But moments like this can be fleeting. This one fades fast into the next dramatic turn, the next quickening of drumbeats.
Only kidding. There should be drumbeats as Mr. Soli Dustup staggers back to the group after his phone call, but life does not always oblige with background music.
Mr. Dustup groans. He manages to pull himself together as Dolly emerges from the elevator and all the fans rush forward. “Array, array, my good people,” says Mr. Dustup, elbowing them aside. “Give the star a little breathing room, if you please.”
To all appearances, Soli Dustup is once more the competent studio executive dealing with the public who adores his star. But to those who are helping out by watching out, it is clear that something has gone wrong.
“What happened?” asks Maddie.
“It was that phone call,” Brenna muses. “He was fine before that.”
Dini shakes her head. “Shhh, not now,” she says. There are reporters around with cameras, notepads, recorders. She doesn’t want their words to show up on tonight’s updated Filmi Kumpnee website.
One thing is clear. Mr. Dustup has been rattled by that phone call.
Enter Dini’s dad, having completed a successful foray into Maryland’s suburban shopping jungles for something called a universal adapter. Before Dini can get a word in, Soli corners Dad. They talk in that grown-ups-taking-charge-of-things voice—even though what does Dad know about any of this, and how could he possibly solve whatever new problem has just come up?
“What?” Dini says. “What’s going on?”
“Oh, he did?” says Dad to Soli, making warning eyes at Dini. “Who? The caterer? I see. Really? Well, surely there must be—”
Mr. Dustup erupts into an explanation. Words fly through the air. “Messages.” “Voice mail.” “Smithsonian.” “White House.” “Canceled.”
“Canceled?” Dini can’t stand it. Why can’t that Soli slow down so she can get what’s going on? “White House? What’s canceled? Who canceled?”
They stop and look at her.
Dini begs, “Tell us, Dad. Please.”
Dad explains that someone from the Smithsonian called Mr. Dustup, that’s all.
“Who?” Dini asks. “Why?”
“Really, Dini,” Dad says, “it’s hard to explain.”
“Daddy,” Dini reminds him, “you know that when you’re fixing a computer and you try to explain it to us and we don’t get it, you always say—”
“All right, all right,” says Dad. “I know. Patience is the key.” And he slows down and lays it out for Dini.
Dolly wanted rose petal milk shakes at the reception. That’s all. The museum found a caterer who agreed to supply them, along with other refreshments. Curry puffs. A touch of chocolate in everything. That’s all. But now there’s a problem, something about a conflict with the Easter Egg Roll at the White House.
So now another caterer must be found. Quickly. A logistical problem, these things happen. And that, says Dad, is absolutely all he knows. He clamps his lips shut to indicate that he is done, done, done.
“What!” Dini and Maddie and Brenna exclaim in one voice. This is shocking. Hugely horrible. A disaster!
“I’ll work on it,” says Soli Dustup, heaving an executive-size sigh. “I’ll have to break it to Dolly.” He and Dad begin to converse again in undertones. Are they talking about the future of rose petals? That is what Dini would like to know, but of course they’re not about to tell her. She, after all, is not a grown-up, even though she’s been in the double digits for two years now, which should count for something. And didn’t she find a baker for that cake when Dolly was in despair, and does anyone even remember that?
Oh, life is very unfair!
Dini says to Maddie and Brenna, “Let’s go outside. We have to talk.” Talking is good. Talking can solve problems. Only not with a bunch of take-charge grown-ups around.
Chapter Forty-Two
Fan-Sisters
DINI AND MADDIE AND BRENNA are deep in conversation as they step along the thyme walk-way in the herb garden behind the hotel’s Urban Delight Restaurant. A sign invites hotel visitors to step on the thyme walkway. If they do, says the sign, they will release the perfume of the tendrils creeping between the flagstones.
So the girls step and stop. They step and stop and talk at every turn.
“Two problems,” says Dini. “We need an elephant. And a caterer.”
“That’s not all,” says Maddie, tripping over a flagstone.
“Steady, Mads,” Brenna says.
“Just helping to release the tendrilly perfume,” Maddie says, striking a pose. “Listen, fan-sisters—”
“I like that,” Dini says.
Maddie grins. “Fan-sisters, we’re forgetting a third circle in this dance.”
“I know,” Dini says. It’s been in the back of her mind all the time. “The passport.”
A gargling noise to their left makes them wheel around. It is Ollie, in the process of heaving a bag of garbage into the Dumpster that is tastefully hidden behind a hedge. He hurries toward the kitchen, nearly knocking Maddie down. He opens the kitchen door. He vanishes inside.
“What was that all about?” says Brenna, balance-walking along the brick edging of an herb bed.
“I have a funny feeling,” says Dini. “Did you see that? I say the word ‘passport’ and he freaks out.”
“You don’t think . . .,” says Maddie.
“I don’t know,” says Dini. “He did that once before. Something’s not right with that guy.”
“Interesting,” says Brenna.
Alana sticks her head out from behind the kitchen door. “What are you guys doing to Ollie?” she demands. “Every time he sees you, he turns into Jell-O. You’re not training to be chefs or something, are you?”
“No!” Dini protests. Alana disappears.
“So,” says Dini. “We have to think. WWDD?”
“What Would Dolly Do?” Brenna and Maddie intone.
Dolly would keep on going, no question. Dolly wouldn’t give up. Dolly would piece the clues together and get the big picture.
“You mean the movie Dolly, right?” says Brenna.
Maddie and Dini trade glances. It’s a good question. Which Dolly do they mean? Dini herself has never made that distinction. To her, Dolly has always been Dolly, but she can see Brenna’s point.
“The real Dolly’s cool too,” Brenna says. “Not saying she’s not. But you know what I mean?”
“Hmm, yeah, I know,” says Dini slowly.
Because while they love the real Dolly, her style and warmth and generosity, it’s the movie Dolly who’s the heroic one, right? The real Dolly is a person. Well, not a regular person, sure, but still, she’s something more than an image floating across a movie screen. And if she’s something more, then in a weird and surreal way she’s also something less.
The fan-sisters look at one another, trying to connect dots in their minds like tendrils of scented thyme.
Chapter Forty-Three
Rehearsal
ON THE WAY TO THE Rehearsal Dolly maintains a somber silence. Chickoo Uncle tries to engage her in conversation, but she will not oblige.
“Not to worry, my darlings,” says Mr. Dustup in a fake-hearty voice. “Soli will soon get it all under control.”
He has not told Dolly about the caterer catastrophe. Dini thinks they should tell her. She’ll find out soon enough. Dini knows from experience that when you try to hide stuff, it all comes out anyway, and then the person you’re hiding stuff from gets mad at you. Soli Dustup is a grownup. Doesn’t he know this? And Chickoo Uncle? Why doesn’t he tell Soli? What is wrong with all these people? Dad will tell her not to interfere, she knows, but it is hard for a true friend and fan to know what to do. Her instincts tell her it is time to stop being a well-behaved kid. It is time to leap into the fray and become a busybody solving other people’s problems.
“It’s all going to be fine,” says Soli.
Dolly says not
hing, just looks out the window as if she is captivated by the streets of D.C. and the Metrobuses with blue and red stripes on their sides and their destinations posted in blinking lights, Pentagon and King Street and Metro Center.
Soli gets quieter. Dad concentrates on driving. In contrast, Dolly perks up when they get to the museum. “Oh, look at those gates!” She clasps her hands in admiration at the stonework in the garden outside the Smithsonian’s Sackler Gallery.
“They’re moongates,” Brenna tells her. “Look, you can follow the trail between them, that way, and then back again to the street exit.”
“I adore these moongates,” Dolly declares. “Chickoo, we must get a pair for the garden at Sunny Villa.”
“Yes, Dolly,” says Chickoo Uncle meekly.
“We’ll get a pair for the Bolly-Dazzle Museum as well,” Mr. Dustup declares. “You want moongates, Dolly darling? You shall have them.”
Dolly picks up the hem of her leaf-green skirt with the silver edging and dances up to one of those gates along the garden path. She stops and turns in the middle of the rounded cutout space between its two halves.
“Haan-haan-haan,” Dolly sings in a thoughtful kind of way. “Nahin-nahin. Does anyone have a map of the area?”
“I do,” says Maddie. “I always carry it with me.”
“Excellent,” says Dolly briskly. “You never know when you’ll need a map. May I?”
“Sure,” says Maddie. She pulls the map from her backpack and gives it to Dolly.
Then Dolly and her dance troupe of three, along with tech support (Dad, Soli, and Chickoo Uncle), enter the domed lobby of the Sackler Gallery to rehearse the opening dance.
Mr. Dustup offers Dini a small package. “For you,” he says. “Trailer and rough cuts of the opening song sequence.”
“From KHSV?” says Brenna in awe.
“Stunning,” says Maddie.
“Yes, yes, the very same, my darlings,” says Mr. Dustup. “Just for you devoted fans.”
Dini puts the DVD away carefully in her backpack so it doesn’t get lost in the confusion. All around them the gallery, that treasure trove of Asian art, is being turned upside down. Not physically, no, no. The taxpayers of America would not stand for that. But on this breezy spring evening it is humming and thrumming in anticipation of the grand event to come.
Chairs are being arranged in concentric circles in the lobby. Sound equipment is being tested. Signs are being placed strategically in alcoves, showing the way:
BOLLY-DAZZLE!
An extravaganza of films from India
Grand Opening: Kahan Hai Sunny Villa?
(Where Is Sunny Villa?)
Opening dance by young performers.
Music. Refreshments. Fun.
Special Guest: Dolly Singh
The young performers practice their twirls and swirls under the ornate domed ceiling of the Sackler’s lobby. Their green and silver skirts swish. The flags in their hands sweep in and out, in and out, forming repeating arcs of a circle. Their ankle bells jingle and jangle. Dolly gives them pointers.
“Like this, my sweet girls,” she says, showing them how to make flowers, arrows, whirling weapons just by using their hands. How to stamp-stamp-stamp their feet to create rhythms within the larger pattern of the dance-two-three,
and one-two-three,
and repeat-two-three,
and back-two-three.
“Very pleasing and poetic,” Dolly says. “A marvel of magical movement.” She claps her hands in delight. She is so much more dazzling when she’s delighted.
Off they go, again and again and back again and yet again. It’s good. It is. It works. All the planning.
Mr. Dustup offers a few technical bits of advice. “Enter from left stage,” he suggests, “and then circle back so that you can exit in the opposite direction.” He draws sweeping lines in the air to show what he means. “A little visual variety works wonders. It will keep you on your toes, and the audience also. Trust me, audiences like to be given patterns to work with in their subconscious minds.”
All the practice. All the worry. It finally works.
Dad and Soli Dustup applaud. “Encore!” says Dad, and of course they oblige.
“Array vah, my darlings,” says Soli when at last the dancers are breathing heavily and taking endless turns rehydrating themselves at the water fountain. “You are stars. You should be in the fillums.”
“Really?” says Maddie, mopping her face with her T-shirt sleeve.
“Anytime you want to be in a dance scene, you just get in touch with Soli Uncle.”
Dad coughs and murmurs something about school and getting an education first.
“Of course, of course, there is no conflict there,” agrees Mr. Dustup. “Just remember, if we ever do a shoot on summer break, you’re in. Shame to waste such talent. Our Dolly herself, you know, made her first movie when she was only—what? Eleven? Twelve? Something like that. Just a blinking child, she was.”
Which is when Dini realizes something. She hasn’t seen Dolly in a while. Not since she showed them all that hand movement stuff and they went stamp-two-three and one-two-three together, which was way glorious, but where’d she go after that?
Where is Dolly now? Has anyone seen the star?
April 16, 2011
Darling Chickoo,
Writing this in a hurry because there’s no time. Soli’s being stubborn. He won’t listen to me. If he won’t trust me, his number one star, who can he trust, I ask you? “Dolly,” he keeps saying, “this is America, you can’t just get elephants whenever you feel like it.” So little faith, I tell you.
So I am going off on a small errand by myself. Where there’s a will, Chickoo . . . We know that, don’t we? You’re always saying if you really want something done, you have to do it yourself. So I’m dashing off to do this thing myself. I have high hopes, my dearest. The grand opening of KHSV must be as terrific and tremendous as possible. It must be magical and magnificent.
Don’t worry about me. I have a map.
Love,
Dolly
Chapter Forty-Four
Rattled
“WHAT WAS I THINKING?” SAYS Chickoo Dev. He is holding a note in his hand and looking decidedly rattled. “I should have known something was up when she said she wanted to go out in the garden.”
“It’s not your fault,” Dini says.
“Why would she want to be out in the garden instead of inside supervising the arrangements?” Chickoo asks. “I should have guessed she had something in mind. Oh, Dolly, Dolly.”
“I saw her going out,” says Brenna, twisting her arms around each other and clasping her hands together. “I thought she was just going to dance through the moongates.”
“She doesn’t know anything about gardens,” says Chickoo, sinking further into despair.
A couple of people from the administrative office of the Smithsonian have entered the scene. They are talking animatedly about a server problem and e-mails, as if that has anything to do with Dolly’s disappearance.
Dini wishes they would take their servers and e-mails somewhere else. She is hot on the heels of a solution to this latest problem, and an idea has just clicked open in her mind. “Dad,” she asks, “can you take us to the zoo?”
“The zoo?” says Dad.
“Girlie,” says Mr. Dustup in admiration. “You took the words out of my mouth. That was my thought precisely.”
“Ah, I see,” says Dad. “The zoo it is, then.”
Soli slaps Chickoo Uncle on the back, sending him reeling. “Fear not, Chickoo my friend,” he says, “you’re in good hands. Would I let anything happen to our sweet Dolly?”
Chickoo Uncle looks as if he does not know how to answer that question.
“What?” says Mr. Bayan, that beleaguered and high-ranking official at the Smithsonian Institution. “What do you mean the server is down?”
“That’s what they told me,” his secretary says. “They got flooded with e-mails from
California and New York and Texas. The system crashed.”
“California? New York?”
“Yes, Mr. B. Turns out this movie star—Dolly Singh—has a big fan base in the Bay Area and Queens. And Houston. It was the Texas batch that finally crashed the server.” She frowns. She has never liked Texans, and these crashing e-mails just confirm her feelings about them.
She tries to be diplomatic. “They’re quite upset.” She swallows her true sentiments. In her opinion, the fans are not “quite upset.” They are raving mad. They are lunatics. According to the morning paper, they’re demanding that the US government release Dolly. They think she’s being held hostage. They’re ranting about stolen passports.
But she does not say all that. It’s too hard to explain such complicated happenings.
Mr. Bayan emits an exasperated snort. He is starting to wonder if this whole film festival was a bad idea from the start. He thought he’d gotten Dolly sorted out. Now some news item about her passport has ruined everything.
The State Department has been calling. The Indian ambassador has sent her assistant over a couple of times. They are all offering advice, suggestions, help. But he—Rolando Bayan, of the United States Marines (retired), program director of educational and cultural events at the Smithsonian—is in charge, and frankly, he is annoyed. He does not need help. He needs order!
And now these freaky fans. Military combat, he thinks irritatedly, was more organized than this . . . this opening!
To make it even worse, this Dolly person has disappeared. If he finds her, he’s going to give her a reprimand. He’s going to make her understand that she has wrecked his day.
And yet, and yet. When he heard the music playing in the lobby of the museum today, when he saw those kids practicing their dance, it did something to him. It made him want to clap his hands and stomp his feet. The grand opening is threatening to fall about his ears, yet Mr. B. gets a warm and dancy feeling when he hears those Dolly tunes.
The Problem with Being Slightly Heroic Page 10