Indie Girl

This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

SIMON PULSE
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com

Copyright © 2007 by Kavita Daswani

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

SIMON PULSE and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

Designed by Jessica Sonkin

The text of this book was set in Aldine721 BT.

Manufactured in the United States of America

First Simon Pulse edition October 2007

2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1

Library of Congress Control Number 2007927644

ISBN-13: 978-1-4169-4892-6

ISBN-10: 1-4169-4892-9
eISBN 13: 978-1-439-12064-4

I would like to express my profound gratitude to my editor at Simon Pulse, Sangeeta Mehta, for seeing this book in her mind before the first word had even been written. Her smart, insightful, and enthusiastic input was as crucial as me sitting down every day to write. This book would not have happened without her.

My thanks to my agent, Jodie Rhodes, who remains as dedicated and loyal and tenacious as the day she signed me. A big thank-you to my sister, Mansha, who spent a chunk of her last vacation reading the manuscript and giving me the benefit of her keen eye.

And last, in acknowledgment of Shirdi Baba, who watches over my family.

Today, I would be meeting the woman whom I was convinced would change my life.

In approximately one hour and twenty-five minutes, Aaralyn Taylor would glide into our school’s assembly hall.

There, poised against a lectern at the Meadow Lake High School in Agoura, in the suburbs of Los Angeles, she would address the crowd about her experiences as the editor of
Celebrity Style,
the hottest celebrity and fashion magazine around. Then, after enrapturing her audience, she would wait to take questions.

I, of course, would ask the most insightful and thought-provoking ones. She wouldn’t be able to help noticing my profound intelligence. And then, as the crowd would start to disperse, she would signal to me to meet her in the foyer, and would proceed to tell me that I was the smartest fifteen-year-old she had ever met. I would reach into my Kate Spade striped canvas knockoff, from which hung a good-luck charm in the shape of the Hindu elephant god, Ganesha, and fish out a bright pink folder containing my pretend-reports from the catwalks, my perceptive analyses of recent runway events that I had seen on the Internet, if not in person. Aaralyn Taylor would then offer me the summer internship I had applied for at the magazine she had founded three years ago and that she had turned into a huge success.

Today, a beautiful March day when the chill of winter had passed and we were in the full bloom of spring, was going to be one I would never forget.

I turned once again to look at the clock.

“In
di
ra! Are you paying attention?”

Mr. Fogerty, my chemistry instructor, was suddenly standing in front of me, his four-foot-five frame seeming even more stunted now that I was perched on a high, round stool.

“Mass and mole relationships,” he said, his small red nose covered with tiny whiteheads. “It was your assigned reading last night. I take it you’re familiar with the chapter?”

“Yes,” I lied. It was uncharacteristic of me. I
always
did my homework, even if it was sometimes at the very last minute, as I was buttering my toast at breakfast. My parents would have been mortified to learn that instead of poring over chemistry books the night before I had been rereading the last four issues of
Celebrity Style,
prepping for my life-altering exchange with Aaralyn
today. As far as I was concerned, mass and mole could have been the name of a Guatemalan appetizer.

“So let’s start with you then,” he said, a look of smug satisfaction on his face. “Perhaps, Indira, you can enlighten us as to the distinction between molecular mass and formula mass?”

There was a lot that I didn’t like about Mr. Fogerty. But the fact that he insisted on calling me “Indira” was at the top of the list. Granted, it was the name I had been given at birth, the one that was inked on my birth certificate and on the crisp pages of my American passport. I might have been able to live with it if my last name was not Konkipuddi. It was such a mouthful that most people gave up midway. In elementary school, I had been teased mercilessly because of my odd-sounding last name, which was perfectly common in India. The other kids used to call me “Conk” and “Conkers” and “Pudding.” So I started calling myself “Indie,” as if in doing so I was helping them forget that I had such a cumbersome surname. Indie was short and sweet and memorable. It was what I called myself, who I felt I was.

When I had started complaining about how old-fashioned my first name was, my father told me that in deciding what to call his firstborn child, it had been his hope that I would embody all that he admired about his native land and the other Indira—Indira Gandhi—who
once led it. He wanted me to be strong, virtuous, compassionate, intellectual.

And while he had originally wanted me to choose what he constantly would refer to as a “noble profession”—something in medicine or engineering or government—his views had started to change recently when his nephew Naresh had landed a six-figure job in New York in the digital media arena. Every time my father would speak to Naresh, my cousin would use terms like “interfacing” and “multimedia.”

Although my father had yet to fully understand what my cousin did exactly, the fact that Naresh was able to send a substantial amount of money to his parents in India every month, and had paid in cash for a loft in Soho, had convinced my father that there lay an entire world beyond the borders of law and the sciences, the kind of vocations that he and other Indian parents had always held in the highest esteem.

“In
di
ra!” Mr. Fogerty called out again. “Are you with us?”

I opened my mouth, prepared to make something up about molecular structures. But fortunately the bell rang, books were slammed shut, and bags swiped off tables.

Only two more periods to go.

There was a feature article I had once glanced at in a magazine, which was in the office of my father’s
neurological practice, about what children dreamed of becoming when they grew up. According to the report, boys who once longed to be soldiers or astronauts or pilots would instead end up becoming insurance executives or chefs or investment bankers. Similarly, girls who saw themselves as movie stars and nurses and missionaries would end up raising children full-time or becoming management consultants or trial lawyers. The point of the feature was to highlight that what most children say they will do professionally as adults is almost always vastly different to the reality. As the article concluded, the practicalities of life often got in the way.

But despite what I had read, I knew in my heart of hearts that the career I had seen for myself would definitely, no matter what, happen for me. When I had decided, at age eleven, that I would one day become a fashion reporter, there had been no doubt in my mind that I would somehow get there. Even if nobody in my family could understand my fascination with clothes and shoes and supermodels, my commitment to the cause never wavered.

I can remember exactly when it happened. It was a sweltering hot summer, the first week of school vacation, and I was beyond bored. Some of my friends were in summer camp, while others had rented vacation houses in Mexico or Costa Rica or Santa Barbara. My parents had opted not to go that route, choosing instead to spend
time with my baby brother, Dinesh, and myself, doing fun, family things in the comfort and convenience of our own home, with the exception of some day trips on the side.

But my father was suddenly asked to speak at an important conference in the fall, and needed to spend endless days during
my
vacation preparing for it. As if that wasn’t enough of a disappointment, my mother got immersed in some volunteer project that involved collecting clothes and toys to send to charities in India.

All of a sudden, those plans to visit Legoland, Disneyland, and the Monterey Bay Aquarium disappeared, leaving me with nothing but a basket of Barbie dolls and endless hours of Nickelodeon to keep me occupied.

After I had spent yet another afternoon complaining about having “nothing to do,” my mother took me to the local crafts store and asked me to take my pick: I could choose from scrapbooking, candle making, or quilting. There were balsa wood airplanes to be put together, stained-glass kits to fiddle with, glistening multicolored beads to string into necklaces.

But nothing captivated me.

On the way home, we stopped at the library so my mother could pick up a copy of the latest John Grisham. While we were waiting in line, me clutching
Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret,
which I had really wanted to reread, something caught my eye on the top of a donated
pile of books someone had left on the counter. I shoved the book I was holding under my arm, reached out for the one I had just seen, and held it firmly, transfixed by the image on the front. The black-and-white picture fascinated me; it was of a fashion model standing in a large plastic bubble that was floating down what looked like the Seine. She was gazing outward, looking prim and elegant in a checked suit. I turned the book around, and there she was again, in the same bubble, but this time on a dirt-strewn road. She was wearing gloves and a long dress, her dark hair swept off her face.

“I want this,” I said to my mother, who plucked it out of my hands to look at it.

“Melvin Sokolsky: Seeing Fashion,”
she said, announcing the name of the book and its author. “I’ve never heard of him.”

“Yes, but I want it,” I said.

The book had yet to be cataloged and entered into the system, but the librarian told me that if I came back the next day, she would have it set aside for me.

That night, through dinner and even in my sleep, those pictures didn’t leave my head.

First thing the next morning, after my brother and I accompanied my mother on her clothes-collecting mission, I dragged her back to the library to pick up the book. I had my eyes glued to it all the way home and for the rest of the day. As I discovered, Sokolsky was a
fashion photographer from the 1960s who took pictures for magazines like
Vogue
and
Harper’s Bazaar.
The photographs were a collection of his work over the years, each one more mesmerizing than the last; there were shots of girls in gowns dancing on giant chairs, and women in bright-colored suits suspended from strings, like marionettes. I studied all of them, memorizing not just the setting but the clothes, staring at the hair and makeup, taking note of the designers whose clothes the models were wearing. At dinner that night, I kept the book next to me, on the table.