You're Invited(74)

I had to hand it to him, though—unlike anyone else, especially my mother’s proposals, Spencer did seem to understand what my biggest fear was. All this time, I didn’t hold off on getting married because I hadn’t found love. I’m mature enough to know that love plays a very tiny part in building a life together, like my parents have. I didn’t want to get married because I didn’t want to lose the life I had.

I mean, unmarried-woman problems aside, I’d be an idiot not to appreciate the setup I have going for me. I was my own boss (I mean, I know my father kept up pretenses, but let’s face it, I had a free hand to do as I liked with my charity), I could travel, I wasn’t burdened with any of the mundane family duties that my married friends had thrust on them.

Spencer presented marriage to me in a way that made sense. It was an agreement. I could keep doing whatever I wanted, with no threat to my lifestyle or career. He wouldn’t be possessive and lock me up in an ivory tower like most Sri Lankan men would, he wouldn’t make demands of me to have children (we’d have to do that at some point for the sake of appearances, I supposed, but we’ll cross that bridge later), he wouldn’t need me to do anything except what I wanted to do.

And he would get what he always wanted. A family. More specifically, mine.

I knew he had it rough after his parents died, even though he had been provided for, but he was probably not as smart as I thought if he believed the Fonsekas were as picture-book perfect as we made ourselves out to be. But hey, it was his funeral.

He loved Sri Lanka, he claimed, and that was easy to understand. Sri Lanka was the perfect place to live if you had enough money to spend. A five-star lifestyle for a fraction of the price you would pay in the US. A four-course meal like the one we were having tonight would cost as much as a monthly salary for the average Sri Lankan, but was still less than a round of appetizers at the Hilton in Union Square.

He wanted to set up a base, he said. Lay down roots. Start over.

And what better way to start over than as my husband, in a city where my family was equal to royalty. That was a good deal if I ever heard one. There have been marriages that took place for far less.

We’d just have to keep the pesky little detail that he was Amaya’s ex-boyfriend under wraps. She’s pretty much vanished from Colombo society, but it still wouldn’t be a good look for me at all.

“I’m sorry I caught you off guard; I truly am.” His eyes glittered in earnest. “But I know you. If I’d spoken to you about it beforehand, you would have overthought it and come up with a million reasons why you shouldn’t go through with it. You’d have thought I was crazy.” He was right. I was still not convinced this whole thing wasn’t absolutely ridiculous.

“But the most important thing, Kaavs, is that I get you. I know this is right. And I’m willing to spend the rest of my life proving to you that this is the best decision you’ve made.”

I thought about my mother and the countless proposals she will continue to bombard me with in the months to come. I thought about the mileage I would get from marrying a handsome, wealthy American man with his own company in San Francisco. I thought about the opportunity to curate my life into something that would really work for me.

“Okay,” I said, finally, after we had finished dessert and had started on our coffee. “Okay, let’s give it a shot.”

I could always get rid of him if it didn’t work out.





20


KAAVI


Two Months before the Wedding


I HAD EXPECTED at least a little pushback from my parents about Spencer’s proposal, but I supposed they had been more concerned about my approaching spinsterhood than they let on, because they welcomed him into the family with open arms.

“If he’s the reason why you turned down all those other boys, then why didn’t you say something?” my mother asked, as she flung her arms around me for the first time in years. Not even a hum about the fact that he’s not a Sinhala Buddhist, one of the key, overwhelmingly racist, traits that were stressed during those teatime drop-ins.

It turned out that Spencer knew how to play his cards a little better than I thought. He’d visited Sri Lanka twice before he proposed—to consult on the setup of Pink Sapphires, he had said—and he’d spent a significant portion of that time getting to know my family. I’d barely paid attention as he had conversations with my father about setting up a business, and complimented his way into my mother’s good graces. He’d dropped enough hints about being in love with me that my father had started to take pity on him. Even Tehani liked him enough to help him plan the whole proposal and convince me to invite him up onstage, which was truly a revelation.

The next few days were well and truly a blur. There were announcements to be made, social media to be updated, photographs to be taken (very important, given how Spencer and I didn’t even have a single photograph together to begin with), and of course, I had to put in a rush order to have my ring replaced. Apparently, Tehani had a hand in the ring Spence had proposed with, so I guess I could forgive the bland princess-cut solitaire on a white gold band. Thank god Fonseka Jewellers had their own workshop and were able to get an appropriate ring out for me quickly.

And then, of course, my mother dropped a bombshell on me.

She’d checked with her astrologers, as was expected, and all four of them came up with the same BS about the most auspicious day to get married being just three months away. I’d looked at Spencer when my mother made this announcement, expecting some resistance. Bad enough we rushed into this engagement, but to rush into an actual marriage? I had thought we’d have a year, maybe even two, to ease into it. Surprisingly, Spencer was completely game. He put his arm around my mother, gave me a chaste kiss on the cheek, and said he couldn’t be happier.