Page 23 of My Secret Snowflake
Raphael is also being cryptic, though. I stare at him, my head tilted, but he waves me off.
“Anyway, I’ll cover this weekend, so I expect you to take this weekend off. I know you have your sister’s event and your friend’s party,” Raphael says. “Next weekend is yours to work.”
“If you need me, I can work this weekend, but I’d really like to make my sister’s wedding celebration.” I still felt guilty about missing her engagement party because we were dealing with a cyberattack. It was one of the reasons I organized this wedding celebration.
“There’s honestly nothing you can do this weekend. I’ve figured out what happened. And you’ll find out Monday.” He shovesThe Code Bookinto his backpack. “Thanks for recommending this. I just finished that story in Fifth Century B.C. about how the Greeks shaved the hair of the messenger, wrote the message on his bald head, and waited for his hair to grow back before they sent him to Miletus with the instruction to revolt against the Persian King.”
Another change of subject. He won’t tell me what happened. Okay, I’ll play.
“A bit more time back, then,” I say with a wry smile as I leave to return to my desk.
Back in the bullpen, my little sibling is waiting by my desk.
“You’re biting your nails again,” Faith says. Her mother named her after Faith Ringgold, the artist.
I look down at my hands. “I’ll have nothing left, after this week.”
First, the weird attack. Then the possibility of Dream shutting down. We’re in the middle of several productions. Would they be moved to New Mexico? Here I thought I’d hit the jackpot with Dream. My stomach feels queasy. And now the weirdness with Kevin—and Raphael. What can’t they tell me? Am I about to be severed? Raphael would give me more warning, wouldn’t he?
“Bad week?” Faith asks.
I force my shoulders to relax and roll my neck. “It’s okay. Let’s look at your schoolwork.”
“I have to find the subtext inAnimal Farm,” she says.
More subtext. More hidden layers. And a dystopian reality.
I focus on Faith and put my questions to the side.Later.
I’ll figure out the clues.Raphael left me a trail.
Chapter six
Iris
Iexitthesubwayat Delancey and Essex, and the chill in the air bites my face. Delancey is a four-lane intersection, and the light to cross is red—like Kevin’s instruction to me not to investigate further.
The tree next to me is bare. It looks so barren—like it’s closed for the season, in hibernation waiting for spring to start. Jazmine’s earlier words about my being a fortress echo in my head.I’m not being a fortress.And it’s not like I can date right now anyway, given my workload and whatever is going on at work. I feel like I’ve been on hold—or moving backwards—ever since I moved in with my parents. Now I’m really at a standstill, if I may not even have a job.
I wrap my scarf tightly around my neck.
The bright luminescence of the corner stores illuminates the shadowed sidewalk outside. The glass façade of the Essex Market next to me glows in blue and looks like a video game maze. At least if the bar gets decorated tonight, that’s checked off my list. Raphael obviously didn’t think we needed to be all-hands-on-deck this weekend, but if we’re going to be under attack in the coming weeks, I need to clear any personal obligations out of the way. A faint whisper of protest—but the holiday parties are so fun in December—rears in the back of my mind. It’s good that both my sister’s party and Lily’s cookie party are this weekend so I won’t miss all the festivities.
On the green light, I cross over, walk down Essex, past the graffitied former Essex Retail Market, and then turn down a side street. Next to a modern white façade with oval windows is another building bedecked in graffiti and red-and-white “no trespassing” signs, metal bars covering broken windows. As I pass, a light hanging over the front door switches on—to deter loiterers. I must have ventured too close. Why was Raphael afraid to tell me—did he venture too close to something he shouldn’t have? But what?
A right turn, and I’m on one of the more picturesque blocks of the Lower East Side, filled with unique shops, bars, and restaurants.
A neon pink restaurant shed, covered in colorful graffiti, stands out. That is, until Sticky Rice, with all its multicolored paper globes hanging from the tree in front, comes into view. A red cloth triangle awning stretches out to the tree like a magic red carpet. All those bright colors never fail to cheer me up.
Holiday decorations already entice from the store windows. A lit-up snowman occupies one window, while a garland of blue and white balls frames another entrance. All my Christmas decorations are in our basement storage room. Originally my plan was to have my own place by the New Year, but now I’ve cancelled tomorrow’s appointment to look at apartments.
My family’s bar is on the first floor of a building about a third of the way down the block, next to Café Katja. Up ahead is the bar’s blinking neon sign. As I walk in the front door, the warmth envelopes me, and the low buzz of conversations punctuated by laughter gives it a happy vibe. One garland is already looped up on the wooden bar. Dad must have hung it.
I breathe in the welcoming scent of pine and apple cider. That smell of dry ice from last night’s concert is gone. It’s not like I can ask my dad to stop using dry ice, but it brings back memories of Patrick and those first weeks when we were falling in love as I watched him performing on stage, emerging from billowy dry ice clouds. But the love—like those clouds—was just an illusion. My dad swears dry ice has no smell, but it definitely does for me. I take another deep breath of the balsam-scented air.
Christmas music plays, adding to the festive cheer. The bar is crowded—as expected on a Friday evening at seven p.m. My dad is pulling pints. He still loves pitching in and chatting with everyone. I make my way to the bar, through the patrons milling about, drinks in hand.
“Any of my friends here yet?” I ask.
