Someplace to Be Flying (18 page)

When was the last time she’d gone this long feeling happy? She couldn’t remember anymore. When she was a child, she supposed, before her family had moved out to the coast, before all the trouble began. For the past decade, a good day was one without an incident, never mind feeling happy, so she relished the gift she’d been given today and didn’t really want to consider it too closely for fear of jinxing it.

She knew the way she was feeling was due in part to Annie and Rory being such good company, but she felt she could take some credit for it as well. Moving here was an excellent start to reclaiming some normality in her life. She had no past here, certainly not in the city itself. However she presented herself to people, that’s who she was. They could have no expectations. There was no walking on eggs around her because who knew what might set her off. She and her new friends could get to know each other by what they said and did, not by reputation. She could be anybody she wanted to be and who knew? Maybe she could even convince herself that she was somebody else.

“So let’s see,” Rory said when they finally got a table. He retrieved a wrinkled piece of paper from his pocket and smoothed it out on top of his menu. “Looks like all we have left to get is some groceries.”

So far they’d managed to track down a kitchen table with three mismatched chairs, a beautiful antique wooden chest for the bedroom to keep clothes in, a small bookcase that desperately needed repainting—“Who’d this belong to before?” Annie had asked in the junk shop when they’d unearthed the lime-green grotesquery behind a stack of landscape paintings. “A clown?”—some fruit crates she could use as end tables, a portable cassette player-radio, and a small hooked rug, all for under two hundred dollars.

“I can’t believe we got all of this stuff so cheaply,” Kerry said.

Granted, they’d rummaged around in more antique and junk shops than she’d ever seen in one area, little say been in, but still. She’d seen the price on the chest before Annie had dragged the shop owner to the back of his dusty store to talk about it, and it alone had been over a hundred dollars. At least it had been until Annie had started bargaining.

“Get used to it when you shop with Annie,” Rory told her. “People seem to fall over themselves trying to give her a bargain.”

Annie grinned. “What can I say? My fame precedes me.”

“That would be infamy,” Rory said. “It’s not the same thing at all.”

“What kind of music do you play?” Kerry asked Annie.

“I’ll give you a copy of my latest as a housewarming present and you can decide for yourself.”

“Oh, no,” Kerry said. “You guys have already been way too generous with—”

“Curtains,” Annie said, interrupting. “We still need to get curtains, too. Or at least some lace. And a plant. Every house needs a plant.”

Rory dutifully made additions to the list.

“If we’re going to do this,” Annie said, “we’re going to do it right.”

“Yes, but—”

Annie wagged a finger back and forth in front of Kerry. “I don’t want to hear it.”

“She can be a bit of a control freak,” Rory explained in a stage whisper. “Just play along and then do what you want later. Trust me, it’s way easier.”

“I heard that,” Annie said.

Rory smiled. “You were supposed to. Someone’s got to keep you honest.”

“Fair enough,” Annie said. “But control freak? Isn’t that a bit extreme? It makes me sound so domineering.”

“You do like to be in charge.”

“But that’s just my nature. You can’t change a person’s nature. Next you’ll be wanting to reform the crow girls.”

“Good luck to anyone who wants to try.”

“Don’t change the subject,” Annie said. She turned her attention across the table to Kerry. “You don’t think I’m a control freak, do you?”

The waiter chose that moment to arrive, so Kerry only shook her head.

She was enjoying the easy banter between the two of them. It was so refreshing to be in a situation where you didn’t have to be careful of everything you said. An unhappy memory popped into her mind, the stiff posture of the woman sitting across the desk from her, the expressionless face, except for the eyes that seemed to weigh and judge every nuance of word and countenance. She could hear the sandpaper voice as though the woman were sitting at the table with them right now.

And just what do you mean when you say ‘normal’?

Don’t think about that kind of thing, she told herself and tried to concentrate on the moment at hand.

“Can I get you something from the bar?” the waiter was asking. Annie looked up and gave him a bright smile. “Actually,” she said, “I have a question about your meat entrees.” “Sure. What do you want to know?”

Kerry immediately took a liking to their waiter.  He was young—barely twenty, she guessed. A nice-looking young man with bright, cheerful eyes, dark hair pulled back into a small ponytail, trim physique. He was so friendly that she couldn’t understand why Annie proceeded to give him a hard time. “Where do you get the meat from?” Annie asked. The waiter appeared as confused as Kerry felt. “The meat?” he said.

Annie nodded. “You know. The chicken, the ham.” She glanced down at the menu. “The beef and lamb.” “I’m not sure I understand.”

“Were the animals raised to provide you with their meat, or did you just find it?” “Find it?”

Kerry felt so sorry for the waiter. She looked at Rory, but all he did was shrug as if to say he’d been here before.

Annie was nodding. “Sure. Like, is it roadkill or something?” “I can assure you,” the waiter said, “that all the meat we serve is government approved.”

“Oh.” She actually seemed disappointed, Kerry thought. “I guess I’ll have a Caesar salad then, with the bacon bits on the side.”

That made Kerry remember how at breakfast Maida—or was it Zia?—had eaten all the peaches on her plate but only sniffed at the bacon she’d asked for. “I just like the smell,” she’d explained. “Not the taste.” It made no more sense than Annie’s asking for bacon bits on the side. What was she going to do? Smell them like Zia had?

It obviously made no sense to the waiter either. He hesitated for a long moment, but quickly recovered.

“And for you?” he asked Kerry as he wrote Annie’s order on his pad. Kerry ordered a grilled cheese and ham—which made Annie pull a face— and Rory had the special of the day, a seafood pasta. After they ordered their drinks, Annie excused herself to go to the washroom. Kerry watched Annie’s receding back as she wound her way through the tables before turning to Rory. “What was all that about?” she asked.

“It’s just Annie,” he said. “You never know what she’s going to do. I’ve pretty much given up trying to ever figure her out.”

“But all those questions she was asking. It was so weird.” Rory nodded.

A thought suddenly occurred to Kerry. “I wonder what she’d have done if the waiter had said that they did serve roadkill.”

“Probably have ordered something.”

Kerry started to laugh, but then she saw that Rory wasn’t smiling.

“You’re not serious, are you?” she asked Rory now.

“I don’t know. Lord knows I love the woman, but sometimes she gets strange.”

“I feel sorry for the waiter.”

“It can get embarrassing. I was with her once when she told this bag lady to thoroughly crinkle the tinfoil she was using to line her hat with, because if the surface could catch any sort of a complete reflection, it would transfer it directly into her brain. The poor woman was terrified—I mean, we’re talking about someone who wasn’t all there in the first place.”

Kerry shivered at the casual expression. She found herself asking that question all the time. Am I all here?

“When I asked her why she’d done it,” Rory went on, “she said, ‘Because for her, it’s true.’ ” He sighed and leaned forward a little. “Actually, you’re going to find that most of the people living in the Rookery are a bit strange. It’s not that they’re particularly dangerous or anything—though I know Brandon can look a little fierce. I guess it’s just that you’re going to find they’re different from most folks you might know.”

Want to bet? Kerry felt like asking, but all she said was, “Who’s Brandon?”

“He lives in the coach house out back—second floor. The Aunts live under him. Lucius and Chloë live up on the third floor of the house.”

“So they’re a couple?”

“I don’t even want to think about it.”

“What do you mean?”

Rory shrugged. “You’ll see. But since Paul died, that’s about it—if you include the three of us.”

“Paul used to live in my apartment?” Kerry asked.

“Yeah. He and Annie were pretty tight—best friends kind of tight.”

“She must miss him.”

Rory nodded. “Everybody misses him—he was a great guy—but Annie and Brandon miss him the most.” He paused for a moment. “Anyway, you’ll probably meet them all in the next week or so.” He grinned, adding, “Though, of course, you’ve already met the crow girls.”

“Who live in a tree.”

Kerry smiled as she spoke, only now a part of the conversation she’d had with them earlier in the morning returned to her—not so much the actual words as the strange, off-kilter feeling the words had generated. She felt a touch of dizziness and had to take a quick breath, let it out slowly. Rory didn’t seem to notice.

“Who might as well live in a tree,” he agreed.

There was an odd note in his voice. More hidden currents, Kerry decided.

“Who might as well live in a tree?” Annie asked, slipping back into her seat. “Maida and Zia,” Rory said. “The banes of my existence.”

Annie laughed. “You shouldn’t let them get to you. The only reason they tease you as much as they do is because you let them get away with it.” She turned her attention to Kerry before he could reply. “So do you still have to register for your classes, or did you set that up before you came?”

“How did you know I was going back to school?”

“Chloë told me.”

“Oh.” That made sense. “I should go upstairs and introduce myself to her. We’ve only spoken on the phone so far.”

“How do you even know her?” Rory asked.

“She was a friend of my grandmother’s.” Again she got that twinge. Something in the conversation she’d had with Zia and Maida. She took another steadying breath and made herself ignore it. “When I decided to move back here, she was the only person I could think of to call who might know where I could find a place to live. I guess I was just lucky that there was an apartment available right at the same time.”

Rory looked surprised. “You used to live here?”

“Not in the city. Up north, in the hills. In a little town called Hazard.”

“One of the old mining towns,” Annie said.

Kerry nodded. “We moved to Long Beach when I was just a kid so I never really knew the city.”

“What’re you taking at Butler?” Rory asked.

“Art history. I … I’ve always been interested in art. I used to try to draw like my grandmother always did, but I was never much good at it and …” She shrugged. “I guess my parents didn’t much like the idea, so I never really followed through on it.”

Annie gave her a sympathetic nod. “So they’ve come around?”

“No,” Kerry said. “They’re dead now so I can finally do what I want to do.” She put her hand to her mouth as soon as the words came out of her mouth. “Oh, God. That sounds so horrible.”

There was a moment of awkward silence, before Rory said, “You can choose your friends, but not your family. Sometimes we don’t get much luck with the draw.”

Annie nodded. “Blood doesn’t always tell.”

“I guess.”

Kerry was grateful for their support, but it didn’t seem to be enough to prevent the day’s good spirit from draining away. She wanted to be alone. She didn’t want to have to try to make more conversation. She didn’t even want to eat anymore. All she wanted to do was crawl away somewhere and—

“Okay,” a voice said suddenly, making her start.

Their waiter was back, cheerful once more. She hadn’t even noticed his approach.

“Grilled cheese and ham for the quiet lady,” he said, placing her order in front of her. “Pasta special for the gentleman. And for you,” he added, placing Annie’s salad on the table with a flourish, “one Caesar, bacon bits on the side.” He winked at Kerry. “Enjoy your meal.”

“Isn’t he sweet?” Annie said as the waiter retreated.

Kerry and Rory exchanged glances, then they both had to laugh and the awkwardness of a moment ago was gone.

Much later in the afternoon, laden with shopping bags, the three of them trudged down Stanton Street toward the Rookery. It was cooler under the shade of the oaks, but still warmer than Kerry had been expecting for early September in Newford—not that she really knew what to expect, she’d been away from the very idea of seasons for so long. She was looking fonvard to experiencing them again—things like actual snow and leaves falling and everything—but not so much that she didn’t appreciate the perfect weather that had been with them all day. Clear skies, sun warm, the air filled with the promise of the colder weather that wasn’t with them yet. She could smell the coming change.

“I’ll bet the deliverymen have already been,” Annie said, “and we’ll have to lug all that stuff upstairs by ourselves.”

“Oh, you don’t have to do that,” Kerry said. “I don’t want to be any more of a—”

“Bother,” Rory said, finishing the sentence for her. “We know. And you’re not.”

“It’s just that …” Kerry looked from one to the other. “You guys have been so great today.”

“Greatness is one of our specialties,” Annie told her. “Along with humbility and a patient sufferance for those not quite so great as us.”

Rory’s eyebrows rose in a question. “Humbility?”

“If it’s not a word, it should be,” Annie said. “And look. I was right. The porch is full of furniture with not a deliveryman in sight.”

Kerry’s gaze followed the direction Annie indicated with a bob of her head, but before it could reach the porch, something made her look up through a small gap in the heavy foliage above them to the roof of their building. What she saw made her stop in her tracks.

“Oh, my God,” she said.

“What’s the matter?” Rory asked.

His obvious worn? was mirrored in Annie’s features. Kerry pointed toward the roof of their building that could no longer be seen because they’d taken a few steps beyond the gap.