When We Collided(43)
“What animal are you?” I tease, since he’s just in a nondescript blue sweater. But it looks like he’s combed his white hair, and I could die from the sweetness of him sitting between Leah and my mom.
“Grumpy old bear,” he says, and I laugh and laugh, interrupted only by someone touching my arm gently.
“Sorry I’m late,” Naomi says, although her tone is unremorseful. She didn’t wear a costume either, but I like her dress, which is brown with white polka dots. After she takes her place by Silas, she reaches into her purse and pulls out a headband with two pert little ears on either side. She’s a deer—of course she is—with her long limbs and speckled dress. The tears want to start again, but the food is coming, and I choose to focus on that.
Ellie emerges in a white shirt and black vest, our waitress for the evening, and I’m having such a nice time that I don’t even care that her skin glows like amber in the candlelight. She serves us the food Jonah has made, all family-style in big bowls or on platters—beautiful green salad glossed in champagne vinaigrette, and coconut tilapia, breaded and fried and slathered in some sort of spicy pineapple relish that my mind can’t explain but my taste buds can relish, savor, memorize.
My eyes well up as I open my presents—a book from Isaac and silvery-pink nail polish from Bekah and a hand-drawn portrait of me from Leah and a mug Whitney made herself.
“Here. Give that to her.” Hayashi has Leah pass me a little plant still in its plastic container from the nursery. “It’s a—”
“I know.” A Japanese maple seedling. If I can’t go to Japan yet, he gave a little piece to me, and it’s almost impossible for me to swallow.
“Well, I know how you like trees,” he says gruffly. “Maybe if you grow your own, you won’t be tempted to deface arboreal public property.”
“What?” my mom asks, and my jaw drops open. He’s seen my tree in Irving Park?
“Oh, nothing,” Hayashi tells my mom. “Silly joke.”
My eyes are still flooded when Jonah brings the cake out. It’s black cherry and chocolate, two layers, with sparklers instead of candles. I watch them sizzle, and I wish for nothing. How could I dare? How could I dare, when I have all this?
Jonah and I leave only after I have hugged everyone in attendance at least twice, even Naomi, who stiffens at my embrace, and then we take off on my Vespa with Jonah driving, even though he’s technically not supposed to. He makes us stop at home to pick up the helmets. One more surprise, or so he says, and I close my eyes with my arms latched around his waist, wings thrashing violently at my back.
He’s driving farther and farther toward the coastline, not stopping until we’re in front of a building that looks like a small-town church with a steeple. But, no. It’s a lighthouse. The light isn’t on, but I can see its shape—a tower with a circular walkway and black iron handrails. A glass planet trapped inside a birdcage.
“Come on,” Jonah says, pulling me by the hand after we climb off the Vespa.
“Are we going in? Can you get us in?”
“Yeah. My dad knows the caretaker. Knew him, I mean.”
From his pocket, Jonah produces a key on an old lanyard and opens the front door. The piping along the edges of the house reminds me of gingerbread, like you could shingle the roof in licorice and cover the windows with giant peppermints. Inside, the room is dusty and piney and filled with racks of postcards and model ships. Jonah watches me as I survey the trinkets, running my hands along shelf after shelf filled with maritime books. “My dad’s friend starting volunteering at the gift shop when he retired. The lighthouse obviously doesn’t get used for boats anymore, but the Verona Cove Historical Society restored the building and light a few years before I was born. There are actually lots of lighthouse tourists.”
“Enchanting.” My voice is a whisper as to not disturb the delightfully spooky atmosphere. “Can we go up?”
“Where do you think I’m taking you—the basement?” He smiles, lopsided and pleased with himself. “You sure you don’t want my jacket?”
I fluff my hair. “Oh, Jonah, as if I’d cover up this dress.”
He leads me up a spiral staircase, and I can tell even from the back of his head that he’s smiling because he knows I’m totally taken with this, all of it. My heart beats four times as fast as our footsteps up the stairs, th-thump, th-thump, at the quietness and anticipation. The wind whips straight into my ears as we enter the lighthouse’s deck, but the air off the Pacific is warm, and I gasp at the view. For a moment, I nearly lose my depth perception, trying to reconcile the new heights with the stars and the sea, and I understand why the guardrail rises all the way to my waist.
“Wow.” The word is a hush against the night. For all the joy that tonight’s dinner gave me, all the fullness and humanity and communing, this is something else entirely. I’m at the bow of the terrestrial Earth, steering straight toward the cosmos. I’m watched over by the dove-gray moon, his gentle head bowed, and I have to wonder if this is ygen, profound beauty in the natural world—so subtle that it calls up a feeling of wonder without naming it. The word has no English counterpart and neither does this feeling, so I stand witness to the universe without any thought but enjoying my front-row seat.
“Close your eyes,” Jonah says, and I do it immediately—I close my eyes, and the first thing I hear is music coming from what sounds like a crackly old radio. And then I feel light flash against my eyelids, a sun exploding right in front of me. I open my eyes toward the sea to find that I’m backlit. The light on and ablaze, too bright to look back at.