“Can I go?” I ask Mom. Natasha and I are sharing a bowl of popcorn while Mom is cooking lentil stew. Dad’s working late again and won’t be home for dinner. And he’s leaving for Hong Kong in a week to visit some factory where they actually print the books. This makes Mom stir the lentil stew too fast. Natasha throws a piece of popcorn at me and it bounces off my forehead. I have to throw one back at her, which means she has to throw one back at me. Before I know it, there’s more popcorn on the floor than in the bowl.
“When is it, again?” Mom calls from the stove.
“Next Saturday, I told you,” I say, ducking. A piece of popcorn flies over my head.
“Who is this boy? You never talk about him.”
I take a piece of popcorn, throw it into the air, try to catch it in my mouth, and miss. Mom turns around and sees the popcorn-covered floor.
“Come on, girls,” she says with tired eyes and tight lips. I get down on my knees fast and start to pick it up. Natasha follows.
“Sorry,” I say. I hope I haven’t just blown my chances of going to the party. “He’s a boy in my class. He also plays on the football team. The whole cheerleading team is going.” I don’t tell her the me-not-being-invited, being-invited story.
“A cheerleader going to a football player’s party. It sounds like high school. When did you get so old?” Mom looks at me. Her eyes are softer now. “You can go. I just want to talk to his parents,” she says, stirring some more.
She can’t do that. That’s what parents do for little kids. Didn’t Mom just notice how things were different, how I was older now? I think about Sam and our sleepovers, the Magic 8 Ball, ESP, and camping trips. It suddenly seems so young, so nursery school.
“Do you have to?” I say, and then wish I could take back the whine in my voice. Mom hates whining.
“I don’t know these people. You’ll understand when you’re a mother.”
Who knows if I’ll even be a mother? All I know is that I’ll bet a thousand dollars Jackie isn’t calling Peter’s parents. But I’ll take what I can get. Mom and I haven’t talked about the Jewish thing since. We just look at each other funny and talk about stuff that we have to talk about like how much homework I have, when I need a ride to what, and what I want for dinner. When she asked me how the game went, I said, “Pretty good,” and that was it.
I go up to my room and look through my closet for something to wear to the party. I start grabbing skirts and shirts off their hangers and hold them up in my mirror. Wrong. All my clothes are wrong. Then I see it, way back in the closet under a plastic dry-cleaning bag—my red velvet dress, the one Dad brought back from a trip to London last year. It’s the only present he’s ever bought me without Mom’s help. I’ve worn it only once, to my mom’s cousin’s wedding. It’s fitted on top, with satin trimming on the scoop neck and the edges of the sleeves. The pleated skirt is what my mom calls tea-length, which means it goes all the way down to my ankles but not to the floor. I put it on. It still fits, and it makes me feel like the Indian princess I was named after.
On Thursday, a little over a week before the party, Kate and I walk to the late buses after practice. It’s a beautiful day, not too cold, but crisp and sunny. The leaves have started to fall, leaving big, bright open spots showing through the trees. I blink, wondering when this all happened, all these changes. How did I not notice?
“Do you want to do something tonight?” Kate asks.
“Sure,” I say, even though I know Mom won’t let me.
“How come we never go over to your house?”
I look at her, the late-fall sun making her hair look orange, making her blue eyes even brighter.
“No reason.” Ha, right. Natasha would probably play her drums the whole time or just be annoying. Mom would be weird and serious and ask Kate too many questions. There would be no Pringles, no mall, no reality TV. And Dad, well, who knows what Dad will be like on any given day? I thought getting a new job would make him feel better, and sometimes he does seem more like himself. Sometimes he doesn’t. Kate would probably want to go right back to her house the minute she stepped in mine.
“Can I? I’m sick of my house,” she says.
“Uh, sure,” I say.
Kate takes out her new sparkly pink cell phone and calls Jackie and asks her to pick her up after dinner. When she’s done she hands it to me.
“Wanna call your mom?”
I take the phone and stare at the rhinestones on the cover. It’s like my hands are frozen. They literally won’t move.
“What’s wrong?” Kate says.
“Nothing,” I say, and snap the phone shut. “You know what, I’m sure it’s fine.”
“Okay,” Kate says. “If you’re sure.”
chapter twenty
When we finally arrive, my heart pounds as we head in through the garage door, which no one ever locks.
I walk in down the few stairs leading into the kitchen, Kate following me, and look around. No Mom.
“Wow,” she says. “Your house is so cool. It’s like totally modern and totally old at the same time.”
“Thanks,” I say, not really knowing what she means.
She dumps her backpack on the floor and goes to examine the collection of Buddhas on the shelves behind the kitchen table.
“Sonia,” Mom calls from the hallway. I freeze. She rounds the corner, Natasha trailing behind her holding her drumsticks. Natasha sees us and stops walking.
“Hi, Kate,” Mom says. “I didn’t know you were coming over.” She smiles at her with her mouth, but not her eyes.
“Sonia said it would be okay,” Kate says in her bubbly way. “Is that your sister?” Kate points to Natasha, who’s hiding by the stairs chewing on a piece of her hair.
“Yup,” I say.
“Natasha,” Mom says. “Come say hi.”
“Hey,” Kate says. “Are those drumsticks?” Natasha comes closer and holds them forward, nodding.
“You play the drums?”
Natasha nods.
“That is so awesome! Will you play something for me?” Kate asks, her smile wide, eyes bright.
Natasha glows and nods furiously.
Then Kate turns to Mom. “Mrs. Nadhamuni,” she says perfectly, “that’s a really pretty necklace.” She steps forward to see it better. Mom fingers the fancy silver circle that hangs from a chain she got from India years ago. She wears it so much, I don’t even notice it anymore.
“Oh, thanks.” Mom touches it as if trying to remember it herself.
Mom turns to me and clears her throat. “Sonia, can I talk to you for a sec?” She doesn’t wait for an answer, just starts walking to her bedroom. I look at Kate to tell her I’ll be right back, but she’s busy looking at the tapestry that hangs over the fireplace in the den area. Our first floor is really one big room, kitchen, den, and living room all blending into one. There’s nowhere to hide.
I follow Mom into the bedroom and sit down on the big lumpy bed. Mom closes the door and faces me. Her room smells like old coffee. I see two mugs on the dresser.
“What’s going on?” Mom says, hands on hips. “First of all, it’s a school night. You didn’t ask her to sleep over, did you?”
“No, but I don’t have any homework anyway,” I say.
“Just tell me why you didn’t ask me first.”
“Because you said you didn’t want me to see her anymore, but she asked if she could come over. What was I supposed to say? No?”
“Yes, you were. And I didn’t say I didn’t want you to see her anymore, just that you needed a break,” she says.
“Do I have to tell her to go home?” I say. My mouth is dry. I try to imagine telling Kate she can’t stay.
Mom lets out a big sigh, lifts up her glasses, rubs her eyes.
“No, I guess not,” she says, and opens the door. “Look, I have some work to do. Just let Natasha play with you guys, and we’re going to talk about this later.”
“Oh, come on!” I say without thinking. �
�She’ll just be a dork.” I’m sure Kate didn’t plan on babysitting a six-year-old.
“Sonia, you’re really pushing it” is all Mom says before she opens the door, motioning to me to go first.
When I come back to the front of the house, I don’t see Kate or Natasha; then I hear talking and laughing upstairs.
Kate’s sitting on the floor with Natasha, painting my sister’s nails purple.
“Hey, little squirmer. Hold still,” she says. Natasha wiggles her other hand at me. “I had some in my bag,” Kate says. “It must be so much fun to have a little sister.”
Natasha blinks at me and goes back to gazing at Kate while she paints each nail carefully.
I don’t answer. I sit down on the bottom of Natasha’s red bunk bed.
Then Kate asks Natasha to play something. Natasha blows on her little fingers a few seconds and gets her sticks. She plays a couple different beats that I’ve heard ten thousand times, and finishes off with a stupid and very loud solo. Kate claps her hands wildly after she’s done.
“Wow, you should totally start a girl band,” Kate says.
“A what?” Natasha says. “Oh, no. I chipped one!” she cries, examining her nails.
“She’s only six,” I say, and sigh.
“I’ll fix it,” Kate says, rushing to her side with the bottle of nail polish. I’m starting to feel like Natasha and Kate are babysitting me. Everyone likes Natasha. She’s funny and cute and little. It’s always that way. As soon as she was born, people started ignoring me at family holidays, everyone fussing over baby Natasha. I’m always the serious one, the one reading in the corner who people leave alone. Sometimes I like it that way. Sometimes I don’t.
After Natasha’s manicure and performance and second manicure, we all go into my room.
“I can’t believe this is your room,” Kate says.
“How come?” I look at the blue and green tie-dyed comforter. The beige rug, the huge overflowing bookshelf, my enormous dark wooden desk. I wonder if I have anything weird on it, like the travel section of the newspaper or some embarrassing thing I was writing.
“It looks like a room for someone much older,” she says, “like your parents or something.” My cheeks start to burn. She sits at my desk and leans back in the big leather chair. Natasha sits cross-legged on the floor, still checking out her nails. Kate takes a pen out of the red leather pen holder and starts doodling something on a yellow lined pad I got from Dad. “I know!” she says, and holds up her drawing. “We could give it a makeover.”
“A makeover?”
“Your room.” She shows me her drawing. It’s a fat, bubbly diagram of my room. Right now all the furniture is flat against the wall. But Kate’s drawing has the bookshelf on a catty-corner, and the bed and desk switched, so that the bed would be under the other windows and the desk would be in the center.
“And we could tie your curtains with ribbons and maybe add a few more pillows on your bed. It would look soooo good.”
“Yeah!” Natasha says, throwing herself belly-first on my bed.
“I don’t know,” I say.
“You’ll love it,” Kate says, and gets up. She puts her hands on one side of my desk. “Help me move this?”
So we get to work, moving furniture, rearranging, organizing. I wonder why Kate cares so much. I would never suggest that Kate change her room around. But then again, it’s perfect. We move what we can into the middle of the room, taking stuff off the desk and books out of the bookshelves. Then Kate picks up a pillow and whacks me with it. I whack her back and she falls on her butt laughing. Then Natasha whacks me, making me fall, and suddenly we’re a big snowball of pillows and arms and legs.
Mom comes running up the stairs and bursts through my doorway.
“What on earth is going on?” Mom says. We freeze.
Kate jumps up, smooths her hair, and wipes some sweat off her forehead.
“We’re giving Sonia’s room a makeover! Don’t worry, Mrs. Nadhamuni, it will look great. Do you have any blue or white ribbon?”
“I don’t know if this is such a good idea,” Mom says.
I look at the sour, worried expression on Mom’s face, as if we’re painting the walls black rather than basically cleaning up my room in a way it’s never been cleaned before, and I wish I could take a big whack at her with a pillow. She starts walking around picking up a couple of books and putting them down. I wonder if I had that same worried expression on my face when Kate asked me at first.
“Mom, it’ll take just as much time to put it back the way it was. Can we just finish it?” I say. I have to admit it’s been fun, kind of like when Mary Poppins comes in and cleans up the nursery.
Mom runs her fingers through her frizzy hair. I bet Kate could give her some good style tips.
“Just get it in some kind of order before dinner,” she says. Then she heaves a big sigh, which she does a lot these days, and walks out.
We all start giggling and then Kate stands up and asks me to take one side of the desk. We push it under the big windows where my bed used to be. We put the bed in the corner under the smaller window and it looks much cozier. I go to the linen closet and get more pillows with white covers, which Kate fluffs and arranges on the bed. We find blue ribbon in Mom’s gift-wrapping stash, and Kate ties the plain white curtains in a special way so that they bubble out. We put the bookshelf on a diagonal and reshelve all the books neatly. We clean up all the papers and clothes and books on the floor. Kate throws a sheet over my desk chair and ties more blue ribbon around the back of it, so it looks fancy. We even get some of Natasha’s blue paint and Kate paints big fat flowers on the front of the dresser around the knobs. When we’re done we all collapse on the floor in exhaustion.
“I can’t believe you did this.” I turn my face to Kate. “It’s like magic.”
“No it’s not,” Kate says. “My mom rearranges stuff all the time. It’s easy.”
“Dinner!” Mom calls. My stomach flips at hearing the word. I hadn’t even thought about what Mom would make and I pray it’s not eggplant-tofu casserole.
“Mrs. Nadhamuni, come check it out!” Kate calls down the stairs as if she’s talking to her own mother. She always acts like she knows someone well even when she doesn’t. Jackie does that too.
Mom walks in slowly and puts her hand over her mouth. I see her eyes travel over the bed, the curtains, the flowers on the dresser.
“Oh, my God,” she says in a way that’s so deep and serious, it sends a chill through me. What if she yells at Kate, makes her go home?
“Mom, we can put it back, don’t freak out.”
“Put it back? It’s amazing! Kate, I think you have a lucrative career in interior design waiting for you.”
Kate does her jumping, clapping thing, and hugs me and Natasha. Now we’re all jumping up and down and hugging.
“You guys must be hungry after all that work. Wash your hands and come on down,” Mom says like she’s on a game show. Now she’s smiling with her mouth and her eyes.
chapter twenty-one
My nose twitches at the smells from the kitchen. It’s definitely not eggplant, but I can’t really tell yet. It smells sort of, well, brown. I finally see the table. There it is, in the middle. A big, brown, non-meat meat loaf. Next to it is a salad, a platter of roasted cauliflower, and a bowl of brown rice. Kate’s just smiling, looking around, still pink in her cheeks from our redecorating work. She has no idea what’s about to happen to her.
We sit down, me next to Kate, Natasha and Mom across from us. The chair at one head of the table where Dad usually sits is empty. Kate immediately puts her napkin on her lap, so I do too, even though I normally don’t. I see Mom does as well and nudges Natasha to do the same.
“Is Dad coming home for dinner?” I ask, but I kind of hope he’s not. It’s easier when he’s not around. Before she can answer, I hear the garage door open. Dad walks in holding his briefcase, his head down, his eyes dark.
Mom gets up quickly an
d walks over to him. He looks up like she just woke him. She says something softly and he lifts his weary eyes our way.
“Hi, Daddy,” Natasha yells, and runs over for a hug.
“Hi, Mr. Nadhamuni. It’s so great to finally meet you,” Kate says loudly, and gives him a big wave. Dad squints at her as if he’s staring into bright light and can’t help but smile. I want to hug Kate right now for her Mary Poppins ways. You just can’t not be happy around her.
Dad takes off his coat and sits down. A thick silence moves over the table like fog. I give a sideways glance to Kate, who has her hands clasped, resting on the table, and then I remember. She’s waiting for us to say grace. Her family always does, even at a restaurant. We never say grace. I didn’t even know what saying grace was all about until I started going over to Kate’s. It’s nice, saying thanks for all that food, except when it’s tofu-eggplant casserole. Mom asks for our plates and spoons everything onto them. I hold my breath and watch Kate, who still has her hands clasped.
“I hope this isn’t rude,” she says. “But I was just wondering. Do Jewish people and, um, Indian people say grace?” I cough a little.
Dad drags his fingers through his hair and looks at Mom. She turns back to Kate. “Well, I think historically Jews have said grace after a meal,” Mom says, and pauses.
“But if you go way back and look at different religions, like Hinduism for example …,” Dad pipes up before taking a pause too.
“I think what we mean is …” Mom laughs a little. “The truth is we don’t really know. We can say grace if you’d like.”
“Oh, no, it’s nice to get a break,” Kate says with another one of her beaming smiles. We start eating. I watch Kate as she pokes the non–meat loaf and decides to eat a piece of cauliflower instead. She chews slowly and then faster.
“This is really good. What is it?” she asks.
She must be lying, but she’s being polite. I taste some too. At least Mom put butter and salt on it.
The Whole Story of Half a Girl Page 10