North Of Happy

Emma meets my eyes, and I realize what a colossally poor conversation subject this is. Emma doesn’t say anything, because I just held a pillow over this conversation’s face and watched the breath drain out of it.

“When you said ‘change the subject,’ you meant to the most depressing thing I could think of, right?”

I’m not sure if I’m digging myself into a deeper hole, but Emma laughs and says, “Yeah, that was rough. But at least now I know taking you to the lake is a good call.” We walk quietly for a while. “Is that why you had that little moment in the restaurant? Because he’s dead?”

I turn to look at her, taken aback. “Basically,” I say.

“I never had any siblings,” Emma says. “I always wanted them, though. I usually pretended friends were sisters or just made them up inside my head. They’d only show up at night, when I was waiting for my parents to get home and relieve the babysitter. I’d pretend they were taking care of me instead of whichever neighbor’s teen daughter was watching me.

“My parents are both chefs so they were always working a lot,” she says, grabbing at a long stalk of grass and twisting it in her hands. “This was back when they were still together and we lived in New York. But they could barely handle being parents and cooks at the same time, and they sure as shit couldn’t handle a marriage on top of it. Anyway, it’s probably why I always have a book on me now. I need something to keep me company.”

In the silence that follows, I glance over at Emma, seeing her face in the moonlight. “That’s also why I’m constantly inviting people to do things with me,” she jokes, not meeting my eye.

“Including near-strangers-slash-possible-ghosts that hang around your place of work.”

“Exactly.” Emma finds another nearly invisible break in the woods, leads us back out to the street. I can see the lights from downtown, and I’m surprised to see how high we’ve gone up the hill. “Wait for it,” Emma says, reading my expression. “It gets so much better.”

Near the top of the hill there’s a scenic overlook on the side of the road, but Emma leads me across the street and into the woods again. We have to fight through brambles to reach the peak, me and this girl I don’t really know.

On one side, the moon reflects off the crystalline lake that’s at the near end of the island and gives the place its name. It really does look like a needle’s eye. The moon looks like some fantastical orb that lives in the lake, only visible from this one spot. It’s as if we’re witnessing something in another dimension. To the other side there’s the town, a spattering of lights that would pale in comparison to any neighborhood in Mexico City, even its most remote suburbs.

All around us, the ocean does a weak impersonation of the lake’s reflection of the moon, the waves too disruptive for the water to be a mirror but still stained beautifully by the silver glow. And to the east, just beyond the silhouette of another island, the lights of Seattle are a haze on the horizon.

“How do you know about all these amazing spots?” I ask.

“My mom and I moved here right after the divorce. I had a lot of alone time,” Emma says. “Gave me time to explore.”

I take in the view, unable to decide in which direction I want to look. Hands on hips, still a little winded from the climb, or maybe actually struck breathless, I say, “This place is magical.”

“Yeah,” Emma responds. “I’m glad you think so.”

She’s standing only a few steps away, arms still folded across her chest, looking in the direction of Seattle. A breeze picks up, and I can see goose bumps appear on her arms.

“Look at all this, man,” Felix says, appearing at my side, putting an arm over my shoulder. “I wish I could have seen this for real.”

Go away, I think. Emma and I are having a nice moment here. We’re quiet for long enough that my words have a chance to echo in my head. Tears come to my eyes, and I have to pretend the wind is to blame.

Emma catches on to some extent, and she reaches out and gives me a reassuring forearm touch that lasts only a second but still does what it’s meant to. Then she pulls away, grabs her sweatshirt from out of her bag and slips it on as I compose myself.

Felix stands by, hands in his pockets, his gaze going from me to Emma and then out at the expanse of the island. His shirt wrinkles in the breeze, and I remember how Mom would always say the shirt was one strong gust of wind away from disintegrating. Two red bursts of blood start spreading across his chest, and though I want to look away I force myself to keep my eyes on him. I think for a second that this is it, this is when Felix leaves me. Then Felix looks down at the blood and groans. “Every time,” he says, taking out one of those stain-remover pens and starting to dab furiously and futilely at the still-growing splotches.

Felix doesn’t disappear; I’m still half-here.

CHAPTER 6 (#uda688454-fc94-5f12-a98e-eb95253a8a72)

SEAWEED SALAD

50 grams rehydrated wakame

1 cucumber, julienned

1 stick surimi, shredded

¼ cup scallions

1 tablespoon mirin

1 tablespoon soy sauce

1 tablespoon sesame oil

1 teaspoon rice vinegar

1 teaspoon wasabi paste

METHOD:

Emma glances down at her phone. She looks indecisive for a moment and then types something. A little sound effect swoosh tells me she just sent a message. “We’re gonna meet up with my friends at the lake, if that’s okay?”

“Sure,” I say. We stand up, brush away the loose strands of dried grass. I hope Felix stays gone, but I hope it a little more gently this time. “That’s so quaintly small-town American, hanging out at the lake. What do you guys do there?”

“The usual. Bonfire, drinks if we can get them, or someone brings weed, or we play charades. Why? What do you do for fun in Mexico City?”

Sit on the couch alone watching cooking shows, have my friends drag me out to parties because they don’t know how else to deal with me. “Umm, I don’t know,” I say. “We have these things called comidas, where everyone from school gathers at a house for tacos and a shit-show amount of drinks. It’s supposed to be a lunch, but it’s really just an afternoon party.”

We fight through the bramble again, start to descend the hill. I still can’t believe how much I can see of the woods. Each branch and leaf is lit up as if it’s beneath a spotlight. This place feels like a fantasy, like any minute now we’ll cross paths with a group of fairies, and Emma will simply wave hello at them, used to the sight. “Parents are just cool with that?” Emma asks.

“Whoever’s hosting usually has parents out of town or something. I haven’t been to one in a while.” I think out loud. “That might just be a thing that’s specific to my school, though. My school is kind of its own world: lots of rich kids, embassy kids, people who move every two years and have lived all over the world. I’m never really sure if my experiences are typically Mexican or not.”

“Sounds like maybe not,” Emma says. “But what the hell do I know?”

We break through into another clearing, with another insane view.

“So, what else do you do?” Emma says. “Like, for fun?”

“I mostly just go to movies, I guess,” I say, with a chuckle wrought mostly from nerves. Then I add, “I like cooking.”

“Really? How come?”

I’ve answered this question in my own head for years now, as if waiting to defend myself from someone’s accusations. Maybe the way Dad treated Felix’s love of travel helped prompt the preparation. “I love food and the joys it brings people. Cooking, to me, is an easy way to provide joy to myself and to others.”

Emma cocks her eyebrow. “Good answer,” she says.

“My brother may have helped me phrase it. He was much better with words than I am.” I duck away from some low-hanging branches. “What about you?” I ask, thankful but not wanting to just keep coming back to my dead brother. “What do you do for fun?”

“I walk with ghosts through the woods,” she says with a smile, and I laugh more than I probably should.

* * *