Starbird Murphy and the World Outside (29 page)

 26 

T
he next two days flew by in a frenzy of phone calls, plans, emergencies, and anticipation. Sadly, Ephraim missed all of it because his doctors wouldn't release him, and I was too busy for visiting hours. When I wasn't faking my way through school with half-finished homework, I was hanging up flyers, working at the café, cutting the grass in the empty lot, and working my way through all the phone numbers in the Book of Names.

After the distressing phone conversations of the first night, I was nervous about returning to my outreach, but a series of talks with joyful Believers picked up my spirits. A few volunteers offered to come from the Bellingham Compound and promised to bring handmade soap and tinctures to sell. Two Family members who ran a landscaping business in Seattle met me at the lot and helped me extract dandelions and edge the sidewalk, and Paul's friend at the co-op said they would buy any surplus pasteurized juice we didn't sell. Io got the day of the pressing off and volunteered to watch Kale and Eris, along with any other Family children who needed a nursery.

But even with all the support rolling in, it still didn't feel like enough. The café waitresses would be too weeded in the restaurant to make change for the cider sales, and most of our Family members didn't touch money. It wasn't an ideal situation, but I knew who I had to ask.

“Sure,” Ben said at the lunch table.

“If Ben goes, I will,” said Rory. They were both eating limp and watery broccoli from their school lunch trays. Why would someone torture a vegetable like that?

I felt okay asking Ben to help since he already knew about the Family and the café, and even our undocumented workers. I was taking a chance letting Rory come, too. But Ben couldn't take money by himself all day with no break. And I couldn't think of a way to tell Rory not to come without hurting her feelings.

“You should know what the people you're going to meet are like,” I said. “We talk a lot about family.”

I believe in telepathy. I caught Ben and Rory exchanging a silent communication. It was so quick I might have missed it, but I didn't.

“I want to meet your family,” said Rory.

At least if they meet everyone, they will see that we're not a cult
, I thought.

 
 

On Saturday, I worked my usual brunch shift, staying late to make final preparations for the pressing, and then it was Sunday morning and the alarm was going off with brutal intent.

Even if you wake up before dawn, it's not easy to beat farmhands to work. When I arrived with V and Europa, the first Farm truck was already there, carrying the ancient apple press into the vacant lot. The person hauling the crank out of the flatbed was Indus Stone.

Red blotches held their own festival on my chest. Luckily, the apple pressing wasn't the only thing I had prepared for. I had given all my tip money to Io, asking her to buy me a dress and a scarf. The dress was a navy-blue knit with turquoise chevrons, tight across my abdomen and flaring at my knee. I wore it with the golden eagle jacket and my farm boots, because they were still the only shoes I had. A thin braid traveled from my part to the back of my ear, growing to a thick rope at my nape, and a tan scarf concealed my blotchy neck. Io had even loaned me some eye shadow, dusty pink.

V and Europa went inside, and I waited for Indus to put down the crank in the yard and turn around.

“Whoa,” he said when he looked at me.

“Hey, Indus.” Io and I had practiced for this moment. She played the part of Indus, and I practiced seven versions of what I would say.

He was wearing faded jeans with a sweatshirt pushed up to his forearms, and tan leather gloves. My ears got hot. Had the blotches traveled to my ears? “You've changed.” He started to run his hand through his hair, seemed to remember he was wearing gloves, dropped the hand.

He might as well have said,
You're so Seattle, Starbird
. He might as well have said,
I want to kiss you
.

“How was the harvest?” I asked, which was not part of any of my practice conversations.

He leaned against the crank of the press. “Everyone's worn out.”

“Where's Iron?” He must be nearby. Iron wouldn't trust anyone else with the press.

“He and Gamma had to go to Bellingham.”

“They're not coming?” So much for my cool composure. “Iron
and
Gamma?”

“Don't worry. We've got this.” Indus smiled and slipped a thick arm around my shoulder. “Caelum and I can manage the press, and you're pretty enough to sell a tanker full of apple cider.”

Hello, sap
. It started in my feet and rose all the way to my lips. I didn't care about the apple pressing or the café. Frankly, I didn't care if the whole Family went bankrupt and had to live in a tent in the vacant lot. I just wanted Indus Stone to press his body against mine until I was as empty as a juiced apple.

“Hey, Sister.” Lyra Hay emerged from the café, wiping her hands on her long denim skirt, her hair falling in silky braids on either side of her face. Indus dropped his arm.

Lyra embraced me like I was a puppy under a Christmas tree. “Ooh, look at your outfit. It's so cute! Look, Indus, little Starbird is in high school,” she said, turning me toward him.

Why did Ben have to show up early? He came loping down the sidewalk with his long legs, his eyes peering out from under his shaggy dark hair. He walked up while Lyra's hands were still on my shoulders. I shook them off.

“Hey, Ben,” I squeaked. “Ben's going to handle money,” I said to Indus.

“I meant to remind you that we should start with plenty of change,” Ben said. “The vacant lot looks amazing. Do you guys both work on the Farm? We have a lot to set up before people come. I'm going to need that calculator from the office.” Ben's bony hands were jammed in the pockets of his jeans. Standing next to Indus, he looked like a stunted tree, unable to grow because of the taller trees stealing all the sunlight.

“Yeah,” Indus said, clapping his gloved hands together and looking Ben over. “Lots of work to do.” Then he put a hand on my shoulder and said, “We'll talk later?”

I nodded while pushing Ben toward the café door. “How many Red Bulls today?” I whispered.

“Just coffee,” Ben said. “Why?”

Behind me, I heard Lyra purr, “Young love.” I nearly ripped the café door off its hinges.

V was too busy talking to Devin to notice when I took Ben through the beaded curtain and into the office. We collected the cash box, change, calculator, paper, and pens.

“Rory can help you with these.” I handed him a book of paper receipts.

“She texted. She's running late.”

“You guys text?”

Ben shrugged.

The next car to arrive brought Eve, Bithiah, Ursa, Pavo, and Fern Moon. When Ursa spotted me emerging from the café, she ran full speed in my direction, nearly causing me to drop the cash box when she hugged me around the middle. “Starbird, your hair!” She gaped at me. “Your clothes! Your dress is so . . . pretty.”

“I'll give it to you when I'm done with it.”

When Ursa released me, Fern Moon was there, exactly the same and so different from the woman I left on the Farm. Her hair was still lined with gray, and she wore the same saggy wool sweater, but standing on a sidewalk in Seattle, she looked fragile, like a child lost in the cornrows. She stared at me.

Of the two of us, facing each other in the chilly morning under the café sign, I was the first to hold out my arms. She fell into them and gasped for air like a woman drowning.

“You look so adult,” she said over my shoulder.

How did I live without this? How did I forget that I needed a mother? I do want to go back to the Farm. I do forgive her for lying to me
.

She pulled out of the embrace and held my arms down to my sides. “My girl.” She smiled and the wrinkles around her eyes came alive. Had my mother gotten older in my absence? Then she frowned. “Is that eye shadow?” She took a finger and started to rub my skin under the brow. “You shouldn't be wearing makeup. I hope that's not V influencing you.”

I yanked my arms away. “I'm not being influenced,” I said. I glanced around, hoping that Indus couldn't hear us.

“You're sixteen and on the Outside. Of course you're being influenced,” said Fern, trying to take my arms again.

I backed away from her. “I've got work to do,” I said, and marched through the door into the café, forgetting to leave the cash box on the farm table. I had to turn around and walk back outside.

Despite the rocky reunion, I had to admit that Fern and the others did do the lion's share of the setup. They cleaned the apple press, arranged glass bottles for the finished product, set up the tent and signage. In an hour, the vacant lot was transformed into a functioning cider plant.

By seven o'clock, Adam and more Farm people arrived in a truck packed with apples and parked it out front. We opened the back and unloaded some for the press, leaving enough to sell bushels straight from the tailgate. Half an hour later, an old blue Cadillac with Canadian license plates pulled up and stopped in the middle of the street. A woman with white hair and gray robes emerged from the passenger door, held her arms over her head, and said, “Praise,” as if she was talking to the sky. It was Saturn Salt and some other members of the British Columbia Farm. They had a picture of EARTH on their dashboard.