Noori Noir

By Mansi Shanbag

It wasn’t until the last puff of my second cigarette that she finally showed up. Sweat beads on her forehead, clutching her bag in a frenzy, she jogged up to me. The hot weather made her face red and her tensed brows told me she’d had a fight at work. ­­

I dropped the butt of my cigarette and crushed it as I got up. I contemplated whether I should be annoyed with her or let her be. As soon as she locked eyes with me, she smiled in relief. I decided to give her a free pass.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It's been a DAY,” she huffed, pulling me by the arm into the café. I let her.

“What happened?”

“Same old, really. ‘You need to practice some meditation, it might help.’” She said, rolling her eyes.

“It might, you know,” I said, pulling her bag off of her arm and onto the table.

She stuck her tongue out at me.

Unzipped her bag and got her wallet out.

“Hey, Ronny? Remember when we took that trip and you bought a reallllly bad, super fruity drink and didn’t like it, and made me trade it for my black coffee?” I asked, smiling coyly. She owed me.

“Ugh, fine. I’m buying. Same old? Hazelnut latte, large?”

“You know it. Thanks, Ron!” I said happily, and settled deeper into my chair.

As she walked up to the counter to place our orders, I watched her receding back and couldn’t help but feel a warm wave of affection spread across my chest.

Ronny. My best friend since before I could even remember. We learned together.

We weren’t meant to be. No. we made it so that we were. We engineered our lives to make sure we were destined.

Does that count as destiny?

Twisted senses of humor, a love for the most ridiculous musicals and about a million drunk hangouts later, we knew it. We were going to be meant to be.

While she waited at the counter for our drinks, she turned around to wink at me.

Ronny. My best friend since before I could even remember. We changed together.

We had our issues. SO MANY ISSUES.

We fought like there was no tomorrow. Most of the time, there wasn’t. Until not talking to one another physically hurts. And then there was.

She signaled to the barista to add an extra dollop of whipped cream in mine.

Ronny. My best friend since before I could even remember. We grew together.

My mother passed away when I was born.

Her mother passed away when she was young.

I became her mother, she mine.

She walked back to our table, sat the tray down on our table, and plopped into her chair with a sigh.

“I think the barista has a crush on me,” She announced, toying with her straw.

“Why do you say so?” I asked, turning around to steal a look at the barista. Sure enough, he was looking in our direction with intrigued eyes.

We were used to it. Ronny is a beautiful girl with the delicate grace of a deer and a voice like wind chimes. Whenever I was upset or life got too much, she would hold my hand tight and sing me a song. Any song. Her reassuring smile and sweet voice were better than any worded comfort she could’ve extended.

I can imagine it would be hard to not fall in love with her.

I smiled sympathetically at the barista, who quickly looked away.

Poor guy. She knows she is beautiful. You are going to have to try harder to get her attention.

I am not a particularly arrogant person, but I do love that I, with my infallible insecurities, could hold her attention much better than these men could.

What a shiny feather in my not arrogant cap.

“Anyway. I want to stop by a bookstore later. Remind me. I need to buy this book--for research--for my story,” She said between sips.

“Why don’t you just go read it at a library?” I asked. I don’t know why I did. I knew her answer.

“Pfft, yeah okay. Sure. Others’ books, that other people touched, god knows in what conditions. Why not? You know what, why don’t I set up my personal library in a sewer!” she sarcastically spat out.

“Hmm. Right. Sorry.”

“What’s up with you? You seem solemn? Is it solemn? Or is it more like melancholic..?” she trailed off.

“Neither. Just enjoying this coffee.”

She put her drink down and stared at me. No expression on her face, just patience oozing out of her silent eyes.

She always knew to not push me. She knew I’d tell her soon enough.

Her silence reminded me of Beethoven’s Fur Elise.

Simple in the beginning.

Chaos toward the end.

“Oh, did you know the story of Fur Elise? By Beethoven?” I asked.

“No, what?”

“There is this theory that Beethoven had a huge crush on one of his students. Therese I think her name was? Anyway, he had a huge crush on her. But she was a god-awful pianist. Couldn’t play to save her life. So, my dude wrote her Fur Elise. Which was a simple and sober tune that any beginner could play.”

Her brows furrowed. “But Fur Elise is anything but simple?”

“Yeah well, Beethoven was a petty little shit too. He wrote her Fur Elise but she rejected him because she was already engaged to someone else. So, he rewrote the song so complicated that she would never be able to play it. Literally piano-blocked the shit out of her.” I ended with a flourish of my hand.

She barked with laughter. “Oh my god, Beethoven, the petty pianist. But wait, I think I read about this a couple days ago in some random article.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah! How odd that I’d come across this story right after having read it just a couple days ago.”

I shook my head while taking a sip, “Not that funny, actually. It’s the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. You learn about something and then you start seeing it all around you for the next couple days. It’s a thing. But actually, it was always around. You just never noticed it because you didn’t know about it. That’s what my brilliant mind has derived right this second.”

“Okay yeah, I’m sure no one in the history of the world has thought of this until you did, while sipping a latte in a fucking Starbucks,” She scoffed.

“Um? How do you know that’s not the case? I could be a genius,” I said, straightening my back.

“Mmhmm. You are, Noir. For sure, babe. Genius all the way.”

Noir. My name was Noori. She loved calling me Noir. I suspect it might be because of my brilliant dark side, but I don’t like tooting my own horn. I’m a genius.

Anyway…

“I have been thinking…” she trailed off again.

“Congratulations? That head could use a workout,” I joked.

“Heh. Funny. You should be a comedian,” she said, with a smile on her face but a giant ‘fuck you’ in her eyes.

“Go on. What have you been thinking?”

“I’ve been thinking about parallel universes. I don’t know. I don’t know about the existence of them. But the idea is so amazing!”

“Mm. Why don’t you know about the existence of them? They are definitely a thing.”

“Noir. Come on. Parallel universes?” She asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Ronny, I’m talking about science. Not magical worlds in a cupboard. Come on. It’s very possible.”

“Okay, so by that logic, there are things that we are doing in this universe that are also happening in the parallel universes. Correct?”

“Yeah, abso,” I shrug.

“Mmkay, so then, how is it a parallel universe? If the same things are happening here and there, wouldn’t that mean it’s the same universe?”

I looked up in deep thought. She smiled, satisfied, and resumed sipping her coffee.

“I mean, every fork in the road is a chance for a different universe,” I conclude.

“What do you mean?”

“Okay, so in my head, every universe has the same sketch. But the color you choose to fill can be different. For example, I can give you a sketch right now and ask you to fill it with one color. Today, you may choose red. Tomorrow, maybe yellow. Day after, blue? Similarly, every universe has the same sketch of, say, a field, but every decision is a different color. If you pick red in this universe, it’s an evening in the field. In the other universe, you pick yellow, it is afternoon in the field. Blue in the third universe, and it’s early morning.”

“Okay, but if I am the same person in all the universes, wouldn’t I pick the same color in any situation?” Ronny questioned.

“Ron, you wouldn’t even pick the same color twice in the same day. What are you on about?”

Ronny snickered and reached for my drink to take a sip.

We loved these conversations we had. Always so deep and so shallow at the same time. We could live in these conversations and not need anything else.

“Okay okay, so parallel universes could exist,” She gave in.

“Definitely. I mean, the Mandela effect is proof.”

“Okay, shut the fuck up about the Mandela effect already. Seriously. It is not a thing!”

“RON, COME ON. No way, I already convinced you about this. I’m not doing it again.”

“No, I get it. I understood the effect. But how can a bunch of people have the same warped, untrue memory? It just seems like one of those alien anal-probe stories.”

“Okay, I do not appreciate you putting those two together,” I said, holding my palm out in protest.

“If anything, I think the alien thing is more plausible,” she teased, peering up at me.

Again, I had an option. Should I yell at her about this or should I let it be?

She let out a naughty grin. Again, I decided to give her a free pass.

“You’re a pain in my ass,” I said, smiling.

We sat in the café for a couple hours. The barista never stopped looking at her. Once in a while, someone would pass by, stealing glances at her. But not once did Ronny look away from me. My chest puffed up with pride like a pigeon in heat.

I need to work on my metaphors, right? Gotcha.

With a last slurp of her drink, she announced, “Okay, let’s go for a walk.”

“I need a smoke.”

“Kay.”

She didn’t like me smoking. I knew it. But she never said anything to me. Each time I pulled a cigarette out of the box and held it between my lips, I felt her disapproval bubbling inside her. But it never bubbled over.

Lighting my cigarette, I asked, “Why do you never ask me to quit?”

“Would you listen?” she counter-questioned.

No.

I stayed silent.

She shrugged at me.

“Oh wait!! I have a song I need you to listen to. It is an instrumental. But it is exactly what it would feel like to find a brook while hiking early in the morning, with only crickets and little ripples of water sounds around you,” Ronny said, pulling out her phone and playing the track.

Her description was apt. I closed my eyes and let the song wash over me.

She always knew what I’d like.

We listened to the track on loop for a while.

It was only when I was walking her home later and had almost reached her gate that she talked again.

“Why don’t you come up for a bit? We could make some coffee.”

“Mm, coffee. It’s been a while,” I teased.

She tugged at my arm in response and we walked up to the elevator of her building.

Her house always astounded me. Not the size of it, but the possibilities of it. We always planned to move in together. And every time I visited her, I would spend hours, unbeknownst to her, imagining our life together. Her sitting on the couch, furiously typing away as she worked, her eyebrows a wretched mess. Me, sitting on the chair I loved, furiously typing away as I worked. The two of us and our respective partners gathering for dinner occasionally. Laughter and life filling up the house.

It just fit. Perfectly. Like puzzle pieces. Or you know, a fresher metaphor.

We rang the bell and waited for her father to open the door. A weird nervous tinge tickled my spine. I was always awkward around her family. They weren’t mean to me, no. They just never wanted to acknowledge me. Like I was a dirty secret they wanted to hide from their world. Like they wanted to hide their world from me.

I never let it get to me. Ronny mattered to me more than all of it. I didn’t care that they didn’t care. Most of the time, I didn’t care.

Her father opened the door slowly, his entire attention on the newspaper he held.

“Dad! Hurry up! I have bags in my hand.”

“Bag,” he corrected. Still not looking up.

“Say hi to Noir,” she commanded, setting her bag down on the couch.

Her father sighed deeply.

No response.

Splendid.

“Dad, come on. Don’t be like this. Say hi to Noori,” she said, irritation seeping into her voice.

Her father loved her. Could never say no. I’d seen that blind love in his eyes before. It was lovely. I was envious of it.

He cleared his throat and said, “Fine. But only if you take this.”

He handed her a bottle of pills.

She looked at the bottle in confusion.

“Why the pills? What are they for?”

“Just vitamins,” he said, looking away from her.

“How far will you go to ensure I take care of my health?” She asked, exasperated, as she pried open the bottle.

“I need to get a lot more creative. Maybe some vitamins dissolved in your coffee,” he joked. His eyes never left the newspaper.

“That’s just not legal, dad. My god,” Ronny laughed, as she popped a single pill and took a sip of water from the jug on her table.

Turning around, she motioned me to come forward. Only then did I realize I hadn’t moved at all. I still stood at the entrance, unsure of my place in this setting.

“Dad, say hi to Noori now. I took my vitamins.”

Her father looked up toward me, emotionless, and waved a reluctant hi.

My eyes pinched with tears at how little emotion there was in his face. Like I was just another stray animal she brought home. I tried my hardest to not let it show. I couldn’t look away from his face though. Like a deer caught in headlights.

“Shit. I knew it. Too perfect. You were too perfect, Noori,” Ronny whispered.

I forced myself to look away from her father.

Ronny stood there, trembling. Tears in her eyes, a sad smile on her face.

I looked down to see the very tips of my toes beginning to fade.

The last thing I would hear would be ­­­Ronny’s shaky voice, “I hope I see you again, Noori.”

By Mansi Shanbag