The Matchmaker's List - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Sonya Lalli is a Canadian writer of Indian heritage. She studied law in her hometown of Saskatoon and at Columbia University in New York, and later completed an MA in Creative Writing and Publishing at City, University of London. Sonya has a black belt in Tae Kwon Do and loves travel, yoga and cocktail bartending. She lives in Toronto with her husband.

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***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected copy proof***

Copyright © 2018 Sonya Lalli

1

Nani opened the front door as I was still crossing the lawn. Her nose twitching, she looked me up and down as I forced myself up the steps.

“Is that what you’re wearing?”

I shrugged and glanced down at my weekend jeans, my favorite checked shirt. It’s what I always wore home during one of my weekly visits, but I supposed today wasn’t an ordinary day.

I was twenty-nine today, and walking into an ambush.

“I was hoping you would dress up, nah? We have guest.”

A guest. A guest implied a cup of chai and a tray of sweets quickly defrosted from the Deepfreeze. A guest was small talk, compliments, gossip.

A guest was not an unannounced blind date chaperoned by your grandmother.

“What kind of guest?” I asked evenly, deciding not tell her that my best friend, Shay, had already warned me about the blind date. Nani didn’t answer the question, clucking her tongue as I bent over and brushed a kiss on the top of her head. She smelled the way she always smelled, like cocoa butter and roasted cumin. A touch of garlic. She stepped back and continued her evaluation, her tiny fingers pinching at the fleshy part of her chin as I kicked off my shoes.

“Find something more suitable.” She flicked her hand up the staircase, and I bounded up the stairs to the second floor, knowing full well there was nothing nicer in my old room. Too-large T-shirts from summer camps and music festivals where my favorite band that year had headlined. Jogging pants, the type with black or white snaps running up the leg. My old trumpet.

It was odd how little of me I kept here. But of all the places I’d lived since moving out—a dumpy apartment with Shay; a shared flat in London; and now, a new condo with my name on the mortgage—it was this house that I’d always considered home. I heard Nani calling, her voice staccato and sweet, and I ran a brush through my hair and then made my way back downstairs.

She looked up at me expectantly. “Nothing?”

“All my clothes are downtown.”

She arched her brows. “Anything in guest room?”

Again, I shook my head. Mom’s old room. Starch white walls and a beige linen duvet, not a trace of her left in the closet. Nani sighed as I reached the bottom step, evaluating my outfit one last time. And then she shrugged, squeezed my hand, and said, “Still my pretty girl. Even in that.”

Anywhere Nani lived would always be home.

I tucked in my shirt and followed her through the kitchen, ducking my head beneath the crossbeam as we took the eight steps down to the lower level. To the “entertaining room,” as Nani called it: orange corduroy couches wrapped stiffly in plastic; the walls packed with street art bought for a few hundred lire on my grandparents’ one trip abroad; Lord Ganesh presiding on the mantel, a choir of porcelain Siamese cats chiming in unison. And our guest stood at the room’s rapturous center, awkwardly in place, his dark brown skin the same shade as the varnish on the wood paneling.

“Raina,” said Nani, clutching my wrist. “Meet Sachin.” She dragged me closer until the top of his forehead was square to my mouth, and I tried to ignore the dull sensation in my belly. He looked vaguely familiar. Perhaps someone I’d known as a child, or seen in the stack of pictures Nani had started leaving on the kitchen table. He was quite short, albeit symmetrical—handsome even. He smiled and brought his palms together at his chest, bowing slightly to both of us.

“Hello, Raina,” he said, like my name was a word he’d invented.

“Hi.”

“Sachin drove far to come for your birthday lunch.”

“It’s your birthday?” His face stiffened. “I didn’t mean to intrude.”

“No intrusion, dear.” She pinched his cheek. “My Raina and I are so happy you joined. Nah, Raina?”

I nodded.

“Raina is such a good girl. Always coming home from her busy job to take care of her nani.” She gasped and turned to me. “Sachin is a busy man, too. Raina, did you know he is doctor?”

“No, I didn’t.” I turned to him. “My best friend is a doc—”

“I’m a cardiologist, actually.” He glanced away. “To be more precise.”

I clamped down on my lower lip. Precise, or just plain arrogant?

“Subspecialized at Columbia,” he said.

“Mhm.” I tried not to roll my eyes. “Is that right?”

He nodded, fingering his wristwatch. “Diverse city. Beautiful campus. One of the top programs in the country—world, even. Some might say.”

“I think I’ve heard of Columbia.” I folded my arms across my chest. “Is that in Cleveland?”

“Actually, New York—”

“And you’re the kind of doctor that cleans teeth, right?”

Nani jabbed me on the arm, and I tried not to laugh.

“No, no. It’s—”

“Cardio-logist. Oh! You’re a sports doctor.”

He shifted from side to side. “Actually, cardiac electrophysiology is a—”

Nani clucked her tongue, waving him off. “Don’t listen to her. She’s a silly one, my Raina.” She wrapped her arms around my waist as if she were a coconspirator in the charade.

“Oh,” said Sachin.

Evidently, they didn’t teach sarcasm at Columbia.

“Dear,” Nani said, turning to Sachin. “Would you like chai before lunch?”

“Chai sounds lovely, Auntie.”

She waddled up the stairs, leaving me alone with him, and I sat down on one of the couches, the plastic screeching beneath me as I settled onto the cushion. Sachin joined me a moment later, his legs spread so wide he was nearly touching me. To my dismay, he actually smelled pretty good: the way rich men tended to smell, like Dev used to smell. An understated potency that still dominated the entire room.

“Your nani is very sweet,” he said after a moment.

“She’s the best.”

“What’s her name again?”

“Belinda.”

“Oh.”

I looked straight ahead, deadpan, trying not to look at him out of the corner of my eye.

“Is that . . . Bengali?”

“No,” I sighed. “Her name is Suvali.”

“But, you just said—”

“It was a joke.”

“A joke, right”—he let out a stiff laugh—“good one.”

Growing up, everyone just referred to family friends as auntie or uncle, but I still felt mildly offended on Nani’s behalf that he didn’t even know her name. I reclined slightly on the couch, and stared straight ahead. Lord Ganesh—eyes, trunk, and all—stared right back.

Upstairs, I could hear Nani bustling around in the kitchen. She would be setting out her favorite teacups on the silver tray Nana had bought her as wedding present, placing teaspoons equally spaced along the paper napkins—garish, a bold red and gold—that she’d once bought in bulk at a discount store going out of business. Fifty packages for a five-dollar bill.

“Raina, hey, listen,” Sachin said after a while.

“Yes?”

He played with his rounded fingernails, picking beneath them. “I really hate to ruin your birthday,...