North of Happy

by Adi Alsaid

  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.

  CHAPTER 2

  MEDITERRANEAN OMELET

  3 eggs

  2 tablespoons butter

  2 tablespoons sundried tomatoes

  2 tablespoons fresh basil

  1 tablespoon goat cheese

  Sea salt, to taste

  METHOD:

  When I get home, I don’t know where I’m going, but I know I’m leaving.

  Mom and Dad are probably on their way home too, but they’ll have to make a few explanations, give some instructions to the caterers or whatever. I have some time, but as soon as I’m in my room, I pull the suitcase from the top shelf in the closet, toss it open onto my bed. Out of habit, or maybe to distract myself from what I’m doing, I turn on the TV.

  A commercial pops up: Tupperware, and then cars, cleaning products. I throw all my underwear into the suitcase, along with some socks, two pairs of jeans. I’m actually doing this? On the screen, out of the corner of my eye, I recognize the show. It’s called Today’s Specials. They profile different restaurants across the world, spend an episode with each one.

  The show starts with a female chef in the kitchen at dawn, a single burner lit. The camera pans to a quiet morning in the San Juan Islands off the coast of Washington State, golden sunrise over the water, a hummingbird gorging on sugary water from a feeder. “How this is cheap real estate is beyond me,” the female chef says on voice-over. They show the name of the restaurant: Provecho. Then the name of the executive chef and owner: Elise St. Croix. Something feels familiar about that, so I keep watching.

  A shot of what she’s making: perfectly golden omelet. Sundried tomatoes, fresh-picked basil, goat cheese. I want to step through the screen and watch her every move, so I can make it for myself. Felix and I have been watching this show for years, drooling on the couch and then scurrying to the kitchen as soon as the credits roll so we can try to recreate the dishes.

  Since he died I haven’t been able to watch the show at all. Especially when he shows up on the couch next to me and begs me to change the channel to it, or hijacks whatever it is I’m watching by putting himself in the screen.

  They cut away, show the thirty-table restaurant. Chef Elise sits at one of the six patio tables and eats calmly, looking out at the scenery. She’s in her late forties, light brown hair in a ponytail. The green of the surrounding islands pops on the screen, the morning ferry from Seattle discernible in the distance. They probably booked the restaurant solid for a month on the strength of that one image.

  Then, my favorite part of the show. The kitchen comes alive. Knives coming down like they’re machine-driven, flames licking at liquids in saucepans like they’re trying to get a taste. The kitchen jargon that sounds like an exotic language. Onions are diced in seconds, herbs chopped and thrown into small plastic containers. A cook cracks a joke, and another one looks up from the meat he’s butchering, laughing without even stopping his work.

  The staff gathers around as Chef goes over the menu, like soldiers at the ready. Her white chef coat is spotless, a tasting spoon tucked into that tiny pocket in the upper sleeve. She speaks like a general in peacetime, calm but commanding. The guests arrive. Attractive servers bring out black leather menus, smiling widely, the day’s specials on the tips of their tongues. Cooks begin poaching shrimp, flipping steaks with tongs.

  I’m holding a stack of T-shirts in my hands, transfixed. Then I remember Felix’s stack of notebooks.

  He kept track of every day of his travels and would send me each filled-out journal for safekeeping. I drag my nightstand over so I can reach the top of my closet, where I’ve been storing them in a cardboard box. I think I know why this restaurant feels familiar to me.

  The notebooks are mostly in Spanish, the rare English word marked by stray accents, as if Felix wanted to bend it to his preferred tongue. It takes all my effort not to thumb through each notebook, to not get lost in Felix’s adventures. He never bothered to date them, but I always marked down what day I received them. I know the entry I’m looking for, can recall the words as if I was there too. It was about a year ago, when Felix was in Israel. He’d saved a bunch of money while living on a kibbutz for a while and had treated himself to a nice meal, at a fancy restaurant called Mul Yam.

  I usually believe the best meals are to be found in home kitchens, Felix wrote. This time, I was wrong. Below, he’d listed restaurants he wanted to eat at in his lifetime. A few of them had been crossed out with blue or black or red ink. I don’
t allow myself to think of all the ones he didn’t get to, but my suspicion was right. At the top of the list is Provecho.

  The show comes back on. I’ve been watching scenes like these so often the last couple of years. Chef Elise walks down rows of planted herbs and vegetables, rallies her troops, the kitchen comes alive, mise en place, the guests arrive, twinkling lights on the patio.

  It might be a simple coincidence. There are constantly reruns of this show, and there’s a good chance Felix watched this same episode years ago. But it feels like so much of a sign that I look for Felix in the screen, some acknowledgment that this is his doing.

  I pull my rain jacket from the closet, though I don’t really know what the hell the weather will be like, just that the island is near Seattle and Seattle is rainy. I fold the jacket neatly on top of the other clothes. My heart is pounding.

  I’ve never acted impulsively in my life. Felix got all those genes. It feels like I’m borrowing his disobedience, like I’m stealing something, acting Unlike Myself. But that doesn’t keep me from putting a knee on the suitcase to force it closed.

  In my parents’ room, a safe is hidden behind a shoddy fortress of clothes. The combination is easy to remember; every time Mom and Dad are on the same flight, Dad sits me down with a list of instructions on what to do just in case. I grab a few hundred dollars, both my passports, the emergency credit card that’s in my name. I use my cell phone to buy a plane ticket and then call a cab, ignoring the slew of missed notifications on the screen.

  My hands are shaking and sweaty. I can’t believe how easy it is to feel like I’m in control.

  I use the bathroom before I go. It’s when I’m washing my hands that I hear the awful sound of the front door opening. Mom’s voice rings out first, fraught with worry, “Carlos?” I look at my reflection in the mirror and can almost see the back wall. All my edges are blurred. I take a deep breath, open the door.