North Of Happy - Adi Alsaid

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I see that Emma’s not at the hostess stand because I liked how it felt to talk to her the other day. But I don’t regret it enough to go back out into the world. The new girl at the hostess stand gives me a strange look when I say I’ll wait three hours for my reserved table, which I guess is a reasonable reaction. I watch the servers go up to the kitchen window, watch the looks on people’s faces when they get their food, when they take their first bite.

      Suddenly, I’m thinking about all I didn’t know about Felix’s life. What he ate at the Israeli restaurant, for example, the meal that made him want to come here.

      “Endive salad with creamy yuzu dressing, followed by three-chili shrimp scampi,” Felix cuts in. “For dessert: white chocolate gelato with fresh pomegranate and a passionfruit drizzle.”

      I sigh loudly, which is another tactic I’ve had to develop to stifle the urge to respond to him in public. Hallucination or ghost, I’m not sure whether I should strictly believe anything he says since he’s died. If they’re somehow his memories or just what I think his memories would sound like. Easier just to sigh.

      The hours go by, surprisingly easy. I don’t have to talk to anyone, don’t have to interact with Dad’s business partners, don’t have to force jokes so that Mom and everyone else will believe I’m okay. I can just look at food, and people, and a world unlike the one I’ll eventually go back to. My normal life will consume me soon enough, so for now I want to dive into this. I will honor Felix and then cast him away. Then I’ll be okay.

      Finally, the hostess calls my name and leads me to a table in the back, near a window looking out at the patio. If I tried, I could easily eavesdrop on half a dozen conversations around me. The hostess places a black leather menu on the table, says someone will be around shortly to take my order. I’m shocked I hadn’t thought to open a menu up until this point. It reads like a dream.

      When I put the menu down, Felix is sitting in front of me in a tuxedo.

      He conjures up tears to his eyes. “I can’t believe you brought me here. You’re such a good brother.”

      “Shut up,” I mumble, pretending to take a sip of water so no one sees my lips move.

      Felix holds his hands up in surrender. “Okay, okay, we won’t get emotional.” He opens a menu, though there’s only one on the table and it’s under my elbow. “Please tell me you got the sweetbreads for us.”

      I look out at the patio. A full moon’s reflected in the water, and the other islands in the distance are impossibly easy to see through the darkness. “I got the sweetbreads,” I say, hating him for making me say it out loud, for knowing damn well that the sweetbreads are not for us.

      He starts off on some story about his travels, and I just stare out the window until my food arrives, listening. It’s easy to forget myself. Andouille-spiced sweetbreads, pork belly ceviche as appetizers, something called Duck in a Jar for my entrée, a side order of squash poutine. The descriptions alone were a fantasy, and I was sure that there’d be no way the dishes could match up to my expectations. I was wrong.

      Felix eats too. Twin plates show up when the server sets mine in front of me. Felix lays out his napkin across his lap and rubs his hands together like a cartoon villain planning his takeover.

      He takes a bite of the duck breast and dips it in the sriracha au jus. “Que jalada,” he moans with pleasure, scoops out some more. Except I know there’s nothing there across the table from me. It’s just me eating. One meal, not two.

      These bites are what I’m here for, I remind myself. I try to savor them instead of diluting them with my thoughts.

      For dessert: dulce de leche fondant cake with banana-cardamom gelato and orange-zest white-chocolate chips. My brother eats a spoonful as slowly as he always did when he was alive. He used to eat desserts so glacially that he could never get ice cream in cones. They’d drip down his arm, half the scoop wasted on the sidewalk.

      The gelato on his plate is pooling right now, but it’s a fucking lie. There is no gelato. This has been one of the best meals of my life, but it’s been a solitary one. My brother isn’t sitting in front of me. I’m alone in this restaurant, on this island. I came here to honor some unrealized dream of his based on a journal entry. A stupid journal entry, as if it could have told me what Felix would have done with one more day. As if he’d be here if he really could. As if this undoes anything, fixes anything.

      “Hey,” I hear him say. Soft clink of his spoon hitting the plate. “I would be. I am.”

      But I can’t bear the sight of him/not him. I never wanted him to come back. I never wanted him gone.

      My breath starts to come quick and shallow. I can see Felix in the reflection of the window but somehow can’t see myself. The background noise of the restaurant, so manageable when I sat down, is suddenly building to a roar.

      “How was everything?” My chipper server has the bill in her hand. If I hand her my credit card, sign my receipt, my little mission here is over.

      I try to smile at her, but it’s just not happening. To keep from revealing myself as completely out of my mind, I manage to stammer out: “Bathroom?”

      She points the way, and I speed-walk to the privacy of a stall as if I’m about to be sick. Inside, I take a seat, doubling over, trying to take deep breaths but failing to. It feels like the opposite is happening, like air is being squeezed out of my lungs. My hands are gripping at my knees, but I can’t even see my fingers doing it, just the little indents in the fabric where I know my fingers should be.

      Without Felix, I am not myself.

      Shaken, I walk over to the sink, splash some water on my face. I avoid looking at my reflection, just keep my eyes down and try to convince myself that it’s all okay. When I manage to take a deep breath without it hurting, I leave the bathroom.

      Right by the exit, in the little corridor between the bathrooms, I see Emma leaning against the wall. She’s in her work shirt, her hair in a bun. “Hey,” she says when she sees me. “You okay? I saw you rushing in there looking like you were about to pass out. Wanted to make sure we hadn’t poisoned you or something.” She looks over her shoulder toward the kitchen. “I probably shouldn’t say that so loud.”

      I somehow manage a laugh. “Yeah, I’m okay.” Not sure I even believe that, but what the hell else should I say?

      I’m expecting her to nod, lead me back to my table, say good-bye.

      Instead, she pulls her phone out of her pocket and checks the time. Then she says, “Are you done eating?” I nod. “Can you give me, like, five minutes? Then wait for me outside?”

      “Um,” I say. “Why?”

      “I have this weird thing where if I only see someone in one location I can’t ever be sure that they’re a real person.” She readjusts her glasses so that they’re not on the bridge of her nose but out of the way, up above her forehead. Two tiny indents mark the spot where they’ve rested all day. “Plus, you’re new to town. I like showing people around. You’re free, right?”

      I manage a smile. “Yeah,” I say.

      “Five minutes,” she says. “Don’t bail on me.” She turns the corner. Outside, tourists walk by holding dripping ice-cream cones, changed out of their beachwear into pleated shorts and sundresses. I’m constantly on the lookout for that rising feeling of dread in my chest again, but everything seems calm within me.

      Emma appears in front of me, her work shirt unbuttoned to the tank top beneath it, her bag slung over her shoulder, glasses still resting on her head.

      “So, am I a real person now?” I ask, getting up.

      “Yet to be determined,” she says. “We’re still too close to the restaurant. Ghosts have some range.”

      “Ah, of course. I knew that.” I smirk at the irony.

      Emma asks if I’ve seen the lake yet, and

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