The Shaadi Set-Up

by Lillie Vale

  Una pulls her blond hair out of its bun, tight curls bouncing over her shoulders. With a worried glance at the grandfather clock, customized to pop out with rodent skeletons emitting ghoulish cackles every hour, she says, “I have to open. Hon, CariDee’s out for the day and we have that early lunch delivery. Could you . . . ?”

  “Yeah, I’ll do the delivery,” I say around a mouthful.

  “Rita, you’re saving my life here. Thank you so much. It’s a huge order and today’s is . . . Well, it’s for someone special.”

  “No, I’ll do it,” says Raj, frowning at her mother.

  “Raj, I’ve done deliveries before,” I point out.

  “And you’ve got that custom cake order to finish decorating,” says Una, matter of fact. “There’s no way you’ll be able to finish before eleven. Rita’s family, she’s got this.”

  “Yeah, which is why the newspaper is going to call this sororicide,” Rajvee mutters.

  Una holds her hand out for my phone. “You know where High Castle Realty is, right? Oh, look who I’m asking.” Her laugh tinkles. She’s already Google Mapping it for me, doing it the concerted, forehead-frowny mom way with one finger. “This is what I love about office parties, especially when there’s a promotion involved. They always ask for such a huge spread.”

  A guilty flush spreads over Rajvee’s face.

  “I think so.” I glance between mother and daughter, not sure what I’m missing, but absolutely sure that there’s something.

  “Mom,” Rajvee hisses.

  “You girls always make everything such a production,” says Una, handing my phone back. “Didn’t it happen years ago? Rita isn’t made of spun sugar.” She throws me a grateful smile. “Thank you so much. Now, I really have to get back out there. Friday mornings are our busiest time, except for Friday nights and Saturday mornings, and, oh, I suppose Mondays . . .” Her voice trails off as she bustles out, calling out more instructions to Rajvee.

  A moment later, the bistro fills with chatter like an opened valve, boisterous voices greeting Una, who, in typical Una fashion, carries on seven different conversations at the same time.

  I stare at the map and the red pin of the final destination. High Castle Realty.

  Oh.

  Oh no.

  Not his office.

  Milan freaking Rao. I should have known.

  My chest jackrabbits, each beat throbbing twice as hard in my ears.

  His face swims in front of me: crooked-lipped smile, sculpted jawline, and knowing eyes.

  Of course it’s me, Rita. Come on, you had to know where this was heading.

  I want to argue that I didn’t, but the ghost of him I’d been carrying hasn’t existed in years, and I hadn’t seen the writing on the walls even when it did.

  Cut yourself some slack, we were kids. Not like you had precognition or anything.

  If there’s anything I despise more than grew-up-unfairly-sexier-than-humanly-possible-and-I-hate-that-I-notice Milan, it’s earnest, you-can-trust-me Milan.

  The universe is doing the most to push me toward him, giant neon-flashing-sign style. I squeeze my eyes as tight as they’ll go before my inner Rita banshee shrieks: frown lines!!!

  “We’re still best friends, right?” Rajvee pipes up, shooting me an actually apologetic smile this time. “Listen, I’ve got this. Mom didn’t realize what she was asking; she probably thought you guys were cool again because I mentioned what your parents pulled, and you know my mom isn’t, well,” she winces, “great at the listening. So if you can just keep an eye on things here until I get back, I can—”

  I hold up the hand still holding the phone, brave face on. “I said I’ll go.”

  I committed myself, so I’ll see it through. Unlike some people.

  The steadiness of my voice kind of surprises me, but after all the other surprises I’ve had, maybe nothing should anymore. I inject pep into my voice, but it comes out a little aggressive instead. “Closure, right? Pack everything up, babe.”

  Rajvee stares at me, not moving. “You’re serious? Because you know you don’t have to.”

  “Raj, it’s closure or bloodstains,” I say grimly. “I guarantee you, he has as little interest in working with me as I have in working with him.” I screw up my face. “Which is the grand sum total of zero. I do this and I never have to see him again.”

  And that’s a promise.

  Chapter 8

  I feel the guillotine descending inch by excruciating inch the closer I get to the red destination pin on my GPS. Even after I pull into High Castle Realty’s parking lot, an imposing mirrored glass-and-concrete four-story building next to a high-end sushi restaurant, I circle like I don’t see a prime spot right in front. Part of me wants to just zip right on out of there, but I can’t.

  Time to grit my teeth and get on with it, and not be such a chickenshit.

  I exhale and slide neatly into the spot. You have arrived at your destination trills from my phone. I pull it from the air vent mount, close the map app, and remember that I’m not just a professional doing my job, I need to do this for me, too. Closure.

  “Time to put on your big girl pants, Rita,” I say out loud, then cringe. I sound like a mom trying to convince her reluctant child to eat their brussels sprouts instead of a full-grown woman doing what should be an incredibly simple errand.

  Step one, turn off the engine.

  Or I could just stay put.

  Step two, undo your buckle.

  Or I could just stay put.

  Step three, open the door.

  Or I could just stay put.

  Squaring my shoulders, I step out of the car, and by some miracle, my legs don’t give out from under me. It’s not the building itself that’s scary.

  It’s the boy, now man, inside it.

  Ignoring my inner Rita horror movie–screaming at me not to go inside, I take off at a brisk march, almost forgetting to look left and right. And then I’m at the door, pushing it open, and somehow, in what feels like all of two steps, I’m . . . there.

  In the belly of the beast.

  The AC hits me squarely in the face, drying out my contacts. I blink away the sandpaper feeling and head for the young woman at the front desk who’s twirling a limp blond curl around a ballpoint pen and yawning without covering her mouth.

  “Hi, I’m Rita from Little Shop of Hors D’Oeuvres,” I say. “I have a catering delivery?”

  Her expression brightens. “Finally. Lunch. Do you need help?” Before I can tell her I’m fine, she’s pressing one of the many buttons on her multiline phone. “Little Shop delivery out front,” she says. “Can I get someone down here to help the caterer?” She hangs up with an awkward smile.

  I look around me: at the gold sparkle in the gray marble tile; the white Casablanca lilies peeking out of the floral arrangement on her desk; head shots of realtors lining the far wall. But in true universe-screwing-me fashion, the first Realtor’s picture I land on is Milan’s, somewhere in the middle.

  “That’s our High Castle ‘Royalty’ wall,” she says, following my gaze. “Cool pun, right?”

  I stare at it a moment longer. How is he ahead of people who look so much older than him? Wouldn’t this be based on seniority? It’s clearly not alphabetic.

  The elevator dings. “Oh hey, here’s someone now,” the girl chirps.

  I make the mistake of turning to look.

  My heart bullfrog leaps into my throat.

  Milan.

  It all happens in slow motion, our eyes meeting even before the elevator doors glide fully open. His mouth drops open and his whole posture changes. His casual slump against the back wall straightens with a quick, hard jerk. I would laugh if I had any air in my lungs at all.

  Seeing him in his natural environment is weird in a way I can’t put into words.

  Has
he grown taller since he came over? I wouldn’t put it past him.

  I can only imagine his eyes are as wide and startled as mine must be, but he recovers faster. He’s wearing a three-piece black suit with a slim cut that shows off the impossible length of him. His lean fingers are toying with the half-Windsor knot of his mustard-gold tie.

  It’s not like one my dad would wear, it’s a skinny two-inch that brings out the warmth of his beige skin. I’m quarterback-tackled by the overwhelming, annoying urge to wind that tie around my wrist and pull him closer.

  The impulse isn’t real. It can’t be. It’s a fragment of the attraction left over from Rita ages fifteen through twenty. We’d been together as long as we’ve been apart. There were bound to be feelings I haven’t exorcised.

  Milan’s long legs reach us in a few short strides, crossing the gray marble floor without hesitation. Without a stumble in his step. Professional and collected. How are his legs not jelly?

  The fact that he looks amazing—again—isn’t lost on me.

  I’m relieved to be wearing something significantly cuter than the old tee he saw me in last. Expensive taste and an unstable income stream don’t mesh well unless you trawl through clearance racks and end-of-season sales. I look hot and I know it: 7 For All Mankind distressed high-waisted skinny black jeans and a loosely tucked pink satin cami; face-framing layers of hair pulled back with a thin strip of black velvet left over from a handmade curtain; a rose quartz pendant just shy of dipping into my cleavage. I look like my high school senior year photos instead of the college-student-going-to-an-eight-a.m.-class comfy that I’ve grown to appreciate.

  “Hey, Kerstin,” says Milan, shooting me a quizzical look. I open my mouth to say hi back, then clamp my mouth shut when I realize it wasn’t me he was addressing.

  “Aw, the boss sent Mr. Big Shot out for the hard labor?” Kerstin asks teasingly. She perches on the corner of her desk closest to him and crosses her slim legs. “Rough.” She turns, including me in her smile, but I’m still looking at him.

  “Yeah, turns out that being made junior partner doesn’t get me any special treatment,” says Milan, dimpled smile as careless and easy as if he’s just a boy talking to a girl.

  Her laugh spills out of her like a can of soda shaken hard.

  When was the last time he looked at me like that?

  I shake off the unwanted spikes of jealousy. I am made of way sterner stuff than this, and yet, right now, it’s so hard to remember that.

  Milan finally flicks his eyes toward me in silent question, smile fading. “Hi.”

  “So this is Rita,” says Kerstin, voice dropped conspiratorially, not realizing we don’t need any introduction. “She’s here to drop off your promotion yummies.”

  “They’re in the car,” I say, hearing the desperation and hating myself for it. “I’ll just go grab everything.” I jerk my thumb at the door and start to edge toward blessed escape.

  “I’ll help,” he says.

  Oh no, you won’t. Determined, I push the door open before he can reach me.

  His hand lands on top of mine. Shock zings through my fingers, ricocheting up my arms like a pinball arcade game. My grip on the door slackens enough for his fingers to slot between mine, and everything stops.

  My back goes ramrod straight. He’s touching me. And not just that, we still fit. I suck in a breath and hope he doesn’t notice, but I know he will.

  I dare to look at him. The light streaming in through the glass door turns his brown eyes, thickly lashed, into liquid honey. He’s staring at the tiny outline of a lotus flower on my right pinky finger, an exact match for Rajvee’s on her left.

  “I thought you hated tattoos,” he says, like a question.

  And I hate that I still know him well enough to know that’s not what he really wants to ask.

  According to best-friend logic, I needed to do something totally out of my comfort zone following the breakup, and yeah, that made total sense, putting myself through actual pain to get over the heart-ripped-from-my-chest actual pain. So I got the tattoo (her idea), but only if she did, too (mine).

  But I don’t feel like explaining any of that to him. He doesn’t have the right to know.

  Taking advantage of his lull, I push the door the rest of the way and slip outside.

  “Rita, wait.”

  I don’t turn around.

  “Rita.” Desperation thickens his voice into a deep rumble behind me.

  I unlock my car from a yard away. “What?”

  “What are you doing here?” Milan pushes his hand into his hair. His ears are a rosy red. His gaze trails down my neck, singeing electricity following the path his eyes take.

  It occurs to me that he doesn’t know I help out at Little Shop from time to time. My chest squeezes with love for Raj, who must have been so careful over the years to make sure I never had to make any deliveries here. She’d even tried to talk me out of coming today.

  “I work there sometimes,” I inform him, in as brusque a voice as I can manage while in the supremely awkward position of bending over to haul the insulated food storage containers from the back seat. “Believe me, I’m only here because their regular couldn’t make it.”

  When I make a soft grunt lifting one of the thermal boxes, Milan gets there fast, gently nudging me out of the way with his hip. His lean fingers grip the containers, hoisting them with upper-body ease. His caring boyfriend is coming out, which means my hackles are, too.

  “I’ve got it,” I grind out.

  “I know you do, but since I’m here anyway,” he says with a shrug.

  Fine, but we don’t have to talk.

  Kerstin holds the front door for us as we trek back in, loaded down with heaps and heaps of fried food. Suddenly, this whole menu makes sense. This is absolutely the kind of frat-boy food I imagine a bunch of office bros eat.

  The elevator doors close with a ding of finality and we start the ascent.

  My biceps ache so I put everything on the floor, trying to forget about all the dirty soles stamped over the steel. I glance at Milan to find, to my sour displeasure, he’s got everything balanced in his arms and doesn’t look tired at all. In fact, the fabric’s pulled taut over his triceps, drawing my attention to his slim wrist and soft brown hair and the band of the watch—

  He’s wearing the Daniel Wellington watch I gave him for his twentieth birthday.

  The stinging, spiny pricks of a durian fruit roll under my breast, tearing at my heart.

  I’m beyond thankful for the silence; if I have to make small talk, I’ll lose it.

  Milan’s standing close to me, friend close, not strangers-in-an-elevator close.

  When our arms brush, I flinch away.

  He smells delicious, like citrus and old-school Cary Grant.

  No, Rita. Bad Rita. You’re not supposed to notice that.

  I try to draw Neil’s face in my mind, instead, but give up one floor in.

  Milan’s eyes are on me, I can tell, because goosebumps skitter up my arms and chest, tickling the base of my throat the way his kisses used to.

  I scoot three inches away.

  His smile is amused, like he knows exactly what I’m doing, and why.

  I forgot that he knows me, too.

  It occurs to me that I’m behaving like a brat. The child that wouldn’t eat their brussels sprouts and threw a tantrum instead, who’s now counting down the agonizing minutes of their time-out like it’s an hour instead of just ten minutes.

  “Sorry,” I say on an exhale. “This is . . . This is weird, right?”

  “Not really,” he says, signature lazy yearbook smile back in place. “Our moms are still friends, kinda. I’m surprised we haven’t run into each other sooner.”

  He doesn’t sound upset about it. Which annoys me all over again.

  Does he think this make
s us friends?

  “Speaking of our moms,” I start to say, about to make sure he knows he’s off the hook, but the elevator lurches to a stop and the doors slide open. Men’s raucous voices overwhelm our small space, and Milan motions for me to precede him.

  My first thought is: This is a nice office.

  The carpet looks plush and the lighting is flattering, with plenty of sunlight coming in from the abundance of naked windows. Tall plants in heavy planters in each corner of the room, and gleaming walnut desks paired back to back. Family pictures line most of them, along with half-empty bottles of Mountain Dew and mugs with the company logo.

  If he’s made junior partner, would his desk be out here, or does he get his own office? If we never broke up, we’d probably be married now. He’d have our family’s pictures on his desk.

  I try to banish those thoughts before I start imagining little girls with his honey eyes.

  A loud, obnoxious laugh peals out.

  The room is empty, but the chatter is coming from somewhere.

  “This whole building is High Castle?” I ask. “This is the third floor.”

  “Commercial and residential real estate are on the first and second. This is luxury,” Milan explains, and if it were anyone else, I’d think it was a brag. He leads the way across the room to a glass partition with the words BOARD ROOM emblazoned in gold on the door.

  I hang back while the room erupts in whoops and cheers. While Milan is swarmed by his colleagues, I take all the food out and set it up on the long conference table, and I do it all without looking at him. I refuse to dawdle in what-ifs and what-could-have-beens.

  I’m about to duck out without saying goodbye, the straps of empty insulated containers dangling off both arms, when I hear my name.

  Ugh, what now. They’ve already paid. I just wanna get out of here.

  Milan’s waving me over, his circle of silver foxes, handsome young men, and chic women with ridiculously good blowouts all looking at me with interest and polite smiles. None of these people seem to have heard of casual Friday dress code.