I’m sure. Just do your best, okay? Thanks, Skid.
Twenty-One
Friday, June 26
1 day until Midsummer Night
Backyard
Dear Jane Campion,
Today I was moping around after school. Mummy was substitute teaching again (sometimes she likes to stay late to help grade tests) and Papa was at the youth home, where he’d be all weekend. I’d hidden in the library at lunch again and had pretty much avoided or been avoided by all the people I didn’t want to see. Once I caught sight of Sahil coming down the hallway and leaped into the janitor’s closet. Does that surprise you? I think it’s pretty clear by now that I don’t always make the best choices.
Anyway, I was sitting on the couch, watching some show about a police dog who was getting a medal for bravery (why does everyone else’s life have to be so full of colorful, interesting things?) when Dadi came to sit beside me. She just sat there and watched with me for a while, but I could tell from the way she kept shifting around and drumming her fingers on her sari-clad thigh that she was bubbling with something. There should’ve been steam coming out of her ears and nose like a pressure cooker.
Finally, during a commercial break, I muted the TV. “Kya hua, Dadi? I can tell you want to ask me something.”
“Beta,” she said. “I require your assistance in a most urgent task.”
Uh-oh. Dadi only talked like that, all formal and stuff, when she was cooking up some cockamamie plan that would usually end up with something valuable broken. (Once it was her little toe.)
“Uh-huh,” I said, waiting.
“Twinkle, Chandrashekhar has informed me that all is not well within your soul.”
I glanced at Oso, who side-eyed me suspiciously from his dog bed and then put his head back down with a snuffle.
“He did?”
“Yes. And I feel that in order for you to feel more peaceful, we must look into your future.”
I studied Dadi’s clear, eager eyes. “My future?”
“Yes. Perhaps if we find some answers, you’ll be able to rest more easily, hmm?”
“I guess. I mean, I do have Midsummer Night tomorrow, and …” I stopped before I could tell her the entire saga with Maddie and Sahil and everything. A girl needed to preserve some mystery, even from her omniscient Dadi.
“Exactly.” Dadi beamed, patted my thigh, and then stood. “Come on,” she said, bustling off.
With a sigh, I stood and followed her to her room.
Dadi’s laundry closet/room was just big enough for a cot and a table. On that table, I saw, was a gigantic wooden bowl full of water.
“Help me, beta,” she said, and then proceeded to lift the wooden bowl. It looked heavier than Dadi; I didn’t see this ending well. Between the two of us, we managed to lift the thing up and then Dadi began to guide me out into the hallway again.
“Where are we going?” I grunted, walking backward. My arm muscles were already aching with the effort of carrying the bowl and we’d gone maybe four steps. I should start doing push-ups in my room after school or something.
Dadi smiled. She looked like she was carrying a ball of cotton candy the way she was beaming. “Just to the kitchen table.”
Great. I tried to keep my face neutral as I walked down the hallway through the living room and to the kitchen, all backward. It was the first time I was happy we had such a tiny house.
I helped Dadi set the bowl on the table, and then we both sat in chairs across from each other. Oso took his spot by Dadi’s feet. I looked at her over the top of the bowl, massaging my biceps. “So, now what?”
Dadi reached for a small white candle and a box of matches, which she’d already set on the table. “Now we scry.” She held them out to me.
“Light it?” I asked, curious in spite of myself. Whatever you thought of Dadi’s “experiments,” they were never boring.
She nodded. I lit the match and it sizzled to life, the burnt sulfur smell singeing my nostrils. I lit the candle next; the flame danced in Dadi’s brown eyes. A twinging excitement worked its way into my belly. There was so much in my life I wanted to know the endings to right now.
“Now turn the candle sideways so the wick is directly above the water, beta. Then let the drops of wax fall into the water until you feel like stopping.”
“Okay.” Biting my lip, I pivoted the candle gingerly on its side and watched as one drop of wax after another plopped onto the surface. The wax hardened immediately, floating on the surface. I kept going until a big wax piece had coalesced in the center of the bowl. I blew out the candle and looked at Dadi.
She nodded, her face solemn. “Now, pick up that big chunk and look at it. Tell me what you see.”
I did as she asked, the cold water dripping off the tips of my fingers and running down my wrist. The wax was thin and cold, and I flipped it over and over in my hand, thinking. “It looks like an archipelago: lots of islands clustered together, almost holding hands.” I tilted my head and squinted. “And there’s a heart shape here in the center, but it’s got little fissures in it.” Looking back up at Dadi, I smiled, feeling a tad embarrassed. “How’d I do?”
Her answering smile was soft and loving. “Beautifully, munni. Just beautifully.”
I set the wax piece down carefully on the table and wiped my hands on my jeans. “So … what does it mean that I saw those things?” My heart pounded; I was more nervous than I had thought I’d be. I didn’t really believe that Dadi could see the future … but I didn’t really not believe it either.
Dadi put a finger to her chin. “Hmm … The archipelago makes me think of travel. Perhaps you’ll be seeing the world soon. And the heart with little cracks in it … Perhaps you feel you’re giving away pieces of your heart?”
“But if this is telling the future, does it mean that I’m going to have my heart broken?” My mouth went a little dry at the thought. I mean, my heart was already pretty much in smithereens. How much worse could it get? Actually, Universe, forget I asked that question. Okay? I do not want to know.
“Only time will tell,” Dadi said, looking steadily at me. “We must embrace the good with the bad.”
So there you have it: I’ll travel and have my already-broken heart pulverized, maybe. Or maybe this is all just crap. Who can say?
Oh God. Why did I even agree to do the stupid film in the first place? I am so not in a film-festival mood right now. I just want to burrow under the covers on my bed and stay there until the new millennium. Is that too much to ask?
Love,
Twinkle
Friday, June 26
Vic’s car
Dear Haifaa al-Mansour,
The burrowing plan didn’t last too long. I was ensconced in my covers and had just unwrapped the first Peanut Butter Cup I’d pilfered from the kitchen when I heard the doorbell ring. I poked my head out from under the covers, my heart thundering. Was it Sahil? Maddie? But then Dadi walked in and told me it was “that girl who looks like her head’s on fire.”
Victoria Lyons.
I scrambled out of bed, wiped the chocolate off my hands, finger-combed my hair (I mean, I am still her director, come on), and walked out. Sure enough, Victoria stood there, all statuesque and tall, her big red hair looking especially shiny. She noticed me staring. “You like?” she asked, patting the crown of her head. “I asked my stylist to use this new snail slime treatment I read about in Vogue. They only use it in Japan right now, but …”
“Snail … slime?”
“Yeah.” Her green eyes were humorless. “It’s great for your hair. And supposedly it’s good for your pores, too.”
“Right.” I folded my arms across my chest. I didn’t need snail slime in my hair; I already had it smeared across my life. “So. What’s, um, up?”
She shrugged and walked over to my couch, where she sat down in a flounce of her retro circle skirt, putting her wedge-clad feet on my coffee table. “I was worried about you. You left the party all weird yesterday, and I saw
you moping around at school today looking pathetic. What’s going on? Does this have to do with the mysterious boy you were getting all vamped up to see that one night?”
I saw Dadi straighten at her cutting board in the kitchen. She was stress cooking because she knew I was upset and wouldn’t talk to her about it. “Um, do you want to go to my room?” I asked Victoria, nodding my head at Dadi’s back.
“Oh, sure.” She stood up and walked off, like she owned the place.
Sighing, I followed her.
Once we were safely ensconced in my room (Victoria sat on my wobbly computer chair and squealed, “I love how authentically rickety things are in your house!” which I’m pretty sure she meant as a compliment?), I grabbed a pillow to my chest. “Thanks for coming over to check on me. That’s so nice of you.”
“Duh,” Victoria said, picking up my change jar and looking at it interestedly. She probably had never seen pennies before, having dealt only in Benjamins. “It’s what friends do. So, tell me what happened at the party last night.”
I blew out a breath. “Ugh. Where do I even start? Okay, so Maddie and I had a fight. I mean, I tried to apologize to her for blowing up at your house that one night. When I yelled at Lewis and everyone?”
Victoria nodded. I’d already apologized to her in her car yesterday.
“So, she just refused to accept my apology. Which, okay, after I talked to Sahil, I kinda get why she was mad.” Glancing at Vic, I shook my head. “I was making some bad choices, and Maddie was right to call me out on it. But at the same time, she isn’t blame-free. She’s been pulling away from me and blowing me off for Hannah and her other friends for a long time. She’s changed so much about herself, but somehow it’s all my fault for how I’ve changed? I told you, right, how she didn’t even want me to come to Hannah’s party?” It stung to talk about it, and I rubbed my chin and looked away, at my twinkle-light photo wall. I’d put up more pictures of me and Sahil, Skid, Aaron, and the others who were in the film. Maddie’s and my pictures were off to the sides now, no longer the main focus of my life.
Victoria leaned back in my squeaky chair and picked up one of my pens. Tapping it against the palm of her other hand, she said, “Hmm. Okay, so first, Maddie pulling away from you? Totally sucks. She didn’t handle that well at all. I even told her a couple of times that she should invite you to my place to hang out. But then Hannah would just say, ‘Twinkle’s just going to be out of place here. She doesn’t know all the people we know, so it’s better for her if we just leave her out.’”
“Great.”
“And Maddie went along with it. But here’s the thing—I don’t think Maddie wanted to leave you out. It was more like … she didn’t know how to integrate you into her new life. Especially with the loudest, most convincing one among us—Hannah—telling her it was for your own good.”
“So it’s not Maddie’s fault at all? It’s all Hannah’s fault?” I shook my head. “I can’t accept that.”
“No, that’s not what I’m saying.” Victoria frowned. “Like I said, Maddie didn’t handle it well. I’m just trying to help you understand from my perspective what went down. Anyway, I don’t even think it’s Hannah’s fault, exactly. I mean, sure, she’s constantly worked to keep you excluded, saying someone like you would just feel uncomfortable with people like us.”
“Stop trying to cheer me up,” I mumbled.
“But,” Victoria said, holding up one pointy finger, “I think that has to do more with Hannah’s insecurities than about you. She’s … super jealous.”
I jerked my head up. “Wait, what? You think she’s jealous … of me? Are you drunk?”
Vic threw her arms up and grinned. “On youth and beauty!” Then, seeing my raised eyebrow, she lowered her arms and got serious. “Look, Hannah’s BFF is Maddie, okay? But Maddie’s BFF, no question, has always been you. Even when she hangs out with us, she used to bring you up in every other conversation. ‘Oh, Twinkle had me watch that movie once. I didn’t get it, but she was talking about the symbolism and structure. She’s such a genius.’ ‘This one time, Twinkle and I made these peanut butter brownies, but we ended up almost burning down the kitchen and then her dadi tried to do a spell or something to get rid of the bad juju we’d invited into the house. Her parents were soooo mad. It was hilarious! I’ve never laughed so hard in my life!’” Victoria looked at me. “And you’re always so sharp in AP English with all your comments and questions, and Maddie just about burst with pride when you won that essay competition. You see what I’m saying?”
I bit my lip, still not convinced. “I think so. …”
“Hannah just can’t compete. So she reacts the only way she knows how: by trying to keep the two of you apart. Han’s never been super good at managing her negative emotions. She’s so used to everyone loving her best. It’s not easy for her. I tried to suggest including you more, so she could get to know you too, but she was not on board for that. It’s scary for her.” Victoria shrugged. “I mean, it’s not an excuse and she’s spoiled, no question. But maybe it’ll help for you to see why she’s like that.”
I couldn’t believe it. Hannah, with her cool palindrome of a name and her shiny, purple VW Bug, was jealous of me? Of how much Maddie loved me? The entire time I thought I was an invisible wallflower, I was intimidating to Hannah Macintosh? It made me feel bad for her. Maddie’s such a cool person. I know how much it sucks to lose her as a friend. But what if I’d never had the opportunity to be her best friend at all? What if I’d always known that there was someone else she liked more? What if I had to be relegated to second place all the time? That would suck even worse.
“Wow,” I breathed after a moment.
“Yeah. Case in point …” Vic pulled something out of the pocket of her skirt and held it out, her fist closed around it.
“What is it?” I asked, automatically extending my hand, palm open, so she could drop it in.
“Maddie wanted you to have that.”
I looked at the shiny metal in my palm. It was a silver charm bracelet with two charms on it. One was a video camera, and the other was half a broken heart with the words “Twinkle Mehra, Director” engraved on it. I looked up at Vic, blinking.
“She’s got the other half of that heart charm,” she said. “Hers says ‘Lead Actress, Maddie Tanaka’ on it. She told me she ordered it when you first cast her; it just came in.”
I was one of her charm bracelet buddies now. Was that Maddie’s way of telling me I was just as important to her as the rest of them? I closed my fist around the bracelet. “She gave it to you, not me,” I said, my voice thick.
“Yeah.” Victoria sighed. “She wanted you to have it, but …”
“But she didn’t want to see me or talk to me.” I swallowed the lump in my throat, not surprised that Maddie still had so much power over me.
“She’s pretty mad,” Vic explained.
We sat in silence. There wasn’t much to say about that.
After a few moments, Vic said, “It’s Sahil, right?”
Startled, I looked at her. “What?”
“You know.” She waved my pen around in the air. “The one you’re pining after. The one you dressed up for that one night. The one you’re so completely in love with.”
I shrugged.
“Mm-hmm.” She tossed my pen back on my desk and hopped up. “Come on.”
I frowned. “Where are we going?”
“Perk—we need some caffeine and sugar. I can’t have you Eeyoring it up tomorrow at Midsummer Night, Miss Director. So we’re going to flush this whatever-it-is out of your system. Let’s go.”
What choice did I have? Vic’s like a gale-force wind, sweeping people up in her wake like helpless little leaves. Setting the charm bracelet down on my desk, I followed her, and now we’re hurtling toward Perk. More soon; she’s trying to peek into this diary while also incessantly asking me questions.
Love,
Twinkle
Twenty-Two
Fri
day, 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.”
From Twinkle, With Love Page 22