“Name one item of food you can grab within five minutes that is as perfect as the carne asada taco,” Ellis says boldly.
“Hear, hear!” someone shouts.
“Wait. A Filet-O-Fish,” a man in his thirties says. He’s wearing sunglasses in the dark and drinking what looks like a “hard kombucha.”
“FILET. O. FISH?” green-sweatshirt girl screeches. “Get the fuck outta here.”
It becomes a chaotic fast-food standoff, and I am laughing so hard. Ellis leans his head toward me and says, “Let’s bail before they start a fight club.”
Some fuzzy part of me knows that I shouldn’t. That Daniel isright thereand showing interest in me. But the part of me that is so happy and following every whim gets up with him, his hand gripping mine with assurance.
13
We leave the debate behind us and walk into the desert. The night sky is velvet-blue and feels like a weighted blanket for the soul.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Ellis says simply.
Our clasped hands swing between us with our slow, unhurried steps out into the abyss. “I’m glad, too.”
“Glad to be here, or here withme?” He’s teasing but it’s also serious.
“Both.” I look up at the stars. “I take this trip alone because I always tell myself it makes me feel closer to my mom. But if I’m being completely honest…it doesn’t.”
He squeezes my hand. I squeeze back and say, “She died on my birthday.”
His step falters and he grips my hand again. “Oh, god.” My little squeeze messages to him that it’s okay but he is quiet as we keep walking.
I’m not someone who keeps my feelings bottled up inside, who avoids living in the hard emotions. But it’s rare that I talk about my mom’s death. If only because, with time, my childhood feels both far away and painfully oppressive. Mar knows about it; we’ve had a few drunken nights of emotional unburdening. But never with my auntsand grandparents. It’s to protect them, but also myself. I don’t know what will come out, and with how much velocity, and if it’ll cause more damage than healing.
But Ellis feels so far removed from that fear. In fact, he feels safe. So I start talking.
“It was a school day, but she had made me birthday eggs. We didn’t do shit like pancakes for breakfast because neither of us had a sweet tooth. Birthday eggs involved ketchup happy faces and hearts and eight candles. My mom was an artist—not in some abstract, looking-back-fondly-on-my-mother’s-quirky-crafts kind of thing. She worked in animation. She designed some characters you probably know from your childhood. Maybe not, considering you’re a zygote.”
At this he doesn’t even react, that’s how deadly serious he’s taking my monologue. I continue, “She took the day off from work because she always did that on my birthday. I often think about that because—well, we’ll get to it. She dropped me off at school that morning, in her cool beat-up old Jeep—she never cared what anyone else thought. Anyway, she dropped me off and I really hate that I don’t remember what her last words to me were. Probably ‘Bye!’ if I’m being real. She told me she loved me all the time, so that’s a possibility, too. But maybe I deny myself that version because it’s too brutal.”
We are just walking, walking through the desert. And I can feel every star in the sky, and the love of the universe wrap me up. I keep going.
“My class sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to me that day and my best friend, Jennifer Rivera, made me a daisy-chain crown at recess. And then, sometime after lunch, the principal came into our classroom and looked straight at me. I don’t remember a lot after that because, you know, traumatic. But I do remember my teacher, Ms. Lark, had tears in her eyes when she took me out of the class to tell me. Seeing your teacher cry…it’s world-shifting to say the least.”
I think Ellis might be crying, too, because I see him swipe at his eyes with the hand that isn’t holding mine. I want to tell him it’s okay, to stop crying, but whatever is happening in my body feels like it’s okay, it’s all okay. Crying about a stranger is fine! My tragic soliloquy continues.
“I found out later, from Sunny, who was the only possible person in my life with the strength to do it, that my mom had died swiftly around the time I would have been eating lunch. Brain aneurysm. She was discovered because of Betty. Betty was screaming bloody murder until a neighbor came by to see what was going on.”
This gets a reaction from Ellis.“Betty?”
“Yeah. That’s why I haven’t put her in a pie yet.”
“How? How is she still alive?” Ellis is seriously shocked, and it makes me laugh. A lot. This detail is what often stops people in their tracks.Sorry, Mom, your brain aneurysm tragedy is always completely overshadowed by your Rip Van Winkle bird.
“Cockatoos can live to be one hundred,” I say. “It’s the curse of my life.”
But he doesn’t laugh. “She’s a terrible pet. But now I get it.”
“Yeah. So now you know why I take these trips. I have to be far away from the family who misses her just as hard as I do.”
Ellis stops completely and lets go of my hand, scrubbing his face with both his hands. “Cassia.”
“Hey, I’m okay. Really.”
