North Of Happy - Adi Alsaid

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I’m still standing up, not sure if I should offer to help or what. “I’m Carlos,” I say, holding out my hand, thanking god that I remembered no one does the whole cheek-to-cheek kiss thing here.

      She shakes it. “I’m Emma. Now sit,” she says. “If the phone rings, just pick it up and shriek into it, will you?”

      I sit down. “You want one continuous shriek or multiple bursts of shrieking?”

      “Either way, they’ll complain,” Emma says, maybe a little too loudly for how many customers are standing around waiting for tables. I watch her head to the back of the restaurant, and before the double doors that lead to the kitchen swing shut I can see the cook with the tattooed arms walk past, carrying a slab of meat. I think I even see Felix back there, a frying pan in hand, flames licking out at him. God, what it would be like to inhabit that world, food surrounding you.

      Emma comes back out, two coffees in paper cups in hand. “One’s black, one’s sweetened and creamy. I don’t care which I get.” I grab the sweetened one, thank her, stand and then sit and then stand again.

      She takes the lid off her coffee, sets it next to the phone that’s been ringing so constantly that I’m pretty sure this place is booked for the next year. She blows away the steam from her cup. “So, have you always lived in Mexico?”

      “Yup. Born and raised.”

      “Your English is really good.”

      “Only when I’m speaking. You should have heard me screeching at your customers a second ago. My accent’s embarrassing.” Whoa. Was that my second joke already? I don’t think I’ve cracked so much as a pun since the Night of the Perfect Taco.

      “You screeched?!? I said shriek. Shit.” She takes her glasses off, rubs them clean on the hem of her sweatshirt. “If we go out of business, I’m telling the chef it’s your fault.”

      “That probably lowers my chances of sneaking in on a cancellation, right?”

      “I’d say so.” Emma sips again from her coffee and then gives a chuckle. The phone rings again, and now, while she’s on it, I’m not looking around the restaurant but rather opening my mouth like I’m shrieking and trying to make her laugh. I’m not sure why I am so at ease all of a sudden. Joking around in the last few months has felt like pretending, even if I’m doing it with my friends. But her laughter makes me want to try for more.

      When she hangs up, she throws her coffee lid at me. A woman wrapped in a silk shawl glares at her, but Emma ignores the look. “So, is that really why you’re here? You decided to take an international flight for one meal?”

      For a moment I consider just telling her everything. Felix is dead and this is a link to him. We loved food together and he wrote the name of this place in a notebook once, so now I’m here. To eat on my dead brother’s behalf. There’s an icebreaker for you.

      I do think about how good it would feel to finally tell someone that I can see him. Maybe that’s all it would take to get him to leave. Instead I shrug and say yes, and Emma gives me another long look before she turns to help some customer.

      I end up staying at the restaurant far longer than I planned to. I thought maybe I’d stick around an hour or two and then go exploring like Felix suggested. But the wider world doesn’t call out to me. I just want to wait, watch the food go by, sit in this little corner of the world and not worry about anything else.

      “You are the most patient person I’ve ever met,” Emma says at one point. The sun’s set over the horizon; the restaurant is aglow with soft lighting from scentless candles and the twinkling bulbs in the patio. “You know you have a reservation for Tuesday, right?”

      “I’m kind of enjoying myself, though,” I say.

      “That’s a little weird.”

      I sink into my chair, blood rushing to my cheeks. I go the next hour without saying a word. A dozen different Felixes show up. He’s a server carrying one plate in each hand, thumbs off the edges, a customer checking in for a reservation. Some versions of him make a little less sense: a miniature version swimming in my coffee, telling me to relax.

      Emma greets a party of six and as she walks them over to their table, I think I see her glance over her shoulder at me as she goes. She’s probably noticed me staring at people, trying to suppress the urge to talk back to Felix.

      At ten o’clock, the restaurant is seating its last reservations. Emma’s wiping off menus with a napkin, and she jokes that I’ve been here so long I should have gotten paid. I try to act normal as a thought bubble sprouts out of my head and Felix shows me a flashback of the Night of the Perfect Taco: us at the stand in that one market, Felix teasing me that I should work with food.

      “Yup, I’m for sure qualified to work here,” I tell Emma. “I watch the Food Network.”

      “Don’t tell anyone in the kitchen that. They keep special knives to stab people with just for that occasion.”

      I laugh, she laughs and we fall into a silence that lasts until I finally say good-night. “See you Tuesday,” she says.

       CHAPTER 5

      CHERRY MOON PIES

      6 ounces unsalted butter

      1 cup sugar

      2 teaspoons vanilla extract

      1 cup flour

      ¼ cup graham cracker crumbs

      2 teaspoons baking powder

      2 teaspoons baking soda

      2 teaspoons cherry extract

      1 teaspoon cinnamon

      ¼ cup whole milk

      1 pound bittersweet chocolate

      2 tablespoons coconut oil

      METHOD:

      The next day is Monday and the restaurant is closed, so I spend the whole day roaming the aisles of the grocery store and cooking, kept company only by Felix. Every time he shows up, he undoes a little bit of the joy I’d built up yesterday.

      Every now and then, I think about calling my parents. I think about Isa on her way to Buenos Aires, Danny and the rest on the way to Europe. Mostly, I just hole up inside my room and wonder whether Dad’s already washed his hands of me.

      On Tuesday, I wake up late, without enough energy to do anything but lie in bed. When I emerge from my room, it’s practically evening, and there’s a fog creeping in from the beach, more white than gray. It stretches itself across the motel parking lot and slips in between the trees across the road. The sun, well on its way to the horizon, doesn’t do much to heat the day, and I have to warm my hands with my breath on my walk downtown.

      Joggers rule the island at this hour, it seems. Brightly colored spandex and arm-strapped phones greet me at nearly every turn, sometimes emerging from the fog like ghosts. I walk past Provecho once or twice, knowing that it’s too early for me to show for my dinner reservation. Felix shows up at my side in jogging gear, comically fluorescent. “Let’s go exploring, man. You’ve been sitting around for almost two days. It’s not healthy,” he says, his fractured English making the h sound like a loogie being hocked up.

      He leads me to the beach, which is frankly a little lame. Everyone brought their own towels and coolers and stuff, and there are no restaurants with lounge chairs and palapas set up along the beach, a staple of every Mexican beach I’ve been to. There should be unfettered beers and music, not the surreptitious pulls from Solo Cups I see here, the Bluetooth speakers.

      “I just want to go to the restaurant,” I say, watching people brush sand off their belongings, parents trying to corral their sunburnt children.

      “You came all the way here. I’m excited about the meal too,

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