From Twinkle, With Love by Sandhya Menon (18)

Eighteen

Saturday, June 20
Sahil’s car yet again

Dear Ava DuVernay,

Sahil’s playing music and seems to be focused on the road, so I’m back.

I’m trying hard not to falter under his gaze. He occasionally glances at me and smiles hesitantly, so I haven’t completely blown it with him. I hope not, anyway. I don’t think I did much wrong besides what I said to Maddie, but … I don’t know. Something just feels off. Here, between us, and inside me. Also, Sahil was texting while he was getting gas. Was he texting about me??

When I was finished with the last interview, I took my camera off the tripod and walked through the cabin, aimed for the back door. As I walked, I held the camera up and ended up getting quite a few other shots of conversations at the party. If nothing else, I can use some of it to pad out the footage at the end. Too much footage is always better than too little.

Lowering my camera, I opened the sliding glass door and stepped outside. There was a glass-walled room with a hot tub off to the right, but I avoided all the screeching, writhing bodies over there, picking my way through a long path that wound off to the left into a grove of aspen trees instead. There was a half wall there, and I sat on it, setting my camera down and wrapping my arms around myself. The stars were silver in the night, and I tipped my head back and studied them. There was a weird lump in my throat that wouldn’t go away and I knew it had to do with Maddie’s and my conversation (aka screaming match). Strange, because it was obvious even to the most unobservant person that our friendship had been on its last legs for a long time. No matter how much I’d rallied and fought and wanted to believe otherwise, I think I always knew that in my heart.

“Hey.”

I started at the soft voice before taking in the Cabin in the Woods T-shirt and the shorts, the gentleness of his brown eyes. “Hey, Sahil.”

“Mind some company?” he asked, gesturing to the wall.

“Nah. Come sit.” I scooted over.

We sat in silence for a few moments, listening to the whisper of the wind in the aspen leaves. “This is nice,” Sahil said. “It beats the shrieking hot tub chaos over there.” He thrust his chin in the direction of the people. “Can’t really hear it from over here, though.”

I grinned. “That’s why I picked this spot.”

“Smart. I went that way first and saw Oliver in his leopard-print Speedo. More like Speed-No.” He shuddered theatrically.

I laughed and bumped him with my shoulder.

“So, the interviews go okay?” His voice was suddenly more serious.

“Yep. All done.”

He nodded; I could feel him watching me. “I ran into Maddie inside.”

I glanced at him. “And?”

Sahil sighed and looked down at his hands, folded in his lap. “Twinkle … is this what you want?”

“I’m making the best movie I can make, and that includes the behind-the-scenes interviews. I thought that’s what you wanted too, Sahil.”

“I do. But what does getting people to backstab each other have to do with making a good movie?”

I rolled my eyes. “Okay, maybe that’s not artistic enough for you, but this is the sort of thing that grabs people by the throat. This is a social commentary. It’s a mirror I’m holding up for people to see how they behave when no one’s around to watch.”

Sahil studied me for a long moment, until I was almost squirming under his scrutiny. “So this is art?”

I couldn’t believe he wasn’t getting this. “Yeah.”

“It’s not revenge?”

I looked away and let my hands drop. “I already got the third degree from Maddie.”

He put his arm around me and I snuggled up, feeling warm for the first time all night. “I just don’t want you to do something that isn’t you, Twinkle,” he said softly. “It’s not worth it.”

“What’s not worth it?”

“Changing who you are,” he said, looking down into my eyes.

I swallowed and looked away again.

“Because I fell for you, you know.” I started to protest, not wanting him to feel obliged to tell me what he liked about me just because we’d been arguing, but he continued, undeterred. “The funny, passionate, kind Twinkle Mehra. Not this new version of her that’s all twisted up and angry.”

I stared at Sahil, feeling goose bumps crawling on my skin. He was talking about shiny, future Twinkle just like I’d always talked about her to myself. Only, in his case, he thought shiny, future Twinkle sucked. Was he right? Was I losing myself completely in my desperate bid to become her? And was that what I wanted?

“Okay, look,” he said when the silence stretched out, pulling out his phone. “I’ve got the classic Frankenstein on my phone. What do you say to a little midnight viewing?”

“Right now?”

He grinned. “You got somewhere else to be?”

Smiling, I scooted even closer to him. “Let’s do this.”

And for the next hour and a half, I forgot all about Maddie and Francesca and Taylor and Hannah and the film.

All I thought about was the monster coming to life before my eyes.

When we left later, I realized I forgot my camera bag in the cabin. “I’ll be right back,” I told Sahil, hurrying back inside.

Hannah and Maddie were standing in the kitchen and didn’t see me walk in.

“Well, at least she showed you her true colors,” Hannah was saying. “At least you know now for sure. And you don’t have to feel guilty about leaving her behind and making new friends.”

“It just sucks that she’d want to air all that gossip in front of the entire school,” Maddie said, shaking her head. “But I talked to Sahil, and he said not to worry. Apparently, he’s going to make sure it gets cleaned up in the editing process or something.” She sighed. “I didn’t expect this at all from Twinkle. I always thought she was such a good person. You know?”

I wanted to run in there and say, Sahil’s wrong. This isn’t going to get edited. That’s what you all expect, isn’t it, for someone to come up behind you and clean up your messes? Someone to edit away all your mistakes so you can seem as glossy as ever? But that’s not my job as a filmmaker. I’m here for the brutal truth of it all.

But before I could step in and say any of that, Hannah said, “Sometimes the friendships we make when we’re little can be hard to see honestly.”

“Yeah. Ugh. Thanks for being here for me, though, Han. I’m sorry to bring all this up at your party.”

“You’re way more important to me than my party, M,” Hannah said, reaching over to hug Maddie. “We’re sisters.”

“Sisters,” Maddie agreed, smiling.

My words withered away to dust as I watched them. Everything turned shimmery and blurry; I realized tears, hot and furious, were rolling down my cheeks. Before they could see me, I grabbed my camera bag and ran out of the door.

Nothing makes sense anymore. Does Maddie really think I’m not a good person simply because I want to tell the truth? My mind is reeling at how she agreed with Hannah, that it’s hard to see our friendship in the right light.

We used to be sisters; something bigger and deeper than blood bonded us. Maddie used to be able to see right into my soul. So … is she wrong about who I am now? Or am I?

Love,

Twinkle

Sunday, June 21, but just barely
My room

Dear Mira Nair,

It got worse.

Sahil dropped me off at around three this morning. I crept into the house, shut the door behind me, and took one step—before the lights in the living room flared on.

Mummy, Papa, and Dadi all stared at me.

Crap. That’s the only thing my paralyzed brain could think. Crap, crap, crappity crap.

“Where have you been?” This was Papa, his voice dangerously low.

“I …” I cleared my throat. “I had to get some extra footage for the film.”

“In the middle of the night. At a party where the parents weren’t home.”

I stared at Mummy, my eyebrows knitting together. “What? How do you know that?”

“Maddie ka phone tha,” Dadi said, her eyes wide and sad.

Maddie?? Maddie told on me?? I balled my fists by my sides. “I don’t know what she told you, but I was there to work.”

“You know the rules!” Papa thundered. “You cannot leave the house at night without telling us, and you cannot go to parties unless there are parents present!”

“How would I have even told you?” I asked, my own voice rising. “When I left, none of you were home!”

“Chup karo yeh badmaashi!” Papa’s voice sliced across my own. “That is not how you speak to your elders!”

“Izzat se bolo, Twinkle,” Dadi added. “These are your parents.”

That was it. I couldn’t take it anymore, their irritation with me, their expectation that I should just be meek and accept it. Something inside me boiled over.

“Well, I don’t think they’re showing me any respect!” I yelled. “Do you know I’m the only person in my entire school who doesn’t have her own cell phone? It’s a basic necessity nowadays. And I’m tired of being the only junior who doesn’t drive, either. I don’t ever complain about those things, but I don’t hear you thanking me. You just expect me to do anything you tell me to do, whether you’re here or not. Maybe you think I sneaked out of the house when I had no right to, but maybe you should consider that I left because no one gives a crap about me. No one cares whether I’m here or not!”

They all stared at me like I was some teenaged monster species they’d only read about in horror novels and had no idea were in existence. I spun and rushed out of the room before they could say anything, slamming the door to my room behind me. I flung myself on the bed and began to sob, clutching Mr. Bandar, my childhood monkey pal, to my chest. He was in pieces and falling apart, but I was too attached to give him up.

When my eyes were all swollen and my nose was completely stopped up, I heard my door open. I rolled my puffy eyes. Maybe knocking on doors was a silly Western rule that had no place in our house, but right then I’d kill for some privacy. “Please, Dadi,” I said, without turning over. “I don’t want to talk. There’s nothing to say anyway. They don’t care about me, and you know it.”

A big hand was on my back. “We do care about you, beta.”

I sat up and saw Papa sitting on the edge of my bed, his face full of concern. I leaned against my headboard. “It doesn’t feel like it sometimes.”

Papa put his hand on my shin and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” he said, and I knew that was a huge thing for him to say. We never apologized to each other. It’s just not something Desi families are big on. “Sometimes I forget that you need me just as much as those kids at the youth house. But when I’m here, in our home, with a warm bed and hot food, it feels … wrong. They have no one to care about them. If I am not working every minute I can, I feel that I am failing them.”

I watched Papa’s hands as he talked about his work, and I realized something: He cared about his at-risk youth just as much as Sahil’s mom and dad cared about the state of higher education in our country. The difference was, because of their education and fancy degrees, they could afford to pay money to contribute to their cause. Papa’s work had to be in person; his donation was his time, his family, and himself.

“It’s good that they have you, then,” I said, putting my arms around my legs and resting my chin on top of my knees.

“But that doesn’t mean I don’t care about you,” Papa said, smiling. He touched my cheek. “You make my work worthwhile.”

I sighed. “I never thought you didn’t care, Papa.” It was true. Papa wasn’t the most involved parent, but at least he asked about me now and then. At least he sometimes checked whether or not I needed lunch money or what I was up to on the weekends.

“Mummy cares deeply about you, too, beta,” Papa said, squeezing my leg.

I looked away. “Ever since Nani died, Mummy’s been … different. Like she blames me or something.”

“You remember that? When Nani died?”

I nodded. “Yeah. I remember we couldn’t afford to fly back to Mumbai. And then Mummy threw away all her art supplies. She changed.”

Papa breathed out, this slow, heavy thing loosed from the bottom of his soul. “Haan. Your mummy … she doesn’t blame you, Twinkle. But she does blame herself. She will never forgive herself for Nani dying alone.”

“But it wasn’t her fault!” I said, my eyes filling with tears. What I really wanted to say was, it wasn’t my fault. There wasn’t anything any of us could’ve done.

“I know, beta. But Mummy can’t seem to grasp that. All we can do is remember that she is ours no matter what. No matter how broken her heart is.”

After a moment, he got up and left, closing the door softly behind him.

Love,

Twinkle

Tuesday, June 23
4 days till Midsummer Night

My room

Dear Sofia Coppola,

Since early Sunday, my nights have been dark, the days darker still. The only pinpricks of joy in the vast, empty desert of my existence are the few remaining days of editing the movie I have made.

Do you think I’m being melodramatic? Okay, let’s take stock of all the people I’m avoiding and/or can’t look in the eye right now and why, shall we?

So? Now do you think I’m being melodramatic?? I didn’t think so. The thing is, I feel a little bit on shaky ground with most of these people. My brain keeps trying to convince me I’m right, but my heart keeps whispering that I’ve made some pretty major mistakes. That, like Sahil said, maybe I’m losing my sense of who I am.

Whoa. Mummy just popped her head in here and asked me to come to her room. Avoiding her is out of the question since her room is right across the hall from me and she’d see me running away.

Love,

Twinkle