Free Birds of Paradise: A Novel by Diana Abu-Jaber

streaks his forehead, his skin looks tenderized—reminding her of the “white natives” she’d seen on a long-ago vacation with her family to Trinidad. Her father said they had lived on Trinidad for generations, migrating there from northern climates. But they all seemed to suffer from the sun; their skin gleaming red.
    Felice has her mother’s sparkling, near-black hair, and a lighter version of her biscuit-colored skin. As far as she knows, they’re German and English, a little Scottish on her father’s side. Apparently there is also a grandmother in there from some biblical place, Bethlehem or Nazareth. Her mother had shown her the photo of a dreamy girl, elbow-propped on her bed. Avis turned the photo over, reading her name.
    “Lamise,” her mother had said her name tentatively: the black-and-white snapshot was tucked in an envelope with old family photos. Felice held the photo by the edges.
    Her mother wasn’t sure of her identity. “Maybe my great- grandmother . Or maybe a great-aunt. You know how Grandma is about the past . . .” Avis smiled, referring to her own mother. Avis had the impression that Lamise had married into the family.
    Felice couldn’t stop staring at the photo: Lamise’s soft expression was lost in a dream; she seemed to communicate with hidden traceries in the air. Felice saw clearly her mother’s face and her own face—right there—as if superimposed on top of each other’s. This old image seemed to describe all sorts of inner sensations, to show Felice the sorts of things her own face couldn’t reveal. She’d returned the photo to her mother, but later she’d crept back into her mother’s bedroom closet, taken the photo out of its box, and hidden it in her own dresser drawer.
    EVEN THOUGH IT’S EXCITING to hear someone talk about leaving—Miami is still the only home Felice has ever known. It’s never seriously occurred to her to really leave: the rest of the world, even New York and Paris, seems so dismal and drab, so far away. “I’m sorry.” She gathers her knees toward her chest, mirroring Emerson. “But that’s crazy. Moving to Oregon.”
    “Why?”
    “ ’Cause it is, okay? You gonna move to the other end of the earth, just to go to a gym ? We got fifty million gyms right here, right on South Beach. And, Oregon ? It’s like, practically the North Pole.”
    Emerson’s face brightens. “But it isn’t really. That’s just what they say to keep outsiders from coming there and wrecking it. I’ve been studying it on the Internet. Yann says it’s got the prettiest summer and fall of anywhere. It’d be so cool—real seasons.”
    Felice looks back down the beach, over the miasma of shimmering bodies, slanting umbrellas, sunglasses. Even with his old-soul face, there’s something about Emerson, his excitement, that makes her tired. It’s not fair, how everyone else always gets to be the kid. She stands abruptly and glares at Emerson. “Off the deck.”
    “What?” He stands slowly. “What I say?”
    Felice stomps up her skateboard and turns away from Emerson, starts walking.
    “What? All I said was there’s seasons.”
    “There’s seasons in Oregon—big fucking deal!” she roars, wheeling on him. He actually flinches, which she likes. “You know what your problem is? It’s you don’t know when to shut the fuck up.” She walks faster: she doesn’t know exactly why she’s so angry. Maybe something to do with imagining Emerson fitting in so perfectly in a place called Oregon—or Nebraska—or Cali-fucking-fornia. All those places like those creepy towns in North Florida they used to stop in on their way to visit her grandmother. Everyone in those places as pale as Felice’s father and brother. She remembers their pink-rimmed gazes over their soda straws. The way everyone in the restaurant would study her. Her mother used to say: You’re just so lovely: people want to look at you; they’re a little afraid of beauty.
    “You know,” Emerson