“So apparently, I was wrong,” Ashish said to them, smiling jauntily for Dana’s benefit, just in case she was still looking at him. “I can sink lower. I’ve broken through the bottom of the barrel to the quicksand below.”
“Dude, what’re you talking about?” Elijah said.
Oliver grinned. “She kissed you, my man. On the cheek, but still. That’s progress.”
“Yeah, it was totally disgusting to watch, but I’m happy for you,” Pinky said, stepping up to grab her burrito. “Really.”
“Believe me, it’s not what it looked like,” Ashish said, feeling bad about bursting their optimistic little bubbles.
Once they all had their food, they sat at their usual table by the big window that overlooked the organic garden.
“So what happened?” Pinky said, tearing off a big bite of her burrito. “You were supposed to ask her out.”
“I tried,” Ashish said. A concrete wall of hot shame slammed into him as he recalled saying the words “past my prime” to three incredibly hot girls. What the hell? “I ended up telling her about Celia breaking up with me instead.” He said the rest quickly and quietly, needing to get it off his chest but also hoping the others wouldn’t hear. “And I might also have moaned about how much I suck at basketball and compared myself to a broken chandelier.”
Elijah groaned, but Oliver silenced him with a glare.
Ashish took an aggressively nonchalant bite of his sausage burrito, to show he didn’t care that he’d just embarrassed himself in front of three of the school’s cutest girls. A guy had to retain some self-respect, even if it was all bullshit.
The burrito was Richmond Academy’s specialty spicy cardboard flavor. Awesome. “Wait.” Pinky gave him a funny look. “Were you in love with Celia or something?”
Ashish looked slowly around the table at them all. “Uh. Yeah. And she didn’t feel the same way at all, so now I’m just some high school man-baby she can laugh about.” Oops. He hadn’t meant to say that last part. Talk about super-not-cool.
Everyone was staring at him in silence, their eyes wide. Shocked that Ashish Patel, player extraordinaire, had been in love. And that he was now completely wrecked as a result. The pity on their faces was the freaking cherry on top of everything, a special prize, just in case he wasn’t feeling like enough of a loser already.
Pushing his tray back, Ashish stood. “You know what? I … I’m going home.” And then he walked right out of the cafeteria, not even turning around when he heard his best friends call his name.
Sweetie held the shampoo bottle up to her mouth. It helped her get into the right headspace. In here she wasn’t just Sweetie, she was Sizzling Sweetie, Sexy Shower-Singing Sorceress. She liked alliteration, what could she say?
“R-E-S-P-E-C-T!” she belted out.
Kayla, Suki, and Izzy shouted the next lyrics back.
“R-E-S-P-E-C-T!” Sweetie sang again.
“Gimme those Jujubes!” Izzy sang, at the same time that Kayla sang, “Open sesame!” and Suki sang, “Mayfair, pretty puh-lease!”
They stopped suddenly, and then Kayla said, “Jujubes? Are you kidding me, Izzy?”
“Oh, like ‘Open sesame’ is any better?” Suki retorted from her shower stall.
“What about ‘Mayfair’?” Izzy said. “That doesn’t even make sense!”
“What does Jujubes even mean?” Suki said.
“Nothing, that’s what,” Kayla said. “If you ask me …”
Sweetie knew the argument could go on forever, so she just launched into the following stanza. The others fell quiet, listening.
This was how they were, their postpractice showers. The other girls on the team didn’t even say anything; they enjoyed it when Sweetie began to sing.
She shimmied in the shower, her round, robust voice echoing across the tile like a symphony of clear bells, bouncing off the glinting silver faucet and showerhead. When she was done, she bowed her head, letting the water rush over her, her arms held up high and triumphant.
There was thunderous applause, just like every other time. Sweetie closed her eyes and smiled, enjoying this one moment when she felt supremely confident and unquestionably beautiful.
Then as the last of the applause faded, she sighed, turned off the shower, and reached for her towel.
Out by her locker, Sweetie dried off and climbed into her clothes quickly. She didn’t even know why she was moving quickly. … It wasn’t like Kayla, Suki, and Izzy would judge her. But Amma’s voice echoed in her head: Cover your legs and your arms. Until you lose weight, you shouldn’t wear sleeveless tops and shorts. If her mother felt that strongly about a sleeveless shirt, she could imagine what she’d say about Sweetie being naked in the girls’ locker room.
“You slayed it, as usual!” Kayla called from her locker. Her deep-brown skin was flawless, her abdomen toned and her legs shapely. She didn’t rush to put on her clothes.
“Thanks. You weren’t so bad yourself.” Sweetie smiled, trying to shake off her thoughts. She’d kicked butt on the track today, beating her own best time on the 1600 meter run. She should be feeling nothing but happiness. My body is strong and does everything I want it to do, she told herself, repeating the mantra she’d always chanted silently after one of Amma’s “motivational” talks. I’m the fastest runner at Piedmont High School, and the second-fastest high school student in the state of California.
It was true, too. Sweetie could leave anyone in the dust. There was a reason the local paper had called her the Piedmont Road Runner recently (but it had been a mistake to read the comments on the online article—those were full of people who couldn’t stop asking variants of the asinine question, How does she lug all of that around the track?). Coach was always telling her she could get a scholarship to pretty much any college if she kept it up.
“Hoo, check this out!” Suki called from her locker. She’d thrown on a skirt and a top and was sitting on the bench, bent over her cell phone as usual, her straight black hair all wet.
They gathered around her. It was a picture of a handsome guy in a basketball jersey on the sports page of the Times of Atherton, the local paper.
“Ashish Patel at last weekend’s game,” Izzy said, leaning in. Her pale cheeks were flushed from the hot shower. “Yum-eeee.”
“I heard he led Richmond to another victory,” Kayla said. “He’s their golden goose. Coach Stevens wants to poach him.”
“Good luck with that,” Izzy scoffed. “His dad’s the CEO of Global Comm. His kind of money would never go to a school like Piedmont.”
Sweetie laughed. “We’re not a hovel. But yeah, we’re definitely not the Ivy League incubator that Richmond is either.” She crossed her arms, frowning a little as she looked at Ashish’s picture. “Is it just me or does he look kinda sad to you guys?”
Kayla, Izzy, and Suki just looked at her blankly.
“What would he have to be sad about?” Kayla said. “The boy’s got everything.”
Maybe on paper, Sweetie thought.
“Why? Is your Sweetie Sense going off?” Suki said, laughing.
Sweetie felt her cheeks get warm. She’d always been perceptive, prone to listening to her intuition about people. But Suki thought it was a bunch of crap, that Sweetie just believed what she wanted to believe. Who knew, maybe Suki was correct.
“Yeah, you guys are probably right.” Slinging her bag over her shoulder, Sweetie said, “Hey, want to get some breakfast before class?”
Suki put her phone away, and her friends all stood, laughing and talking about how Coach had seemed even more stressed out today than usual, chewing viciously on a wad of gum. Then she’d yelled at Andrea for not giving 110 percent and had almost choked on it.
Sweetie kept one ear on the conversation, but her mind kept drifting back to the picture of Ashish Patel at his basketball game. What did a boy like that have to be sad about? Sweetie gave herself a mental shake. Come on, what do you care? It’s not like you’ll ever find out.
CHAP
TER 2
Ditching school was a nonevent, as always. Ashish had made a digital copy freshman year of the one legit pass he’d gotten to go off-campus, and he’d been printing it out and reusing it ever since. Updating their passes to stave off delinquents like Ash obviously wasn’t high on Richmond’s priority list.
Ashish parked the Jeep in his circular driveway and trudged up the marble stairs into the house.
The moment Ma saw him, she rushed up and put her hand on his forehead. “Kya hua? Sardi hai, beta? Bukhar hai? Bolo na, kya hua?”
Ashish tried not to cringe away at the litany of questions about his health. Usually he let her think he was sick when he ditched, but today he just didn’t have the energy. “No, Ma, I don’t have a cold or a fever. I’m just …” They walked together through the foyer into the large den. Ashish took his favorite chair and Ma sat next to him on the ottoman. He leaned his head back and closed his eyes, sighing as she ran her fingers through his hair. “Girl trouble, Ma. Girl trouble.”
Her fingers stilled for just a moment before she began combing again. It was no secret that Ma, especially, intensely disagreed with Ashish’s badmashi, or “mischief,” as she called it. Pappa tended to look the other way, chalking Ashish’s medley of girlfriends up to his youth, or as he liked to say, Ashish’s javaani. Recently, though, he’d looked pretty annoyed at all the texts Ashish was sending Celia, as if he thought even javaani should have some kind of limit.
Ashish thought both Ma and Pappa had been secretly relieved when the texts stopped, maybe taking it as a sign of their younger son hopefully becoming more mature and seeing the error of his ways. Ha. As if. That would be Rishi, Ashish’s older brother and golden child. Ashish would always be the black sheep, the dark horse, the coal sack to Rishi’s freaking diamonds—
“Celia ke sath kuch hua?”
“Haan. She broke up with me for good.” He gave her a moment to wipe the smile he knew was there off her face before he rolled his head to look at her. “It really sucks, Ma. I thought we were serious. Like, I thought that at some point she’d get tired of being without me and come back. I mean, seriously, how could any girl not want this?” He made a vague gesture at his person. This was more information than he’d ever shared about his love life with her, but Ma’s outward appearance belied any internal screaming that might be going on.
“Dude. Celia dumped you?”
Both Ashish and Ma looked up, and then Ashish groaned. Great. “Samir,” he said, straightening and glaring at the Indian boy in front of him. “What sewer did you crawl out of?”
Ma slapped his knee and got up. “Don’t be rude to Samir. I invited him and Deepika auntie over.”
“That’s right.” Samir grinned and sauntered over, then lounged on the couch like it belonged to him. Well, he’d been over often enough that it sorta did.
Samir and Ashish had been frenemies since they were eight years old and Samir’s family moved into the nearby estate. Rishi, of course, got along with him just fine. But what annoyed Ashish about Samir was his self-assurance. The guy didn’t play sports and was homeschooled (the only Indian kid Ashish knew who was). As if that weren’t enough, he was completely smothered by his overbearing mother, whose only fear was that something bad would befall her only child. Deepika auntie told anyone who’d listen that her little miracle was born with a caul on his face, which apparently was a bad omen and required constant attention to ward off lurking evil. (Ashish had looked up what a caul was online. … Big mistake. Talk about lifelong nightmares.) Still, in spite of everything, Samir thought he was a gift to everyone.
Rishi always joked that Ashish’s and Samir’s egos couldn’t coexist even in the mansion they lived in, and maybe that was true. All Ashish knew was that Samir was not the person he’d want knowing his deepest, darkest secrets, and now he did anyway.
“Ashish!” Deepika auntie said, walking through the door. “Why aren’t you in school?”
Ashish opened his mouth, but nothing came out. Even his ability to think on his feet—previously one of his best qualities—was shaken. Damn.
“He had a fever at school, so I let him come home,” Ma said, winking at him when no one was looking. Ashish pretended not to see, just to salvage the tatters of his own ego. He didn’t need rescuing, and especially not from Ma.
“‘Fever.’ Riiiight. Tell me what really happened, man,” Samir said as Deepika auntie and Ma headed off to the kitchen, probably to get chai and snacks. “Last I heard, you couldn’t stop bragging about your college girl and how hot she was.”
Samir, of course, wasn’t allowed to date. Deepika auntie said girls couldn’t be trusted not to break her beautiful son’s fragile heart, so when he was old enough (say, around forty-five or so), she’d find him a suitable girl. Even Rishi and his perfect Stanford-attending girlfriend Dimple’s happy story wasn’t enough to change her mind.
“We’ve been broken up for three months. It’s, like, not big a deal at all,” Ashish said, picking up a decorative glass ball from the bowl on the table and tossing it from hand to hand. He was doing it to show Samir how little he cared about the breakup, but he also wished Ma would stay in the kitchen, because she might just kill him if she saw him. She was weirdly attached to her knickknacks.
Samir clucked his tongue. “It’s true what Mummy says, I guess. Girls can’t be trusted.”
“Whatever, man,” Ashish said, feeling the heft of the glass orb in his palm. “I don’t even know anymore.”
“So, I mean, what’s the big deal? Just find another girl.”
Ashish laughed. “Oh, yeah. Because it’s that easy. Dude, you’ve never even had a girlfriend, so, you know. Maybe STFU on this one.”
Samir’s cheeks flushed and he looked away. Ashish felt a little—a very little—bad for pouring salt in his wound. “So what?” Samir muttered. “I’ve seen you go through this a lot.”
“Fair enough,” Ashish said, because Samir really did have a point there. “I guess I don’t know. … Something’s off, man.” Then, making sure to put on an extra-nonchalant tone, he added, “I’ll figure it out, though. I always do.”
“Unless … maybe …” Samir glanced at him and then quickly away. “Nah.”
“Nah what? Unless what?” Ashish felt a prickle of curiosity. Samir never swallowed his opinions. It was one of the most annoying things about him.
“It’s just …” Samir shrugged one shoulder. “Your parents did a pretty good job with Rishi, right? Setting him up?”
Ashish raised an eyebrow. “Yeah …?”
“So, I mean, they could set you up too.”
Ashish stared at Samir for a full twenty seconds before he burst out laughing. “Dude, are you serious? My parents? They’d probably pick someone, like, totally …” Shuddering, he paused, trying to think of an appropriate comparison. “Okay. Imagine the most delicious BLT you’ve ever had.”
“Okay, easy. The one from that deli on Rivers.”
“Yeah, amazeballs, right? Now imagine if they took out the bacon, lettuce, and tomatoes. Oh, and that spicy sauce they put in there.”
Samir’s smiling face sagged. “So … just two slices of bread?”
“Exactly. That, but in girl form. No, thank you.”
Samir shook his head. “But that’s not what Dimple is. You said she’s, like, the perfect yin to Rishi’s yang.”
“Yeah, and it’d be totally different for me. My parents are constantly trying to rein me in. They’ll just get me the most boring girl in the world, hoping she can tame me or something.” He sighed and then, as he heard Ma and Deepika auntie walking toward the living room, added in a rush, “Oh, and don’t tell my mom about the BLT thing.” The whole Patel family was supposed to be vegetarian. Ha. As if Ashish would ever give up bacon. What would life even be without it?
“So, what are you two talking about?” Deepika auntie asked as Ma set a snack-and-chai-bedecked tray down on the coffee table.
“Gir—” Samir began before Ashish cut him off w
ith: “School stuff.”
They exchanged a glance; Ashish tried to make his extra withering. Samir was the kind of boy who’d share any old thought with his mom if he wasn’t prepped in advance. The guy had no filter. Whereas Ashish, now, he was a connoisseur of secrets.
“Basketball kaisa chal rahaa hai, Ashish?” Deepika auntie asked, taking a sip of her tea. “I saw your photo in the paper.”
“The season’s going really well, auntie,” Ashish said. “We’re on track to go to state.”
“Very good,” she said, smiling at Ashish and his mom.
“I think I’d like to play basketball on a school team,” Samir said sort of wistfully.
“You play at the country club,” Deepika auntie said.
“Not the same,” Samir muttered, but Ashish didn’t think his mom heard him.
“You could do your senior year at Richmond,” Ashish said, taking a cookie.
Samir opened his mouth to reply, but his mom cut him off with her laughter. “No, no,” she said. “Richmond is very nice for you, Ashish, but Samir likes to study at home with me. Na, beta?”
“Haan, Mummy,” Samir said, but his eyes were sort of bleak.
“Dude, you wanna go shoot some hoops outside?” Being around Deepika auntie sometimes made Ashish feel like he couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t even imagine what Samir felt like.
“Sure.”
They headed outside to the full-size basketball court Pappa had installed on their property freshman year, when it became clear basketball was going to be a serious thing for Ashish.
Ashish got a ball out of the ball holder in the corner and began to dribble. “So … you know you can just tell your mom you want to play at Richmond.” They’d had this conversation many times. Ashish knew it wasn’t apt to suddenly change Samir’s mind, but he couldn’t help it. Samir, as annoying as he was, was still one of his oldest friends.
“Nah, man. You know I can’t.”
Yeah, Ashish knew. Samir’s mom had been diagnosed with breast cancer seven years ago. She’d beaten it twice, but it had come back. She was now in remission again, but her overprotectiveness had started when she was first diagnosed and Samir was very young. Now that he was older, he felt too guilty to say anything. They’d never talked about it openly, but Ashish had read between the lines. “Yeah, but … still. Dude, it’s obvious you’re not happy with the current situation.”
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