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She shrugged again, and when she looked at me this time, I flinched at the pity in her gaze.
“I don’t know. It’s nothing personal, Didi. You’re nice enough, and you bought Christmas presents for the children of all the staff members. I guess it’s just how people are. They take pleasure in the troubles of others.”
My breath came in shallow puffs as I tried not to pass out. It was all very well for her to say that it wasn’t personal. Suddenly, it felt all too personal to me. The prank, as well as the reaction it caused.
Did the people of the commune hate me so much? I had only been here for a few months and had barely spoken to the adults here.
“Who are these people exactly?” asked DV. “I want names.”
“How does it matter, Sahab?” asked Malti nervously. “I don’t want to get anyone in trouble.”
“It does matter because it will help us trace this line of thinking back to its source,” he replied.
I stood up angrily, sending a plush pile of cushions toppling off the sofa.
“Enough is enough! I don’t want to sit through a list of all the people who think I deserve to find a dead bird in my bed. This is so humiliating,” I cried.
A warm hand closed over mine. I looked down to see DV’s big hand wrapped firmly around mine. He tugged me back into my seat and held my hand even tighter as he forced me to look at him.
“This won’t be easy, Tasha, but we have to do it. There’s no valid reason for anyone to be happy about what happened to you. It’s just schadenfreude. People enjoy seeing others being miserable. But we do need to find out why all this negativity is being directed at you.”
“What do you mean?”
“What DV means is that we need to find out who here thinks you’re too haughty for their taste. The people that Malti mentioned could just be gossiping about what they’ve heard. But someone, somewhere on this commune has described you as haughty to one of these same people. And that’s likely the person we’re looking for,” explained Samar.
I pulled my hand out of DV’s vice-like grip and glowered at all of them from the recesses of Mrs Fialho’s comfortably deep sofa. Hmph. It was all very well for them to make sense. They weren’t the ones who had to hear mean things about themselves. As for calling me haughty! Just because I preferred talking to children instead of adults.
“It wasn’t anyone important, Didi,” Malti hastened to say. “A couple of the security guards mentioned it to me this morning when I was cleaning the community centre.”
I seethed silently as I realised that I knew exactly which guards she meant. Most of the security staff was extremely professional, but two of them liked to flirt with anything that moved. I had kept my distance from them until now, and they had been respectful enough. But I guess there was something else entirely behind those polite nods.
“I want their names,” said DV.
He looked forbidding, and I felt sorry for the poor idiots who’d have to face him down.
“Umm, what exactly do you plan to do with their names?” I asked anxiously. “I mean, we can hardly call the cops over such a small prank. What do you plan to do to them?”
“I’m not planning to take their heads off, if that’s what you’re worried about,” he said with biting sarcasm. “I merely want to have a chat.”
Could you blame me for asking that, though? DV looked mad enough to grab those men by their legs and rip them apart like wishbones.
“Yes, well, I have no intention of visiting you in prison, so please leave the strong-arm tactics to Samar,” I snapped. “At least, he knows what he’s doing.”
I expected DV to look insulted at my implication that he didn’t, but he just rolled his eyes. Samar didn’t even bother to hide his wide grin as he took down the names from Malti.
“Tasha, what do you think is DV’s role in the company?” asked Sona, curiously.
“I don’t know. Looking pretty? Schmoozing new customers? You know, a sales guy with a seat on the board,” I said vaguely.
For some reason, she slapped her forehead hard at my words. I moved away a little just in case she felt like slapping my forehead next and made a face.
“What?I’ve seen him do exactly that at parties,” I argued.
“And I’m so good at it,” said DV, with a smirk.
“At what?”
“Looking pretty,” he replied, with his trademark cocky grin.
