Of course, Priya would be jealous of my near-death experience. She collected weird life experiences the way other people collected coins. I was convinced she’d wither and die if she ran out of new shock-factor stories to tell people.
“This is why you should’ve joined the Girl Scouts like me,” Neha told me. “You would’ve survived better if you had. Their wilderness survival training is very helpful.”
“You either survive, or you don’t,” I said. “There’s no survivingbetter. And I’m here, aren’t I?”
“You wouldn’t be here if you hadn’t been with Sebastian.” She returned to her magazine and flipped through it idly. “And thereare definitely degrees of survival. Being fully conscious is better than being in a coma, isn’t it?”
I didn’t bother arguing. Neha had classic Younger Sister Syndrome, which was a fancy way of saying she lived to annoy the shit out of me.
It was Sunday, four days after Sebastian and I returned from Vermont, and my sisters and I were spending the afternoon at the Valhalla Club spa. Priya and Ben had flown back to New York at my mother’s insistence, and we were supposed to have a sisterly pre-wedding planning session today.
So far, all we’d done was get facials, drink champagne, and gossip by the pool, the latter of which we were still doing.
“Is Ben still with Dad?” I asked. My father had insisted on a “friendly lunch” with Priya’s fiancé, which was about the most ominous phrasing he could’ve used.
“Yes. Poor thing is getting grilled right now, but that’s what happens when you marry into the Singh family. I warned him. He can handle it.” Priya didn’t sound too concerned. “That’s one of the things I love so much about him. He’s so easygoing, not like all those other uptight guys I’ve dated in the past. Do you remember Troy? God, he was such an asshole. Ben would never…”
I forced a smile as my sister rambled on about how perfect Ben was. They’d met at a pottery-making workshop six months ago, and the two had been inseparable since.
I liked Ben. He was the calm to my sister’s chaos, and though it’d taken my parents months to warm up to him, they’d come around—for the most part. My mother was peeved that he was a middling artist rather than a powerful businessman, but she was also relieved that Priya had given up her previous vow never to marry. Given how worried she’d been, Priya could marry a professional clown, and she’d accept it.
It helped that Neha had already married their dream son-in-law.Arjun was a successful hedge fund manager, deeply attuned to our culture, and flattered my parents with gifts and compliments every time he saw them.
Then there was me, thirty-one and single. It didn’t matter how many professional accomplishments I racked up; I was the one who kept my mother up at night.
“I don’t want a big wedding, but you know how Mom is.” Priya nudged me with her elbow. “Iwishyou were getting married too. That way, we could swap. You get the wedding; I get the elopement.”
She didn’t mean it in a condescending way, but her words still stung. They were yet another reminder that I’d “fallen behind” somehow.
If I lived in a vacuum, I wouldn’t care about my singlehood. I’d rather be single than in a relationship for relationship’s sake, but I got anxiety from the way everyone else in my life harped on it.
Societal pressure was real, and unfortunately, I wasn’t immune to it.
“Please,” I said, covering up my discomfort with another forced smile. “You know Mom wouldfreakif any of her children eloped. You’d see a meltdown the likes of which the world has never experienced before.”
She laughed. “True.”
But as we left the pool for our respective massages, I couldn’t tamp down the little competitive flare inside me.
Priya wouldn’t get married for at least another year, but our cousin Radhika’s wedding was in a few months.
Did I want to show up to either of those events alone and be subjected to my extended family’s pity again? No. Was there a strong possibility that I would be theonlyone out of all my sisters and cousins to attend solo? Yes.
I disrobed and climbed onto the massage table, my mindracing. Perhaps I’d been too hard on my past setups. I had another arranged date this week, and hecouldbe The One. At the very least, he could be a tolerable plus-one to my cousin’s wedding.
No matter what happened, he already had one important thing going for him: he wasn’t Sebastian Laurent.
I wished the hypothetical axe murderer had killed me.
Death would be preferable to the torture I was currently experiencing, and unlike a quick stab to the chest, there was no easy way out of this.
I should’ve known the date would be a disaster when Brady took me to Brasserie M because it was “the most romantic restaurant in the city.” Once I recovered from a horrible bout of déjà vu, we started talking, and that was when thingsreallytook a dive.
Frat boy name aside, Brady looked good on paper. He was tall, well spoken, and owned a boutique investment banking firm that catered to media and entertainment executives. I thought he’d make a perfectly acceptable wedding date… until we reached the topic of family.
“How many children do you want to have?” he asked.
“No more than two,” I said. “What about you?”
