The Matchmaker's List

by Sonya Lalli

  Finally, Shay and Julien arrived, hugging us all through fatigued smiles. I hadn’t made time to see her since they got back from Quebec—and I couldn’t even remember the last time we saw each other, or spoke on the phone. Lately, our only contact had been brief texts hours apart, which were always about plans for the wedding or for the trip to New York.

  Shay eyed me oddly as she drew closer. I thought she was going to lean in and hug me, but then she stopped, and patted me on the arm. “You look good.”

  “You, too.”

  Did she know I was avoiding her? That I was hiding something?

  “Good Christmas?” she asked.

  I nodded. “You?”

  She didn’t reply as she looked around the terminal and, after surveying the crowd, looked back at me. “Where’s Asher?”

  I shrugged, and a moment later, I saw him.

  “There he is,” said Julien.

  Asher jogged down the moving sidewalk toward us, a duffel bag swinging in his hand. He’d let some of his beard grow back, a soft scruff on his chin and cheeks, and instead of a suit or sweatpants, he was wearing loose jeans and a faded leather jacket. Along with a white T-shirt and sneakers. He slowed down as he approached us, and without looking at me, smiling broadly, he wrapped an arm around both Julien and Shay and steered them toward security.

  He avoided me as we waited, and then at the front of the line, when Shay bent over and took her time unclasping the buckles on her boots, I veered in front of her, angling myself behind him.

  “Hi, Asher.”

  Whether he heard me or not, he didn’t answer.

  “How was your Christmas?” I said a little louder.

  He retrieved his passport from his back pocket. “Festive.”

  “Were you with family?”

  “Sure was.”

  “Did you guys have fun?” I paused. “Play any basketball?”

  “Guess that depends on your definition of fun.” He leaned on the metal rail and slid off his shoes. “My nephews prefer SpongeBob over—you know, weed—”

  “I am really sorry about that.”

  He tossed his wallet and keys into the plastic bin.

  “Asher, come on. I said I was sorry.”

  But he walked away through the metal detector, and didn’t turn around.

  * * *

  There were only a handful of others on board, and after takeoff, we spread out sideways on the seats. I blinked in and out of sleep, and it felt like only minutes passed before we started our descent into New York City. I sat up and peered outside my window, watching the clouds feathered above the Rockaways. The snow sprinkled over the city like icing sugar.

  I had booked ahead for transportation, and a square black van was waiting for us outside the airport. I sat in the front seat chatting with our driver, Ramón, about the state’s public school system, the newest speakeasy that just opened beneath a pho takeout in the Lower East Side, camouflaged in red and yellow string lights, and we drove down the expressway toward Manhattan. I’d been to New York often—with Shay or other friends for weekend shopping trips or music festivals. A dozen conferences with colleagues, with days at the office on East 55th, nights in the hotel bar on Lexington in a black pencil skirt, charging Gray Goose martinis to the expense account. It was one way to live. It was Dev’s way. But as the chalky gray peaks of Midtown rose onto the horizon, I tried to push thoughts of Dev out of my mind. Whether he, on those countless fall trips to New York, winding around that last bend on the Long Island Expressway, had thought of me, too.

  On the other side of the Queens-Midtown Tunnel, we hit traffic, and after thirty minutes of crawling, block by block, Ramón muttering about tourists and the traffic reroutes around Times Square, we reached our hotel. I’d booked us two suites at a hotel in Hell’s Kitchen the week after Shay got engaged. She’d showed up to my apartment, drunk, with two butter chicken burritos, and told me I was her maid of honor, and instead of Vegas, or some cheesy night doing the limbo with a tanned stripper, she wanted her bachelorette party to be during the New Year. And she wanted to share it with Julien.

  We said good-bye to the guys, dumped our things in the room, and set out for Fifth Avenue. It was still early, foot traffic in the shops and on the sidewalks sparse, and Shay was acting unlike herself. Bubbly, almost, and she couldn’t stop smiling, picking up clothes and modeling them, her eyes glossed as she walked by a storefront, exclaiming at something showcased in the window, and then hustling in to buy it. She chatted ruthlessly with the girls working at Chanel and BCBG, trying everything on as she stood in front of the mirror and surveyed the room for an opinion.

  “So, what do you think?” she asked us, her fingers playing with the sequins of a stiff black dress. “Is it too much?”

  Everyone chimed their approval as Shay twisted and turned in front of the mirror, sucked in her stomach and elongated her arms behind her. Surprisingly, she had the perfect figure. Petite and curvy from a diet of hospital cafeteria food, from the exercise of running from patient to patient.

  “You look like that new movie star,” I said to the mirror. “Priyanka Chopra.”

  “Priyanka Chopra’s not new,” said Nikki. “She’s been around for more than a decade.”

  “Who’s that new one then?

  “Parineeti Chopra?”

  “Yeah.” I nodded. “You look like her.”

  “You have to buy it, Shaylee,” said Serena.

  “Can’t. What if Ma sees the pictures?” Shay shrugged and turned away from the mirror. “She’d hate it.”

  “Shay—”

  “And I’m ten pounds heavier and a thousand shades darker than any girl who makes it in Bollywood.” Shay unzipped the dress, and stalked back into the dressing room. “Parineeti Chopra, my ass!”

  “What a nut bar,” Niti whispered to the rest of us. “We’re going to buy it for her anyway, right?”

  * * *

  We bought the dress when she wasn’t looking, and when we stopped for glühwein at the German Christmas Market, Serena handed her the bag. Shay eyed us suspiciously.

  “I told you guys not to get me anything.”

  “Just open it,” I said, and when she did, she started to cry.

  “You guys”—she spluttered—“I can’t believe it.”

  “Calm down.” I rolled my eyes. “It’s just a dress.”

  “It’s not just a dress,” said Shay, wiping her nose with her wrist. “It might be the only thing in this whole wedding I actually pick out for myself.”

  “You’re our Parineeti Chopra,” said Serena, hugging her, and the rest of us joined, and soon all of us were clumped madly together in the middle of Union Square, shopping bags and scarves flung to the side with pigeons knocking at our feet, the tourists walking by, nodding and smiling at us like we were some interesting occurrence that made up the landscape of the city.

  “Should we take a picture here?” I asked Shay.

  Shay nodded, and her eyes landed on a miniature wooden lodge selling wicker crafts and discount Christmas wreaths. “Yeah. Over there in the light. Raina, do you have him?”

  I nodded, tapping the side of my purse. “I have him.”

  Him was Draco, and as maid of honor, or, perhaps, because he didn’t fit in Shay’s clutch, I was in charge of lugging around the stuffed teddy bear Julien had bought for her on their first real date. Ever since, Julien and Shay had carried him around like a child, ready for every photo op: Draco perched on one of their shoulders at the CN Tower or Niagara Falls; in the operating room with a clinical white mask over his face; in sunglasses on the beach; or riding the neck of an alpaca at Machu Picchu. The last time I’d seen him was the weekend before my twenty-ninth birthday when Shay, Draco, and I went camping, and we took pictures of the three of us canoeing Lake Nipissing, then chugging beer by the campfire. By now, Shay had accumulate
d enough Draco photos to warrant his own slide show at the wedding, and although Auntie Sarla had originally vetoed the idea, it was the one thing Shay insisted on.

  After, we caught the 4 train uptown and took more pictures with Draco at Wollman Rink in Central Park, in Christopher’s shadow on the steps of Columbus Circle, and later, propped on a velvet chair at the Ritz. High tea was a surprise for the bride-to-be. We walked into the hotel on the pretense of looking around, and when I took them up to the hostess and told her we had a reservation for a “Shaylee Patel,” Shay looked at me, and again started to cry.

  “You remembered.”

  We went to New York City on an overly chaperoned class trip in high school. We snuck off to the Ritz just for a moment to take a look: the dining room was full of old men and money; the decor of another century, wine red–colored carpet, and classical music. We fantasized about the lives of the people who were allowed inside—what they ate, what they did. We promised each other that one day we would get there—wherever there was.

  I handed Shay a Kleenex. “Of course I remembered.”

  After tea, we went back to the hotel to change—Shay, into her new dress—and we were still full of foie gras and lavender macarons by the time we arrived at our reservation in Chelsea: a jazz-themed seafood grill where all the waiters—like in any fine city establishment—appeared to moonlight as models. An Italian with sideswept hair flirted with Shay as he took our order, and she giggled in response, played with her hair, and ordered everyone the chef’s tasting menu, and several bottles of wine.

  The table was large, and we were spread out. I was at the end, Shay sitting closest to me, and as the other girls chatted, Shay and I looked at each other. I realized that neither of us knew what to say.

  “Did your Ma tell you?” I finally asked. “She booked that band from Vancouver for the wedding. They’ll fly in before the sangeet—”

  “Are you seeing anybody?” she asked suddenly. “Is there anyone you haven’t told me about?”

  “No. Why?”

  “Where have you been then?”

  “I’m right here.”

  “No,” she said. “Where have you been?”

  I shrugged. “Busy working.”

  “And before?”

  “And before”—I trailed off—“before, well, I’ve just been busy. I’ve been working, Shay. Same as ever.”

  “Is this about Asher?”

  “What?”

  “This morning”—she paused, and looked away from me—“it looked like something was going on with you two.”

  “At airport security?” I shrugged. “He walked through with change in his pockets, was subject to a frisk and search, if you know what I mean . . .”

  I trailed off when she didn’t crack a smile.

  “It was nothing, Shay.”

  “Nothing.”

  By the way she bit her lip and dropped the subject, then promptly engaged herself in conversation with the other girls, I knew she was hurt. Whether it was the offhand comment some guy in history class had made, or how a few unwanted edamame beans got on our order from the bitch at our favorite salad bar—with us, it was never nothing.

  I didn’t know what I was supposed to say to her. Nani thinks I’m a lesbian, and—oh yeah—Dev sort of moved to Toronto and we might get back together, but he’s still not quite sure he wants an actual relationship? Just like you would have predicted? I knew what she would say, and I didn’t want a lecture. Not from a girl who could memorize an algorithm or an amino acid structure in the blink of an eye. Not from a girl who it seemed never had to work hard for anything. Shay was my best friend. She always had been. But some things she just didn’t—she couldn’t—understand.

  * * *

  My stomach felt queasy throughout dinner. Unsettled. And I had to keep reminding myself that I was lying to Shay for a reason. She wouldn’t understand why I was waiting for Dev, and letting Nani believe I was a lesbian—so what was the point of telling her? When I poured my wine into Nikki’s glass, everyone had drunk too much of their own to notice—most of all Shay. The waiter had flirted with her throughout dinner, sneaking her shots of ouzo from the back room, and I had to peel his hands off her waist as he helped her into her coat. She was practically catatonic. Outside, I ducked into a mini-mart and bought her water, and then we walked toward Hudson Street, most of her weight collapsed onto me.

  The guys were waiting for us outside the club. I saw Asher first, several inches taller than everyone else, leaning against a handrail with his coat open, a charcoal gray suit beneath. Shay unfastened herself from me and stumbled straight into Julien, but somehow we managed to get her into the bar without drawing too much attention.

  The hostess led us toward our reserved area at the back. We were seated in a corner section with two long plush couches facing each other, a table full of glass bottles of vodka and gin, cranberry and Coke, lined up in between. We were at the edge of the dance floor, just in front of a terrace. The doors were wide open, and each gust of wind brought in the citrusy smell of perfume, the diesel of the heat lamps. I sat at the end of the group, disengaged, at the fringe of the conversation.

  Asher was sitting across from me, and I kept catching his eye. But every time I turned to face him, he looked away. Annoyed, I finally waved at him, and to my surprise, he waved back.

  “How was your day?” I yelled over the music.

  “What?”

  “How was your day?”

  “Great.” He smiled. “Smoked loads of weed—”

  “Okay. Cut it out.”

  He grinned. “Cut what out, princess?”

  I leaned forward. “You know what? I said I was sorry—three times, now. And I’m done. So if you don’t want to—”

  “See the thing is”—he walked around the table, perched himself on the armrest beside me—“you don’t even know what you’re apologizing for.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Do you? Because you’re hilarious, Raina. Always making jokes. And you can’t offend anyone if you’re kidding.”

  “I really didn’t mean to offend you. I just thought—”

  “You just thought I smoked weed because you smelled it on me at the engagement party—which, by the way, you were wrong about. I was outside on the phone with my sister, and some kids were smoking right next to me, so that’s why I smelled like it. I haven’t even touched weed since college.”

  “Oh.”

  “And you also assumed that I had drugs on me at my workplace.” He grabbed his drink from the table. “I mean, I’m just some shaggy guy who hangs around on a high school basketball court, must be—”

  “Look.” I took a deep breath. “I knew you’d been traveling and that you’d barely been back since you left—and everyone I know like that also—”

  “Well, obviously, I’m just like them.”

  “Yes, okay? I made an assumption. I know your type. My own mother is your type. I mean, who leaves their family for ten years?” The lights around the dance floor kept slicing me in the eyes, and I blinked hard. “But it’s all fine, right? You’ve been ‘finding’ yourself. Learning about the world. Not really having to deal with how selfish you are.”

  “Sounds like you have me all figured out.”

  “Don’t I?” I snapped. “And don’t you have me all figured out?”

  “All I did was try to get to know you.”

  “But you did know me, didn’t you? You knew that I was twenty-nine and my best friend was getting married before me”—I coughed, my voice catching—“so obviously, I’m desperate to get married, right? I take home bartenders to feel some validation?” He had looked away, and I glared at him, shaking, until he looked back. “So go ahead. Validate me. I really need it.”

  He rubbed his lips together, and then his hands, and when he looked at me as if he might say something b
ack, I heard Shay calling my name. I looked over. She had hoisted herself off Julien’s lap and was inching toward us.

  “What’s going on here?” she asked, leaning down between us. She dipped down and planted a wet kiss on my cheek. She moved for the other cheek and missed, hitting my chin.

  “Do you want some more water?” I asked.

  She shook her head, hair falling onto her chest as she wavered in front of us. “No. It’s picture time.”

  “Now?”

  She nodded. “Group shot.”

  “Sure. I’ll bring Draco over right away.”

  “Okay,” she said, slurring. “Let me know when you’re ready.”

  She stumbled toward Julien, and I grabbed my coat from the back of the couch—kicking myself because I’d forgotten Draco at the hotel.

  “Are you leaving?” asked Asher.

  I nodded.

  “Why?”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Who’s Draco?” He followed me as I cut through the dance floor, trying to lose him, and then up the stairs toward the club entrance. Outside on the sidewalk, I stopped, trying to catch my breath. I felt him behind me, his hand on my shoulder.

  “Raina, who’s Draco?”

  I rolled my eyes. “Oh, you know. Just another guy who won’t marry me.”

  FIFTEEN

  “Shit.” I stepped back on the curb as another cab drove past me. I let my arm fall down by my side and turned around. Asher was still leaning against a lamppost, his left foot propped up, his arms folded across his chest.

  “What time is it?”

  He glanced at his watch. “Eleven twenty. Do you want a hand?”

  “No, thanks.” I raised both my arms and waved frantically at another cab as it whizzed past.