The Bride Test(13)

“She leaves me alone.” He already had a mom, a sister, and a bazillion aunts and girl cousins to send him on senseless errands, harass him about his clothing choices, and tell him to cut his hair. He didn’t need any more women in his life.

“You don’t want that,” she said with a decisive shake of her head. “I’ll help you be happy. You’ll see.”

He stiffened. “I don’t need that kind of help.” Her suggestion was galling in unprecedented ways. If she was going to spend the summer pushing him to dance and sing, he was probably going to have some manner of epic mental breakdown. Happiness, like grief, was not in his personal emotional card deck. But minor emotions like irritation and frustration were. He was feeling those in healthy measure right this moment.

A skeptical look crossed her face. “Happy people don’t wear all black.”

His clothes again. He tightened his fingers on the steering wheel. “I disagree.” Black was perfectly acceptable at weddings, and those were happy events. For other people, anyway. He’d rather have a colon exam. Proctologists only tortured you for a few seconds, whereas weddings went on for hours and hours.

Her lips thinned, and a tense moment stretched out before she asked, “What work do you do? Do you like it?”

“It’s complicated to explain, but yes, I like it.”

Her lips moved quietly for a moment, and he was fairly certain she was testing out the feel of the word complicated. But then she glanced about the car, took in his black suit and shirt again, and gave him a funny look. Her lips curved ever so slightly. “Are you a spy like James Bond?”

He blinked several times. “No.”

“An assassin?”

“No, I’m not an assassin.” What was wrong with her?

“Too bad.” But she didn’t look disappointed, not with that smile on her face. What weird things were going on in her brain?

Shaking his head, he said, “You’re stranger than I am.”

She confused him even more by hugging her arms to her chest and laughing down at her lap. It was a pretty sound, musical in a way. When she crossed her legs, his eyes were drawn helplessly to her thighs. Her skirt slid up, revealing another inch of flawless skin.

Rule Number Six, Rule Number Six, Rule Number Six.

He wrenched his eyes away and stared blindly at the dashboard. “I was an accounting major in school, but I’m more of a tax specialist now. My friend and I started an accounting software company. He’s in charge of the programming, and I handle the accounting, which means I need to stay up-to-date on generally accepted accounting principles and tax law as set forth in the Internal Revenue Code. Lately, we’ve added transfer pricing analysis to our software package, so I’ve had to get particularly familiar with section 482 of the IRC. It’s very interesting figuring out how to test if business transactions are at ‘arm’s length’ when you have large multinational corporations. Sometimes, they’ll create tax shelters in low-tax jurisdictions in, say, the Bahamas, so you have to—”

He forced himself to stop midsentence. People got bored when he talked about work. He even bored other accounting people from time to time. The intricacies and elegance of accounting principles and tax law weren’t for everyone. He had no idea why.

“Accounting,” she said slowly, this time in English.

“Not exactly, but I do have a CPA license. I’m certified to provide tax documentation for public companies in the United States.”

“Me, too.”

He took a surprised breath. She was an accountant? That was unexpectedly wonderful.

The hem of her dress became very interesting to her, and she fiddled with a loose thread as she said in Vietnamese, “In Vi?t Nam. Not here. It’s probably really different.”

“I bet it’s different. I don’t have any experience with Vietnamese tax regulation. It’s probably fascinating. Do they expense bribery as a cost of doing business? Is it tax deductible?” It would be entertaining to see bribery as a line item on an income statement. This was why he liked accounting so much. It wasn’t just numbers on paper. If you knew how to look at them, the numbers meant something and reflected culture and values.

She hugged herself like she was cold, saying nothing.

Had he accidentally insulted her? He replayed his comments in his head, trying to pinpoint the offensive thing, but it was no use. After an awkward pause, he asked, “Can we go now? I don’t enjoy chitchat like this.” And clearly, he was bad at it.

“Yes, let’s go. Thank you, Anh.” Sinking back against her seat, she stared out the side window.

He pulled out of the spot, paid for parking, and exited the garage. At first, his muscles tensed in anticipation of more probing questions, but as he left the airport and merged onto the freeway, she was blessedly quiet. Unlike his mom and sister, who could maintain one-sided conversations for hours.

Maybe she’d fallen asleep, but every time he glanced her way, he found her watching the landscape beside the freeway, which consisted of squat office buildings, scraggly grass, and the occasional bunch of eucalyptus or pine. Not very glamorous. Well, at least to him it wasn’t. He couldn’t imagine what it might look like from her eyes.

“Uni-vers-ity Av,” she said out of the blue. She straightened in her seat and torqued her body so she could see the exit he’d just passed. “Is that where Cal Berkeley is?”