Love Edy (13 page)

“I know your father usually takes the
honor,” Ali said. “But I couldn’t help myself. All things
considered, of course.” His eyes darted from Edy to the fabric in
beaming certainty.

Edy lifted it from the door for a careful
inspection. Blinding tangerine in winter. Puffed long sleeves. High
waisted. Ankle length. Gleaming gold trinkets attached, seemingly
at random. Madness could be bought, it turned out.

Every year for her birthday, Edy’s father
bought her a dress. When she was little, they were coupled with
tiaras and pin curls. Growing up, the years were measured in
fabric, marked in lace, noted with pearls. But the dresses never
changed. Hoop skirts and tea-length numbers, unabashed in width,
nauseating in sweetness, ruffles innumerable, with Rani standing
by, resident stylist, ready to place a fountain of ribbons in Edy’s
hair. More than once, Edy wished them longer, so that she might tie
one around her neck and jump.

“
I
had this one made,” Ali announced,
chest puffed. “The fabric? Imported from Mumbai. The design and
sewing? Done to my specifications by a very exclusive shop. No one
can boast a dress like this.” He waved both hands. “For you, my
sanam,
only one of a kind will do.”

Her eyes watered. This should have been the
year she refused the dresses and scorned the smothering patriarchy
that dictated what she wore on her most special of days. After all,
she’d be sixteen next year—too old for frosting and tinsel and
grownups at her parties. Truth told, she already was. But even as
she thought all that, her hands reached for the garment. This was
Ali. He’d read to her on countless nights and pushed her too high
on swings, catching her when she leapt off as she always, always
did. Of course, she’d wear it for him.

Her mother had been wrong about one thing
though. Not since she bounced on her father’s knee had she worried
about the scope and grandeur of her birthday parties. Instead, the
mandatory frills made her cringe the way watching the boys tag-team
wrestle sometimes could. Getting propped up in lace so that all her
parents’ friends could drink imported beer and pinch her cheeks
wasn’t exactly tickles and giggles. Were Hassan or the twins
celebrating a birthday, it would have been cause for a nighttime
extravaganza filled with sweat-laden dancing, underage drinking,
and fornicating teens. No, she’d get to spend her day with up and
coming politicians, middle-aged power women, and men desperate to
slip away for the Notre Dame Boston College game.

“I’ll try it on for you,” Edy offered.

She draped the dress over an arm, took a sip
of the
lassi
she knew to be for her, offered what she hoped
to be a reassuring smile, and took both the drink and the tapestry
of horror with her to the bathroom.

Once there, Edy wrestled with zippers and
cursed over buttons before slipping the rustle of crinoline over
her head. She fastened the eyehooks as best she could and inhaled.
Who knew? Maybe when she looked, a stunning and grandiose princess
would stare back at her, as glamorous and swoon-worthy as the girls
who caught Hassan’s eye, and who apparently spent nights with
him.

Edy turned to face the full-length mirror
draped over the door.

What stared back at her was preposterous. A
grotesque burlesque of absurdities in fashion. A high-throated
Victorian neckline, Regency sleeves, and an empire waist. Fabric
that would have been beautiful as a sari looked garish as a gown.
Her eyes began to water. She looked
ugly.
Like, hysterically
ugly. Her only consolation was that she needn’t worry about any
friends seeing her, as she had none to begin with. As usual, the
boys would never breathe a word of what went on in their world,
while any other kid who happened to be there wouldn’t dare risk
their reputation by admitting to it.

Sandra Jacobs would never look like
this
.

Edy stilled the quiver within with a deep
breath, grabbed her
lassi
, and stepped out into the hall. A
deep drink followed another, during which she reminded herself that
there were things more important than looks, that to worry about
looks over feelings was to be as shallow as the runway girls of
South End High. Never mind that you look like a fool, she told
herself. Never mind that the boy you’re in love with thinks of you
as a sister. Never mind that not even in your dumbest daydreams
could you look half as perfect as the perfection he wanted.

The
lassi
found her mouth again and
she drank as she walked. Ali had always adored her and she him. If
Edy couldn’t do this small, distasteful thing for him, then she
wasn’t much of a—

The cup flattened in her face, crunching and
splashing blueberry from nose to waist and wall to wall.

“Oh crap!” Hassan cried. He reached with
both hands for her, then withdrew, before whirling in place as if
something would appear to aid him. His hands flailed. “Jeez, Edy.
I’m sorry. I just—” He flinched at her dress. “Oh, man.”

Ali stepped into the hall. He looked from
Hassan’s cringe to Edy’s wide-eyed one and registered the dress
only last.

“Hassan,” he said.

“It just happened,” Hassan said. “The second
I hit the corner we collided.”

“But you are reckless, always reckless!
Running around as if all of Boston is a football field. You could
have hurt her.”

Ali softened the second he turned to Edy.
“I’m afraid there’s nothing that can be done for the dress, my
dear. Bring it to my wife later. Perhaps she can salvage it. And in
the meantime, you’ll have to find something in your mother’s closet
to wear.”

He shot his son a final scathing look and
barreled downstairs in a huff.

“Edy—” Hassan said.

“Thanks for the save. The dress was
atrocious.”

She started back for her room.

“Edy, wait. About what you saw—”

She ducked in her room.

When Hassan’s mouth opened, she slammed the
door on his answer and locked him out. What could he say to assuage
the raw and pulsating wound of her heart? He couldn’t know the way
she ached for him or how he stabbed her anew every single day. What
apology could fix that? What could he possibly say? That he was
sorry she wasn’t more attractive? Sorry he didn’t want her?

Edy leaned against the door, soaked in
blueberry yogurt. She let the tears fall on her fifteenth
birthday.

An eternity passed.

“Edy,” Hassan said. “Open the door. Please.
You’re killing me.”

Had he really just sat there and listened to
her cry?

It didn’t matter. In the larger scheme of
things, it didn’t matter what he did or whom he did it with. A
chasm divided them, deepening and widening every single day. She
could accept that. She would have to.

Edy stood up straight. She wiped her tears
with the hem of her gown and only succeeded in smearing blueberry
across her face. A hiccup-laugh tore from her, making her choke in
the throes of it. She was positively a mess. And it was all because
of Hassan Pradhan.

~~~

Edy’s morning was filled with hidden gifts
as part of another, much more tolerable tradition. Among her
stumbled-upon presents were Nike ballet slippers from Ali, a
salwar kameez,
or a pink, Punjabi-style pantsuit, an earring
and bracelet set from Hassan with dangling, silhouetted ballerinas
on both, and a monogrammed organizer from her mother. The last, of
course, hadn’t been hidden at all. It sat in plain view of
breakfast alongside a note that read:

Business at the office.

See you at the party.

-Mom

Edy had no idea why she stared at the note
so long. Or why she compared it with the three-page, rose-scented
letter from Rani, stuffed inside the folds of her gift. Simple
things were in the writings from Hassan’s mom, reminisces about the
first time she’d pressed Edy’s hair, the first time she’d seen her
dance ballet. She reminded Edy of a trip to Mumbai, where they’d
sat through three showings of Kaho
Naa . . .
Pyaar Hai
on the night of its debut. She fussed over how
fast Edy had grown, how old she’d become, and called her “her
beauty,” promising that she was already the thing she wanted to be:
beautiful. As was always the case, when comparing Hassan’s mom with
her own, Edy found there was no comparison at all.

At a stone’s throw past five, Edy met Wyatt
in the middle of the street. She wore a simple, long-sleeved black
sheath dress from her mother’s closet—simple except for the hint of
skin exposed at the crocheted abdomen. She’d partnered it with low
heels—the only kind she could maneuver, and the flaring, dramatic
Michael Kors jacket that her mother loved. Edy gave herself thirty
seconds of scrutiny before stepping out of the door. As she walked,
she told herself that the designer clothes were just a byproduct of
shopping in her mother’s closet; she had no special preference for
them. Likewise, the burst of confidence she felt while wearing them
had absolutely nothing to do with egotism, even if Wyatt did look
at her that way.

“What?” Edy said.

“Nothing.” Wyatt continued to stare. “Just .
. .wow. That’s all.”

Edy touched her hair, pressed and swept up
into pin curls by Rani, and took her hand away at the thought that
it was something the “it” girls would do.

“The dress is a little big,” Edy said. “Mom
fills it out much better.”

Her cheeks heated on reflection. Why had she
chosen those words?

Edy glanced down the street, toward the
Dyson house, hoping to distract him from her invitation to see how
well she did or didn’t fill out her mother’s dress.

“Let’s just go,” she said and started off,
leaving Wyatt to follow.

“You look incredible,” Wyatt said. “I’m
gonna pay hell for showing up with you.”

Edy paid him a look, stride picking up as
iced, eye watering wind cut through her ensemble.

“So, you admit it now,” she said, touching
her hair again. “Before you were all Don Corleone on me. Now you
sound like Freddy.”

Wyatt blinked. “Who’s Freddy?”

Edy stopped. Took him in. Started again.
“Hassan would have got that. Or Lawrence and the twins. Anyway,
it’s a
Godfather
reference. Me and the boys have seen it a
lot.”

Wyatt fell instep alongside her. “Is Hassan
bringing a date, too?”

She could have kicked his ass for that. Such
an innocent question. Yet, it brought a flood of emotion and the
image of Sandra Jacobs tumbling out his window and down
their
tree, god damn her. Edy braced herself, fists
clenched, nails digging, before flashing Wyatt her politician’s
smile. Having a politician for a mother was worth something after
all.

“I doubt he’ll bring a date,” she managed.
“It’s really a casual sort of thing.”

“Yet, you have one,” Wyatt said. “You asked
me.”

“Changing the conversation now,” Edy
said.

They continued to walk.

“So, this party is something you do every
year?” Wyatt asked.

“Yeah.”

“Since you were a baby?”

“I guess.”

Edy inspected her wrist. Not all the dancers
on her bracelet from Hassan were exactly the same. Some were
mid-pirouette, others mid-leap. She liked the leaping ones
best.

“So, the Dysons have been throwing you a
birthday party since you were born?”

“No. Just as long as I can remember.”

She found a dancer doing a handstand in a
tutu and squinted at it.

“They’re pretty popular guys. Hassan,
too.”

They halted at a stop sign and waited for a
cherry Bentley to breeze by. The driver sounded two lyrical honks
for Edy before running the intersection altogether. She waved in
response.

“You
know
that guy?”

“Yeah.” Edy started off across the street,
dress fluttering in the wind. She punched a bit of skyward fabric
in impatience and touched up her curls again. “He’s Brock Maddow,
an old teammate of Lawrence’s dad when he played for the
Raiders.”

“His car is incredible.”

“It should be. He’s rich.”

A mint green Audi and black Jag followed
Brock in quick succession. Like him, both honked. Edy waved.

“Jeez, Edy. It’s like a car show with—”

“Look.” She whirled on him so suddenly they
almost collided in the street. “If you’re going to be doing that
all afternoon, you might as well go home now.”

“Doing what?”

“Acting green. Like the sky above and the
ground below impresses you.”

Wyatt’s mouth worked as his cheeks flushed
irretrievably. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to embarrass you. I—I’m
sorry.”

Edy cringed. Had she really yelled at him?
Chastised her friend for lacking the privilege she took for
granted? Her insides turned gray and putrid with the thought. She
sucked. And that was all.

“I’ll behave,” Wyatt continued. “You’ll see.
I can act like I’m one of you guys. Although the clothes aren’t
likely to fool anybody.” He opened his trench coat to reveal a
wash-worn, peach polo, straight-legged jeans, and thick, white
sneakers. But instead of him blushing at the ensemble, Edy did.

Shame. Shame like a canyon, swallowing her
whole.

Edy turned away. When the wind battered her
eyes, drawing tears in her punishment, she accepted it readily
enough. “Promise me you won’t do that again,” she said.

“Do what?”

“
Contort
yourself into whatever you
think’ll please me. You’re good enough as you are. Whoever doesn’t
think so can suck it.”

Wyatt howled with laughter. “Suck what,
Edy?” he said as they started off again.

She stole a look. “
You
know.”

“But I want you to say it. I
dare
you
to say it.”

Edy laughed. “Leave me alone. I can’t. You
know I can’t.” She looped an arm through his as if it were a
consolation prize.