28. Maya
Maya
"Priya's Wedding Invitation"
Priya calls me on a Wednesday afternoon in the middle of a work stretch where I've been in the zone on Hartwell and don't want to surface, which means she's been trying to reach me for approximately two hours based on the number of unanswered texts she follows up with.
I pick up.
"She lives," Priya says.
"I'm in the middle of something good."
"I know. I wouldn't have called four times if it wasn't important." A pause. "I want to ask you something and I need you to hear the whole sentence before you respond."
I set down my pencil. "Go ahead."
"Marcus and I are getting married in February. Small ceremony — the important people, maybe twenty-five. I want you to stand with me." Another pause. "I am also inviting Daniel, because Marcus has known him since college and considers him one of his people, and I can't have one without the other."
I sit with this for a moment.
"You don't have to be in the same room for the whole thing," she says. "It's a small wedding, not a dinner party. But I wanted to tell you before the invitation arrived so you had some —"
"I'll be there," I say.
"Yes?"
"Yes. Of course. You're getting married, Priya. There is no version of this where I'm not standing next to you."
"And Daniel?"
"Daniel should be there too. It's Marcus's wedding. He should be there."
"You're sure?"
I think about it. "I'm sure I want to be there for you. I'm less sure about everything else. But that's fine. It'll be fine."
"Maya."
"I mean it. It'll be — it'll be something. But it'll be fine."
She lets out a long breath. "I love you."
"I love you too. Tell me about the dress."
We talk for an hour about her wedding, and it's the right kind of conversation — forward-looking, warm, full of the specific pleasure of planning something that is joyful. She sends me a photo of the venue, an intimate restaurant space with low light and flowers everywhere.
After we hang up, I sit for a moment and I think about Daniel at a wedding.
Dancing, probably — he's always been a good dancer, which surprised me the first time I found out, the first party we went to together, this quiet, practical engineer who moved with genuine ease.
I think about the specific charge of a wedding, the way the occasion wears down people's defenses, the way music and celebration and the specific emotion of watching two people choose each other can make everything feel both large and close at once.
I think: I will be fine.
I go back to the Hartwell project. I work until nine. I go to bed.
I dream about a dance floor, which I forget by morning.