Bindu looked lost for the first time in this conversation. Her mouth opened, then closed without sound.
“I know, Mom. And ten of those have tens of millions of people on them.” Aly should have known that Cullie would have all the data at her fingertips. Ashish had brought home a T-shirt for their daughter from a conference once that said “DATA DIVA.” The words were long faded, but she still wore it.
“Tens of millions of people who obviously aren’t getting what they want from it.” Aly skimmed the statistics in what seemed like one of a thousand think pieces on dating apps. “Your chances of finding a meaningful relationship on a dating app are about twelve percent.”
“That’s terrible.” Bindu downed her wine and looked around for reinforcements. “Why so low?”
“Is it terrible?” Cullie said. “It sounds high to me.”
“Either way, the point is to raise it, right?” Aly said, still poring over her phone, because this was a whole entire world she knew nothing of. “And to do that, we have to know what’s out there and how it works.”
For a few seconds the silence in the room swirled with possibility again.
“You need test cases,” Bindu declared finally, so much flourish in her voice, one would think she had written all the code and handed Cullie a finished app.
In high school, Cullie had paid people to test Shloka by writing their essays and doing their calculus homework. Then it had started helping people, and the word had spread, and everyone had wanted to help her test it. Aly remembered the pride and terror of seeing Cullie become that obsessed.
Suddenly her daughter, who’d needed to be mainlined discrete calculus problems to keep her from bursting with restlessness, had lost herself in gathering data and tweaking her design. There could be no bio app without someone to test the prototype. The entire thing was based on the idea that the human physiology reacted to thoughts and feelings. Ashish had worked with Cullie to build the bracelet prototype in a friend’s workshop.
Through it all, Cullie had known exactly what to do.
Cullie pushed her hands through her bangs, her worry tell. “We’re jumping a few steps here. We don’t even know what we’re testing.”
“So let’s figure it out one step at a time,” Aly said, starting to pace. “Those apps are right there. How hard would it be to learn how they function and then analyze why they do or don’t work?”
“Then it’s just a matter of fixing the parts that don’t work.” Bindu stood and joined Aly in her pacing.
They were in full entrepreneur mode now. The Desai women, ready to solve the world’s problems.
“What if dating apps aren’t our competition? What if we come up with something that makes dating apps better, more effective?” Bindu threw out. Her mother-in-law was truly a wonder.
Cullie bounced in her seat. Her grandmother had obviously landed on the heart of the problem in one elegant swoop.
“Binji! That’s brilliant. We need something that sits on top of existing dating apps and makes them work better for each individual. Since who we find attractive has more to do with us than them.”
Bindu grinned, totally settling into the Goddess of Love avatar she’d taken on since moving here.
“A way to personalize these generalized apps.” A sparkle of excitement crackled inside Aly.
“Exactly!” Cullie looked fierce. It had been too long since Aly had seen her daughter this way. Not bored and disillusioned by the world but like she actually gave more than a surface-level damn. Not quite her Cullie from high school, on fire with what she wanted to do, but with sparks of her lighting up the edges.
“So, test subjects,” Cullie said. “I need someone to actually use the apps so I can mine them for user flow and user experience data. A place to start figuring out what I’m even trying to figure out.” She jumped up from her perch at the dining table and started pacing too. All three of them were pacing now, crisscrossing each other. “Someone I can trust to be honest, and someone who can start helping me right now.”
The pregnant silence returned as they stopped, facing each other. They had circled back to Bindu’s idea.
Suddenly, a nervous knot tightened in Aly’s belly. It had been too long. The idea of dealing with a man’s opinion made her nauseated. She hadn’t been a fan of Ashish’s opinions about her work, but she’d never had to perform for him the way she’d always had to around men before she met him.
Thinking about how much she missed that was stupid. Not to mention useless, because she had no interest in paying what it cost to have it again.
She went to the wine rack on the kitchen counter and studied their choices.
“Usually the best place to start anything is right where you are. I can’t think of a better place to start than here.” Bindu patted Aly’s shoulder, then took the wine bottle Aly had picked out and started searching for an opener.
“Here where?” Aly said, suddenly certain that she wasn’t interested in being part of this. Her reflex to clean up kicked in, and she started gathering the takeout containers.
“Right here with you, Alisha. You’re the perfect test case. Stop hiding in my refrigerator,” Bindu said.
“A perfect test case would be someone who’s interested in finding someone.” Aly had thought she’d found her soul mate once. She’d been wrong. “I already found someone, remember? And realized I don’t like it that much.” The refrigerator air was cool on her face as she put away the food. “No offense to you.” She popped her head out and looked at Bindu, then went back inside and adjusted the fried rice before popping her head out and throwing Cullie a look. “Or you.”
“No offense taken,” both of them said together.
“Just because one relationship didn’t work out doesn’t mean you stop living,” Bindu added, and a memory of Ashish’s face when Bindu had told him she was staying with Aly flashed in Aly’s head.
True to form, he’d swept his hurt under nonchalance. Since everyone in this family has decided to do only what benefits them, I don’t care what you do, Ma.
“I’m living just fine, thank you very much. And I need to get home and finish up some work, or my living will be taken away.” Aly manufactured a smile.
Cullie rolled her eyes at Aly’s feeble wordplay and took the bottle from Bindu. “Binji’s right. Stop using making a living as an excuse to not live. You’re doing this, and that’s that.”
Aly opened and closed some drawers. Where was the damned wine opener? “Doing what exactly?”
“Test-driving dating apps for me so I figure out a way to . . . you know . . . save my living.”
Bindu clapped her hands and plopped into a dining chair. “Alisha’s going to date. Brava!”
“No, Alisha and you both are going to date. This is all your fault for putting ideas in my head. You’re the one going on about putting yourself out there. So let’s step outside the Shady Palms pool. There’s no way you’re getting out of this.”
“Getting out of it? I was afraid you might want to leave me out of it.” Bindu winked delightedly at Aly.