A Match Made in Mehendi

by Nandini Bajpai

  “What happened?” Masi asks.

  Subtle and tactful, that’s my family. But you can barely see the sunburn anymore. Preet sent the tinted moisturizer Noah had asked for directly to his house so it would be waiting when he got home from vacation. She’s the best sort-of adult ever in an emergency, and Noah is really good at blending makeup—in fact, he has the best collection.

  He ducks his shaggy head a little. “Sunburn. It’s bad, I know.” His skin is so red it almost matches his hair.

  “A little chandan and haldi will fix it,” Mom says. She hands him a hot cup of chai. “Did Simi tell you about what she did yesterday, Noah? How she has the gift?”

  Noah’s eyebrows lift with surprise.

  “There is no gift,” I reiterate after swallowing a bite of omelet. “She already liked him. And he already liked her. Just moving things along that would have moved along on their own anyhow. Not. Rocket. Science.”

  Masi lifts my chin with her finger. “Puttar, how long have your mom and I been matching couples?”

  “I don’t know,” I say, pushing her hand away. “Fifteen years?”

  “Twenty,” Masi corrects me. “But you saw something that we couldn’t see yesterday. Why is that?”

  “Unlike you, I find furniture boring.”

  “Even so, it takes perception to be a rishta scout,” Masi says.

  “It’s not even close to a rishta!” I say. “If you’re lucky, they might go out on a couple of dates is all.”

  She continues like I never even said anything.

  “Not everyone would have picked up on it. You were the one that looked past the Singh Emporium T-shirt.”

  “Like a Singh Emporium T-shirt should automatically disqualify a guy!”

  “I mean, you saw that he wasn’t just a furniture salesman.…”

  “Just? That’s so rude and snobby. He was nice about the accident,” I huff.

  “Nice and well-educated,” Mom says. “I’m sure that matters to Preet, too.”

  Okay, maybe it does.

  “And you kept her there long enough for them to connect. You set the stage, Simi. You made their paths collide.”

  “Pure dumb luck.”

  “There’s no such thing as luck,” Masi says with a laugh. “It’s old instincts and new eyes. Instincts that go back through generations and fresh eyes that could see what we were too slow to see.”

  “And fresh eyes are what we need,” Mom says. “We’re getting too old, I think.”

  “If you just used that app Navdeep made for you, you wouldn’t need me or anybody else,” I say.

  “An app?” Noah asks.

  “Yeah, he spent a ton of time on it in his development class last year. He basically digitized Mom and Masi’s process—pretty cool. Mom thinks it’s impersonal, but Navdeep got an A.”

  “The old way is best. And you must—” Masi starts.

  I leap up from the table and grab Noah’s arm. “Time to go to school!”

  “But I’m not done with my chai,” he protests.

  “Too bad.” I pull him toward the door.

  “We’ll talk more about matchmaking later,” Mom calls out.

  “No, we won’t,” I reply as I slam the door behind me.

  As we walk down the driveway, I tell Noah the whole story. “And now Mom and Masi think that I have the”—I make air quotes for emphasis—“‘gift,’ or something.”

  “You’re a real matchmaker,” Noah says. “That’s so cool!”

  “I’m not. And you’re supposed to take my side!”

  We make a left on Pine Street.

  “Let me see the sketch you did of them,” Noah says.

  “Sure.” I fish it out of my backpack and hand it to him.

  “They really do look cute together,” he says, staring at the image of Preet and Jolly. “Far better than That-Creep-Fake-Wannabe-Bollywood-Star!”

  “They would’ve figured it out on their own, eventually.”

  “But they would’ve never met if it wasn’t for you,” Noah says.

  “Complete. Accident!” I say. Though I do feel a tiny bit of pride in having seen the vibe between Preet and Jolly.

  “Remember when you said Ms. Holt liked the new substitute teacher Mr. Wang when we were in fifth grade?”

  “You mean Mrs. Wang now,” I say, smiling at the memory. “Totally called that one.”

  “So maybe you’re good at this stuff.”

  “Look, matchmaking is Mom and Masi’s thing. Not mine. If out of all the things I could do and be in the world, I end up doing what my mom’s mom’s mom did… then it’s like I’m practically abandoning my own talent—art. I’ve just gone along with tradition. With what everyone expects from me.”

  “But what if matching is what you’re meant to do?”

  “I’m not sure it’s something anyone is meant to do. I mean, it had its place in Nanima’s day. But now people have moved past that. It’s so last century.”

  “If that were true, there wouldn’t be all those dating websites and apps and stuff, and even shows like The Bachelor wouldn’t be a thing.”

  “That’s different!”

  “I don’t see how,” Noah says. “Anyway, who started the matchmaking business?”

  “My grandmother’s grandmother’s grandmother’s… I don’t even know how far back it goes. So many generations. They were all vichole.”

  “A witch-what?”

  “Vichole. Vee-cho-leh.” I smile at the thought of our family matriarchs as warm-hearted witches. That would be something I’d totally be up for. “It means ‘middleman’—‘middlewoman,’ really. Like a marriage negotiator.”

  “I would make an excellent matchmaker—middleman. I love making predictions about who’s going to date whom. I could so be a love coach.”

  “You should join the Sangha clan, then.”

  “I would in a heartbeat. Adopt me! Your mom cooks way better food than mine.”

  We’re at the end of the block, and Mayfield High looms in the distance.

  I stop walking to take it in. Our school is huge. All redbrick and sprawling, with five floors built around a courtyard in the center, right off the cafeteria, that holds picnic tables where the upperclassmen eat on warm days. It doesn’t look any different than last year, but the sight of it doesn’t make us nervous like it did then. This year is our year.

  “You ready?” I ask Noah.

  “Ready,” he says, squeezing my shoulder.

  New year. New Noah and Simi.

  chapter four

  Noah and I join the crowd of kids streaming into the foyer. A few family friends call hello. “Hey, Arjun, Pooja, Arav,” I say back, then steer Noah away. I see enough of them at gurdwara and family get-togethers.

  “I need to meet new people,” I whisper to Noah. “It’s a fresh year, you know?”

  “Sounds good to me,” he says. He looks around and then blushes. What’s up with that?

  I turn to look and spot a new guy who basically stepped out of a magazine. Wavy black hair that falls onto his forehead, light brown skin, flip-flops, puka shells on his ankle, and a California vibe. Not really my type, but definitely Noah’s.

  “Who’s that?” I say. “He’s cute.”

  Noah shrugs. “I don’t know.” He turns away, but I can see him tracking the new guy from the corner of his eye. “And I don’t want to talk about it.”

  We usually talk about all the guys he thinks are cute, and he always disagrees with my picks, telling me I have bad taste. But I guess we’re not discussing today. Not with this one. Or maybe just not right now. I change the subject.

  “Okay. So did you figure out what Spirit Club is?”

  “Nope. I know Amanda’s president. Cami and Natasha are co-VPs, which is probably the only thing going for it. If they weren’t such Amanda fangirls, they might be nice. I heard a bunch of freshmen joined. They don’t know any better.”

  “Freshmen,” I say. “Poor, innocent sheep.”

  We shuffl
e through the foyer.

  Noah finds his locker at the start of the hall. “This is me.”

  “See you later.” I head farther into the masses to find mine.

  I push through the packed bodies headed in every direction. There are a lot of unfamiliar faces—freshmen, transfers, people who hit puberty over summer and morphed into unrecognizable beings. I catch a glimpse of a lanky brown guy loping up the steps two at a time. He’s preppy—in an MIT sweatshirt, chinos, and lace-up canvas shoes.

  Hmm. Freshman or transfer? Definitely Desi. Definitely cute. Actually, he looks a bit like the Indian prince in every Amar Chitra Katha comic book. That jaw, and that nose… he’s a dead ringer. I’m smiling at the thought when he turns around and catches me staring.

  His face lights up. He raises a hand in greeting.

  Wait, do I know him?

  My hand is already lifted in response, my face breaking into a goofy grin, when I realize that I don’t know him at all—because he’s waving at Marcus, who’s standing behind me.

  Wait, what’s happening?

  I shuffle back a step.

  “Oof, watch where you’re going!” a voice grumbles.

  My feet tangle with a freshman girl I’ve never seen before. My backpack slips off and knocks into her and then the floor.

  She glares.

  I flush.

  I’ve acted like a total idiot in full view of the cute new guy. Ugh! Today was supposed to be perfect!

  “Sorry!” I tell the girl, grabbing my backpack. I turn, embarrassed, to see just how much he saw, but he’s already disappeared up the stairs. I’m both relieved and disappointed.

  What’s wrong with me?

  This is not how the first day of school is supposed to go. The new Simi isn’t clumsy. She doesn’t bump into people. The new Simi is perfect. At least, she’s trying to be.

  I hustle to my locker, where Marcus is still standing. His pale white face holds a grin—he obviously saw me wave at a stranger and accidentally plow into a freshman. “That guy, MIT sweatshirt?” he says, putting his bag in the locker next to mine. “That’s my friend Suraj. He just moved here.”

  Suraj. Of course that’s his name. It means “sun” in Hindi and Punjabi, and he just scattered megawatts of sunshine all over the corridor through the simple act of smiling.

  “We met at the East Super Conference for FTC,” Marcus tells me.

  “The what now?”

  “The robotics competition. You know, the competition the Wallys won last year. Your brother’s team? My team?”

  “Oh, right. That!” The Wallys made state, East, nationals, and went all the way to the world competition. Navdeep bragged for weeks, and my parents were so proud and finally gave up on harassing him about being pre-med in college.

  “The Wallys’ robot beat Suraj’s team—they were the reigning champs.”

  I shiver, my brain almost oozing out of my ears as Marcus pummels me with more tech words. Snoozefest. So boring. Sucks that Suraj turned out to be a geek, just like my nerdy brother. “So what’s he doing in New Jersey?”

  “Transferred. He’s a sophomore like us, which is good because the Wallys can totally use him after Navdeep graduates.”

  “So he’s from…?”

  “Boston.” Marcus smiles. “You like him?”

  “No,” I reply. How dare he ask me that? I hide the smile tickling my lips. Marcus walks off, whistling.

  I spin the combination lock on the door of my locker and then, out of the corner of my eye, notice Amanda Taylor standing in front of a nearby locker.

  My hand instinctively moves toward my hair like muscle memory, like trauma, like even each strand remembers. I catch myself and clench it at my side instead.

  As usual, Amanda looks right through me, drumming her pink nails against her locker. The flower magnets decorating the door match her nails, which match her backpack and her socks. Let’s just say Amanda is into pink in a big way.

  “How could he not wave at me?” she says to Cami. She’s already mid-meltdown. Not her first one this morning, I bet, because her pale white cheeks are already red and it’s not from too much blush.

  “He didn’t see you. It’s the first day of school and crazy busy,” Cami assures her. She has long red hair, where Amanda’s falls in rich brown waves down her back. Are those extensions? Those are definitely extensions.

  They have the same fashion sense, though: pink, pink, pink.

  “Of course you and Ethan will get back together,” Natasha gushes. She’s tall with black curls and rich dark brown skin. She could be the daughter of a movie star. She’s a fan of pink, too. “You’re, like, so destined. Your families are close. You’re meant to be.”

  Ethan Pérez and Amanda Taylor? They dated for a nanosecond at the beginning of last year, mostly because their parents are friends and Ethan’s too nice a guy to say no. He’s been the star of Mayfield’s soccer team since eighth grade, when they let him on early; he’s popular because he’s a killer athlete, and because he’s kind to literally everyone.

  Including me—which is why he and Amanda ended up breaking up.

  Normally, I’d roll my eyes and move along. But today I snicker at Amanda’s theatrics before I can stop myself.

  “Did you just laugh at me?” she says, fixing her cold blue eyes on me.

  Oops. That pep talk I gave myself this morning is going to get me into trouble.

  “Me? Nuh-uh,” I say, stuffing my notebooks and binders into my new locker.

  “I definitely heard you laugh.”

  “Nope.” I’m so not getting into a thing with her again. Not today. Not ever.

  “What’s your problem?” she asks, arms folded across her chest.

  “Didn’t you start a Spirit Club or something?” I say, faking interest to calm her wrath. “What’s that about?”

  Cami jumps into recruiting mode. “Oh, it’s super fun! We help student council—Amanda’s running for president, please vote for her!—plan Spirit Week and run fund-raisers for parties and events all through the school year. You should join!”

  “You can apply, Gummy,” Amanda says, scanning me slowly, from my messy bun to my henna-decorated hands and ankles. “We have a lot of interest, but maybe you’ll make the wait list.”

  I push my shoulders back and, since she brought up gum, I pop a piece in my mouth. Part of my strategy to own my past and stick it to Amanda.

  “No thanks,” I say, and blow a deliberately large bubble. Amanda narrows her eyes when it pops. I grin. “Doesn’t really sound like my thing.”

  “Maybe you could help us design some posters, though?” Natasha asks. “We’ll need flyers and things to get the word out. You’re so good at art.”

  “Thank you,” I say. If Natasha and Cami ditched Amanda, I might want to hang out with them. But one glare from Amanda kills that idea.

  “No way,” Amanda interrupts.

  Natasha shrivels. It’s ridiculous how Amanda can intimidate. She pushes her shoulders back and narrows her eyes, and everyone just does what she says. Her sister, a senior and star of the Mayfield softball team, has the same nasty attitude, and Navdeep hates being in class with her. And rumors swirl about her oldest sister, who graduated two years ago, and how she hazed people as volleyball team captain. It must be in the blood, but I don’t think Amanda’s even all that good at bullying; her insults aren’t clever and her actions are mostly cliché, but the Taylor sisters have established a reputation, and Mayfield High students respect it.

  “We have so many volunteers already,” Amanda says. “We don’t need you.”

  “Suit yourself.” I shrug and go back to stuffing my school supplies into my locker.

  Kiran Kaur squeezes past us like she’s walking on eggshells, murmuring, “Excuse me.”

  “Sure,” I say, and flatten myself against my locker so she can get past.

  “Watch it, Sasquatch!” Amanda elbows Kiran and gets louder and louder. “Gotta trim that winter coat.”

 
; Heat races up my spine.

  The ridiculous thing is there are at least ten kids standing nearby. But no one says anything. That’s the Amanda Taylor effect. I’ve seen her get away with so much. I’ve let her get away with so much—specifically, the “Gummy” incident at the beginning of last year—and there’s not a day since I haven’t regretted it.

  Kiran’s usually super confident, at least when she’s teaching at our gurdwara’s Sunday school, but at Amanda’s insult, she puts her head down and moves past without a word.

  The old Simi wouldn’t say a word, either.

  The new Simi’s got courage.

  I take a deep breath and hook a finger onto my steel bracelet, buried in my stack of colorful glass bangles. It’s a reminder that a Sikh stands up for the innocent. This isn’t exactly how I planned on living my best life, yada yada, but here goes nothing.

  I slam my locker and plant myself in front of Amanda.

  “Really?” I can’t believe how clear my voice sounds. “What did you say? You calling out people’s body hair?”

  Everyone in hearing range freezes. No one calls Amanda out on the things she says. Ever.

  She pivots around, hair grazing her shoulders, surprise and annoyance written all over her face. “It was more like free advice.” She counts on her perfect fingernails. “In fact, three pieces of advice. One, waxing; two, shaving; and three, Nair.”

  My face goes hot. “It’s none of your business.” The fact is, many Sikhs don’t remove any hair for religious reasons, but I’m not about to tell Amanda that. It would be like I’m handing her a weapon to torment all of us.

  “Uh… whatever,” Amanda says, flicking a finger in my direction. “Disappear!”

  “Oh, I’m not disappearing.” I raise my chin slightly. I’m acting cool, though my heart is racing and my Sikh sherni hackles are standing up on the back of my neck. “But you should.”

  Cami and Natasha launch into excited whispers, and the almost-altercation dissolves as quickly as it started.

  “Sparky alert!” Cami mutters, pretending to look at her phone.

  “Sparky at ten o’clock.”

  I don’t get it.

  I look up and spot Ethan coming our way, surrounded by a group of juniors.