Love, Hate and Other Filters(11)

“Do you really feel that different here?”

“I am different. I mean, literally; we’re the only Indian Muslim family in town.”

Phil taps his pencil against his cheek. “I never thought of it that way. To me, you’ve always been the girl who knows the right answers.”

“Funny, because I don’t even know all the questions.”

“Really? What don’t you know?” Phil asks.

I hesitate, choose my words deliberately. “I guess I don’t know how to live the life I want and still be a good daughter.”

“Can’t you do both?”

“I wish. I want to go to NYU. My parents want me to go to school close to home. They want me to be a lawyer and learn to cook and marry a nice Indian doctor and—”

“You want to make movies. Like you did for class.”

“What?”

“You did three movie projects for health class. Health class. A class that requires barely any work. Like for the whole tobacco will kill you unit? You made that movie with all those clips about the smoker from The Breakfast Club …”

“Judd Nelson,” I name the actor for Phil. I’m in disbelief because Phil has memories of me. Plural. As in, more than one image encoded in his brain.

“I thought Mr. Chandler was going to die.”

“Yeah. He called it ‘highly unusual.’ For some reason he gave me an ‘A,’ anyway.”

“Of course he did. It was awesome.” Phil pauses after he says this. He looks at me. “I actually downloaded The Breakfast Club after that. My mom loves that movie, so she watched it with me. She sang along to the credits. That was embarrassing.”

I laugh. “Oh, my God. I can’t imagine watching anything with my parents that mentions drugs or even has PG kissing. We mostly watch old Indian movies together. Ancient ones.”

“There’s no kissing in Indian movies?”

“Back in the day, it was totally banned. Not so much anymore, but there’s still limits. I tried to talk to my mom about how there are all these contradictions in Indian culture. I mean, if you have a real hard-core arranged marriage, you basically have sex with an almost stranger, but modesty is this huge part of the culture, too …” And I’ve managed to bring up sex again.

Silence. An unbearably long silence. “So are you … I mean … do your parents have a guy picked out for you already?” he asks.

I burst out laughing and give him a little kick under the table. “No. I’m only in high school.”

“Good.” He seems to relax, which makes me light-headed.

“Besides, my parents had a love marriage—”

“A love marriage?”

“When you meet someone and fall in love and decide to get married. In India, it’s called a love marriage.”

Of course he’s confused. What non-desi wouldn’t be? Still, he continues gamely. “You mean dating, getting engaged—”

“In secret. It’s a lot more common for Indian Muslims here, I guess. It’s basically a don’t ask, don’t tell policy for dating.”

Phil nods and looks down at the cake. “So, um, does that mean you can’t date?” Somehow we’ve both managed to forget about eating.

“Don’t ask, don’t tell only applies to proper Indian Muslim boys. With limits.” I take a deep breath.

Phil glances up. “But that’s not how you want to do it?”

“No. I don’t want to hide anything, and I don’t want something … expected. I want to go to film school and be the first Indian American to win an Oscar, and then I can meet the One and fall in big, heart-bursting love, and we’ll travel the world, my camera ready to capture our adventures.” My cheeks flush; I know I’m blushing, but I can’t bring myself to shut up. “Oh, my God. I want my future life to be a cheesy romantic comedy.”

He shakes his head. “No,” he says. “You want it to be an epic.”

I nod. He stares back at me without blinking. And it’s not creepy at all. It’s perfect.

My phone rings. I jump from my seat. Suddenly our moment has a club-thumping Bollywood soundtrack. Maybe I should think about changing my ringtone.

I squirm, frantically checking the screen. It’s my mom. Of course it is. I let it go to voice mail and shoot her a quick text to give her my ETA.

When I turn back to Phil, he has picked up his own phone and is also furiously texting … someone. He doesn’t make eye contact.

There’s a charge in the space between us. Of course, the likeliest source of this electricity is my overactive imagination because right now he’s probably texting Lisa, making plans to meet up after this, to which she will respond with a string of heart emojis. I keep forgetting that the reason everyone seems to like Phil is because when he talks to you, he makes it seem like you’re the only person in the world even when it’s only polite chitchat. And I can’t even blame him, because it’s not pretense; it’s just being a nice guy.

I’m quiet while he finishes texting. He grins at his phone before putting it away. “What are you doing over spring break?”

The charge is gone. Like I thought, polite chitchat. I shrug. “Not much.” I think of Kareem, the date I’ve agreed to go on. I wonder if Phil is thinking about Lisa even as he listens politely to me. “My parents can’t shut down their office for vacation, so I’ll be stuck in Batavia, editing film clips, inhaling copious amounts of ice cream. Violet wants me to go to Paris with her and then just pop over to the south of Spain for a couple days to try and get some beach time. Of course, my parents would never let me go. Anyway, I’m not a beach person.”