“Playing Dudes’ Night,” Google replied.
Taylor Swift’s album Reputation slipped through his wall speakers, filling the open space up through the exposed beams and ducts.
After one of the worst weeks he’d had since Gori’s death, a night with his friends was exactly what the doctor ordered. He’d been twisted up inside for so long that this was hopefully going to be the release he needed.
“Sometimes I think that we, as the first ones born in the U.S., feel so much pressure to excel because our parents don’t know if their intercontinental move was successful until we are successful,” Kareena said. “We are the reward to their sacrifice.”
Prem nodded, fascinated by the way the dim lights at the bar flickered over her face. “I think that’s why we’re so forgiving when they push us, too.”
“Do your parents push you toward their dreams, or are you doing what you want, Prem Verma?”
“Soon,” he said. “Hopefully, I will be soon.”
Prem bristled with anger all over again. How could he have a life-altering conversation with a woman, a woman who he felt so connected to for the first time in . . . well, in ever, who would turn out to be the same person to throw a bottle of Pedialyte at him the next day at his studio?
Granted, he was the idiot who left her in a precarious situation, but still.
Prem put a couple highball glasses and a bottle of whiskey in the middle of his round dining room table. Three mats went next, along with plates he’d ordered off an Instagram ad at three in the morning the year before.
After grabbing a huge stack of old textbooks from the kitchen island and placing them on one of the chairs in front of one of the mats, he logged into his laptop. The familiar ding of a video chat request popped up on the screen. He rolled his eyes before accepting the call from his mother.
An older Punjabi woman with coiffed hair and thin lips painted in red filled his monitor. “Hi, Mama.”
“Mama ka bachcha,” she snapped. She was using her doctor voice, the same one that she pulled out when she was really upset. “Do you know how many times your father and I have tried to call you this week?”
He’d stopped counting after sixteen. “I’m sorry, I’ve been busy.”
“My son, a cardiologist, went viral on a TV show. It’s all over the WhatsApp groups!”
Great. The Aunty WhatsApp groups. The fastest way now to disseminate gossip and false information. The last time he’d checked the family chat, his physician parents were telling his cousin that drinking turmeric milk every day would increase his sperm count.
“It’s not like I intended it to happen, Mama.”
“You know, if you had just taken that job at Einstein Medical and become a surgeon like your little twat of a cousin—”
“Oh my god, we’ve had this conversation. You can’t say that word in the U.S. Stop watching Bollywood Wives. I thought you were going to try to do something productive during your early retirement instead of learning inappropriate curse words.”
“I am being productive! I’m trying to find a wife for my stubborn son, but he’s busy making a fool out of himself. You know what young girls call you now? Fuckboy.”
Prem had to school his features. His mother would come straight through the screen and smack the shit out of him if he rolled his eyes at her. “You know what? You can’t say that word, either. And stop comparing me to that t—that jerk. Also, this is entirely your fault.”
“My fault?” She pressed a hand to her chest. “How is this my fault? Indian children always are blaming their parents.”
“Mom, you texted me the family emergency SOS code!” He burst out. “I left Rina, that girl who was in the video with me, without any explanation or excuse because I thought there was a true emergency.”
“It was an emergency,” she said, with belligerence. She pursed her lips and leaned in closer to the camera. “Your cousin is getting married. Before you! Your aunt will never let me live this down.”
Prem pressed his fingertips to his forehead. He couldn’t get the image of Kareena’s arms up in the air, her sweater vest stuck covering her face, as he bolted out of the office with his heart pounding.
He tugged, and she went rigid in his arms. “Ouch!”
“Oh my god,” he said, hands pausing at her waist. He looked at the outline of her face through the fabric of her sweater vest. “What is it? Are you hurt?”
“I wore earrings today for the first time in a while, and I think one is caught on my clothes.” There was a strain of amusement in her voice.
He was going to die of mortification right there. He was like a sixteen-year-old trying to take off a girl’s clothes for the first time.
“Here let me—”
His phone buzzed, and the ring was specific to the SOS family line.
He stepped back and glanced at the screen. He thought he could feel his heart stop. Flashbacks of the day he found out about Gori cascaded through his mind. “I’m so sorry, I have to go,” he said, and bolted out the door.
“Prem!” his mother snapped. “Are you even listening to me?”
“Yes, Mama,” he said. Prem had thought that someone else had died.
He knew now that SOS call was fate intervening and saving him from ending up with a woman who was the devil incarnate.
“Mom, I have to go.”
She practically pressed her papery cheek against the screen. “Prem Verma, don’t you dare hang up on your mother! We have things to talk about.”
Prem sighed. “What, Mama?”
“My offer to pay you to get married.”
He really couldn’t talk about money when he was hurting for it. He might do something rash and make a deal with his mother. “I told you. Health center first, then you can send me as many rishtas you want. As many biodata documents with matching résumés that you can get your hands on.”
“I’ll find you someone prettier than that girl, too,” his mother said.
I doubt that, he thought. Kareena may be his nemesis, but he wasn’t going to lie and say she was anything but the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen.
“Thez,” she continued. “I bet she’s thez.”
Prem winced. He knew that older Indian aunties called younger desi women thez as an insult. As if being street-smart was a bad thing. “Mom, do you want another lesson on stereotypes?”
“Oh, chup kar. Your grandmother used to call me that, too, but of course, that was just because she didn’t like me. Beta, what was the point of becoming a handsome doctor if you’re not going to attract the best life partner by your credentials alone? You don’t even need a personality to be married once you have an M.D. Look at your father.”
“Mom.” Prem pinched the bridge of his nose and let out a deep breath. “You aren’t helping my situation at all.”
Her expression softened. “I’m sorry, beta. It’s just I never want to see my children take the long hard road.”
He thought about his conversation with Kareena again and cursed himself for the amount of times her face appeared in his head. “It’s my choice. I really have to go now.”