Chapter 2In my cool-enough hotel room, I had the old, dusty radio tuned to a local station, listening to merengue music, the rhythm getting me in the groove of the night. Freshly out of a cold shower, with a flimsy white towel wrapped around my waist, I stood over the narrow counter in my tiny kitchenette, tapping my foot to the music and slicing an avocado. I stopped for a second, staring at the color of the avocado’s flesh—my favorite shade of green: A mix of jade and emerald, with a rich tint of yellow, the color bursting with health, reminding me of everything fresh and vivacious in the world.
I used to know a kid whose eyes were this exact color. He’d lived right next door to us in Verdun, a working neighborhood of Montreal. A quiet kid with hair the color of dark rust, and he had th
