SHOUT - Adopted by Lin Manuel Miranda

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DEAR VIDYA

When I wake up, the guest room is humid from the rain. Lin, Vanessa and Sebastian are already up and eating breakfast. Tobillo needs more dog food. I have a quiz in Algebra I didn't study for. Lin has a matinee. Today is March twenty-fourth. It's also my birthday, but The Mirandas don't need to know that.

Last night I slapped on some fancy mehdni that stretches past my forearm. Lin marvels the designs when I sit across from him at breakfast. Sebastian tries to make his muffin disappear to practice for the magic show. Guilty, guilty, guilty. He's too impressionable to be around me on a day like today. I choke down three muffins and excuse myself fast as I can. It's my turn to get the mail. I leave the apartment without a word.

I take the elevator to the lobby and walk past the doorman without saying hello. I find our mailbox and pull out a stack of envelopes, mostly business stuff. I flip through them as I walk back and nearly drop the stack when I see this written on the front of an off-white piece of paper, folded and stuck shut with a green sticker:

ودیا

It's my name. Is this a joke? Someone must have written that to make me feel stupid. But who do I know that writes in Urdu? What if it's real? My heart stops, then sputters and beats again. My Mother and Radhika aren't allowed to mail things without permission, and I'm certain neither my father nor The Wolf would give them permission to contact me. Maybe it's from Nayim. He's eighteen now. He can ship things internationally. Nayim and I used to sneak sweet cakes from the kitchen and play basketball with the alley kids. If there's anyone in Pakistan who would write to me, it's him. All I have to do is open the letter. My God, It's too much. I stuff the paper in my pocket and go straight back up to the apartment.

Charandowa birthdays weren't huge celebrations, but we had our traditions. When I woke, an assortment of candies in a plastic bag would be on my nightstand at the courtesy of Radhika and Nayim. My Mother would sew one of Radhika's saris to fit me, and although the fabric made a circle around my feet, it was so long, I felt like the coolest girl in the world. Nayim would tease me because the fabric drooped from my shoulders or my jewelry was lopsided on my forehead. My Father didn't say much. But He watched them dress me.

I stopped telling people about my birthday after I came to Hope House. 

Ms. Rishanki gives me a Hershey kiss when I sit at my desk. Of course my birthday is in the school records. I don't say thank you. Today our class is analyzing chapters 4-6 of The Catcher in the Rye. Why do they make us read asinine novels about self destruction instead of teaching us what we need to know, like how to avoid street degenerates in The Bronx or how to tell if your biological brother across the world shipped you a birthday letter? Nope. We learn about a hormonal teenage boy who's oh-so lost in the world, he wanders the city for three days and consorts with prostitutes. Gracie glances at me from across the room. She almost smiles, but turns to rifle through her backpack. I don't bother reading the directions for today's journal assignment. I write my name in Urdu over and over on the back cover of my notebook. I can almost hear the language whisper my name, like some hallucinogenic lullaby singing the same words that sung me to sleep as an infant:

ودیاودیاودیاودیاودیاودیا

At lunch I sit in the corner of the blacktop and eat my peanut butter banana sandwich in ripped pieces. The letter is still in my pocket. Do I want it to be from Nayim? I run my thumb over the outside of my pocket. I feel the paper, the wrinkles from being crumpled in my sweater all day. I remember, I remember, I remember. I remember Pakistan and I remember Nayim. He and I used to gang up on Radhika because she liked clothes and cooking and sewing, and Nayim and I liked to play sports and make shadow puppets with lanterns in the Summer. Something rolls into my feet. A basketball. Some seventh grader cursed with chronic acne jogs over to retrieve it. He apologizes. I tell him exactly what he can do to himself with his deflated basketball. 

This is my life. For the past seven months my world has spanned between two places: Washington Point and school. Wilmington? I'd die to leave. The Mirandas? Don't hate it, but not looking forward to going back, especially today. I need to take a slice of this day for myself, to relish in my newfound fourteenness. Some extra terrestrial sits a few feet away from me. He sets his school-bought lunch on the blacktop and opens a fat laminated paperback. I wait out the rest of the period in the library and flip through the ghost story book I started to read after my suspension.

When the bell rings at the end of the day, I bolt from my seat. If I'm going to open this letter, I'm going to open it in private. I try and remember Nayim's voice while I ride the subway back to Uptown. I look at my face in the reflection of the metal pole I'm holding. I remember he had a peculiar nose, different from the rest of us, and a mole behind his left ear. If I write back, should I tell him about Operation Pakistan? What will he say when he sees me?

Will he want to see me?

When I get off the subway, I walk in the opposite direction of the stairs to the darkest corner of the station next to the last tunnel. Places like these are the homes of the homeless, the stages of starving artists who jam out with their imaginary bands for spare change. I crouch against the gutter and remove the letter from my pocket. It's still there, an off-white piece of hope with a green sticker on it. I tear it off and open it. 

Something that was taped to the middle of the page falls to my feet. At the corner of the paper is the Hope House logo. A message is typed in the middle. Vidya Charandowa— Happy birthday from the counselors and staff at Hope House ℠ South Bronx NY. We hope you continue to do well. It's signed with blue pen.
Vidya— I thought that would make you smile! Happy Birthday!!! Jeremy.

I lean forward to pick up whatever was taped to the card. It's the zebra-print pen I told him to use to write his mother a letter, to sign a check for the homeless... or learn a new language. To make someone smile.

Something cracks in me. 

My rips are collapsing, piercing my lungs, which is why I can't breathe. I stumble up the stairs, down the street, down another street, and down another street until I find the door to the Miranda's apartment and slip inside and throw the keys. I shove Tobillio aside when he barks at me, not bothering to turn on the lights, just falling falling falling from the highest cliff until I crumple on the floor of my bedroom closet, where I sink my teeth into the soft brown skin of my wrist and cry like the big baby I am. I rock, slamming my head against the wood-paneled wall. Stupid, stupid, stupid. How stupid could I be? This buried holiday has cut too deep, revealing every raw bone in my body. No Mother. no Radhika. Not even a faraway brother to wish me a happy fucking fourteenth birthday I wish had never come.