Last God Standing by Michael Boatman Page B

All Stars to top off the ensemble.
    “My parents are here,” Surabhi said. “My father’s gone completely mental.”
    Her London accent was lightly tinted with the Midwestern twang she’d picked up over the last five years living in Chicago. I loved her voice; it was rich, dark; exotic without being ostentatious.
    “When did they get here?”
    “Two hours ago. My mum’s here on UN business and Daddy tagged along. Daddy says he has good news, but he’ll only spill it when we’re all together. They want to meet you. I’m afraid they won’t take no for an answer.”
    “No! Not tonight!”
    Surabhi winced, took a deep breath.
    “Calliope told them we’ve been sleeping together.”
    “What?”
    “My dad said, ‘Either I will sit down to dinner with the man who violated my daughter, or my brothers and I will hunt him down and beat him until he begs for the release of death’.”
    “Why would your sister do that?”
    “Calliope’ll do anything to sleaze her way into my parents’ good graces. I recommended a personal trainer to her in New York and she got all pissy. They showed up here unannounced. Dad wouldn’t come in until he was sure you weren’t here. He stood there in the hallway pouting while my mother dragged in the suitcases. Even then he checked under the beds and rifled all the closets; hunting for my stolen innocence.”
    “That’s insane.”
    “Dad’s old school,” Surabhi said, ignoring my admonitions about people with British accents using hip hop jargon. “He’s still pissed about my not marrying Alex Thessenden.”
    “You told me he gave you his blessing when you told him you didn’t believe in arranged marriages.”
    “It wasn’t really an arranged marriage, babe. More like an informal agreement between him and my Uncle Shad when they became blood brothers back in Addis Abbaba.”
    “What’s the difference?”
    “You’re not Ethiopian. Anyway, that doesn’t matter. I already know who I’m spending the rest of my life with.”
    “But that’s the point,” I said. The little velvet box in my pocket seemed to throb in time with my heartbeat. “Tonight was supposed to be about us.”
    Surabhi had been tucking away money from her job as a French and English teacher at a small community college in the south suburbs. My planned proposal would not come as a complete surprise; only the time and the date had been left up to me. I’d tried to mislead her with a few false leads over the last few months, hoping to keep her off balance until I was ready for the big moment. Calliope had ruined months of planning.
    “You don’t mind do you? About the suit and everything?”
    “Mind? Of course not. Your father wants to hack my head off for ‘violating’ you. What could I possibly ‘mind’ about that?”
    Surabhi gently laid the suit and shoes across her small kitchen table. I got to my feet.
    “I’m serious, Surabhi. I’m putting my foot down. Tonight is off limits. You and I have serious matters to discuss.”
    “‘Serious matters.’ Sounds incredibly important. What exactly did you want to talk about, Mr Cooper?”
    “I’m not going to talk about it here. We have reservations. I made plans.”
    “Reservations? I think I’m impressed.”
    “Don’t change the subject. Look. You’re always telling me that I don’t plan. Look.”
    I reached into my backpack and produced the menu I’d taken from L’Ethiope.
    “See? Table for Two. L Cooper. 8.15pm. I even pre-selected the menu. All our favorites.”
    “But my parents made reservations at Henri Lumiere’s.”
    “Henri Lumiere’s? No. No!”
    “Lando, I don’t know… exactly what you were planning for tonight, but you’re forgetting one really important thing you have to do before we can move forward.”
    “What…? Oh no.”
    Surabhi nodded. “You’ve got to have a ‘man to man’ with Magnus Moloke if you expect to go on ‘violating’ his daughter in wedded bliss.”
    I’d grown so accustomed to