Читать книгу North Of Happy - Adi Alsaid - Страница 9

CHAPTER 1

THAI BRUSCHETTA

1 French baguette

½ pound deveined shrimp

½ cup coconut milk

2 teaspoons minced ginger

2 Thai chilies, seeded and deveined

2 stalks lemongrass

2 tablespoons red Thai curry paste

1 mango, sliced thin

1 tablespoon Thai basil, chiffonade

METHOD:

On a rooftop in the ritziest part of Mexico City, while my graduation party rages on—music and drinks and waiters delivering canapés to the two hundred people in attendance—I am trying to act like I have my shit together.

There’s a pigeon perched next to me, its head tilted, eyes meeting mine, cooing suggestively. I know before it even opens its beak that it’s Felix, and that he’s going to tell me to escape. It’s just what he does now.

The air is fresh after this afternoon’s rain. Mexico City doesn’t have that nice post-rain smell that other places do, like Mom’s hometown in Illinois, when the storms sweep in from Lake Michigan and leave in their wake an almost herb-like scent. I wonder if anyone’s ever replicated that post-rain smell in a dish.

This party is Dad’s consolation to me for not letting me travel this summer, for fearing that I’d be like Felix and stay gone. It’s also Mom worrying that I’ve been Unusually Quiet Since It Happened; it’s her desperate to see me acting like myself again.

Waiters are running around delivering rum and cokes to my classmates, glasses of wine to the parents in attendance. Trays of assorted hors d’oeuvres make their way around the rooftop (ceviche in a spoon, yakitori skewers, chilaquiles sliders—getting to choose what to serve might be the highlight of the party for me). Music thumps out into the night. Neighboring buildings with their own rooftop terraces have similar soirees happening, but none are quite as loud as this one. I keep imagining that I’m not really here, that I’m floating above the party or something, watching it all from some far-off vantage point.

Poncho, Nico and Danny hold their shot glasses out in front, waiting for me to clink. The burn passes quickly. None of us really have to scowl to get the stuff down any more, though I think my friends are really over the burn and I’m just good at suppressing it.

“Ya no te hagas güey,” Nico says, putting his glass down on a nearby table. “Tell your dad you’re coming with us. This internship thing is stupid. You could get out of it if you just asked.”

I shrug. The conversation is predictable. But why wouldn’t it be? All our lives are basically mapped out for us, all the days ahead bleeding in with all those to come: internship, college in the States, and then back to Mexico, Dad’s company, marriage, kids, success, everything Felix walked away from. My friends may get a Eurotrip first but then their futures will look just like mine.

“Tell him you’ve received an offer for another internship. One that involves partying and sexy Europeans,” Nico says, raising a hand up for a high five.

I ignore him and my eyes meet Isa’s across the party. She gives me a slight wave and a smile that tells me maybe I’ll get to fall asleep next to her tonight. It’s better than tossing in bed trying to fight off memories and nameless weights.

The DJ puts on something with a beat, and the dance floor fills up, though mostly with parents. Nico and Poncho head over toward our classmates. Danny hangs back, hands in his pockets. “Nico always turns into such a bro when he drinks.”

I laugh. “Yeah, have fun with that this summer.”

Danny groans. “You should be there with us, if only so you have to suffer through him too.” After a quiet moment, he adds, “Everything okay with you?”

“Yeah, of course,” I say, eyeing the pigeon on the railing. It’s grinning. “Why?”

“I dunno. Sometimes you get quiet, and I think it’s gotta be about Felix. Meanwhile we’re talking about stupid shit like mixed dorms in hostels or beach parties or something.”

“Nah.” He doesn’t notice I’ve been making eye contact with a bird. He doesn’t notice that I’m almost see-through, that I’m barely here. “Just trying to figure out what the qualifications would be for the internship that Nico described.”

Danny gives a chuckle, runs a hand through his hair. “And how the hell Nico qualifies for it.”

The pigeon’s returning my gaze, mouthing the words get out of here. He always loved having mantras. This is his in death. He shows up like it’s no big deal, tells me to go. Except I don’t know where he wants me to go, and I’m pretty sure this feeling would follow me there anyway, so what’s the point.

I turn my attention to Isa. She’s on her phone at the edge of the party, smiling as she talks. Nothing much stirs within me.

Danny seems to be content with ending the conversation there, so I make my way toward Isa. I walk slowly, around the party, not through it. I take a few more hors d’oeuvres, trying to guess all their ingredients, the techniques used. I feel better when I’m in the kitchen. I can remember Felix when I’m there. I can see the way he’d hang out in the kitchen with me, teaching me how to hold a knife, how to tell when a sauce was done. I can remember our food adventures, all those that came before the Night of the Perfect Taco. Flashes from childhood: how we’d pretend to be asleep and then sneak out of bed to play video games, our family trip to Greece where we took the last photograph of the four of us together. They hurt like hell, these memories, but at least that’s all they are: memories. They’re grief as grief is meant to be, comforting and hard but comprehensible.

That’s one plus to the summer, at least. No one will be around. Plenty of time to cook. Maybe it’ll keep Felix away, make me feel less crazy.

When I get to the other side of the roof, I stand by Isa as she finishes her call. I’m glad the bird doesn’t follow me. Isa hangs up and we cheek-to-cheek kiss hello. “You look great,” I say.

“Gracias,” she says, and we continue on in Spanish. I’ve always felt weird switching back and forth between English and Spanish with one person. Whatever language my first interaction with someone is, I stick to it, usually. I’m smoother in English. Funnier, I think. But with Isa it’s always been Spanish, and maybe that explains the lack of stirring; maybe it’s something else.

“This is amazing,” she gushes. “I can’t believe your parents organized it. The view is gorgeous.”

Obligingly, I look at the city stretching out below, twinkling lights of street lamps and far-off neighborhoods.

“Vete de aqui, hermano,” the pigeon shouts across the party. Felix always preferred Spanish too.

“My dad’s into parties,” I say lamely. I don’t want to listen to Felix right now or fall into another predictable conversation about summer, about the future, about anything. I put my hand on Isa’s shoulder and lean in for a kiss.

She accepts it but keeps her lips tight and ends it in a second or two. “I don’t think I want that tonight.”

“Okay,” I say, stepping back. “Yeah, of course.”

We stand quietly for a minute or so, at least as quietly as two people can at a party. “When do you leave for Argentina?”

“Monday,” Isa says. The word barely means a thing to me. After this party, the days will bleed together, and Monday may as well be any other day. “How long’s it been?” she asks.

“Since what?”

She gets that cartoonishly concerned look she sometimes gets, all eyebrows. The purple scarf she’s wearing catches the breeze, unraveling itself. It looks like it’s trying to escape. “I don’t think you talk about your brother enough,” Isa says.

The pigeon tilts its head.

“I know we were never together, but we spent enough time together that I should have heard his name a few times, maybe some stories about him.” Isa uncurls the wayward scarf from her neck and holds it in her hand. I wish I could uncurl myself from this conversation. “I understand why it might not be with me,” Isa says, her hand going up so casually to her eye that I almost miss that she’s on the verge of tears. “But I hope you do talk about him with someone. Just, you know...for yourself.”

“I do,” I lie.

We look out at the city a little longer, elbows brushing against each other. I’ve always loved the expanse of the city at night, its lack of a typical skyline, its refusal to be contained to one stretch of buildings.

Then she exhales and steps away from the railing. “Okay, time for me to take advantage of your parents’ partying. Any food I absolutely have to try?”

I think for a sec, happy to have the conversation turn to food. Food, I can always talk about. “The Thai bruschetta is pretty amazing.”

As soon as she steps away, the pigeon flits over to me. “She’s cute.”

I don’t respond.

He ruffles his feathers, picks at something in his wing. “Look at these people, man,” Felix says, unperturbed by how I’m ignoring him. If he were still a person, I could picture him crossing his hands behind his head and leaning back. Maybe he’d click his tongue a few times in disapproval.

He’s looking with his little pigeon head in the direction of the bar, where Dad and a few of the other parents are standing in a circle, holding drinks. Next to them a group of my classmates do the exact same thing. The adults sip their tequila and the kids shoot it. Add a few gray hairs, adjust their tastes so that they’re from the seventies or whatever and it’s basically a mirror image.

“You’ll forget about cooking,” Felix says, loud enough that for a moment I worry someone will hear him. “You keep going down this road, that’s where you’ll end up. Just like them.” He bobs his head in Dad’s direction. Dad, who’s holding a shot of tequila, and looking like he’s about to shoot it. Dad, who went to the same school as me and Felix, got a nice safe business degree—Dad, who was irate when Felix refused to follow that same path.

Dad, who hasn’t even talked about Felix in months.

Felix coos and flaps his wings. If he just left me alone for a moment, it might be easier to pretend like I have my shit together.

Then Dad smiles and heads toward the DJ stand. He motions for a microphone, gestures impatiently as the DJ cuts the music and hits a few switches. His shirt is unbuttoned way farther down than any middle-aged man’s shirt should be. I think he’s swaying a little. Sometimes I can’t stand looking at him.

“Shit,” Felix the pigeon says. “He still loves his fucking speeches.”

“Bienvenidos,” Dad says through the speakers. He looks around for a drink, and then snaps his fingers at a passing waiter and asks for another shot of tequila. He thanks everyone for coming, cracks a joke about how this isn’t a party for my graduation but a party for him not having to pay for tuition anymore. The crowd responds with alcohol-boosted laughter.

“He made the same joke when I graduated,” the pigeon grumbles. Then he offers one last coo and takes off, disappearing unceremoniously into the night. For a second I feel relief. Maybe he’ll stay gone.

“Hijo, I want you to look forward now,” Dad goes on. “Forget about the past, about what we’ve lost.” He pauses and looks down at the floor for a moment. He bites his lip, like he’s struggling to keep back tears. “I know you miss your brother, and I miss him every day too. Life isn’t fair.”

The performance is impressive, but it makes me want to throw something at the stage. Dad basically wiped his hands clean of Felix long ago, and not even death has undone the forgetting. To him, Felix has been dead for years. Only for appearances will he pretend to be broken. He wants all these people to just go quiet for a moment or two, to think that he’s trying to move past tragedy, instead of completely unaffected by it, like I know he is. It’s what I see every day: Dad talking about work, Dad talking about my future, Dad going on like nothing’s happened.

Then, after all these months, something within me clicks. An understanding. Felix has it right. Escape. Yeah, I know it’s probably not a great sign that I’m thinking a pigeon is my dead brother, and I know that everything I heard Felix say was maybe not real, just my grief doing strange things to my head.

But he had that part right all along. I shouldn’t be here.

As Dad keeps up the charade, talking about my future and my prospects while he’s got a son in the grave, I step away from the edge of the party, cut through the crowd. Most people probably think I’m going to grab myself another drink. They don’t see my hands shaking at my sides; they haven’t noticed that my shadow disappeared when Felix did, that I’m not whole anymore. No one tries to stop me. Maybe they don’t even see me.

It’s only when I exit that I hear the murmurs start to build, and Dad’s speech get derailed.

I smile the whole elevator ride down.