There's Something About Sweetie(44)

She still had more than an hour, so she walked over to her closet and pulled out her art supplies. She could finish working on the boxes for next week’s farmers’ market (she’d decided not to go with Amma this weekend, as she had to get ready and be in the right head space for the date). She’d just set everything up on the dining room table and gotten comfortable when Amma walked in.

Sweetie glanced at her and then back down at the box she’d been tying the burlap ribbon on to. “Where’s Achchan?”

“Taking a bath. He’ll be out soon.” Amma bustled around in the kitchen, putting things away. “Hopefully I’ll sell almost everything today.”

Sweetie made a vague, noncommittal noise in the back of her throat. She was still pretty mad about the whole thing with Ashish, to be honest. She still felt completely betrayed that Amma had told Sunita auntie that Sweetie wasn’t good enough for her son. And so she didn’t feel like looking at Amma right now, let alone talking to her.

“Want some chai?” Amma asked from the kitchen.

“No, thanks.” Sweetie kept her eyes on the heart she was attaching to the corner of the box. She hoped Amma would go sit outside to drink her chai like she did when the weather was nice.

But no such luck. A moment later she was sitting two chairs down from Sweetie, watching her work while noisily slurping her drink.

Sweetie wanted to glare at her but managed to resist.

“That’s nice,” Amma said. “I like that color palette. Red looks pretty against the brown of the burlap.”

“Mm-hmm,” Sweetie said, reaching to snip off some more burlap.

“I’m making coconut chicken curry tonight. And pal payasam for dessert.”

Sweetie glanced at Amma. Those were her absolute favorite foods. “But it isn’t Onam.” Onam was a festival from southern India, and Amma was fairly rigid about making pal payasam only during Onam or for other special festivals.

Amma shrugged and sipped her chai. “So?”

Sweetie knew what this was: a peace offering. Amma and Achchan—and Sweetie by extension—didn’t ever say “I love you” like her friends and their parents did. They made up not by talking about their feelings or sharing deep, intimate moments. Instead there were myriad ways of saying I love you or I’m sorry in their house: making someone’s favorite dish; helping someone design the boxes for their sweets; being present at the farmers’ market every Saturday so Amma never had to sit alone, or every track meet so Sweetie would always see a friendly face in the audience, no matter how far away the other school was; drawing a black dot in kohl on the cheek to ward off the evil eye; buying the right kind of soap before someone ran out.

But sometimes, like today, Sweetie wished Amma would say the words. That she’d say she was wrong or that Sweetie absolutely was good enough for whomever she chose to date, that her worth wasn’t measured in dress size or pounds or kilograms. But that would never happen. So they sat there, in silence, until the bell on the big clock in the living room tolled nine o’clock. Sweetie got up, put away her art supplies, and smoothed down her hair.

Then, going back out into the living room, where Amma and Achchan were now, she said, “Okay, bye. I’m leaving.”

Amma looked up from her Bolly Gossip magazine for a moment. “You’re going to Kayla’s house?”

“Yes. We’re going to study for that calculus test.” Sweetie’s palms were drenched. She hated lying; it was hardly ever a good idea. She’d read once that if you were lying about something, it generally meant that your values were clashing with your actions. But the article hadn’t talked about what to do when you knew, 100 percent, that you were right and your parents were wrong, but it had been ingrained into you from childhood that lying to them was the worst possible thing you could do.

The guilt only intensified when Achchan beamed at her. “My Sweetie, straight-A student and star athlete! So focused on her studies.”

“I don’t know about that,” Sweetie mumbled, not quite able to meet his eye.

“No, it’s true!” Achchan said, reaching out and taking her hand. He tugged on her and she sat in the oversize recliner, half squeezed in beside him, half on his lap. They’d sat like that since Sweetie was little, when he’d read to her from whatever book she was obsessed with that week. “I am very proud to call you my daughter. Your Achchan is very lucky, and he knows it.”

Whenever Achchan began speaking about himself in the third person, you knew he was getting emotional. Sweetie tried not to let the guilt completely engulf her. She wanted to bury her face in his chest and wail, I’m really going on a date with Ashish Patel! And if it were just Achchan and her, she probably would.

But the thing was, she couldn’t be honest right now. She knew how she felt, but she didn’t know how to convince her parents—and Amma especially—that she was right about her body, that she didn’t need to be thin to be happy, that there was absolutely nothing wrong with her. And until she could articulate those feelings and articulate them bravely and well, Sweetie knew, she’d have to keep the whole Sassy Sweetie Project under wraps.

Achchan patted her arm. “Are you okay, Sweetie?”

She glanced at him sideways. “Why wouldn’t I be?”

“Everything fine with Kayla and Suzi and Icky?”