The Grief Keeper

by Alexandra Villasante

  “Now?”

  “Yes, now, of course now—I’m all dressed up for a reason.”

  “Are you going somewhere fancy?”

  “You mean, ‘Are we going somewhere fancy?’ Well, you could say that,” she says, pretending to pat her hair into place. “But I wouldn’t.”

  “You are confusing,” I say, this time choosing to be honest. Still, I get up and put on my shoes and a light jacket. “Are you allowed to drive?” I don’t know what Rey is allowed to do, but I know that if I had tried to fly off a balcony, Mamá would have locked me in her bedroom.

  “I am legally allowed to drive, and no one has told me, explicitly, not to go anywhere.”

  “Sounds like excuses.”

  “Well, if you come with me, you can make sure I’m safe and sound.” She smiles widely, all her teeth perfect pearls.

  “I don’t need to change clothes? You’re sure?”

  “You look amazing,” Rey says.

  I don’t bother looking in the mirror for confirmation. I know my plain face will stare back at me like it always does. I follow Rey to the driveway. Indranie’s car is gone.

  “Where’s your father?” I ask. Rey unlocks the car doors, and I get in the passenger seat.

  “Probably joined at the hip with Indranie.”

  “They work together?”

  “They do everything together.”

  We sit in the car for a moment, the keys on Rey’s lap of pink fluffy lace. She’s gripping the steering wheel hard. I wait.

  “Sorry. Just waiting for all the lights to come on.” I don’t understand what this means, but I’m guessing it’s an idiom. Unless she’s waiting for real lights to come on? I look out the window for lights. It’s pringando, raining a little, but not dark enough yet for streetlights.

  With a deep breath, Rey turns on the car.

  “Do you know how to drive?” she asks.

  I don’t even know what I’m doing here. I shake my head.

  “Okay. I’m just asking. I know how to drive.”

  I cringe as Rey moves the car through the house gates, coming too close to the brick on my side. I feel the scrape of metal and brick in my back teeth.

  “Dr. V only gives me shit to make me numb. Pixie sent me something better. Makes all the lights come on in my brain, you know?”

  I don’t know. “Who is Pixie?”

  “She’s amazing. You’ll meet her later.”

  I don’t know where she’s taking me, who her friends are, and even if Rey is as okay as she says she is. But there’s a clearness in her that I’ve not seen before, like something dirty has been washed off her face. If I am honest, at least to myself, I’m in this car because I want to see more of this Rey.

  “Where are we going?” I ask.

  “Where aren’t we going? That’s the question.” Rey bites her lip as she pulls the car onto the main road.

  “All right. Where aren’t we going?”

  “No, stupid, it’s a rhetorical question.”

  “I’m not stupid,” I say. When people hear an accent, or when you pick a slightly wrong word, suddenly they think you’re stupid. It happened so much, in Texas and then in Pennsylvania, that I get defensive.

  “Sorry. My tongue has a mind of its own.” She laughs nervously.

  I don’t respond.

  “I mean, obviously you aren’t stupid. You’re reading Riley’s books, so you can read at least two languages. That’s smart.” She sounds suddenly exhausted. “I don’t know why I say stupid things.”

  “I say the wrong things all the time. Welcome to the club.”

  She turns her brilliant smile on me, and it lingers until I look away. The farther we get from Rey’s house, the happier she becomes. I can understand it. The place that is un refugio for Gabi and me, a place where we can sleep without worry of being attacked, that same place has been a golden cage for Rey. Today, she is escaping her prison.

  Rey touches a button on her phone, and the car radio lights up. Music starts to play and the words Perfume Genius and Slip Away show on the screen.

  “Do you like this song?” Rey asks.

  “I don’t know.” I shrug. “It’s okay?” Sometimes, we would hear popular music from the United States, but mostly we’d listen to our own music, local bandas who play music that everyone can dance to. Música alegre, happy music.

  Rey sings along. “Don’t look back, I want to break free. If you’ll never see ’em coming, you’ll never have to hide.”

  That seems backward to me. Like when you’re little and think closing your eyes will keep others from seeing you. But the music bursts with hopefulness, starting slow, the beat building into an explosion of sound. It makes me want to dance. It makes me wish the words were true.

  She drives carefully, not speeding and not hitting anything. As she sings along to the radio, I feel like I’m in a dream, waiting to see what vision my mind comes up with next. Rey said we’d go to one place, then come right back, before Manny picks Gabi up from her friend’s house, before anyone notices we’re gone. I’m sure we’re doing something that someone will be upset about. And yet, here I sit, next to her, inviting La Mala Suerte to come and visit.

  We drive to a city. Not a huge city, like Washington, but not a little town either. Something in between. We pull into a parking lot where a low building sits in the middle like an island. There is no sign outside that I can see, and no windows.

  “Is it open?” I ask.

  “Archetype is always open,” Rey says. She pulls on a leather jacket—the one she wore in the garden, when I mistook her for a boy. The one that belonged to her brother.

  “Arquetipo,” I mutter as Rey opens a glass door, then pulls back a thick velvet curtain the color of café con leche.

  “Ar-que-tipo,” Rey repeats. “So that’s archetype in Spanish?”

  I nod.

  “What does archetype mean?” she asks.

  “You’re kidding! You don’t know?”

  “Are you calling me stupid?” I can’t tell if she’s serious or not. Her lips twitch. She’s not serious.

  “I would never do such a thing.”

  “So, Professor Morales, tell me what archetype means. And do it now, before someone asks me to define it.”

  “It means the thing. You know, like, the thing itself.”

  “So, you’re the archetypal Marisol Morales—is that right?”

  “I guess I am.”

  “There couldn’t be another.” She walks through the entrance, leaving me on my own to wonder at her words. Between the cold of the glass door and the warmth I feel coming from inside, I have the urge to run, like I did in the mall. Because something’s changing, I can tell that much, even if I don’t know what it is or if it’s para bien o para mal. I walk through the curtain. There’s nothing to run from. I’m being ridiculous.

  Chapter 17

  I could never have expected what is inside the short, rectangular building. Because inside is an alien world. Tables rise out of the earth-colored floor, surrounded by cave-like seating carved out of the walls, as if shaped by a giant hand from tierra. In some little spaces, no more than huecos, couples sit close around flickering candles. A few tables are set high up, as high as mango trees, and must be reached by steps set into the walls. Vines and shapes like snakes come out of the floor and ceiling.

  No one looks our way as a woman in a red dress leads us to a table. “Watch your step,” she says. “The floor is a little uneven.”

  “Can we have the one under the skylight?” Rey asks.

  The woman nods and leads us further into a maze of rooms, all warm and curved and the color of crema.

  When we get to our table, it’s in the center of a room directly under a glowing glass light that, if it wasn’t raining, I might think really did reflect the sun’s light. We climb up
two steps to reach a little ledge where we can stand while moving ourselves into our seats. The woman in the red dress stretches to hand us menus.

  “Your server will be right with you. Enjoy!” I cannot imagine how the waiters will even reach us with our drinks.

  “It looks like the inside of an egg,” I say, sliding into the booth, which has the smooth rounded shape of an eggshell. Rey sits next to me, close in the small space. There are soft white pillows to sit on.

  “Pixie says I like this place because it’s like going back to the womb. That’s just Pixie being gross,” Rey says.

  “Who is Pixie?” I ask.

  “She’s my friend. She works here.” Rey cranes her head to look around the restaurant. “She’ll appear eventually. In the meantime, you should tell me everything about yourself.”

  I laugh. “Everything?”

  “Well, I already know you have an awesome little sister. That you’re obsessed with Cedar Hollow and that you had to leave your home in El Salvador.”

  “Yes. We had to leave.”

  “Will you ever go back?”

  I’m confused by the way she asks. As if I have a choice in staying or going. “I want to stay here. If they’ll let me.”

  “What do you mean, if they let you?” Rey leans close to me, her expression intense.

  “Indranie says she’ll be able to get green cards for us. And for my mamá. Just as soon as the experiment is over.”

  “If anyone can do it, it’s Indranie,” Rey says firmly. “She’s got governmental superpowers, or at least that’s what Dad thinks.”

  A pretty blond girl with very pale green eyes jumps up to our table.

  “Speak of the devil and the devil appears,” Rey says lightly. But the blond girl’s face looks so angry that I don’t think she likes the joke.

  She leaps at Rey, hugging her so hard she almost pulls her out of the booth. Then the pretty blond, who must be Pixie, bursts into tears.

  “I’m so sorry,” she cries.

  “Okay,” Rey says, putting her arms around the girl, holding on as if her life depended on it. “Don’t, please don’t cry. I am barely keeping it together as it is.” Rey pushes her hip against mine, and I move farther down the half-circle.

  Pixie sits next to Rey and wipes her tears with her hands.

  “I’m so sorry, Rey. We miss you. At school. Everyone is so—”

  “Sorry. I know. Everyone is so sorry,” Rey says wearily. Some of the spark in her face has faded. I blame Pixie, though I know that is wrong.

  The girl shakes her head as if to clear it. She takes a deep breath. “Okay, so . . .” She gives me an empty smile. “Who’s your little friend?”

  * * *

  Archetype is full of small spaces where you can whisper, laugh, and gossip. The three people at the table in front of us, also high up, are taking photos of themselves with their phones. Except for the many candles on every table and the flash from the autofotos, the room is dark. Only our table, higher up and under the “skylight,” has light enough to read the menus.

  Pixie and Rey ignore the menus and me. As soon as Pixie asked “Who’s your little friend?” she went on to describe something funny that Rey’s friends did, without waiting to hear who I am.

  Little friend. Pixie’s words sting. I sit up as tall as I can and focus on the menu. I’m convinced some of these words are not in English. Cocodemon? Zelorella? Are these people’s names? But the descriptions are pretty clear. Everything is ice cream and dessert. And everything is ten dollars or more.

  “Then Dave sent it to me thinking he was sending it to you, and I did not hesitate to screenshot that crap and blanket the fucking planet with it. He deserves it for being so smugly Dave-ish all the time.”

  I watch Pixie and Rey and I wish I could’ve made Rey laugh like that. It would mean that I was doing my job well, that I was helping her get past her grief.

  “You are a cruel taskmistress,” Rey says.

  “Deserves. It.” Pixie looks down at Rey’s puffy pink dress. “What in the holy hell are you wearing?”

  Rey’s smile falls and her hand goes to the flower band in her hair.

  “I wanted to get dressed up.” She glances at me, then away. “I’ve been slacking off. Got to keep up appearances.” She says it like it’s a joke, but I don’t think it is.

  “Well, you look like a zombie prom queen, and not in a good way,” Pixie says. “You know I say that with love, right?”

  “What?” Rey says, looking away. “I stopped listening to you, like, five minutes ago.”

  Pixie leans into Rey, giving her a hug I don’t think Rey really wants. “Love you like the sister I never had,” Pixie says. Her eyes turn to me, and the look she gives goes from confusion to disdain.

  Rey puts her hand on my shoulder. “Pixie, this is Marisol, the girl I told you about. She’s helping me be sane.”

  “That’s really not possible,” Pixie says. “Hello, Marisol.”

  “Hi,” I say. We are silent for a minute more than is comfortable before Pixie takes out her phone and slides her thumb along it, the light from the phone bright blue on her face.

  “In my official capacity as underpaid wench in this establishment, let me offer to get you some cloudy tap water to start—and ask if you have any questions about the menu.” Pixie tilts her head toward me.

  “What’s butterscotch?” I ask. “Is it like caramel?”

  Rey answers. “Yeah, a little. It’s sort of better. Hey, did I tell you this is Pixie?” she says, looping her arm through her friend’s arm. “Pixie, this is Marisol, the one I told you about.”

  I glance at Rey to see if she’s kidding around, or if something is wrong. But she looks fine, happy and relaxed.

  “Yeah, I heard. She’s keeping you sane,” Pixie says. “Any friend of Reyanne’s is a friend of mine.” She looks bored, insincera when she says it.

  “Thanks.” The more Pixie talks, the less I talk. I’m afraid I’ll say the wrong thing, use the wrong English words.

  “So. What can I get you?” Pixie asks.

  I hesitate. I have Mrs. Rosen’s hundred-dollar bill in my wallet, but it seems too wasteful to spend even a tenth of it on ice cream. I hesitate so long that I feel my face getting warm.

  “I’ll have my usual with extra fudge and extra peanut butter sauce and extra—”

  “Shut up already—I know all your extras,” Pixie says to Rey. She makes a note on her phone, then looks at me expectantly.

  “I, uh.”

  “What do you like?” Rey asks, looking over my shoulder at my menu when she already has her own menu open in front of her.

  “She likes vanilla,” Pixie says. “Bet you anything.”

  “I hate vanilla,” I say, because I want to prove Pixie wrong. “I’ll have the chocolate one with butterscotch. Extra butterscotch.”

  “See?” Rey grins. “She’s extra just like me.”

  “Got it. Two extra queens.” Pixie jumps down to the floor, graceful as a dancer, and walks away.

  “She’s great, isn’t she?” Rey murmurs.

  “I like the little bows in her hair.” At least I found something positive to say.

  “She was Riley’s girlfriend,” Rey says, keeping her eyes closed. I wonder what she is trying not to see in this room. Or if it is the opposite, that she is seeing something behind her closed eyes that she wants to hold on to.

  “Oh,” I say awkwardly.

  Rey opens her eyes and smiles sadly. “It was years ago. But we became friends even though he broke her heart. It wasn’t her fault. Riley wasn’t good at being with one person, you know?”

  “What was your brother like?” I ask. Then I’m horrified to have asked about Riley when Rey was feeling so much better. “I’m sorry. Never mind. I was being stupid,” I say.

  “You’re the sm
art one, remember? Professor Marisol Morales?” Rey smiles. “It’s okay. The only thing I’m sick of hearing is ‘I’m sorry.’ I’m not sick of talking about Riley.”

  Rey leans into the curved back of our cuevita with a sigh. “My brother was wild. He was born a whole eight minutes before me, and I have been trying to catch up with him ever since. That’s what my mom always said.”

  Rey keeps her gaze on the skylight, seeing images there that I can’t guess at.

  “Mom came for Riley’s funeral and left the same afternoon. She said she couldn’t bear the pain. Ha. Right? Ha fucking ha.” She closes her eyes again, the same soft smile on her face. I feel foolish for thinking this was the real Rey. She is only a new kind of zombie.

  “What happened to your brother?” she asks, taking me out of my self-pitying thoughts.

  “Pablo?”

  “Indranie only said you had a brother who died. Is that him?”

  “Yes.”

  Rey shifts her body toward me. “Yeah. I’m not going to say ‘I’m sorry.’ Fucking hate when people say it to me. But you know.”

  I nod.

  “What was he like? Was he older?”

  “He was.” In my mind, I review the long story of Pablo and me—turning over every memory like stones in the ground. Some memories are sweet—swimming in the lake by Abuela’s house, letting the hot air dry us in the summer. Running to the store to get milk for the baby—when Gabi was that baby—so we wouldn’t have to listen to her wail. Some memories are sharp enough to make me bleed.

  “He was my best friend for a while. But we grew far away from each other.”

  I press my hands together under the table, waiting for her to ask the details of Pablo’s death—like everyone does. Como buitres. Vultures. But she doesn’t.

  “When Riley was being a total dick—which, believe me, happened more than I liked—I’d remember what it was like when we were little. And then,” she lowers her voice like she’s going to tell me a secret, “I’d imagine us as adults, like me with an incredible job somewhere and an apartment filled with sunlight and a cute dog—finally, because Dad’s allergic—and I’d imagine Riley with, like, more facial hair.” She giggles. “And I gave him a briefcase too, which is so dumb, but whatever. And we’d be all right. All the bad shit would be in the past, and we’d be best friends again.”