Page 6 of The Love Match

Arif lets me in before I can use my key. Past the threshold waits… pandemonium. There’s no better way to describe it. Our apartment looks like a Sabyasachi factory exploded inside. Decorative scarves in every shade of the rainbow, made from any material you can imagine, are draped all over the couch, the coffee table, even the ceiling fan. A single jhumka earring crunches beneath the sole of my sneaker, reminding me to remove my shoes.

“Api, you’re back!”

Resna catapults herself at my legs, nearly knocking me over. Only then do I notice that she’s dressed in a pink frock with poofy sleeves and a tulle skirt, and has ribbons in her pigtails. After I manage to detach her, I get a proper look at my shifty brother. Arif is tugging at the too-short cuffs of the white button-up shirt that poke out of the suit jacket Amma made for his eighth-grade graduation. He’s been growing so fast for the past few years that he’ll be too tall for the whole thing before long.

“Aru, what the hell is going on?” I whisper, covering Resna’s ears.

He shrugs his bony shoulders. “Amma.”

As if summoned, our mother flounces into the living room from her bedroom, bringing with her a whiff of talcum powder and perfume.

Like my siblings, she’s dressed in her best shari, one with asilver brocade on opulent Banarasi silk that Baba had shipped from India for the last anniversary they shared. Plum-colored lipstick to match the shari adorns her smiling lips, a far cry from the more muted “widow” colors she normally wears.

She looks so beautiful, so happy, that I don’t have the heart to spoil it, until I recall my star-crossed plans to write and fold my arms over my chest. “I thought Eid wasn’t for almost a month. Why are you so dressed up tonight?”

“Hmm?” Amma bats her eyelashes. “What do you mean? I told you you’d get a delicious dinner tonight, but I never saidIwould make it.”

My jaw drops. “Younevertake us out to eat.” I affect her prim, perfect Bengali as best I can. “?‘Why would we pay for food at a restaurant when we have perfectly good food we already paid for at home?’?”

I look to Arif and Resna to back me up, but my brother won’t meet my gaze, while my traitorous sister snickers behind her hand. Amma, meanwhile, harrumphs as if I’ve insulted the last ten generations of our ancestors.

“So that’s what you think of your poor mother, eh? Here I got a coupon from one of my customers and thought I’d treat us for once, butyouthink I’m cheap and—and—andunfeeling.” She sniffles, using the hanging pallu of her shari to dry her weepy eyes. “Perhaps we should cancel and call it a night. Your grandmother already said she’s too tired to do anything but watch her natoks. You’re probably tired too. Why did I bother with such a terrible surprise?”

I raise my palms to quell her tears. “Wait! I—I want to go. Really.”

Immediately, every crocodile tear vanishes, leaving not a trace of runny kajol behind, as she begins to shove me toward the bathroom. “Good! Now, hurry and shower! You have to look perfect tonight!”

“Haza-fara, haza-fara!” Resna singsongs, thrilled about playing dress-up.

I spot Arif mouthing an apology at me and get the distinct impression that I’ve been played, but before I can grill him, I’m thrust into the bathroom, then ensnared in the natural disaster that is Hurricane Amma, a whirlwind of outfits, makeup, and curling-iron burns that ends with me dressed in a yellow anarkali suit trimmed with sparkling sunflowers, a billowing urna pinned into my braided hair, my kajol-lined eyes stinging from the perfume she sprayed right into my face.

For no more than a second, Amma strokes my cheek with her thumb, her smile tender. “Just like a princess,” she says in her accented English, but before I can respond, she’s already prodding me toward the door. “Let’s go! We don’t want to be late!”

Although I currently resemble a brown Cinderella with a particularly sassy fairy god-amma, our ride to the restaurant is more pumpkin than carriage. I dodge the stares of the people on the 150 bus as Amma, Arif, Resna, and I squish into an available row of seats, turning everything that’s happened over and over in my mind, to no avail.

What the hell could Amma be plotting? Is there some creep waiting for us at the restaurant? Did she dress up Arif and Resna to throw me off? Am I honestly expected to sit through my first-ever date with my entire family gawking? Or is this a ploy to get into my good graces when shedoespull the blind-date card?

I could just ask, but it’s more likely than not that she’ll burst into tears again, wounded that I don’t trust her—not that there’s anything to trust at the moment—and I’d rather spare the rest of the passengers her histrionics.

We transfer from one bus to another until the sign for a restaurant surfaces:GITANJALI. It rings a bell, but Amma has been dragging me to so many wedding venues in the city that they’ve all started blurring into one ostentatious blob. Tonight, I expected a hole-in-the-wall, but the sheersizeof this place is jaw-dropping. This is the sort of restaurant where a Kardashian might get proposed to if they wanted some exotic ambiance.

I elbow Amma mid-stride. “Are you sure this is the place?”

“I’m sure.”

“Are yousureit’s not too expensive?”

She scowls. “I’msure. Now, hurry before the humidity ruins your hair and makeup.”

I click my teeth shut and follow her into Gitanjali. Another bout of déjà vu fills me at the sight of the red velvet carpet and the antique, metal-worked lanterns that suffuse the whole restaurant with a dim golden glow, strummed sitar music echoing off the tapestried walls. The welcoming smile of apretty white hostess in an elegant black gown sidetracks me.

“You must be the Khans!”

“We are,” answers my mother, and then to me, as we trail behind the blond hostess, “I made a reservation for us tonight.”

She sounds so proud of herself that I smile. Perhaps I misjudged her, after all. “You didn’t have to do all this for me, Amma. It’s too much.”

The elation on her face ebbs. Before I can determine what emotion takes its place—guilt?—someone cries, “Zaynab, is that you?”

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