To unhappen something means to make it look like it never took place.
This word made so much sense to me when I was in Israel, but now I can suddenly see what it’s really referring to is an illusion. Unless you are capable of erasing your memory, it is impossible to succeed in unhappening an experience. Already, things are coming back to me that I’d somehow forgotten. How at some point, during our evening at Fuel, I had caught Anna looking around the smoky room and smiling. She had been becoming rather stingy with her smiles (see: Dostoevsky), and it surprised me to catch one.
“What?” I had asked her.
“Oh, nothing,” she’d said then. “I just like this place.” She released a shy sort of shrug that reminded me for a moment that she was only fourteen. It was hard to remember sometimes, with all her painting skills and sharp remarks, that she was still basically a kid. I almost felt bad for being annoyed that I was stuck watching her. In retrospect, I realize now, that week had been a gift; it almost felt like maybe, if one of us had been more keen on trying, that we could have been friends again.
Now, back in Milwaukee, alone, every single thing is telling me that I missed an opportunity. As the eldest, wasn’t it my responsibility to keep up with our relationship? Well, perhaps it’s not too late just yet. I look around Fuel to see what’s changed, and am relieved to find that except for the right wall, which used to be painted yellow and teal but is now covered in a floor-to-ceiling photo of young motorcyclists, nothing much has. There are still the same old, creaky wooden floors and tables, an ornate white ceiling that would be better fitted for an old downtown bank. The long gray radiator is steaming next to the windows, causing a slight fog. The stereo is playing The Cure’s “Lovesong.” After so many years of cheesy Israeli pop, it’s a shock on my system to hear something familiar and agreeable to the ears. A good shock.
Someone clears their throat and I turn to follow the noise. It’s the barista, the girl with purple hair and cheek piercings from the alley, who has finished with the customer in front of me. I move forward in line, ordering a large black coffee. I’m so tired I forget to force a smile, watching like a slobbering dog as the young girl pounds her fist over the decanter, allowing a long, hot stream of caffeine to pour into a large paper cup. I should probably explain: Israel has many great attributes, but the ubiquity of Nescafé is not one of them. I have dreams about American coffee more than I dream about my parents.
The barista puts down the cup and then, as I pick it up, her eyes narrow ever so slightly and glaze over. All she sees is the three other people in line she has to serve before she can have a cigarette break, the ones behind me who have spent the last five minutes debating the best places to dumpster-dive (Trader Joe’s in Shorewood! I want to tell them, but decide against it). She is still looking at my hand when I realize what she wants: money.
“Sorry,” I explain with a nervous shake of my head. “Jetlag brain.” I put my giant canvas bag on the floor and open it to find a handful of loose cash my dad must have thrown in there when I wasn’t looking. The barista’s eyes widen before I can get the bag closed. With an apologetic smile, I hand over two one-dollar bills and leave the change, almost half of it, as a tip.
“Have a nice day,” the girl says to my back, as an afterthought, once she’s pocketed my tip. Within minutes, I’m back outside; I don’t know why, except that I don’t particularly like feeling young and self-conscious again, which is the only way I can feel while listening to The Cure. I take the lid off the coffee cup and inhale before whispering “Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu melech haolam, shehakol nih’yeh bid’varo.” The blessing for coffee. As automatic to me now as lighting up a cigarette used to be; perhaps a replacement to it, if I’m being honest. Sometimes the only way to break a bad habit is to replace it with a better one (or a worse one).
I drink the coffee in a matter of minutes; it’s a little burnt but still basically heaven, and by the end, I don’t feel so sad or so cold either. I’m about to go back for a refill when something catches my eye. Not my eye, actually, but my nose. I know that smell.
“Rose?” I ask.
A young woman in bright red cowboy boots stops walking past me and turns, her long, pale face annoyed at first, then morphing into surprise. “Masha?” she asks. “Is that you?” Rose hugs me tight, nearly knocking the air right out of me and replacing it with a cloud of patchouli and sandalwood. For a moment it feels like no time has passed at all since we last spoke; like I’m still in college, living two blocks away, falling for men only after I’d slept with them a few times and they didn’t want me anymore. Chasing annihilation like it was my job. I wonder now why I wanted to disappear so badly when all I had to do was leave. What is so intoxicating about self-destruction? Is it merely the freedom to be able to do it, or is there something else? In Israel, I never have this feeling.
“What are you doing here?” Rose grins, her large hazel eyes sparkling. I smile back, relieved. Rose knows no one well, but she knows everyone just a little bit. Back in the day, we’d go to parties, and in an hour she’d have met everyone there and remembered their names. It could be useful now, as it had been then. “Did someone die?”
“No!” I laugh, before feeling a superstitious chill and getting serious again. I remove a pack of cigarettes from my bag that I’d bought without thinking at duty-free, and give her one. Rose takes the offering, lights it. Her shoulders loosen right away, as if she can only ever be comfortable with a cigarette in her hand.
“But I thought you…” she starts, squeezing my hand now. “Never mind. I guess I thought you were never coming back here.” She sits down, still holding my left hand. “Wow, I can’t believe it’s you. You look so good, girl.”
She, on the other hand, looks like she needs to go back to rehab, but I don’t want to be the one to tell her this. Otherwise she is generally the same, except that her hair is a new shade of pink. She’s wearing shorts with tights underneath and a lacy tank top under a loosely draped Aztec-patterned shawl, a giant chest tattoo of wings still visible beneath. I’d almost forgotten all about that poor decision, and wince as I look at it. Not because she is basically barring herself from ever having a real job—I have no delusions Rose is capable of holding down such a job—but because it’s so poorly done. The wings are flat and mechanical when they should be full of movement and freedom, like an actual bird. Instead, they look like they belong on a flag icon, a call to arms, like all the old hand-drawn posters she used to hang in the house that said “courage” or “resist,” with images of boots with flowers on them.
Maybe it was the linguistics major in me, not enjoying seeing words so out of context, but I always hated those posters. I couldn’t help but wonder: resist what, exactly? Sentences?
“I heard you were in the Middle East,” Rose interjects before I can respond. “What’s up with that?”
“Israel isn’t exactly the Middle East. I mean it is, but—”
“Are you like, really religious now?” she interrupts, smirking.
“No,” I say, quickly, before remembering that isn’t true anymore. “I mean… I don’t know. In Israel, it’s more about the customs—holiday dinners and no phones on Shabbat, stuff like that. It’s kinda nice.” I leave out the part where I go to synagogue with David once a week, and celebrate every holiday with his family, and love Shabbat. I remember myself when I used to live here, and I know Rose would merely use this information against me. Already she lets out a small laugh.