There's Something About Sweetie(28)

“His name is Ashish Patel. He’s Richmond Academy’s big basketball star, and his mom wanted me to date him, but Amma thinks we’re mismatched and people will laugh at us.”

She heard a male voice in the background that belonged to Jason, Anjali Chechi’s husband (she’d married a white man—another reason Amma would never understand her). Anjali Chechi said “Ashish Patel” away from the phone, her voice muffled. Returning to the conversation with Sweetie, she added, “Hold on. Jason’s Googling the dude.” A pause. “Oh, wow. He’s seriously gorgeous!”

Sweetie felt herself get warm. “Uh, yeah, he is. And according to Amma, that puts him out of my league in an another-stratosphere sense.”

“That is ridiculous,” Anjali Chechi said, her voice loud with endearing vehemence. “You are a beautiful person, and I’m not talking about that ‘on the inside’ crap!”

Sweetie grinned. “Yeah, that’s exactly what Ashish said.”

There was a pause as Anjali Chechi processed this. “Wait. What do you mean that’s what Ashish said?”

“I met up with him without telling Amma. Or Achchan, actually, but he was away on a business trip anyway. I, um, sort of challenged him to a race.”

Anjali Chechi guffawed. “Niiiiice. And? How’d it go?”

“Really well. He’s, uh, really nice. I mean, I won, naturally, but he was cool with it—not like a lot of guys. And he genuinely didn’t seem to have a problem with my weight, either.” She felt her cheeks grow warm at the memory of him calling her pretty.

“Oh? Do I detect a hint of first-loveness?”

Sweetie giggled. “Stop it. Anyway, I guess the plan is to keep dating without telling Amma and Achchan.”

“Mm. And how do you feel about that?”

Sweetie thought about it. “Surprisingly okay. I feel like I’m ready to do things that Amma deems totally unsuitable for me and make up my own mind about them, you know? I mean, I know people really are cruel and stupid about fat people and I don’t have to tell you that. Like that kid last year who said Amma should’ve made a business selling vegetables for my sake. And she was totally serious, too.”

Anjali Chechi blew out a noisy breath. “Ignorant jerk.”

“Yeah. But there’s also a part of me that loves myself in spite of all that anyway? And I want to give Self-Love Sweetie some airtime. See what she thinks about dating a hot jock. You know?”

“I totally get it, sister. And I support you one hundred percent. You know my parents didn’t know I was dating Jason until he practically proposed.”

“Yeah, I remember. They wanted you to marry another Indian doctor.” Sweetie chuckled.

“Yeah, and I got the whitest, most liberal, hair-dyeing, Hawaiian-shirt-wearing dork I could find.” She laughed. “Jason says he did me a favor.”

“He did!” Jason Chettan was one of Sweetie’s favorite people, after Anjali Chechi and her parents.

“He totally did, true,” Anjali Chechi says. “So we’ll be there for your birthday party next month. Anything in particular you’d like for a present?”

Sweetie opened her mouth to say their presence would be present enough, but then she closed it, an idea beginning to take root. If she really was going to do more of what she wanted, to find out how she felt about things, then … “Actually, yeah. There is something you could get me.” And she proceeded to tell Anjali Chechi exactly what that was.

Ashish texted on the drive home. Sweetie had relegated herself to the backseat after what Amma said in the restaurant, and the environment in the car was prickly and still and weird. She wasn’t even sure her parents knew what the matter was, and if they were curious, they weren’t asking.

Achchan would make these random comments, just interject them into the silence. Like, “Oh! Bob’s Air-Conditioning!” because he’d literally seen a billboard and wanted to talk about it since that was better than what was going on in the car. Sweetie would’ve laughed if she hadn’t been so pissed off.

Her phone buzzed and Sweetie pulled it out.

What are you doing later today

Her heart got all fluttery, like it was made out of feathers instead of muscle.

Nothing much why

Can you come over to my place

Huh. She didn’t know about that. Was this a Come over to my place—wink, wink—so we can make out thing? OMG. She so wasn’t ready for that. Her heart sank. Had Ashish just said all that nice stuff because he thought she was easy? It was one of her big fears. What if she found a good guy who she believed liked her for her, only to find out that he just wanted sex? The idea had terrified her ever since she overheard two guys at school say fat girls were “an easy lay” because they were so desperate for love.

Why, she typed with shaking hands.

We got busted. My mom and dad want to meet you

As she stared at the screen, horrified, he added, Sorry L.

Are they gonna tell my parents?

No, don’t think so. They’ve got another nefarious plan though ugh

She relaxed a bit. Okay, so Ashish didn’t want sex and her parents weren’t going to find out, apparently. If his parents just wanted to lay into her, that was okay. She could take that. And obviously she’d ask Ashish if he still wanted to keep dating, because the Sassy Sweetie Project was now underway. But what if his parents forbade it too, and he decided he didn’t want to go against their wishes? Ack. She needed to stop obsessing and just go with it. See what happened. Be chill.