“Mara?” Noah’s voice reunited me with the present. We were stopped at a red light, and rain pounded on the windshield in waves. The palm trees on the median swayed and bent, threatening to snap. But they wouldn’t. They were strong enough to take it.
And so was I.
I turned back to Noah and focused my eyes on his. “I think not knowing is worse,” I said. “I’d rather remember.”
When I spoke those words, it hit me with exquisite clarity. Everything that had happened—the hallucinations, the paranoia, the nightmares—it was just me needing to know, needing to understand what happened that night. What happened to Rachel. What happened to me. I remembered telling as much to Dr. Maillard just a week and a half ago and she smiled at me, telling me I couldn’t force it.
But maybe, just maybe, I could.
Maybe I could choose.
So I chose. “I need to remember,” I said to Noah with an intensity that surprised us both. And then, “Can you help me?”
He turned away. “How?”
Now that I knew what was wrong, I knew how to fix it. “A hypnotist.”
“A hypnotist,” Noah repeated slowly.
“Yes.” My mother didn’t believe in it. She believed in therapy and in drugs that could take weeks, months, years. I didn’t have that kind of time. My life was unraveling, my universe was unraveling, and I needed to know what happened to me now. Not tomorrow. And not Thursday, at my next appointment. Now. Today.
Noah said nothing, but dug into his pocket for his cell phone as he drove with one hand. He dialed and I heard it ring.
“Hello, Albert. Can you get me an appointment with a hypnotist this afternoon?”
I didn’t comment on Albert the butler. I was too excited. Too anxious.
“I know it’s Saturday,” he said. “Just let me know what you find out? Thanks.”
He hung up the phone. “He’s going to text me back. In the meantime, did you have anything you wanted to do today?”
I shook my head.
“Well,” he said, “I’m hungry. So how about lunch?”
“Whatever you want,” I said, and Noah smiled at me, but it was sad.
When we turned on to Calle Ocho, I knew where we were going. He pulled into the parking lot of the Cuban place and we darted into the restaurant, which was still insanely busy despite the epic flood.
I felt well enough to smile at the memory of the last time we ate here as we waited near the dessert counter to be seated. I heard the hiss and spit of onions meeting hot oil, and my mouth watered as I scanned the bulletin board next to the counter. Ads for real estate, ads for seminars—
I moved closer to the board.
Please join Botanica Seis for the seminar “Unlocking the Secrets of Your Mind and of Your Past,” with Abel Lukumi, ordained high priest. March 15th, $30.00 per person, walk-ins welcome.
Just then, our waiter appeared. “Follow me, please.”
“One second,” I said, still staring at the flier. Noah caught my eye and read the text.
“You want to go?” he asked.
Unlocking secrets. I turned the phrase over, chewing on my lower lip as I stared at the flier. Why not? “You know what? I do.”
“Even though you know it’s going to be New Age, spiritual nonsense.”
I nodded.
“Even though you don’t believe in that stuff.”
I nodded.
Noah checked his cell phone. “No word from Albert. And the seminar starts in,” he checked the flier and then his phone, “ten minutes.”
“So we can go?” I asked, a real smile forming on my lips this time.
“We can go,” Noah said. He let our waiter know that we wouldn’t be sitting, and turned to the counter to order something to go.
“Do you want anything?” he asked. I felt his eyes on me as I looked in the glass case.
“Can I share with you?”
A quiet smile transformed Noah’s face. “Absolutely.”
49
THERE WAS NO STREET PARKING NEXT TO THE Botanica, so we parked three blocks away. The torrential downpour had reduced to a heavy mist, and Noah held the umbrella over me. I moved it so that it was between us, and we pressed together underneath it. The familiar thrill of his proximity made my pulse gallop. We were closer than we had been in days. I didn’t include the shoulder incident from last night because it didn’t happen. My shoulder didn’t hurt.
I was warm next to Noah, but shivered anyway. The charcoal clouds did something to the atmosphere of Little Havana. The Domino Park was abandoned, but a few men still huddled in the rain next to the mural at the entrance, under the eaves of one of the small tents. Their eyes followed us as we passed. Smoke curled from the entrance of a cigar shop nearby, mingling with the rain and the incense from the computer repair store in front of us. The neon sign buzzed and hummed in my ear.
“This is it,” Noah said. “1821 Calle Ocho.”
I looked at the sign. “But it says it’s a computer repair store.”
“It does indeed.”
We peered into the shop, pressing our faces to the cloudy glass. Electronics and dissembled computer parts mingled with large terra cotta urns and an army of porcelain statues. I looked at Noah. He shrugged. I went in.
A bell jangled behind us as we entered the narrow store-front. Two young boys peeked out from above a glass counter with no adults in sight.
My eyes wandered inside the store, over the rows of shelves lined with plastic bins. Inside the bins, in no discernible order, there were halved coconut husks, bear-shaped containers of honey, several types of shells, rusty horseshoes, ostrich eggs, absorbent cotton, tiny jingle bells, packages of white plastic flip-flops, beads, and candles. Stacks of candles of every size, shape, and color; candles with Jesus emblazoned on the front, and candles with naked women emblazoned on the front. There were even dozens of varieties of ice cream sundae candles. And … handcuffs. What was this place?
“Can I help you?”
Noah and I turned around. A dark-haired young woman on crutches appeared in a door frame between the main store-front and a back room.
Noah raised his eyebrows. “We’re here for the seminar,” he said. “Is this the right place?”
“Si, yes, come,” she said, beckoning us over. We followed her into another narrow room with plastic patio chairs arranged on the white tile floor. She handed us two pamphlets and Noah handed her money. Then she disappeared.
“Thanks,” I said to him as we sat in the back of the room. “I’m sure this wasn’t how you planned on spending your Saturday.”
“I’ll be honest, I was hoping you’d suggest the beach,” he said and shook out his damp hair, “but I consider live entertainment a close second.”
I grinned. I was starting to feel better, more normal. More sane. My eyes wandered around the white room. Hospital white, and the fluorescent lights made it brighter. It contrasted oddly with the furniture—grandma furniture, really. A brown and yellow armchair, a pea green cabinet, more shelves with candles. Strange.
Someone coughed to my left; I turned my head and a pale, thin man dressed in a white robe, wearing white
