Reasons to Be Happy (15 page)

I rolled my shoulders, wincing at the sunburn on the back of my neck, then carried the board—the city on top of it like some insane cake—to where Philomel chopped firewood near the water pump.

His eyes widened when I presented it to him. He peered at it, moving himself all around to look down one aisle and then another. He examined it from every angle and I knew the craftsman in him admired it. “Hah-nah, you made a little world here. This is good. This is a good gift. I thank you.”

I then bought every last one of his brass people and a handful of brass animals as well—the two cloth bags I carried away were heavy.

But I felt light.

The real Hannah had broken free.

The next morning, at the end of my run, I came upon Aunt Izzy sitting on a log. I thought she was crying, with her head in her hands, but when she heard my footsteps she lifted her head and I saw she had just been deep in concentration.

“You okay?” I asked, panting before her.

She nodded. “Just thinking about what’s next.”

“In the documentary?”

She made a face then nodded again.

“I thought you were really happy about how it was going and the footage you got this time.”

“I am,” she said, scooting over so I could use the end of the log to stretch. “I feel good. Hopeful. But…every time we come back from shooting, there’s this horrible, frantic period of editing, more writing, raising money. I believe in this project so much, but every time we get home I have this fear that I can’t pull it off.”

I’d never heard someone grown-up admit something like this before.

“So how do you keep going?”

A monkey swooped down to snatch my sunglasses, but I clamped my hands down on them in time. We laughed.

Aunt Izzy looked up. The morning sun shone pink through the leaves. The monkey screeched at us. I’m sure he was cussing me out in monkey language.

“If I sit outside,” Aunt Izzy said, “somewhere green in nature, there’s this inner voice I hear. That voice believes in the project. When I listen to her, I keep the faith.”

I pulled my right foot up behind me in a quad stretch. “I hear that voice when I run.”

Izzy smiled. “Good. Keep listening to her.”

When had I first heard that voice? That voice had been around long before I ran.

I thought about that voice as I “showered” behind the outhouse. That was the voice I’d had in childhood—curious, hungry to know everything about the world. The voice of an explorer. A bold adventurer. The very first time I remember hearing her was the story I wanted to tell Jasper.

I dressed, then went to the school to email him. I was surprised—and more disappointed than I cared to admit—that there wasn’t an email waiting from him. I wrote him anyway.
Still
thinking
of
your
answer? Here’s mine: I was five or six when I first thought about a bigger world
.
Some
construction
was
going
on
in
our
neighborhood
and
they
were
tearing
up
the
street. I was fascinated watching the big machines rip up the blacktop. I was even more fascinated by what was underneath: these big rocks and small pebbles. Who knew that all this stuff had been under there all the time, with me walking and riding my bike and coloring with chalk on top of it? But then I saw one of the bulldozers drop an ordinary rock, very plain on the outside and about the size of a watermelon. When that rock hit the ground, it cracked open…and inside that plain old potato-looking rock were jewels. The inside of that rock was sparkling pink, with glittering black flecks all through it. That’s when a little voice told me that if there were mysteries, surprises, and
discoveries
under
my
own
street
and
inside
every
rock, then they could be every single place I looked
.

I’d held back for so long—not sharing my cities, not joining track, not using the school’s climbing wall—that it felt like coming home to reveal my true self.

Jasper wasn’t like anyone else I’d ever met. The way he said he couldn’t tell the B-Squad apart? That’s how I felt about all the other boys at my school now. Jasper was the only one who seemed unique, who seemed to be his own person.

What would happen when I returned to L.A.?

Half of me wanted to be there already, and the other half wanted that day to never come.

• • •

Philomel returned from the market and told me that tourists had loved my miniature version. He made big, animated gestures as he told me, “They all wanted to buy it, but I said no, it was a gift. They wanted to know if I would ever have more. They love it, Hah-nah.”

I grinned. “Really?” I tried to make my mouth stop smiling but couldn’t. “That’s so cool.”

“No, not so cool,” he said, “because you are leaving and they will not get what they want. Money they would like to give me will remain in their pockets. So I have a favor to ask you. Can I make another world like you did? It is your project, you are the artist, but you will be gone, so these customers could not be your customers.”

“Are you asking if you could use my idea, like as a model?”

He nodded, looking at the ground, hands stuffed in his faded pockets.

“Of course you can, Philomel! I’d be honored. On one condition, though: you have to promise that whenever you make one, you will think of me.”

He waited as if he didn’t think I was finished, then looked perplexed. “Think of you?”

“You have to remember me.”

His eyes widened as if I’d suggested he had to picture me naked or something. “Are you crazy?” he asked. “I can never forget you. No one here can ever forget you.”

I don’t know why, but hearing those words felt like opening a gift. So much so that my eyes watered. Philomel looked wary and was probably thinking I was the biggest crybaby ever. Every time he talked to me I ended up crying over something.

• • •

I wasn’t prepared, though, for how much I would cry the day we left Tafi Atome. How could only four weeks change my life so much?

The last night, I slept in Modesta’s room. We pushed our mats close together so we could whisper without waking the smaller girls who shared this room. We lay on our backs in the sweltering heat and talked of our dreams for the future. Our wishes. Jasper and Philomel.

At some point late in the night, Modesta fell asleep. I looked at her in the moonlight that sliced through our open unscreened window. What a brave person. She’d lost so much. Life had been so unfair—why, for instance, did
she
have to cook and clean for the smaller ones? Who had decided that? But she never complained. She looked to the future with practical cheer.

I tried to picture Modesta being afraid to speak her mind to some of her peers here in this village. I had to put my arm over my mouth to keep from laughing aloud.

I didn’t laugh, though, when I thought of her dream. How could she possibly afford to go to medical school? That was an entirely different thing than getting a craft apprenticeship in a nearby village. The worry that she might never realize her dream kept me awake.

We rose early, and as I packed, I gave her many things: a pink bra, a T-shirt from Sprinkles Cupcakes in L.A., a pair of earrings, a notebook, several pens, a box of Band-Aids.

She handed me a small cloth bag, about the size of a pound of flour. It rattled as I took it from her hands. Inside were beads galore, all colors, all shapes, some solid, some striped. “You make another little world, like you did for Philomel. You make it and remember us.” The way she smiled, I knew Philomel had told her what I’d said.

“Are you crazy, Modesta?” I whispered. “I will never forget you.”

She hugged me, and as she pulled away, my hands touched that soft, pink cashmere. I paused, hands stroking the cuffs. She looked up at me, expectant. I knew it was the one item, of all my belongings, that she’d pick if I said she could keep one thing.

I looked down at my tanned hands on the pale pink. “This was my mother’s,” I whispered.

Modesta jumped under my hands. “Ah!” she said, beginning to wriggle out of the sweater. “Then you must take it with you.”

I put my hands around her forearms to stop her. It took me a moment to speak. “I want…” I took a deep breath. “I want you to keep it.” My eyes burned. “She would want you to keep it too.” That was so true I
felt
it. I looked down at the sweater, rubbing the soft fabric, afraid if I looked at Modesta, I’d cry. “You are so alike. Two of the bravest women I know.”

Modesta took my face in her hands and said, “She taught you well, then.”

You know what? That felt more and more true these days: that I could be brave. Would I be able to hold on to believing that when I got back home?

“And that is why I want to give you this,” Modesta said, pulling something from the pocket of her dress. She held one of Philomel’s lost wax figures on the palm of her hand.

I hadn’t seen this figure before. A five-sided star inside a circle, the circle itself rimmed in curled rays or spokes. “
Sesa
Wo
Suban
,” she told me, hanging the figure around my neck.

She saw the question in my eyes and shook her head as if to scold herself for forgetting I didn’t speak that dialect. “I change or transform my life,” she translated.

My breath stopped in my chest. I felt like she’d sensed what I was just thinking. I’d never even told Modesta about the B-Squad. How would I even begin to make it make sense to her?

“I love this,” I told her. “I
need
this.”

I carried my duffel bag toward the van on what felt like wooden legs.

There were tears, laughter, promises to return, to write, to stay in touch. I hugged everyone, all the children, beautiful Philomel, and finally Modesta.

“Sister,” I whispered in her ear, holding her close. “
You
have transformed my life.”

She squeezed me tighter.

“You are so, so beautiful,” I told her.

She wrinkled her nose, but then looked me in the eye and said, “Thank you. Do not forget that you are beautiful too.”

• • •

The farther we drove from Tafi Atome on those rutted, red roads, and then on the highways, the more I vowed to hang on to the ways Ghana had changed me.

The film team checked into a hotel in Accra overnight, before our flight in the morning. I set my duffel on the twin bed and headed to the bathroom. Western toilets, I remembered, looking forward to that luxury.

I stopped in my tracks. There was also a
mirror
. I stared at myself.

The sun had tanned my skin light caramel, but the change in my appearance was more than that. I looked…rested. My eyes were clear, no purple shadows under them. My cheeks and neck were normal, no longer bulging with that sausage-stuffed puffiness. I looked clean and
real
. I looked like
myself
again.

I touched my fingers to the figure Modesta had given me.

I might be all right after all.

But my breath constricted at the thought of returning to all I’d escaped.

Just thinking of home, school, and Jasper made my pulse race, but not in the fun, fluttery way. What would happen now? How would it feel when we were face to face, two actual people in the actual world together, surrounded by the B-Squad?

I caught myself making an inventory of foods I could shovel in for a binge.

Did I have a prayer once I got back to L.A.? Was I going to fall right back into the same disgusting habits? Was I going to lose myself again?

I looked in the mirror at the brass figure hanging around my neck. I ran the pads of my fingers over the curlicue edges.

I nicked my finger on one of the rays.

Hmm, I thought, sucking the faintly metallic taste of blood from my finger. I hoped that wasn’t a sign.

I stood in baggage claim with my dad, heart racing. Although Modesta and I emailed each other at least twice a week, I hadn’t actually
seen
her for two
years
. I felt like I might cry or dance…or both. I was already all aflutter about tonight and the nerve-wracking event ahead.

When I saw her coming around the corner with my Aunt Izzy, tears burned in my nose. She was so tall! We embraced, my hands registering the soft whisper of the new lilac cashmere sweater I’d sent her this year for Christmas.

Izzy and Dad embraced. They’d come a long way.

We all had.

Dad checked his watch. “We have time for lunch, but then we have to be back at the house.”

“Are you crazy?” Izzy asked. “I can’t eat! I’m too nervous. Aren’t
you
nervous?” She poked Dad’s shoulder.

Modesta cleared her throat. “
I
would very much like to eat something.”

We all laughed. That settled it.

Back at the house, after picking my way through a Thai salad, the stylists arrived.

“I’m glad to be a documentary filmmaker on nights like these,” Izzy joked to my dad. “No one expects me to look as glamorous as you.”

The time flew by in a blur as we got manicures, our hair styled, and our faces made up. “We don’t do this every day,” I assured Modesta, “but the Academy Awards is a really big deal.”

“This I know,” Modesta said, sounding the slightest bit offended.

My father was nominated for Best Actor for
Blood
Roses
, and Aunt Izzy’s film
A
Continent
of
Orphans
was nominated for Best Documentary. I was Dad’s date. Modesta was Izzy’s.

I wore a pale yellow silk gown that looked like a dress you’d go tango in—cut on the bias mid-shin, halter style—with some of my mother’s diamond jewelry.

Modesta looked classic and stunning in a pale pink sheath.

Aunt Izzy wore a stylish, sexy plum gown.

And Dad—he looked like a movie star in his tux, you know? The old-fashioned, honest-to-goodness
stars
.

Jasper called to wish us luck just as our limo arrived. “We’ll be watching,” he promised. He was hosting an Oscar party at his house. “I can’t wait to see what you’re wearing.”

“You’ll probably see it again next year at prom,” I told him, laughing.

• • •

I’d almost wrecked it with Jasper.

When I first got back to L.A., the house ambushed me. The bathroom, kitchen, and my bedroom taunted me with humiliating memories. Mom was everywhere—slipping in and out of rooms in the corner of my eye, in the shimmer of the sea glass door frame, in the scent of our lemon tree. Once Dad and I got over our excruciating silences and stuttering, peppy attempts at conversation, I’d emailed Jasper. My heart slammed against my ribs as I typed:
I
don’t think I can wait until Monday. I’d really love to see you, but without the B-Squad watching. Let me know and I’ll give you directions.

But when he wrote back,
Thanks
for
the
invite, but that’s okay. I’ll see you Monday
, the words punched me in the stomach.

That’s okay.

Did he not
want
to see me? Had I just made a fool of myself? Had I misinterpreted everything? “Don’t eat the monkey, don’t eat the monkey,” I told myself.

When I stepped into the front school hallway on noodle legs, the piano music ran over me like warm water. I clutched my books, working up the courage to walk into the piano lounge, but when I did, Jasper didn’t even stand up. He said, “Welcome back,” but he kept right on playing. The B-Squad showed up—Brooke greeted me with, “You’re not so tubby, but did you forget how to dress?”—and Jasper took his sheet music and left.

He may as well have slapped me. Why wouldn’t he talk to me?

I ignored Brooke and tried to follow him, but got stopped in the hall by Kevin Sampson.

“You’re back,” he said, glee in his voice. “I missed you.” He licked his lips.

I jerked my arm, but he wouldn’t let go of me.

Itch. Itch. Itch. I shuddered from the bugs on my skin.
Why
did
you
think
anything
would
change
you,
stupid, ugly girl? You know what you’ll have to do to make these feelings go away.

“Shut up and leave me alone!” I said too loudly. Heads turned.

“Suit yourself.” Kevin held up his hands as if in surrender.

The tardy bell rang. I rushed to Jasper’s homeroom in time for the door to close in my face.

That sensation occurred about a hundred times before lunch.

Everywhere I turned, Kevin leered at me.

The B-Squad taunted me.

Jasper ignored me.

What? Did you think he was your boyfriend? Fat chance. What made you think any normal, nice boy would want you? Jasper doesn’t want to be seen talking to you, you idiot.

“Don’t eat the monkey,” I vowed. “Don’t you
dare
eat that monkey.”

In DeTello’s class, I found Jasper sitting at a table talking to Laurie.

My cheeks heated up. I stood there, paralyzed.
Don’t cry. Don’t cry.
I wanted to fly back to Tafi Atome and never return. I knew how to be myself there. Being myself just backfired here.

May as well fire up the cook stove because that monkey was getting barbecued.

As my crappy luck would have it, DeTello made us form groups for something. Group work should be outlawed. It’s nothing but torture.

I ignored the hissed, “Hannah! Back here!” from Brooke and looked to Jasper. He walked to Laurie’s table. Roland joined them. They needed a fourth. I took a tentative step…but Kelly got there first.

I got stuck in the B-Squad.

After class, I stalked into the cafeteria on autopilot. When Jasper caught up with me, I shot him a look.

“What’s the matter?” he asked.

Like he really didn’t know.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

Was he serious? I shredded lettuce. Shredding was fitting. Shredding felt satisfying.

“Oh,” he said, “so now you won’t even talk to me when it’s just us?”

I gaped. “Talk to y—? I’ve been
trying
to talk to you all morning!”

His face shifted. “I really thought things would be different,” he said.

Before I could say, “So did I,” Pam stepped in and told us to speed things up.

I didn’t say another word to Jasper. At the end of lunch, he threw his plastic apron in the trash and walked out.

I stood there a moment, facing a pile of tomato slices.
I
should
put
these
in
a
plastic
container
for
tomorrow
and
get
to
class.

But
you’re not going straight to class, are you? Don’t you have a little stop to make first?

No. Don’t do it. It’s been over
a
month
. Don’t do it.

You’ll feel better. You’ll feel nothing.

Call Dad. Call Dad instead.

I picked up a tomato slice. I took a bite.

That’s it. That’s a start.

I ate the slice, then picked up another.

I ate a third slice, knowing I’d eat the whole pile. Then I took a giant jar of apple sauce off the shelf above me. First I used a serving spoon to shovel it out of the jar, but then I lifted the jar to my mouth and drank it. While I chugged, I looked around. There were hamburger buns. And a whole tray of cookies. There was cheese and—

“Hannah!”

I dropped the apple juice jar and it broke at my feet with a muffled, wet
whump
.

“Why do you do this?” Jasper stepped toward me. “Please,” he begged. “Don’t.”

When his hands touched the bare skin of my arm, I bolted. I slid in the applesauce and almost fell, but regained my footing and fled for the restroom.

“Hannah!” he yelled after me. “I know where you’re going!”

So what? Unless he was going to come in and physically stop me, I didn’t care. I shut myself in a stall and leaned over.

After I threw up, I stood up, panting. I didn’t feel a rush.

I didn’t feel any tingles.

But I didn’t feel
nothing
. I
still
felt anger and sorrow and betrayal.

I tried again, but not very much came up.

I tried again but couldn’t breathe. Everything stuck for a minute. A minute? I don’t know.

A
long
time
.

Black spots burned in my eyes. Panic welled in my choked-close throat.

What should I do? Should I go out to the hall? Find someone to do the Heimlich? Call 9-1-1?

You
need
to
breathe.

I could do the Heimlich on myself! I’d done it before.

For
real. You need to breathe.

I fumbled with the lock on the stall door, but the black dots burned wider. I could only see on the edges of the circles.

You’re going to die here. You’re going to die in a toilet!

I gave up on the door, locked both fists together and slammed them into my own belly.

Nothing.

I did it again.

And again.

My throat exploded.

That’s what it felt like. I projectile vomited across the stall, splattering myself.

You
are
filthy, vile, sickening.

I sucked in a honking breath, then swallowed wrong, the acid burning in my windpipe.

Something tickled my chin, dripping.

I wiped my chin, but it dripped again.

Oh God. I tried to look through the dots, at the edges. Red. Dark, burgundy red.

My nose was bleeding.

I groped for the toilet paper dispenser with slick hands.

The spattering sound on the tile floor made my heart race. My nose was really
gushing
.

“Hannah?” DeTello’s voice. Concerned. Out of breath.
Underwater?
“Are you in here?”

“Yeah.” I brought a giant wad of toilet tissue to my nose. It took a long time. The film had changed to slow motion.

The stall door rattled. “Open up. Are you all right?” DeTello’s voice seemed far away.

I wanted to say
I’m fine
, but my mouth wouldn’t work. I moved my head sideways to try to find the lock on the edges of the dots, but the edges were wavery and sparkly.

From deep down in a well, I heard DeTello say, “Hannah? Please, sweetie. Talk to me.”

I
tried
. I tried to move my lips, but the sparkles got brighter and then I—

• • •

Getting to the nurse’s office was a blur. Blurred by relief. I wasn’t dead. I wasn’t blind.

DeTello and the nurse cleaned me up. They dressed me in a stranger’s sweatpants and a turtleneck from the lost and found. They made me drink Gatorade and eat two cookies.

I woke up forty minutes later on the nurse’s cot, with my dad leaning over me, kissing my forehead. “Hannah Banana,” he whispered. “Rough day?”

I nodded, a tear burning down my cheek. My throat felt shredded.

The nurse slipped out and closed the door, giving us some privacy.

“I wish I’d called you,” I said. “I even thought about it, but…but I think I waited too long. To, you know, ask for help. It was too late.”

He smoothed my hair. “I’ve been there. You’ll do better next time. You’ll be stronger.”

Next time? Oh God, I didn’t want there to
be
a next time.

I thought about my horrible day. Okay…there
might
be a next time. But the binge that day had been the first in a
long
time. Maybe the next one—
if
it happened at all—would be a longer time still. I’d learn each time, get stronger, get new strategies.

“What made the day so hard?” Dad asked. “Do you know what triggered the binge?”

Once I started, with the B-squad and Kevin and Jasper, I couldn’t stop. Talk about a purge! I talked on and on, filling him in on the start at the new school and everything in between.

A few times Dad bristled and his eyes blazed, but he never interrupted me. When I finally came to a halt, and said, “I really liked Jasper. I thought he liked me too. I thought that he was different, but maybe he’s as big a jerk as Kevin. Just in a different way.”

Dad exhaled and said, “This Kevin you talk about, do I know him? Kevin who?”

“Yeah, you know him,” I said, barely hearing my own voice. “You work with him.”

“Kevin
Sampson?!
I’ll kill him. Why didn’t you tell me this?”

It was too hard to explain. Would it hurt Dad too much to know that I honestly thought he’d believe Kevin, not me? I sighed. “I wasn’t really thinking very rationally you know.”

His shoulders slumped. “I do know,” he said. “I know too well.”