“Doc. We've worked together for two years.”
“I am aware of the duration of our professional acquaintance, thank you.”
He is grinning at me. He pulls his phone from the pocket of his sweatpants, taps something as I dictate my phone number to him, and then my phone buzzes against my leg. I extract it. The screen reads:unknown number, 1 message. I open it.
“Now you have it,” he says.
I put my phone away without responding, because I do not currently possess the emotional bandwidth to engage with the question of why a grown man has chosen to personally introduce himself to me via Stegosaurus, or why I am going to save the contact underCasey Wellingand notDr. Welling, which would be the appropriate professional designation. I will examine this later. I will examine all of itlater.
I am at the door when he says, “Arjun.”
I turn.
He is standing in the middle of his chaotic kitchen, coffee mug in hand, Oliver leaning against his legs, grey morning light pouring through the window behind him like something from a painting that a very unfair artist made specifically to illustrate everything warm and good about the world.
“This is going to work,” he says. “I promise.”
He says it with such simple, total conviction that for a moment, standing in the doorway of his cluttered apartment with dog hair on my cashmere and the phantom warmth of his hand still printed on my palm, I almost believe him.
“Goodnight, Casey.”
“It's ten-thirty in the morning.”
“Goodbye, Casey.”
His laugh follows me down the stairwell, warm and huge and echoing off the old Victorian walls, and I carry it with me all the way to my car, where I sit behind the wheel for four full minutes with my hands at ten and two, staring at the frost on the windshield, trying to remember how breathing works.
I look down at my hand. The one he held.
I flex my fingers. They are perfectly steady. Not a single tremor.
For the first time in weeks, outside of the operating room, my hands are completely still.
Chapter 4
Background Research
Casey
I’ve been awake since 4:11 a.m., and there are seventeen browser tabs open on my laptop, and Oliver is judging me.
He’s sitting on the couch beside me with his chin on my thigh, his enormous brown eyes tracking between my face and the glowing screen with the slow, mournful patience of a creature who understands that his human has lost his mind but loves him too much to intervene. His tail gives one halfhearted wag every few minutes, as if to say, I'm here for you, buddy, but this is deeply concerning behaviour.
It’s Monday. I fly to India on Wednesday. I have approximately forty-eight hours to transform myself from the man who once forgot to wear pants under his scrub gown during a code blue into a convincing romantic partner for the most meticulous human being on the North American continent, and I’m handling it with the calm, measured grace of a man setting himself on fire.
Tab one: “Kapoor family Rajasthan estate.” The search results are staggering. The Kapoor family doesn't have a house in Rajasthan. They have a compound. A sprawling, sandstone-and-marble palace that looks like it was ripped out of a period drama and dropped into a manicured garden the size of a city block. There are turrets. Actual turrets. In contrast, I grew up in a three-bedroom bungalow in Huntsville where the biggest architectural feature was a screened-in porch that my dad rebuilt twice because the raccoons kept breaking through. And even then, they still got in because nothing keeps raccoons out when they’re determined.
Tab two: “Indian engagement customs traditional.” I've been reading for forty-five minutes, and the depth and beauty of the traditions are genuinely hitting me in the chest. Roka ceremonies. Ring exchanges. The exchange of gifts between families. The significance of sweets. I open a sub-tab: “What sweets to bring to an Indian engagement?” I open another: “Can I make sweets or should I buy them?” I open a third: “How badly will I offend everyone if I bring store-bought sweets?”
Tab three: “Basic Hindi phrases for beginners.” I’ve been practising namaste in the bathroom mirror for ten minutes. Oliver watched me through the open door with an expression that I can only describe as deeply and truly concerned.
Tab four: “How to drape a sari.” This one is purely precautionary. The YouTube tutorial is twenty-two minutes long and performed by a woman with extremely patient hands and a soothing voice, and I watch the whole thing twice. I’ll almost certainly never need to drape a sari. But if some catastrophic wardrobe emergency occurs and I’m the only person available, Casey Welling will be ready.
Tabs five through sixteen: Assorted Kapoor family Google results. Society pages. Charity galas. A photograph of Arjun’s mother, Meera Kapoor, at a polo match in Jaipur wearing a very expensive-looking sari, standing next to a woman the caption identifies as “Auntie Sunita” who is furiously typing on her iPhone even in the photograph. A blurry shot of someone who might be Arjun at a London medical conference, barely visible in the background, standing with his hands clasped behind his back. I zoomin on that one. I zoom in way too much. I am not proud of myself.
Tab seventeen: “Rajasthan weather in February.” Hot during the day, and cool at night. I own one pair of linen pants that I bought for a friend's beach wedding in 2019. They have a small hole near the left pocket. This is the foundation of my warm-weather wardrobe.
I close the laptop. I open it again. I close it.