Arrange Me: a married-at-first-sight romance (The Arranged Duo Book 1) Read online

  “We’re a dying breed,” I say. “Literally.”

  She chuckles. “Hard knocks?”

  “You have no idea,” I say, and it’s true.

  I live in a two-bedroom apartment with four other artists trying to “make it” in the New York theater world, and between the five of us, it’s still a struggle to make the $3,000 rent some months. Most of us have other jobs: bartending, waiting tables, coaching, or tutoring, but all of us are living for the dream of seeing our name—or the name of our play—in lights.

  “Have I seen anything you’ve written?”

  “Probably not.” I shake my head as I take an empty pint glass off the bar and dunk it in a sink of warm, soapy water. “Maybe someday.”

  “Someday soon?”

  I don’t actually know how to answer her. I’ve been a resident playwright at the New Dramatists for five years, ever since graduating with a BA in dramatic writing from the Tisch School at NYU, and the reality is that luck or grace can strike at any time. I know because I’ve seen it. One of my old roommates, Bryce Turner, was a chorus dancer and understudy actor on Broadway for six years before he was asked to play a lead part one night. Out of the blue. Just like that. And suddenly Bryce could quit his shitty second job as a cashier at Macy’s and moved into his own place, because after that, the lead roles just kept on coming.

  That’s how quickly your luck can change.

  “Fingers crossed,” I say.

  “What’s your name?” she asks. “So I can say ‘I-knew-you-when.’”

  “Josh Dalton.”

  “Pen name?”

  I shake my head. “Nope. Real name. Charles Joshua Dalton, of the Minnetonka Daltons.”

  “Fancy.”

  “You ever been to Minnetonka?” I ask, capping her off because she’s nice and it’s quiet and it’s pleasant chatting with her.

  “Never.”

  “Lucky,” I say, laughing softly. “Nah, I’m kidding. It’s a small town, but it’s fine. And most importantly, it had a theater. The Minnetonka Theater. Not a bad venue.”

  “I bet that’s the place where young Josh Dalton’s dreams started, huh?”

  “That’s right.”

  The door opens, and a blond guy wearing sunglasses and carrying a briefcase stops just inside the vestibule, placing his sunglasses on top of his head and looking around for someone. When he sets his eyes on my Chardonnay-drinking friend, his face lights up, and he beelines over to us.

  “I think your fiancé’s here.”

  She turns around and hops off the stool, letting herself be enveloped in his arms and kissed hello.

  There’s something about watching their reunion that tightens my chest, and my eyes linger on them for an extra second before I turn around to straighten liquor bottles that are already pretty tidy.

  What’s going on with you, Dalton?

  “Hey. How about a gimlet?”

  My breath catches as my heart starts to gallop, and a mass of butterflies I haven’t felt since high school converges under my ribcage.

  Oh, my heart.

  Oh, fuck. My heart.

  I turn around, and it should be no great surprise to see Courtney Jane Salinger sitting across from me, but somehow it is. Or maybe it’s the unexpected pleasure erupting inside of me that’s such a surprise. I don’t know. I’m not sure.

  I am, however, absolutely certain that the partial rewrite of my female lead character in Miss Gibbons Will See You Now was based, at least in part, on her.

  And when my mom and dad called from Minnetonka to check on their black sheep–playwright son last Sunday, and Mom had asked if there was “anyone special” in my life, Courtney had flashed through my mind for no good reason.

  And the idea to add a brand-new scene centered around the word “marriage” in my play Catching Caufield? Pretty sure that originated with Courtney and our short, strange conversation last week.

  “Are you okay?” Courtney asks, placing her purse on the stool next to her to reserve it for Dina.

  “Yeah.” I clear my throat. “Uh. Yeah. Fine.”

  This is a lie.

  I’m not fine.

  I’m affected by her presence. I’m turned on like a lamp. I’m interested in learning more.

  But mostly, I’m…bothered by all of it.

  It is absolutely not fine with me.

  CHAPTER 3

  Courtney

  The last time I saw Josh-the-hot-bartender, the way he smiled my way had warmed me and made me feel new. But the way he’s looking at me right now, like I did something inexcusably rude or unforgivably wrong, gives me the opposite impression. Why does he look so pissed?

  “Did—did I shortchange you last week?”

  “No,” he says, avoiding my eyes. “You said a gimlet, right?”

  I’ve been ordering the same drink almost every Friday night for five years, and the past one with Josh behind the bar. He knows what I drink.

  “Yeah.”

  I watch his spare movements as he mixes it for me. Gin. Fresh lime juice. A squeeze of agave. Ice. Shake. Pour.

  “Fourteen dollars,” he says, placing a navy-blue cocktail napkin on the bar and my drink on top.

  I slide my credit card over the shiny chrome. “I’ll start a tab.”

  He takes the card to the register, turning his back to me without another word.

  And I know it’s stupid, because I really don’t know Josh very well outside of my weekly cocktail hour with Dina, but his blatant lack of warmth toward me makes me realize how much I look forward to seeing him every Friday evening. Seeing Josh’s welcoming smile has come to represent something important and cherished to me: freedom, the end of the work week, the excitement of the weekend. At some point, a cold drink and warm smile somehow started to mean more to me than a generic bartender-patron exchange, and I don’t like being iced out like this. What happened?

  “Hey,” I say, “is everything okay?”

  He turns around but keeps his distance, standing against the shelves lined with bottles instead of laying his hands flat on the bar in front of me and leaning closer to chitchat.

  “Yeah. Why?”

  I try for a smile, but it feels flat. “You seem…upset.”

  He crosses his arms over his chest, his cool blue eyes looking into mine. “I’m not.”

  I’ve noticed before that Josh has great arms. They’re not super ripped or anything, just slightly tanned and nicely toned. But right now? Crossed over his chest? They look strong but unwelcoming, like he’s protecting himself from something.

  I fumble for another smile. “Okay.”

  He takes a deep breath, which broadens his chest under his gray T-shirt, then turns and heads down to the end of the bar.

  What the hell? Is he just having a bad day, or is it me?

  I can’t think of anything I’ve done. I mean, just last week I saw him, paid my tab, and left twenty dollars for Dina’s cab. Nothing egregious there.

  And I know it’s a little egocentric to wonder if I, personally, have anything to do with his bad mood, since we don’t know each other all that well, but call it intuition. For whatever reason, it feels personal.

  “Hey, Courts!” Dina hangs my purse on a hook under the bar and slides onto the stool I’ve been saving for her. “Whassup, ladycakes?”

  “Josh-the-grouchy-bartender is in a bad mood.”

  “Really?” She bites her bottom lip as she flicks a look in his direction. “Maybe he’s just been missing me.”

  A bottle of Amstel Light—Dina’s drink of choice—appears before us suddenly, but Josh is gone before either of us even looks up or has a chance to say “thank you.”

  “Thank you!” she calls with a little sass, and Josh nods at her over his shoulder before helping another customer.

  “He’s being weird, right?”

  “Whatevs.” Dina lifts the bottle to her lips and takes a long sip. “So, give me the scoop. I haven’t seen you since last week. What’s been going on?”
br />   Dina was attending a financial conference in Atlanta this week and only returned this afternoon, but she’s deluded if she thinks that anything interesting is going on at DeWitt, Morris & Jones. The most exciting thing I can come up with is that there’s a new copy machine in accounting.

  “Nothing to tell. Same old.” I take a sip of my gimlet before turning my legs to face her. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure. Anything. I’m an open book. You know that.”

  “You’re Indian.”

  She side-eyes me. “Um, yeah.”

  “I mean…your parents are from India.”

  “My mother is. My father technically is, but he’s been here since he was a baby.”

  “Was their marriage arranged?”

  She pulls a hand through her jet-black, glossy hair. “Yep. My mother’s family and my father’s family go way back. So even though my father’s family was already settled here, my grandfathers talked about getting their kids together and…you know, brought my mother over to marry my father.”

  “Had they ever met?”

  “Nope. I mean…yeah, maybe. My father’s family went back to India a few times during his childhood, so it’s possible they met when they were kids. But once my father started high school, his family didn’t go back as much. So if they did meet, it was when they were both young.” She takes another gulp of beer. “Put it this way: they definitely didn’t know each other.”

  “But they did it anyway. Agreed to the arrangement. Got married. Basically, at first sight.”

  “Of course. It’s tradition. Younger generations have a little more freedom, but my mummy still believes that arranged marriages are the best marriages.”

  “Are they happy?” I ask.

  She shrugs, then grins at me. “Yeah, I think so. He complains about her cooking. She tells him he’s a slob. But they fall asleep together every night.”

  I sigh because that sounds so nice.

  “So…what’s with all the questions about my parents?”

  “I might have done a thing.”

  “A good thing or a bad thing?”

  “You know that show on Lifetime, Arrange Me?”

  She rolls her eyes. “Oh, my God! I hate that show! People who’ve never seen each other before get married by supposed experts? Sure. I know it. It’s crazytown.”

  Josh stops at the cash register with his back to us, and usually I’d say hi or invite him to join our conversation, but since he’s ignoring me, I decide to ignore him too.

  “Why do you say that?” I ask her. “Your parents did it.”

  “No, baby. What my parents did was totally different. Night and day.”

  I scoff. “How so?”

  “Their parents were friends from the same caste, from the same town in India. They had a family connection. The families loved their kids and wanted the best for them. Not to mention, the attitude is totally different in India.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “People with arranged marriages there don’t expect to fall in love at first sight. And they don’t expect the match to be perfect. Indians come from this place of having their whole lives to get to know their spouse and grow to love them. Marriage itself is the bond—not just the feelings that precede marriage. Let’s put it this way: arranged marriage in India isn’t just based on feelings. More than that, it’s based on mutual respect, family, and commitment. That’s why arranged marriages work in India. And that’s precisely why they don’t work here.”

  I mull this over for a minute, letting the nuances of what she’s saying really sink in, and I conclude that she’s probably right. Arranged marriage will have less success in a country where marriage is based, in large part, on love rather than on mutual respect, family, and commitment.

  I ask myself if I can let go of my American sensibilities toward marriage and adopt a more Indian approach. Am I ready to commit to someone without knowing the first thing about them? Just because well-intentioned “experts” think we have the potential to be a good match?

  Dina raps her long nails on the bar. “Hey! You still haven’t told me—what did you do?”

  “Well, there’s this website called Arrange Me Too. I filled out an application.”

  “To be arranged?” she yells.

  “Shut up!” I hiss, darting a glance at Josh, whose shoulders have rolled forward and arm muscles bunch like he’s clenching them. I can’t tell if he can hear us or not, but I’m not eager for him to listen in on my desperate plot to sidestep the horrors of the dating game and be married. “Calm down. It was just an application.”

  “To be arranged?” she asks again, this time in a very loud whisper. “Are you nuts?”

  “You just said that your parents are happy, Dee. They fall asleep together every night!”

  “Court, Court, Court…” She knocks on the bar, raising her voice a little. “Josh, my darling, we need two more, puh-lease! Stat!”

  Josh turns around, but he doesn’t even glance at Dina. He looks straight at me, and his face is full of so much disapproval and anger, it steals my breath.

  “Wh—What?” I murmur. “What did I do?”

  Shaking his head at me with disgust, he looks at Dina, his face devoid of any flirtation whatsoever. “Two more. Coming right up.”

  “Yeah. He’s super weird today,” says Dina, frowning at Josh’s back before facing me. “Honey, listen, you’re not Indian. You’re American. And Americans do things a different way. They don’t do well marrying strangers. They don’t do well without established sexual compatibility, a full understanding of each other’s disgusting eating habits, and a laundry list of shared life goals. These aren’t things that Americans are comfortable learning about their partner after saying “I do.” Americans like to know exactly what kind of car they’re buying before they leave the lot. It’s not enough that their well-intentioned auntie has assured them the car is solid.”

  “But—”

  “No ‘buts’!” she exclaims, holding up a manicured finger with a shiny, plum-colored nail. “Remember what I said about Indian couples growing into love? They literally do that. In some cases, they get married with next-to-zero feelings for the other person except for respect and hope.” She scans my eyes. “Are you sure you can do that?”

  I’ve asked myself the same question a hundred times since I filled out the application last weekend, and that I still don’t have an answer makes my heart heavy. I want this to work. So badly. I want to be saved from another minute of living my disappointing, frustrating, soul-killing single life.

  “You don’t understand,” I lament.

  “What don’t I understand?”

  “You have a security net, Dina. If you get sick of this—of flirting and one-night stands and stupid guys who never call back—you can just ask your parents to arrange you.” She starts to shake her head, but I stand my ground. “Yes, you can! You have an escape hatch. You have loving parents who know you, who will do their best to find someone worthy of you, someone amazing.” I pause, because—what the fuck!—my eyes are stinging and blurring. “I don’t have that. I have to go on two hundred more bad dates. Two thousand. Hell, I might have to put up with a million jerks to try to find someone nice. Do you know what that does to a person’s—”

  “Nineteen-fifty.”

  “—heart?”

  I jerk my head up and find Josh staring down at me, but for the first time since I’ve walked in tonight, his face isn’t pissed or closed or angry. As he stares into my watery eyes, his expression softens, until it’s almost tender. He takes a deep breath and lets it go.

  “For the drinks,” he adds. “Nineteen-fifty. Should I put it on your—”

  I jump when a guy behind me yells, “Where’s my girlfriend’s cosmo?”

  Josh flicks an annoyed glance at him. “Give me a second, pal.”

  “Why? You’re a bartender, right? You make drinks for a living? Cosmo! Now!” he barks.

  “Stop being a dick,” says Josh
, shaking the metal container in his hand. He glances down at me. “Put it on your tab?”

  “Sure,” I say with a lackluster shrug.

  Josh turns his back to me, and when he faces me again, he’s holding a very full cosmo in his fingers. Before he can set it on the bar, I’m hip-checked as the drunken asshole behind me lunges for it.

  “Finally!”

  As I right myself, I knock his outstretched arm with my shoulder and the entire drink—a full glass of vodka, cranberry juice, lime juice, and triple sec—splashes over me like a hot-pink tsunami.

  “Oh, shit!” yells the drunken guy behind me.

  “Asshole!” bellows Josh.

  “I’m the asshole? She knocked my drink over!”

  I sit there, paralyzed and gasping, drenched in freezing cold cosmo.

  “You’re outta here!” says Josh, pushing off from the inside of the bar and vaulting over it to come back down on our side. Whoa. “You’re fucking outta here, man!”

  In my stupor, it occurs to me that I had no idea Josh could move like that.

  Dina takes my arm. “Court, let’s go to the bathroom.”

  “I’m soaked,” I say as cosmo drips from my chin to my white silk blouse, which has become pretty porny, sticking to my body like a second skin.

  The bouncer stationed at the front door comes to assist Josh with the drunken asshole, who’s refusing to leave and demanding a fresh drink as Dina pulls me off my stool and puts her arm around my shoulders. “Come on. Let’s try to dry you off.”

  “I’ll help her.”

  We turn at the same time to find Josh standing behind us.

  “You can’t go into the ladies’ room,” says Dina.

  “I’ll take her to the employees’ lounge. We have…T-shirts and stuff.”

  Dina looks at me. “Sound good to you, Court?”

  All I want is to get out of these wet clothes, and frankly, it sounds like Josh has a better plan than paper towels or the ladies’ room hand dryer.

  I turn to him. “Thanks.”

  Pushing gently against the small of my back, he guides me toward the back of the bar, until the crowd thins out around us and he can walk beside me. Tidewaters isn’t exactly a small place, and we walk through a dining room and a huge game room outfitted with pool tables before coming to a door with a card reader next to the handle. Josh swipes a card, then opens and holds the door so that I can precede him.