Bittersweet

by Shewanda Pugh

  “Who’s here?” Edy said.

  “Twins of course, Jessica and Alyssa, Lawrence and Chloe, me and you.”

  Hassan grabbed their luggage and hauled it into a party well underway.

  “And here I thought you two pulled over for some old fashioned necking,” Matt said, greeting them at the door. The youngest of the Dyson twins pulled Edy into a hug before accepting her bag from Hassan. He let it hit the floor with a grunt. “You women pack so much for an overnight stay.”

  “I didn’t pack. Hassan did,” Edy said.

  “That’s what I said. ‘You women pack so much.’” Matt dodged Hassan’s blow to the arm for the most part, but laughed when it clipped him. “You dirty dog. I think you really tried to hurt me. But I love you still.”

  He looped an arm around Hassan’s neck and the two bumbled and fought all the way upstairs.

  On pulling up, Edy had been taken aback by the coziness of the cabin, given that the Dysons owned it. They had property in a handful of countries and none of it conjured an intimate feel. Once, as a kid, Edy spent spring break with the family in Maui. Even on arriving on the island, she kept expecting to head to a resort, like she would with her family. It turned out that they had a mansion away from home, complete with a private stretch of sand.

  Chandeliers in a cabin. A winding staircase to the second floor. A stretch of oriental carpet centered in the room. Okay, so ‘cozy’ didn’t exactly describe the place. Edy slipped off her coat, hung it, took off her shoes, and ventured across wide open polished wood in exploration.

  Muted sounds found her down the hall. Laughter, shouts.

  The second Edy stepped in the room, her lashes flew up. A massive round bed sat at the back of the room. Facing it was an oversized hot tub; both were lit with sky lights in exposed overhead beams. A movie screen with theatre seats stood opposite it all.

  “I told them to stay out this room,” Lawrence said from his seat on the edge of the bed. “No one listened to me.”

  Chloe sat on the edge of the bed next to him, with Alyssa, Jessica and Mason, lounging on the semi arched theater seats. No two of them carried the same drink.

  Edy felt her face crinkle. “Is this your parents’ bedroom, Lawrence?” Yuck.

  He shook his head. “You think I’d be sitting here if it was? That’s upstairs. This is just…” He let it dangle in the air. A spare? Their playroom? Edy didn’t want to know.

  Chloe found her for a hug. “Hey. Are you okay?” she whispered. “You look as put out as Lawrence down here. More so, I think.” She rubbed Edy’s arm a bit.

  Edy scowled. “It’s a long story,” she said.

  “Meaning a long Hassan story.”

  Edy shrugged. A concession.

  “Be back in a sec,” Mason said.

  “Me too,” Lawrence said.

  “Sure you will. Tell your friend I said ‘hi,’” Edy snapped.

  An odd thing happened for her just then. The boys floated away, while the girls gathered closer. Alyssa sat her frosted pink drink aside and said too loud, “Well? What did he do? And how do we make him pay?”

  ~~~

  Hassan dropped onto the leather couch, stretched his legs out before him, and laced his hands before reaching for the ceiling. Tension pulled and knotted every little muscles, gritting his teeth and trying for the last of his patience.

  “So,” Mason said and leaned against a wall. “Edy looked mad.”

  “Just Edy, huh?” Hassan said.

  Matt stretched out on the opposite couch as if he had all night, crossing his legs and closing his eyes. “Whatever happened, you’re in the wrong, Sawn. Apologize so we can go back to the fun.”

  Hassan snorted out a laugh before realizing he was serious. What was this, the Edy Phelps rally?

  “My man, you have seriously been the center of your own universe since your Patriots letter arrived,” Mason said.

  “And worse since the ESPN write up,” Matt added.

  “Self centered. Unbearable. That’s coming from the Dyson twins,” Mason said.

  “Everyone knows we love being the center of attention,” Matt said.

  “But there’s an art to it,” Mason continued. “And you, my friend, are artless.”

  “Artless. Self centered. Unbearable,” Matt said.

  “Man! If you have a point,” Hassan said. “You better get to it.”

  Mason sighed. “Just tell us what happened already.”

  So Hassan ran through the gist of it and waited for their response.

  Three pairs of eyes stared back at him. The twins flinched at least once. Lawrence frowned in bewilderment.

  Okay. So maybe they needed the back story for the back story.

  “Listen. We talked about being together after high school,” Hassan said. He looked at Lawrence for help. Why was he examining him like wizened meat from the fridge? Pitch in. Nod. Do something. “Anyway,” Hassan said with a pointed look at Lawrence. “She said she wanted to be with me after high school. I guess she’s reconsidering that.”

  “Wow. If your head gets any bigger I will crack it for you.” Matt said. “Because you and me can’t fit in here.”

  “By ‘be with you,’” Mason said carefully. “You mean what? Break it down for us, little bro.”

  Hassan sighed. He didn’t understand how something so simple and romantic had crumpled into a conference of guys in an adjacent state with his girl clear across the house.

  “She doesn’t want to go to Harvard, but she wants to go to college, right?” Hassan said. “Well, there’s no such thing as ballet college with a football team. It just doesn’t exist. But tons of colleges have dance programs. This is so simple. It makes sense for her to follow me.”

  Matt blew out an exasperated exhale. Mason dropped into an available armchair. Even before Hassan glanced at Lawrence, he felt him go still.

  “First, figure out where ballerinas go for advanced training,” Mason said. “It may not be called ‘ballet college’, but I’ll bet she’s mentioned it. And I’ll bet she mentioned it back when you were riding the bench and cared enough to pay attention.”

  Hassan scorched. He scorched like desert winds set ablaze. It forked through his body and ignited his veins, tensing his jaw and willing his tongue to ignite.

  Of all the things in life he’d been accused of, not caring for Edy had never been one of them. He could have laughed at the absurdity of that, if every grain of his life hadn’t been touched, tinged, transformed by loving Edy Phelps.

  “Care enough to pay attention?” Hassan spat. “I love her. I don’t mind saying so.”

  “Good,” Mason said. “Then the least can you do is pull out your phone and do your research instead of insulting the girl. We’ll help. Let’s do it now. Lord knows I’d much rather look up ballet than feel up Alyssa.” His eyes narrowed in contradiction.

  Still the cell phones came out and a few minutes later, they’d come up with the answer.

  “A pre-professional program,” Hassan said quietly. Of course. Why wouldn’t ballet have one? He suddenly felt younger than his sixteen years and dumber than ever before.

  “So, how do I fix this?” he muttered, hand cupping his face. “I mean…” He inhaled two lungs full of air and held it. What a lund he’d been on the ride up—rushing on about himself, not even bothering to ask how practice had gone, not bothering to ask how she felt. He remembered all his days of vomiting, not gone but likely on hiatus until the fall. She’d always been a touch away for him. He had to get supporting her right.

  And the garbage about her coming with him. Her following him. Why had he cut the wings out from under her? Him of all people, who had seen her mother, father, almost everyone short change her on her talents? She never gave herself room to hope because no one else, least of all her parents, had ever encouraged hope in her. He got that. He got that better than anyone, because those same parents encouraged hope in him. That’s how nasty their world turned. And he—Hassan—all while claiming to love
her best of all, had fallen in step with the rest.

  Sickness simmered in his belly.

  “I need to go talk to her.”

  On the way out, he passed Lawrence, still harboring that look of pasted incredulity.

  Once the guys regrouped with the girls, they were back on schedule and gathered downstairs in the hot tub-theater where they argued over whether to watch The Godfather or Coming to America. While Hassan never sided against The Godfather, he knew anything that would make Edy laugh could help his case at this point. Except she circumvented him by voting for The Godfather and glared as if she’d make him an offer he couldn’t refuse.

  The Godfather won the vote.

  Instead of reclining on the oversized theater seats in the darkened room, the group sat in a huddle on the carpeted floor, couple with couple, each with their own set of blankets.

  “Cake,” Hassan whispered, soft enough and close enough to brush her ear with wet lips. “Listen, please. I know I was a chālāk. I’m sorry.” The flicker of screen lighting illuminated her neck, and he couldn’t help himself, he reached out and brushed her there with fingertips. She inhaled sharp and her lashes fluttered, though her eyes remained trained on the big screen.

  “I don’t want to be without you,” he said. Hassan thought back to the summer she spent in New York. He’d been a wreck then, pretending not to love her while chasing down dead ends, pushing back rage, and telling himself constantly that something, anything except Edy was the solution to his pain.

  But it was more than loving her and not saying so that had strangled him. He’d missed his first friend, his oldest friend. He’d missed hugging her and seeing her across the dinner table. Or having her draped in his old tees unapologetically. He’d missed throwing a look through his bedroom window and finding a glimpse of her, a hint of her, anything but closed curtains. He’d missed the feel of Edy right there, always. For the first time, he sensed her drifting.

  Couldn’t she feel it, too?

  Hassan’s lips brushed her neck, then hesitated, heart pounding with the certainty of rejection. All around him were cocoons of private little worlds, whispering, giggling, heads together, eyes everywhere but the screen before them.

  “Edy,” he said, and trailed fingers down her arm. “Let me make things up to you.”

  “Stop, Hassan.” She brushed his hand like a fly. “I’m trying to watch the movie.”

  Cheeks flaming, he pulled back and straightened up for the film. It was one they’d seen a thousand times. One they both owned.

  Twenty-One

  Freezing rain gave way to shivers of budding blooms and eventual blue skies as the days trooped on. Warmth came in snatches, then bursts, heating over chilled bones as if sprinting toward summer.

  It all came fast: the double long Westside practices, the arrival of less than stellar midterms that she hid from everyone—Hassan included, and the first performance for a sold out crowd.

  On opening night and from the curtains, Edy spied Hassan, her father, the Pradhans and Dysons in prime real estate near the front. Despite all her huffing and perfectionist-like nature, her part was small. Like, piddly small. But it didn’t stop the twins from whooping her on in a hushed theater the moment they realized their girl was a gang member.

  “Edy! Yeah!”

  Oh God. Was that a stutter step? Never. A near-tangle of the feet? Not ever. She’d died of humiliation and been buried in neon lights with everyone scream-laughing at her funeral.

  Lock the audience away. Focus on the music, the body, the dance; resurrect beauty from horror. ‘Go,’ she imagined Hassan saying, in impatience. ‘Take what’s already yours.’ Night after night, week after week, she’d done this, all in exacting perfection. ‘One more time,’ Hassan whispered for her. It was hers.

  It was done.

  They did other shows over a ten day stretch before ushering on to New York, L.A., and Helsinki each on a series of weekends. Edy had needed permission from both parents to travel to Finland; she’d met her mother at her Government Center campaign headquarters and got her signature under the flash of reporters’ cameras. Afterward, she had to endure a speech about the importance of art in education. That was the trade off they agreed on, a quid pro quo.

  Westside returned to Boston for its final night. After the last curtain fell, Hassan surprised Edy backstage with a bouquet of calla lilies. The aws were enough to drop her through the floor. At the moment Edy moved in to kiss him in appreciation, his mouth curled up and he shook his head a tad. It was then that she caught sight of his mother and, God help her, Vivian Kent.

  So it turned out to be true. Vivian Kent was someone Rani knew, and she had praise for Edy. They hadn’t come together, but Rani spotted her after the show and together they’d come to speak with her. Backstage, motion ceased with the arrival of Vi; ears cocked as she expressed ‘an interest in Edy’s future.’ Willing herself not to foam at the mouth, Edy nodded like a bobble head, backed away, and disappeared to change before bursting with a scream.

  ~~~

  The door to the Pradhan house stood open to Edy once again. Under her arm was a copy of the same dance magazine that included Rani’s friend, Vivian. Worn down and rolled up a thousand times over, Edy rolled it a thousand and one as she shoved it in her fist and made her entrance.

  Rani cooked too much for breakfast. She always did these days. With Hassan forever training and Ali at work, the house echoed in silence, begging for company. Edy found herself slipping back into her old role at Rani’s side: swallowing as much lassi as she made or begging for Indian junk food; papri chaat being her favorite. Whenever in Delhi, she and Hassan grabbed it from street vendors and got busy gouging. That and the naan couldn’t be missed.

  Edy and Rani talked ballet nonstop. She shared her memories of Vi while Edy gushed about Westside. They never talked about Hassan or the kiss or the arranged marriage, either. Instead, they drowned in details of the dance company: what it meant to brush against the accomplished or have another address her by name. Leap by leap they were growing close again. Edy wouldn’t push Rani into accepting her relationship with Hassan. It was enough that she knew about it and still talked to her.

  “Have you heard much about your friend?” Rani asked one day as she took a seat at the breakfast nook. She beckoned for Edy to come over.

  Such a simple question. Or maybe not. What constituted hearing ‘much’ about someone, Edy wondered.

  “You mean Wyatt,” she said.

  Rani studied her with a critical eye. “He’s no longer your friend.” Not a question. She hadn’t bothered with the question. In her words there was judgment, condemnation.

  “No,” Edy said. She wasn’t about to explain why.

  Rani bit her lip, peach gloss illuminating under steady light. “You do not wish to change this?”

  Edy studied the whorls of the table before her, willing it to answer so she wouldn’t have to.

  “You miss him,” Rani said and Edy looked up, eyes sweeping, searching, seeking out a stray listener. Wyatt was dangerous territory for her and Hassan.

  “You miss him,” Rani pressed.

  Edy shook her head. She couldn’t confide in her, not about this. She wouldn’t understand that the answer lay beneath rubble, beneath a time bomb, beneath a tangle of half sorted truths?

  “If you care for him,” Rani said. “If you’re sincere, then you must talk to him.”

  “No,” Edy said.

  “You are unforgiving. You’re unforgiving even as you expect others to look past your shortcomings. Perhaps you judge without appreciation of the facts.”

  The table took on special interest as Edy sat there in silence, alone with her thoughts, with Rani’s words, with her life as it had become. How much of the facts did Hassan’s mother know? All of them? Any of them? None of them at all? For the first time, Edy considered Wyatt might have an alternate view of what happened with his cousin, and Edy, like so many others had never given it a voice. She was—or had been�
�his friend, his best friend, his only friend. Didn’t she owe him the allegiance she gave Mason or Matt? No paper would have convinced her they’d done something so awful. And she definitely wouldn’t have condemned either one without hearing their side.

  You’re unforgiving. You judge without appreciation of the facts. Rani said it all as if she knew or understood. What if she hadn’t just meant Wyatt and Edy? What if she meant the arranged marriage, too? You judge without appreciation of the facts. Were there facts she didn’t know? Did it matter? Would it change how she felt?

  Rani or Hassan, Hassan or Rani, a mother’s love, a soul mate, is that what she asked? Choose one. Choose wisely. Choose now, Edy Phelps. The wrong choice brings regret.

  The right choice brings regret.

  Twenty-Two

  Sandra met Edy at the place where they agreed. Edy stood in the halo of sunset watching her blonde tresses flutter from the bench where she sat. There was still time to walk away, still time to be sensible.

  Edy scooted in next to Sandra. Neither girl looked at the other.

  “He’s not any better, is he?” Edy said. She didn’t know why she asked. She already knew the answer.

  Sandra inhaled deep and ventured a look at her. When she closed her eyes, she drew back and exhaled in a gust. “Leave it alone, Edy. Leave him alone. Please.”

  ‘Please.’ What a pitiful word coming from Sandra.

  “Is it true he’s dropped out of school?” Edy said.

  Warning. A look of warning.

  It sparked through Edy, igniting rage. “You can’t tell me how he’s doing? You can’t tell me if he’s dropped out? I put him in this situation, Sandra! Me! Please!”

  Her father had given her the one update. There hadn’t been any more news after that, other than the same churning rumor mill at school. He’d died three times in that and her nerves couldn’t take a fourth.

  “Reggie put him there,” Sandra said, eyes on the dark and winding Charles River. “He confessed. This is the tidbit I’m reminded of every Wednesday at 4 p.m., faithfully.”