The Indigo Notebook (16 page)

Don Celestino is sitting in his blue chair a block from my apartment, his eyes half closed. It looks like he’s dozing, but it’s hard to tell since he’s blind and it’s dusk. I quietly drop a coin into his orange plastic bowl.

“Gracias
, Señorita Zeeta,” he says. And then, “Cheer up.”

“How did you know?”

“The birdsongs are heavy today,” he says. “Think of happy things.”

“Okay.” The rest of the way home, I remember last night in Wendell’s room, how the sound of our voices moved back and forth in the darkness. It gives me a
pleno
feeling, as if a red ribbon were draped in the space between our beds, each of our hands holding an end, rubbing it smooth.

At home, Layla and Jeff are sitting in front of the TV. He’s wearing leather flip-flops and khaki shorts and a bright white T-shirt, with Ray-Bans pushed onto his head—a deliberately casual look. Layla is snuggled next to him in white capris and a buttercup yellow polka-dotted blouse that I’ve never seen before. It looks like one of the outfits her mother sends her that she immediately gives to the first homeless woman she encounters on the street.

“What this town needs is a good golf course!” Jeff says as a kind of greeting. “Right, Zeeta?”

I bite my tongue. “Hmmm.”

“I heard there’s one around here, near some lake, but it’s only nine holes.” He glances at the TV and types something into his BlackBerry—golf stats, I’m guessing.

Layla puts a serious look on her face, like a sitcom mom. “Listen, Z. Jeff and I were talking about what you did last night—sleeping in a boy’s hotel room—and we decided I need to start setting boundaries.”

I blink, bewildered.
Who’s
the one who’s been taking along extra sweaters and crackers for her all these years?
Who’s
the one who washes the dishes and buys the food and manages the scant bank account?

Jeff offers a sympathetic smile. “We know it’s a change from what you’re used to, Zeeta.” He leans forward on the sofa. “Let me tell you something. I raised two wonderful daughters. And I know Chloe and Camille agree that their success has to do with three things.” He raises his manicured fingers, one by one. “Good routines. Reasonable rules. And plenty of love.”

Blood’s rising to my face now, pure, hot indignance. “Excuse us.” I drag Layla onto the balcony, shutting the glass doors so hard they rattle.

“Layla, this is crazy.”

“Listen, love, I want to do the right thing for you.”

“I’m used to fending for myself.”

“I’m just trying to be a good mother. I have a lot to make up for. All the times I could have lost you. Like the malaria thing. We should’ve stayed in Maryland.” Her eyes well up.

I should be feeling grateful that after nearly three years, she’s admitted this. Or at least I should hurl an
I told you so
at her. I fiddle with the worn hem of my grubby Pee-Pee Island T-shirt. If we’d stayed in Maryland, I’d probably never even have heard of Phi Phi Island.

I narrow my eyes. “I survived malaria. I think I can survive spending a night with a boy.”

“I just want you safe.” Layla wipes her tears and sniffs.
“Remember what Jeff said. The transition part is always hard. We’re out of our comfort zone.” She reaches for my hand. “It’s not easy for me, either.”

I fold my arms tightly across my chest. “I’m going to Wendell’s again tonight.” I run inside, grab a new change of clothes, and whiz past Jeff.

“Where’re you headed?” he asks with awkward cheer.

Layla says, in a shaky voice, “She’s spending the night at Wendell’s.”

Jeff opens his mouth to say something, but I don’t stick around to listen.

I slam the door on the way out.

Just like a normal teenager who’s mad at her parents.

It doesn’t feel as good as I thought it would.

For a while I wander around the market, distracting myself with its bright rugs and flute music and musty wool smells. The vendors are packing up for the night, and Gaby has already left.

Layla is really, truly changing. I realize I’ve been waiting for her to throw her arms up and say,
That’s it, I’m going back to who I really am
. In the hospital in India, when I was a feverish, vomiting, shaking, shivering, convulsing, aching mess, Layla sat by the bed whispering prayers, holding my hand, crying, saying,
I’ll do anything, anything, anything to make you better, love
. Fast-forward six months, past the danger zone, to the kitchen table in Maryland, where, through
peppermint steam, Layla announced we were going to Brazil.

What confuses me now is this: we’re well past the danger zone of the latest near-death episode. Layla lived through the waterfall, just like we lived through everything else. So why isn’t she going back to her old self? What’s different about this time?

Maybe it’s like the tsunami that hit Southeast Asia before we lived in Phuket. Not just any underwater earthquake turns into a giant tidal wave. It depends on the time, the place, the circumstances, the landscape of the ocean floor, the shape of the coastline, the force of the earthquake.

What are the circumstances with Layla? Her thirty-fifth birthday? The three alleged white hairs? The arrival of Jeff? Or maybe she just hit some random critical number of near-death experiences that put her over the edge. Whatever the reasons, this time seems different.

“Zeeta!” It’s Gaby, calling out from a hole-in-the-wall café painted cheery orange. Alfonso and some other vendors are crowded into the booth beside her, eating and chatting. When I duck inside, they make room for me, hand me a
llapingacho—
potato pancake—and beg me to give them an impromptu English lesson.

“We’ll pay you!” they insist. I’m not feeling too social, but I accept. I need the pocket money.

The vendors are a rowdy bunch, always ready to make a
joke, giggling hysterically when I hold up a mirror to show them how to put their tongues between their teeth for the
th
sound. I try to laugh with them, but my throat feels so tight I can barely breathe.

An hour later they leave, full and content, while Gaby and I linger behind. From her giant bag, she takes out her latest sewing project, a blouse with embroidered orange butterflies. “So, Zeeta, what’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” I say. She warned me. I should have wished for general happiness. Or focused on what mattered. Breathing. She knew all along.

She raises an eyebrow, as though she can see right through me. “Where’ve you been hiding?”

“Hanging out with Wendell.” Mentioning him lightens my mood a little.

She nods. “He’s very handsome.”

“I’m just helping him find his birth parents, that’s all.”

“That’s all?” She flashes a devilish grin.

“He’s in love with his ex-girlfriend,” I say, my voice bitter.

“Is she here?”

“No!”

“Then what’s the problem?” She pokes her needle emphatically into the fabric.

“Gaby, there’s nothing more pathetic than chasing after a guy who’s in love with someone else. Even if she is on another continent.”

Gaby smiles a mysterious smile. “Well, you just enjoy yourself, then, Zeeta.”

I sip my bottle of bubbly water. “I don’t like him that way, Gaby,” I insist. “Anyway, I have my own problems. After Layla’s near-death experience, she met this guy. And now she’s turning into a different person.”

“What kind of person?”

How to describe the new Layla? “Normal,” I say finally.

She gives me a wry look. “Your greatest wish, if I remember correctly.”

“Fine, fine. You told me so.” I glance at the café owner, who is expertly flipping
llapingachos
, a stoic smile on her face, damp with sweat. “But it turns out I like the old Layla better.”

“Have you talked to her?”

“She’s always with him or watching TV.”

“I’m sure you can find time. Why haven’t you talked with her?”

I consider this. “She’s doing it for me. I’ve been pleading with her all my life to be normal. I can’t just say, ‘Oops, I changed my mind. Let’s just rewind to how things were before.’” I run my fingers over the smooth ridges of my bottle.

Gaby makes a few more orange stitches. “What do you think will happen now?”

“I don’t know. But the way things are headed, I’m worried she’ll want to move back to the U.S. to be near him. Turns out he lives near my grandparents.”

Gaby thinks. Then she says, “If you’re headed down the wrong road, no matter how far you’ve gone, you can always turn back.”

“How?”

“To begin with, tell her how you really feel.”

“It’s not that easy, Gaby. What if I’m not headed down the wrong road? What if we’re finally headed down the right road but I’m so used to the wrong road I don’t realize this is the right one?”

Gaby knots the orange thread and tears it with her teeth, then pulls a spool of pink out of her bag. “There’s a young man with crazy hair who comes by my booth sometimes. He tells me,
Gaby, I love how you sit here in the flow. You sit here and the universe is a better place because of it
. Now, I think he’s as crazy as his hair, but maybe he’s right about the flow. Maybe you should think about the flow and whether you’re in it, and if not, how you can get back in.”

I smile. “What’s this guy’s name?”

She looks into space, trying to remember. “Who knows. But he speaks Spanish well, only with a different accent.” She grins. “He gave me this.” From her bag, she pulls out a bouquet of balloon daisies. “Sometimes he’s dressed as a clown.”

O
n the way to the hotel, I spot Wendell walking out of the Internet café. He stands outside, dazed, right in the middle of the sidewalk traffic, getting bumped here and there as people pass. His face glows orange in the neon light from the window sign.

“Wendell!” I shout, zipping across the street to meet him. “I thought you’d be back at the hotel by now.”

“She wrote me an e-mail.”

“Oh.” She with a capital S.

“It was a long one, and kind of, I don’t know, sentimental, I guess.”

“Hmmm.”

“I tried writing back, but I didn’t know what to say exactly, so I kept writing stuff, then deleting it, and I don’t know—”

“How about dinner at the market—fried plantains and potato cakes and supersalty grilled pork bits?”

He looks surprised at the change of subject. “Sure.”

On the walk to the food market, he’s distracted, probably going over Her e-mail line by line. But once we sit down, he slips into the moment, into the smells of
greasy fritada—
fried pork—and simmering
menestra—
lentil stew—and bubbling chicken soup. It’s cozy under the bare lightbulbs of the booths, gazing out over the plastic colored tarps reflecting lights, the people milling around, workers joking with one another as they clean the Plaza de Ponchos.

Back at the hotel, we watercolor by lamplight and talk and lay the drying pictures over the floor, leaving a narrow path to the bathroom. My pictures have geometric designs with pen under the watercolors—a turtle’s shell, a flock of birds, ocean waves. I always gravitate toward finding patterns in life’s chaos.

Wendell’s art has come a long way since his illustrations on the latest letter I translated. As a nine-year-old, he’d done a self-portrait of himself standing on top of a planet, flexing his muscles. Apparently he’d just won an art competition at summer camp. He’d taped on a card from his parents, a recycled-paper one, probably made by his mother, which read, BEST ARTIST IN THE UNIVERSE AWARD. He wrote,
I bet your sorry you gave away the Best Artist in the Univurse!

His paintings, spread around us, are gorgeous and atmospheric, with a hint of danger. A brilliant blue sky and green hill with a bloodred devil lurking in its center. Golden bread
by an ochre oven holding fiery orange coals inside. A silvery waterfall tumbling into a pool full of bones.

“You just might be the best artist in the universe,” I tease.

He blushes and says, “I’m an art geek,” almost apologetically. “I’ve taken painting classes, but photography’s my main thing. I want to make a book of pictures from this trip. For my portfolio.”

“For what?”

“Just this art abroad thing I want to do next summer.” He’s trying to sound casual, but I can tell it means a lot to him. “It’s kind of hard to get chosen, so the portfolio has to be good. I’ve saved up part of the cost, and the rest I’ll make working after school.”

“Abroad where?” I ask, trying to sound casual myself. Secretly, I’m thinking that if Layla and I keep traveling, who knows, we might end up down the street from his art school. Coincidentally.

“Not sure yet. The program offers a few different countries. I want to choose somewhere with the best possible light.” His face is illuminated just talking about it, the way Layla’s face gets when she talks about a new place. I can imagine Wendell traveling the world, always dreaming of a place with light conditions even more spectacular than wherever he happens to be.

When we run out of paper, we crawl into our beds and set the alarm for four a.m.

Wendell turns off the light. “Your turn.”

“My turn?”

“A story.”

“Oh.” I decide to tell him the first one that comes to mind. It’s a memory that’s kept popping into my head lately. “Here goes. In Morocco, in Marrakech, Layla and I used to go to the main plaza at night, where people played drums and danced and clapped. It was so crowded you could barely move. It hypnotized you, the rhythm, the lights, the clapping and dancing. Smoke drifted around. Sizzling lamb kebabs and steam from mint tea. At one of those moments, I was looking at Layla’s face, all pink and glowing and beaded with sweat. I felt like everything was exactly right, like there was nothing else I’d rather be doing. No other way I’d rather live my life.

“And then, something was moving in my pocket and it was a hand, a little girl’s hand. I saw her face for a split second before she lowered her veil and darted off. I checked my pockets. Empty of money, my thirty dirham gone. It was just a few dollars, but it was a lot to me, so I ran after her, racing through the crowds as fast as I could, right on her tail.