Little Blackbird (9 page)

Martha’s full, candy apple-red lips smiled at Kate. The distinct gap between Martha’s two front teeth looked much wider up close, possibly expansive enough to house a quarter and a dime. Kate noticed Martha’s black mascara was thick and clumped about her lashes, looking as though she’d applied it with a paintbrush.

Kate had seen Martha’s red and white polka dot dress in a shop window on Main Street a few weeks ago, and she’d wanted so badly to ask her daddy if he’d buy it for her. But Kate’s mama made most of her clothes, and they were sensible, or so her mama told her again and again. Kate doubted Martha’s parents ever told her she couldn’t have a dress because it wasn’t practical. Why did clothing have to make sense? Why couldn’t it simply help someone look better, prettier, more like the rest of the world?

“Have you eaten yet?” Martha asked in a voice that seemed to flow from her nose, pinched and slightly whiny. “We packed hors d’oeuvres and drinks.”

“I’m
starving
,” Betsy said.

Martha pursed her lips. “You’re always hungry, Betsy. You might want to go easy.”

Betsy’s gaze fell into her lap, and she smoothed her thick fingers down the fabric of her skirt. Betsy was shaped like an upside-down mushroom, wider and thicker than the other girls, with arms and legs that were smooth, pale, and doughy. Her full face reminded Kate of a cherub, rosy-cheeked and kind. Her small, upturned nose was nearly lost in the plumpness of her cheeks, but her round, hazel eyes—bright and twinkling—were the highlight of her face.

Charlotte cleared her throat and sent Betsy a small smile. She opened the basket nearest her. “We’ve brought fruit and crackers and cheese and what else?”

“I made pimento cheese sandwiches. It’s my grandma’s recipe, the one that wins first prize every year at the fair,” Martha said, smiling at the boys.

“Mama baked cookies this morning, so I packed a few dozen of those,” Sally said. “And Betsy’s mama made cucumber sandwiches, didn’t she?”

Betsy nodded and tossed a shy glance toward Kate, making eye contact for a second before staring down at her hands again.

“Enough girl talk, can we eat?” Ted asked from the other quilt. “Geoffrey made us wait long enough for the—for Kate.”

Ted averted his gaze when Kate looked at him. Kate didn’t know much about Ted other than he was a year ahead of her in school, he liked to hear himself talk, and he played football about as well as she did. He played ball because that was what all of his friends did, but Ted’s fingers might as well have been slathered in lard when he was on the field. He was built like a brick wall—solid, square, and red-faced—and although he should have been a heavy-hitting linebacker, he was better suited for the debate team.

Ted leaned his head back and blew cigarette smoke toward the stretching sky. John and Mikey sat to his left, and they were graduated seniors, like Geoffrey, and the same two boys Kate had seen Geoffrey play with his entire life. She couldn’t imagine what it would be like to have lifelong, childhood friends.

John resembled a thousand other young men his age, common and average-looking with short-cropped sandy brown hair. Kate knew he excelled at chemistry and calculus, but he still managed to be a part of the popular crowd. She assumed if someone snuck into the in-crowd as a kid, it was difficult to be weeded out when everyone discovered he was a genius and loved turning hardwood into charcoal in a backyard barrel. John pulled a cigarette from his shirt pocket and reached for Ted’s lighter that lay between them on the quilt. He wedged the cigarette between his lips and cupped his hands around the lighter as he brought it to his mouth. When he lowered his hands, Kate watched the tip spark like a miniature fire.

Mikey was one of the most attractive boys in school. His blonde hair swept across his forehead, a little too long to be deemed completely acceptable, a little too hip for Mystic Water, but Mikey didn’t seem to care. His dark blue eyes studied everything, and his smile was slow and genuine. Kate knew he was kind. Mikey was the sort of boy who always opened doors for women, who stopped and helped people who dropped their homework all over the school hallway. If she had to pick teams, Mikey would be one of her first choices.

Prompted by Ted’s whining, the girls opened the rest of the picnic baskets. They passed around red plastic plates and blue gingham cloth napkins, reminding Kate of people who worked on assembly lines. Soda bottles and an opener were passed around next, and those were followed by plastic silverware.

Kate watched how the girls arranged their plates and how they unfolded the napkins and draped them across their laps. She copied their movements precisely. Finally, platters were arranged in the center of the quilts, and everyone moved to the edges of the blankets, anchoring the fabric to the prickly grass.

Geoffrey arranged himself so he sat on the edge nearest Kate, and she smiled as she passed him a plate of sandwiches.

“Well, thank you, Miss Kate,” he said quietly as he stretched his leg and brace out of the way.

She inhaled, smelling the scent of his soap. “Don’t thank me yet. You haven’t tasted them.”

Geoffrey glanced down at the pimento cheese oozing from the squishy, crustless white bread. “Why don’t you try one first?”

“No, thank you,” Kate whispered with a slow grin. “I don’t eat weird orange cheese sandwiches.”

The wind gusted hot, sticky air across the grass and tried to snatch napkins from laps. Kate’s spine stiffened. The skin on the back of her neck felt as though a dozen spiders skittered across it. When she looked away from Geoffrey, Martha was smiling at her.

“So, Kate,” she said, “I guess you heard all about Geoffrey’s accident.”

Kate nodded, and before she could come up with a more proper response, Martha continued talking.

“And he’s doing so well now, aren’t you, Geoffrey? When I heard what happened, I was worried you’d be in a cast all summer.”

Geoffrey popped a square piece of white Cheddar into his mouth and shook his head. “Wouldn’t have wanted that,” he mumbled with a full mouth.

Martha leaned toward Kate as though she had a secret to share. She spoke in a low voice, but it wasn’t quiet enough for only Kate’s ears. “Did he tell you about his helper?” she asked.

“I don’t know what you mean.” Kate spun the chilled soda bottle around in her hands, cooling her palms.

“The one who helped him after the wreck, after Benjamin went for help.”

Kate stopped moving; she stopped
breathing
. Her eyes jerked toward Geoffrey, but it was Matthias who watched her. He moved his head, side to side, barely an inch in each direction, but Kate understood.

“He told me the doctor took care of him. And I’m sure Dr. Hamilton and Matthias have been great helpers to have around too.”

Martha smiled, and the sunlight glinted off her large, white teeth. “I guess he didn’t tell you about the
other
person.”

You mean me, Martha?

Geoffrey cleared his throat. “Great cookies, Sally. You should tell your mom to sell these at the candy shop. I know I’d buy them.”

Sally’s cheeks flushed, and she twirled a few fingers through her blonde curls. “She’ll be glad to hear that.”

“Hey, Kate, what did you bring?” Geoffrey asked. He pointed to the unwrapped plate of cookies resting on the quilt at her knees.

“Oh,” she said. She spun the glass bottle into the grass and dirt behind her until it propped up by itself. Then she unwrapped the plate. “Lavender cookies.”

Geoffrey took the plate from her hands and dropped a cookie onto his knee. Then he passed the cookies to John.

“Are they actually made with lavender?” Charlotte asked.

“Yes, fresh lavender, but you can use dried too.”

Ted reached for a cookie and wrinkled his nose. “Isn’t lavender a flower?”

Kate laughed. “Yes. It’s also an herb, a very useful one.”

Ted sniffed a cookie and passed the plate. He stared at the cookie as though waiting for it to perform a trick in his palm or poison him through his fingertips. Kate resisted the urge to tell him to put it back if he wasn’t going to eat it. Making disgusted faces at someone else’s food was rude.

Charlotte lifted a cookie from the plate. “They smell lovely.”

“Thank you,” Kate said, looking away from Ted and smiling at Charlotte.

“They’re good,” Geoffrey agreed.

“Why would anyone want to cook with flowers?” Ted asked before taking a bite.

“Lots of flowers have healing and healthy properties. People have been using flowers in their cooking and medicines for thousands of years,” Kate explained, knowing she sounded like a defensive and pretentious know-it-all.

“Who? Witchy people?” Ted asked and guffawed, but no one laughed with him.

Everyone gaped at him, and Kate knew why. He was voicing out loud what everyone in town already whispered. Mrs. Muir and her daughter were
witchy people
. Crazy, Indian folk. Sure the architect father and the poor, dead son were okay, but those Muir women…

Kate’s dark eyes narrowed and her lips thinned. “I’m sure I don’t understand the question. Are you implying that people who use herbs are witches? If that’s the case, then you might want to tell your mama to stop dabbing peppermint oil on her windowsills to keep out evil or negative spirits. It’s actually only keeping out the spiders since it’s obvious you’re still coming in and out of the house.”

Geoffrey choked on his pimento cheese sandwich. Matthias snorted and then laughed so loudly that the glass bottles hummed. Martha sprayed soda from her nose and squealed.

Ted stared at Kate—mouth agape like a bass on a riverbank—and then he looked at the cookie in his hand. He nodded at her. “Point taken.” He lifted the cookie in a salute and shoved half of it into his mouth. “These
are
pretty good.”

Matthias’ laughter spread like a contagion across the quilts. Soon everyone was laughing and snickering, even Martha as she dabbed the soda from her dress. Kate looked around at their happy faces and thought,
I did this? Is this what it’s like to have friends?
Geoffrey’s arm pressed into hers, and she looked at him. Summer warmth unfolded in her chest like a fern frond, rolling out slowly, stretching, testing the limits before spreading completely.

“I’m glad you’re here,” he whispered.

“Me too.” And she meant it.

T
HE HEAT OF the afternoon never relented. Instead, it seemed to intensify, and they dried out on the quilts like plucked rosemary stalks in the sun. Kate wiped sweat from her forehead as the sun dipped behind the clouds and illuminated them in October orange and fuchsia.

“I promised your dad I’d get you home before supper,” Geoffrey said after the conversation lulled. “It would be best if I didn’t break that.”

“Agreed,” Kate said, but she wasn’t ready to leave.

She wasn’t ready to give up these moments of finally feeling as though she
belonged
. She hadn’t skirted the outsides of this group; she’d been pulled inside. Going home meant returning to her little shoebox house with her childhood room that hadn’t grown up as she had. One of her bedroom walls was still papered with crayon drawings she’d sketched as a kid, the ancient quilt on her bed had been handmade by her grandma, and her closet was stuffed with rainbow-colored clothes her mother had sewn. Kate doubted any of the other girls’ rooms looked like hers, as though it belonged to a first grader.

Kate looked around at the group. During the afternoon, they had gone for walks, tossed around the football, taken refuge in the shade, and now they were rearranged on the quilts. Matthias sat next to Charlotte, who had graduated in the spring with Geoffrey, and Charlotte stared at Matthias, mesmerized by the conversation. She recognized the expression on Charlotte’s face. Kate feared she had given the same look to Geoffrey. Kate lifted her hands and pressed them to her chest.
Hold onto your heart
, she thought for Charlotte.
Unless
…
unless it’s already gone.

“Hey, Matthias,” Geoffrey called across the blanket. Matthias paused his conversation. “You ready? We need to get Kate home.”

Matthias nodded, but Kate saw Charlotte try to shove her disappointment behind a smile. The Hamilton boys’ leaving caused everyone to decide it was time to pack up and go home too. Kate almost skipped across the park to Matthias’ car. And she would have, but the wind blew stifling, muggy air in gusts that caused Kate to pause and stare up at the sky. Thin, wispy clouds swirled like mini tornadoes. Waves of heat lifted from the asphalt and slunk across the park, burning the grass as it raced toward her.

“You coming?” Geoffrey asked.

Matthias glanced at her over his shoulder but kept walking. How could they not
feel
the approaching menace? The sky darkened and Kate quickened her pace.
I can outrun it
, she thought. The humid air turned frosty in her chest and then slivers of ice broke apart, splintering through her.

“But I drank my tea,” she muttered. Her vision shadowed, and her steps faltered. Her mama’s cookie plate dangled from her hand. She watched Matthias turn and look at her before her knees buckled and she undulated like underwater sea kelp. Then she felt the needle-sharp blades of grass stab into her cheek.