Blue Jasmine (12 page)

“Is this your sister?” Carrie asked me.

“Yes.” I said gingerly, afraid that she might say something nasty to Mela and make her cry.

“Are you my sister's friend?” Mela asked.

Carrie glanced at me.

“I'm in her class.”

“Are these flowers from your garden?”

“They are. I live right across the park,” she said, pointing at the gray house.

“What's your name?” Mela asked.

“My name is Carrie.”

“I like your name, Carrie. My name is Mela and I'm five.”

“Do you want a push, Mela?” Carrie asked.

Mela nodded, handed me the flowers, and hopped back on the swing. Before I could say or do anything Carrie gave Mela a push.

“Your sister is cute. How come she doesn't have an accent like you?” Carrie asked.

“Because she learned English after coming here, but I started learning English in India.”

“When did you move here?”

“Last July,” I said, wishing she wouldn't ask me any more questions. Who knows how she would use all the information against me in school?

She gave Mela another big push. “Are you coming to my sister's birthday party, Carrie?” Mela shouted from her swing.

“When is your birthday?” Carrie asked.

“Not until the twenty-third.”

I didn't know what else to say. One part of me urged me to be polite and invite her. Then I could get even and make fun of her on home territory. Another part of me warned me to shut up. Why invite trouble to my house?

She was about to give Mela another push when I said, “I can do that.”

“I don't mind. I forgot, what's your sister's name?”

“Mela.”

“My name means ‘carnival,'” Mela piped up.

“You're fun like a carnival,” Carrie said. “What does your name mean, Seema?”

I remembered how she'd broken my name up into “Seem-a” and ridiculed me in front of the others. I looked away from her. My eyes rested on the park lawn where the last of the dandelions were still blooming while most had turned white, like flower ghosts. Why should I tell you
what my name means? I thought, but instead, I said, “Seema means ‘boundary,'. ‘horizon.'”

“That's pretty,” she said. Then she smiled.

I almost flipped off the swing. I wondered what evil thoughts were lurking behind her smile. All I wanted to do was to get away from Carrie before she said or did something dreadful to us.

“Mela, time to go home,” I said. As we walked away Mela kept looking back waving and shouting, “Bye-bye, Carrie. Bye-bye, Carrie.” And Carrie stood by the swing waving and shouting, “Bye-bye, Mela. Bye, Seema.”

On the way home Mela asked, “Are you going to invite Carrie to your birthday party?”

“I don't know,” I said.

“I like her.”

“Then you invite her for your birthday,” I snapped.

Mela didn't say another word.

At home I fought with the thought that maybe I should invite Carrie to my birthday party, but memories of all the times she'd been mean tumbled through my mind. She was not my friend and I wasn't going to invite her to my party. Then I realized all my friends, Jennifer, Ria, Asha, and Priya, would be there. Wouldn't it be fun to have one enemy and make her miserable? I liked the idea.

That afternoon I wrote the invitations for my birthday party.

“Can I invite one more person?” I asked Mommy.

“Of course. Who do you want to invite?”

“Mela and I saw Carrie at the park today. I think she'd like to come to my party.”

“Do you want to invite her?”

“Yes. I do.”

“Then go ahead.” Mommy said.

After I dropped the card in the mailbox I worried I'd made a mistake. What if she spoiled my birthday? What if she made fun of my family? But we would be five against one and we'd show her. No matter what happened I had to face her. I've invited her and I have to go through with it, I thought.

Mukta still hadn't answered my letter. When I talked to Raju on the phone I asked him if he had seen her.

“Why would I see stinky Mukta if I didn't have to?” he said.

“Don't call her stinky,” I said.

“You used to call her that, too, but now that you're far away and can't smell her, you want to be nice to her.”

I wanted to shout at him. Instead, I gulped down my anger and asked calmly, “Does she come to school?”

“If she came to school, she'd be the only one doing that. We're on vacation.”

“Oh yeah, I forgot.”

“We still have four more weeks of vacation, and when school starts I'll tell you if she shows up, and stinks up.”

I couldn't talk to Raju anymore. I handed the phone to Pappa.

Raju's conversation turned my mood so dark that I had a hard time concentrating on my math homework. How could he be so mean to Mukta? But Raju was right. I used to call Mukta stinky too. I remembered when the tip of my pencil broke during a math exam, Mukta offered me one of her tiny pencils, but I wouldn't touch it. Now I was ashamed to realize how that must have hurt Mukta. Only now that I had suffered the pain inflicted by Carrie in her nastiness did I realize the pain I was guilty of inflicting on Mukta.

When I woke up Sunday morning Mommy was listening to a tape. It was in Hindi. Of course this past year I had not learned any more Hindi in school as I would have in India, but I had seen a few Hindi movies.

“Mom, what does Tulsidas's song mean?” I asked.

“It says that in this world there are many kinds of people. To sail smoothly through life, adjust yourself
according to circumstances as a boat adjusts to the flow of the river and the wind.”

From that moment on, whenever I thought about what I could do to make Carrie miserable, Mukta's face came to mind, and I couldn't think of a single evil prank.

When jennifer and Ria found out that I had invited Carrie to the party they were shocked. “You're joking! Tell me you're joking!” Ria said.

“I'm not.” I said, and told them about the time I had seen Carrie in the park.

Jennifer shook her head. “Seema, I don't understand why you'd do that.”

“I don't know myself. First I thought it would be fun to make her miserable, but the more I thought about it the less I wanted revenge. My biggest worry is that she might ruin my party.”

“We'll be there. We'll show her,” Ria promised.

Jennifer nodded.

In the classroom I noticed that Carrie moved slowly, differently. She was friendlier. It reminded me of a one-actor play I had seen in a village in India. Depending on the role he was playing, the actor changed his looks, voice, walk, and mannerisms. When he went from being a fierce demon to a celestial dancer the audience laughed, but he kept on acting and telling his story. I wondered if
Carrie was acting the role of my friend because I'd invited her to my party. Or was there a genuine change in her? Was it temporary, and as soon as my party was over she'd strike again? Was I missing something that was obvious to everyone but me? I couldn't tell.

Now every time I spoke in class Carrie watched me intently as she used to when she had first arrived, but she didn't snicker and didn't make jokes. A couple of times when I answered correctly I saw from the corner of my eye that she was smiling at me, but I avoided meeting her eyes. Even though she wasn't unpleasant I avoided her as much as I could. One day as I was walking home she caught up with me. “Wait, Seema,” she said.

I stopped.

“I'm sorry about that day.”

“Which day?” I asked as I started walking. I was thinking that there were so many days that she should be sorry for.

“The day you fell.”

“You mean the day you
made
me fall?”

“I barely touched your braid and—”

“You made me fall and then you ran away,” I snapped.

“I'm sorry,” she mumbled.

I didn't say anything. We were both quiet until we reached the edge of the park.

I knew she had to cross the street. “Thanks for inviting me to your party,” she whispered, as she stopped.

I glanced at her, and I thought I saw tears forming in the corners of her eyes.

“Are you coming?” I asked, focusing my eyes on the sky beyond her.

“Yes. I'll be there.”

I nodded and walked away.

So it was definitely Carrie who had pulled my braid and run away. On top of being mean, she's a coward, I thought. That mean coward is going to pay. She's going to And out what it's like to be on the receiving end of meanness.

Thoughts of revenge took hold of me.

O
n my birthday Raju called early in the morning. “Now I'm a teenager,” I said to him.

“What's a teenager?”

“I'm thirteen.” I said.

“I know. I was with you For your first twelve birthdays, remember? But what's a teenager?”

I tried to explain. “When you turn thirteen until you're nineteen there's a
teen
in the number.”

“I see. But what's the big deal?”

“No big deal,” I said. Some things were hard to explain; others were impossible.

“There's a card for you in the mail,” Pappa said.

One of the stamps had pictures of Mahatma Gandhi
with his spinning wheel. The card was from Mukta. She'd made a picture of two girls walking hand in hand under the
neem
tree out of dried rose, marigold, and jasmine petals and
neem
leaves. There was a short letter with it but she didn't mention anything about her
kaki
. I wondered if she'd simply forgotten to write about her, or if her
kaki
had become sicker.

I displayed Mukta's card on the coffee table. All day long I was like a fluttering butterfly in a spring garden. There was so much to do, but I couldn't settle on one task and kept moving about doing a little bit of everything and much of nothing. Mommy and Pappa finished hanging colorful streamers, making bags of party favors, and preparing snacks.

There were six of us and Mela at the party. We played games and I cut the cake and opened the gifts. All afternoon Mommy and Pappa were nearby and there was no problem. But when we were sitting around that evening Carrie asked, “Asha, does your name mean something like Seema's and Mela's?”

“Yes.
Asha
means ‘hope,'” she said.

“Hope!” Carrie said, as if she was taking the meaning in. “And yours, Priya? Does it have a meaning?”

“
Priya
means ‘one who is loved,'” Priya said.

“I love the way all your names mean something and that you know their significance.”

Nobody said anything for a while. All of us were surprised at Carrie's comments.

Jennifer admired the card Mukta had made. “Is this card from your cousin in India?” she asked.

“No. It's from my friend Mukta. We went to school together.”

“She must be good at art,” Asha said.

“She embroiders well too,” I said. I ran to my room and got the handkerchief Mukta had made.

“What does Mukta mean?” Carrie asked.

Why is she so nosy about names? I thought.

Asha and Priya shrugged their shoulders. They didn't know what Mukta meant. “
Mukt
means ‘to be free,' so
Mukta
must mean ‘one who is free,'” I said.

“Is she free like a butterfly in the sky?” Mela asked.

Everyone laughed. I tried to laugh with them, but couldn't. Carrie's eyes rested on me and seemed to say, I see what's hidden in your eyes.

A slight shiver went through my spine.

Even though we stayed up late watching movies and eating popcorn, my heart was not in my party. It was one o'clock when we turned the lights off. Soon they were all asleep, or at least so I thought. In the dark I picked up Mukta's card and thought about the time we had sat together on a bench and shared a book. The whole time she was with me I complained about it to Urvashi and
Nalini and the other girls at recess, and now I missed her.

“Do you miss your friend Mukta?” Carrie whispered to me.

In the darkness I couldn't see her face, but her voice was soft.

“Yes, I do. I never wanted to be her friend when I was in India, but now that we're apart I wish I could be her friend. Isn't it strange?”

“No, it isn't.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

“Because it's the same with me. We move every two years and this is my fourth school. Every time we move I end up missing the people I thought I'd miss the least. They're the ones that keep coming to my mind in my new home. I thought I was the only one this happened to.” Carrie said.

“I guess not.” The darkness stretched between us and for a while we were quiet. “That day at the park . . . what happened? Suddenly, from that day on why did you stop being mean to me?” I asked.

“It wasn't as sudden as you think. It came slowly. After that day in the cafeteria when you said that my name. Schuler, meant ‘pain,' and that I was a pain, I was determined to get back at you and make you miserable. You don't know how I tried and schemed. Then, on the day when I teased you about dandelions, I was feeling better.
I saw you walking home that day. You were almost running, and yet I knew you'd be back the next day, and I'd tease you more. After that I got chicken pox.”

“And then?”

“While I was sick I realized how much my parents loved me. Mom, who never could sleep if there was a dirty Spoon in the sink, ignored the stack of unwashed dishes and pile of soiled laundry when my fever climbed up. Dad took afternoons off and read me stories. They were so good to me.”

“But they're your parents. Of course they were good to you—especially when you were sick.”