Dating Dr. Dil (If Shakespeare was an Auntie #1)(40)

Understanding dawned on her face and she nodded. “Smooth,” she said. “This was really smooth, Dr. Dil.”

“I thought so.” He slung an arm over her shoulders, enjoying the feel of her close to him. “Now come on.”

They made their way to the front of the line where people were grabbing different colored pamphlets and pencils. Before they could take theirs, a group of kids, both South and East Asian, cut in front of them.

“We’re so going to win,” one of the children said to them. “You may want to cut your losses now.”

Prem and Kareena looked at each other and when their eyes met, they nodded in unison. There must’ve been some unspoken children of immigrants’ message that passed between them.

Their competition grabbed their supplies and left, their heads held high.

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Prem said quietly.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking but I’m thinking these kids have nothing on us.”

Prem handed her a pencil and pamphlet. “Here. Where do you want to start?”

“With the instructions,” Kareena said.

“You have five minutes!” the organizer shouted. “Then we’ll unblock the entrance, and the hunt begins!”

Kareena led Prem over to an empty bench in the corner. She began reading through the bio of all the suspects and circled clues as she went.

Prem read quickly, cross-referencing Kareena’s notes that he was able to see from over her shoulder. “What do you think about matching the clues with the rooms, so we’re not going back and forth across the museum?” he asked.

“Good idea. Can you check the map?”

He was already pulling up the museum map on his phone to look up the room numbers on the pamphlet.

“Um, why are you still here? We told you we were going to win. Aren’t you two a little old to do this?” The interruption came from one of the South Asian girls who had forced her way in line ahead of them.

The comment was callous considering there were other grown couples participating in the hunt.

“Aren’t you too young to not have a chaperone?” Kareena replied.

“Whatever,” one of the petite girls with pink hair said. “You probably will know all the answers because you lived through the time period.”

“Yeah, with your dad. Tell him I said hi.”

Prem muffled a laugh this time when every single one of the teenagers stared back at them with traumatized expressions on their faces.

“Whatever. Just stay out of our way. We’re the only Asians who are going to win this.”

They stormed away.

“That’s internalized colonialism that’s making you competitive! We Asians are supposed to support each other!” Kareena called after them.

Prem brushed a wavy lock of hair that had come out of her ponytail and tucked it behind her ear. “Rina, honey? I think, technically, we all have internalized colonialism.”

Kareena scrunched up her nose. “Whatever. Let’s win this.” She folded her instructions in half and tucked the pencil in her ponytail in a way that was so efficient and sexy that he had to shift in his seat.

“Thoughts on what to do first?” he asked, praying that she would say something that would cool him off.

“It’s the janitor. We have to figure out how he did it, write down all the clues to get the points, and then find the murder weapon.”

Prem looked at his paper and then back at her. Well, that certainly cooled him off. “What do you mean it’s the janitor? How do you know that so fast?”

She pointed to her notes, confidence written in every line of her body. “He’s the least likely to do it. The instructions use persuasive language along with random cleaning product references. If you trust me on this one, I can lead us to cafeteria coupon victory.”

Prem must’ve looked skeptical because she added, “Tick tock, Dr. Phil.”

He wanted to convince her that they’d be a good team. That meant trusting her. And if she was right, then she was an even more spectacular partner than he’d realized. “You know what? Fuck it. Yeah, lead the way.”

The organizer stood up on one of the benches again, her red hair a beacon in the otherwise gray, black, and chrome room. “And your time starts now!” she shouted.

For the first time since they met, Kareena reached for Prem first, grabbed his hand, looped her tote bag over her shoulders, and ran out the door.

The first clue directed them to a massive room with two-story ceilings, wall-size canvases framed in ornate gold, and the impressionist painters from France.

“We have to find a painting that has a purple aphrodisiac flower in it,” she said.

Prem scanned the room. “There are thirty paintings in here. It looks like half of them have flowers.”

“You take the left side, and I take the right?” she asked.

“Yeah, let’s do it.” They split up and looked for the portrait. Prem was the first to spot it and called Kareena over to read the plaque. The next clue led them to the Egyptian tombs.

“Keep up, Mann,” Prem said when they jogged up to the second floor.

“Shut up,” she mumbled from behind him.

The Met had arranged the giant slabs of rock in the same shape they’d found it, ensuring all the carvings in the slabs were lighted appropriately.