I was going quietly crazy.

Some not-so-delighted office folks had filled me in on the details of the Andrew Brown hiring. The chairman had apparently flown to New York with his flunky, Morning Herald’s marketing head, to convince Andrew. He supposedly had more than one offer from India. Andrew went with the most lucrative pitch, which was also from the only newspaper deal he had before him. There was one from a magazine; the rest were net properties. According to the rumour mill at No. 7 MG Road, he had agreed to move only for a year. He was testing the waters to see if he could make the switch to a medium that had long been outpaced in the race to grab eyeballs.

I understood why Morning Herald wanted him, but I had my reservations about these postulations.

An institution built on tough-as-nails journalistic principles, which was born during the country’s Independence movement, was looking to sharpen its game. A last-ditch effort to attract young readers before committing to digital space.

Andrew was a political pundit. He’d bring much-needed gravitas to the pages of any newspaper in the country. But as far as I knew, he hadn’t spent much time in fickle, under-pressure newsrooms, the pillars on which an organization’s reliability rested. It was where split-second decisions on stance, what to highlight and where to place the decibel were taken in the dying hours of each day.

I had woken up with a start this morning. Was this new colleague actually my Andrew Brown? No longer mine, I reminded myself. Same name, different gents? An imposter, a charlatan?

The man I knew had left home a long time ago. He had thrived, made a name, but not once in those eight years had he looked back. Andrew was a sought-after brand in media today. Why would he choose to return now when he could be anywhere he wanted to be? It didn’t add up. Just like that decision to leave law and pursue journalism.

‘So, it’s really you,’ I said, my bored smile in place. I’m better at expressions than doing my make-up. My hands shake – 28 going on 98.

‘Unfortunately, it is,’ he said, nodding before turning away. Sometimes, when he gestures, he doesn’t look at the person he’s in conversation with. Reporters do that, too, using the few seconds to take in nuances, but his is an old habit.

Unfortunately, he had said. I was not going to correct him.

His appearance was eloquent. He was taking it all in his stride – the envy-stained synthetic shirts and every pair of kajal-lined eyes that filled the bays of our newsroom.

There were more squeals than story ideas coming from the female section, and suddenly, lipstick-kissed tissues were lying all over the restroom.

‘Back in Bengaluru. Welcome home,’ I said cheerily.

He was watchful. Every twitch of my lineless face had been noted and filed away.

I was taking my time. Andrew knew me as an easy-going soul, and that was all he was going to see.

‘Thank you,’ he said, settling into the lone chair that faced me.

His arms were folded across his chest. His eyes scanned the walls of my cabin. To his right were three frames of blooms, Tabebuia rosea in yellow and pink and the gulmohar. My favourites, my pictures. He knew it. On his left was an abstract painting by a friend. I could see that he was straining his eyes, trying to read the name of the artist. I let him. He may not have trained as a journalist, but he had learnt quickly. We sniff stories before we hear about them.

‘I didn’t think I’d be back so soon either. It was always my plan to come back home eventually.’ He spoke suddenly, his eyes roaming the length of my desk. They lingered on the back of a heart-shaped frame that faced me. Only decorum stopped him from turning it around.

I nodded. His vacillating plans were of no interest to me. Not any longer, I told myself.

‘I like the look,’ he said, pointing at my hair, moving his fingers like a pair of scissors.

I had chopped my tresses a few months ago after wearing my hair long for most of my life. My mother had loved my hair. Hers had been straight and silky; I got my father’s curls, or at least what he once had of it. I’d never had a hair opinion for as long as Mummy was around; she took care of it. In the last year or so, I had the itch to experiment. I coloured it, streaked it in shades of wine, but while it looked great, it had ruined my hair. My soft ringlets suddenly felt like straw.

‘Oh!’ I flicked aside his compliment. ‘It’s the result of an experiment gone wrong.’

‘Short hair suits you. Not everyone can pull it off.’ His dark eyes sweetened like chocolate. I tasted the compliment. I wanted to do a shampoo ad then and there, but I shrugged instead. It was awkward, in step with the erratic beat of my heart. I hated how my body was betraying me in his presence.

Wait! Did he think I had done this for him? Visited a salon a week ago to give myself a new look.

‘I had it styled a few months ago,’ I said. Why was I offering an explanation?

Andrew’s grin was galling. His eyes danced as they studied me. Dangling filigree earrings, bare neck, just a watch on my wrist.

‘I committed to returning a few months ago, too.’

‘Lucky Morning Herald!’ Damn the teasing.

I consciously didn’t take a deep breath but did the mental equivalent of the same. I pressed the reset button in my head, not to start again but to take a step back, to relax. I needed to be in charge. My mind was moving in a hundred different directions. Was he married? Did he have a family? I crushed the questions before they found a voice to break into the open.

He smiled. ‘No place like home.’

I wondered where he was staying. He had sold his family’s crumbling mansion in the CBD before he left for the United States. A high-end apartment complex had come up in its place. I knew he had been offered a flat by the builder as part of the deal, but I wasn’t sure how that had panned. If he had taken ownership of the 3,000-square-foot facility on offer or if he had banked the equity.

‘I would agree, even though I don’t really know any other place other than home,’ I said.

‘You should try your wings. Test yourself.’ He wasn’t mocking; the tone was encouraging. Still, it wasn’t his place to advise me.

‘Some of us fly in our own spaces, but fly we do.’

‘You certainly are,’ he said. ‘I was reading some of your stuff before coming here. You’ve captured the people’s market, shifted the dialogue back from trends to people. Your crime series is outstanding.’

My smile was slow to show. How long had he been reading my pieces? Was he surprised when he saw my byline for the first time? I hadn’t decided on print journalism when he was in Bengaluru, but that was the direction I was headed in. I had a job well before his blogs struck a chord in influential corridors. Maybe I was his role model.

I was delirious, drifting like a sun-kissed wave. Myra!

‘Is crime your beat?’

‘No,’ I replied, startled by the question.

I reached for my water bottle and took a swig. A drop dribbled down my chin. I’m clumsy. Put your last rupee on me dropping something every day, and you won’t be poorer. Several times each day actually. As I returned my bottle to its place, I noticed Andrew reaching forward. I pushed back in my seat, panicking, and wiped the stray droplet with the back of my hand. What was he thinking?

He’d done it every time I drank from a bottle when we were together. Sometimes, he used a tissue, but most often, it was just his hand.

‘I’m in features,’ I said, before correcting myself, ‘heading features. That’s just a column I write.’

‘Your USP.’

I smiled. ‘You’d recognize quite a few of the stories,’ I said, refusing to let this charming little interlude waylay me.

‘Some are big cases from our younger days. I’m trying to track the journey of this city – once a quiet cantonment town, to the bustling metropolis it is today – through its crime scenes. Does that make sense?’

Andrew nodded. ‘It’s not the most innovative idea, revisiting popular crime stories, but I like how you’ve linked it to the city, cultural backdrop, economic growth. It is a secondary character almost.’

I was smiling. Hopefully, in my head only.

‘How did it start?’

It wasn’t fortuitous play.

Days after my mother’s death, I started scouring crime stories, sections in newspapers, segments in the news, and as much of the meta space as I could get to, looking for answers for what I believed was a motivated homicide.

My parents were locked in a heated argument the night before my mother was mowed down. I heard the words ‘loan’ and ‘not cleared’. I had put it down to my dad’s fitful dalliances with funds at the time. He could never get that right.

Though the accident in which I lost my mother was declared a drunken-driving case a few months later, I wasn’t convinced. The file was closed, but my doubts were open wounds.

Drunk at 8.30 a.m.? He would’ve been lying under a couch, dead to the world, not behind a steering wheel.

A couple of years ago, I even took it up with a cop I had befriended on the job. There were no loopholes in the case, no openings to claim doubt.

‘It was clean and clear,’ the policeman had said.

Those were the bare facts.

‘I was looking to give the pages an edge,’ I said. I ignored his question.

Andrew nodded. His eyes were on me.

I exhaled. An anodyne sound escaped my lips.

‘It can’t be a random. . .