Read Online The World in Half by Cristina Henríquez - Free Book Online

for bringing me here,” I finally say.
    He gazes out at the water and shrugs. “Now you can say you’ve seen something.”
     
     
     
    I call Beth as soon as I get back to my hotel room. The reception is terrible.
    “I can barely hear you,” she says.
    “I know. Is this better?” I’m standing by the window.
    “Not really.”
    “Okay, tell me if it gets better. I’m just going to keep talking and talking and I’m walking around my room and I’m walking by my bed and I’m talking and I guess I could go out into the hall but I don’t really feel like doing that and I’m still walking and I don’t know what to say but I’m still—”
    “There! That’s good. It got clearer all of a sudden.”
    “Beth, I’m standing in the shower.”
    She starts cracking up and I just roll my eyes, smiling at myself in the mirror.
    “How are you?” I ask.
    “Forget about that. How are you ? You made it there okay, obviously.”
    “Yeah, no problems. I got in last night.”
    “And what’s it like?”
    “It’s . . . I don’t know. It feels like I went really far away, but it also sort of doesn’t. I mean, there are all these familiar places, like Wendy’s and McDonald’s and Costco, overlaid on this completely unfamiliar landscape. There are plants running wild everywhere.”
    “There’s a Costco?”
    “I know! It seemed so out of place when I saw it.”
    “But it’s not totally Americanized, is it?”
    “No. It still feels like its own place. And it’s bigger than I thought it would be. I mean, the city itself is huge.”
    “Bigger than Chicago?”
    “It feels like it. It’s definitely more crowded at least.”
    “And your hotel’s okay?”
    Beth is from the sort of family that books the Four Seasons everywhere they stay. Not that she’s pretentious about it. She has never once given me the impression that anything I do—going to a dumpy bar, taking the el, looking for bargains at Village Thrift—is below her standards. Even so, I have the notion that “okay” means different things to the two of us.
    “It’s nice,” I say.
    “That’s good.”
    “Yeah.”
    “Mira?”
    “What?”
    “Nothing. It sounded like you were going to say something else.”
    “Well, I met this guy.”
    “ What! Mira, you’ve been there for one day! You met a guy? I’ve known you for two years, and you’ve never met a guy.”
    “It’s not like that. He’s going to help me find my father.”
    “Oh, so is he older?”
    “I think he’s about our age.”
    “What’s his name?”
    “Danilo.”
    “I can’t believe this. Do you mind if I tell Juliette and Asha? All those times Juliette tried to set you up with guys in her classes. She practically had the wedding planned for you and that guy—what was his name? Jamison or something ridiculous—in her pottery class. And I know you went out with some of them, but since it never went anywhere, we knew you were just sort of scared of the whole concept of getting into a relationship, but now this!”
    “What do you mean, you knew I was scared? I wasn’t scared.”
    “You just don’t have a lot of experience.”
    “Neither do you.”
    “I know. But Juliette never finds guys who are right for me. If she did, I would take her up on it.”
    “You could find your own guys, you know.”
    “I’m just saying, I’m open to at least having the experience if I could find some experience to have.”
    “I’m open.” As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I think of my mother. “I’m open,” I say again.
    “Apparently.”
    “Come on. I just met him, Beth. I mean, I’ve known him for less than twenty-four hours. And all he’s doing is helping me find my father.”
    “I’m glad someone’s helping you,” Beth says. She sneezes. “Sorry. I think I’m getting a cold.”
    “It’s eighty-eight degrees here,” I tell her, and I see myself in the mirror giving an impish grin.
    “That’s the cruelest thing you’ve ever said to me,” Beth says.
    “No,