Bittersweet

by Shewanda Pugh

  She showed up with a platter of thick smelling food. Wyatt’s dad answered the door, stepped aside to let her in and looked down her silk blouse as she passed. When she bent over to set the platter of treats she’d brought on the table, his dad made a pop sound with his mouth like a cork out the bottle.

  Rani Pradhan, all smiles when she turned to face them, melted away at the sight of Wyatt in the corner. He sat, plagued by shadows with a copy of Stephen King’s Running Man in his lap. He didn’t do much running these days. He supposed he enjoyed the irony.

  Hassan’s mom gasped at the sight of him. “They told me you were doing better!”

  “I am,” Wyatt said. “I’m not bleeding to death anymore.”

  His dad gave him a cut the crap look. Cut the crap looks hadn’t come when he lay pale and stuffed with tubes in the hospital. No, back then the old man had held his hand and whispered promises when he thought Wyatt slept. Promises about not drinking or smoking. Promises he couldn’t bother with now.

  But that wasn’t exactly fair. The old man had tried. He’d made a show of tossing the cigarettes and cleared the house of beer. But the place echoed without mom and all Wyatt did was mope or stare across the street, that according to his dad. So the smokes came back because they helped with his nerves. And the beer came back, because, hell, football season was starting. Every man was entitled to a cold one after a long day of work. But a cold keg seemed more like his style to Wyatt.

  Too bad his mom wasn’t around to scream down dad’s throat about the whole thing. Not that she’d helped much; she’d been a bit of a drinker herself. She never would have tolerated so many beer cans around and though Wyatt got physical therapy, he wasn’t at the point where he could bumble around keeping the place clean.

  Rani Pradhan stared at the cans.

  “Something I can help you with?” Wyatt said.

  He’d wanted to put more oomph in that, to challenge her with the question, but his lungs were scarred and his chest pained. Already, he’d grown fatigued. Holding his shoulders up was its own task. Indignation with having Hassan’s mother in his home was another.

  Rani Pradhan’s mouth turned down and her jewel-encrusted hands twisted as she fidgeted. “Is there somewhere you and I can talk? Privately, Wyatt?”

  Wyatt’s dad, who had wandered off to stuff his face with some pastries, returned with a brown stain on his shirt. “Now why, Mrs. Prad-han, would you need to talk to my boy alone? Haven’t I got a right to hear?”

  A chunk of something white spewed from his mouth. Politeness meant she pretended not to notice. Wyatt wasn’t so good at polite. He cringed.

  “Leave her alone, dad. Go enjoy your meal.”

  His father stopped chewing to glare at him. “Wyatt.”

  “Please don’t start, dad.”

  “Wyatt Green, I can’t figure if you’re a crazy dummy or a dumb crazy. Her son is her son. Whatever she has to say is good for him and them, not you. Don’t you see that?” His father came over and dropped down before him, a hand on the armrest of his chair. He knelt so close, every pockmark and pore shined even in the dimness of the lighting.

  Wyatt turned away. “Give us a minute, dad.”

  His old man sighed and rose up on joints that creaked. As he disappeared back into the kitchen, Wyatt heard the familiar spark of cigarette lighting up. It helps ease his nerves.

  “You don’t have to tell me to leave her alone. I don’t talk to her. I don’t want to.”

  Rani Pradhan moved like silk all aflutter. She moved like gracefulness with curves as she found their old couch. Maybe she thought them ill-mannered because no one had offered her a seat. That hadn’t been a coincidence though. They weren’t exactly on the same team.

  “I remember your friendship with Edy,” she said. “I remember how happy you made her. You seemed happy, too, Wyatt.”

  Did she know Edy had written to him? Did she know he’d been given hope? She met his gaze low, tentative, but tempting. She spoke soft as the whispering leaves when the wind blew. He could tell her all his secrets. He could feel her maternal warmth.

  “I was happy. She was happy.” He’d made her happy. All those laughs, hugs, her lips shaping his name. That was happiness.

  “So what happened?” Rani Pradhan said.

  Humiliation fell swift as a sword. Wyatt choked on a haze of indignation.

  “Hassan,” he managed. “Hassan happened.”

  She seemed to deliberate on this as pain speared Wyatt. He healed, yes, but at his body’s stubborn pace, held up, the doctor’s said, by his temperament and inconsistency in eating.

  “She must miss you,” Hassan’s mother pressed. “Your friendship was such a part of her life. I saw the time you spent together, and you here, like this, saddens her. I know Edy’s heart. She’s reached out to you, hasn’t she? Tried to set things right?”

  Wyatt thought about the note he carried everywhere but tried not to read. He thought of Edy curling the ‘W’ in his name, looping the ‘y’ and double crossing the ‘t’s.

  Double cross.

  “Why are you here again?” Wyatt said.

  Rani sighed. “I am here as a friend when you seem to have few. You think it’s coincidence that Edy reached out to you? I encouraged her to rekindle your friendship. I encouraged her to forgive and forget.”

  This made no sense.

  “Why would you do that? Why would you care if she’s my friend or not?”

  The jock’s mother seemed to choose her words carefully. “It’s important. More than your happiness is at stake.”

  Wyatt knew that Edy confided in Rani. She shared her troubles, her fears, her heart, everything. Could she really have told Hassan’s mother all that went on between them? Could she be pulling for him instead of her own son?

  “She contacted me. I stayed away,” Wyatt said. “I thought it was for the best.” Honest to God he wanted Edy out his system. Some days he could taste the anger between them.

  “Did she visit or …”

  Wyatt dug the note out, delivered by his cousin Sandra. Every day he fought not to reply. Every day he dug out a pen.

  The jock’s mother took the note without permission, read it, and nodded once. “Very good,” she said. “Now write her and be kind.”

  She folded the note, stood, and slipped it in the pocket of her slacks.

  Suddenly, Rani Pradhan was all out of time.

  “Wait,” Wyatt said. “What’s happening? What are you doing?”

  She flipped on him, eyes flashing, mouth suctioned to a point. “It’s occurred to me that you and I have coinciding needs. Whenever you gather strength enough to do your part in all this, you’ll wake up and realize I’ve already done mine.”

  Wyatt opened his mouth only to find she’d shut the door on his next question.

  Twenty-Six

  Junior year.

  Big news happened in threes for Hassan: the announcement that he’d been made team captain, the phone call from Sports Illustrated that they might run a small feature on him, with emphasis on ‘might’ and emphasis on ‘small,’ and the Globe predictions that Hassan and South End had little chance of survival when they faced Leahy and West Roxbury without the twins.

  Hey, everything in life couldn’t be good.

  Hassan returned to South End in his new capacity as captain a couple of weeks before school started. He figured himself prepped for the job between being the team’s star player, studying endless amounts of football, and having watched Mighty Ducks, Any Given Sunday, and Cool Runnings plenty of times. The rest of it would have to be on the job training and cojones. For some reason though, none of that silver screen preparation translated to anything other than him flailing his arms and slamming together Hindi curses in real time. His team did suck. They sucked majorly. The Globe vacuum did exist and South End needed Mason and Matt.

  It really wasn’t all about Hassan Pradhan.

  He sucked as a leader. He cursed a lot and brought a foul temper home. He had n
othing to say to his mother and slammed the door on his father’s compliments. Practices ran long, tempers short, and freshmen waited for a formal introduction to the sport.

  He couldn’t carry the team alone. He couldn’t carry the team with Lawrence, star caliber that he was. Even if Hassan could break tackles and put points up on every go, nobody, and he meant nobody, could keep up a flawless run for a flawless game for a flawless season, forever. To make it worse, his opponents wouldn’t need perfection. All they needed to do was the knock the hell out of Hassan or Lawrence.

  Edy said he didn’t need a perfect team. She reminded Hassan that Mason and Matt didn’t play every position and that Hassan wasn’t expected to either. “You’ll be a standout,” she promised him, “and you’ll win. It may not come as easy, but that’s good. You’re learning.” Learning. That’s what she called the wild churn of his stomach? Here he thought it was illness.

  School started with the usual hurrah, whispers about SATs, complaints about who got what teacher and why, and talk about the showdown against Madison High. Missing the twins nudged Georgia a little higher on his list, especially since the school expressed some interest in Hassan already.

  His Cake had been right, though. The season opener against Madison began on shaky ground, with the team looking to him for encouragement he didn’t have. Balls zipped through the air in the wrong direction, matching every desperate touchdown South End made. Whatever eloquence Hassan had eroded into his grandfather’s old Punjabi swears as he demanded to know if he and Lawrence should play defense, too. Yeah, his coach riled on him a bit, but he looked kind of appreciative, too. In the end, they pulled out a win at the high price of sanity.

  For the following week, Hassan and Lawrence dug up YouTube footage on Charlestown. Hassan spent whatever free time he could get with Nathan, piecing together his team’s few strengths. They zeroed in on offensive and defensive plays South End could make work, trying to carve out a win where there shouldn’t be one.

  It had been awhile since the two of them dug into football in quite that way; and to see Nathan light like that, pace like that, and laugh like that; it shot electricity straight through Hassan. Nathan was a man of practicality and wisdom. He believed in a way to victory; therefore, a way to victory existed. It was as simple as that.

  But that idea came on the heels of another. As Hassan wound back the clock to memories and scraps of time, he tried to remember and couldn’t if there had ever been a time when Edy saw her dad like this. Not talking about football. Not talking about work. Just … with her and happy for it. Maybe a long time ago.

  With his visit to the University of Georgia still on his mind and the sleek new paint job that turned the Mustang silver for his birthday present, Hassan eased the windows down, revved the engine and cranked the rap until he felt it vibrate right through the seats. His mother stood in the doorway for reasons only she knew, mouth twisted into all sorts of disapproval. She existed on her own plane with all her expectations. He lived on another with no hope of ever meeting her.

  Hassan made a run to the Dyson house for Lawrence, ragged on him for a bit about not accepting a new car from his parents, and whipped the Mustang down to Copley. They were slumming it out for a change, picking up a couple of video games they had their eye on and doing their best to ignore that they were minus two.

  The games didn’t take nearly as long to find as Hassan had hoped: a couple of first person shooters they wanted to get into, the latest NCAA Football and Madden NFL. When Lawrence picked up the Zoo Tycoon game, well, Hassan looked the other way, because that’s what best friends were for. They made their purchases and grabbed sneakers next. They were only an okay sort of sneakers, bought to pass time, and because there could never be too many.

  “I’m hungry,” Lawrence said as they stepped into the swarm of back and forth people.

  Great.

  “Let’s go home,” Hassan said.

  They stood in the center of Copley Place, a mall, with The Pru, also a mall, pretty much attached to the place. A walk outside would turn up all sorts of coffee shops, eateries, and full fledged restaurants with all stripes of cuisine. But Lawrence was Lawrence and Hassan didn’t want to do this.

  “I want something simple,” Lawrence said. “Field greens or a nice grilled chicken.”

  “Field greens? No. Let’s go home.” The kind of places he ate brought candles to the table, poured wine, and asked what they were celebrating.

  “But we’re already out,” Lawrence said and looked around. “There’s a French place on—”

  “No. And what kind of hungry person asks for field greens anyway? We came to get video games and hang. If you want to eat, we’ll grab fast food.”

  “Right. The cholesterol alone will choke me,” Lawrence said.

  Back with the twins, they’d simply out vote him and eat where they wanted. Some place greasy, without field greens, and only maybe the possibility of grilled chicken. He’d have to pick it off some thick piece of bread, but hey, therein lays the chicken he was after. When Lawrence gave them that hard look of his, that look that said he might go and find some new brothers and a new best friend, Hassan would show him that he, too, took one for the team. “Look at all this beef on the menu,” he said once when they were at a Chinese restaurant. “There’s hardly anything here for me to order. But I love you guys, so I suck it up, and pick from what’s available.” Then he ordered a chicken wing platter with double wings and few extra fortune cookies.

  Man, were those fortune cookies really good.

  “Listen, Lawrence. Let’s crack open the games, get lunch at your house and maybe later call over the girls? Cause I’m not—”

  “Hassan? Hassan Pradhan? Hailō?”

  He whipped at the sound of his name, at the sound of Punjabi, both familiar and foreign.

  There were two of them. A girl with shy brown eyes and the truest of smiles took a step toward him. The woman next to her placed a hand on her arm, hesitant, forbidding.

  They must have been friends of his mother. Friends of his mother he hadn’t seen in awhile and for some reason, the girl’s voice had somehow spooked him. Weird.

  “You don’t remember me,” the girl said in Punjabi.

  A woman pushing a stroller stopped next to them and adjusted a blazing blue diaper bag, before stuffing it back in the storage compartment underneath.

  “Hey, it’s good to see you and all,” Hassan said, trying to remember what his dad said when he was in a hurry. He managed politeness and scurrying off at the same time. Somehow, Hassan felt he was getting it wrong. “It’s good to see you, but I …” Yeah. He didn’t remember the rest.

  “Hassan, it’s me, Mala. Your bride-to-be.” The girl’s smile blinded him with brightness.

  ~~~

  Edy hadn’t given in to or resisted relaxing her hair chemically for philosophical reasons. She knew some girls insisted on perms or not having perms for reasons they got really charged about. And all that was fine. But when it came to Edy, she chose the path of least resistance, meaning rubber bands, braids, and a head scarf on a lazy day.

  Rani took a hot comb to her hair here and there, to straighten it and give her more styling options. At the moment, she was on her way over to do just that. With the comb plugged in and heating, Edy gave her room a critical eye. Lord, let there be no Hassan-type-embarrassments in sight. Yes, she’d seen them kiss the one night. But it had been under duress and never mentioned again. Since then, there’d been gallons of lassi and nights of Bollywood movies, whispers and giggles and hugs. Theirs was a slow troop toward mending their relationship, but Edy had confidence that they were there, or nearly there. Given that Rani knew about her and Hassan, it all felt like progress to Edy.

  Hassan’s mom swept in just as Edy snatched the corner foil of a condom wrapper from the floor. She fisted it tight and smiled.

  “What were you in the middle of?” Rani said in Punjabi.

  “Um, cleaning. You know, the usual.”


  Rani’s mouth quirked a little as Edy’s heart tried for a jail break. She brushed tendrils of lustrous hair back from searching green eyes and swept past to the hot comb and grease. Edy followed, slowing only long enough to shove the wrapper in her jean pocket. God, talk about awkwardness under a microscope.

  “So,” Rani said. “I have been talking to Vi. She thinks you should enter Youth International Ballet Competition.”

  The Youth International Ballet Competition was insanely competitive, international in scope, and with a full quarter of a million in scholarship money on the line.

  Edy thought of her 5 am mornings slapping together homework, rushing to school, rushing to practice, performance after performance, and never seeing Hassan. She’d missed him with Westside, missed him like crazy. Did she really want that insanity times ten?

  “I don’t know,” Edy said. “I should concentrate on my grades for now.”

  She’d brought home a few Bs last year and her dad went speechless. Her mom’s threat rang through clear: Do it again and the ballet gets cut. No excuses, no leeway.

  Rani draped a towel around her neck and parted Edy’s hair down the middle, from the forehead back and ear to ear. She slapped on the grease, applied the heat, and Edy’s hair sizzled. Edy jumped when fire shot straight to her scalp.

  “Sorry,” Rani muttered.

  She went on sectioning Edy’s hair, then dragging the hot comb through minute parts. Each treated section of hair fell to rest flaming hot, bone straight, and hanging to her shoulders. “Major ballet companies do not consider grades, you know. It’s all about the dance, the technique, the dancer.”

  Wait. Had she just told her to forget her grades? Edy scratched her head, burned herself, and nearly cursed.

  “Is this advice you’d give Hassan?” she said. “Not to worry about grades because the recruiters won’t mind?” She couldn’t veer to face her the way she wanted since Rani worked too close to her ear, but still, she needed to confront her. Edy’s fist clenched on her desk. “And who told you that I’d banked my whole future on ballet right out of high school? You think I don’t want college or know the value of an education?”