“Definitely not half of them.” Diesel shrugged. “Anyway. Those girls are particularly theatrical.”
Sana closed her eyes. “I’m in too much pain for your awful sense of humor. No dates. No back seats of cars. No jealous exes in the chorus line. Just the same grudge since freshman year. It’s that simple.”
Minus the fact that Sana was seriously considering ordering some pineapple conditioner once she got ahold of her phone. Conditioner was totally different from shampoo. Right?
“First of all, that was one chorus line, and I didn’t know that those two girls were seeing each other.” Diesel put up a hand in his own defense.
Sana raised an eyebrow. There was no way he hadn’t known that.
Diesel shook his head. “Fine. Whatever you say.”
Sana was saved the effort of having to respond to that by Maddie’s return with a bag full of ice. Diesel stood immediately, like he was some kind of nineteenth-century dude who always vacated his chair in the presence of ladies.
“I grabbed your phone, too.” Maddie held a bag of ice in one hand and Sana’s phone in the other. She handed the bag of ice over to Sana first. She set the phone down on the bench beside her.
Sana took the ice and yelped as cool plastic surrounded her tender joint.
“Good luck icing that injury to your foot,” said Diesel, clearly trying to impart some kind of farewell but unable to remember how to do so like an actual human.
Maddie finally looked up at Diesel. She blinked at him repeatedly. Diesel blinked back, trying to somehow employ a secret code beyond his understanding. It looked like Morse code with eyelashes.
Sana coughed. “Go watch after the squad for me, would you? Tell Coach K to stay with them. I’m good.”
Maddie stared for a moment. “You don’t need anything?”
“I’m fine.” Sana didn’t mean to sound as dismissive as she did. She was just in so much pain and the ice wasn’t working fast enough and Maddie was looking at Sana with a mix of concern—her eyebrows were puckered—and hurt—her eyes had gone wide and had that awful wounded look. And soon Coach K would head over here and poke and prod and crowd and Sana would like to just avoid all of that.
Had the accident been Sana’s fault? Sana couldn’t be sure. If she had wobbled or if Alexis had missed her cradle or if Maddie had simply missed her catch. It had all happened too fast.
Sana’s instinct was to look away, to flinch. But instead she kept her face placid, kept her gaze unwavering. Maddie nodded. She looked over at Diesel and narrowed her eyes suspiciously. Then she turned, and Sana watched as Maddie’s puff of hair retreated into the distance. Maddie talked to Coach K for a moment, then clapped the other girls into formation, starting a couple of cheers.
Diesel, thank heavens, stopped blinking as soon as Maddie left. “You know, she already doesn’t like me. You don’t need to make it worse by being a jerk to her when I’m around. She’ll just associate the behavior with me.”
Sana nestled the bag of ice against her ankle. It had blessedly gone totally numb by this point. Another few minutes and she could take the bag off, though she’d probably have to get fresh ice again to give the joint a couple of solid rounds of numbing. “You’ll live. And if you think Maddie’s disdain has anything to do with me, well, you’re the lug of meat that everyone thinks you are.”
“I am not a lug of meat.” Diesel jutted his lip out and pouted like he was the bearer of a great injustice.
“So quit acting like one. Maddie dislikes you on your own merits.” The game was a blowout for the other team and Sana couldn’t bear to watch the cheers right now. She got out her phone.
That got a laugh out of Diesel. “Fair enough. I assume you need a ride home.”
Sana nodded. She clicked through her phone. First Sana sent a message to her mom. Had a bit of an accident at the game. Diesel bringing me home. I’m OKAY. PROMISE
Then she checked her missed messages. One from her grandfather. My dear Sana, Looking forward to seeing you tomorrow. Love, Dadu.
Another from Mamani. Make sure your mother wears something appropriate to lunch. Just because it’s not dinner! She cannot wear jeans! I raised her not wolves!!
Then a new message popped up from Mom. Okay. Explain when you get home
Sana locked her phone. She checked the game clock. Nine minutes left. Nine minutes to figure out what she was going to do with all of the free time she was about to have on her hands. Nine minutes to figure out how she was going to make it to May first without cheerleading to fill her time and to exhaust her body.
Suddenly, working on a movie with Rachel Recht didn’t seem like the worst thing in the world.
April 7
24 Days Until Deadline
6
Lost in Transition
Sana
Sana looked over at her mom as she got into the car. She’d already thrown her crutches into the back seat. “Are you sure about those pants?”
Mom smiled. She was wearing high-waisted, floral-and-striped flare pants that she had hemmed so they stopped at the top of her flat sandals. “They’re not jeans.”
“You know that’s not what Mamani meant by not wearing jeans.” Sana sighed—Mom would prod and Mamani would likely rise to the bait.
Mom shrugged and slid into the driver’s seat, closing the door behind her. “Then she should have been more specific.”
“Your funeral.” Except it wouldn’t be, not really. It would be Sana’s funeral, because Sana was the one who had to smooth out Mamani’s mood whenever Mom went around intentionally ruffling her feathers.
Mom started the engine and began backing out. “She’s going to flip her lid when she sees you on those crutches. I’ve got to have something to enjoy myself with, or I’ll feel beaten. I’m already anticipating a repeat of the pink ombré hair debacle.”
Sana refused to entertain that idea. She cracked the window and let the cool spring breeze blow into the car.
Sana’s grandparents had one of those large, open-plan hacienda-style houses in an Orange County gated community with a fancy name. Orange Grove. Beach Grove. Orange Grove Beach. The Beach by the Orange Grove.
Whatever.
Sana didn’t need to know the proper name to get there, so she never remembered it. Even though her mother did all the driving down from LA, Sana could have gotten to the house on sight memory alone. Down the 405 South, off the exit by the odd grove of trees. Left at the gas station. Up the winding but wide road into the hills. Take a right before you hit the first cul-de-sac. Then stop at the far end of the other cul-de-sac. Boom. There stood a stately house that was large and white and nearly identical to all the other neighbors’ stately houses.
Sana’s mom rang the bell when they arrived. Sana had a key. Her mom had a key. Her mom never used her key. Sana had been instructed—by her mother—never to use her key. Her mom was fierce when guarding her independence from her own parents. In retaliation, Sana’s grandmother, Mamani, would send a maid to fetch them from the door.
Sometimes just ringing a doorbell could be exhausting.
Leni led Sana and her mother through the foyer into the parlor. Thank God Mamani had stopped requesting her maids wear uniforms and instead asked for “a dress code,” so that Leni could wear slacks now. Leni didn’t say anything, but she made a face at Sana’s crutches, like Sana needed to be warned that she and her mom were in for it.
“It’s a sprain,” said Sana as she crutched toward where Mamani sat. Sana was taking charge of this situation before it ran away from her. Though technically, in her state, anything could run away from her.
Mamani, sitting on the impeccably white linen couch in a silk print shirt and white capris, said nothing. She didn’t have to. She had looks for everything, particularly for all the varieties of displeasure that went beyond words. Her spine was perfectly straight and her eyes were filled with the kinds of flames that could reignite a dying sun.
Sana went on, sure she could keep a firm grip on
the situation. It was exhausting, but she was going to get through this. “And it’s temporary. The trainer only had an air cast. But he said I could go to the doctor to get a boot so I wouldn’t have to crutch. So I’m only borrowing the crutches until I can get to the doctor.”
Sana sighed, a little breathless. The crutches winded her in a way that running regularly and being tossed into the air never did. They also made strange, tender spots under her armpits. Right where her base would typically catch her. It was an unwelcome reminder of how much she had lost.
“And you let her do this, Farrah?” Mamani was shooting death glares at Mom. “You let your own flesh and your own blood do this activity that can hurt her? What kind of a mother are you?”
This was so much worse than the time Mom had decided to try the pink ombré hair trend. Sana felt the need to slump from the weight of it all. Instead she stood up straighter, trying to dig into her years of dance training. She would be perfect at this and then they would stop fighting and they would have a lovely lunch. She’d wished that she and Mom had been able to go to dinner. At dinner, Mom’s siblings—Farhad Mama, Zain Mama, and Athena Mashi—would have been able to provide another buffer.
For now the buffer was Sana and Sana alone.
“I don’t let her or not let her; she needed an activity for Princeton and she picked cheerleading.” Sana’s mother slumped onto the formal blue settee with a flop and a sigh. She’d had late-night shoots all week, which didn’t put her in a good state. And trips to her parents’ house weren’t the thing to improve her mood, even on the best of days.
Sana felt a twinge of jealousy that her mom could slide into a chair so satisfactorily while she couldn’t let herself entertain the idea of slumping for more than half a second. But that was quickly washed away by the heart-hammering guilt of Princeton being brought up.
Mamani made a disgusted sound between a sneeze and a shushing. “Science fair is an activity. This is ridiculous.”
“Mamani, Mom, can we please not fight about this? It’s like any injury I could get from any sport. I’ll be back on my feet again in six weeks. Maybe less. It’s a sprain.” Sana crutched pathetically over toward the blue settee, hoping to garner sympathy points from her grandmother. But it was the wrong tactic.
Mamani’s mouth formed a disapproving line across her face. “It’s uncivilized.”
“You’re uncivilized.” Mom was usually quicker on the draw, but the sleep deprivation must have been taking a toll on more than her posture.
That’s when Dadu held up his hand—the universal sign that he’d adopted from his courtroom for “I am going to render a judgment now.” He was lounging in his rattan chair with his back slanted and his legs wide. It was a powerful position, this large and imposing sprawl. “Enough, beti. Apologize to your mother.”
Mom’s face went extra sullen. Her lips pouted out and her eyebrows puckered forward. “Sorry, Maman.”
Mamani turned and sniffed the air. She hadn’t been made for forgiveness. She’d been made to survive a world that was harder on her than on many. To her, forgiveness was like mercy—a kind of weakness that others would take advantage of. Mom sighed and slumped farther in relief.
Dadu kept his focus on Sana, though. He leaned forward. “Are you practicing your stitches?”
Sana nodded. She was still covering all her bases. Except for the part where she didn’t follow through on her college acceptance and put down a deposit. “Of course.”
Dadu smiled, his pride evident. Sana’s stomach somersaulted with guilt and nerves. Could he see right through her? Know she wasn’t following through on her plan? Did he say this because he knew he’d expose her in some way?
Despite the better respectability of her aunties and uncles and their children, despite all of them still living in Orange County, rather than having hightailed it out to Los Angeles like her mother had—Sana was the favorite. To say that Sana had, since the moment of her birth, become a future piece of redemption to her grandparents—a do-over for the daughter whose life they had not successfully molded into the shape they had demanded on their first go—would be an overstep, a glossing over of the truth. They had another daughter. Dadu and Mamani each had their own pursuits beyond family.
But Sana had Dadu’s eyes.
“Good, poti. Good.” Dadu’s lips twitched with the edge of a joke they always shared—the two of them keeping the peace while Mom and Mamani swiped at each other’s throats.
Sana looked away, avoiding the moment and the camaraderie. Right now, Mom and Mamani were taking turns glaring and avoiding each other’s glares. It was too nonverbal for either of them to last for long.
“Mom, you look like a gremlin. Spit it out.” Sana’s mom crossed her arms over her chest.
Sana snuck a glance at the expression on Mamani’s face. It was like a gremlin. If gremlins could be beautifully polished, with sun-kissed golden hair, pearly white teeth, and impossibly clear skin, that is. An elegant Persian gremlin. Sana tried to remember the last time she’d seen such unmitigated triumph on her grandmother’s face.
“That is a terrible thing to say. I’m not a gremlin. I am your madar.” Mamani pulled herself up to her full seated height. “You apologize right now.”
Off of the look she got, Sana’s mother simply averted her eyes. “Sorry, Maman.”
Mamani took a deep, cleansing inhale through her nose. The smile resurfaced, more dazzling and more terrifying than before. “I’ve got some good news for you both.”
“What is it, Mamani?” Sana had meant to sound bright and excited—the tone she used to gloss over any tension between her mother and her grandmother—but some deep, primal instinct had placed a note of caution in her voice. Something was headed her way, she just didn’t know what. She didn’t know if it was a small breeze lifting off of the ocean or a tsunami headed straight for her home.
“Your father is here!” said Mamani triumphantly.
A tsunami, then.
And then, as if the news alone were not enough, in walked Sana’s father, just as handsome as every photograph he ever posted, as every broadcast he ever did. He was dark and lean, like her grandfather, but with none of the middle-aged paunch. He had a full head of black hair with a few silver streaks. His eyes were dark in color while staying bright in expression. He said nothing at first, and Sana, though rarely a girl of many words, was left temporarily speechless at his presence.
Note to self: Mamani’s gremlin face is reserved for when Massoud is in town.
When Sana’s parents had gotten divorced, her father had gone back to school. He had been so desperate to prove himself—to his family, his peers, and even himself—that he had accelerated through his degrees. Now Massoud Khan was a bigwig national correspondent and occasional anchor, earning the money American dreams are made of. The kind of money that enabled him to do stories that had a conscience attached to them now.
He was insufferable.
“What are you doing here?” said Sana as soon as her mouth began working again.
Mamani’s eyes went wide with shock. Sana was normally so controlled, so composed. Their best-behaved daughter.
But Dadu laughed like he’d heard a good joke. “I told you this would not go well. You have to warn her. She is not one to like surprises. Remember her eighth birthday party?”
Her father stood in the archway of the room, like a hyperreal photograph rather than a person. Sana was unsure of whether to bolt from the room or to go out and shake his hand. Her mom had sat up from her slump, like her entire fight-or-flight response had been lit up. Then she settled for glaring directly at Mamani.
The crutches now seemed nothing in comparison to this bombshell.
Dadu rose from his seat. His body faced his erstwhile son-in-law, but he stopped where Sana stood. He frowned and placed his hand on Sana’s shoulder. “I am sorry, poti. I knew you would have our head for this. But it was not an argument I could win with your mamani.”
“It’s okay,” Sana
said automatically. Maybe if she said it out loud she would believe it herself. She buried the panic clawing up her chest. She checked the anger at the back of her throat. The desire to shout was so strong it was drowning out all the other noise in the room. But maybe Sana was imagining things because there was no other noise in the room. Just the slow thud of Dadu’s shoes as he crossed the space of the room until he reached Massoud, stretching out his hand and taking the other man’s in this own. They shook hands and kissed each other on the cheek.
“Sit.” Dadu was all command.
Massoud entered the room without further question and sat on the cushions of the high-backed rattan sofa opposite the white linen one. He took his time, arranging his pants and his dress shirt before turning his eyes on Sana and saying, “To answer your question, I am here to see you.”
“Sure you are.”
“Sana,” Massoud said in a measured tone. He dipped down low for the low u sound at the front of her name and gave a nice clip to the long vowel at the end.
That was a warning.
“You must have some business. You’ve never come into town without a story to take you here before.” Sana watched him warily. She’d have to be on her guard. She was not a child to be tricked by foolish language or missing words.
Massoud’s jaw dropped. Mamani gasped. Dadu coughed uncomfortably.
“Thank you, Sana-joon. For sticking up for me. That’s enough.” Mom got up, walked over, and held out her hand to her ex-husband. “Good to see you.”
“No, it isn’t. You’ve always been a rotten liar, Az.” Sana watched her father take her mother’s hand to shake, like they did this all the time. Like it was normal. Like he still had a right to call her by her childhood nickname. And then he leaned in to plant a kiss on her cheek.
Mom pulled away then. “True.”
Mamani tsked—a noise that had equal parts t’s and ch’s. Perhaps Mamani thought this was rude—another intentional jab in Mom and Mamani’s struggle for one-upmanship. But Sana saw no rudeness. All she saw was her mother flinching away from the hurt. It was a protective move, a reflex rather than an attack.
Tell Me How You Really Feel Page 6