“Well, I guessed that much,” she said with a smile.
Karthik ran a hand through his hair. She’d thought his hair had looked so perfect when they had first met, but she was finding that she liked this rumpled, slightly disheveled look even better.
“They’re thinking of me for the replacement,” he said.
“That’s great!”
A wrinkle formed between his eyebrows. “It’s a little more complicated than that.”
“In what way?”
“Well, she thinks we’re engaged.”
Meghna couldn’t understand how that was a problem. They technicallywereengaged. “What does that have to do with anything?”
“It’s part of why she recommended me for the promotion. Apparently, my inability to commit has been an…issue. In the past. She thoughtthis”—he waved his hand between the two of them—“meant I was serious or stable or something. I really don’t know. All I know is she asked to meet you.”
Meghna raised her hands in ata-dagesture. “Well, here I am.”
“I know. And I appreciate you coming,” he said, a worried look still on his face. “I just don’t think she’ll buy it.”
“Everyone else has. My parents. Yours. What are you so worried about?”
He grimaced. “We don’t even know anything about each other.”
She raised a shoulder nonchalantly. “So, you tell them this was arranged. Big deal. If they ask anything we don’t know, we’ll say we’re still getting to know each other.” She took a sip of the ice water in front of her and breathed a sigh of contentment. “Besides,” she said, “I know things about you. You know things about me. You’re an engineer. I’m a teacher. You live in New York. I live in Dallas.” She tried to think of more items to add to the list, but realized she had already laid out everything she knew about him. Maybe he had a point.
“Well, what do you want to know?” she asked.
He took a sip of his own water and adjusted the cuffs of his shirt, his eyes not quite meeting hers. “Where are we going to live?” he finally asked. “After we get married.”
She thought it over for a second. “I don’t care. You pick. It’s not going to be true either way.”
“But we should have the same story,” he said, being irritatingly reasonable.
“Fine,” she said on an exhale. “New York. I’ll move up here. I’ve thought about it before anyway.”
“You have?”
“Yeah. Most people interested in theater dream about moving here at some point in their lives.”
“I thought you taught English,” he said.
“I do. But I used to want to write plays.” She frowned as she registered what she’d just said. “Actually, I still write plays. I’m working on one now, but I just haven’t made a lot of progress on it lately. Maybe if I moved here, I’d get back to it.”
“You could even go back to school,” he suggested. “Get an MFA.”
Huh. She’d never thought about that before. Her parents had pushed her to consider grad school for years, but their suggestions were usually limited to business or law school. And engineering, of course, but they seemed to have given up on that one, realizing she wasn’t cut out for it.
“Maybe,” she said hesitantly. “So, what’s going on with this promotion? After all, I should knowsomethingabout your job.”
“It’s not that interesting,” he said. “Almost everyone at the company is some kind of mechanical engineer, and we’re all specialized in a particular area. I work on a team that designs HVAC systems. Heating, ventilation, air-conditioning. Mostly for commercial buildings. We study the blueprints, design systems, test them out. But my boss’s job is a lot more management and supervision. I’d be overseeing the entire team instead of being a part of it if I got Marianne’s job.”
Meghna set her elbow on the table, propping her chin on her hand. “Is that what you want?”
He moved his head back subtly, as if he was surprised, as if no one had asked him that question before. “What?”
“This job,” she said. “That’s what you want?”
