Abby Spencer Goes to Bollywood (6 page)

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.

“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?

Who is he?

A man who wants to make up for the lost years and get to know his daughter.

“Abby, I want to meet you. This Skype thing is so fake. I wish I could hop on a plane. But I can’t right now with your grandmother in the hospital and my shooting schedule and a big movie premiere coming up.”

All these words are so strange.
Grandmother. Shooting schedule
. I’ve heard of shooting ranges but not of shooting schedules. Movie premieres happen in Hollywood, and I guess Bollywood. Abby Spencer doesn’t hear about them. Nobody I know mentions them. Instead, we talk about upcoming birthdays and plans for long weekends.

And then, as if the whole thing isn’t weird enough, he sheepishly asks, “Meredith, Abby, does anyone else know about this?”

“You mean about your mother?” Mom is usually smart. I guess we all have our duh moments.

“You mean about you being my father?” I jump in.

“Yes,” my dad says. “I told my publicist and he wants to think about the best way to release this information to the media.”

Publicist, media, press release! Whoa!

“Oh! Oh!” says Mom. “My parents and Susan, my business partner, know. I realize that our lives will change once the world knows. Abby, you haven’t told any of your friends, have you?”

“Priya and Zoey know. But I told them to keep it a secret because I need time to figure things out. They would never tell anyone unless I said they could.”

“Abby, Meredith, could we keep this quiet a bit longer?

Please?”

After we sign off, I can’t help thinking that having a daughter is a skeleton in my dad’s closet. Except I’m not a pile of dead bones. I’m living and confused by it all. The string quartet wails.

Chapter 9

Zoey decides we have to meet at the Yogurt Cup the next day since my allergic reaction started it all. They want to hear more, hear all.

This time I choose mango with white chocolate chips as the topping. As I approach the coconut, I dance away in mock fright. Zoey steps in as a human shield between the coconut and me. Priya provides the sound effects of the ambulance siren blaring and the da-da-da of a horror movie. Priya covers her yogurt with coconut in honor of its major role.

Counter Guy laughs. “Hey, glad you girls came back. Thought you might boycott us forever. You,” he says, pointing at me, “scared us that day.”

Zoey grins wide enough to show her molars. I drag her away, afraid she’ll scare him.

“So, your mom wrote him a letter and he didn’t get it,” says Zoey when we sit in a deserted corner.

“That is so tragic,” says Priya. “Like a movie or a book.” “Yup, my life would make the best book,” I reply.