Abby Spencer Goes to Bollywood

by Varsha Bajaj

  As soon as I walk into the gym, I say aloud, “Wow!”

  An array of flags has transformed the All-American gym into a United Nations assembly hall. There are at least twenty-five festive booths representing different countries. Volunteer moms bustle around getting their tables ready.

  The air is soaked with the aromas of food. Butter croissants from France, bite-size tacos from Mexico, Greek spanakopitas, Indian samosas, and custard tarts from England. I stand at the entrance for a minute and take it all in, feeling excited. I head toward Priya’s booth, where Zoey is waiting. Priya’s mom has draped our table in a cloth embroidered with mirrors and arranged a few artifacts from India on it. Currency, jewelry, books, fabrics, and an intricately carved rosewood box. It looks like the one Mom has at home with her memory stuff. I wonder if my father gave that to her. A huge map and

  posters swirl around the table.

  The new knowledge about my dad gives the objects

  new meaning. It feels right that I’m volunteering at the India booth. But what do I know about India even if my father is there?

  It’s in South Asia.

  Priya’s parents came from there. I love samosas and chicken tikka. Oh! And Gandhi was Indian.

  Wow. It smacks me in the face. I don’t know much! I have so much to learn.

  Mrs. Gupta is setting up her laptop with the help of the tech guy when I walked up to her. “Hi, Abby, we’re almost ready,” she says. “Here are your clothes. Priya will help you get dressed.” She reaches out to hold my hand. “And Abby, thank you so much for doing this.”

  “You’re welcome. Why do you have the laptop, Mrs. G.?” I ask, peeking into my bag of clothes.

  “Oh, I have a music video that I’d like to show if we can get it working,” she replies.

  Priya and I rush to the locker rooms. I open the bag to find the dressiest, most ornate, and stunning outfit I’ve ever seen. The skirt is pale bluish-purplish silk. Gold and silver embroidery adorn the hem. The blouse is pink, trimmed with the same lavender color from the skirt.

  “Wow! Priya, this is gorgeous. What if I ruin it?” I slip into the skirt and blouse.

  “You won’t ruin it,” Priya says as she buttons me up. She pleats the scarf, which matches the skirt, and drapes it around the skirt, partially covering the sliver of exposed midriff between the skirt and the blouse. She throws the other end of the scarf over my shoulder.

  And voila! I’m ready. It looks like a sari, but it isn’t. A sari, Priya tells me, is six yards of untailored fabric draped around the body.

  I looked in the mirror admiring myself and then it strikes me. This isn’t just International Day. It’s a debutante ball for Abby Tara Spencer.

  Overwhelmed by the discovery that had catapulted my life to crazyville in the last twenty-four hours, I grab Priya’s hand. She looks at me and then at her watch. “You look amazing, Abby. We better get back to the gym before Mom comes looking for us.”

  In a saner frame of mind I would’ve realized this isn’t a Kodak moment. But my mind is whirling. I grab Priya’s hand tighter and whisper urgently, “Priya, what if I told you I learned a lot more about my father?”

  “Abby, not funny.” Priya packs my clothes. “We need to get back before the bell rings.”

  I can’t blame Priya. She doesn’t know my life has taken a mega twist. No normal person chooses to make major life-changing announcements in the locker room. Not with the

  sounds of metal locker doors clanging. Not with the faint smell of sweaty socks from a million years wafting around. Not with minutes left to the bell.

  Sure enough, the bell buzzes like a chain saw.

  “And what if I told you my father is very famous in India?” I whisper as Priya opens the locker room door and we’re thrown upstream into a sea of kids heading to class. I guess once I start, I can’t stop, even if Priya thinks I’m being funny.

  Priya gives me a look that says, Ha! Ha! Hilarious.

  We run back to the gym and take our places at the booth. Priya looks at me and says, “What’s up with you? As far as I know wearing that outfit doesn’t make you a fantasy writer.”

  I can’t answer because volunteer moms oohing and aahing over my outfit have surrounded me.

  Mrs. Gupta has her laptop working. Kids file into the gym, their pretend passports in hand. They go from table to table, picking up information, food samples, and stamping their passports with visas from each country’s booth.

  Then they’re at our table. Mrs. Gupta does her mandated spiel laced with facts. India is the world’s largest democracy, it’s a secular country, Hindi is the national language, etcetera.

  Learn, Abby. Slow down, Mrs. G.

  Then it’s time for me to twirl as she explains that a girl would wear this dress on a special occasion like a wedding. I

  strut and twirl to let the students see and admire the beautiful fabric. Priya claps the loudest. Mrs. Gupta thanks me and announces, “To end, I’d like to show you a song and dance clip from a Bollywood movie. It’s like the music videos we have on MTV.”

  She points the remote and a pulsing beat of exuberant music fills the gym. In the video, girls in outfits like mine dance in sync to the beat of the music. It’s beautiful and mesmerizing. The infectious rhythm has me tapping my feet even if I don’t understand the lyrics. And then my father—yes, my father—erupts onto the screen and winks at the camera.

  I freeze.

  Mrs. Gupta presses a button on the remote and pauses my father in mid-leap. “That’s India’s biggest star, Naveen Kumar. You could compare him to Brad Pitt.”

  I expect him to spring out of the computer monitor and into the gym. I feel like my stomach could jump out of my body at any moment. She unpauses my dad and he finishes his leap and launches into a dance routine designed to get people on the floor and moving…unless you happen to be his mortified, unknown-to-him daughter. Kids clap to the beat, moving their hips. It’s infectious. Even the principal taps his foot.

  But not his daughter and her embarrassed friend Priya,

  who whispers, “I told Mom not to play that. It’s so corny and Naveen Kumar is a doofus. No idea why the females of the world swoon over him.”

  Priya has covered her face with her hands. She peeked at the screen through her fingers.

  Zoey disagrees. “You’re kidding, right? He’s super cute.

  Look at his moves.”

  I want the earth to open up and swallow me. I’m not sure which is worse. Priya’s disdain or Zoey’s crush.

  Yet my father-famished eyes study the image, soaking up syllables in a language I don’t understand. Trying to absorb and memorize every nod, squint, and movement.

  “He’s someone’s dad, Zoey!” I say before I can grab the words back.

  “He’s not married,” chimes in Priya. “Maybe he has a love child,” I say.

  Why is a child born out of marriage called a love child? Why is the child not called an oops? Once upon a time, the love child was called ugly names like bastard. My skin crawls in protest.

  “You’re talking crazy today. What’s gotten into you?” Priya asks.

  I force out a crazy laugh and make googly eyes. They both join in.

  Zoey does the Naveen Kumar dance moves.

  And then I swallow, looking Priya in the eye and just blurt it out, “Naveen Kumar is my father.”

  Zoey says, “Sure, and there will be world peace in 2015.” “You guys, I am serious,” I whisper urgently.

  Priya looks at me like I’m speaking Mandarin or Portuguese or a combination of the two. Then she rubs her eyes as if I’ve grown two heads.

  Zoey realizes I’m serious. Her mouth hangs open. If a fly wanted to visit her stomach, it could’ve had a direct flight.

  Priya keeps staring and then goes red and stammers, “I didn’t mean what I said about Naveen Kumar being a doofus.”

  “It’s okay, Priya. You didn’t know.”

  “You made fun of her dad! You did, you did!” Zoey sings
. “I am now the bestest friend, you are not.”

  “Naveen Kumar is your dad? OMG, Abby!” Priya shrieks. “You guys, keep it to yourselves for now. I need to figure things out first. My mom is trying to reach him. And I just

  don’t know how this will all go down.”

  I don’t tell them that he didn’t care about me and didn’t contact my mother when she wrote him. That thought shrivels my heart. The words could never escape my lips.

  He may be a big star but he is a lousy father.

  Chapter 8

  Star-crossed

  On the ride home after International Day, I chew my lip. How would Mom call Naveen Kumar, a famous Bollywood star, and ask him for his medical history? Especially since he has so totally disowned his past and moved on.

  I wouldn’t want to be in her shoes.

  She keeps her word and calls the production company that night. Grandma offers to come over and hold her hand, but Mom declines. She even shoos me away. I try to pretend it’s a normal evening like any other. Ha! I go to the next room and try to eavesdrop through the closed door but Mom has the TV on so I can’t hear.

  Five minutes later Mom shrieks, “Abby! Abby!”

  I race out, my heart pumping. Is my father on the phone? Not quite. But we’re getting closer.

  Mom speaks with a secretary at the production company who confirms that Naveen Kumar is indeed Kabir Kapur. Like we don’t know that by now. She refuses to give Mom his contact number, even after she explains that she knew him in college but lost touch with him. Mom says the woman’s cynical and exhausted tone suggests she’s heard similar stories before.

  Mom leaves her contact number and a message for Kabir/ Naveen/Dad. I need to get in touch with you. It’s important. Not Your teenage daughter who you don’t care about almost died of a coconut allergy. Do you have one too?

  Morning. Afternoon. Evening. A whole day passes. No phone call.

  Mom’s discreet message is obviously easy to ignore, or maybe the lady threw it in the trash. A week later, Mom calls again and begs the woman to relay her message to my dad. Mom thinks the woman takes her message more seriously the second time.

  Monday. Tuesday. Another eternal week. No phone call. Each time the phone rings we jump. We go through the motions waiting for life to take off. I forget to study exponents and my grade in algebra drops exponentially.

  “Mom, have you checked your email today?” We both know why I ask.

  “And how would he get my email address?” she snaps.

  All this waiting and hoping is making me nauseated. I decide I don’t need a father who doesn’t wear a shirt anyway. A father who is a Tex-Mex symbol is so unnecessary to a happy life.

  Priya and Zoey ask about the dad situation and I snap, “I don’t want to talk about it—ever.”

  Being good friends, they back off. “If you change your mind, we’re here,” they offer.

  Mom calls a third time. Her voice quivers as she begs and cajoles the woman. Part of me wants to snatch the phone away and say, “Enough!”

  The day after the third call, Mom and I are watching Chopped on the Food Network when the phone rings. I snatch it on the first ring.

  “Can I speak to Meredith Spencer, please?” a stranger asks.

  “May I ask who’s calling?” I say even though my sixth sense knows. His accent is different—a lot like Priya’s parents’ accents, but not like Apu’s on The Simpsons. A little singsong.

  “Naveen.”

  I mutely throw the phone to Mom like it’s cootie covered.

  Silently I mouth, “My father.”

  Mom takes the phone. Her face is drained of color as she walks to her bedroom. The air around me goes still and I watch TV as if it’s in a foreign language. My mind races. Will

  he want proof from Mom? Will he want a DNA test like in those horrible TV talk shows?

  I sit motionless and stare at the old-fashioned clock on the wall. Tick. Tick. Tick. It has never ticked so loudly or so slowly or so ominously.

  An eternity later, Mom emerges from the bedroom. Her eyes are red.

  “I told him.” She combs her shaky fingers through her hair. She looks me in the eye and repeats, “I told him,” as if she couldn’t believe she’s actually done it.

  “And what did he say?” I ask in a strangled voice.

  “He was stunned and angry. Abby, he says he never got my letter or messages. I told him I talked to his dad. Naveen said he had moved to Delhi for a job. We talked about that for a while. We’re both confused.” Mom shakes her head in disbelief. “Someone must have gotten my letter,” she whispers to herself. “I got the receipt that the letter was received.”

  Time stands still in a haze of confusion.

  I thought of many possibilities but not this one. Never this one.

  I feel like my spine has suddenly gone limp. What does this mean?

  “He just didn’t know?” I ask. “He didn’t know I existed?”

  So he didn’t not care. He didn’t disown me. He didn’t mean to move on and leave Mom and me in the dust.

  Mom nods. She’s as pale as a polar bear. Her eyes glisten with tears. “He doesn’t understand why his father would not have told him that I called. His father died a year after you were born, so I guess we’ll never know. He asked a lot of questions about you. Do you look like him? What are you like? He wants me to email your picture.”

  I’m quiet, absorbing every word. Movies that portray earth-shattering emotional moments with a lot of screaming and shrieking couldn’t be further from the truth. The truth is quiet and bewildered.

  Mom gets quiet too. She sits down on the couch and turns toward the TV. I don’t think she’s watching it so much as staring through it.

  I stare out at the oak tree in the yard. I haven’t noticed the bird nest in the tree before.

  An hour passes or maybe two.

  I try to practice my violin. But each time I play, it scratches and whines. Why did I ever take up the violin? It’s too difficult.

  An hour later, the phone jangles. This time I don’t leap on it. Mom answers. I hear her say, “Kabir, I was hurt, angry, betrayed. I thought you didn’t care that I was having your baby,” before she steps out of the house and into the backyard. Oh, what a mess. Or as Miss Cooper would say in her

  PBS voice, “What a tangled web we weave.”

  I pick up my violin again and this time there is no scratching or whining. The notes come out just right and I understand why I love it. I pour my anguish into my bow, and the sound reflects my feelings.

  Mom comes in, her shoulders drooped. “He wants a couple of days to digest all this. I told him that I found out he’s a movie star a few years ago but decided to not tell you because I wanted you to have a normal childhood. That he understood but was still upset.” Mom’s voice breaks.

  “Mom, is he married? Does he have other children? Do I have half-brothers or sisters?” All my questions spew out at once.

  “No, Abby, he is not married and does not have children.” I’m not sure why, but I’m relieved to hear that.

  Mom speaks again. “His mother—your grandmother—is very sick. She’s in the hospital. He’s overwhelmed to begin with and then this is all too much. He wants to ask her if she knows anything about the letter I wrote, but this isn’t the time.”

  Mom gets up and gives me an awkward hug. Someday I’ll ask her what it felt like to talk to him after all those years. “Abby, he does have an allergy to coconut.”

  A tear rolls down my cheek without my permission. Somehow, that little coconut tidbit connects us as I try to make sense of my crazy world.

  The next morning, as I rush to get to school, the phone rings. I don’t pick up. I’m scared.

  “Abby,” Mom yells out, “answer the phone.”

  I pick up the receiver. It’s him. Didn’t he tell Mom he needed a few days? I guess he’s changed his mind.

  “Abby?” he asks. “Yes?”

  Silence. Filled with awkward agony.
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  “This is Naveen.” Pause. “Your…” Pause. “…dad.” This is so wrong in infinite ways imaginable.

  Nobody should have to have this conversation. Your first hello to your father comes the minute he cuts the umbilical cord and cries tears of joy. And you’re covered with bloody goop and your mom is passed out from exhaustion. You don’t say hi to your dad for the first time ten minutes before you get on the bus when you’re in eighth grade.

  My dad wants to Skype. He thinks it might be easier if we can see each other. He apologizes that he couldn’t get on the next plane. His mother—my grandmother—is sick.

  I tell him we can Skype that evening.

  We set up a time and I hang up. It’s probably the strangest conversation I’d ever have.

  Introduction to Dad via Skype: 8:00 p.m.

  Dad, could you make sure you wear a shirt? I want to say.

  Ha! Of course I don’t.

  I had a board book titled We Are All Different when I was little, with bright colorful drawings. Our stories are different too. Are there as many stories as storytellers? Is there a book in the library about first meetings with dads? The how-tos?

  The Skype connection that evening is grainy and echoey. Mom tries to act nonchalant and fails. “So should I call you Kabir or Naveen?” she says, followed by strangled

  laughter.

  “Naveen’s fine,” my dad replies. “The whole world calls me that, even my mother.”

  He wears a shirt. He looks different from Internet Dad—a bit tired, and he has stubble. His eyes still wrinkle when he smiles. And he touches his ear when he searches for words like I do.

  He looks—well—normal.

  “Abby, Meredith,” he says, “I am so sorry. I don’t know how this would have worked out if I’d known. But I know it would have not been like this. I know that for sure.”

  A smile of relief lights up Mom’s face. I struggle to keep it together.

  Who am I? he wants to know.

  A normal teenager who loves the violin and was raised

  by a single mother? A girl who tried soccer but hated it? A girl who occasionally thinks in rhyme and has an imaginary string quartet?