There's Something About Sweetie(18)
“Hello, Vidya?” she asked. “Haan, this is Sunita Patel. I wanted to make sure you and Sweetie got home safely this afternoon.” She listened for a minute. “Oh, yes, yes, Rajat came and picked me up not long after you left. No problems at all.” Another pause, and then Ma laughed. “I am sure they’ll be very excited to eat all of these mithai over the next few weeks! And of course we will be coming back for more!” A pause. “Did Sweetie’s father arrive safely?”
Ashish flipped a page just to keep up appearances. Jeez. Was she ever going to get to the point?
“Oh, yes, flights are so unreliable nowadays. Mm-hmm, yes.” Another long pause while she listened. Then the money question: “Vidya, I must ask your forgiveness if I somehow crossed a line today. I did not mean to offend you or Sweetie with my talk of dating.” A pause. “I see. I was wondering if it was Ashish’s history of dating other girls …?” She glanced at Ashish and winked at him, though he could tell she really was uncomfortable asking the question. He felt a slight twinge of guilt. Ma really didn’t deserve as much girl grief as he gave her. She frowned. “But, Vidya, that does not bother me, and I know it won’t bother Ashish—” She listened. “No, I’m sure it’s not—” Then she sighed. “Okay. Yes, I understand. She’s your daughter, after all. Yes, please do. We must do lunch again soon. Bye.”
Disconnecting the call, Ma looked at him. “Well, I know the truth now, at least.”
Ashish sat up and put the magazine down. “Which is what?”
“How do you kids say it?” Ma thought for a moment. “Oh, haan. It’s not you; it’s her.”
Sweetie stood at the doorway, listening. She didn’t snoop on phone calls usually; she knew it wasn’t cool. But the way Amma had just totally shut down the whole Ashish thing today and refused to provide an explanation, she knew there had to be more to the story. They’d been finishing up dinner when the call came through. Sweetie had seen Patel on the caller ID on Amma’s cell, and the way Amma had jumped up and run off to her bedroom, it didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out the truth. It was Ashish’s mom calling.
They’d mostly been talking about inconsequential things, but when Amma’s tone turned darker and her volume quieter, Sweetie knew to lean in and hold her breath.
“No, no,” Amma said. “After all, boys will be boys. But you see, Sunita, your son is … athletic. He’s handsome. He’s … thin. And Sweetie is, well, she is working on losing weight. But as you noticed, it hasn’t happened yet. And at the present time, they are simply not well matched.”
Sweetie felt her vision tunneling. So it had nothing to do with Ashish Patel at all? Amma had refused, had left Taj in such a hurry, because she was just that embarrassed of her fat daughter? Sweetie turned away as she heard Amma say, “I am happy to hear it does not matter to you or Ashish. But I cannot allow them to date, Sunita, I’m sorry. Sweetie is simply not at Ashish’s level right now.”
She ran down the hall to her bedroom and shut the door quietly, one hand over her mouth. Her breath came in sharp gasps; there was an intense pain in her stomach, and she thought for one whole minute that she’d puke. But then the minute passed. On wobbly legs Sweetie walked to her bed and sank down onto it. Her face flashed hot and cold. Her own mother. Her own mother was that ashamed of Sweetie’s looks. She thought Sweetie was an abomination.
Sweetie had always known, obviously, that Amma was ashamed of her. The refusal to let her wear things that exposed even the slightest bit of skin, making her run in the backyard after school every day, tempering every compliment about Sweetie’s athletic accomplishments with “Well, yeah, but if you lost the weight …”—all of that was a pretty obvious freaking message. But this? To think that Sweetie was actually less than that Ashish guy simply because she was fat and he wasn’t? Sweetie grabbed her pillow, pushed it against her face, and screamed.
It was so unfair. She pulled the pillow off her hot, sweaty face and swiped angrily at her tears. Enough. If Amma was that ashamed of her, well, whatever. She just couldn’t think of it right now. Sweetie walked across the room to her closet and pulled her rolling craft cart out. It was made out of three bright-green plastic bins stacked one on top of the other and held all the stuff she needed to make her anger go away: ribbons, buttons, dried flowers in small plastic packets, boxes of every kind. Sweetie was officially in charge of Heera Moti Baked Goods, Amma’s business.
She pulled out one of the boxes she’d been working on and looked at the embossed letters of the company name Amma had chosen: Heera Moti. It literally meant “diamond pearl” in Hindi, but the general meaning was “jewels” or “gems.” Though her parents were from Kerala, which was in southern India, and didn’t speak too much Hindi (they spoke Malayalam instead), Amma had thought it would appeal more to their customer base to have a Hindi name.
Ironic, Sweetie thought, that moti could mean “pearl” or it could mean “fat.” It just depended on how you pronounced the t sound. She pulled out a length of burlap and wrapped it around the box. If she added just a touch of dry lavender with some raffia, it might look—
There was a soft knocking at her door. Sweetie looked up and sighed. “Come in.” Amma never knocked unless she figured Sweetie was mad at her for something.