Love, Hate & Other Filters(26)

Ma, I am always hungry for your cooking, he assures her.

More and more he sounds like an American. But at least he knows how to show his mother proper respect.





Friday. The last day of break. My last day with Phil before school starts again on Monday—when we return to the respective corners of our social cliques. Soon enough, these lovely last days of swimming in cool water under a bright blue sky will fade from our memories like a pastel drawing left in the sun.

But today is perfect.

Phil runs into the pond ahead of me. I step forward, my usual hesitation giving way to a tiny spark of confidence. I secure my goggles, check the waterproof bandage on my leg, and swim six remarkably even strokes to reach Phil. Swimming. Me. In water. I’m not exactly giving Katie Ledecky a run for her money. Still, I did a thing I was scared to do. But there’s no way I could’ve done it without Phil.

“You’re swimming. For real.” He’s standing in the water, arms crossed, beaming at me as I come up from the water.

“It was only a few strokes.”

“In the next couple hours, you’ll be swimming laps.”

“Thanks to you.”

“It’s the only thing I could teach you—you’re better than me at everything else.”

“You’re forgetting wilderness first aid and avoiding bear attacks …” I almost add and football but decide against it. “Both are way more practical than dissecting literary symbolism.”

“Probably not in New York City.” Phil turns to swim the length of the pond.

I follow him in and try to remember to move my arms and legs in harmony with my breath. Slow but steady. I swallow a few mouthfuls of water and lose count of my strokes and mess up my breathing. But I don’t panic. I right myself.

When I start shivering, I step out of the water, grab my towel, and sit on our beach so I can warm up in the sun. I film Phil as he swims, capturing his grace, how his smooth strokes barely ripple the surface. I need to cinematize this, all of this. I’ll want proof later. I’ll need to know this isn’t all the land of make-believe.

“So what exactly are you going to do with all this stuff you’re filming? I’m asking because if you’re putting it on the Internet, I want to make sure the clip goes viral.” Phil joins me on the blanket.

I grin. “Nothing like that. It’s the documentary of my life, with an audience of one—me. One day when I’m old and gray, my Mac hard drive will be my memory. Along with my dozens of backups.”

“Worried your computer’s gonna crash?”

“Afraid I’ll forget how I see the world.”

“What do you mean?”

“Filming is the way I see things. Really see them. I can capture what is important to me at a particular moment. That way, I keep it forever.”

“Nothing lasts forever.”

I shrug. “Movies can remind us of who we are or were, show us what we can be. What would the Lumière brothers think if they could walk into a theater today?”

“The what brothers?” he asks with a smile.

“Lumière. These French guys who basically invented movies—they made the camera and showed the first film—a bunch of people exiting a train station …” My voice trails off. He’s staring at me. “What?”

“Your face lights up when you talk about the movies.”

He’s right about that—literally—because I sense the blushing coming on, of course. I avoid his gaze, looking down at the camera at my side. “Movies are the only real magic that I can make,” I say.

He catches my eye. He opens his mouth to say something, then pauses. Clears his throat. “So I guess you will be telling your folks about NYU.”

I chuckle miserably. “This weekend. As long as I don’t lose my nerve. I asked my aunt to come and be moral support or rescue me in case my parents try to ship me to India and marry me off to a distant cousin.”

“Why are they so against you going away for school, anyway?”

“I guess they’re nervous to send me away because they can’t keep an eye on me. In India, plenty of women live at home until they get married, but things are changing there, too. But my parents are frozen in the past, in the India of their youth.”

He nods. “My parents are frozen in the past, too, in a way. Batavia’s past.”

I get it. Batavia is so small. I wonder if we will ever be alone like this again. Phil and I have known each other since we were five years old, but I’ve never truly known him beyond the obvious, beyond what the world knows. That he plays football, dates Lisa, and works for his dad at the station. And that he’s good-looking. Really good-looking. Perhaps beyond this pond we’ll go back to the way we were, unknowable to each other. We can only exist together here in our little mise-en-scène at the end of the path—the setting of our own documentary short.

Phil interrupts my thoughts. “I know what you should call it.”

“Call what?” I ask.

“The movie that you’re going to make about your swimming lessons—Hidden Beach,” he says, but I wrinkle my nose. “No? How about … Stolen Beach … Stolen Water … no, wait … Stolen Spring? Stolen Spring. Get it?”

I shrug and give Phil a little grin, waiting for him to explain.