The Language of Cherries

by Jen Marie Hawkins

  Oskar pulled onto the shoulder of the road and put the car in park. He unbuckled and climbed out, leaving his door open.

  “What’s he doing?” Evie’s mouth hung open as she caught her breath.

  “Shooing him out of the road. Wild ponies can cause accidents if a driver comes along who isn’t being careful.”

  They watched as Oskar slowly approached the little pony. He held out his hand to it, as if presenting a peace offering. “Are they dangerous?” Evie asked.

  Agnes shook her head. “They’re pretty docile. Used to humans in these parts. He isn’t afraid of them.”

  Oskar seemed to know exactly what he was doing as he stroked its mane and led it back to its herd. Evie had never seen something quite so adorable. The pony wasn’t bad, either.

  A thought struck Evie as he got back in the car. “Was it a pony that caused the accident that…”

  “No, lass.” Agnes shifted and fiddled with a hairpin at the back of her head. “’Twas an American tourist who caused that accident.”

  Evie’s heart dropped to her feet. “God. No wonder he hates me.” She tried to meet his eyes in the mirror as he pulled back out onto the road, but he wouldn’t look at her.

  “Oh, he doesn’t hate you, dearie. He’s just a grump. Kolaportid usually puts him in a bad mood because he has to be around people.”

  “So he doesn’t like people in general?” Evie noticed more cars and colorful houses as they drove into a little town. Road signs welcomed them to Selfoss. Oskar followed the arrow pointing toward Reykjavik, off Route 33 onto Route 1.

  “He’s just shy, lass. Especially around girls. But I think he likes you,” Agnes whispered conspiratorially. “He just doesn’t want you to know yet.”

  Evie tried to deny passage to the blush rising up her neck as she watched him, wondering if he could sense that they were talking about him. Oskar’s Adam’s apple bobbed and his grip on the steering wheel tightened. She took the opportunity to ask one of the many things she’d wondered about him. “So he doesn’t have a girlfriend, I guess?”

  He glanced up at her then. Evie swallowed and looked away, to Agnes’s grinning expression. “If he did, he wouldn’t tell me about it.”

  Evie laughed. “Fair enough.”

  “What about you?” Agnes asked, turning around in her seat to face Evie. “Do you have a gentleman waiting for you at home?”

  Evie exhaled and slumped in her seat. “Gentleman? Definitely not.” She thought of her Ben troubles as they meandered through the small towns leading toward Reykjavik. Tourist camper vans and petrol stations dotted the landscape as they approached more heavily populated areas on the Ring Road.

  She thought of how Ben had gone right for her bra the moment he kissed her. She knew now, after lots of lonely introspection, that wasn’t how it was supposed to be. Maybe Ben’s age just made him immature. She wondered…

  “So how old is he?” Evie asked Agnes.

  “Seventeen,” Agnes said as she glanced at Oskar. Evie wasn’t sure, but she thought he seemed uncomfortable. His jaw clenched and unclenched nonstop in the rearview.

  “Same as me,” Evie said, a little shocked. He seemed far more mature than the other guys her age she knew. Especially Ben.

  For the remainder of the ride, Evie tried to keep the conversation on Oskar. “I loved hearing him play the other night. He’s really good.”

  “Aye,” Agnes said. “I tell him that all the time. The lad’s a clever musician. He worked very hard. His teachers always loved his determination.”

  Evie stared out her window at the horizon. Sheep farms rested on hillsides, little white puffy dots moving around in the distance like dandelions blowing in the wind.

  As they got closer to Reykjavik, the houses became more brightly colored, like even the paint there was happier. Traffic picked up as they entered the town limits. Modern architecture and carefully landscaped roadsides greeted them. Evie hadn’t felt so overcome with awe when she’d left the airport with her papá. She had just propped her head against the passenger window and closed her eyes.

  She’d missed all of this beauty before.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  Oskar’s Journal

  We park in our usual spot at Kolaportid.

  I waste no time getting out of the car.

  The forty-five-minute ride

  felt like hours,

  listening to them talk about me

  like I wasn’t even there.

  I know it’s my own fault for being in this position.

  But it’s not like I can do anything

  to change it.

  Not now.

  As much as I’d like to.

  I load the crates on a cart

  and try not to watch her

  watching everyone else.

  She observes the world with a wide-eyed wonder

  I haven’t felt in a long time.

  This place is huge,

  she says to Agnes as we walk inside.

  Aye, you could get lost in here.

  We blend in with the early crowds,

  make our way to the booth

  next to a coffee stand in the back corner

  near the exit.

  Agnes’s baked goods sell quickly here.

  Though the market is open until five,

  We’re usually out of everything by two.

  The three of us stack jars,

  arrange breads,

  and line bottles of homemade cherry wine

  on the wooden table.

  Evelyn holds a bottle of wine in her hands,

  traces the awen on the label,

  dark eyes narrowed in pondering.

  I see this symbol everywhere,

  she says absently.

  Agnes changes the subject.

  Have ye ever been to a place like this before?

  Evelyn grins and leans against the table,

  glances around,

  sets the bottle down.

  This looks like the flea markets back home,

  she says.

  Just quirkier.

  Quirky is a good word for it.

  The warehouse building teems

  with equal parts

  junk and treasure.

  Why don’t you wander around, lass?

  Just follow the signs for the south entrance

  if you get turned around.

  She looks unsure.

  Go, Agnes nudges her,

  I can tell you want to.

  We’ll be fine here.

  She nods, tosses her purse around her shoulders.

  I watch her as she walks away.

  She stops at the nearby tables,

  pointing, asking questions,

  giving each person

  the privilege of her infectious smile.

  You better go with her, lad,

  She’s headed for Cyrus’s booth.

  Sh-she won’t stop, I tell her.

  The sssmell will keep her from it.

  But of course, Cyrus calls out to her.

  He twirls a toothpick between his fingers,

  holds out a sample for her.

  I can read his lips from here.

  You try, he says.

  Evelyn takes it from him.

  Better hurry, Agnes says as she labels jar tops.

  I hate being puppeted like this.

  But I’d also really rather not

  have her throw up in my car.

  I jog over to her.

  It smells weird, she laughs.

  Don’t eat that, I want to say.

  Instead, I take the toothpick from her,

  pitch it in the trash next to the booth.

  Her eyebrows climb up to her hairline.

  Oskar! Cyrus bellows.

  His white handlebar mustache wiggles as he laughs,

  curls on the ends with his smile.

  You’ll make her sick, I tell him.

  in Icelandic.

  I stutter and
hope she didn’t notice.

  What was that? she asks him.

  Hakarl, Cyrus explains. Fermented shark.

  We kill. Bury. Four months later, dig up.

  Hang in butcher two more months.

  Slice it up. Serve to you.

  Evie’s mouth hangs open.

  Her face goes a little green.

  Cyrus takes great pleasure in feeding it

  to anyone he can.

  He’s a silly old man who likes to joke around,

  but he also loves the shit.

  It’s rancid.

  Evelyn looks up at me.

  Her face brightens into a show-stopping smile.

  My hero, she says,

  and hooks her arm through mine.

  You’re just gonna have to come with me

  and keep me from eating

  something gross.

  The heat from her body diffuses into mine at the point of contact.

  I try to find a balance for my arm between loose and rigid

  but settle somewhere in the neighborhood of limp noodle.

  Now would probably be a good time to tell her.

  Maybe I could break out in song,

  like we’re in a musical,

  since singing is the only time I don’t stutter.

  I grit my teeth, imagining the horror that’d be.

  We walk through the aisles of tables,

  and I steer her toward the back row—

  to the area where the artists gather

  to sell their wares.

  Oh, look! She grins, pointing to a row of paintings.

  She stops beside a particularly bright one with Latin flair.

  I love that this one has people who look like me.

  Not a lot of that here, I’ve noticed.

  She looks up, glances around.

  That’s because she’s one of a kind,

  and I wish I could tell her that.

  She drags her feet as she studies each piece.

  I slow to her pace.

  Seems like I’m out of place everywhere I go.

  I can relate to that more than she knows.

  She studies each piece with a critical eye,

  leaning into me to observe from a different angle.

  I started painting because Abuela did, she says.

  When Abuelo went back to Cuba, she thought he was coming back.

  Years went by and it became clear it wasn’t going to happen.

  They’d been together since she got here.

  They fell in love as teenagers,

  and living without him was hard on her.

  So she started painting as a means of therapy, as a way to hope.

  She stops in front of a painting of a fishing boat tethered to a rock.

  She handed me a paintbrush that winter after my mom left,

  told me to listen to the music and paint what I felt.

  We listened to Bob Marley and painted the cold afternoons away,

  and something came alive in me.

  I realized I could translate the emotion of the song to the canvas.

  She was like—Oh, you’re better at this than me, nieta.

  And she pretended she was jealous,

  but I know it was an act.

  If it weren’t for her,

  I would’ve never known I was good at it.

  I would’ve never known I was good, period.

  It kills me, the look in her eyes.

  I hate the doubt I see there.

  She pulls me along and we keep walking,

  our connected arms as outwardly natural as a real couple.

  But inwardly, I’m hyperaware of her proximity and the chagrin of my limitations.

  Anyway, my paintings have never been as good as they are here.

  But I don’t think it’s me.

  I think it’s you.

  Her eyes burn brightly

  beneath the fluorescent lights

  when she looks up at me.

  My brain buffers,

  so we keep walking

  while

  it

  catches

  up.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  Evie

  Evie’s heart beat wildly with her arm locked in Oskar’s.

  She didn’t know what finally made her bold enough to reach out and touch him, but he didn’t stop her, and he hadn’t pulled away. That was something. He was warm and smelled like soap. They walked together through a doorway to another part of the market where strands of clear lights draped from the ceiling like a waterfall.

  The tables on each side of the walkway were piled high with pottery, clothing, and jewelry. They stopped and dropped arms to examine the junk. One table, manned by a woman with bright pink lipstick smeared across her front teeth, had big jars of glass marbles just like the ones Miss Izzy had. Evie pointed to them.

  “There’s a lady in my hometown that uses those to see the future,” she said to the seller.

  “Oh, yes! They look beautiful in bowl with candle. Or in aquarium!” As she made her sales pitch, Evie couldn’t stop looking at the lipstick. She wondered if she should tell her. Instead, she bought a small bag of them and dropped them in her purse. Evie glanced up at Oskar as they walked away. “The lady back home—Miss Izzy—told me I’d meet a guy who was very kind and handsome. Maybe there’s something to them.” Her cheeks burned as she said it, even though she knew he couldn’t understand her.

  The sediment on the tables got more eclectic as they continued on. Old coins, feather hats, and wooden shoes. Toilet paper rolls made into Christmas ornaments. Blue wigs of varying lengths. A horse costume. Dinosaur bones that were probably not actually dinosaur bones, considering they were packaged in plastic eggs.

  They riffled through the piles. Evie giggled at the weirdness of it all. She loved the spirit of the Icelandic people—they were all so happy to be alive, it seemed. They ate their rotten shark and sold their strange wares and ate candy bars with black licorice inside, as if that was exactly how the world was supposed to be. For the first time, Evie was glad she got to live in their world for a little while.

  More than anything, she liked watching Oskar interact with people. Agnes made it sound like he hated everyone, but his behavior illustrated something else entirely. He said very little, but there was a definite kindness and respect in the way he communicated, thanking the hot chocolate lady with his eyes and quiet smile as he bought a cup for each of them. Evie sipped it—no black licorice in it, thankfully—and grinned at him as they made the full circle back to where they’d started.

  It didn’t seem like they’d been gone that long, but by the time they made it back to Agnes, there was nothing left but a roll of labels. She’d sold all of her products.

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  Oskar’s Journal

  On the drive back

  I realize how trapped I am in this situation.

  As much as I’d like

  to come right out and tell her,

  the truth is hard.

  She’s been telling Agnes

  all about the weird things we found.

  I’m sorry you had to sell everything yourself.

  I came to help and then we disappeared.

  Agnes waves her off with a heavy hand.

  No worries, lass. I’m just glad you had a good time.

  Agnes never cared about the help.

  But I have to admit it—I had a good time, too.

  I wonder how much more fun I might’ve had

  if I’d made myself talk to her.

  Say all the things I’ve been thinking.

  There’s no use wondering.

  Oskar saved me from eating rotten shark.

  I’ll definitely thank him for that once I’ve taught him some English.

  Agnes laughs uneasily.

  My lies make her uncomfortable, as they should.

  I’m flat-out lying to this girl.

  It’s no longer just an omission of truth.
<
br />   I have a question,

  she says to Agnes.

  Agnes twists her body around to look at her.

  What is it then, lass?

  I sense her hesitation

  in the way she lowers her voice,

  averts her eyes in the rearview mirror

  and toys with the roll of leftover labels in her hands.

  This symbol on all your products…

  She looks down at the roll.

  The three lowercase letter i’s…

  What does it mean?

  Agnes clears her throat.

  I glance over at her.

  She wrings her hands out.

  She’s nervous.

  Why?

  Oh, that, she finally says.

  It’s called an awen.

  It’s a Gaelic symbol.

  Means poetic inspiration.

  Evelyn’s eyes narrow slightly in the rearview,

  like she’s remembering something,

  calling it back for comparison.

  In a microsecond’s time,

  she glances up.

  Catches me staring.

  I look away.

  Is that why Oskar has a tattoo of it?

  Agnes nods.

  That awen means a lot to our family.

  We come from a long line of dreamers.

  Agnes glances at my arm and then to the backseat again.

  So you noticed his tattoo, huh?

  She chuckles.

  It ruffles my nerves

  because I feel like I’m on display.

  I think I have a crush on him, she mumbles.

  I’m suddenly incapable of rational thought.

  I hit a pot hole and the whole car stutters.

  Agnes gives me a brief, scolding glare.

  It hurts my face not to smile.

  As we pull into the guesthouse drive,

  Evelyn hands Agnes the roll of labels

  she’s been holding.

  Agnes tells her: Come to the shop tomorrow and we’ll bake.

  She grins, ear to ear.

  This is never going to get easier.

  Agnes is making sure of it.

  She waves goodbye to us and shuts her car door.

  You have to tell her, Agnes says as we drive away.

  Listenin’ to her confess all those things is downright voyeuristic.