“You’re like a celebrity,” Marianne said. “I’ve never met a real-life New Yorker cartoon-caption-contest finalist before.”
“We should exchange numbers. I’ll show you my entry sometime.”
At the gynecologist, Marianne asked to have an IUD put in.
Tom was from Newton, Massachusetts, which, she learned, was a lot like being from Bethesda but with different sports allegiances. His father was a professor of African-American studies at Tufts and his mother was a pediatric dentist, and Marianne’s parents had met them for brunch in Brooklyn one sunny weekend morning and everyone got along easily, perfectly, and the two fathers even discovered that they had taken flying lessons at the same flying club outside Westchester. It was all so perfect on paper, maybe too perfect, and in any case, Tom hadn’t even mentioned proposing and Marianne worried that he never would and she was starting to get itchy feet again, wondering if maybe she needed something more exotic, more exciting, and less familiar.
* * *
—
“HOW DO YOU MAKE these so quickly?” Marianne asked Tina as she picked up the origami swan made from the Time magazine cover. “I’m going to keep this.”
Tina took it out of her hands and thoughtlessly crushed it and said, “Don’t take that one. I’ll make you a better one.”
“Let’s get more free champagne,” Marianne said.
“Can you believe your mother is bringing David Smith?” Neel Das, Tina’s father said as he approached his daughter and her best friend at the bar getting refills on their champagne glasses. He put his bag down at the table where their things were and stood next to them at the bar. He had been wandering around the duty-free shops trying to avoid his wife—ex-wife—but since the flight was over two hours late, he had no option but to come to the lounge and face everyone.
“A champagne for me too, please,” he said to the man at the bar.
“It’s prosecco. But still good,” the man at the bar said. “Where are you folks flying to today?”
“India,” Marianne said. “Where are you from?”
“Mali,” the man said, as he popped the cork on the prosecco bottle and smiled at Marianne.
“I’ve always wanted to go,” Marianne said to him.
“You have?” Tina and the bartender asked her.
“Of course,” Marianne glared at her. “Timbuktu has always sounded so magical to me.”
The bartender laughed even though Marianne had not meant it as a joke.
“Look at how broad his chest is. Can you imagine how handsome he’ll look in Indian clothes?” Mr. Das asked, looking across the lounge at David.
He shook his head and took a sip of his drink. The three of them took their glasses and walked back to the table where they had been sitting and Mr. Das looked at the origami swans on the table.
“Why are you making the swans again?” he asked Tina. “Are you anxious? I read somewhere that most air crashes happen in the first three minutes after takeoff.”
“That doesn’t sound right,” Tina said.
“I’ll believe you,” Marianne said. “Then I can relax after three minutes.”
“Exactly. I download three-minute-meditation apps for takeoff,” Mr. Das said. “But then I don’t use it and instead spend three minutes staring at the faces of the flight attendants and then I order a drink.”
Mr. Das picked up a handful of pistachios while looking around the lounge and tossed them into his mouth. He also sputtered as the shells hit his teeth and poked the inside of his mouth. He spat them out into a napkin.
“They could at least shell the nuts,” Mr. Das said.
“Why did you agree to be on the same flight?” Tina asked, placing her glass down. “And why are you wearing a turtleneck? Don’t they give you headaches?”
She picked up the remaining origami swans and crushed them all into a ball.
“Your mother booked my ticket as well and she thought it would be nice for all of us to be on the same flight and who am I to argue? I’m wearing a turtleneck because Esquire says it’s dignified and makes men look more intelligent,” Mr. Das said. He picked up the ball of crushed swans and tried separating them and pressing out the wrinkles. “He might look good but there’s no way a restaurant manager can afford a business class ticket to India, let alone one for her as well. But how on earth does his gray hair make him look so dignified?”
“Ma probably paid,” Tina said.
“Exactly,” Mr. Das said. “With my money.”
“You don’t pay alimony,” Tina said.
“Not my money exactly but family money, Tina,” Mr. Das said. “Your inheritance.”
“Why are you swinging your arm?” Tina asked, noticing her father swaying his right arm off the side of his chair.
He lifted his wrist to Tina and said, “Fitbit.”
He had bought a Fitbit last week but discovered that it tracked steps based on movement so he had been keeping his arm swinging even when he wasn’t walking in order to increase his step count. Figuring out how to maximize his step count while minimizing the number of actual steps he took was more challenging than just walking around endlessly. Maybe he would buy one of those mobiles they give infants to keep them occupied and attach his Fitbit to it. But that movement might be too smooth to register as steps. What he needed was one of those large clocks like his family used to have in Calcutta with a swinging pendulum.
“Marianne,” he said. “How have you been? Where is your skinny little husband? Tell him to come along. He can still hop on a flight tomorrow and be there for the fun parts.”
“Just boyfriend,” Marianne said. “Not husband. And I can’t imagine Shefali would be too happy about having to rethink the seating arrangements last minute.”
Tina and Mr. Das laughed.
“Marianne. Sometimes I genuinely forget how white you are,” Tina said. “Seating arrangements? There’s going to be over a thousand people at this wedding. Nobody’s sitting anywhere.”
“You know, for our wedding, the invitation card said You and your friends and family are invited to celebrate. I didn’t recognize more than half of the guests at our wedding,” Mr. Das said. “Book that fellow a flight. I like him. Tina, that’s the kind of man you need to meet. Marriage material—isn’t that what your generation says?”
“I don’t need any kind of man, Papa,” Tina said. “Isn’t that how you raised me? Not to need a husband or a boyfriend.”