There's Something About Sweetie(53)

“I could seriously kiss you right now,” Kayla said, getting out her cell and furiously texting. “This changes everything. We’re going to win the grand prize, no question.”

“Yes!” Izzy said, clapping her hands. “Those duffel bags are ours!”

The grand prize that the owner of Roast Me had agreed to throw in after hearing about the huge amount of attention and interest Band Night had gotten from the high schools in the area—they were up to seventeen bands now—was $2,000 cash to the winning band. Izzy, Kayla, and Suki had decided that embroidered duffel bags would be a sweet gift for the track team, to go with their new jerseys.

“I don’t know,” Sweetie said, nibbling on her apple. “I still think we should give it to charity. Or, like, half of it to charity and half of it to funding uniforms for kids who can’t afford them.”

“Which is also charity,” Suki said. Her parents were both doctors, so she didn’t have too much face time with poverty.

“It’s helping someone out. That’s not necessarily charity,” Izzy said loyally. “But I still feel like those duffel bags would be awesome. Have you seen the gold thread?”

“Yes, I have,” Sweetie said. “You’ve showed me three times this week already.”

Izzy giggled. “Oh, right.”

“Antwan is pumped,” Kayla said, putting her phone away. “Okay, and you’ve got the songs down?”

“Yeah. Since you’ve forced me to come to practice every single time you guys have gotten together, I don’t think I’ll have any problems,” Sweetie said, rolling her eyes. “I’m just so nervous, guys. Like, bathed-in-sweat nervous.”

“So what made you decide to do it?” Kayla asked, not unkindly.

Saying that the Magic 8 Ball or Jason or Hrithik had decided things for her would be easy. But there was a deeper reason, the reason she’d begun to seriously consider singing in the first place: the Sassy Sweetie Project. As Sweetie had lain in bed last night, thinking about how she’d single-handedly connived to get Ashish Patel’s attention and then begun to date him, she’d gotten a surge of confidence.

When they’d kissed, she’d realized just how wrong it was that she’d never even tried to date a boy before because of those dirtbags who’d said fat girls were easy. And that made her wonder how many other things she’d subconsciously told herself she couldn’t or shouldn’t do because she was fat. Resisting fatphobic messages was one thing—but what about the insidious, internalized fatphobia she carried around?

She was a kick-ass athlete, a really good student, and extremely creative. But she had talents she never let shine because she had somehow internalized the message that no one really wanted to hear from a fat girl. Singing was one of those talents. So there might be jerks who laughed at her. But she knew that once she started to sing, they’d shut up. And if they didn’t, so what? She wanted to sing for her, not for them. She would do this because her talent and her need to shine were bigger than her dress size, bigger even than Amma’s prejudice.

“It was like what you said, Kayla. I just realized I need to stop being so afraid of what people are going to think. I mean, I’m still afraid, but …” She paused, feeling out her words. “But my need to prove something to myself is bigger than my desire to make people happy. If that makes sense.”

Kayla grinned. “It makes total sense. I’m proud of you, sis.”

“Me too,” Suki said.

“And me.” Izzy laid her head against Sweetie’s.

She basked in their friendship, like warm ocean water. She could do this. She could kill this.

Thursday and Friday dragged by. Even with practice—which she totally dominated—it felt like time had begun to ooze, each second like thick oil working its way through a clock’s every gear and knob. She kept seeing and hearing Ashish everywhere she looked—a tall boy with black hair, the way some senior laughed at some dumb joke, the boyish grin of some dude on a TV commercial. Careful, Sweetie. You’re not trying to fall in love with the boy. He was an unstoppable flirt, but Sweetie knew not to read too much into it. He’d basically told her he couldn’t fully give himself to her because of Celia. Besides, Ashish was one of those naturally flirty people. It was, like, his resting state. He had resting flirty face. Besides which, he was hurting, and she needed to respect that. She did respect that. This must just be temporary madness.

On Saturday morning Sweetie showed up at Ashish’s house wearing an old white cotton T-shirt (the better to show off the Holi powders with) and a pair of old sweats. She felt a tug of self-consciousness as she stood at his front door, wondering if she had dressed down too much. Sure, they were just going to get their clothes ruined at Holi, the festival of colors where people actually had permission to throw colored powders at you and rub them into your face, but still. This was a date.

Then Ashish opened the door, a big, cocky smile on his face, and she relaxed. He was wearing a ratty tan T-shirt and old sweats just like hers. He hadn’t even bothered to comb his hair. “Let’s do this!” he said, shutting the door behind him and following her back down the stairs.

“Wait, aren’t your parents coming?”

“Nah. They do the puja at the temple, but they haven’t done the whole color thing in years. They say they’re too old, but really I think it’s that their clothes aren’t old enough.”