There's Something About Sweetie(89)

Sweetie turned, her hand on the doorknob, to see Amma in the hallway in a nightdress, her hair in a neat braid. Her eyes were puffy, like she’d been asleep. Which she probably had—it was past ten thirty, and Amma and Achchan were usually in bed by ten p.m. tops.

“It was good,” Sweetie said. “We made all the money we needed to make for our jerseys.” There was no point in telling Amma about the standing ovation. The way people had gone mad cheering for her. Amma would just ask if Sweetie was sure they weren’t actually screaming out insults about her weight or something.

Amma clapped her hands. “Very nice! Will you sing me some of your songs? Maybe this weekend?”

Sweetie laughed a little. “Okay.” Then, after a pause, she added, “Thank you for letting me go. I know you and Achchan don’t like me staying up late on school nights.”

Smiling, Amma came forward and put her hand on Sweetie’s cheek. “I think I am starting to understand that my daughter is blossoming into a woman,” she said softly. “And perhaps it is time for me to begin backing away just a little.”

Sweetie swallowed the sudden lump in her throat. She felt tears threatening and blinked hard. “But not too much,” she said, leaning down to hug Amma. What was it about a mother’s hug, anyway? It made her want to burst into tears at the same time that it made her feel infinitely comforted. Like the suckiest thing possible had happened, but somehow things would work out because Sweetie always worked things out.

“Not too much,” Amma agreed, making circles on Sweetie’s back with her open palm like she used to do when Sweetie was little. After a pause she said, “Sweetie, mol … all that what Tina auntie was saying? About prom?”

Sweetie straightened and looked into her mother’s brown eyes, the exact same hazel shade as her own. “Yeah?”

“She’s wrong.”

Sweetie’s eyes almost bugged out of her head. “Really?”

Amma thrust her chin out. “You know, when I was small, my family had no money. At school the girls and boys would tease me because my uniform was always too short and my socks were full of holes. So when I grew up, I decided my child would never feel like that. I made sure you always had nice things. I didn’t want you to be teased. Then … with your weight …”

Sweetie felt something inside her harden against what she knew was coming.

“With your weight, I thought people would make fun of you anyway. I wanted you to be friends with a girl like Sheena, you know. Fashionable and cool. So I became friends with Tina auntie. But I started to realize you’re not … you’re not like Sheena. And you’re not like me. You’re Sweetie.” She smiled and shook her head a little. “After we talked, I realized that you can make your own decisions. If you don’t want to go to prom, who is that Tina or that Sheena to tell you it’s wrong? You do what you want, mol. And just forget about everyone else. Even your old Amma.”

Sweetie smiled through the tears in her eyes and shook her head. Maybe this wasn’t everything—Amma wasn’t apologizing for all the comments she’d ever made about Sweetie’s weight. She wasn’t reversing her position on what Sweetie could or couldn’t wear. But this wasn’t nothing. This wasn’t insubstantial. This was her mother admitting that maybe, maybe Sweetie didn’t have to be exactly like the other girls. This might just be the first crack in Amma’s intractable armor. “I can’t forget about my Amma any more than I can forget about myself,” she said in a high, choked voice. “You know that.”

Amma pulled Sweetie’s face down and kissed her forehead. Sweetie closed her eyes and soaked it in.




Okay, how was this possible? How had he gone from neatly tying things up, from finally arriving at the conclusion that he was irrevocably in love with Sweetie to having her call him a fart goblin jerkwad, whatever that was, threatening him with her Mafia girl gang and then storming off into the night? How?

The LCD screen in his Jeep lit up with an incoming text.

Pinky: ZOMG you’ll never believe it but Samir’s madcap plan worked!! O and E are back together!!!!!!

“Madcap,” eh? He guessed by the exclamation point bonanza that Pinky was still sucking down the coffee. He smiled to himself in spite of everything. So Oliver had probably gotten a ride home with Elijah. That was awesome; those two deserved to be together.

And so did he and Sweetie, dammit. They deserved to be together because they were made for each other. How could she believe he was capable of leading this huge double life?

Then again, you didn’t really give her a reason to think the best of you, now, did you? a tiny internal voice insisted. You’ve been talking to Celia behind her back. How was she supposed to know that there was nothing more nefarious going on?

How had she found out, anyway? At no point had his phone been unatten—

Oliver had given him the phone and he’d been sort of weird. What if Oliver had seen the messages and told Sweetie?

Ashish dismissed the idea out of hand. No, Oliver would talk to him first before he did anything like that. So then what? Oh God. He’d left the phone on the table after they’d taken a selfie, hadn’t he? And Celia had probably texted him then, right in front of Sweetie.

Ashish groaned and gripped the steering wheel tighter. Okay. There was nothing else to do. He had to see her.