From Twinkle, with Love
Page 34

H: *sigh* Whatever.
I was gripping my pencil so hard by the end that I was sure it would snap. I glared at Maddie and Hannah, but neither of them was looking at me.
It doesn’t matter, I forced myself to think. None of this matters. I have my new friends. And soon I’ll be able to leave groundling status, simply based on this movie I’m making, which’ll force people to see me and the message I want to send to the world. That’s all I need.
Love,
Twinkle

Note from Matthew to Twinkle       HEY. SO, NOT TO BE ALL MIDDLE SCHOOL, BUT DID AARON SAY ANYTHING ABOUT ME?
Besides asking if I knew where he could find a bare-chested photo of you, no.
HAHA. BUT SERIOUSLY, TWINKLE.
Seriously, he didn’t. BUT he did have this goofy smile all day yesterday after you left and this morning when I saw him before homeroom.
ARE YOU SERIOUS?
Yep. If you like him, you should ask him out.
HE’S NOT SEEING ANYONE ELSE?
I don’t think so.
YOU HAVE TO BE SURE!
Okay, okay. I’ll ask him. Jeez. So … you like him a lot, huh?
I THINK SO. WE HAVE A LOT IN COMMON. THE FIRST TIME I SAW HIM WAS AT A CONCERT FOR THE DUSTY ARCHIVES. OR WAS IT THE PLATONIC PLANETS? OH, I REMEMBER. THE PLATONIC PLANETS OPENED FOR THE DUSTY ARCHIVES.
You two are definitely meant for each other.
YOU THINK SO TOO?? ALSO, NATH WANTS TO KNOW IF YOU AND SAHIL ARE GOING OUT.
What?? No, we’re not. And anyway, why does he care??
I DON’T KNOW. I THINK HE WAS CURIOUS.
Did he say anything about Maddie?
HE SAID SHE’S CUTE. AND OUT OF HIS LEAGUE. AND PROBABLY GOING OUT WITH LEWIS.
What? No, she’s not (on both of those last two counts)! Do you think he’ll ask her out?
ARE YOU TRYING TO SET EVERYONE AT PPC UP OR WHAT?
I should form a matchmaking LLC or something.
YOU’LL NEED SOMETHING WHEN YOU FAIL BIO BECAUSE YOU’RE NOT PAYING ATTENTION.
You’re the one who started passing me notes!
ALL RIGHT, ALL RIGHT. SORRY. BUT YOU’LL FIND OUT? IF AARON’S SEEING ANYONE ELSE? APPARENTLY THERE WAS A GUY FROM LAKE VALLEY A FEW MONTHS AGO, BUT … AARON’S A TOTAL ENIGMA, BUT I KNOW HE LIKES YOU. HE’LL TELL YOU IF YOU ASK HIM.
LOL at the idea of Aaron being an enigma but yeah. I’ll definitely find out for you.
MERCI.
Tuesday, June 16
AP English

Dear Sally Potter, Today we sat out on the green at lunch because it was such a beautiful day. I ended up sprawled on the grass, and Sahil came to sit beside me with his food, our legs touching casually.
“So, Aaron,” I said, a little too loudly, trying to divert my brain’s attention from the feeling of Sahil’s muscled thigh against my own skinny one.
He looked over at me, his mouth full of burger.
“You have a not-so-secret admirer.”
His eyes got wide and he swallowed his mouthful. “Oh yeah?”
“I think you have an inkling of who it is.” I grinned and shielded my eyes from the sun with one hand. “What should I tell him? Are you interested?”
After a pause, during which Aaron looked everywhere possible but directly at me, he nodded. “I’ll talk to him after school.”
Sahil and I both whooped and Aaron threw a fork in our general direction. “Oh, shut up.”
“That’s just great,” Skid said, popping a French fry into his mouth. “Why does it have to be so easy for some people? I can’t even get Portia to look my way.”
Aaron glared at him. “Easy? You think being a gay black guy is easy?”
Skid held up his hands. “Sorry, man. You’re right. I wasn’t thinking.”
Aaron went back to his burger. “Forgiven. Continue.”
“I took your advice,” Skid said, looking at me. “But she didn’t look too hot during service.” He paused. “Temperature-wise, I mean,” he said with a cocky sneer. I rolled my eyes and he continued. “And she brought her own Bible. It was nicer than mine. Should I steal hers so I can offer mine?”
I sighed. “No, Skid. Those were just examples. You should look out for your own opportunities.”
“What’s this?” Sahil asked, looking between us with interest.
“I was telling Skid a sure way to a girl’s heart—if she’s anything like me—is to do something selfless for her.” I snapped my fingers. “I know. You can invite her to Midsummer Night. You said she’s a catalog model. Tell her there’ll be media people here to make it interesting for her. She can’t turn something like that down.”
Skid pointed a finger at me, grinning. “That’s not a bad idea at all. I’m gonna do that. Thanks.”
I was genuinely happy for Skid. I mean, why not? Someone around here deserves to be happy and in love if it’s not going to be me.
Love,
Twinkle
Wednesday, June 17
10 days until Midsummer Night
My room

Dear Mira Nair, I did not know it was possible to be as mad as I got today.
We were filming one of our final scenes after school at Victoria Lyons’s house. Her parents are out of town at one of their French country homes, and she said she thought her living room would be the perfect setting for the scene we were doing. She was right; once we set up all the spider webs and stuff, it 100 percent looked like a room in a castle.
So, the scene had Lewis, who plays the role of Mina (aka Morris in our film), Francesca, Brij, and Maddie. Sahil and I set up the scene and the camera and told them to take their places. I loved how the actors kept looking at me when they voiced an opinion, to see what I thought. There was no evidence of my social bottom-feeder status. Everyone knew that in here, I was the boss. Victoria was on the couch, texting. (Her thumbs were all blurry from the speed. How do people do that??) So I went and took my place behind the camera, and then Sahil did his clapboard thing and yelled, “Action!” before picking his way back to me silently, out of view of the camera.
“Morris must go to his room to rest,” Francesca said, adjusting her fake spectacles.
“I don’t think that’s as important …,” Lewis began, and then stopped. “That’s not as important …” He looked right at the camera and smiled, like he was all embarrassed.
I sighed. “He just broke the fourth wall.”
Sahil called out, “Cut!”
Massaging my shoulders (we’d been working for more than ninety minutes straight at that point), I walked over to the actors. “What’s going on, Lewis?” I asked, keeping my voice even.
“I’m having problems remembering my lines,” he said, scratching his chest nonchalantly and grinning.
I considered him in silence for a second. “Okay, but … you have three lines in this scene.”
He laughed. “My bad.”
I put a hand to my forehead and took a deep breath. I wasn’t laughing, and I was trying my best not to lose my temper. The other actors shifted uncomfortably. “You’ve had, like, five days to memorize them. That’s when I sent out that e-mail saying we’d be shooting this scene today, remember?”
“I gotta be honest,” Lewis said, still grinning. My blood pressure was starting to skyrocket. “I went to this frat party last night and it wiped my memory, man.” He laughed again. “My bad, though.”
Maddie, Brij, and Francesca all looked like they were hoping for a trapdoor to open and take them away from this hideous scene unfolding before us.
Something gave way inside me and my voice came out louder than I was intending it to. “That’s all you have to say about it? ‘My bad, though’?” This was everything I hated—that smug look on his face, saying his time was more important than mine. The entitlement that came with being one of the silk feathered hats—that all the groundlings were there simply to kowtow to your every need. The knowledge, once again, that I simply didn’t register on their radars. That I was, effectively, invisible, no matter what I was doing or how much good a project like this might do. It was all secondary to Lewis’s need to go out to a frat party and get his memory “wiped.”