From Twinkle, with Love
Page 50

Dadi didn’t try to lie and tell me of course Mummy would be there, of course she wouldn’t want to miss this momentous event in her only daughter’s life. Which both made me feel better and worse. “It will be what it will be,” she said instead, smiling sadly. “Sometimes one must be strong enough for two.”
I nodded and pushed my plate away with my free hand. I knew I had to be strong for Mummy. She’d been through a lot in her life, things I could never even imagine going through. But sometimes? I just get tired of being strong.
“But I have a feeling this moroseness is not only about Mummy, hmm?” Dadi said, stroking my hand. Her brown eyes looked right into me, like she was taking an X-ray of my thoughts. Am I that easy to read? “I have noticed that Sahil and Maddie haven’t been calling here.”
I looked away and swallowed the lump in my throat. “The movie’s over, so … there’s no reason for us to talk anymore.”
When Dadi didn’t say anything, I looked back at her to see her gazing sadly at me. Then she suddenly patted my hand, stood up, and went back to the kitchen.
“Okay, good talk,” I mumbled, feeling even more pathetic than ever. Even Dadi didn’t want to hear about my love/friendship life.
Dadi chuckled. “Just a minute, beta,” she said. “I am getting something. … Just one minute. …” I heard her clattering around the kitchen, but I just stared straight ahead, feeling extra morose. Morose. I like that word. Maybe it’ll be my new band name, if I ever pick up a musical instrument or suddenly learn how to sing, like that super-average American guy who hit his head and woke up speaking in the most perfectly posh English accent.
Dadi was at the table a minute or two later, holding a silver container with an ornate lid. She kept running her hands over the domed top, and finally I glanced at her.
“What is that?” I asked, recognizing that my voice sounded muffled and bland. I was slumped over the table, like a gloomy carcass.
“Oh, this?” Dadi looked at me in surprise, as if she had forgotten I was there, and opened the lid. The inside of the container held two small bowls, each full of a powder. One was a deep, vivid red and the other a brilliant orangey-yellow. “This is sambandh powder.”
I frowned and sat up, curious in spite of myself. “Sambandh? Meaning … relationship? What do the powders have to do with relationships?”
“We humans think we exist like this.” Dadi gestured to the powders in their individual bowls. “Apart. Single. Beautiful and vivid, but alone.” She looked calculatingly at me. “But on the other side, on Dada’s side, he can see that we are like this in reality.” She upended the two bowls into the center of the larger container, and the powders came together. They were mixed somewhat, but still in their separate piles for the most part—red on the left and orange on the right. “Then,” Dadi continued, “with each interaction with another soul, we begin to change.” She put a finger into the pile of powders and began to stir gently. The powders mixed more the longer she stirred, red mingling with orange, losing its distinct form. “We take pieces of them, and they take pieces of us. It’s not bad. It’s not good. It just is.” By now the powders were completely mixed together, indistinguishable from each other. “Our best friends, the ones we love the most, are the ones who can hurt us the most. Because look.” She pointed down to the powders. “We have had so many interactions with them, deep, meaningful interactions, that we cannot separate their pieces from ours. And if we try, we would only be getting rid of some of the best parts of ourselves.” She brushed off her fingers and put one hand under my chin. Her soft brown eyes bored into mine. The X-ray again.
“This is how it was with you and Maddie … and Sahil?”
I nodded. “Yeah. You could say that.” She’d put it so well. We were exactly like the powders. My connections with Maddie and Sahil were so different, but equally strong. They’d totally mixed up their powders into mine. And what was I supposed to do now that they’d decided I wasn’t worth their time anymore? “Ugh, Dadi, why’d you have to put it like that? You just made me even more depressed.”
She laughed and came around the table to hug me. “Oh, beta,” she said. “Don’t you see? Each powder has been mixed. So they feel the same way that you do. They feel the same pain.”
I looked at her, my chest squeezing with hope. Could it be? Are Sahil and Maddie just as miserable without me as I am without them?
But now that I’m out here in the backyard by myself, I don’t think so. Those powders wouldn’t be so mixed up if they had other powder friends to mix with.
Okay, that is easily the weirdest sentence I have ever written.
Can’t I escape visions of my loss and utter failure anywhere, at least in my own freaking backyard? Maggie and Oso are having an epic love meeting at the fence right in front of me. I wish my love life was at least better than, you know, my dog’s.
Sigh.
I miss him. I miss him so much. It’s sort of like this numb, weird feeling under my skin all the time.
Love,
Twinkle
Twenty-Three
Saturday, June 27
PPC Auditorium

Dear Mira Nair, I am writing this as a newly minted director who’s shown her work to an audience of … I don’t know, a thousand people? Pretty much every single PPC student was there, plus their parents. The auditorium was full.
But wait, let me back up. Because this evening wasn’t all roses and clapping and happy singing.
So I took the public bus to school because, of course, Papa was at work with our car. Mummy was ensconced in her bedroom, sleeping off a headache according to Dadi, but Dadi gave me multiple kisses and even a bracelet she’d woven from an old sari that she said “Chandrashekhar has put his blessings on.” I don’t think I need to know the details. I rubbed my finger over it the entire bus ride, my stomach bubbling over with nerves. I thought I’d get car sick (bus sick?) for the first time in my life.
I got off the bus and walked the half mile to school, and right when I was about to climb up the steps of the auditorium, Sahil was coming down. We stared at each other. I smiled a little and then tried to walk past because I was trying to respect his space and everything, when he put a hand on my arm. It was like grabbing an exposed wire with your wet hand (which, if it wasn’t clear, is a super-bad idea and you should never do) but less lethal. I tried not to gasp audibly.
“Hey,” he said, his eyes gentle as always. He was dressed in a green and blue striped button-down shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and black jeans. His hair was spiked and he was clean-shaven. It was a punch to the gut, a forcible reminder of all those times he’d taken me in his arms, all the times we’d kissed, all the sweet words he’d whispered that were now scattered to the winds. “You ready for this?”
Taking a deep breath, I patted my lucky film-reel hair sticks. The charm bracelet Maddie had given me clinked on my wrist. I was also wearing my lucky film-reel toe socks, but he didn’t need to know that. “I think so. I mean, can you ever be ready for your first-ever film screening?”
He smiled, but there was a distance that had never been there before. “I guess not. I heard it’s going to be a full house tonight too.” He must’ve seen the utter panic on my face, because he added quickly, “It’s going to be great. You’re a gifted director, and we’ve worked hard on the movie. People are gonna love it.”
I realized how … professionally aloof his words were. He was purposely holding me at arm’s length, afraid to let me get too close. “Thanks, Sahil,” I said, wondering if he could hear the tears threatening, the pain and regret behind every syllable.
I wanted to say all the things I was holding back. I wanted to play our road trip game again.
Did you hear I’ve tossed and turned without you since you walked away from me?
Did you hear I’m wondering if you’ll ever stop hating me?
Did you hear I don’t care about your brother beyond the fact that he’s your brother?
Did you hear I’m falling in love with you?