The Stepsisters' Diary of Musical Tidbits

Chapter three

“I’m sorry... I know everything’s different. I know you’re finding it hard. And...” her father paused to take in the look on his daughter’s face. “I love you. You know that, don’t you?”

Sakhi smiled before giving her father a handless hug, kissing the side of his cheek sloppily before pulling away.

“I’ll always love you, daddy. Now, off to bed. Those people at the museum can’t manage without their curator, I’m sure.”

Sakhi watched Harold nod, as if unconvinced of her smooth, yet clear, lie. He kissed her forehead, ruffled her hair, and then walked away. As he climbed the flight of the stairs from the kitchen, she realized how little she’d taken into account her father’s feelings. Maybe she’d lost a mother, but he’d lost his wife, and that seems to be a whole load harder than anything else.

That doesn’t mean you remarry and move on.

Yes, actually, Sakhi told herself, it means exactly that.

♯

A few minutes to eleven, Sakhi finally got on Skype and video-called her best friend. They hadn’t spoken, via text or phone, in days. It wasn’t good for her health not to vent. She’d lost touch with bottling up her emotions and being alone. She did not dare let herself be alone, not under any circumstances. Alone meant...

“Sakhi?” Yasmine’s voice came before the video kicked in. “Just a second.”

Sakhi moved to her new bed, testing the mattress before realizing she’d yet to change out of her work clothes. Instead of doing the smart thing and changing right that second, she waited it out and sat on the bed. A second later, she sank into the pillows behind her, her HP now on her bent knees.

For ten minutes all Sakhi heard were design colours, names of places that sounded awfully French and a lot of cussing. Dear, sweet, Yasmine, her best friend with the perfect long midnight dark hair and perfect peachy and porcelain skin, cussing, on the other side of the world. She’d been absorbed by the dark side, clearly, and Sakhi had never missed her. Some part of her always wished her father married Yasmine’s widowed mother and just gave her the perfect sister. Yasmine was, indeed, more than perfect. She was kind, intelligent and far more than anything anyone pegged her to be.

Just before Sakhi dozed away into oblivion, Yasmine’s nasally voice came into the loudspeakers, and she was definitely being shrill and nasally on purpose.

“That could actually injure someone’s ears.” Sakhi declared as she sat up, not trusting herself to lie down anymore. Lying down on a mattress... hell, just an empty mattress set off the sweet sensation of sleep.

“You’re up, aren’t you? Tell me everything.”

“Well,” Sakhi wanted to trail away, change the topic and forget it ever happened. She didn’t, though. “God awful. Stepsisters are from hell, definitely.”

Yasmine laughed. “I warned you.”

“How did you figure?”

“Sakhi, she’s a teenager. They hate everyone. Add a new stepdad and stepsister to that equation and you do the math.”

Sakhi didn’t bother with that. She sighed and asked about her day instead.

“Oh, it’s all hell. My boss is being the usual bossy devil self and I’m stuck with picking out scarves for the run through tonight. Actually, it’s in the late afternoon, not tonight. I keep saying tonight because I tried to postpone it, but my boss is my boss.” 

“Show me some designs.”

“Well,” Yasmine trailed off, pulling the laptop up with her, and Sakhi saw her small studio space, with designer labels and wooden floors. It all looked so chic, with the clothes dangling from every small hook in the room, the belts that appeared every now and then as if from thin air, and the designs that lay forgotten on more than one table across the studio. Sakhi felt envious, and she told Yasmine so on more than one occasion.