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Savi has now given me three different auspicious dates for her wedding. Each time she thinks they set a date some important family member has a conflict and they need to set a new date. On the good side, a long engagement will give her more time to get to know Arav. If she decides she doesn’t like him, she might be able to wiggle out before it’s too late.

***

My work load is increasing, or should I say expectations of me are increasing, and my deliver dates are diminishing. I wind up spending way too much time on my weekends signing into our server and doing work, though I still make time to play ping pong in the afternoons. Actually, I think that’s what is keeping me sane. Also, Colin and I have this wild texting thing going. He spends way too much time trash talking and trying to psych me out. Actually he’s really funny.

Periodically Sherri, Kami and Caroline’s boss, joins us for lunch. She’s all excited about her wedding and tells us about looking for dresses and bridesmaid dresses. She never talks at work to her fiancé, who I actually got to meet at the Christmas party since he works with Colin.

Eating lunch with us, she says, “Finally HR and Tyler show that they don’t completely have their heads up their ass. With the big marketing re-org, Terri’s got a new assignment. Though, unfortunately for us, she’s now in Engineering. She’s working for Sid, coordinating all the engineering schedules.”

“Was that a raise or a demotion for her?” Kami asks.

Sherri shrugs before answering, “It was a diffusion of a potentially explosive situation. It’s not like you can fire someone for having an out of work relationship. HR can’t really do anything unless there’s a complaint or verification that the two are a couple. Getting rid of someone over a rumor is a sure fire way to get a big lawsuit.”

“How does she get away with this?” I wonder out loud.

Sherri purses her lips before explaining, “Guys are so stupid. Have you been around her? She has this pheromone thing going. About ninety percent of the guys stop functioning when she enters the room. She makes the remaining ten percent feel uncomfortable. When a woman says anything about her behavior, guys think we’re jealous.”

***

After work I give Juliette a call, “Have you figured out what you’re going to do after graduation?”

At first I didn’t think Juliette was listening since she doesn’t respond. Finally she says, “I either start interviewing here or…I might go to London.”

Holding myself back from gasping I sputter out, “Is this your idea or Stephan’s?”

After a very pregnant pause, she continues, “Last week he asked me if I would consider moving to London when I graduate.” After trying to control my shock I hear her continue, “It’s not likely he’ll stay in California. I guess it’s either I go to London or we break up. I’m not sure breaking up is what I want to do.”

I bite my tongue for once, finally saying, “If you’re willing to keep your options open, they’re hiring at my company. I’m working on some cool things and it’s a good place to work. If you’d like, I can get you an interview.”

Another pause before she answers, “I’m not sure where I am with Stephan and London. I’m not moving unless he really wants me there, though I’d like to keep my options open. Would it cause problems for you if I interviewed and turned the job down?”

Jumping at any thread I can to keep her here, I respond, “No, it will be cool.”

Savi’s calls have turned into glowing stories of time spent with Arav. I’m not sure if she is convincing herself that she is falling in love with him, or if they are actually falling in love. At some level this makes me mad since I’ve gone out of my way to avoid the whole mom fixing me up ordeal, but I’m not finding anyone I’m interested in dating on my own. How can it be that Savi’s mom found her a great guy?

Kristi starts dating Tim, one of the guys we’ve been playing Warhammer with at Game Kastle. I wind up hanging with his friend, Brian. Brian’s a nice guy, but neither of us are interested in dating each other. The only big change with them dating is instead of meeting up at Game Kastle on Saturday nights, the guys have started coming over to our place, bringing a pizza with them. After eating, we play games on our dining room table.

***

Meeting up with the princesses for happy hour, Jennifer shows up with another metrosexual looking guy. This one’s only an attorney. He’s a lot older than the rest of us, maybe thirty. He tells us right away he’s on the fast track to making partner.

Olivia looks him over and says to me, “Does she only shop for boyfriends at the local Young Republican meetings?”

Juliette tells us with a pouty face, “Stephan is graduating early.”

Olivia rolls her eyes telling me on the side, “Not early enough for me.”

“I’m not the only one who finds Stephan annoying?” I quietly say back to her.

“Yeah, I know what she sees in him, but he’s around way too much. I guess I’m too used to hanging with Meredith and Sam. Sam and I have always been good friends. I’ve never warmed to Stephan.”

Juliette fills us in on Kelly, another college princess. “I skyped with Kelly this past week.”

Kelly’s the wild child princess. She spent last summer competing in XC cycling. When she finished, she went hiking in Nepal, and then she met up with us princesses for Christmas at Jennifer’s in Hawaii.

“She told me the trainers she hired are working out well. She said on the weekend she’s having fun bartending.”

“Yeah, with Kelly life is one big party.”

“Why is she bartending? Did she run through her trust fund already?”

“She said her friends are all working nights and bartending is a big party. Anyway, she said she’d try to make it to California in the spring.”

Olivia dryly remarks, “Her grandparents made a big mistake when they gave a twenty-one-year-old access to that big trust fund. Kelly was already wild. That money gives her way to many ways to play.”

Meredith, who comes from a working class rural family, sarcastically comments, “Yeah that would have been the worst thing that ever happened to me. So much money I can do anything I want.”

We all laugh, as I wonder what my life would be like if I had a large trust fund. Would I be making the same choices?

***

The weekend before Juliette’s interview, I prep her on what I think the guys will ask and the type of problems they’ll want her to solve. Roger decides who’ll give the solo interviews and who’ll be on the group interviews. I arrange with him to take her to lunch. I figure after being my study partner for five years, it’s not like I’m going to find out anything new when I interview her. But I am curious what the guys will say about her.

After three hours of interviews, Juliette and I head down to eat lunch with Kami and Caroline. Since they know that Juliette will be here, they bring Sherri along. We spend the hour not talking office gossip, weddings, or guys. Mostly it’s a debriefing of her previous interviews and a discussion of this company’s strengths and weaknesses.

At the end of the discussion, Sherri tells Juliette, “If Roger doesn’t offer you a job you can interview in my group, also there are three other applications groups, and the Hadoop and Server group need people.”

From three to four she has a meeting with Jim, Tom, and Ian. They have her work through a programming assignment. I pull her out of that session at four so she can watch me play ping pong. On our way over she asks, “What’s with that guy?”

“Let me guess, Ian?”

“Why doesn’t he cover some of it up?”

“Yeah, that’s one of the big questions the women all have. Don’t let his harry exterior confuse you. His personality is even weirder.”

“And no one says anything to him, why?”

“Really? Who’s going to say something? Now if he worked for Sherri, he’d be wearing a short sleeve shirt within a week. She has everyone jumping in line.”

“She seems nice.”

“Kami and Caroline can’t say enough good things about her. But they also say she doesn’t put up with any bullshit. They call her mom on steroids. One of the guys in their group always licked his hands like a cat after eating. It grossed everyone out. The first time he did it in front of Sherri, she told him, ‘that’s not only unhygienic it’s disgusting—get in the bathroom and wash your hands with soap and water.’ She bought him a container of baby wipes and told him to use them.”

“That’s ballsy,” Juliette says with admiration.

“That’s Sherri, no one complains to HR about her since she’s fair. I’ve been told she has the highest manager rating at the company.”

By now we’re at the ping pong table. There are four of us in a mini war for superiority, not including the two Chinese guys. We have an endless round robin going. Juliette gets to watch Colin and I play. Frustratingly, he wins two out of three. My only saving grace is that my win is by five points, while each of his wins are by one point. If Juliette wasn’t here, I probably could get him to play three out of five.

As I walk Juliette to the door she exclaims, “Colin’s cute…and sweet.”

“Of course, he also has a pretty blond girlfriend.”

“You two were moving so fast. I had no idea you played that well.”

Juliette’s athletic. I’m glad this display of my agility blew her mind as I smile at her compliment.

The group meeting where we discuss Juliette is interesting. The complaints are mostly ridiculous. Mark and Roger keep saying, “She’s still in school, there’s no way she’d know the answers to those questions. You can’t judge a grad school student the same way you judge a veteran.”

After we finish Roger says, “Think about it. On Thursday, we’ll vote. If we like her and she says yes we can pass on the other résumés.”

After the meeting I ask Mark, “We only interview one person and vote?”

He replies, “At our last company our boss made us interview lots of people for each job. Roger and I spent more time interviewing than working. By the time we interviewed everyone, the good people were already taken. Roger and I agree, never hire someone who you feel isn’t the best fit, but if you find someone who the team likes get the offer out fast. Good people aren’t on the market for very long, and why waste the team’s time interviewing more people when you find someone you like.”

Savi calls, regaling me with the wonders of Arav and all the plans for her wedding. So far the auspicious wedding date is holding. It looks like I’ll be headed back to Chicago in September.

Whereas my life feels like the old saying, “Water, water everywhere but not a drop to drink,” though in my case I can say, “Men, men everywhere but no one to date.” Feeling frustrated with my lack of love life, I decide to log onto the new dating service “Coffee Meets Muffin.” After the rather simple form to fill out, I come back the next day to see if anyone is interested in dating me.

I don’t know if it’s a joke or not, the first guy has a full beard and is wearing a wedding dress. No joke, a full, flouncy white wedding dress where his dark hairy chest peeps out of the sweetheart neckline. Moving on to the next guy, it’s a mime in full white makeup, suspenders and little hat. I wonder if I have the guts to even look at guy three. When I pull up a guy in cowboy hat, chaps, and what I can only imagine is a speedo covering his private parts, I shut my computer down and figure it’s time to go for a walk. Obviously they still have a lot of work to do on their algorithms. Or maybe the Gods are giving me a sign. A nice Indian girl shouldn’t be trying to date online, or is it that I should be re-evaluating the men I already know? Whatever, I send Juliette a text and ask her if she can pull herself away from the books for a bit since I need to hang with a friend.

Meeting up with her on campus, it feels kind of strange to be a graduate as she tells me about classes and interviews. Stephan is now back in London. On a daily basis he Skypes, telling her how much he misses her and how much he’d love to have her with him. She tells me there are a number of paid summer internships at finance institutions in London for people with our background.

With a serious look, she says, “This gives Stephan and me the summer together. If everything works out, I can get the British equivalent of an H1-B.”

“You’re really serious about this guy?” I question.

With a surprised look she continues, “Yes, of course.”

“Are you planning on marrying him?”

She blinks a few times and gnaws on her lower lip before finally spitting out, “Let’s see how well I like living in London with Stephan. But yes, if things work out I expect we’ll get married. If we don’t work out,” she tips her head and shrugs before continuing, “I guess I’ll come back.”

After looking at my shocked expression she gives me a hug. “I’m not planning on getting married in the next year, and anyway, we’ll always be friends. It might just be more of a Skype relationship than a hanging out relationship.”

My gut feels empty thinking that Juliette might be living six thousand miles away. The other princesses are either here or are heading back here, but if Juliette goes to London to be with Stephan, we’ll be lucky to see her even on vacation.

***

Isabelle comes back into town with great stories of living in China and her travels around Asia and Australia. She moves back home as she figures out what to do next, telling us, “My parents laid down the law. I either need to get a job or go back to school.”

We all meet for happy hour, Juliette calls Kelly, she’s in Boston at her parents. We pass the phone around and all tell her she’s missed. If you include the voice of Kelly, it’s the first time in two years the seven of us have been together.

Kelly makes it back the weekend after Meredith and Juliette graduate, and a few days before Juliette leaves for London. Figuring we need a weekend together, we all head up to Isabelle’s parents’ house in Tahoe. I drive with Olivia and Jennifer, who tells us about coming up to Tahoe a few weeks ago with Isabelle and Juliette. According to Jennifer, they took her on some kind of crazy death march to the top of High Camp.

“I had to walk up that damn hill only to find out when we got to the top they have a pool, hot tub, restaurant and a tram that could have taken me up” Jennifer complains.

Olivia is sitting in the back seat laughing at the story. Jennifer turns around and tells her, “You think it’s so funny? Those two are crazy, I got all caught up in their Pioneer Women thing. Every time I complained I had to hear that they hiked these mountains in long dresses and crappy shoes.”

Olivia responds, “Hey, that pioneer women crap inspired me when I first got to the camp in Jordan. Though, if I was alive in the 1860s, I wonder if I would have ever left New York.”

I fill in, “If you were alive back then, you’d be living in the Middle East, wearing a burka, and being subservient to some guy.”

Olivia shoots back, “Only Muslims wear burkas. I’m not Muslim. Anyway, don’t act like it would have been so much better in India.”

“You’re right on that,” I respond, thinking how little has changed for women in either of our ethnic homelands.

Jennifer adds, “It could be worse. I’d be in China padding around on my big toe.”

Which only makes me add, “I am so glad to be living now, here, and with all of you as my friends.”