The Shaadi Set-Up

by Lillie Vale

  And then, just like that, this work-in-progress table no longer belongs to a nameless, faceless family. It’s mine. I want it. Not just the table, but everything that comes with it.

  I want the life.

  I want tiny little faces with dimpled smiles and Disney-round eyes crowding around this dinner table. I want kisses exchanged over morning cups of coffee, too long and languid, making our kids screech. I want to argue and know we’ll make up, mop up spills, and synchronously clear the table after a long day, not needing to speak in order to be understood. I want to bicker at Trader Joe’s over the date night wine (I love white, he loves red, rosé disgruntles us both).

  I want this—all of this—for me.

  I just never wanted it with Neil.

  My eyes sting. No matter how much I’d wanted to buy extra time with him to see where things went, I realize now that I never envisioned it ending in marriage.

  A shadow falls over the table. My palm lays flat against a man’s shadow chest, right over his heart. I yank my hand away.

  “Hey. Sorry. I lost track of time playing with the dogs on the beach,” says Milan with a rueful smile. “Even Freddie enjoyed himself.” He pushes his wet hair away from his face. Sand sticks on his feet and dusts his shoulders. “Can I help?”

  “No, I’m almost done here,” I say, swiveling my gaze back to the table. I keep it short as if that’ll put some distance between us, but he doesn’t get the message.

  “That looks amazing,” he breathes. His damp, bare shoulder brushes against mine. He catches my eye and nudges me again, this time on purpose.

  He reaches out to smooth his fingers over a knot the size of a fist. He traces the swirl with hypnotic reverence, exploring for the first time. “You know, I was always a little jealous that you had this passion for what you studied. I was never that excited about investment management.”

  “Is that why you went into real estate?” I ask, because this piece of the puzzle still hasn’t slotted into place. “When I went to High Castle, and saw your photo on the wall, I almost couldn’t believe it at first. You were an adult. Wearing a tie and everything.”

  His mouth quirks.

  “I mean, obviously there’s more to being an adult than that, but you know what I mean,” I rush on, a little annoyed with myself. “It’s impressive the way you climbed the ranks so fast. Did Mr. Bell mentor you? I mean, you were promoted to partner. That’s huge.”

  “No, I’m just that good,” he says, then winks when I roll my eyes. “No, Josh looked out for me when I started. Said I had pluck, but what I really needed was hunger. You know how I am, I throw myself into things two hundred percent. Work is the same. Not like I have a lot of other things vying for my attention these days.”

  No wonder he’s on MyShaadi. With how hard he works to get where he is, he has zero time to meet anybody. Sympathy tugs at me.

  “But what about MyShaadi?” I ask.

  Milan meets my gaze steadily. “I’d prefer to meet someone without it.”

  “It’s hard to believe you’re single.”

  He grins. “Careful, Rita, that almost sounded like a compliment.”

  “Oh, like you don’t already know you’re staggeringly good-looking.” I roll my eyes. “You dress to impress.”

  “I dress for myself,” he corrects. “Although I do like your description of women staggering back when they see me for the first time.”

  “That’s not what I—”

  “And, I mean, that does explain a lot. The way you staggered back and slammed the door in my face at your parents’ house, for example. Surprisingly accurate.”

  It takes every muscle I have not to react. Instead, I take a half step back and study the table, squinting like I’m taking its measure. “Do you think we’ll have the room?”

  “For what?”

  “To get this through the door, along with your massive ego,” I deadpan.

  That elicits a whoop of laughter that turns into a cough that turns into me thumping him on the back until his coughing subsides. There’s a slight chance I hit him a little harder than strictly necessary.

  “I don’t know,” he says, wiping tears from his eyes. “Why don’t we try?”

  “Don’t think I’m forgetting the timing of your coughing fit,” I say, moving to grab the other end of the table. “Totally saved you from having to come up with a witty repartee.”

  “Rita, Rita, let’s just agree I’m staggeringly handsome and leave it at that.”

  “Dream on, Milan,” I grumble, lifting the table at the same time he does. “Hurry up and help me bring this in. The sooner you’re out of my house, the sooner I can get back to work without being distracted by the totality of your youness.”

  “That’s not the insult you think it is,” he says cheerfully, then stops, his grip on his end of the table slacking. “Hold up. Your house?” His dimple winks.

  “Our house,” I backtrack.

  His grin widens.

  “The house,” I say. “The one that I have absolutely no attachment to whatsoever.”

  We both know I’m lying.

  It’s only after he leaves to catch the last ferry back to the mainland that I realize he never filled me in on his meteoric rise at High Castle Realty.

  Chapter 19

  It’s not just the house I’m getting attached to, and I’m not sure I like it.

  By mid-August, we fall into a strange domesticity on Rosalie Island, a limbo where we don’t talk about the past. Which, of course, makes me want to bring it up with renewed intensity every time I see his face. Since that day at the farmer’s market, Milan’s over every weekend, and an afternoon or two during the week, too, when he can get away from work.

  With every week that passes, I grow more and more used to having Milan around. Helping me wallpaper; bringing me a second phone charger when Harrie decides to hide the first; joining me on jogs even though he gets winded before I do and has to fall back to carry Freddie. If he happens to stay late enough for dinner, he cooks and I do the dishes. Simple meals, because that’s all either of us has the energy for, and then he catches the last ferry back at nine.

  It’s so easy to see how this could have been my life if he hadn’t broken up with me over voicemail.

  It’s so hard to see how this could have been my life if he hadn’t broken up with me over voicemail.

  He claims he’s helping me, and he does. But when he brings fancy food and bottles of chilled sauvignon blanc in insulated wine jackets, it starts to get a little suspect.

  After another of our Saturday “working lunches,” Milan heads to the small hardware store in town for new drawer pulls, and I use the reprieve to call Mom.

  She picks up before the second ring. “Rita, I’ve been calling you all morning!”

  “Mom, I told you the reception here isn’t great.”

  She makes a soft scoff. “Why didn’t you tell me you were on MyShaadi?”

  My stomach bottoms out. There’s no possible way she could have known. “W-what?”

  “Rita, ahey?” Aji’s voice asks, faint, but no less imperious. “Speaker lau.”

  Mom sighs in acquiescence, putting me on speakerphone. “Why did I hear from Mrs. Khanna that her son matched with you on MyShaadi?”

  I drop the silverware into the sink with a loud clatter.

  “She also said you haven’t accepted him,” adds Aji. “Why not? Sanju Khanna is a doctor,” she adds, with a hint of reproach.

  Now Dad’s voice chimes in, “Technically he’s a nutritionist.”

  “Technically means doctor,” says Aji.

  Dad sighs. “I promise I’m not being elitist here, but technically he didn’t go to medical school. He has a master’s degree in food and nutrition science.”

  “He works in your old hospital,” counters Aji. “So, doctor.”

>   I can imagine Dad now, pinching his nose and regretting even getting into it with his mother. While Aji goes on to chatter about what qualifies someone to be a doctor to Dad, an actual doctor, I zip over to Safari on my phone.

  You have several unmet matches! Unlock more by upgrading to a premium plan.

  An icon of Sanju Khanna’s broad, beaming face, showing way too many teeth, is still in my match list. I hit reject and scan the other faces, relieved when none of the other men are Neil. It would be the worst timing.

  The first match, right on the bottom, is Milan. I haven’t rejected him. Yet. And he hasn’t rejected me. If we haven’t talked about the elephant in the room yet, we never will. What am I waiting for? Maybe I should just do it.

  Just put my finger there and—

  Reject. Done. It’s over before I can regret it.

  “So you weren’t lying when you told Milan you were looking for men,” Mom says, as soon as there’s a lull in Aji’s lecturing. “But I thought—”

  “Of course Rita wants to meet reliable men,” snaps Aji. “And why shouldn’t she?”

  “ ‘Don’t go out on the street in your nightie’ goes in one ear and out the other, but this she remembers,” Mom mutters.

  Aji makes a loud harrumph. “Should she live alone the rest of her life because of him?” Without waiting for an answer, she says, “Sanju Khanna, the doctor”—Dad groans—“was very interested in you. And he could get anyone. Ekdum handsome zala ahey.”

  “But what about Milan?” Mom continues. “When you told me you agreed to flip a house with him, I thought you and he would get back together. It’s been weeks. Has anything happ—”

  “Arey, forget Milan. I was telling her about Sanju,” says Aji, snappish and irritable. “You can ask him what diet to put your fatty on so he can go on a proper chakkar without being carried.”

  My stomach clamps when I think about my match with Milan, gone forever. I pass my hand over my face. I’m getting a headache. I love my family, and I love them even more when they’re miles away, but not when they’re all squabbling in my ears like gerbils.

  “It’s Freddie,” I say, apparently to no one, because they’re all talking over me. “And in his defense, he’s not out of shape. He’s lazy.”

  Only Dad laughs. “Tell Freddie it’s not personal. She’s been trying to get me on the treadmill more, too.”

  “So go accept Sanju and I will WhatsApp his mother to tell her the good news,” Aji says, voice encouraging. She’s not great at drenching her iron will in syrupy gulab jamun sweetness.

  I stifle a laugh. The way the older generation uses technology is eerily reminiscent of the way me and Raj would race to the family computer room—back when those were a thing—after school to log on to AOL Instant Messenger—AIM, if you were cool—to whip out our phones and text each other “Get online!!! I’m already here!!!” on our ten-cents-a-minute phone plans because we were only cool enough for AIM, but not enough for a Verizon phone plan.

  “Snotty Sanju, the nutritionist,” I say slowly and very deliberately, “once slurped a thick string of his own snot in fourth grade, and not even because anyone dared him.”

  “Shee!” Aji exclaims.

  “Does my love life really need to be a four-person decision?” I ask, pressing my palm over my mouth to catch a stray giggle at Aji’s horror.

  “Rita’s right,” says Dad. “We don’t all need to talk about this. It’s her business.”

  “Thank you, Dad,” I say with emphasis.

  “Elders should be consulted in these matters, han?” says Aji.

  “Rita, you have a second chance,” says Mom. “How many people can say that?”

  Even though she delivered it softly, it quietens the line like the sullen silence that follows a slamming door. Splitting the moment into a before and an after.

  I know she’s thinking about Amar. She has to be. He’s the second chance she never got to have, and the whole reason why she thinks I need one with Milan. So I don’t grow up to be her age, married to a man who would only be second best, hoping my child would be happier.

  Aji seems to have had the same thought. “Not everyone deserves a second chance,” she says in the steely it’s-my-TV-time-now voice I remember from when I was younger and we frequently skirmished over control of the remote. She switches to Marathi to say, “Sometimes we have to live with what we’ve done. We can only learn from the past, not rewrite it.”

  Dad’s voice holds a smile. “My mother the philosopher.”

  “There’s no need to make your bed and lie in it if there’s still a chance to get what you want,” says Mom. She ignores Aji’s snort. “Right, Ruthvik?”

  Thank god we aren’t on video and they can’t see my expression. It’s unfair she wants him to agree. I hope he doesn’t know why my second chance with Milan means so much, what it represents to her.

  “Esha, you are wise and correct as always,” said Dad, generous to a fault.

  Right when I think the crisis has been successfully averted, Milan’s boisterous “Rita, I’m hooooooome!” breaks the silence. “Let’s get those drawers down and start stripping!”

  Over Aji’s startled gasp, Mom starts to ask “Who is—” but I cut her off with a hurried “Nothinggottagotalktoyoulaterbye!” before hanging up.

  And to think I was grateful for audio a minute ago.

  “Did you have to do that?” I ask, stalking to the foyer where Milan’s dropped his bags.

  “Sorry?” He gives me a quizzical frown.

  “Pulling down drawers? Stripping?” I raise both eyebrows. “Are you trying to tell me that none of that was meant to be suggestive? My folks are going to think I have Magic Mike in here.”

  Understanding passes over his face. “Shit.”

  “Yeah. ‘Shit’ sounds about right.”

  “Would you believe me if I said I was genuinely excited to strip the ugly paint from the bedroom dresser?” he asks, holding up a jug of Citristrip. “Even found the brand you wanted.”

  I sigh, relenting. “I’ll believe you only because I know how much you’ve been looking forward to the sheer magic that is paint-stripping wood furniture.”

  His eyes light up. “I’m going to go put this stuff away. Grab the stripper, will you?” As he turns away, he pauses. “You’re going to show me how to use the sander, right?”

  Before I think better about letting a total shop-class virgin like him handle my power tools, I find myself promising, “Later, only to get those last stubborn streaks of paint that refuse to come off.”

  “Dresser, we’re about to get to know you very intimately,” he says with an irascible grin.

  “Please don’t talk dirty to the furniture!” I yell after him.

  As Milan dashes off to put his purchases away, I stand there staring after him, taking in the surreality of the moment. His eagerness is—dare I say it—adorable. The giggle bubbles out of me as I remember the horrifying, uncomfortable silence that followed Milan’s announcement that he was home.

  God alone knows what my family thought.

  My phone vibrates again in my palm. I recognize Mom’s WhatsApp icon, her and Dad standing in front of Niagara Falls sixteen years ago.

  “Hi, Mom,” I say, inwardly groaning.

  “Don’t ‘Hi, Mom’ me,” she says, voice hushed and gossipy like we’re girlfriends who share everything. “I locked myself in the bathroom, the only place I get to myself in this house, so we could talk in private. That was Milan, wasn’t it?”

  My heart races. “No.”

  Mom cuts through my bullshit with a knowing, “Rita.”

  The Citristrip is still sitting in the plastic bag it came in. I crouch down to crinkle the bag an inch from my iPhone. “What’s that? I’m losing you? I did tell you the reception here is—”

  “Don’t pull that Parent Trap ph
one trick on me, missy. I bought you that VHS. And don’t distract me. Your aji has made up her mind about him, but you can be honest with me. Things are improving between the two of you, aren’t they?”

  I flounder for an honest answer that isn’t too honest.

  When I don’t answer right away, Mom says, not without some relish, “I knew it.”

  “Don’t you and Mrs. Rao clap yourselves on the back,” I warn. “This is just business.”

  “What if you and Milan mixed a little business with plea—”

  My brain short-circuits. “BYE, MOM!” I yelp, hanging up before she can finish.

  There is no way that pleasure and Milan go in the same sentence.

  “Hey, Rita,” he shouts from the garage. “I’m ready for you! Are you coming?”

  Chapter 20

  By the next Monday, I figure out five things:

  Milan looks sexy as hell with his sleeves rolled up his forearms, wielding power tools with a buff-dude-from-the-Brawny-paper-towels ease.

  He’s called Bluebill Cottage “home” . . . more than once.

  Harrie, my traitorous second son, quite possibly loves Milan more than me. That or Milan hides bribery biscuits in his pockets.

  The auntie grapevine moves faster than the speed of light. In the time between the Chitniss-Rao breakup six years ago and rejecting Sanju Khanna, I’ve gotta admit I’ve had a good run. So I take my lumps when well-intentioned aunties start peppering me with information about their sons, nephews, and neighbors’ sons.

  But the biggest realization of all is:

  Milan has called me on all my shit. When I unintentionally tried to pass off a large dog as a wild pony. When I tried to drive past the formerly Soulless Wonder and almost wrecked on the curb. When my tongue slipped and called him staggeringly handsome. So why hasn’t he yet called me on matching on MyShaadi?