“Lemon. This is not negotiable. She knows it’s my favourite.”
“The seating chart in my mother's binder accounts for the chutney incident of 2019.”
“The seating chart in my mother's binder is one table that seats twelve.”
“My mother is arriving July 15th.”
“My mother can be in Toronto by Tuesday if I call her right now.”
We look at each other. We look at the binders. We look at Oliver, who has given up on the wildflower and is now eyeing the fabric swatches with the measured, calculating expression of a dog who is determining which textile will be the most satisfying to destroy, and also the most financially devastating at the veterinarian’s office.
“They're going to meet, in person,” I say.
“They are going to meet.”
“Meera Kapoor and Brenda Welling. In the same city. Planning the same wedding. With competing binders.”
“This is not going to be a wedding. This is going to be aterritorial negotiation between two apex predators who have both decided that they are in charge, and we are going to be standing in the middle of it holding fabric swatches and trying not to get eaten.”
“Your mother has forty-three fabric swatches.”
“Your mother has a gel pen and a pressed wildflower and the unshakeable conviction that a backyard wedding is sufficient for any occasion.”
“My mother once organized the entire Huntsville regatta in forty-eight hours because the original organizer broke her hip.”
“My mother once reorganized a state dinner in Rajasthan in under three hours because the Home Secretary changed the menu.”
“They're going to be incredible.”
“They are going to be cataclysmic.”
“Same thing.”
“Entirely the same thing.”
I put my mother’s binder on the coffee table. Arjun puts his mother’s binder beside it. The two binders sit side by side, artisan-crafted leather and Staples plastic, gold embossing and gel pen, subdued aristocratic rose and “the green one,” and they are, in their completely incompatible, utterly irreconcilable, beautifully opposite ways, the most perfect pair of objects I’ve ever seen.
Because this is what our wedding’s going to be. Not one world or the other. Not the palace or the lake. Not the heirloom silver or the folding tables. Both. All of it. The magnificent, chaotic, impossible collision of a family that serves biryani from bone china and a family that serves pie on the dock, and somewhere in the middle, a neurosurgeon who is learning to stop performing and a paediatric generalist who is learning it’s okay to step away for a moment, so long as you come back to him, and a goldendoodle who will absolutely eat something he shouldn't at the reception and puke it up at the worst possible moment.
Arjun leans his head against my shoulder. I rest my cheek onhis hair. Oliver settles across both our laps with a sigh of total, contented surrender.
“We're going to survive this,” I say.
“We survived a fake engagement, the Home Secretary of India, a corrupt astrologer, and a four-day separation. We can survive two aggressive mothers with binders.”
“That might be the most optimistic thing you've ever said.”
“I am growing as a person. It is extremely uncomfortable.”
I laugh. He laughs. Oliver's tail wags once, thumping against the couch cushion. The nature documentary informs us that octopuses can change colour to match their environment, which is a skill that’s going to be extremely useful when Meera Kapoor arrives in Kensington Market and encounters my, no,our, apartment for the first time.
My phone buzzes. Priya.
Mother has sent the binder. I saw the shipping confirmation. I am so sorry. Also, I am not sorry. Also, please film her face when she sees your apartment. I will pay real money.
Also Karan says he is coming to Toronto for the wedding and he is bringing the handshake and he expects to be seated at the head table. Yash says congratulations and he will be there. Daadi says she is too old to fly to a country that serves coffee as a beverage rather than a punishment, but we both know she is lying and she will be on that plane. Kavita is already packing her spices.
I show the text to Arjun. He reads it. He closes his eyes. He takes a breath.