Nice and Mean

by Jessica Leader

I leaned against a desk. “It’s not like there’s one answer. I mean, people just go into stores and look at magazines and wear what other people are wearing, but it’s not like there’s one way. You sort of just . . . know. You figure it out.”

  “But there are so many things in stores and magazines,” Sachi protested. “Nobody is wearing those pants with the big pockets in the window of the Gap, but everybody is wearing those scarves.”

  “That’s because those pants are butt-ugly!” I laughed.

  “Yeah, but why does everybody agree?” Sachi leaned her elbows on the desk. “Or, okay, there are some things that are—unusual, but people act like they’re cool, and then there are some things that maybe only one person wears, and everybody agrees it’s not cool, and then they kind of make fun of that person.”

  Wait, was she making a video about Rachel? What the heck? “Look,” I said, “some people just use clothes to get attention, and it’s really annoying, so sometimes other people get mad.”

  Sachi ran her finger along the edge of her tray. “But maybe it hurts their feelings. And maybe they never did anything, and they didn’t mean to try to get attention, or at least, not a bad kind of attention—”

  I stood up. “Okay, I’m not trying to be mean, but you don’t know what happened with me and Rachel, so I kind of wish you would just—”

  “Rachel?” Sachi looked puzzled. “I wasn’t talking about Rachel.”

  “Oh.” I felt stupid. “Who were you talking about?”

  “Oh . . .” She poked her corn with a fork. “Kind of, my sister. She’s got this koala bear key chain, and people sort of laugh at her . . . and kind of, I was talking about my friend Lainey.” She looked up at me hesitantly, like she was expecting me to get mad.

  “What?” I asked. Then I got it. “Did I, um, say something to Lainey?”

  “Just that you didn’t like her shirt.” Sachi’s voice was soft.

  “Oh.” I tried to think of what I had said, but honestly, I didn’t even remember talking to her friend. “Well, I’m sorry. That was probably . . . not that nice.”

  Sachi picked up her fork. “Thanks.”

  The shade flapped against the window as the ideas from Sachi’s video raced through my head. “So what did people say in the interviews?” I asked. “They didn’t say anything good?”

  She broke off a piece of crust. “I don’t know. Some of them, sort of.”

  I looked at her hopefully. “Are you sure I can’t see it?”

  “Aagh!” She buried her face in her hand, but she was laughing. “You’re going to think it’s boring. Yours was, like, really fun and cute, and mine is just people talking.”

  “Oh,” I said. “I didn’t know you thought mine was . . .” Fun and cute, I thought, but I didn’t want to sound braggy.

  She nodded. “Oh, yeah. I make up videos in my head all the time and they’re not even as good as yours. I mean, I could practically hear a soundtrack to yours and everything. You know that song ‘Beautiful People’?”

  “I love that song!” I said. “Yeah, that would be great for the red carpet scene. Oh my gosh, I should have played it while we were shooting.”

  She shook her head. “You wouldn’t have been able to hear it. Remember, Mr. Phillips said you had to lay that kind of soundtrack over afterward?”

  “Oh, right, of course.” I totally knew that. But good thing to have a partner who actually listened in class. Well, not a partner, really. Except . . .

  “Hey,” I said, “I know you basically have no reason to want to work with me, like, at all, but if you wanted to work on your video together, that would be kind of fun. I wouldn’t make you use my stuff—I mean, not that I could get it, anyway—but I don’t know. I really like making videos, and your interviews—well. I bet they’re not as stupid as you think.”

  “Girls!”

  Sachi and I turned to see Ms. Avery standing in the doorway, a grocery bag in her hand and a frown on her face. “I don’t remember giving permission for this meeting.”

  “Sorry!” said Sachi, her voice high. “We were just talking.”

  Ms. Avery walked over to her desk and plunked her bag down. “You have permission to be up here. Marina?” She took out one of those takeout salad containers. “I hardly think someone in your position would want to be caught somewhere she shouldn’t be.”

  “We just ran into each other, and I needed to talk to her about my video,” Sachi explained, twisting her ring. “She needed to, um, fill me in on a few things. From when we were partners.”

  I crossed my fingers, hoping Ms. Avery would believe it. I didn’t know how I could get in worse trouble, but I didn’t want to find out.

  Ms. Avery pulled off her jacket. “All right,” she said, folding it over the chair, “but you probably need to get down to—uh-oh.” She looked at her watch. “They’re not serving lunch anymore.” She didn’t seem happy about this.

  “I’m fine,” I told her. “And I can go downstairs if you need me to.” As long as I wasn’t going to get in more trouble, I’d go anywhere she told me to go.

  “Well, that doesn’t make a lot of sense.” She rooted inside her plastic bag and pulled out a couple of plastic packets. “Here, at least eat something.”

  “Oh. Thanks.” It had taken me a second to realize she was offering them to me. I walked over to her desk to take them—tiny, hard pieces of pumpernickel. Was she giving me stale bread?

  “You’ve never had melba toast?” Ms. Avery asked.

  I shook my head.

  “Melba toast is great,” she declared, and sank into her chair.

  Sachi giggled. I looked at her, puzzled. Was this some kind of joke? In a squeegee language I didn’t understand?

  “Do you want it back?” I asked. I wasn’t sure why she’d give me the melba toast if it was her favorite.

  “No, it’s for you.” She waved a hand at me as she pulled out a fork.

  I opened one of the packets and took a bite. Pretty dry, but better than nothing. “Thanks,” I said.

  She nodded and popped open her salad box.

  “Ms. Avery?” said Sachi. “We were wondering . . . maybe Marina could help me with my video.”

  My eyes widened. Was Sachi saying yes to me?

  Ms. Avery’s fork, halfway to her salad, stopped in midair. “That is a very risky idea,” she said. “I’m not sure how I feel about that.”

  “What if we only worked on it in here, when you were in the room?” I asked. “Then you could make sure that it didn’t become . . . you know . . .” I scuffed at the floor. “Bad.”

  Ms. Avery stabbed one, two, three times at her salad before answering. Come on, I thought. I can’t do anything bad if you’re watching, right? And I really . . . kind of . . . need something right now.

  Ms. Avery chewed and swallowed, then said finally, “Is this something you both want?”

  Sachi had twisted in her chair to look at Ms. Avery, so I couldn’t see her face. All I could think was, Please say yes.

  “I think it would be good,” Sachi told Ms. Avery. “Marina’s video is really fun. Well—at least it was when she filmed it,” she added in a smaller voice.

  Ms. Avery gave me a knowing look over Sachi’s head. “Oh, I know all about Marina’s video skills,” she said, and I felt a slight chill. “Sachi, you’re sure about this?”

  Sachi nodded.

  Ms. Avery took a deep breath. “Well, if you both know what you’re in for,” she said.

  Woo! It was a yes. It was two yesses! “We do,” I said, feeling happy for the first time in days.

  If only everything else weren’t a complete disaster.

  SACHI’S VIDEO NIGHTMARE #16.0

  INTERIOR. MS. AVERY’S HOMEROOM—DAY

  Sachi watches her video.

  SACHI

  Hunh. This is still just people talking about . . . clothes.

  She stares helplessly at her computer screen.

  “Fine!” Priyanka slammed the door with a grunt. “I’l
l fail, and it’ll be their fault!”

  My eyes popped open in the dark bedroom. My mind had been stuck in a Video Nightmare, and the slam had sent my heart racing.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, hoping she didn’t take my head off.

  She threw herself onto the bottom bunk, and the whole bed shook. “Everything. I wanted to type my paper, but Papa said no, because I’m still being punished for your stupid video.” She clicked on her reading light. “Now I have to handwrite it. It’ll take forever!”

  “Oh.” The reading light was so bright that I had to shield my eyes. “Sorry.”

  “Hmmph.”

  “Do you want me to talk to them?” I asked.

  “Oh, right.” I could hear her smacking her pillow into a backrest. “Like that’ll help.”

  From underneath my arm, I stared up at the ceiling. It was the first time she’d talked to me since Saturday night. I didn’t know if she’d listen to my apology now, but I had to say it. “Priyanka,” I said, “I didn’t mean to get you in trouble. I’m sorry.”

  Her pen clicked. “See if I ever help you again.”

  Oh.

  Pages rustled. Her pen scratched.

  What if I needed her?

  “Priyanka?”

  “I’m trying to work.”

  “Never mind. I’m sorry. Good night.”

  I turned onto my side. Never help me? My gaze fell on the bookshelf across the room, and the picture of us from elementary school, dressed like twin dogs for Halloween. I couldn’t see it well from where I lay, but I knew that if I looked closely, I’d see the dots Ma had made with her eyeliner for whiskers. We’d insisted that she match the position of the dots exactly so that people would know we were twins—never mind that Priyanka was taller and had glasses. We had been best friends.

  She’d helped me then, too. In first grade, when I’d thrown up in school and felt so mortified, I couldn’t remember my mother’s work number, the school secretary had sent for Priyanka. She’d marched right into the office and dialed the number with the confidence of a grown-up. I might have felt grown-up sometimes, but seventh grade was only halfway through school. What about high school? What about college? Would I have to go through the rest of my life as one half of twin dogs?

  Tears gathered in the corners of my eyes and rolled down the side of my face. I sniffed.

  “What’s wrong.” Priyanka said it so impatiently, it didn’t even sound like a question.

  “Nothing.”

  Her pen scratched against the page as I fought off another sniff.

  “I can’t write my essay if you’re crying up there,” she said.

  “I just . . . I don’t know why you started being mean to me.” My voice squeaked.

  There was a light thump—a pen dropped on a notebook, maybe. “Why I started being mean to you?” she asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “Oh, like you didn’t start ignoring me when you came to Jacobs?”

  “I did?” I asked in astonishment. “Like when?”

  “Like, all the time.” Her tone mocked me from the bottom bunk.

  I racked my brains. “Really?”

  “Like when you read your speech at the Thanksgiving assembly last year. I went up to you and said ‘Nice job,’ and your friends were there and you barely even thanked me.”

  “I did not!”

  “Yes, you did!”

  For the life of me, I didn’t remember having done that. “I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean to.” That was why she’d been mad at me? That was why we had stopped riding the bus together in the mornings?

  “And your video,” she said. “I told you not to do it, and now you’re in trouble, and Ma and Papa are mad at us.”

  “I’m sorry.” I felt so sad and cold, and pulled my knees up to my chest. “I just didn’t think they would find out.”

  “Why couldn’t you just go along?” she asked. “Why did you have to get them all mad like that?”

  The light from the bunk below threw dark shadows across the ceiling. “I didn’t mean to get them mad. I just really wanted to make the video. They tell us to go along with what they want, that we’ll have choices when we’re older, but it’s hard. And Ma didn’t just do what her parents did. I mean, she came here.”

  “That’s different,” said Priyanka. “She was doing something good for the family. You’re just making a video to make yourself look cool.”

  “I’m not,” I cried. “Or if I am—well—you’re the one who didn’t want me to tell Ma and Papa about a boy you met this summer! Or was that ‘doing something good for the family’?”

  “Mohan is completely different,” Priyanka said quickly.

  “How?” I asked.

  “Because—because—because it just is !”

  I didn’t want to make her any madder, so I just said “Okay” and stared up at the ceiling while she scribbled away in her notebook.

  “I can’t believe you’re not telling me about it,” I said. “We always promised we’d tell each other if we got a boyfriend.”

  “Sachi,” said Priyanka, “please. I’m writing a paper.”

  I sighed. “I know. I just . . . you’ll tell me sometime, right?”

  “Maybe.” Now she sounded smug. “Maybe not.”

  I leaned over the railing. “Oh, come on! Please? I promise I won’t tell anyone.”

  “Girls!” Our mother’s voice rang through the apartment. “It’s bedtime.”

  “Sorry!” we called.

  And then I whispered, “Tell me!”

  Priyanka groaned. “You’re impossible,” she said. “I can’t concentrate on anything in here.” She started rustling around.

  I bit my lip. Was she going back into the living room? I had only wanted to talk.

  “I might as well just take a break,” she said, and before I knew what was happening, the ladder was creaking, and she appeared at the foot of my bed, her hair loose and cascading over her shoulders. “Can I come in?” she asked.

  “Sure!” She hadn’t asked “Can I come in?” in years.

  I scooched back so she had room to climb up, and she leaned against the wall near my feet. “Wow,” she said, looking out at the room, “I haven’t been up here in ages. You know, when we first got the bed, the top bunk scared me.”

  “Priyanka!” I had guessed that about the bunk bed, but I wanted to know about the boyfriend. “Tell me about Mohan!”

  She pulled her T-shirt over her knees. “Well . . . remember the last night we were at Nani’s, when Ma couldn’t find me?”

  “Yes. I had to pack Pallavi’s suitcase, and she kept saying I was doing it wrong.”

  “So . . .” Priyanka rocked back and forth slightly. “He snuck into the courtyard to say good-bye, and—we kissed! That was when he became . . . you know . . . my boyfriend.”

  “Oh my gosh!” I clapped my hands to my mouth. “I can’t believe it! What was it like? How did you know what to do?”

  Priyanka cracked up.

  “Shush!” I protested, but I was laughing too. “How else am I supposed to know? You have to tell me! Was it on the lips?”

  She smiled. “Yup.”

  “Oh!”

  Her smile deepened. “Yeah.”

  “Are you still going out?” I asked.

  “Yeah. At least, we still e-mail. He uses a girl’s screen name to write me in case they see.”

  “Sneaky!”

  Priyanka wiggled her eyebrows. “What can I say?”

  I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t like the way Marina and her friends divided the class into cool people and nerds, but all the same, I had pretty much thought Priyanka was a nerd. All this time, though, she’d had a boyfriend, and even gotten kissed! I felt a new respect for her. Not because it made her cool, but—she had secrets too.

  “I didn’t mean it before,” Priyanka said suddenly.

  “What?”

  “About not helping you ever again.”

  “Oh.” Tears prickled my eye
s, but for a different reason than they had earlier. “Thanks.”

  “Why?” Priyanka sounded wary. “What’s going on?”

  I tried to sound normal. “What makes you think something’s going on?”

  “Sachi.”

  She said it so knowingly, I sighed. I guessed you couldn’t hide too much from someone you’d shared a room with all your life.

  “Marina asked if I wanted to work on the video with her outside of class,” I told Priyanka, “and I said yes.”

  “What?” Priyanka’s eyes bulged out. “On that Victim/Victorious thing? You’re helping her with that?”

  “No!” I said, although I couldn’t believe that even Priyanka knew what Marina’s video had been about. “We’re working on my video.”

  “What? Why? And why do you have to work with her?” Priyanka hunched over her knees.

  I pulled my blanket up to my chest. “I think it’s going to be good. I had filmed all these interviews, and they didn’t turn out that well, but Marina thinks she knows how to make it all work.” Although before Priyanka had come in, I had been worrying about that . . .

  “What’s it about?” Priyanka asked.

  So she wasn’t going to tell? “Well,” I said cautiously, not wanting her to change her mind, “have you ever noticed that people seem to think some cultures are cooler than others?”

  She looked suspicious. “Yeah?”

  “So, that’s sort of what it’s about. Like how you hear kids say ‘Wassup?’ like the African-American kids do, or they say ‘Ojé, Mami’ like the kids from the Dominican Republic. But they never say, ‘Hey, Ma-ji! How’s it hanging?’ ”

  “Yo!” said Priyanka, grinning. “Namaste! Welcome!”

  We giggled. The sound of footsteps came near our room. “Girls?” said my mother.

  As Priyanka and I laughed silently into our hands, the footsteps padded away.

  “It’s true,” Priyanka whispered. “Everyone listens to R&B, but Indian music, forget it.”

  “Not when My Jaiphur Bride came out,” I pointed out. “That was the year everyone wanted us to dance bhangra, remember?”

  Priyanka rolled her eyes. “Oh, I remember. Every few years something Indian becomes cool, and then people forget about it.”

  “I know!” I cried. “I want to say to them, ‘Wait! I was cool last year.’ ”