Losing My Virginity and Other Dumb Ideas by Madhuri Banerjee Page B

was on the table fell on my lap. My white skirt was completely stained.
    ‘Shit!’ I cried out.
    He got up immediately and poured water all over it and I was shocked. We both just stood there with our mouths open for a while till I started giggling.
    ‘I’m so sorry,’ he said, smiling a bit. ‘I thought that would help!’
    I started wiping the sauce and my wet skirt with some napkins. It became worse. We both began to laugh and I gently held his arm pretending not to fall over with laughter. ‘I’m such a klutz,’ I proclaimed, all my coyness coming to naught.
    ‘Oh, join the club,’ he said.
    ‘You? No!’ I said, feigning shock and laughing some more.
    ‘Ya, why do you think I’m all about the cutlery?’
    ‘Oh really,’ I said and squealed with more laughter. ‘I was wondering why a guy would pick a fried calamari with a fork when it’s easier with two fingers!’ I teased. He laughed some more.
    ‘I wasn’t the one who ordered ketchup.’
    ‘Hey. Ketchup tastes good with everything!’
    ‘Ya, I’ll bet you have it for breakfast with toast,’ he said while nudging me gently.
    ‘How did you know?’ Laughter followed. All our pretenses of trying to be cool for each other had gone out of the window.
    ‘I think I should go change or something,’ I said.
    ‘Oh don’t go. Just put my shirt around your waist and it’ll soak up most of the water.’
    He took off his shirt and handed it to me and said with a twinkle in his eye, ‘I’ll buy you as many beers as you want … if you stay,’ and then suddenly, he quoted a famous painter, ‘You can drink to me, drink to my health, you know I can’t drink any more than that.’ He finished with a flourish.
    I quickly looked away suddenly conscious once again and trying not to stare at his hard body. My mind was whirling with thoughts about how I could just rub my hands all over his perfect ‘pecs’. I started feeling hot and said shyly, ‘No don’t worry about it. I’ll just put some napkins on it.’ We sat down again and he looked at me and said, ‘You’re really stunning, you know that?’ My body started tingling. But my mind gave me the logic that I barely knew him.
    So I tried to change the subject. ‘Hey, you know what you just said? Those were Picasso’s last words.’
    ‘Really? I read it on a t-shirt somewhere yesterday,’ he exclaimed, ordering more beer for us.
    ‘Really?’ I asked, scarcely believing that the famous painter’s quotes could be put on t-shirts that are sold in Goa. ‘I thought only the Rolling Stones got onto t-shirts.’
    He laughed. ‘Okay, you’re right. I didn’t. I was just trying to impress you with some quotes by famous guys.’
    ‘You mean a famous painter!’
    ‘Well, I was in Paris a few times and visited the Louvre. It was then that I became fascinated with art. I’ve never said that to anyone. Everyone will think I’m just a pansy!’
    ‘No you’re not! How could you be? You look …’ and then I stopped myself. I was smitten by a stranger. A stranger who looked like a Greek God and knew my favourite subject. ‘J’taime Paris,’ I said.
    And he replied back, ‘I still think the French are really foo foo though.’
    ‘Foo foo?’ I asked, sipping my beer.
    ‘You know, uppity, pretentious, wannabe. Foo foo.’
    I laughed till there were tears rolling down my cheeks. ‘There’s no such term, Arjun! But it makes so much sense!’ I said and then when I collected my thoughts, ‘But I still think the French language is very beautiful.’
    ‘It’s hardly a language. Most of the time the French are saying ‘aaah’, ‘oh’ and ‘um’. They gesticulate with their hands and you understand the gestures, not because they complete the sentence.’
    ‘But look at English as a language. The phonetics alone is a nightmare for students. Which should we follow, the British or the American system?’ I contested. I was actually having a debate with a stranger who had made me open up to