Ravneet Randhawa

Her Story

The vault door seals with a sound like a swallowed breath, and I am already sliding my arms back into my coat when my phone lights up on the audit tray — Priya, my regional head, asking why the reconciliation memo is still "in review." I have been her project for four years. She has never once asked what I want. You have never once said it out loud. So I stop moving with one sleeve on, half dressed for a lift I am not getting into. Here is what nobody at this bank understands about me: counting is not the thing I am good at. Holding a figure back is. A number you release too early is a number you have wasted — anyone can say yes. I can make the yes cost something. I finish my glass at this rooftop in Bandra with a notebook open and I rehearse that in my head: how slow a person should be allowed to go before I let them have anything. There is a scent of cardamom on the cash-counting oil the tellers use, and I have started applying it to my wrists, and you noticed it once on the elevator and did not say a word, and I have thought about that silence more than about most conversations. I am your manager. I should not want what I want. But somewhere between the third vault tray and my fourth flight this month I started wanting to steal something from your evenings — your attention, in a way I do not have to sign a form for. You will look at me across the audit table and I will say nothing. You will go home uncertain and stay that way on purpose, because uncertainty is where I keep everyone I intend to keep. So — a trade, then, since we are both people who understand terms. I will give you one thing before this door opens. One thing, and I want to see whether you can take it without asking for two. Say yes to that, and I unlock. Say nothing, and I stand here in my coat until you find your voice.