Birdie (8 page)

Birdie

The phone is ringing
and I’m not breathing.

I can’t. The air flew away from my lungs after the first ring because I’m scared Howard will pick up. I don’t want to hear his voice. It will make me cry and I don’t want to cry. I don’t want him to have any piece of me because it will make him stronger and me weaker and I’m done surrendering my feelings to people who don’t care.

After ring five I think no one will answer but then suddenly someone clicks on the line with a breathy “Hello?”

I smile. “Darla.”

“Birdie! Oh my god, where are you?”

My smile drops. So Mom plunked me down in the middle of nowhere and informed no one.

The words rip out of my mouth. “We have an uncle. Named Tim. Mom has a brother.”

“You’re with Uncle Tim?” she asks, her voice shrill.

My brow creases. No surprise over the sudden uncle, meaning she knew. How many things did she know that she didn’t bother telling me? An ugly, ashy taste fills my mouth with the bitter realization and eats up the desire to share my horrific origins with her. I don’t want to find out if she knew about the rape too. I’m afraid it will make me hate a piece of her. I go for a neutral question instead.

“How are things?”

“Things suck. I’m bunking with Jen right now.” Jen, her newest best friend I suppose. I vaguely remember her, brown curls and a crooked nose dance on the edges of my mind. Darla trades out her friends as it suits her while I make few and cling. I love having a constant in my life as much as she loves the spontaneity of arbitrary changes. “She lives close to the college and I don’t have to hear Dad bitching about Mom all the time,” Darla’s saying. “How is Mom?”

I blink in surprise. Mom hasn’t talked to Darla either?

“I don’t know,” I answer. “She left me here. The day after we got to Shenoah. To live with Robert Smalls. She hasn’t tried to call me. She left me with no money. I got a job in town and just got my first paycheck so I was able to get a calling card to call you.” I realize my voice is climbing with each word and everything explodes out of me in a single breath. I replace the air in a deep intake and tears prick my eyes. Darla curses in my ear.

“What?” she demands angrily. “I can’t believe it. She abandoned both of us? And here I was, pissed at you for taking off with Mom and not even telling me you guys were leaving.”

“I thought you knew. Everything happened so fast!”

“No. I didn’t know. It’s just like Mom, though. I’ve always been screaming at the top of my lungs, you know? Trying to get her to notice me but it’s always about you.”

“About me?”

“Totally, Birdie. She goes on about you like you’re a goddess. No matter what I do, she relates it back to you. Tell Birdie how well she did at her swim meet. Don’t brag too much about getting the lead in the play because Birdie only got understudy and we don’t want to hurt her feelings. Don’t put peas in the soup. Birdie hates peas…ugh. It figures she’d leave with you. That she’d leave me here.”

I sit on the phone listening to her rant dumbfounded. I never even noticed what she described but now that she’s complaining, at a time when I’m starved for her voice and she has my full attention, I realize what she’s saying is soaking in truth.

“I…” I try to speak but sadness blocks my throat. I finally croak, “She left.”

“Yes, well…I guess it was just time for her to run away again.”

After a few minutes of idle talk – Darla plunged into details on her latest love, an architect several years older than her – I hang up the phone. I try Kelsey but she’s not home. For a moment I want to call my mother. The feeling is fleeting and I harden it before it can take root. If I let myself feel, I will lose my focus on what I need to become the master of my own life. Right now what matters is graduating and getting out of here.

Birdie

It happens one day
in science class. I’m so busy not making friends that I forget to pay attention to what is happening around me. The students are all masks, walking around me, laughing, talking, existing as they always do while I slide around, weaving in and out and saying my excuse me’s. It’s been a comfortable existence and even pleasant with Lacey popping up by my side occasionally. I’ve come to really like her. Her genuine nature is refreshing. Even Wes has become more of a presence. We’ve played Shining Force twice more in the last two weeks since that first visit and he’s stopped in the library once to trade
Andromeda Strain
for another one of my recommendations. I gave him a copy of
Shield Protector
and told him to get to page 184 as quickly as he could.

This temporary routine I’ve carved out for myself is suiting me just fine which is why I’m caught off guard in science class when the teacher, Mr. Foley, asks us to pick lab partners for an upcoming project and Garret Winston snags my hand and raises it with his before Lacey can even turn and motion to me.

Mr. Foley points his pencil towards us and nods before making a note on his clipboard. “Mr. Winston and Ms. Clements,” he murmurs before moving on to the next pair.

I drop my hand and look at him in surprise.

He chuckles. “Come on, you’re cute,” he says by way of explanation. “But you don’t talk to anybody. How else am I going to spend time with you?”

“You could try asking me out,” I say in a flat voice that suggests that’s the last thing that’s ever going to happen.

He picks up on my tone and nods. “See?” he whispers because Mr. Foley has begun speaking again about the project. “This way you’re stuck with me. You’ll like me by the end of the lab project.”

I roll my eyes which makes him laugh some more but in truth, I’m not bothered. If his consistent answers in class participation are any indication, Garret is exactly who I want in a lab partner.

After class, I try to slink off to the library during lunch or maybe an outside table on my own where Lacey sometimes joins me, but Garret puts a hand on my shoulder and gives me big puppy dog brown eyes.

“Come on, Lab Partner. Join us for lunch just one day. We can go over meeting times for our project.”

I hesitate. Garret sits at a loud table in the cafeteria. It’s also not lost on me that it’s where the black kids congregate, what few of them attend this school. I know I’m not completely invisible and I hear the whispers sometimes of my self-inflicted segregation but I don’t concern myself with them.

He takes stock of my hesitation and holds out his hand in a handshake gesture. “If you hate it after ten minutes, we’ll go to the library and knock out the first assignment,” he promises which I promptly shake on.

I follow him to the cafeteria. He turns to me. “Lunch line?” he asks and I shake my head and hold up my brown paper sack containing a peanut butter sandwich, grapes, and Capt’n Crunch cereal in a plastic baggie. “Cool,” he says and turns to the group. “Ladies and gentlemen, may I present to you – Birdie Clements. My new lab partner.”

The group appraises me. Five girls and six guys, not including Garrett. I know a few of their names from classes I have with them but several of them are in different grades or I just can’t place. The one nearest to me, I think her name is Yolanda, smiles a toothy, brace-filled grin.

“I was wondering when you were gonna join us,” she says, scooting over to make room. Her hair is braided into hundreds of tiny braids that start natural and fall into dark extensions. She keeps tucking them behind her ear with her long nails, but they keep falling back over her face.

“I’m a loner,” I say plainly.

“Yeah, I’m not disagreeing with that,” she says.

Garret plops down next to me and swings an arm around my shoulders.

“
Was
a loner,” he corrects. His face is wide and pleasant. His teeth shine when he grins with the white of them pronounced against his dark skin. I pull out my sandwich and allow Garret’s arm to stay where it is. The rest of the group has marked it as a signal to relax and nod or flash me a small smile before returning to their conversations. Apparently, Garret’s approval goes a long way with these guys.

Wes walks by then with Rachel and Curly from the lunch line. He flashes me a curious look but keeps walking. The exchange is so brief, I think I’m the only one that registered it.

“So,” I say to Garret. “Let’s talk lab schedule.”

Birdie

I arrive at Tim's
house after school. His cruiser is parked outside next to a truck, surprising me because he told me he usually works the swing shift. I open the door and call out hesitantly, "Tim?"

He emerges from the back of the hallway where I have yet to explore and probably never will. My new room and the bathroom are at the front of the hallway and I have no need to venture any further down and destroy any more of the peace my unexpectedly being here has taken from him. I intend to make as few ripples as possible as I scurry out of my last year of high school and finally take the lead in my own life.

"Uh, hey. Birdie."

He settles himself on a barstool by his counter which doubles as the dinner table.

"I thought you'd be at work."

"I took another day off." He gestures to the window. "Did you see the truck when you got home?"

"Yeah."

"It's yours."

I'm taken aback. "What?"

"I bought it off Ol' Henry a few streets down for a pretty good deal. I'm not home much and you'll need a way to get around."

“Tim, I can’t accept something like this.”

“Then just use it for when you’re here. Petey told me he picked you up in a storm last week.” He sighs. “I’ve lived alone for so long, I keep forgetting that I have someone to watch out for now.”

I open my mouth to protest but he cuts me off. “I know, Birdie. You’re an adult technically and fiercely independent. But you didn’t choose to come here. And you’re stuck and I can see all over your face how much it bothers you to impose on me.”

I trace patterns in his countertop with my fingers. I’m unable to meet his eyes. He nailed it exactly.

“You’re not imposing. I want to help. Look.” He gets up and goes over to his fridge and opens it for me to see. Inside I see milk, juice, fruit, some fresh greens, lunch meat, and various other items for a few proper meals. “You left your lunch on the counter by accident the other day. Pickle slices, cereal, and toast.” He closes the fridge and sits back down, looking tired. “I eat out a lot. I never bought much in the way of groceries. I didn’t realize…” he sighs.

“It’s okay,” I say. “I’ve made do.”

He lifts the corner of his mouth in a crooked smile. “Pickles and toast.”

I shrug. “It’s what was here.”

“Ask me if you need anything. Like I said, I’m not used to someone depending on me. You have to ask me for the stuff I forget. Like eating. And transportation.”

He reaches into his back pocket, pulls out a couple twenties, and pushes them on the counter towards me. I hesitate.

His eyes are serious. “No one ever made it without help from someone.”

“You did.”

He shakes his head. “No Birdie. I’m still trying to get there.”

Birdie

“
Stupidest thing I’ve ever
done?” Wesley asks. He turns his head to look at me but I continue to stare straight ahead. We’re lying on the roof of Tim’s trailer in opposite directions, flat on our backs, my feet pointing south and his pointing north. Our heads are next to each other, forehead to chin. If we were lying in the same direction, our shoulders would have demanded a certain distance but as it is, his face is near mine and turning my head in response would put our mouths intimately close.             

I fix my gaze on the stars spread out before me. Shenoah has finally rubbed a good shine on something and presented it to me. Her night sky without the city lights is brilliantly captivating.  I make Wesley come up here with me when I get tired of video games and being indoors in general. The first time he grumbled. Now he usually beats me out the window and up the fence before I can even finish getting the words out.

“Yes,” I answer without looking at him. “Absolute stupidest.”

He picks up one of my tendrils and begins twirling it. I’ve stopped fighting this battle. He is fascinated with my mess of curls and usually tugs, twirls, or ruffles them into a frizzy mess.

“I once thought I was in love with this girl named Jessica when I was in seventh grade. I sat up in my room all night listening to love song dedications on Heart Radio so I could make her a mixed tape of the sappiest, ball-shriveling love songs and declare my feelings for her through music.”

I smile. “That sounds more sweet than stupid. Love stupid doesn’t count.”

“This one does. For all my efforts, I got an F on a test I fell asleep on and a black eye.”

I laugh. “A black eye from…”

“Her boyfriend.”

“She had a boyfriend?”

“Yes. A very large one.”

“And you knew?”

“You asked for the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.”

"You never disappoint," I declare with a grin and I'm rewarded a playful shove. He swings his body around to pelt me. Laughing, I dodge his light punches, twisting my body around to cover my ears which he particularly likes to box.

"Okay, okay, punishment over," he says, gripping my upper arm. "Wrestling up here makes me nervous, you're a klutz."

I'm still laughing when I lower my arm and realize with a start how close his face is to mine. He's leaning over me. I know the proximity is an accident because his eyes flash too and for a moment we're locked an inch away from each other's mouth. I don't move and neither does he. A pulse passes between us and I swallow thickly. The move causes his eyes to drop to my mouth and then they close slowly as he pushes himself up on his hands.

"Your turn," he says, running a hand through his blonde hair and staring off at nothing in the distance. "Stupidest thing you've ever done."

I'm still recovering as I sit up. My skin feels hot.

Maybe my molten state is why a particularly intimate details slips out.

“When I was in fourth grade we had this variety show program for school. Each classroom had to do a dance or sing a song and they each voted someone to do a solo act. I wrote a poem for my dad. And my classmates voted me to perform it. That night all the parents came to watch the program. And when it was my class’s turn, I was so nervous. I’d never spoken in front of a crowd like that. But I went up to the microphone. And I pulled out my poem. And I read it. And before I had finished it, I saw Howard stand up and leave. I stopped reading right then and there and I almost cried when I started reading again to finish it. I never called Howard my father again after that. I didn’t do it out of rebellion or anger. I just suddenly understood it made him uncomfortable. So I didn’t call him anything. It’s amazing how many ways you can think of to get around addressing someone.”

Wes’s eyes are intense as he assesses me. “That’s not stupid.”

“I felt stupid.”

“But it wasn’t stupid,” he insists forcefully. He grabs my hand and squeezes it. “Not on your part.”

My heartbeat speeds up at our contact. I look down at our hands and back up at him but he doesn’t let go. He squeezes it again and brings his other hand up to sandwich it. We sit like that in quiet momentarily, letting the personal piece I shared run between us and strengthen something I can’t name but I can definitely feel.

“I named the hero of a nerdy role playing video game after a tube top,” I finally say to end the silence.

Wes nods vigorously. “Yes,” he says in a very serious tone. “Yes, that’s stupid. That is the stupidest thing you’ve ever done, hands down, I dare you to top it.”

This pulls a grin from me and Wes beams like he won the lottery. “The worst part?” he pushes on. “I can’t even change it. Like, if the next time we played and we named him Steve, it’d feel all wrong.”

My mouth falls open then smiles widely in victory. “See?” I ask with way more emotion than normal for a video game character. “That’s why I do it!”

“Whatever, Birds,” he says, lying back down on the roof. He tugs my shirt to lie down next to him. “Show me the Little Dipper again. I see it when you point it out, but I can’t ever find it.”

I sigh. “Find the Big Dipper first. Then go to the end of the handle and that’s where the Little Dipper starts.”

My arm goes up to point as I talk but during my explanation and gesturing, I get the feeling that he’s not really hearing me. His body relaxes and his breathing is smooth and he just lies there, listening to the sound of my voice and staring directly at the constellation he already knows how to find.