The Dating Plan(13)
“He’s . . . umm . . .” Definitely not someone her father would approve of, since he’d cursed Liam in three different languages after he’d stood her up, and cursed him again after he disappeared. “It’s not what you think, Dad.” She pulled her long, thick hair into a ponytail, and fixed it with three hair ties to keep it in place.
“Not what I think?” His voice rose in agitation. “You’re engaged to a man I haven’t even met and has a strange name. A man you never mentioned or brought to meet me and now you’re planning to marry him? That’s what I think, and the thinking is making my heart ache and my brain sore with worry. And what about Roshan? He is your perfect match . . .”
Only half listening to the list of Roshan’s virtues as she tried to figure a way out of the mess, Daisy picked up her phone and made her way downstairs in their cozy Bernal Heights home. She’d been reluctant to leave her father alone after her older brother, Sanjay, left to go to college, so she’d stayed to keep him company, completing her computer science degree at Stanford and taking jobs in Silicon Valley. They’d rattled around in the house together until her father had started dating Priya, neither of them able to admit that the house was too big for two, because that would finally mean accepting that her mother was never coming home.
“Everyone has met Roshan and liked him, and even your horoscopes were good,” her father continued. “Salena was so excited. She took him to see you as a surprise . . .” His voice tightened. “And then . . .”
“And then she discovered that I managed to find someone on my own.” Daisy took a blueberry muffin out of the freezer and popped it in the microwave. Priya owned a small bakery in the Marina District and had filled the freezer full of treats for Daisy before the big trip. She hadn’t had to make breakfast once since they’d been gone.
“I don’t believe,” her father said abruptly. His English always became worse when he was emotional. “How could you meet someone and make such an important decision so quickly without consulting your family? No. I don’t accept.”
Daisy could almost imagine him waving his hands in the air, dismissing what he didn’t want to hear. He’d said almost the same thing when Liam had disappeared, acted almost the same way.
“I thought you were done with men after that Orson boy,” her father continued. “That’s why I found someone for you.”
She was done with men. Life was easier without the messy entanglement of emotions. Orson had been a mistake, a rare foray into the relationship wilderness brought on by having to witness Layla falling in love. If she was honest with herself, Daisy had known from the moment Orson first asked her out that he would leave her. Everybody did.
“I was done, but the aunties wouldn’t leave me alone. Every time I stepped out the door I was afraid one of them was going to pop out of a bush, so I handled it myself.” She bit into the muffin, silently cursing Priya for her incredible skill as the fresh pop of blueberries woke all her taste buds in a sugar-sweet burst. One wasn’t going to be enough.
“Your aunties are worried for you,” he said. “Twenty-seven and unmarried. It’s like a red flag for them. They don’t want you to fall for the wrong man or wind up with no man at all. Now I fear they didn’t act fast enough.”
Holding out her fingers, Daisy let Max take a little lick. Only rarely did he get human food, but when he did, his preference was for Jana Auntie’s pakoras over anything sweet.
“He’s not the wrong guy. He’s just . . .”
Absolutely the wrong guy. Without a doubt Liam Murphy was the last man on earth she should marry. Her aunties were right about that.
“Did you know that eighty-five percent of young Indians prefer to marry the boy or girl chosen by their families?” Her father rattled off a slew of marriage statistics like he’d purposely memorized them for this very kind of conversation, which he probably had. “The divorce rate of arranged marriages is only one out of one hundred.”
“This is what I get for having an economist as a father,” she muttered, half to herself. “Where did you dig up those conveniently biased statistics?”
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “What matters is that in the West, when couples choose their own partners, the divorce rate is fifty percent. Don’t you agree that a one percent chance of divorce is better than fifty?”
“If I don’t get married, my chance of divorce is zero.” She grinned at Max, and he barked in approval.
Usually when she won a point in an argument, her dad would laugh, but this time he was quiet for so long, her skin prickled. “I don’t understand, beta. Do you love this Limb boy? Are you getting married to him or not?”
“It’s complicated. Can’t we just say I’m engaged so no one needs to worry about finding me a man? And if we’re still together when you get back, you can meet him.” Hopefully, by the time he returned she would have a new decoy to keep the aunties at bay.
“Fine.” Her father sniffed. “Make your own decisions. In twenty years I’ll be gone, and you won’t have to worry about your old dad trying to make you happy by finding you the perfect man.”
“Dad . . .” She didn’t have a chance when he pulled out the Indian parent guilt.
“No. Be engaged to a stranger.” He gave a dramatic sigh. “Who am I to know best? Only your old dad with a lifetime of experience who cares only for what’s best for you and just wanted you to meet the boy I knew would make you most happy.”