Now he had something else he couldn’t get off—a coat of Emma clinging to him.
She was going to force him to talk about work and the code, when he just wanted some peace before he had to face the reality that he was back home again and all his plans had failed. But he knew, somewhere deep down inside, maybe snuggled up inside his appendix, that the faster this web crawl was developed, the faster he’d find “the one.” And the faster he could stop being nagged by his family. And the faster Dharini could find her partner too.
He put his carry-on in the bin and slid into his seat. He’d seen Emma’s seat assignment, though. No one was going to give up their aisle seat to trade.
He browsed through the movies available and made a mental list of which ones he was going to watch. He had twelve hours to kill on this first flight. Three movies. One book. That should hold him for a while. He settled in and flipped through the in-flight magazine while the hordes of people jumbled and fumbled their way up the aisle.
Emma’s red hair popped into his peripheral vision like a warning light flashing Incoming! Incoming! “Rishi, no one by me wants to trade seats.” She made a little pouty sound and squeezed herself against the backrest of the seat, her breasts practically leering in his face.
“Well, you tried.” He shrugged, thanking fate for the next twelve hours of peace.
The man next to Rishi volleyed his head back and forth like he was watching a ball go between them. Then he paused and shook his head. “Hell, I’ll move so you can sit with your girlfriend. Airlines these days screw everyone over.”
Rishi opened his mouth to protest. Girlfriend?
“Oh, sir, that is so nice of you!” Emma exclaimed to the man. They exchanged a brief complaint about seating as he moved, and Emma praised his kindness.
So much for the next twelve hours of movie watching and music listening he’d planned out.
“That was nice of him.” Emma plopped down next to Rishi and stuffed her backpack under the seat. “I thought you’d want to start working on your code. It’s the least I can do. Besides, we have to focus all our energy on the app when we’re in Bangalore, so I don’t see why we would waste any time. I would have done it last week, but things were a little crazy.”
He turned to her. If she thought he was going to work nonstop on her app, she was wrong. He’d worked his ass off before, and what had it gotten him? Nothing but empty promises about a job she now had. No more of this all-nighter shit.
“What? Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked.
He shook his head. “I’m not looking at you in any way.”
“Yes, you are. I’ve seen that look before.” Her hands settled in her lap. “I’m trying to help you. That’s what we agreed on, right?” She said it like she was explaining something to a child or someone who was hard of hearing.
Emma scrolled through her phone, probably reading the emails he should have been getting. The lights dimmed, the pilot and flight attendant spoke over the speakers, and the plane whooshed off into the sky.
She was quiet. Too quiet. All he wanted was a break from her, but he couldn’t stop staring at her leg vibrating on the floor, like it had its own kind of nerve disorder. She leaned forward and seemed to be looking out the window that was an aisle and three people away. Then she sat back in her seat and started pressing the screen in front of her. Rishi wouldn’t have called it exploring—more like methodical pressing. First the music. Then the TV. Then the movies. Then the games. It was maddening, and accompanied by that crazy leg shaking. It was like watching an accident. He couldn’t look away and just waited for the aftermath to unfold.
She wiped off her forehead. Was she sweating?
“Are you okay?” Rishi asked.
Emma jumped a little in her seat. “Yeah, yeah, fine. Why?”
“You just seem a little, I don’t know. Antsy?” Rishi didn’t want to say crazy. He had a little more finesse than that.
She shook her head fast. “I just don’t like flying. I mean, I know people do it all the time. But the thought of these two guys controlling this tube of metal that we’ve all put our trust in to get us a quarter of the way around the world? It’s a bit much, don’t you think? I don’t know them, and I just put my life in their hands. And what if something happened? I mean, what can we do? Nothing.”
So she was nervous. Rishi leaned back in his seat. This was the last thing he’d expected. “I don’t have anything to calm you down, but they should bring the drink cart around soon, I think.”
Emma nodded and spoke to the seat in front of her. “Yeah, I’m sure a few drinks will help.”
Maybe she just needed a distraction. Since they were stuck next to each other anyway, he might as well go along with her plan to start this code development. The two other matches his parents had sent in the past week were flagged in his inbox, but he’d already decided neither were worth pursuing. He’d chatted with one woman, but she didn’t seem to have any passion toward life. She’d gone to university but was now just staying at home. The other he’d messaged, but she complained about her job the entire conversation. He couldn’t imagine marrying someone who didn’t lead her own life or find joy in the life she had. His mom seemed to think that his moving back to India was a green light flashing in her face to get his marriage set up as soon as possible, with all and any options on the table. And he was trying, dammit. “Would it help if we started on the web crawl, as you suggested? I think we can get our laptops out now.”
Her head pivoted to him so fast that he caught a whiff of her hair’s flowery citrus smell. “Yes. Excellent idea. Let’s get started.”
They both reached under the seats in front of them at the same time and bumped heads. Her hair was a wild tangling vine that seemed to want to trail up Rishi’s nostrils. He shot back up, rubbing at his nose, and reached around the other side. That hair. He shook his head. His mom would grab her head and douse it in a bottle of coconut oil.
They both pulled out their heavy, development-ready laptops and slung them on their pullout trays.
“So . . . ,” Emma said as she opened her laptop up. “I usually like to start projects out with an analysis phase.” She turned to him. They were so close. It was awkward having a work-type discussion with someone who was shoulder to shoulder with you, who you could smell, and with no escape in sight. “So, what do we need to find in the future Mrs. Iyengar?” She laughed a little, like this was funny to her. Like his life and his family’s tradition were just hilarious.
He took a deep breath, reminding himself this should be expected. Emma would never understand what he was dealing with at home. But he had to push that aside. If she was that good at her job, which he knew she was from researching her, then he might have the algorithm set up by the time they landed.
“Well, we have to narrow the results down to my caste and community and state. The state I’m from is Tamil Nadu.”
“All right. And caste?” She typed in the notepad on her screen. “What’s your caste, and what’s a community?” she asked.
This was going to be such a process. But it would hopefully be worth it. He had to keep reminding himself. “My caste is Brahmin. And community is like the subset of a caste. For me, it’s Iyengar.”
“Your last name?” Emma asked.
“Yeah, some people have it as their last name. Not everyone.”
“Sounds good.” She typed out some more notes and looked over at him, then back to her laptop. “Okay, Rishi, what are the keywords that will help find this lady of yours?”
He leaned back into his chair and tried to picture the woman he’d want to marry. There wasn’t any reason to hold back on the fantasy of what he wanted, if this was the “ideal” search, customized just for him. And then, of course, there was what his family needed. If this algorithm was going to work, he might as well stuff it full of his dreams. And theirs. “I want someone smart. She should have a master’s degree in something challenging and interesting, like medicine or IT. Trainin
g to be a doctor, professor, maybe be a manager at a software company, something like that.” He couldn’t have a wife who wasn’t curious about the world around her. But he also didn’t want an ugly, smart, aspirational nerd. “Good looking, though,” he added.
Emma wrinkled up her nose as she noted it down. “Oh, of course.” Was she seriously disapproving? No one ever put looks don’t matter in an online profile. If he did, then the guy was probably a serial killer or wanted a free maid. Or both.
Maybe it did sound bad. He didn’t even know Emma. He probably was coming off as a vain, superficial asshole.
“But not just pretty. I mean, pretty, smart, and I’d like her to have hobbies and interests, like a sport or travel. Maybe she takes acting classes or something.” That made it sound better, right? He wanted a well-rounded wife. Someone who wouldn’t rely on him for everything and would have her own life too.
“Acting lessons?” Emma asked, as if it was the craziest thing she’d ever heard.
“Some kind of hobby.” He tried to think about what else was important to him. Food was important. He’d been spoiled, with a mom who was such an amazing cook. Whatever talents his mother had had not been passed on to him. His cooking talent consisted of decent omelets. He didn’t want to be married to a slob either. “Also, she must be a good cook and like an orderly house.”
Emma blew out a breath she must have been holding in for ten minutes and kept on typing. Her eyebrows rose as she clacked away on the keyboard.
Whatever. If she was judging him, then she should probably judge herself too. Everyone had an ideal. Why not reach for it? That was the whole point of his algorithm. Otherwise, he’d settle for the next pretty face his parents sent over, someone less than perfect.
So much went into a marriage pairing. His parents were über traditional, and he had to consider his sister as well. Since his family had a black sheep, maybe marrying an ideal woman would cancel Sudhar out. And that would definitely help with his sister’s future in-laws.
“Okay. Another thing. It would be preferable if she could play an instrument or sing.”
She rolled her eyes. “Wow. You’re really looking for a Renaissance woman.”
“Some of this is for my parents. What’s important is that she’s Brahmin, Iyengar, and Tamil. So, she’s like a daughter to my mom. And from a family that is upper-middle class or well to do. That’s usually a filter on the sites.”
Emma’s eyes slid over to look at him. The laser stare striking again.
“What?” he said, having to look away for a moment to evade its penetration. “I’m sure you have similar requirements.”
“Actually, I was just thinking about what I would include in my search terms if I ever made a web crawl for a potential mate, and that they would be so absolutely different.”
“Really? Like how?” Emma had no idea what his situation was like—or his family. And it was all about what his family wanted. Needed.
“I think mine would be less precise. More about the person’s interests and belief systems. Like, their class wouldn’t matter to me.”
Rishi rolled his eyes. “You’d be okay with someone who didn’t have a good job?”
“Yes.”
“So if you were more educated or they were practically living on the streets, you wouldn’t care?”
“No, I wouldn’t.”
“Bullshit. If you couldn’t talk to them about your work, your latest code, or your team’s work, that would be okay?”
“I mean, I would choose someone who could understand the concepts. But they don’t need to be a coder. Or a beautiful doctor who is also an excellent maid.” She smirked.
“Well, I think you’re telling yourself that because it sounds good, but not because it would ever happen.” The flight attendants were two rows away. That drink cart couldn’t come fast enough.
“You don’t know that. If someone had the same beliefs and principles as me, I don’t see why it wouldn’t work.” Emma glared at him.
“There’s more to a relationship than your beliefs.” Like family, traditions, lifestyle. It was all so complicated. The temples you went to, the way you prayed, the festivals you celebrated—all those things were important to being a family.
“Is there? Really?” Emma stared at him, her clever eyes glimmering, expecting a rebuttal. But he couldn’t take it anymore. She’d never have to find a husband in the way that he needed to find a wife. She had no idea. It was so hard to find someone you liked, someone you were really passionate about and who also fit your family’s criteria. Especially after your family had already had those criteria flung in their faces once before in the name of love—and that had not only slapped them in the face but also stolen all their money.
“Family is super important. And then chemistry has to be there too,” Rishi said.
Emma laughed. “What? How do you account for chemistry through an algorithm? I believe in technology, but there are just some things it can’t do.”
“The code just narrows down the acceptable candidates. Then I have to filter through them and find the chemistry. Then fate does the rest.”
“Fate?” Emma blurted out, like he’d just told her he’d eaten a frog for breakfast. “Fate is not real.”
Rishi shook his head. People in the West threw around the word karma all the time, but they didn’t really embrace it. “Life is based on fate. Our world revolves around it. How can you say fate isn’t real?”
“Well, then,” Emma said as she lifted her head with a wicked smile spread across her face. “If fate is real, that means I got this job and this project all through fate’s doing.”
Rishi folded his arms and sat back in his seat.
“Can I get you two anything to drink?” the flight attendant asked, her smile beaming down on them like the drink-cart dream girl she was.
“Can I have two whiskies?” they both said at the same time. Emma turned to eye him, like it was his fault they wanted the same thing.
“Well, I’ll give you both two, but don’t go joining the mile-high club.” She winked and handed them each two bottles of Jameson and little cups of ice.
Emma groaned and said thanks. Rishi gave the woman the weakest smile he’d surely ever given anyone.
“I think that’s enough of project scoping for now.” She poured the first whiskey into her glass and drank the tiny bottle in all of thirty seconds. Rishi was still stirring his around.
He was the one who really needed the drink. He was the one whose cultural values were being mocked. The urge to just tell her everything rose in his chest, but he pushed it back down. He put in his earbuds, started the first movie on his flight queue, and tried to forget that Emma was sitting beside him.
This was not how he’d wanted the next year of his life to start. Everything had gone wrong. The job. His trip to the US. His family situation. Having to find a wife to set things back in balance.
And this plane trip.
An hour and a half into the movie, he was fully into the climax of a car-chase scene when a weight pushed at his shoulder. He turned, and a curly tendril of hair sneaked into his nose. What was it with that hair? It was half octopus.
“Emma,” he said, and he tried to nudge her off his shoulder.
Nothing.
He took his earbud out of his right ear. “Emma.” A little louder this time. He tried to push her off, and she slumped back against him. So awkward. He was practically manhandling his colleague.
“Emma,” he said a little louder, and the guy next to him shot him an annoyed look. But all it got out of her was a snort of a snore in response.
“Fuck,” he muttered under his breath. He tried to nudge her again, but her head fell back a little, then rolled onto him like it was more comfortable, and she snuggled into this new, intimate position.
He stared at the screen in front of him. The car chase ending. A building blowing up. The hero’s girlfriend dead in the wreckage. He shook his head.
If this wasn’t a
s bad as it could get, then what was?
CHAPTER 11
Maybe Emma should have finished scoping out the web crawl with Rishi on the plane, because after they landed in Amsterdam, he made obvious excuses to escape her. Who really needed to search for a pair of nail clippers during a layover? But it was fine. Emma walked from coffee shop to pastry shop to cheese shop and ate and drank and sipped and chewed. It didn’t matter that it was ten in the morning; she was in food heaven.
And she didn’t insist they sit together on the flight to Bangalore. She needed time apart from him too.
Fate was the word that made Emma cringe over any other. More than debug has failed or failure to initialize properly. Fate was a word that justified why her parents were taken away from her when she was just a kid. Or why her smart, sassy grandmother had had to work multiple minimum-wage jobs to take care of her and never got any peace for herself while rich assholes in her hometown seemed to have gotten everything handed to them. The only people who used fate were people who’d never had anything bad happen to them. Who didn’t know heartache. Who didn’t understand what hurt down to the bone felt like.
Her breath was deep and aching against her ribs again. There were so many things she could have said to him. But if all of it had come out, her truths would have tumbled out as well. Her guard would be down. Vulnerabilities of who she was and where she came from would appear, ripe and ready for him to feast on. The fact of how alone she was, completely apparent. She didn’t want a pitying eye from him. She couldn’t take it. She needed to spend the second leg of the journey away from Rishi and his fate.
She’d finish up this web crawl in the next few days so she could keep their time together at a minimum. He could take his perfect wife and live happily ever after. Emma could picture her—she’d have shimmering straight black hair and that impossible gleam Emma drooled over in shampoo commercials. She’d wear more sequins than the eye could process and delicate ankle bells. Gold bangles, maybe three or four, just to show she could casually wear a few thousand dollars on her wrists. A doctor’s coat on one arm while she sang to her pediatric patients, and in the other hand a dish of homemade, perfectly spiced paneer tikka masala. More arms sprouting from her waist like a spider-armed goddess. A mop in her third hand and a violin in her fourth. Perfection. Hitting each criterion.
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