“Riya Reddy, Office manager” – it’s what the nameplate said. Plastic painted like brass.
20 years. She’d been with SAMMANA Transport NPO for twenty years, sidereal reckoning, and she hadn’t even qualified for a brass nameplate.
No. That was wrong. It would give the wrong impression. The wrong sort of permanence. Drivers? Didn’t get any nameplates. They didn’t even get picture ID.
For so many horrible reasons.
No. God, why was she – She came back into her actual surroundings. The conference call had been going on for hours. The client was on the active gods list – a Kashmir to Ganges loop. Wanted a whole retinue, had some specific path to go by – none of it highway. And. Of course. It was the Bhramans doing all the speaking for him. Riya was listening into the call, jumping in when necessary – but mostly letting Usha handle it.
Usha Alikadi Khanakarii had been in diapers when Ms. Reddy got this job. She had quickly distinguished herself by not giving one shit over who people held their clients to be. Some of this was attributed to her being Christian, not Hindu – and moreover, Scheduled caste – but there was more to it than just that. She had grown up with one of their potential clients – and, it was believed, had multiple interactions with others. Exposure, lessons that took others years to absorb.
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Facilitating such things was what SAMMANA did. Keeping powerful individuals content enough that no further intervention was needed.
It usually worked. Usually.
The phone line finally, mercifully, went dead. Almost the whole day had passed with the call – More than Riya had remembered – well.
Three cars. One more for, essentially, catering. Two more to depart two days later, taking highways, meeting an hour from the destination. Hotel bookings. Rest breaks at “auspicious” times.
Riya received the electronic itinerary soon after the call was over. Now it was time for her actual job.
Usha was dying. Badly. She never spent 8 hours in a chair – she hardly spent a single hour. And while running paperwork around for signatures wasn’t her ideal activity, it was at least activity. Unlike haggling with some priests trying not to reincarnate as snails or something – or whatever they actually deserved for living off protection money.
She hadn’t been left much time over the call to think, much less move. She wouldn’t have even got time for fresh tea if not for the charity of Nisha.
Usha wanted to scream as she exhumed herself from the chair, not just because it had made an attempt to run itself up her arse.
She was known as the office yogi. Not because she dispensed particularly sage advice, but because when one could find her on break, it was stretching… some said inhumanly, but management was quick to assure he coworkers that there was nothing Inhuman or superhuman about Usha – at least by their official definition.
That hadn’t stopped the woman from occasionally tearing through office uniforms – a prospect which seemed to excite upper management. SAMMANA’s drivers’ uniforms had gone through many durability updates, but not their office staff uniforms. If there was any placebo effect to feeling like a superhero in the past few months, Usha was the one to blame/thank.
And now, that cotton skirt that might have provided minimal support was a cotton spandex skirt that she could feel every screw through.
Riya came upon Usha trying to massage some blood and feeling back into her butt – she wasn’t even stretching, just standing there, half leaning on her desk.
“You’re taking tomorrow off.”
Usha Took a moment to respond, “Oh, no, please don’t worry-“
“You come in tomorrow, nothing gets done anyways. I will not have you slacking on company time. Take it. With pay. Take this.” Riya slapped an envelope on the desk beside her, “You don’t have to use it tomorrow, but use it.”
The envelope seemed to be embossed with the name of a local spa. And by ‘seemed’ – the word ‘Spa’ was on it, but Usha wasn’t one to look for those sort of things.
“Really?”
“You might have prevented multiple riots today. Yes. The rest is not your problem, ” Riya straightened up, “Don’t make me doubt your ability to follow instructions now.”
Usha stood up straight in response, “No ma’am.” A few joints took the opportunity to gracelessly slide back into place, “No ma’am,” she winced.
The Reddy sisters piled into their car mere minutes later – Riya drove. Nisha and Isobelle were dead silent in the back seat.
“Khanakarii had it rough today.” Nisha started.
“I listened in. Yes, she did. I gave her the free spa day.” Riya kept her eyes on the road.
“Ah, I suppose that gives something to ask about next time. Whenever that is.” Nisha let out a bored hum, barely audible over the rumble of the road.
“Don’t worry, I’ll cover for her.” A red light. She loosened the ribbon that served as a necktie, slipped her earrings into her pocket. It wasn’t like there were going to run into anyone more that day that needed to tell them apart. Riya could be absolutely certain of this. She remembered sitting right where they were a few days ago. Not exactly the details of this conversation – but,
Isobel twitched, quietly, the horn sounding behind them timed to the microsecond the light had gone green.
“Just wait until we’re home.”
After a few minutes’ bone realignment time, Usha was on the bus. The din of traffic. The honking. The bumping along with frequent stops. None of these were the comforts she wanted.
Her apartment had nearby takeout. Fine. She remains standing as she waits, knowing as soon as she sat again it would be the end of her day.
Her apartment was nothing she could afford on her own budget. She wasn’t the only SAMMANA employee in it – but she speculated that her rooms were the barest. Remittances were sure to keep it that way for a while yet – but that was fine. She didn’t feel like she needed to fit into whatever they called this part of Kolkata… a name assigned back when it was discernible.
Did she deserve elevators?
That didn’t really matter. People looked at her strangely if they saw her coming from the stairway door. It was more about appearances.
Her keys rattled as she tugged them from her bag… then she realzed. The door wasn’t locked. She bulled back and shivered. Had she forgot that morning? Had…
The door opened.
It was her face peeking out at her. The door opened wide, revealing – herself? her twin?
“Welcome home!”
It was her voice. No, her voice if she had just woken up – not at the end of a day of work. The clothes were wrong – she did own a saree, but not a yellow one. And her hair wasn’t dyed black – she didn’t need to. So there was no reason for that hair to have white roots.
Usha let out an exasperated sigh, “Please. Don’t do that again. Or – at least leave the door locked of you do.”
The other woman pulled Usha into her own apartment, closing the door behind them before saying anything more, “I was being watched. Good Lord, so many people here.”
“So you picked my lock instead.”
“Like locks have ever meant anything to your Aunt Mina,” Her arms stretched to the kitchenette – hardly used – to fetch the lock – stopping midway. No, she hadn’t set it aside, “I’d say get a new padlock but you can’t, can you?”
“At least it can be barred from the inside. But no, I can’t change the locks.”
Mina gave a disappointed sigh, “It was faster to pick it than to use a key, I’d wager.”
Usha was already half out of her uniform, her experience telling her as she made her way to her closet that her aunt wouldn’t particularly care about it, “And good thief would have one of those big bolt cutters anyways. Not lockpicks for fingertips. ” A oversized kurti was pulled out. “I hope you weren’t expecting me to have food ready for you… you can’t have my breakfast.”
“I ate, I ate. I’ve only been here for an hour.” Mina rubbed at her face – less out of necessity and more to hide the distortion – as it changed to one her grand*-niece would be more familiar with. “I hope they don’t always make you keep this schedule.”
“I hope so too. But no. Some Kashmir guy needed caring for.”
Mina settled down in one of the dustier ‘kitchen’ chairs, nodding. She knew SAMMANA’s charter – even if she never used their services. She had a friend or two that did. Though, none in Kashmir. Mina talked while Usha ate. There was a new mall in Ranchi, did she know that? Not that that was either of their thing, but Mina had visited it none the less. She assured Usha that half of it was the same overpriced Chinese crap available the world over – scandalous. It even had an arcade of sorts. A good one? No. For some reason the phrase “Dark Mars” stuck in Usha’s mind, but she was not to eager to try and figure out why.
“Do… you have a place to stay? I mean…”
“I’m not going to make you give up your mattress, no. I’ve already paid for a hotel room – but I could bring my things tomorrow. If you’re alright with that. I just have some papers to sign while you’re at work. Anything else can be put off after that.”
“Papers?”
“Papers.” Mina continued to not elaborate.
“Well… I probably could use your feedback with a few stretches tomor- wait. I don’t have work. I was told not to have work. Perhaps you want to join me in a spa day after your papers? I don’t know how much it will cost… us. But it can’t be too horribly much the way they dropped it on me.”
“You don’t have to schedule?”
Usha yawned. “I dunno. That’s a question for later. Maybe just a stretch day.”
“Then we’ll see in the morning,” Mina, rather abruptly – or perhaps it was just because Usha was already unintentionally nodding off – Gave Usha a quick hug and bid her goodbye. The latching door made Usha jump a bit, and she looked up to find her aunt’s fingers latching it up for her before disappearing through the cracks.
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