Page 13 of Gave Proof Through the Night

JEREMIAH

Chapter playlist:

Fire — Barns Courtney

The elevator doors open and Jake Twiles is standing there in a Nebraska T-shirt and a goofy grin on his face.

“Precio.” He gets a hand on my chest before I can step past him. “Two blocks from here. Coffee Loft. Best matcha in the District. I would not lie to you about this.”

Jake plays for Nebraska, but I met him when we were both selected for the U.S. Olympic team. Now we get the opportunity to play for the West Stars together for the Semiquincentennial Tournament. And even though our home teams will go against each other in the fall, something like winning Olympic Gold together will give you a friend for life.

“Matcha,” I repeat, because is this the same guy who spent half his time in the Olympic Village explaining, unprompted, why espresso was the only honest drink a man could order?

Something happened to him since Milan. I want to know what.

“Don’t judge me.” He’s already walking backward toward the lobby doors, pointing at me like one of those inspirational speakers. “Meet me there.”

My phone buzzes against my hip. MARISELA, the screen says, because in twenty-six years that’s the whole extent of what she’s been to me.

I should let it go to voicemail. But I’m too nice for my own good.

“Give me a few,” I call after Jake. “I’ll find you.”

He gives me a thumbs up and disappears toward the lobby, humming a tune which I don’t quite place. I step into the elevator and press my floor. The doors are still sliding shut when I answer.

“Mijo!” Her voice arrives at full volume, the way it always does when she’s decided the phone works better if she yells directly into it. “You landed, finally, I call you four times already, Jeremiah. Four times.”

“Hi.” The elevator lurches upward. “Just got in.”

“And you didn’t call your mama first? After everything?”

Here we go.

She knew I was in California all last week for the press tour. She also decided the drive from her place to Irvine wasn’t worth making. Apparently traffic on the 405 was my fault. But she wants to make it perfectly clear she would have been there, etcetera etcetera. By the time the doors open on my floor, I’ve got a headache and she’s still going.

I took the red-eye straight from the press tour in California to DC this morning. I don’t have the energy to tell her the other boys on the team don’t have their mommies tagging along for media stuff. Then again, the other boys don’t have Marisela Beltran for a mother. They have normal mothers who don’t want to take advantage of all the cameras and social media coverage to resuscitate a dying telenovela career.

She goes on about her latest botox. There is a strong possibility I will not get off this call before I die of natural causes.

I find my room, key card, door, the little green light, and step inside still holding the phone an inch from my ear to save my eardrums. That’s when I see the fish.

Not one fish. A colony. Orange and black plushies lined along the headboard like a tiny, furious parade. A gift basket the size of a kayak, wrapped in cellophane, stuffed with candy in the same two colors. A hoodie with PRECIO stitched over the heart. And a bouquet of marigolds so enormous I may need to request a bigger room just to reach the air conditioner without turning sideways.

“Mijo, are you listening?”

“I’m listening.” I am looking at a small orange civilization but I’m listening. Sort of.

“Because what I’m saying is, Newport Beach to the Hills, that’s nothing, that’s nada. Twenty minutes.”

“It’s over an hour. With traffic, more like two.”

“You’ll have a car, mijo, you’ll figure it out. The point iiiis…” She draws the word out ‘is’ like it’s a title card. “We’re basically going to be neighbors. Practically family, all over again, like when you were little.”

We were never neighbors when I was little. She was in Miami and I was a six-hour flight away. She sent a card on my birthday that one time, the year she remembered.

I don’t say any of that. I never say any of that. I set my bag on the luggage rack and start unpacking, and that’s when I step backward directly onto a stuffed fish.

It honks. A deep rubber-duck honk no fish has ever made in the recorded history of fish.