Maya

Maya

BY PRATYUSA MUKHERJEE

Staff Blogger
Monday, February 25, 2013

Outside my living room the night is quiet and black, still and silent after the afternoon storm. It’s as if the Earth inhaled jaggedly, shuddered… and stopped. Well, maybe the world did stop. I don’t know, I just sit in my tiny living room on the couch from Salvation Army, and I write. There’s a proposal due at the end of the week; I want it done and out of the way. And then the research for the next project, and then the design. I know that I’ll be exhausted by the end of the night, and then I can put the phone call off one more day. Sam isn’t home yet; it’s date night and her boyfriend is taking her to one of the really nice restaurants in town. He’s a lawyer.

Sam wouldn’t approve of me sitting at home all the time and doing work. She thinks that I’m well on my way to becoming a workaholic. Whenever she asks me when I’ll have the courage to go out and have a life, I shrug. I do have a life, I say. I know that when she says life, she actually means boyfriend, and it’s not that I’m averse. I just don’t see the need to comb the city for men. But she hasn’t given up on me yet. Neither, of course, has my mother.

The email my mother sent me glares from my inbox, [URGENT] in the subject heading. It isn’t urgent at all; I could go ten years and never touch it, or maybe leave it there for my entire life. Because you see, it’s about a man. Lately, everything has been about a man. My mother thinks she can hear my biological clock ticking. I tell her she’s lost it. The poor woman just wants grandbabies; I get it. It doesn’t justify her sending me some stranger’s phone number any way she can. He’s expecting your call, she says, every time I call her. She always asks if I’ve called him, and I always say no. Look him up, she tells me, that’s what Facebook is for. So even though I don’t tell her, I do look him up. He looks nice. Sam thinks he’s hot. At this point, Sam thinks that anyone my mother suggests for me is hot. They’re in cahoots. Her word, not mine.

Sam comes home just as I finish writing the proposal. She takes one look at me and throws me my phone. Call him. I dump the phone on the gray carpeted floor. She groans theatrically and walks across the room to grab an overnight bag. I grin knowingly, and she flaps a dismissive hand on her way out. Call him, she orders. I ignore her.

Two hours later my eyes stray to my phone. I’ve never called someone my mother suggested. The idea is too foreign to me. Blind dates creep me out, and matchmaking makes my skin crawl. But today might be the day for me to take a risk. I open my mother’s email, unread for a week and a half, and grab my phone before my sanity can return and stay my hand. I dial the number in a rush and cradle it to my ear with a shaky hand. On the third ring someone picks up and I hear a male voice. Hello?

Is this Jay? I hear the expected affirmative. Hi, my name is Maya, and I—oh gosh—umm, god, this is really awkward… I trail off, take a deep breath, and say the rest in a rush: my-mother-knows-your-mother-and-my-mother-found-out-that-you-live-in-the-city-too-and-you-know-how-mothers-are-right?

He chuckles. I cringe. Yeah, he says, I know how mothers are. His voice is deep and rich. It’s a beautiful voice. I wait for him to ask me out—that’s how these things are done, right? But it never comes, and finally I take matters into my own hands.

So do you want to catch dinner at some point? I ask. Met with heavy silence, I bite my lip in anticipation. Now that I’ve gone through with this crazy plan, I want it to work—cognitive dissonance and all that.

His voice is a little lower when he finally answers. I would love to, but actually, I have a girlfriend. I’m really sorry.

Oh. My voice comes out very small. Well, have a nice night. I’m sure your girlfriend is a lovely woman. Hurriedly, before he can say anything, I hang up, my face flaming. I bang my phone against my head. Why did I say that?

There was nothing to lose, Sam tells me the next day. You didn’t know. And I think: no, I didn’t lose anything, except my dignity.