by Nicola Yoon
He nods. “Where do you want to go?”
ALOHA MEANS HELLO AND GOOD-BYE, PART TWO
HAPPY ALREADY
“MADS, BE SERIOUS. We can’t go to Hawaii.”
“Why not? I got us plane tickets. I booked us a hotel.”
We’re sitting in Olly’s car in the driveway. He puts the key in the ignition, but doesn’t turn it.
“Are you kidding?” he asks, scrutinizing my face for evidence that I’m kidding. He doesn’t find any and begins shaking his head slowly. “Hawaii is three thousand miles away.”
“Hence the airplane.”
He ignores my attempt at levity. “You’re serious? When did you do this? How? Why?”
“One more question and you’ll have a Fast Five,” I say.
He leans forward, presses his forehead into the steering wheel.
“Last night, with a credit card, because I want to see the world.”
“You have a credit card?”
“I got my own a few weeks ago. There are perks to hanging out with an older woman.”
He pulls his forehead off the wheel, but still stares straight ahead not meeting my eyes. “What if something happens to you?”
“Nothing will.”
“But what if it does?”
“I have the pills, Olly. They’re going to work.”
He squeezes his eyes shut and puts his hand on the key. “You know, we have plenty of world right here in southern California.”
“But no humuhumunukunukuapuaa.”
A small half smile forms at the corner of his lips. I need to make it spread across his entire face.
He turns to face me. “What are you talking about?”
“The humuhumunukunukuapuaa.”
“What is a humu-whatever?”
“The state fish of Hawaii.”
His smile broadens. “Of course it is.” He turns the key in the ignition. His eyes linger on his house and his smile fades, just slightly. “How long?”
“Two nights.”
“OK.” He grabs my hand and gives it a quick kiss. “Let’s go see this fish.”
Olly’s mood gets better, lighter somehow, the farther away from his house that we get. This trip gives him the perfect excuse to let go of the burden of his family for a little while, at least. Also, an old friend of his from New York, Zach, lives in Maui.
“You’ll love him,” he tells me.
“I’ll love everything,” I respond.
Our flight’s not until 7 A.M. and I have a detour I want to make.
Being in his car is like being in a very loud, very fast-moving bubble. He refuses to open the windows. Instead, he presses a button on the dashboard that prevents air circulation. The sound of the tires on asphalt is like someone hissing low and constant into my ears. I fight the urge to cover them.
Olly says we’re not going very fast, but to me we’re hurtling through space. I’ve read that passengers on high-speed trains say that the world outside the train blurs from the speed. I know we’re not going anywhere near that fast. But still, the landscape moves too quickly for my slow eyes to hold on to. I barely catch glimpses of houses in the brown hills in the distance. Overhead signs with cryptic symbols and writing come and go before I can decipher them. Bumper stickers and license plates appear and disappear in a blink.
Even though I understand the physics of it, I find it strange that my body could be moving though I am sitting still. Well, not exactly still. I’m pushed backward into my seat whenever Olly accelerates and I lurch forward whenever he brakes.
Every so often we slow down enough and I can see other people in their cars.
We pass a woman shaking her head and slapping at the steering wheel with her hands. Only after we’ve passed her do I figure out that she was probably dancing to music. Two kids in the back of another car stick their tongues out at me and laugh. I don’t do anything because I’m not sure what the etiquette is for that.
Gradually we slow down to a more human speed and leave the highway.
“Where are we?” I ask.
“She lives in Koreatown.”
My head buzzes from trying to look everywhere at once. There are brightly lit signs and billboards written only in Korean. Since I can’t read the language, the signs seem like art pieces with beautiful, mysterious forms. Of course, they probably just say things as mundane as Restaurant or Pharmacy or Open 24 Hours.
It’s early, but still there are so many people doing so many things—walking or talking or sitting or standing or running or riding bicycles. I don’t quite believe they’re really real. They’re just like the mini figures I pose in my architecture models, here to give Koreatown the vigor of life.
Or maybe it’s me that’s not really real, not really here at all.
We drive along for a few minutes more. Eventually we pull up to a two-story apartment complex with a fountain in the courtyard.
Olly undoes his seat belt but makes no move to leave the car. “Nothing can happen to you,” he says.
I reach over and take his hand. “Thank you,” is all I can think to say. I want to tell him that it’s his fault that I’m out here. That love opens you up to the world.
I was happy before I met him. But I’m alive now, and those are not the same thing.
INFECTED
CARLA SCREAMS AND covers her face when she first sees me.
“Are you a ghost?” She grabs my shoulders, squeezes me against her bosom, rocks me side to side, and then squeezes me again. I don’t have any air left in my lungs when she’s finished.
“What are you doing here? You can’t be here,” she says, still squeezing me.
“I’m happy to see you, too,” I squeak.
She pulls away, shakes her head as if I were some kind of a miracle, and pulls me back in for more.
“Oh, my girl,” she says. “Oh, how I missed you.” She holds my face in her hands.
“I missed you, too. I’m so sorry about—”
“Stop. You don’t have anything to be sorry for.”
“You lost your job because of me.”
She shrugs. “I got another one. Besides, it’s you that I miss.”
“I miss you, too.”
“Your mama did what she had to do.”
I don’t want to think about my mom. So I look around for Olly, who’s standing off in the distance.
“You remember Olly,” I say.
“How could I forget that face? And that body,” she says, definitely loud enough for him to hear. She marches over to him and pulls him into a hug only slightly more restrained than the one she gave me.
“You taking care of our girl?” She pulls away and pats him a little too hard on his cheek.
Olly rubs it. “I’m doing my best. I don’t know if you know this, but she can be a little stubborn.”
Carla looks back and forth between us for a long second, noting the tension between us.
We’re still standing in her doorway.
“Come inside. Come inside,” she says.
“We didn’t think you would be awake so early,” I say as we enter.
“You stop sleeping when you get old. You’ll see.”
I want to ask, Will I ever grow old? But instead I ask, “Is Rosa here?”
“Upstairs, asleep. You want me to wake her?”
“We don’t have time. I just wanted to see you.”
She takes my face into her hands again and re-examines me, this time with nurse’s eyes.
“I must’ve missed a lot of things. What are you doing here? How are you feeling?”
Olly steps closer, wanting to hear my answer. I wrap my arms around my stomach.
“I’m great,” I say, far too brightly.
“Tell her about the pills,” Olly says.
“What pills?” Carla demands, looking only at me.
“We got pills. Experimental ones.”
“I know your mama didn’t give you anything experimental.”
“I got them on my own. Mo
m doesn’t know.”
She nods, validated. “From where?”
I tell her the same thing I told Olly, but she doesn’t believe me. Not for a second. She covers her mouth with her hand and her eyes are cartoon big.
I put my heart into my eyes and plead with her silently. Please, Carla. Please understand. Please don’t expose me. You said life is a gift.
She looks away and rubs small circles into a spot above her bosom.
“You must be hungry. I’ll make you some breakfast.”
She directs us to sit on a bright yellow overstuffed couch before disappearing into the kitchen.
“This is exactly the way I pictured her house,” I say to Olly as soon as she’s gone. I don’t want him asking any questions about the pills.
Neither of us sits. I move a step or two away from him. The walls are painted in primary colors. Knickknacks and photos cover almost every surface.
“She seems OK with the pills,” Olly says finally. He moves closer, but I tense up. I’m afraid he’ll be able to feel the lies on my skin.
I wander around the living room, looking at photos of generations of women who all look like Carla. An enormous one of her holding Rosa when she was a baby hangs over a love seat. Something about the photo reminds me of my mom. It’s the way she’s looking at Rosa with not only love, but a kind of fierceness, too, like she would do anything to protect her. I’ll never be able to repay her for all she’s done for me.
*
Carla makes us a breakfast of chilaquiles—corn tortillas with salsa and cheese and crema Mexicana, which is something like crème fraîche. It is delicious and new, but I only have a single bite. I’m too nervous for food.
“So, Carla. In your professional opinion, do you really think the pills are working?” Olly asks. His voice is overflowing with optimism.
“Maybe,” she says, but shakes her head as she says it. “I don’t want to give you false hope.”
“Tell me,” I say. I need to ask her why I’m not sick yet, but I can’t. I’m trapped by my lies.
“It could be the pills are delaying your sickness. Even without any pills, it could be you just haven’t met any of your triggers yet.”
“Or it could be that the pills are working,” Olly says. He’s moved beyond hope. As far as he’s concerned these pills are a miracle.
Carla pats Olly’s hand from across the table. “You’re a good egg,” she tells him.
She avoids looking at me and takes our plates and goes to the kitchen.
I follow behind her, shame making me slow. “Thank you.”
She dries her hands on a towel. “I understand you. I understand why you’re out here.”
“I might die, Carla.”
She wets a dishcloth and wipes down an already clean spot on the counter. “I left Mexico in the middle of the night with nothing. I didn’t think I was going to survive. A lot of people don’t make it, but I left anyway. I left my father and my mother and my sister and my brother.”
She rinses the cloth, continues. “They tried to stop me. They said it wasn’t worth my life, but I said that it was my life, and it was up to me to decide what it was worth. I said I was going to go and either I was going to die or I was going to get a better life.”
Now she rinses the cloth again and wrings it tight. “I tell you, when I left my house that night I never felt more free. Even now, in all the time that I’ve been here, I never felt as free as that night.”
“And you don’t regret it?”
“Of course I regret it. A lot of bad things happened on that trip. And when my mother and father died, I couldn’t go back for the funerals. Rosa doesn’t know anything about where she’s from.” She sighs. “You’re not living if you’re not regretting.”
What am I going to regret? My mind cycles through visions: my mom alone in my white room wondering where everyone she’s ever loved went. My mom alone in a green field staring down at my grave and my dad’s grave and my brother’s grave. My mom dying all alone in that house.
Carla touches my arm and I force all the images ruthlessly from my head. I cannot bear to think about these things. If I do, I won’t be able to live.
“Maybe I won’t get sick,” I whisper.
“That’s right,” she says, and hope spreads through me like a virus.
TTYL
FIRST-TIME FLYER FAQ
Q: What is the best way to relieve earaches caused by changes in cabin pressure?
A: Chewing gum. Also, kissing.
Q: Which is the best seat: window, center, or aisle?
A: Window, definitely. The world is quite a sight from 32,000 feet above it. Note that a window means your traveling companion may then be stuck next to a spectacularly loquacious bore. Kissing (your companion, not the bore) is also effective in this situation.
Q: How many times per hour is cabin air refreshed?
A: Twenty.
Q: How many people can an airline blanket comfortably cover?
A: Two. Be sure to raise the seat arm between you and snuggle as close as possible for maximum coverage.
Q: How is it possible that humans invented something as amazing as an airplane and something as awful as a nuclear bomb?
A: Human beings are mysterious and paradoxical.
Q: Will I encounter turbulence?
A: Yes. Into all lives a little turbulence must fall.
THE CAROUSEL
“I’VE DECIDED BAGGAGE carousels are a perfect metaphor for life,” Olly says from atop the edge of a nonmoving one.
Neither of us has any checked luggage. All I’m carrying is a small backpack with essentials—toothbrush, clean underwear, Lonely Earth Maui guidebook, and The Little Prince. Of course I had to take it with me. I’m going to read it one more time to see how the meaning’s changed.
“When did you decide this?” I ask.
“Just now.” He’s in a crackpot-theory mood, just waiting for me to ask him to elaborate.
“Want to give it some more thought before you regale me?” I ask.
He shakes his head and jumps down right in front of me. “I’d like to begin the regaling now. Please.”
I gesture magnanimously for him to continue.
“You’re born. You get thrown onto this crazy contraption called life that just goes around and around.”
“People are the luggage in this theory?”
“Yes.”
“Go on.”
“Sometimes you fall off prematurely. Sometimes you get so damaged by other pieces of luggage falling on your head that you don’t really function anymore. Sometimes you get lost or forgotten and go around forever and ever.”
“What about the ones that get picked up?”
“They go on to lead unextraordinary lives in a closet somewhere.”
I open and close my mouth a few times, unsure where to begin.
He takes this as agreement. “See? It’s flawless.” His eyes are laughing at me.
“Flawless,” I say, meaning him and not the theory. I thread my fingers through his and look around. “Does it look like you remember?” Olly’s been here once before, on a family vacation when he was ten.
“I don’t really remember much. I remember my dad saying it wouldn’t kill them to spend a little money on first impressions.”
The terminal is dotted with greeters—Hawaiian women in long, flower-patterned dresses holding welcome signs and strands of purple-and-white-orchid leis draped over their forearms. The air does not smell like the ocean. It smells industrial, like jet fuel and cleaning products. It’s a smell I could come to love because it would mean that I was traveling. All around us the noise level rises and falls, punctuated by choruses of alohas sung out by greeters and families alike. As first impressions go, this one isn’t bad. I wonder how his dad has managed to live in the world all his life without knowing what was precious in it.
“In your baggage theory, your mom is one of the bags that gets damaged?”
He nods.
“And your sister? She’s one of the ones that gets lost, goes around and around forever?”
He nods again.
“And you?”
“Same as my sister.”
“And your dad?”
“He’s the carousel.”
I shake my head. “No,” I say, and grab his hand. “He doesn’t get to have everything, Olly.”
I’ve embarrassed him. He tugs his hand out of mine, moves a small distance away, studies the terminal.
“You, my dear, need a lei,” he says. He nods at a greeter who hasn’t yet found her party.
“I don’t,” I say.
“Oh, but you do,” he insists. “Wait here.” He makes his way over to her. At first she shakes her head no, but Olly persists, as he’s wont to do. A few seconds later they’re both looking over at me. I wave to prove to her that I’m nice and friendly, the sort of person you might want to give a free lei to.
She relents. Olly comes back triumphant. I reach out to take it, but he places it over my head instead.
“You know, leis were traditionally given only to royalty,” I say, quoting from my guidebook. He gathers my hair into his hands and caresses the back of my neck before letting the lei fall into place.
“Who doesn’t know that, princess?”
I finger the strand, feeling as if the lei has transferred some of its beauty to me.
“Mahalo nui loa,” I say. “It means thank you very much.”
“You read every single word in that guidebook, didn’t you?”
I nod my head. “If I had a suitcase,” I say, “I would love it. I would shrink-wrap it when I traveled. I would put stickers from every place I’d ever been on it. And when I saw it on the carousel I would grab it with both hands and I’d be so happy to have it because then my adventures could really begin.”
He looks at me, a nonbeliever confronted with, if not evidence, then at least the possibility of God. He pulls me into his arms and we’re wrapped around each other, his face buried in my hair and my face pressed into his chest, no daylight between our bodies.
“Don’t die,” he says.