North of Happy Read online

  His whole life has been mapped out for him...

  Carlos Portillo has always led a privileged and sheltered life. A dual citizen of Mexico and the United States, he lives in Mexico City with his wealthy family, where he attends an elite international school. Always a rule follower and a parent pleaser, Carlos is more than happy to tread the well-worn path in front of him. He has always loved food and cooking, but his parents see it as just a hobby.

  When his older brother, Felix—who has dropped out of college to live a life of travel—is tragically killed, Carlos begins hearing his brother’s voice, giving him advice and pushing him to rebel against his father’s plan for him. Worrying about his mental health but knowing the voice is right, Carlos runs away to the United States and manages to secure a job with his favorite celebrity chef. As he works to improve his skills in the kitchen and pursue his dream, he begins to fall for his boss’s daughter—a fact that could end his career before it begins. Finally living for himself, Carlos must decide what’s most important to him and where his true path really lies.

  Also by Adi Alsaid:

  Let’s Get Lost

  Never Always Sometimes

  Praise for North of Happy

  “There is a kernel of truth in every cliché, and Alsaid cracks the teen-lit trope of friends becoming lovers wide open, exposing a beautiful truth inside.... A good romance is hard to come by. This is a great one.”

  —Kirkus Reviews, starred review

  “With all the fun of a classic teen movie, this one should fly off the shelves.”

  —Booklist

  “This fun romp will appeal to students looking to push beyond the edges of their own comfort zones.”

  —School Library Journal

  “Explor[es] universal feelings of friendship and love.”

  —Publishers Weekly

  “A refreshing novel about friendship and romance that defies cliché, Never Always Sometimes will win readers over with its hilarious musings and universal truths.”

  —Adam Silvera, author of More Happy Than Not

  Praise for Let’s Get Lost

  “An achingly beautiful story... Reminiscent of John Green’s Paper Towns, Alsaid’s debut is a gem among contemporary YA novels.”

  —School Library Journal

  “Emotional and exciting. Alsaid’s unique narrating style invites the reader to join in on the ride.”

  —VOYA

  “With equal parts heartache and hope, this debut is a fresh interpretation of the premise that ‘home is who you’re with.’”

  —Horn Book

  “Told from five different POVs—a tough trick that Alsaid pulls off well—Lost balances both the quirky fun and the harsh realities of adolescence.”

  —Entertainment Weekly

  Adi Alsaid was born and raised in Mexico City, where he now lives after spending time in Israel, Las Vegas and California. His debut, Let’s Get Lost, was nominated for YALSA’s 2015 Best Fiction for Young Adults list. Visit Adi online at www.somewhereoverthesun.com, or follow him on Twitter, @adialsaid.

  To Laura. There’s no one I’d rather share a meal with.

  Contents

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  PROLOGUE

  THE PERFECT TACO

  2 ounces pork al pastor

  1 teaspoon lime juice

  1 slice pineapple

  1 pinch chopped onion

  1 pinch chopped cilantro

  1 warm corn tortilla

  Salsa, to taste

  METHOD:

  The day before Felix died, he’d flown in from Asia craving tacos.

  As usual, the two of us and Mom went to our favorite taco joint, a chain in a neighborhood near our house. It was one of those places that offered English menus and had TVs in overhead corners. We gorged on every kind of taco on the menu, made hungrier by Felix’s cravings.

  But when the waiter cleared our plates, Felix wasn’t satisfied. The tacos, he said, were overpriced and bland, the atmosphere too sterile. “You love food so much, I’m shocked you still come to this place,” Felix told me casually. I knew he didn’t mean anything by it, but I also knew I’d never be able to enjoy the restaurant again.

  “Meet me outside of school tomorrow. I’ll find us some real tacos.”

  And the next day, there he was, wearing that threadbare once-white shirt that seemed on the brink of disintegration. Even now that he’s dead, that same shirt stained red with his blood, I always think of it as it was then: colored not by the violence of Felix’s death, but by the shape of his life. He claimed to wash it in the shower himself, which grossly explained the yellowish hue of old sweat and cheap soap. In that one color I can still see my brother in all his exuberance.

  “So, where we going?” I asked. I’d been antsy all day, eager to spend time with him before he ran off again to wherever the hell he was going next.

  Felix just smirked and led us toward the hospital down the street, where there’s a “secure” taxi stand everyone from school uses. Instead of asking for the price to a certain destination, though, he took us past the huddled taxi drivers and around the corner, into unexplored territory. The neighborhood around the campus was not particularly safe. Rumored to be gangland, even. The bodyguards who hung out outside my international school were a constant presence, though Felix always insisted it was rich-people paranoia.

  “Uh, where we going?” I instinctively reached for my phone. I’d heard teachers got mugged here on the way to the subway. One of the houses on the walk was rumored to be a drug dealer’s, painted bright blue to stand out against the drab gray buildings around it.

  “There’s a taco place I saw on the way up here. I bet it’s way better than that shit we ate last night.”

  I readjusted my backpack. “I thought you used to like Farolito.”

  “Sure, when I was in the bubble.” Felix slung an arm around my shoulder, slight pang of body odor coming off him. “The world is a much bigger place than you realize,” he said with a smile. “We’re going to explore it.”

  We sat down at one of three plastic-tablecloth-covered tables, and a small, smiling man walked over with two menus. Felix waved him away, calling out our order: two tacos al pastor, everything on them (pineapple, onion, cilantro, salsa; I’m sure the words strung together could make a poem).

  Then he asked me for a pen, and took a napkin from the metal holder in the middle of the table. He drew three imperfect columns, labeling them Restaurant/Stand, Location, Reaction. “One taco each per spot. We don’t stop until we find the perfect one.”

/>   I could almost see the day ahead as if it were shot by the Food Network, some Anthony Bourdain–narrated exploration of the city. I tried to contain my glee.

  The tacos arrived and Felix clapped his hands, smiling warmly at the waiter/owner. The man smiled back and asked what else he could bring us. I was about to stammer some apology for only getting one taco, maybe cave in and get something else, but Felix spoke up. “Nothing today, thanks. We are on a quest, un tacotón.”

  We paid the miniscule bill, recorded our reaction (meh), followed the curving street down to a massive set of stairs and then to a subway stop. It marked the first time I had ever been on the metro, I was embarrassed to realize. To my surprise, the metro was not the dangerous hellscape I’d envisioned. It was actually kind of soothing—to move around the city without the ubiquitous traffic, the manic chorus of horns employed at the slightest annoyance or whim, to disappear into a station and reemerge in a part of the city I barely even recognized.

  Toward the southern end of the city, in a neighborhood called Coyoacán, we sat at a small place with red plastic tablecloths and a taco named the Chupacabra. “We should get that,” I said. “It’s their specialty.”

  Felix waved the little columned napkin in my face. “Important research going on here, man.” He turned to the server, again asked for two al pastor, everything on them.

  I rolled my eyes and asked for a beer, since I was with him and it seemed to fit the mood.

  “No,” Felix interrupted, changing the order to a bottle of water instead. “Beer’s gonna fill you up. We have a lot of eating to do today.”

  Two minutes later the tacos were served, and we ate the same way: an extra dabble of salsa, a squeeze from a lime wedge, heads tilted, the first bite taking out nearly half the taco. Felix chewed slowly, not talking, taking the task of assessment seriously.

  “What do you think?” I asked, wiping at some salsa on the corner of my mouth.

  He held up a finger as he finished chewing. Every time he came back from his travels his hands were rougher, his skin cracked and worn by a foreign sun. “Solid, but lacking something.”

  “Like, maybe the ingredients in their specialty taco?”

  Felix widened his eyes comically. “Who said you’re allowed to be funny now? I’m the funny one.”

  A surge of joy flowed through me, because after all those years of being abandoned in favor of exciting adventures, I was still the little brother. Reflexively, I checked my phone to see whether I should be letting Mom and Dad know where I was. The habit was so ingrained that it even felt rebellious to not call and at least lie to them.

  “Put it away,” Felix grumbled. “They don’t need to know your every move.”

  The night wore on. The metro got unbearably crowded, people pushing in, literally packing each other into the carts. The trains slowed, and getting on and off became a struggle, each “excuse me” bolstered by force as we pushed others out of the way. We escaped at the Salto de Agua station. An indoor market was half a block away.

  Our list of tacos sampled had grown to nearly ten, and a couple had come close to perfection, at least in my opinion. But each time I’d thought we’d found it (crispy, juicy meat, warm doughy tortilla, perfect spice and zing to the salsa, the grilled pineapple sealing it all with its sweetness), Felix would shoot it down.

  “We’re not looking for great, man. We are striving for perfection! Nothing short of it will do.”

  “And what makes a taco perfect?”

  “Beautiful question,” Felix said. “It’s a taco that tastes as good as the idea of a taco itself. A taco that’ll hold steadfast through memory’s attempt to erase it, a taco that’ll be worthy of the nostalgia that it will cause. A taco that won’t just satisfy or fill but will satiate your hunger. Not just for tonight but for tacos in general, for food, for life it-fucking-self, brother. You will feel full to your soul.

  “But!” he added, a callused index finger pointed straight up at the sky. “It’s also a taco that will make you hunger for more tacos like it, for more tacos at all, for food, the joy of it, the beauty of it. A taco that makes you hungry for life and that makes you feel like you have never been more alive. Nothing short of that will do.”

  I walked in awe beside my brother. I was starting to feel the discomforts of so much food, a tiredness in my feet. I still had school tomorrow. Mom had already called a handful of times; lately she’d been trying every twenty minutes. It was so hard to break the momentum of the night, though. Maybe one or two more stops, just until traffic died down. Then I’d tell Felix we had to turn back around. Fun could still be enveloped by responsibility. Maybe that feeling Felix had described did exist, was to be found in one of these unassuming stands, joy encapsulated in three bites. A shame not to try a little longer to find it.

  Most of the stands were starting to shut down. The fruit and vegetable vendors packed their produce into wooden crates. Butchers hosed down their chopping blocks. Only the taco and birria and ceviche stands still had customers crowded around on stools or on foot, two guys in aprons working the grill, one more at the big slab of pastor. No real sinks in sight, one pump bottle of hand sanitizer for customer use.

  Mom would weep if she saw us here, if she knew how many similar spots we’d visited throughout the day. She’d run to get us typhoid shots, never let us leave home again. I was proud of this, for some reason.

  “Dos con todo, por favor!” Felix called out as we elbowed for room at the counter.

  “This might be the spot,” I said.

  “Oh yeah? How can you tell?”

  “The size of the pastor. They know they’re going to sell a lot. Line of people is always a good sign. The limes are fresh. More than three salsas, which means they take some pride in what they provide. The girl making the tortillas back there from scratch.” I pointed out the little details I’d started noticing, clues as to whether or not the place might be worthy. “That cook just spotted a bad piece of meat and threw it out right away, so they care about quality. They have some sort of special mix of seasoning they use on their arrachera, not just Worcestershire and Maggi sauces like lots of the other places.”

  I knew I was rambling, but Felix rambled too. I continued. “Look at how good that guy is at catching the slices of pineapple inside the taco. He’s looking away while he does it. He must have served a shitload of these every day for years.”

  Felix smiled, surveyed the scene. “You want me to talk to one of these guys? Get you a job?”

  “Shut the fuck up.”

  “Why? All you watch is those cooking shows.”

  “Sure, yeah. Except, what would I tell Mom and Dad? ‘Oh hey, remember my SAT prep courses? My internship with Dad? College next year? Yeah, never mind. I got a job at a taco stand!’”

  “Why not?” Felix asked. He was serious too. “You think they’d love you less?”

  “Probably,” I joked and then said, “Last stop?” just to get off the subject.

  “Are you kidding? The best spots only start setting up now. I guarantee that the perfect taco doesn’t go to bed until four a.m.”

  The napkin list was running out of room, heavy with ink and pockmarked by holes from the pen on uneven surfaces. “Dude, this has been great. But I really have to get back home.”

  “No, you don’t,” Felix said.

  I shoved my hands into my pockets, staring resolutely at my brother, trying to come up with something to convince him otherwise. Felix led us somewhere near the historic downtown area, where homeless men lined the streets in thick blankets, surrounded by empty bottles.

  Another taco stand, who-knows-where in the city. Extra dab of salsa, squeeze of lime wedge, head tilt. My worry had drifted away, especially after Mom stopped calling. I’d stopped looking at the time, stopped thinking about the homework I didn’t do. I listened to Felix’s stories, g
ave myself up to those little cheesy diatribes about living life as you wanted to, to laugh loudly and love often. Felix could sound like a Hallmark card, like boxed inspiration, but he was earnest enough to make you fall for it. One in the morning on a school night, and clearly the perfect taco was not necessary for perfection. “What a world,” he kept saying.

  We were both full to the brim, laughing about not being able to stomach another bite and yet forcing ourselves to keep eating when a nearby argument turned to shouting. My heart began to race. Then, pops like pinecones in a fire, a stray bullet knocking Felix to the ground. Soda from his glass bottle, intact but spilling bright orange liquid behind his head. The thought, even then, of life’s sudden change of course. The terrible words: nothing will ever be the same.

  CHAPTER 1

  THAI BRUSCHETTA

  1 French baguette

  ½ pound deveined shrimp

  ½ cup coconut milk

  2 teaspoons minced ginger

  2 Thai chilies, seeded and deveined

  2 stalks lemongrass

  2 tablespoons red Thai curry paste

  1 mango, sliced thin

  1 tablespoon Thai basil, chiffonade

  METHOD:

  On a rooftop in the ritziest part of Mexico City, while my graduation party rages on—music and drinks and waiters delivering canapés to the two hundred people in attendance—I am trying to act like I have my shit together.

  There’s a pigeon perched next to me, its head tilted, eyes meeting mine, cooing suggestively. I know before it even opens its beak that it’s Felix, and that he’s going to tell me to escape. It’s just what he does now.

  The air is fresh after this afternoon’s rain. Mexico City doesn’t have that nice post-rain smell that other places do, like Mom’s hometown in Illinois, when the storms sweep in from Lake Michigan and leave in their wake an almost herb-like scent. I wonder if anyone’s ever replicated that post-rain smell in a dish.

  This party is Dad’s consolation to me for not letting me travel this summer, for fearing that I’d be like Felix and stay gone. It’s also Mom worrying that I’ve been Unusually Quiet Since It Happened; it’s her desperate to see me acting like myself again.