A Match Made in Mehendi

by Nandini Bajpai

  I look around at all the groups in the lunchroom. Amanda and her sidekicks, who are currently pointing and laughing at a freshman with an unfortunate bowl haircut. Jassi, who was super sweet about my mehendi design yesterday but still scampered off to sit with her usual trio of friends. The robotics crew my brother rarely strays from.

  Noah has a point. I remember Nanima’s wise words about helping people truly see one another.

  Noah and I could do that.

  I take a deep breath and squeeze his hand. “Okay. Let’s give matchmaking a try.”

  “Here are the guidelines I was telling you about.” I open up The Shagun Matchmaking Guide. Its rich red cover and slightly yellowed pages seem to glow in the morning light. This might not be the ideal way to spend a sunny September Saturday, but at least we’re in good company. Generations of vichole will guide us through this book.

  “Shagun Matchmaking Top Tips for an Auspicious Match,” Noah reads.

  “From what Navdeep told me,” I say, “his app was built off these tips. According to Mom and Masi, the most important aspect of matchmaking is compatible values. What people think is right or wrong.”

  Noah tilts his chair back and steeples his fingers. “How are we going to figure out people’s values?”

  “Mom and Masi talk to clients about how they’d handle different situations. I think we should use questions people can answer within the app.”

  Noah hops off his chair and writes this down on the whiteboard he’s brought from his bedroom. We decided to work at his house today, and luckily his parents bought the “school project” excuse we used to take over the family room.

  “But first of all, everyone has to fill in the basics: name, age, grade, gender identity, and sexual orientation,” he says, scrawling the words on the board. “Then come the other questions. Like favorites… pizza or tacos?”

  “Ice cream or cake?” I chime in.

  “That’s a good one.” Noah writes lightning fast.

  “Favorite color, maybe? We could have choices be red, blue, pink, yellow, green, orange, purple, and black.”

  “Beach or mountains. And favorite season,” he adds.

  “Now we have to do the values thing. It’s kind of weird, but here’s an example,” I say. “Imagine that your midterm is tomorrow and your friend can’t find his notes. He asks for pictures of your notes on group chat.… Would you take the time to send the pictures, even though you’re busy studying, or be happy that you’ll have a better grade than at least one person?”

  “I mean, I’d totally share,” Noah says, “but I don’t know how many other people would take the time.”

  I smile. “It’ll all come out in the quiz!”

  “How about this one: You get asked to a party, but the big game is tomorrow and your team is counting on you. Would you go to the party? Or stay in and rest like the coach asked?”

  “That’s great,” I say, jotting down his suggestion.

  Soon the board is covered with questions focusing on values. We move on to priorities.

  “People value certain traits over others,” I say. “Bravery, honesty, intelligence, talent, good looks. Like, do you think getting good grades is more important than a social life or getting a job to help out your family, and so on?”

  “How do we check for priorities? Ask people to list theirs, or make up more questions?” Noah asks.

  “Questions,” I say. “Asking about a specific scenario is always better.”

  After covering priorities, we move on to aesthetics—what people think is beautiful, ugly, funny, or delicious.

  “We should use memes to figure out what people think is funny,” Noah says.

  “Totally!”

  “And artwork to figure out what people think is beautiful?”

  “Yes—finally, something I can use my art for! And speaking of art, I think we should give everyone who completes the quiz a personal icon based on the personality traits that come through in their answers. Like, specific images for people who like athletics or academics or the arts… Let me draw some!”

  I pull my sketchbook and a pencil from my bag, then draw an owl, a raven, and a fox on a blank page. I add a test tube next to the owl, numbers next to the raven, and a feather quill in the fox’s paw.

  “Cool,” Noah says, peeking over my shoulder. “Science, math, and… literature? Academics, basically. I get it!”

  He takes the sketchbook and pencil from me, then draws a seal next to a music note, a peacock dancing en pointe in ballet slippers, and a unicorn holding a paintbrush next to an easel.

  “Oh, I love those!”

  “We could add colors to the icons, too.”

  “Like for the values bit?” I say. “How about gold for sportsmanship and silver for academic achievers. Red for school spirit. Green for environmental awareness.”

  Noah tosses down the pencil. “I’m exhausted, Simi.”

  “This is just the beginning,” I say. “We’ve got a long way to go.”

  “Then we need to refuel. Ice cream?”

  “Klondike Bars, here we come,” I say.

  I’m grinning, but inside, I’m kind of worried. Noah and I are working hard and our combined ideas are good—we’ve got such a strong start!—but our planning will be for nothing if we can’t persuade Navdeep to help us update the app he created.

  We can’t do this without him, and I’m not sure he’ll help.

  chapter eight

  Noah and I spend all day brainstorming and writing more quiz questions. My plan is to talk to Navdeep about the app as soon as I get home.

  Except he’s out, and waiting around is making me nervous. I try white mehendi to kill time. I’ve mixed white body paint with body adhesive—a formula I found online. I’m trying the combo out on the back of my hand, with Noah supervising via video chat. The white paisley I’ve drawn looks sharp against my brown skin. I hold up my hand to show Noah my progress.

  “It looks better than the picture on the website,” Noah says.

  It totally does.

  The front door slams, and Navdeep’s combat boots stomp through the house.

  “He’s home!” I say to Noah. My heart leaps up into my throat, like the sharp corner of a samosa going down the wrong way.

  “Go talk to him,” Noah shouts from my computer screen.

  “I’ll let him get a snack first,” I say. “He’s way nicer when there’s something in his stomach.” I listen for the clatter of dishes and spoons.

  Sweetie dashes out my bedroom door to greet her favorite human. Traitor!

  “Simi!” Navdeep yells. “What did you do to the dog?”

  Oops. I put a sparkly bindi on her forehead for fun. And wrapped her up in a veil. She looks so cute dressed up.

  “I better go,” I say to Noah.

  “Text me after you ask him,” he says. “And good luck!”

  I hang up and go to Navdeep’s room.

  “You said something?” I flash him my best little-sister smile and tiptoe inside. His floor is covered in metal bits and pieces. Or whatever they’re called.

  “Stop messing with the dog.” He swivels away from the two blinking screens on his desk—like anyone needs a laptop and iPad on at the same time—and scowls at me. He looks tired and cranky and way too large for the little desk that he’s had since fifth grade.

  “Fine, fine.” I unwind the dupatta I wrapped around Sweetie’s face. “You just don’t appreciate the artistry involved in styling dogs. Got to have a backup profession, right? In case the whole matchmaker thing doesn’t work out. Happy?” I give him a cheesy grin.

  “That’s better.” He ruffles Sweetie’s fur. A smile breaks through his gloomy face. Ah, there’s my big brother who might help Noah and me out. “Okay, go. I’ve got programming to do,” he says. “And don’t step on the robot parts!”

  If this is what senior year does to you, I don’t ever want to graduate. I think about just leaving and telling Noah that it’s a no-go, but he’ll be s
uper disappointed. I secretly keep thinking this whole matchmaking app thing might be a way for him to explore getting a boyfriend. So I have to try. I want that for him. “Navdeep, I wanted to ask you something.… Noah and I have a cool idea, but we need your help to make it work.”

  “Okay…?” Navdeep stares at me suspiciously.

  “We want to help you fix the app you created for Mom.”

  “She’s not interested.” Navdeep shrugs. “She’d rather do all the work on paper than try again. If I had more time, and some data to assess, the system would be amazing. I was so close.”

  “So let’s do it without her.”

  “Can’t,” he says flatly. “I need actual beta users to fine-tune my algorithm. Where am I going to find them?”

  “At school.”

  “School?” Navdeep runs a hand through his wavy hair, pulling it back into a low ponytail. He’s growing it out to wear a pagri, like my dad. But he doesn’t have quite enough yet to make it work. “Are you crazy?”

  “No, I’m serious. Kids use all kinds of apps. Like, dating apps even.”

  “Not apps developed by me. I’m pretty sure this goes against some rule in the Student Code of Conduct. And even if it doesn’t, what teenager would take the Shagun quiz anyhow? It’s all about career paths and work-life balance and if your ideal car is a minivan or a sedan and if you want to travel the world or have two-point-five kids and a house with a white picket fence.” Navdeep’s already turning back to his screens. I have to close the deal.

  “So we’ll change the questions to make them Mayfield High specific. Situations that involve midterms, prom, sports, and clubs. Noah and I’ve been working on it. Look.” I shove my iPad toward him, blocking his view of the computer screen.

  He takes it reluctantly, but once he starts reading, he nods in approval. “Hmm, interesting… These are pretty good. But there’s that whole thing about using personal data,” he says. “We’d need consent, and we’d need to make sure only Mayfield High kids sign up, for safety.” He starts clomping around the room in his dirty boots. Mom would be so annoyed.

  “Now you’re crushing robot parts,” I warn.

  “Shoot!” He sits down to pull off his boots. “You know, we can do what Mark Zuckerberg did at Harvard when he started Facebook. Back then, you had to have a Harvard email address to register. I could set it up so you’d need a Mayfield High email to register for the app. That will weed out all non-school people and limit it to one user per email address. But the real problem will be getting people to sign up.”

  “Noah and I were thinking we could make it fun—with, like, icons we could assign based on interests and personality traits.” I swipe on the iPad screen. “Look at our sketches. We have four groups: Arts, Academics, Athletics, and All-Arounder. Each group has three icons. I’ve used colors, too… a rainbow unicorn, or a silver cat, or a purple owl.…”

  “That’s definitely a hook,” Navdeep says. “People love personality quizzes. We could share the icons of their top five matches instead of names, if we’re keeping them confidential. If we can get them to sign up.”

  “Leave that to me and Noah,” I say. Navdeep doesn’t even have social media accounts, but Noah and I do. It’s sad when a techie is such a dinosaur. “Just set up the app so it can register people and let them take the quiz.”

  “You have all the questions?”

  “I do!” I say. “I can email them to you now. How long will it take to set up?”

  “Before the end of the weekend. I already have the forms and user interface. Email me the icons you want to use, and I’ll upload them, too. Then I can publish the new version to the app stores, and it’ll be ready to go.”

  I can’t help it. I hug my brother. He swats me away like a fly. “Go already. If you want this done by tomorrow night, I’ve got work to do.”

  By Sunday night, everything’s in place.

  “What now?” Navdeep asks once the updated app is published to the app stores.

  “We should post about it,” Noah says from the video chat screen. “Like in group chats and on social media, right?”

  “If we do that, people will know we created it,” I say.

  “But we want to make people love it! Take credit for all the happily ever afters!”

  “I think we should wait and see if people even use it, and if the matches make sense. That way, if it bombs, we can trash it without having to own up to it.”

  “What about sending an anonymous tip to Mayfield High Secrets?” Navdeep says.

  The Mayfield Secrets website is very popular. If we want everyone to know about the app, it’s definitely the way to go.

  I jot down a possible pitch:

  MATCHED!

  Looking for the perfect date, Mayfield High?

  Don’t call; don’t swipe; just get Matched!

  It’s easy!

  1. Fill in your profile.

  2. Take a fun quiz.

  3. Receive your personal icon.

  4. Find your top five matches in the most unlikely of places.

  5. Want to meet your top matches IRL? Message them via the app! Or opt out at any time.

  Download today!*

  *Open only to current students of Mayfield High

  Noah nods with approval.

  “It looks fine,” Navdeep grunts after reading over my post.

  I grin. That’s high praise coming from my brother. He has two categories for everything—fine or horrible. We’ve escaped horrible.

  “So post it to Mayfield High Secrets?” I pause with my hand dramatically held over my laptop. Once I press this button, there’s no going back.

  “Do it,” Noah says. Navdeep nods.

  My stomach flips as I click the enter key on my laptop. Maybe no one will use the app. Maybe no one will care. Maybe all our work was for nothing.

  Or maybe Matched! will change everything.

  chapter nine

  Unbelievable.”

  I stare sadly at my phone.

  It’s Monday morning, and Noah’s come by so we can talk about what people are saying about the app as we walk to school. One major problem: The post about the app still isn’t up.

  “You think there’s a chance the moderators won’t post it?” Noah asks.

  “I think they’re timing it for maximum impact,” Navdeep says, shoveling cereal into his mouth while staring at his phone. “Late weekend posts don’t get a lot of views.”

  “Really?” I ask.

  “Yeah.” Navdeep looks at our upset faces with sympathy. “You guys seem stressed. Relax. I’ll give you a ride to school, okay?”

  Noah and I grab our backpacks without another word, though I’m glad we’re going early so no one has to see us in my brother’s busted car.

  “Stop obsessing, all right?” Navdeep warns before rattling out of the drop-off loop and heading toward the senior parking lot.

  It’s just another mundane Monday. People walking to class. Chatting, laughing, checking out outfits, scrambling to finish homework—you know, doing regular stuff.

  Until suddenly they’re not.

  The first person to break the news of the Matched! app is Marcus. He runs up to Noah and me, waving his phone. “Simi, Noah, did you see the post on Mayfield High Secrets?”

  I freeze at the sight of our post on Marcus’s screen, then try to unfreeze so I don’t come across as weird.

  “Um, no!” I say, trying to act casual. “What’s it about?”

  Jassi stops to listen to what Marcus is saying. Other people stop, too. Kiran, Rohan, Priya, Thomas, and Aiden, who looks over Jassi’s shoulder, then meets my eyes with an intrigued smile.

  Butterflies flit around in my stomach. Because of the app’s launch, or because of Aiden?

  “It’s an app to find your love match in school,” Priya says. She scrunches up her face distastefully, but I can tell she’s interested. “Why would anyone bother with making a dating app for our school, of all places?”

  “Hey, now,�
� Aiden says. “Mayfield’s all right, I guess. Why not launch an app here?”

  I nod, like I haven’t spent the last few days considering whether to launch this very app at Mayfield. I’m super excited that Aiden’s interested, though. I hope he takes the quiz—if he does, maybe I will. Maybe some of our answers will align!

  “I don’t know.…” Kiran says. “Is it a joke? It can’t be real.”

  “Oh, it’s real,” Jassi says, a grin on her face. “I just downloaded it. The quiz looks fun!”

  “Jassi!” Priya looks worried. “There could be like weirdos on it.”

  Aiden, Rohan, and Marcus laugh.

  “Relax,” Jassi says. “It’s only for Mayfield High students. I tried to start an account with my personal email, but it wouldn’t let me. And look at the questions on the quiz. They’re all about Mayfield.” She’s all aglow, totally in her element. As I shoot Noah a pleased smile, she exclaims, “This is so much fun. Look at my icon!”

  “Your what?” Priya says.

  “My Match Icon.” Jassi holds up her phone for everyone to see. The screen says Quiz complete. Meet your customized Match Icon!

  A sky-blue peacock stares back at us—it’s like watching a star being born. Noah and I exchange another celebratory grin.

  We have our first user!

  “A peacock is male,” Marcus says. “They must mean peahen.”

  “He’s beautiful, and he’s mine!” Jassi says. “Like a Patronus, but cuter. You’re just nitpicking because you don’t have one. I think I’m going to call him Plume.”

  “Hey, what happened to the matching part?” Aiden asks.

  “It says: Please log in to see your top five matches in a week.…” Jassi squeals. “This is so exciting!”