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excitedly.
    “The snake,” she says, reluctantly showing it to the bevy of giggling women at the table.
    And that’s when the gasping begins. “Oh my God!” Seema’s auntie Hema exclaims. “It’s a curse!”
    Seema sighs loudly, having clearly anticipated this reaction. “It’s only a curse if you kill it,” Seema tells Hema calmly.
    “No, it’s a curse,” Hema insists, throwing her left hand in the air. “The wedding will be cursed.”
    “No, no, Mrs. Suresh.” Nic points to Hema’s sheet of paper and moves her finger down the list. “A snake means ‘slow, steady progress and extreme good fortune.’” Nic taps a particular line on Hema’s chart. “See, it says so right here.”
    “Not in Indian culture!” Hema tells her authoritatively. “In our culture, a snake is bad luck.”
    Seema takes a deep breath and tries to calm her down. “Auntie Hema—with all due respect, just because you have a fear of snakes does not mean that an entire country—”
    “I’m telling you it’s bad luck.”
    I’m already on my iPhone, looking up alternatives for all of our charms. “According to this article I googled, it’s only several generations of bad luck if you kill the snake—but I don’t see anything about pulling it out of a cake.”
    Hema’s jaw sets as she glares at me. “Are you going to tell me about my own people’s traditions?”
    Oops. “No, ma’am,” I say, looking down sheepishly.
    “Do you see me telling you how Norwegians celebrate Christmas?” Hema asks me.
    I can feel myself squinting. “Um … actually I’m sort of an Irish/German mutt more than…”
    I’m pretty sure Seema’s aunt begins chanting a prayer under her breath.
    Seema leans into me. “Suddenly, the Winnebago isn’t seeming so bad.”

 
    F OUR
    An hour or so later, we have piled Seema’s gifts into my car and made it home relatively unscathed.
    “I always pictured my bridal shower going differently than that,” Seema says to me slightly slurrily as we get out of the car and I hand her a giant box of towels from Bloomingdale’s.
    “What? You didn’t think it would include your aunt calling your mother in a panic so that they could recheck your horoscope for next week?” I say as I pull out several boxes from Target and slam my trunk shut.
    “That, and I didn’t think I’d ever open a gift in front of my seventy-two-year-old aunt only to see that it was a vibrator.”
    “It was kinda cool that she knew what one was though,” I suggest weakly to Seema.
    “You know, it really wasn’t.”
    We walk up Seema’s flagstone walkway to the front door. I unlock it, and the two of us step in.
    “You’re home early!” Scott yells from the bedroom, maybe a little nervously.
    “I wanted to say good-bye before your bachelor party starts,” Seema yells to him, putting down the towels, tossing her purse down on the coffee table, and walking across our living room toward her bedroom.
    “Give me a minute!” Scott says. “I wasn’t expecting you for another hour.”
    Uh-oh.
    Seema walks to the bedroom, unfazed. “Don’t worry. I just want to take off my bra, slip into some yoga pants, and—”
    Scott slams the door shut before she can walk into their room.
    Seema jolts her head back in surprise. She turns to me, then looks back toward her door. She shakes her head. “Okay, I know you don’t have a woman in there,” she yells through the door. “So what’s the deal? Did you buy a snake?”
    Scott opens the door and pops his head through the doorway. He is wearing a red-and-gold turban. “Was I supposed to buy a snake for the ceremony?”
    “Well, look at you!” Seema exclaims. Then she smiles and flirtatiously asks, “Are you gettin’ all groomlike?”
    Scott grins. “I am,” he says proudly, making a show out of walking out of her bedroom. He is wearing a cream-colored dupion-silk sherwani (a groom’s overcoat) that is heavily embellished with intricate Zardozi, maroon embroidery and