Twenty-Two
Friday, June 26
Perk
Dear Sofia Coppola,
Maybe I’m stuck in one of those repeating wormholes or something (is that a thing? Neil, the future astrophysicist, would know) where time loops infinitely and I’m forced to just repeat a sucky time in my life forever. Like that old movie? What’s it called? Warthog Day or something?
So I’m standing in line at Perk, about to order a caramel frap for myself and a skinny soy latte for Vic (she was in the bathroom) when the door dings and someone comes in. I look up to see Sahil, who sees me at the same time. And we both just sort of … stop. It was like the entire buzzy, loud chatter of the other people in there went silent. I stared at him; he stared at me.
Finally, his paralysis broke and he forced himself to trudge toward me. It killed me a little to see that, the forcing and the trudging, both. It was like he couldn’t even stand to wait in line with me anymore.
“Hey,” I said, smiling a little.
He just nodded, his hands deep in his jeans pockets. He barely looked at me. His hair was adorably mussed, his vintage Poltergeist T-shirt hugging his frame nicely. I missed him so much. I just wanted to throw my arms around his neck, snuggle into his chest, and smell him. But I didn’t. I forced myself to keep my distance.
“Can I help you?” Stan and his apathetic skinny mustache were waiting for me.
“Um, a caramel frap, a fat-free soy latte, and …” I turned to Sahil. “What can I get you?”
His brown eyes widened. “Oh, uh, nothing. You don’t have to do that.”
I just kept looking at him. At his complete lack of desire to cross paths with me in any shape or form. I fought against the painful tightening in my throat. “I know I don’t have to, Sahil,” I said quietly. “But I want to. Please let me?”
He opened his mouth to argue, then studied my expression and closed it again. “Okay. I’ll have an iced mocha.” He cleared his throat. “Thanks.”
I nodded and spoke to Stan to finish the order. We stood off to the side while he made them, and I looked up at Sahil, who was staring at some poster on the wall. “So,” I said, and he turned somewhat reluctantly to look at me. I forced a smile. “Are you ready? For Midsummer Night, I mean.”
“I am,” he said. “But as the producer, I don’t have to do anything. You’re the one who gets all the glory.”
I took a deep breath. “Or all the flak.”
Victoria came out of the bathroom, headed toward me, and then, seeing who I was talking to, made an abrupt right turn and went off to find us a table.
“Are you nervous?” Sahil asked, his face showing genuine concern.
My heart melted a little. Maybe he still cared? Way, way deep down somewhere? Maybe he knew in some small part of him that I wasn’t the crappy, horrible, mean girl he thought I was, the one who weighed him against his brother like everyone else. “Not exactly, funnily enough,” I said, looking right into those soft brown eyes. “I think I’m just going to be honest and hope people see where I’m coming from. Who I really am.”
After a long pause, he nodded and looked away, like he knew I wasn’t just talking about the movie.
“Sahil—” I began, just as Stan called our names.
“Twinkle. Nothing’s changed. I don’t know if you fully appreciate how much it hurts, just seeing you here. Talking to you. So … please. If you care about me at all, just …” He swallowed, and a muscle in his jaw twitched as he looked at some spot above my head. Then, meeting my eye again, he said, “Please just give me some space to get over this. Okay?”
“Okay.” I mouthed the word; my voice had disappeared.
With one long look at me, Sahil grabbed his drink and headed out the door.
Victoria was staring at me as I sat down with our drinks. “That looked … brutal.”
I slid her latte over. “Yeah. It was even worse up close.”
She made a face and patted my hand. “That sucks. Want to talk about it?”
I looked at her pretty face, her perfect makeup, her gorgeous hair. She could’ve been any number of glamorous places—it was Friday night—but she had chosen to come to my authentically rickety house instead. I took a sip of my frap and nodded. “Settle in,” I said. “Because it’s kind of a long story.”
Starting with our meeting here in Perk under Stan’s mustache, I filled her in on my future Twinkle fantasy and my secret admirer and how I’d fallen for Sahil. Our first kiss at the cabin, hanging out at the Ferris wheel at the carnival. How Brij had confessed to being N at Banner Lake and how Sahil had heard everything. How heartbroken he was now, how he couldn’t even bear to look at me anymore. “I totally blew it,” I said, shaking my head. “I had everything, you know? I’m such a fool.”
“Mm,” Victoria said. “And a bit of a tool.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Gee, thanks.” In spite of Vic’s brutal honesty, it felt great to finally unburden all of this on someone. Part of me was sad it wasn’t Maddie—I’d always told her everything—but another part of me was so grateful for this new friendship.
“I’m just saying! You should’ve been honest with Sahil about the secret admirer thing.”
“I can see that now. But also … if I had, would he even have given me the time of day? I mean, look at how he’s completely disengaged now. Just mentioning his brother was an anti-Sahil talisman.”
Vic took another sip of her latte and tapped her long fingers on the table. “Yeah. It’s always been like that with them, for as long as I can remember.”
“That doesn’t surprise me. I just hate that I hurt him because Sahil’s a good person. Genuine and nice. But he’s always behind the scenes. It’s hard to notice him when Neil’s sort of like this brilliant sun or something, and Sahil’s just gentle and less in your face. Like the moon, I guess.”
“The sun and the moon. Huh. That’s a pretty good analogy for them, actually.” She drank the rest of her latte.
“Yeah. It sucks, but I figured it out too late. I think I’m more of a moonlight kind of girl.” I bit my lip and looked away, trying not to cry.
Victoria squeezed my hand and stood. “I’m sorry, Twinkle. I can’t give you Sahil, but I can give you more sugar. I’m gonna get us another round.”
Now I’m just sitting here at our table alone, beginning to realize just how deeply I cut Sahil. How do you come to terms with the fact that you can’t set something right? How do you begin to let go of the moon?
Love,
Twinkle
Saturday, June 27
0 days until Midsummer Night
Backyard
Dear Ava DuVernay,
This is the day. In roughly eight hours, I will be sitting in an auditorium full of people who will be watching a movie I made.
You know that shirt you have that says, “I am my ancestor’s wildest dream”? That’s what I’m trying to do here; I’m changing the narrative. I so badly want to earn the right to wear that T-shirt one day.
Oh, God. I don’t think I’m equipped to deal with this. I don’t know whether to be terrified or exhilarated or excited or bawl like a baby. I went downstairs at the crack of dawn this morning and saw Dadi in the kitchen, stress cooking and baking.
“Beta!” she said when she saw me. She was wearing this ridiculous apron with squirrels all over it, and Oso sat at her feet, waiting for scraps. “I am making kaju pista biscuits. And idli and chutney is ready for you. Oh, and next on the list is gajar ka halwa.”
My nervy stomach churned at the mention of all the food and desserts. But I knew if I didn’t eat anything, Dadi would take it as a personal insult. “Idli sounds delicious,” I lied, going to get a plate. “Dadi, how long have you been awake?”
“Only since three a.m.,” she said. “There is no better utilization of nervous energy than into ingredients that can make the stomach happy. Isn’t that right, Chandrashekhar?” she said to Oso, and dropped a piece of idli for him to eat. He struck like a cobra; the food was gone before it even touched the floor.
“Three a.m.?” I sat down with my food and milk. “And I thought I was anxious.”
Dadi smiled at me as she grated carrots with lightning speed. “There is no reason to be anxious, beta,” she said. “Your movies are of Oscar quality!”
I groaned. “Dadi, I don’t think you’re the most reliable judge of that,” I said. “But I appreciate it.” Swallowing my mouthful of idli, I asked, “So … are you coming tonight?”
“Of course I am!” Dadi said, looking mortally offended. “I have already reserved my taxi!” Then, seeing my face, she said, “Oh. But you’re not really asking about me, are you, munni?”
Dang. Sometimes I wish Dadi didn’t know me quite so well.
She came to sit across from me at the kitchen table and put her hand on mine. “You’re asking about Mummy.”
I shrugged. “I mean, it’s Saturday, so I know Papa’s going to be at work. But …” I didn’t have to complete the rest. Mummy always dutifully showed up at any school-sanctioned, required events like plays or choir recitals. But when it came to my filmmaking, something that made up three-quarters of my soul, she wasn’t there. It was like she had this quota to fill in order to not be a crappy mother, and my filmmaking was above and beyond the call of duty.
Dadi didn’t try to lie and tell me of course Mummy would be there, of course she wouldn’t want to miss this momentous event in her only daughter’s life. Which both made me feel better and worse. “It will be what it will be,” she said instead, smiling sadly. “Sometimes one must be strong enough for two.”
I nodded and pushed my plate away with my free hand. I knew I had to be strong for Mummy. She’d been through a lot in her life, things I could never even imagine going through. But sometimes? I just get tired of being strong.
“But I have a feeling this moroseness is not only about Mummy, hmm?” Dadi said, stroking my hand. Her brown eyes looked right into me, like she was taking an X-ray of my thoughts. Am I that easy to read? “I have noticed that Sahil and Maddie haven’t been calling here.”
I looked away and swallowed the lump in my throat. “The movie’s over, so … there’s no reason for us to talk anymore.”
When Dadi didn’t say anything, I looked back at her to see her gazing sadly at me. Then she suddenly patted my hand, stood up, and went back to the kitchen.
“Okay, good talk,” I mumbled, feeling even more pathetic than ever. Even Dadi didn’t want to hear about my love/friendship life.
Dadi chuckled. “Just a minute, beta,” she said. “I am getting something. … Just one minute. …” I heard her clattering around the kitchen, but I just stared straight ahead, feeling extra morose. Morose. I like that word. Maybe it’ll be my new band name, if I ever pick up a musical instrument or suddenly learn how to sing, like that super-average American guy who hit his head and woke up speaking in the most perfectly posh English accent.
Dadi was at the table a minute or two later, holding a silver container with an ornate lid. She kept running her hands over the domed top, and finally I glanced at her.
“What is that?” I asked, recognizing that my voice sounded muffled and bland. I was slumped over the table, like a gloomy carcass.
“Oh, this?” Dadi looked at me in surprise, as if she had forgotten I was there, and opened the lid. The inside of the container held two small bowls, each full of a powder. One was a deep, vivid red and the other a brilliant orangey-yellow. “This is sambandh powder.”
I frowned and sat up, curious in spite of myself. “Sambandh? Meaning … relationship? What do the powders have to do with relationships?”
“We humans think we exist like this.” Dadi gestured to the powders in their individual bowls. “Apart. Single. Beautiful and vivid, but alone.” She looked calculatingly at me. “But on the other side, on Dada’s side, he can see that we are like this in reality.” She upended the two bowls into the center of the larger container, and the powders came together. They were mixed somewhat, but still in their separate piles for the most part—red on the left and orange on the right. “Then,” Dadi continued, “with each interaction with another soul, we begin to change.” She put a finger into the pile of powders and began to stir gently. The powders mixed more the longer she stirred, red mingling with orange, losing its distinct form. “We take pieces of them, and they take pieces of us. It’s not bad. It’s not good. It just is.” By now the powders were completely mixed together, indistinguishable from each other. “Our best friends, the ones we love the most, are the ones who can hurt us the most. Because look.” She pointed down to the powders. “We have had so many interactions with them, deep, meaningful interactions, that we cannot separate their pieces from ours. And if we try, we would only be getting rid of some of the best parts of ourselves.” She brushed off her fingers and put one hand under my chin. Her soft brown eyes bored into mine. The X-ray again.
“This is how it was with you and Maddie … and Sahil?”
I nodded. “Yeah. You could say that.” She’d put it so well. We were exactly like the powders. My connections with Maddie and Sahil were so different, but equally strong. They’d totally mixed up their powders into mine. And what was I supposed to do now that they’d decided I wasn’t worth their time anymore? “Ugh, Dadi, why’d you have to put it like that? You just made me even more depressed.”
She laughed and came around the table to hug me. “Oh, beta,” she said. “Don’t you see? Each powder has been mixed. So they feel the same way that you do. They feel the same pain.”
I looked at her, my chest squeezing with hope. Could it be? Are Sahil and Maddie just as miserable without me as I am without them?
But now that I’m out here in the backyard by myself, I don’t think so. Those powders wouldn’t be so mixed up if they had other powder friends to mix with.
Okay, that is easily the weirdest sentence I have ever written.
Can’t I escape visions of my loss and utter failure anywhere, at least in my own freaking backyard? Maggie and Oso are having an epic love meeting at the fence right in front of me. I wish my love life was at least better than, you know, my dog’s.
Sigh.
I miss him. I miss him so much. It’s sort of like this numb, weird feeling under my skin all the time.
Love,
Twinkle