Tell Me How You Really Feel

by Aminah Mae Safi

  Leave it to Sana to blow six dollars every morning on a cup of coffee.

  “I’m sorry. I must be hallucinating this morning. There’s no way you asked for my help in the film lab.” Sana turned, as though to get back to her business at her locker.

  It was a dismissal. Rachel refused to bow to it. “You’re not hallucinating. You, me—Douga’s office. Right now.”

  Sana turned, her hand still absently on the lock. Her eyebrows drew together. They were full and straight eyebrows, not bushy ones. Though on anyone else they would have been bushy or at least overpowering. On Sana, the eyebrows and their expression were simply striking. “Why?”

  “Douga asked for us both.” Rachel shrugged.

  Sana leaned into her locker. The action brushed her shoulder and that damned swishy, shiny ponytail up against Rachel’s arm. “I see.”

  Rachel held her breath, waiting to see what Sana would do. She’d probably abandon Rachel to her fate. Leave her to be yelled at alone by Douga.

  But Sana turned and shut her locker door. “Lead the way.”

  Douga’s office was a glassed-in side room off of the film labs. She had a big slab of a desk with papers strewn all across it and seemingly little to no method to her madness. She had bookshelves in her office, but they were empty. All the paperwork was either on the table or on the floor.

  It was the camera equipment in the film lab itself that pulled the focus off any of Douga’s organization efforts. There her organization system shone. Everything was filed on a shelf and tagged in a pelican case and placed in order by type, by model, by function. Her office, by contrast, was mostly a place for her to put stuff that she would prefer to never do. And Rachel had seen Douga’s inbox over the teacher’s shoulder. She was one of those psychopaths with two thousand unread messages.

  Douga saw Rachel and Sana approach and waved them in. Rachel sat down opposite Douga. Sana took the seat farthest from the door.

  Douga pulled out the camera and placed it on top of some papers on her desk. “Explain.”

  “It’s a purely cosmetic crack on a camera,” said Rachel. “The overall functionality is undiminished.”

  “Rachel,” said Douga. “You cannot return damaged equipment.”

  “But it’s not real damage!”

  Douga made a silencing motion with her hand. She looked over at Sana. “Your turn. Answer carefully.”

  “It was an accident. I ran into Rachel by the practice field.” Sana looked Douga in the eye and everything.

  Rachel snorted. Accident my ass.

  “It was, even if you don’t believe me.”

  “You know I don’t.”

  “There’s a shocker.”

  “Almost as shocking as being tackled while innocently crossing a lawn.”

  “You were carrying too much equipment! You nearly fell over all by yourself! I was trying to help.” Sana folded her arms across her chest.

  “So you decided to sprint tackle me and finish the job? I know you’re a cheerleader, but where was the logic in that if it wasn’t to take me out?”

  “You are so dramatic. I have never nor will I ever aim to take you out.”

  Rachel raised an eyebrow. She had just the retort for that.

  “GIRLS.”

  Rachel and Sana both turned to Douga. Rachel had almost forgotten that the teacher was sitting there.

  “Do you honestly think I want to sit here, listening to you two whinge, as I try and figure out if there was a responsible party to this destruction?”

  Rachel and Sana answered with a grumbling and simultaneous, “No.”

  Douga looked over at Sana. “I don’t think you did this on purpose, but just because you look innocent—well, looks can be deceiving.”

  Rachel felt a smirk coming on.

  Then Douga turned her focus onto Rachel. “And you. You should have help putting away the equipment. You should be delegating some of this to your crew members. You should not be firing your lead again and derailing your final project right now.”

  The smugness that had been enveloping Rachel was destroyed—like a well-coordinated flash bang effect across her mood.

  Douga pinched the bridge of her nose. “Here’s what we’re going to do. You, Rachel, are going to cast Sana as your lead because I have no time left to deal with your casting shenanigans. And you, Sana, will take time to film in Rachel’s project as a show of goodwill that you meant no harm.”

  “But you don’t even know if she can act?!” Rachel would not be casting Sana. She couldn’t.

  “How do you know I can’t?” Sana crossed her arms and glared.

  “Enough.” Douga held her hands up in the air. “You two will work together. There will be no more damaged equipment. If I don’t hear that things on set are improving, I am going to be very disappointed. Neither of you want me disappointed right now, got it?” But Douga didn’t wait for their assent. “That’s all. Get to class.”

  And with a wave, Douga shooed them out of her office.

  Rachel’s palms had begun sweating. She ought to make a quick retreat and live to fight another day. Right in front of her was the heartless girl Rachel knew. She stared at Sana for a long moment.

  This is a terrible idea. One of Douga’s worst.

  “Well, Khan. What do you think?” Rachel waited for Sana to destroy all of her dreams with a swift and vicious no.

  Sana swallowed hard. “I can help. I mean, I can at least try. I have cheer practice until five most days. I can’t do anything until then, obviously. And I usually have organic chemistry lab during lunch.”

  “Right. Organic chemistry,” said Rachel.

  Sana took more advanced science than she did. She was probably nice to children, too. A regular Mary Fucking Poppins. Minus the button nose. A strange kind of misery began to well in Rachel’s chest. There had to be a catch. There was always a catch. A moment where the angle of the camera changed and what had once looked like a dream transformed into a fearscape from hell.

  Sana put her hand on her hip. This caused her head to tilt again, which invariably caused her ponytail to swing back and forth like a goddamn pendulum. “Look, do you want my help or not?”

  “Not.” Not not not. An infinite loop of nots. “But I need it. My film project needs it.”

  Sana nodded, short, perfunctory, and full of an understanding of doing unpleasant things for a higher purpose. “Then meet me in the gym tomorrow after five.”

  “No. You meet me in the film lab after five.” Rachel sure as shit wasn’t ceding home court advantage. The stakes were too high.

  Sana sighed. “Fine.”

  “Good.” Rachel gave a tense nod in Sana’s direction. Some piece of her brain began to scream about all of the setup she’d have to do after school to get an audition room ready by five that evening. She was definitely going to have to skip last period. Maybe she could get Douga to send a note and get her excused.

  Unfuckinglikely.

  “Great,” said Sana. “The bell’s about to ring.”

  Rachel readjusted her messenger bag across her shoulder. She wasn’t going to be dismissed, she didn’t care who Sana thought she was. Rachel wasn’t done relaying the most essential pieces of information. “No need to bring a monologue. I’ll provide the lines. You’re just going to read and I’ll see if you’ve got it. I mean, I doubt you do, but I’d be stupid not to check. Come straight after practice. Don’t be late.”

  Sana must have seen something in Rachel’s expression because her next move was to salute Rachel, full of sarcasm, and say, “Aye aye, captain.”

  And before Rachel had time to retort, Sana swished her way out of the hallway. Rachel had just sacrificed her dignity on the altar of cinematic production.

  Sana

  When looked at from a logical perspective, Sana shouldn’t have loved cheerleading as much as she did.

  First there was the obvious, which were the uniforms: scarlet and gold, long sleeves and short skirts, a combination that was practi
cal neither for the weather nor for modesty. There was also the ribbon that went in her hair with her name in puffy paint: SANA in neat, bright, bold block print. There was something deeply impractical about a hair ribbon that was meant to be read while she was being thrown up and down in the air or bouncing or shouting or cheering.

  But of course, Sana tied hers tight with a square knot and then a double bow so that her name always faced out on the ribbon just so. She had a secret, small rebellion—she refused to put a curl in her hair. She smoothed and pressed her waves flat. But otherwise, her hair was tied up just like Coach K had taught them: a sleek, tight ponytail and a neatly bowed ribbon.

  Then there was the fact that Sana spent every Friday night in the fall—and Wednesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays in the spring—cheering on a bunch of boys she felt lukewarm at best about as they played a sport she couldn’t have cared much less for. Oh, Sana knew when to cheer. Cheering for four years gave her knowledge of the rules, gave her some sense of play in the game, whatever the game was.

  But there was a good joke there—in a girl who liked other girls spending her free time cheering for boys and fawning over their lockers with homemade decorations and baked goods.

  Purveyor of benevolent sexism, indeed. Sana held in a snort at the thought.

  Then there was the fact that this was LA and cheerleading didn’t really make a girl popular anymore. Not in a school where people were connected to moviemakers and Hollywood legacies and the real, serious money of global entertainment empires. Sana had enough industry connections that cheerleading didn’t affect her social standing, one way or the other.

  But Sana didn’t cheer for the popularity. Or the uniforms. Or, clearly, the boys. Or the love of some game.

  Sana cheered because she loved to.

  There were very few times in Sana’s life that she didn’t care what everyone else thought about her. But cheerleading was one of them. She didn’t care if anyone else liked her or for flow and parallel structure didn’t because of it. And so she put up with the sweaty, entitled boys and the skepticism of her grandparents and the friendly derision of her mother. The casually sexist uniforms and the immense amounts of hairspray and the particular hierarchy of the cheerleading world itself. She waved them all away for the chance to be basket tossed in the air after standing on one foot and holding her other beside her ear.

  She liked the impossibility of it—she made shapes flying through the air that required flexibility and strength and no small amount of nerve.

  It was the only way that Sana could forget herself. Forget that she’d agreed to help Rachel Recht make a movie. Forget that she’d gone behind her whole family’s back and applied for a medical fellowship. Forget that Rachel’s hair smelled like pineapple. Forget that Rachel could dream up movie after movie, but couldn’t imagine a world where Sana wasn’t her enemy.

  Sure, learning to do a horizontal split in under a second after being thrown upward had been difficult. Not to mention the first time she’d put on her cheerleading uniform and realized she would be flashing an entire crowd with an underwear cover that was basically just underwear with her name monogrammed on the butt. Thank goodness the uniform had sleeves, or she’d never have been able to convince her grandparents she was doing a legitimate athletic activity.

  But the sensation of her muscles flexing while her body launched skyward—if only for a few seconds without any other support or protection—was a high Sana had no name for, in any language. It was probably the only space in her life Sana could be untethered. Up here, in this fraction of a second, she wasn’t cheer captain or honor student or only daughter. Wasn’t a future surgeon. Wasn’t even Sana Khan. She was just a mass, momentarily in defiance of gravity.

  It couldn’t last, though.

  Gravity did the inevitable, pulling Sana back to earth.

  Sana jackknifed so that her body was caught in a cradle—two girls at the bottom who locked their arms to create a human net—and her arms were caught under the shoulders by a back spot.

  “Excellent,” said Coach K. “Really excellent, girls. Everybody follow Khan’s lead here. She’s a second-semester senior and she’s still not slacking. You hear?”

  Sana cringed a bit, but said, “Yes, Coach,” in unison with everyone else.

  Everybody knew Sana had gotten into Princeton. That she’d applied there early action. That she’d pulled all her other college applications. That she’d given her nonbinding commitment. That she was perfect. That’s what they always said. That was the way they looked at her. Too good and too perfect. It was nauseating, but Sana had cultivated the image on purpose. She supposed she had to live with it now.

  What they didn’t know, what they couldn’t guess, what they’d never suspected was this—Sana hadn’t put down her deposit. It had sat on her desk, hidden under her books and her school folders. She hadn’t secured her spot. Instead, she’d been working on her application material for a fellowship that would probably come to nothing.

  Instead, she’d been dreaming of a future that didn’t have clear, delineated lines. Instead she’d been wondering what life looked like without getting on a path at eighteen and never getting off until she retired or died.

  Then the drill was setting up again and she was up, up, up in the air. Sana let out a breath she didn’t know she’d been holding in. Whoosh, she was flying. Snap, she’d been caught again. She didn’t have to think midair. She just had to act. It was one of the only places Sana could trust her instincts. Trust that she’d catch herself.

  “All right, girls. That’s it for practice today. I’m really proud of all the work you’ve all put in this year.” Coach K scanned the small crowd of girls. Because even though cheerleading was open to all, benevolent sexism really hadn’t changed all that much.

  “We’ve just got the tail end of basketball left. The next pep rally is only ten days away. We’re still going to decorate all the players’ lockers before the game, which means some late nights after practice this next week to get all the decorations together. I will remind you that cheering is the heart of our school spirit and pride. I know you’ll all live up to this.”

  Coach went on—about the responsibility and the visibility of the cheerleaders, about the kind of character and reputation expected of young ladies at the Royce School. Sana could practically deliver the speech verbatim herself. The squad members were ambassadors to their school—on the field and off. Nobody was more visible than a cheerleader. Except maybe a water polo player or a lacrosse player. But they were boys and they weren’t expected to behave like ladies. They were allowed to roughhouse and blow off a little steam.

  But cheerleading was how Sana blew off steam. She didn’t drink, she didn’t smoke. She didn’t particularly like to swear.

  What she wanted was to be thrown high into the air and not have to come down for a long while. What she wanted was for time to stop and for May first to just never arrive. If she could cheer and work on new stunts, Sana wouldn’t have time to think about her deadline for Princeton or her pending fellowship application or being in a movie directed by Rachel Recht. Besides, the deadline was basically a whole month away. She didn’t have to think about the future right now. She’d be fine for a little bit longer.

  Coach K wrapped up the last of her regular pep talk. “If you have any requests for lockers that you want to decorate, remember to get those in to your captain by the end of tomorrow.”

  Sana pasted on a big smile. She didn’t even try to act surprised that Coach had passed the responsibility onto her. She wasn’t, and she didn’t need the squad to think she had been. Everybody trusted Sana to get things done.

  That was the problem.

  Sana was trustworthy and reliable. She didn’t get stage fright or performance anxiety. She already had the locker decoration assignments done for all the girls on the squad. She had written down their preferences at the beginning of the year. Getting things done had never been an issue until she’d gotten a form from Princeton
asking for her dorm selections. Her mind had gone in circles until she’d tucked the papers out of sight. Like that helped and like email notifications weren’t also a thing that Princeton was sending her.

  Sana had a lot of unread messages these days.

  She went over to her bag and pulled out the sheets she’d printed with everyone’s locker decoration assignments. That was something easy that she could do. Achievable. Get papers out of bag. Pass out sheets. Nod and smile at the squad. Generally act like she knew what was going on, like everything was fine.

  Like she wasn’t stalling on her future. Like she wasn’t making a bet on a fellowship that would never come through.

  Sana was more of a planner than a visionary. She saw a goal and she broke it down until it was in actionable, completable tasks. But she’d completed all her tasks, save for the most obvious, looming one from Princeton. And she’d cleared her mind in the last hour of cheerleading practice. As she got together her gym bag, all she had left was how on earth she was going to spend the next month helping Rachel Recht make a movie.

  She had to get out of it. There was no other option.

  5

  Basket Toss

  Rachel

  Rachel didn’t like to admit that Douga was right about anything, but sitting there in the film lab, she had to recognize that she had a lot of footage.

  She’d started the project the summer after her junior year. It was supposed to be a grand epic, in the vein of The Odyssey. She was making it modern so she didn’t have to worry about costumes. Rachel had already learned that lesson, the hard way, in her second film. Now, this, she was making about the women—the ones inside the walls of Troy—rather than the men battling it out in the war zone beyond the city. It was a familiar plot and it should have been simple.

  It also should have been finished by now. It should have been done in November. December at the latest. But instead she had all this footage and not a single coherent film to show for it. Instead she’d had reshoot after reshoot.