'You should ask your boyfriend that,' the stranger replied.
'We've never met in person. We've been talking for two years. Met on Words with Friends on Valentine's Day two years ago when you were travelling in Bali, shooting your Instagram videos.'
A sobering excerpt about love and relationships from Shenaz Treasury's lively new book, All He Left Me Was a Recipe: Lessons From My Break-Ups.
Life couldn't be better. She was back home with her family. Her relationship was finally where she wanted it to be.
She changed his name on her phone to 'my sweet love'. She put a cute picture of both of them as her WhatsApp display picture. She took his old iPad that they used to play Spotify, connected it to the speakers and played music. Suddenly it stopped.
God, these speakers are so unpredictable. Or wait, is it the iPad?
A text popped up. She opened it casually.
WHOA!
It was a d**k pic.
It was his d**k. From the airport?
Maybe this is an old text, she thought. This was his old iPad.
She put it down.
Should she even be looking at this? But curiosity got the better of her. She picked up the iPad again.
He had sent it to Danielle Nicolette Garcia. Who was Danielle Nicolette Garcia?
Her eyes glanced on the date.
She started shaking. The date was 4 January 2018. That was that year!
She dropped the iPad.
She needed to call someone but who could she call at midnight? Surely not all her married girlfriends. They wouldn't know what a d**k pic was.
She called her only single friend, Malika. It was midnight, but thank God for girlfriends.
'Malika?' she was crying, shaking. 'I don't . . . I don't know what to do. It's his d**k. It's our home. It's 4 January.'
'Text the number,' Malika said calmly. 'Pretend to be him.'
'What?'
'Do as I say,' Malika said.
So she did . . .
'Hello,' she typed.
'Hi, aren't you on the flight?' the stranger/Danielle wrote back.
'Oh my God, Malika, who is this? How does she know?'
'Ask her when are we meeting,' Malika said.
She couldn't breathe.
'Emirates has Internet. When are we meeting?'
'Valentine's Day,' the stranger said.
'Where?' she wrote back.
'Didn't you book the hotel?' the stranger asked. 'Wait, is that YOU?'
'Yes of course,' she said.
'You sound strange,' said the stranger.
'Who else could it be?' she said.
'You could be HIS girlfriend,' the stranger replied.
'I am his girlfriend,' she said, tears pouring out of her eyes.
'Who are you?'
Silence 'WHO ARE YOU?' she screamed ON TEXT.
'You should ask your boyfriend that,' the stranger replied.
'How long has this been going on?' she asked.
'We've never met in person. We've been talking for two years. Met on Words with Friends on Valentine's Day two years ago when you were travelling in Bali, shooting your Instagram videos.'
'You met on the freaking Scrabble App? And how do you know everything about me and my travels?'
'We are very close, I have a lot to thank your boyfriend for,' the stranger texted.
'It's because of him I am a nurse, he helped me choose my life path. I met him when I was just 22, I am 24 now.'
'You're a child,' she said.
She burst into tears. 'Calm down,' Malika instructed. 'Call him, but don't tell him you know.'
She called him on video call. He was in transit in Dubai on his way to New York.
'Hi sweetheart,' he said.
'Who's Danielle?' she came straight to the point.
'Never heard that name before,' he said.
'I know everything,' she said. 'I saw the d**k pic you sent her.'
Tears poured out of her eyes. Her hands were shaking. He lowered his voice and said, 'Sorry. She's so insignificant. Just some stupid girl who kept pestering me to send a d**k pic so I caved in the end and just sent it.'
'What? You sent your d**k pic to some girl who pestered you? Where did you meet her?'
'On the Scrabble app, Words with Friends. Please let me come home and explain.'
'I don't trust you,' she screamed.
'I am sorry. I want to mend this,' he insisted.
She hung up, shaking.
She found his 'Words with Friends' password and entered the chatroom. All his chat history was right there.
She discovered that he was reaching out to many random women on the Internet, telling them he was a businessman, travelling around the world. She and he had gone on those trips together.
How could she have been so blind? Who was he? Who was this man she had been living with for four years? She thought she knew him. But can we ever truly know somebody?
That was the night she felt everything in her life was over.
The doorbell rang a few hours later. He was standing there, his expression robotic. He had taken the flight back from Dubai.
'Sorry,' he said. 'I let myself get distracted by another woman. Words, they stimulate me.'
'Words stimulate you?? So, you had an affair on WORDS WITH FRIENDS? These messages go back two years,' she said quietly. 'Who are you?'
'I feel it's easier to talk to strangers than people I know,' he said.
'I hate it. I hate myself. It's like being a porn addict. I was addicted to this girl like she was my porn.'
'But you were on your way to meet her,' she said. 'On Valentine's day!'
'It's all a stupid fantasy in my head,' he said.
'What else?' she said. 'Is there anything else that I don't know about you??'
He looked down. 'I am scared of it. But since I am coming clean, you should know. I fantasize about women I see on the street, on the train, anywhere. It could be the way their hair is touching their neck or their bra strap sticking out. So when we are together in bed at night I may think of them while I am with you.'
She choked. 'So you're saying there are other women in bed with us?'
'Yes,' he said. 'I don't know how to stop that. I feel so guilty. But I just don't know how.'
'That's why your eyes are always closed,' she mumbled.
'Oh my God, you have to leave.'
'She was a fantasy. An obsession. You are my reality,' he pleaded.
'I let myself become distracted with another woman. And women!'
'Distracted?' she said. 'Or obsessed?'
She cried. She was also confused. 'I'm sorry. I half feel bad for you, but I can't go on living with a man I do not know'
'You're breaking up with me over someone I have never met,' he insisted.
'Someone you spoke to every day. And you enjoyed deceiving me with her. And all those other women you reached out to, making yourself sound important? You have a dual personality.'
'I do,' he said.
'And what about the girls in your head that come to bed with us every night?' she said.
Tears rolled down his cheeks. This was the first time she had seen some emotion from Mr Robot.
She hugged him. She empathized with him.
'I love you,' he said.
'You must leave in the morning,' she said, her eyes full of tears.
'I don't have money for a ticket back.'
'Ask your Internet girlfriends,' she said.
They slept. In the morning, she woke up to him offering her eggs Benedict in bed.
'Change your mind?' he asked.
She shook her head.
'My sister paid for my ticket,' he said.
His bags were packed. She walked him down to the Uber. He sat in the car. She waved. He waved. Then, his eyes turned blank again. It was as if a mask had come over his face.
She stood on the street sobbing. The Uber drove off. He didn't look back.
Excerpted from All He Left Me Was a Recipe: Lessons From My Break-Ups by Shenaz Treasury, with the kind permission of the publishers, Penguin Random House India.
Feature Presentation: Ashish Narsale/Rediff.com
