Tell Me How You Really Feel

by Aminah Mae Safi

  Mom had chosen the latter option. And in spite of it, or maybe because of it, she had thrived. She’d worked her way up. She made a good, solid living. She was working on big-budget productions. And if she did this one right, if she got this one in the bucket, she could be up for the kinds of movies that did the rounds on awards ceremonies. She could go on location as soon as Sana wasn’t living at home anymore. Not that awards mattered to Mom. But Sana wanted her to get that recognition that she’d worked and fought tooth and nail to have. Mom deserved it.

  Not that deserving a thing meant you ever got to have it.

  Exhibit: Massoud.

  Sana ignored him as he waved at her from the back of the living room. She turned and went to find her cousins.

  Jasmine—nearly sixteen—had honey-blond hair and Mamani’s eyes. She was Farhad Mama’s oldest and half white. She spoke in quick, rapid succession, regardless of whether she was dealing in large concepts or small. Right now, she was talking about her freshly minted boyfriend. “And he loves to surf. I can’t imagine dating a boy who doesn’t surf. I mean, what’s the point of living if you don’t date a boy who surfs?”

  This last question she had directed at Sana, who raised her eyebrows knowingly back at Jasmine. Her family did this often—halfway forgetting that she was attracted to girls, that she wanted to date girls. They didn’t mean any real harm by it, but it managed to sting every time anyway. Like juicing a lemon when she already had a nick in her cuticle. It was a stinging kind of pain—but one she felt like she could have avoided had she done something different. True, they were the ones who couldn’t remember a fundamental piece of her unless she drew obvious attention to it. But Sana was the one who had to live with the discomfort.

  “Whoops,” said Jas, who usually remembered to be sensitive to the people she loved just after she’d stuck her foot in her mouth. “You know what I mean, though.”

  Sana did. That’s why the pit in her stomach didn’t go away, didn’t clear. Just sat there, in a small but deep pool of hurt and longing and misunderstanding. “I practically go to school in the Valley, Jas. So I’ve got no surfer vibes to speak of.”

  “C’est tragique,” said Jas, who, like the rest of their clan, had been living in Orange County for her whole life. Then she sighed. “Surfers are where it is at. They’ve all got like abs of steel or something. It’s heaven. Even the girl surfers.”

  Sana shrugged. If she wanted to look at abs all day, she could stare in the freaking mirror. She didn’t need to date someone like a collection of body parts. But maybe it was different with boys. “I’ll have to take your word for it.”

  “She doesn’t want to know about your stupid boyfriend any more than we do,” said Lilah. Lilah was fourteen and had somehow managed to get her mother’s flaxen hair and blue eyes and her father’s broad features. She couldn’t tan the way her other sisters could. She had the kind of eyebrows that faded into her pale face. This left her perpetually seeking shade and frowning, as though she were missing out on some great rite of life that would never be hers. She tried to give off the impression that she didn’t even want that mystery to belong to her anyway. Lilah was a difficult case, so naturally, she was Sana’s favorite of the three sisters.

  “I don’t mind,” said Sana. “I like hearing what all of you are up to. How’s the water polo going?”

  Lilah’s chest puffed up with pride and recognition. “Really excellent. I think we’ve got a shot at the state title this year.”

  Jas rolled her eyes, but Sana kept focused on her middle cousin. Lilah was the fair-haired child who managed to steal none of the attention away from either of her siblings. She ought to have, the way she so clearly popped out in terms of looks from the entire rest of the family. But instead she faded into the background, like she had been somehow washed out by the Southern California sun.

  Reema, their youngest sister, was off somewhere in the backyard. She was still twelve, still full of energy, still full of childhood. She wasn’t quite as dark as Sana, but she was nice and brown from all her time in the sun. She would hang on the edges of their conversation, but often found it too boring, too grown-up. She was still made for imagination and adventure. Sana remembered being that age, when anything was possible and nobody made you pay too much attention to what was going on.

  Sana had quit flitting around the backyard when she was ten, though. What a luxury those two extra years might have been. She wished she’d taken them when she’d had the chance.

  Jas snorted. “Bo-ring. Who wants to talk about water polo?”

  “Some people have goals,” said Lilah to her sister. “Like a sports scholarship to college.”

  “And some people have fun,” said Jas, who, for added emphasis and maturity, had stuck out her tongue to her younger sister.

  “Girls!” Mamani walked in, catching them at their worst moment. “None of this silly expression! You cannot be serious with your faces like that. Jasmine, apologize to your sister. And to me. I shouldn’t have to see my granddaughters’ faces like that. It isn’t ladylike.”

  Jas flashed a look in Sana’s direction, then gave a pretty apology to Mamani and then to her younger sister. Mamani nodded and went to refresh her iced tea.

  The maid, Leni, came in just then, uttering the phrase, “Dinner is ready,” and then popped back out of the room.

  Sana would never get used to that. She’d forget sometimes that her grandparents had staff in their homes. Mamani still cooked—nobody could make tahdig like Mamani and she wouldn’t let anyone know her secrets, not even her daughters or granddaughters. Not yet. The crowd of cousins and aunties and uncles shuffled out of the room and into the dining area.

  Sana’s father, who she had managed to avoid so far, sat beside her grandfather near the head of the large oval table. Mamani sat on the other end, next to Zain Mama. And because Mamani could be cruel to be kind, she’d sat Mom opposite her father, thinking to rekindle what had been lost sixteen years ago.

  It was ironic that the thing that caused such strife between Mom and Mamani was the trait that Mom had inherited directly from Mamani. Neither one would ever give up. Or give in. They had a goal in mind and they would work toward it, come the end of time.

  If only they could stop picking goals that were inevitably in conflict with each other.

  The family all took their seats around the table. In the middle sat a large platter of saffron rice, surrounded by chicken and lamb and grilled vegetables, salad, and stew. The stew was Sana’s favorite by far—chicken so tender it practically fell off the bone, tangy from the pomegranate syrup, a bit of crunch from walnuts, and a perfect cinnamon depth to round it all off. Most of the food served at her grandparents’ house was Persian, because Mamani was in charge of the kitchen and Dadu didn’t honestly care as long as the food tasted good. It was like some strange separation of church and state—Persian food in the house and Indian restaurants when they went out to dinner.

  As soon as Leni had set down the last dish, she scuttled out of the room.

  “Eat,” said Dadu, spreading his arms wide. “Eat.”

  Massoud looked across the table at Sana, who pointedly looked away from his gaze. She didn’t want to communicate in silence with her father. She didn’t want to communicate in any way with him, really. She wanted him to go away, wanted to ignore the pang building in her chest thinking about how he knew she hadn’t put down her deposit, wanted to get up from the table and scream.

  Instead, Sana turned to Lilah. “Could you pass the fesenjan, please?”

  Lilah passed the stew, a curious look in her eye. “Have you picked your dorm for college yet?”

  Fear clenched at Sana’s stomach. She hadn’t been forced to lie directly yet and she didn’t want to have to.

  Luckily, Jas snorted and interrupted the conversation. “Can we please talk about something other than school? I get enough of that during the week.”

  “You’ll have no future if you talk like that,” said Mamani from the
ir own end of the table.

  Sana watched as Jas suppressed an eye roll and a groan. They were all of them constantly doing that—suppressing a feeling and performing another one. The smooth, even keel of a family that behaved well at dinner. That did their duty properly and without fuss.

  That was, until Reema spoke up.

  “Not everyone excels in school to excel in life.” Reema sat up primly.

  The entire table’s worth of eyes swiveled to her.

  The tension in Sana’s stomach hadn’t subsided. But Reema had struck a nerve, and Sana needed to understand what she meant. Even if Sana’s stomach did another flip as she spoke. “What do you mean?”

  “You don’t have to do well in school to find your way in life.” Reema shrugged. “Your mother did all right, didn’t she? And she had to quit school.”

  You could have heard a pin drop around that table, the room went so silent. Even Leni, who had been coming through the entryway to collect plates had paused, and slowly backed away with a light tread.

  “I don’t think that’s the lesson they meant you or anyone to take from my experience.” Mom laughed. She was playing it all off as a joke, trying to keep from being the center of this horrible attention. Trying to save Reema from a lecture at home later.

  “But you figured it out. You never did well in school. They always say you didn’t. And I know they want me to get a lesson about working hard in school. But you don’t get to pick the lessons you learn, do you? Even when you’re trying to teach something directly. You made something of your life even though everyone said you wouldn’t. And it wasn’t about school. You worked with your hands, you figured out carpentry. From this house to carpentry.” Reema was staring at Sana’s mother. Her eyes were unflinching.

  Sana stared back openly at Reema, not knowing what to do. Reema was a girl who had seen at once too much and not quite everything. She had violated the one sacrosanct rule of the dinner table—never stop pretending that everything is all right.

  “I did what I had to do.” Mom directed all her attention toward Reema. “I shouldn’t be an example of either virtue or vice. We all do what we have to do, Reema-joon. And sometimes that’s enough. And other times it isn’t. Sometimes we get lucky. And other times we’re face-first in the mud trying to find a way to breathe while somebody is trying to kick us in the ribs. Don’t make me a heroine. Don’t make me a villain. You’ll be lucky enough to walk your own path.”

  Sana’s mother took a long gulp of her water, with an expression that longed for whiskey. She looked over toward her mother and, eyebrows raised, said, “I’ll bet you never saw that coming.”

  For a long moment, Sana held her breath. Then Mamani began to laugh, an honest laugh that Sana rarely heard out of her. After that, the conversations around the rest of the table recovered. The rest of the dinner passed peaceably enough, given the circumstances.

  After dinner, Sana’s mother made an excuse about needing to head back home before the traffic got bad. Everyone knew this was the worst kind of excuse—traffic got better as it got later, not earlier. But nobody questioned it, not after the way dinner had gone. Sana and her mother loaded themselves back into the car and drove up the 405, getting caught in some monster traffic along the way. The heat soaked through the windows and saturated the old car, causing sweat to trickle down Sana’s back, sticking to the old velveteen seats.

  But it was better than being stuck in that house with the sound of Reema’s words reverberating through Sana’s ears. Better than being reminded that there were some things that she didn’t have to stay silent about.

  If only Sana had the same courage that her mother did. The same thread of resolve that had skipped over her and landed in her twelve-year-old cousin.

  Instead, Sana let the warm car heat her body back up. Let the cloth seats scratch against her calves. Let the knowledge that she was lying to them all—about Princeton, about her fellowship application, about potentially what she wanted from her life—wash over her in waves that coincided with the thumps of the seams in the freeway concrete.

  April 15

  16 Days Until Deadline

  11

  I Know Every Cop in Town, Bucko

  Sana

  Sana leaned up against her locker. She’d asked Rachel for a copy of the current shooting script as the film stood right now. Rachel had sent Sana the shooting script—the one for tomorrow—and the entire tome of shooting scripts—what Rachel had already used and had footage of. Sana wanted to give the entire movie some serious feedback. Sana had looked up online how you were supposed to print out a script—three-holed paper, but with tiny brads put into only the top and bottom holes. Industry standard, apparently.

  That’s how Sana was now reading the script, flipping pages and scribbling notes throughout. It was more fun than sitting on the sidelines of her next cheerleading practice. And much easier to face than the packet of dorm selections and deposit materials that Sana was still avoiding. She hadn’t heard back from her fellowship yet. Maybe she could spot where Rachel’s hang-up was to begin with.

  There were three problems that popped out pretty immediately to Sana as she read.

  The first was this—The Odyssey was really lots of short stories that had been cobbled together to make a much bigger story. It was kind of naturally already a mess. What worked for epic poetry, well, didn’t necessarily make a great direct translation onto film. Rachel had been clever—she’d connected all those stories through a character. But Cassandra—the tragic princess of Troy who predicted the city’s destruction—was the expected feminist choice. The girl who was never listened to, finally seen through the eyes of a female filmmaker. It was honestly so obvious, so overdone, so clichéd. If Rachel was going to use Cassandra, she had to at least find a new way of using her as storytelling glue.

  The second problem was scope. Rachel had bitten off one of the longest, largest, most epic stories taught in the English language. Only George Eliot and Charles Dickens could rival the sheer number of plotlines running through this script. But this problem was much like the first—the film needed a strong, continuous thread that kept the whole story together. A through line.

  An unexpected through line.

  But finally, Sana was increasingly convinced that Rachel simply hated beautiful people. There was no other explanation for the sheer disdain that came through whenever Helen of Troy was on the page. Helen had been flattened out into the worst sort of spoiled little rich girl trope. The disdain, the mocking, it came from everywhere—the lines that established the action and the setting, the dialogue of Cassandra as she narrated, Paris when he spoke to her, and even Helen, who couldn’t take herself seriously.

  All those years ago, Sana had assumed that Rachel’s hatred had stopped with Sana.

  This was a whole new depth.

  Sana was scribbling when she heard a noise down the hall. Rachel had gotten to her locker. Rachel twisted the dial to her lock—once, twice, then the final spin and it ought to have opened. But Rachel’s door was jammed. She pulled the metal lever up and down over and over again, to no avail.

  Sana pushed on her hand, ready to get up and help, but the locker clicked open, finally, and Rachel swung the door open so hard it slammed and rattled into the neighboring door. Nobody else in the hallway noticed, because few people ever took notice of Rachel.

  But Sana saw her. Always had. Maybe she always would.

  Sana landed back on her seat on the floor. But she needed to be noticed, needed to be seen, too. “Hey.”

  Rachel turned around several times before looking down. “Hey yourself.”

  “I was just reading the latest script for tomorrow. I’ve got notes.” Sana smiled, hoping Rachel would head her way. It was only three or four feet, but it felt like an unbridgeable gap. Like an amount of distance that Sana couldn’t cross, no matter how hard she might try.

  “We have to shoot off the script I gave you. Like, tomorrow.” Rachel took the script, began flipping throug
h it, seeing all of Sana’s comments. “It’s still my film, Khan.”

  That was the first time Rachel had said her last name without making it sound like she’d meant something unpleasant or disgusting. Like it was a friendly kind of nickname rather than an insult. Rachel walked over. She stood close enough to tower over a still-seated Sana.

  Sana wasn’t going to flinch away from Rachel, even if her eyes were crystalline and brown and devastating to look into. “But film is collaborative. It’s all of our film, too. And I’ve got notes. Unless you’re going back on our deal.”

  Rachel collapsed into a cross-legged heap beside Sana. Her knees whispered against Sana’s. “Fine,” she said as she began reading in earnest.

  Sana did what she could to keep her voice and her hands steady. “Helen’s your through line. The glue to the story. Not Cassandra.”

  “You’re joking.” But Rachel was thumbing through the pages. Flipping through the notes rapidly now that she had a sense of them. “Goddammit. How did you see that?”

  “If Helen gets to tell the story, she’s not an object. I mean, also, she’s still your idea of who she is. But Helen has always been that way. Does she run off with Paris? Is she abducted? Seduced? Does she ascend to Mount Olympus in the end? Regret her choices? Hate Paris? Love him? Happily resume the role of wife and queen and mother of Sparta? The only thing anyone can really agree on is this—Helen was found missing from her husband’s home and then her husband started a war. That’s it.”

  Rachel snorted, but she leaned closer. She set the paper on the floor and began scribbling her notes across it. “I think you might be the only person in the history of the planet to feel so sorry for a beautiful, perfect princess.”

  Rachel’s hair was accidentally tickling against Sana’s knee now.

  Sana didn’t dare move, didn’t dare startle Rachel. If she sat still, maybe Rachel wouldn’t pull away. “I don’t feel sorry for her.”