She returned from the milk booth, made her tea, sat at the kitchen table, and thought about the notice. Then she called Rekha.
"I knew you would call," Rekha said, before Nirmala could speak. Rekha had the specific psychic confidence of a woman who had been correctly predicting her neighbours' behaviour for twenty years. "I'm coming to get you at six forty-five Monday morning. Wear comfortable clothes. Not a sari."
"I didn't say I was coming."
"Of course you're coming. You've been going to the milk booth at the same time every day for three years. Your doctor told you last month to get more exercise. And you read the notice — Malati saw you."
"Malati was watching me read the noticeboard?"
"She was watering her plants. It's not surveillance, Nirmala, it's a housing society. Everyone sees everything."
Nirmala was silent for a moment. She looked at the kitchen. The clean counter, the neatly arranged spice boxes, the little framed photograph of Rajan and her from a trip to Mahabaleshwar in 2018 that she had meant to move but had not. "Zumba," she said. "I am fifty-eight years old."
"Mrs. Apte is sixty-six and she's been doing it for a month. She says it's changed her life."
"Mrs. Apte's life needed changing. She was unbearable before."
"She's still a little unbearable. But now she's flexible." A pause. "Six forty-five, Nirmala. Wear the yoga pants Meghna sent you that you've never opened."
Nirmala had, in fact, not opened the yoga pants. They were in the original packaging, a gift from Meghna six months ago with a note that said: Amma, please do some exercise. I worry about you. Love M.
She found them in the back of the wardrobe that evening. She held them up in front of the mirror. They were teal. They had a mesh panel on the side which seemed, to Nirmala, to be there for purely decorative purposes and to serve no practical function whatsoever. She put them on. She looked at herself in the mirror for a long time.
She looked, she decided, absolutely ridiculous.
She also looked, in some way she couldn't quite put a finger on, like someone who was about to go somewhere.
She left the yoga pants on.
