‘Hello, yeah. I’m in front of Dominos. Now what?’. I said.
‘Come inside. You said you wanted to marry me even though you haven’t even met me. This is the test of your love. There are exactly 8 girls here. You get only one chance to spot me. Go!’, She dropped the call. Shit just got real.
I entered inside and took a quick glance. Nothing abnormal or out of the blue. This wasn’t going to be easy. I grabbed a seat in the corner so that it gave me a full view of the area. Some heads turned in my direction but only for some nanoseconds.
I looked closely towards each girl: their movements, their style, their voice but nothing clicked. Maybe this is how Watson felt on days he would travel alone without Sherlock. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine her face by replaying her voice. I realized that I wasn’t much of an artist and my Engineering Drawing grades came back to me screaming and I was taught Artificial Intelligence by a fabulous hell teacher.
I changed tactics and applied JEE approach. I thought of it as an objective question with eight options instead of four. The elimination method was my personal favorite.
‘Too conservative going with the clothing style.’ One down.
‘Came with her parents: not a chance.’ That was easy. Two down.
‘Too much into her mobile. She doesn’t use WhatsApp or Facebook.’ Five to go.
‘Continuously checking me out since the beginning of the century.’ Definitely a decoy.
‘She’s with a boy. Could be a friend or brother or boyfriend.’ Probable candidate.
This could take a while. I thought of ordering something. Suddenly it struck me. She was always there, right in front of me. Very clever, a bluff-master. But she had met her match now. I went and stood in line to order.
‘Good morning sir, what would you like to order?’, she asked.
‘Morning, my previous order has not been fulfilled yet’, I exclaimed. She was puzzled.
‘Sorry sir, I don’t think you have ordered yet’, she replied. I knew it.
‘I ordered a romantic date with a beautiful lady so why am I playing Hide-n-Seek, huh?’, her cheeks turned into the most delicious color I have ever seen.
‘How do you know? Even my name-tag is different’, she chuckled. She had a smile that cuts like a knife.
‘Well, I have talked to you before and guessed that you were someone who interacted with people on a daily basis. Second, you immediately counted all the girls over the phone. So you have to be somewhere you could see everybody. Third and the most important if it were someone from the other girls she wouldn’t have counted the girl from the billing counter unless she herself was her. And finally, nobody gives a damn about every single customer so your obvious question should have been what my order was but you said I hadn’t ordered yet. You were paying more than required attention towards me. Did I pass your test?’
(Silence)
‘Wow! I’m impressed. You passed with flying colors’, she said.
‘Well, you impressed me first with your writing skills. Shall we order, I am starving Miss (looking towards her fake name-tag) Shruti and you know I much I love farmhouse pizza with that extra cheese. Nice to meet you.’