Loud Awake and Lost

It wasn’t until I leaned back and looked around that I saw it from across the playground. It was the mural that had been on Maisie’s Facebook page, the one that Anthony had posed next to. I must have known, maybe semi-subconsciously, that it was here.

The paint looked dingy and rain-weathered, and yet the beauty of the artwork—a canopy of green trees interlaced in blue sky—was still strong. But what caught my eye and stopped my heart was the lower corner. There it was, that sideways gunmetal A. Not as refined as the mural, yet it seemed to be a kind of signature. How strange that it would be here. I knew that it was all connected, somehow. I just didn’t have all the puzzle pieces yet.

I stayed for a few more minutes, until the darkness forced the mural into murky shadow, too dark to see. Leaving the park, I cut through to Union Street, walking loud, relishing the knock of my heels, each foot neatly packed and protected. I kicked a new path through the hundreds of tear-shaped, butter-yellow dogwood leaves all mashed up along the sidewalk.

It wasn’t on purpose. It wasn’t by accident. It was something in between that made me do it. I’d memorized the address, and so I knew right where I was directing my boots as they crossed Court over to Smith.

El Cielo was smack in the middle of the block, with a picture-window façade. I peeked in on a bustling view of dinner hour. It seemed to be one of those all-ages restaurants, a few families gathered together while up front was a happening cocktail scene, with many barstools claimed by couples on amped-up date nights.

Most of the space was arranged with square and round tables, many set with sangria pitchers and baskets of blue-corn tortilla chips alongside painted bowls of red and green salsa. Strings of colored Christmas lights and framed black-and-white photographs—a few depicting haunting scenes from Mexico’s Day of the Dead festival—made the wall space vibrant as an art gallery. But overall, the restaurant had the atmosphere of a beloved hangout that had withstood time and trends.

My heart was pounding repeatedly with a single question, a fizzy manic new thought that unnerved me but at least had replaced the meditative tone of my day.

Was Kai here? Was Kai here?

Of course that was a major leap. Even for me. Just because Kai had given me a matchbook from this restaurant didn’t mean he had any reason to be here now, this minute. Or at all.

But what if he was? What if?

I hovered at the hostess stand, checking out a waitress as she unloaded plates of smoking hot fajitas for a huge family. She was older than I was, maybe college-age, with a soft pink face and hard pale eyes and yellow hair skinned into a bun. She was being helped by a busboy who couldn’t have been more than thirteen. The boy looked familiar, too, sinewy and dark-haired, and when he noticed me staring at him, he stopped and turned away abruptly to haul an overfilled plastic tub of dirty dishes back to the kitchen.

I was being watched. I looked back at the girl, who now seemed to think she needed to deal with me. With her lips pressed and a quick “hang on” finger signal, she took the tub from the boy and lugged it away through a swing door to what had to be the kitchen in the rear. When she returned, wiping her hands, she seemed resolved.

“You can eat in back,” she said. “It’s okay.”

“Thanks.”

I hadn’t planned on eating. But after my ninety minutes with Jenn, plus the walk over, I probably should. I was famished. And then I remembered that I had a twenty-dollar plus ten-dollar bill on me, though the money wasn’t technically mine—Suzette Bodkin had owed yearbook for an ad. I’d tucked the bills into my jeans pocket, meaning to put them in the envelope in the business office. But I could use this money, and then I’d just bring in a replacement thirty dollars tomorrow from home. A sit-down dinner for myself at El Cielo seemed indulgent, but also exactly the right way to spend the next hour. Somehow I needed to be here.

My parents were out tonight with our neighbors. I wouldn’t be missed.

“Follow me,” said the girl. I had to move quickly to keep up as she led me through the narrow passage and to the rear of the restaurant, which opened into a festive kitchen of copper hanging pots and a brick pizza oven and one of those dinged brass bars that looks like it has seen its fair share of rowdy nights.

Then she left me to stand alone. Where was I supposed to sit? At this hideaway back bar? It felt presumptuous to just hop up onto a stool. I waited, watching.

At the stove, a tiny, grandmotherly woman was in full command of her kitchen realm. It included two younger male prep cooks, but she was clearly the leader, a dynamo who looked like she’d been shrunk while her clothing had stayed the same size—her silver hoop earrings nearly touched her shoulders, and her kitchen apron bagged at her ankles. She was all useful motion, moving in waltz-like grace as she bumped and reached from the sink to the oven to the chopping station. I couldn’t decide if I’d ever seen her before, or if it was more that she looked like a grandmother from the movies, she was so vibrant.

The kitchen spices mingled with deeper notes of browning butter, roasting garlic, sautéed yellow onion, and sizzling grilled meat. I hadn’t been to a restaurant since Serendipity, which had reminded me how much I loved to see all different people coming together for a delicious meal. It was what I’d always wanted my Follies to be about.

At first I had a distinct and unnerving sense that everyone working at El Cielo was aware of my presence. The feeling didn’t leave, even when nobody singled me out. But in the haze of smoke and clattering overheated kitchen, there was real energy, enough so that I couldn’t have been the true center of attention even if I’d wanted to. The old woman was lost in her pots and pans, the cooks were deep inside their shorthand dialogue, and everything was muffled by the roar of an electric range-top fan.

At the touch at my elbow, I turned.

The busboy stood in front of me. He was holding a rolled set of silverware. Wordlessly, he set me a place at the barstool. I hopped up.

“Tía Isabella,” he said, addressing the woman. “Ella está aquí. Para la cena.”

The woman raised her eyebrows as she officially took me in. The busboy darted to lift a pitcher and glass from the nearby busing stand. He filled the glass and brought it to me.

“Gracias.” I felt geeky using my classroom Spanish.

“De nada,” murmured the boy, before he slipped away again.

I went back to watching the cook. She was a real master, long trained in this kitchen. She was also so short that she’d invented a quirky choreography of kicking a stepladder along next to her as she went about her business, the better to leap up for cupboards or canisters, while muttering what sounded like “entonces, entonces”—words that I was pretty sure meant something like “and then, and then,” but in this case seemed to be Isabella’s own private magical incantation.