From Twinkle, with Love
Page 41

“Right now?”
He grinned. “You got somewhere else to be?”
Smiling, I scooted even closer to him. “Let’s do this.”
And for the next hour and a half, I forgot all about Maddie and Francesca and Taylor and Hannah and the film.
All I thought about was the monster coming to life before my eyes.
When we left later, I realized I forgot my camera bag in the cabin. “I’ll be right back,” I told Sahil, hurrying back inside.
Hannah and Maddie were standing in the kitchen and didn’t see me walk in.
“Well, at least she showed you her true colors,” Hannah was saying. “At least you know now for sure. And you don’t have to feel guilty about leaving her behind and making new friends.”
“It just sucks that she’d want to air all that gossip in front of the entire school,” Maddie said, shaking her head. “But I talked to Sahil, and he said not to worry. Apparently, he’s going to make sure it gets cleaned up in the editing process or something.” She sighed. “I didn’t expect this at all from Twinkle. I always thought she was such a good person. You know?”
I wanted to run in there and say, Sahil’s wrong. This isn’t going to get edited. That’s what you all expect, isn’t it, for someone to come up behind you and clean up your messes? Someone to edit away all your mistakes so you can seem as glossy as ever? But that’s not my job as a filmmaker. I’m here for the brutal truth of it all.
But before I could step in and say any of that, Hannah said, “Sometimes the friendships we make when we’re little can be hard to see honestly.”
“Yeah. Ugh. Thanks for being here for me, though, Han. I’m sorry to bring all this up at your party.”
“You’re way more important to me than my party, M,” Hannah said, reaching over to hug Maddie. “We’re sisters.”
“Sisters,” Maddie agreed, smiling.
My words withered away to dust as I watched them. Everything turned shimmery and blurry; I realized tears, hot and furious, were rolling down my cheeks. Before they could see me, I grabbed my camera bag and ran out of the door.
Nothing makes sense anymore. Does Maddie really think I’m not a good person simply because I want to tell the truth? My mind is reeling at how she agreed with Hannah, that it’s hard to see our friendship in the right light.
We used to be sisters; something bigger and deeper than blood bonded us. Maddie used to be able to see right into my soul. So … is she wrong about who I am now? Or am I?
Love,
Twinkle
Sunday, June 21, but just barely
My room

Dear Mira Nair, It got worse.
Sahil dropped me off at around three this morning. I crept into the house, shut the door behind me, and took one step—before the lights in the living room flared on.
Mummy, Papa, and Dadi all stared at me.
Crap. That’s the only thing my paralyzed brain could think. Crap, crap, crappity crap.
“Where have you been?” This was Papa, his voice dangerously low.
“I …” I cleared my throat. “I had to get some extra footage for the film.”
“In the middle of the night. At a party where the parents weren’t home.”
I stared at Mummy, my eyebrows knitting together. “What? How do you know that?”
“Maddie ka phone tha,” Dadi said, her eyes wide and sad.
Maddie?? Maddie told on me?? I balled my fists by my sides. “I don’t know what she told you, but I was there to work.”
“You know the rules!” Papa thundered. “You cannot leave the house at night without telling us, and you cannot go to parties unless there are parents present!”
“How would I have even told you?” I asked, my own voice rising. “When I left, none of you were home!”
“Chup karo yeh badmaashi!” Papa’s voice sliced across my own. “That is not how you speak to your elders!”
“Izzat se bolo, Twinkle,” Dadi added. “These are your parents.”
That was it. I couldn’t take it anymore, their irritation with me, their expectation that I should just be meek and accept it. Something inside me boiled over.
“Well, I don’t think they’re showing me any respect!” I yelled. “Do you know I’m the only person in my entire school who doesn’t have her own cell phone? It’s a basic necessity nowadays. And I’m tired of being the only junior who doesn’t drive, either. I don’t ever complain about those things, but I don’t hear you thanking me. You just expect me to do anything you tell me to do, whether you’re here or not. Maybe you think I sneaked out of the house when I had no right to, but maybe you should consider that I left because no one gives a crap about me. No one cares whether I’m here or not!”
They all stared at me like I was some teenaged monster species they’d only read about in horror novels and had no idea were in existence. I spun and rushed out of the room before they could say anything, slamming the door to my room behind me. I flung myself on the bed and began to sob, clutching Mr. Bandar, my childhood monkey pal, to my chest. He was in pieces and falling apart, but I was too attached to give him up.
When my eyes were all swollen and my nose was completely stopped up, I heard my door open. I rolled my puffy eyes. Maybe knocking on doors was a silly Western rule that had no place in our house, but right then I’d kill for some privacy. “Please, Dadi,” I said, without turning over. “I don’t want to talk. There’s nothing to say anyway. They don’t care about me, and you know it.”
A big hand was on my back. “We do care about you, beta.”
I sat up and saw Papa sitting on the edge of my bed, his face full of concern. I leaned against my headboard. “It doesn’t feel like it sometimes.”
Papa put his hand on my shin and took a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” he said, and I knew that was a huge thing for him to say. We never apologized to each other. It’s just not something Desi families are big on. “Sometimes I forget that you need me just as much as those kids at the youth house. But when I’m here, in our home, with a warm bed and hot food, it feels … wrong. They have no one to care about them. If I am not working every minute I can, I feel that I am failing them.”
I watched Papa’s hands as he talked about his work, and I realized something: He cared about his at-risk youth just as much as Sahil’s mom and dad cared about the state of higher education in our country. The difference was, because of their education and fancy degrees, they could afford to pay money to contribute to their cause. Papa’s work had to be in person; his donation was his time, his family, and himself.
“It’s good that they have you, then,” I said, putting my arms around my legs and resting my chin on top of my knees.
“But that doesn’t mean I don’t care about you,” Papa said, smiling. He touched my cheek. “You make my work worthwhile.”
I sighed. “I never thought you didn’t care, Papa.” It was true. Papa wasn’t the most involved parent, but at least he asked about me now and then. At least he sometimes checked whether or not I needed lunch money or what I was up to on the weekends.
“Mummy cares deeply about you, too, beta,” Papa said, squeezing my leg.
I looked away. “Ever since Nani died, Mummy’s been … different. Like she blames me or something.”
“You remember that? When Nani died?”
I nodded. “Yeah. I remember we couldn’t afford to fly back to Mumbai. And then Mummy threw away all her art supplies. She changed.”
Papa breathed out, this slow, heavy thing loosed from the bottom of his soul. “Haan. Your mummy … she doesn’t blame you, Twinkle. But she does blame herself. She will never forgive herself for Nani dying alone.”
“But it wasn’t her fault!” I said, my eyes filling with tears. What I really wanted to say was, it wasn’t my fault. There wasn’t anything any of us could’ve done.
“I know, beta. But Mummy can’t seem to grasp that. All we can do is remember that she is ours no matter what. No matter how broken her heart is.”