Me: A twig
Me: A string
Wilder: Don’t forget the cigarette butts
Anytime Lizzie came into my room, she’d look at the blank white walls and neatly made bed and properly folded laundry and she’d say, “You can’t build a nest here, Songbird. Come into my room, and take one of my trees. They belong to you anyway.”
As if it were that easy. As if I could peel a tree from her wall and put it on mine. I wouldn’t do that to Lizzie, because I knew she’d miss that tree. She’d long to swing on its branches and feel the wind in her hair. If a tree went missing, a vacant space would live in Lizzie’s heart, and she’d leave me even sooner. But I can handle the space.
I left the trees just where they were, because Lizzie’s love was more important than collecting pieces to build a home. She was my home.
I stand to face Wilder in the window. His hand presses to the glass, as if he wishes he could push through it and let fresh air in.
Wilder: What’s wrong?
Me: I’m cursed
I was made by two people clawing at the bottom of life for more only to find dead twigs and dried leaves and loose string and cigarette butts, and for just a while they made a nest. But time destroys homes that flimsy.
Me: Everyone ends up leaving me behind
I shouldn’t be happy that Wilder is sick. That he’s locked up in a house, unable to leave. But for once in my life, I don’t feel so alone.
Wilder: I’m not going anywhere
Me: So it’s u and me?
Wilder: Together
Haystacks on a Foggy Morning, 1891
Dear Songbird,
Monet painted haystacks twenty-five times to capture what they look like in different light. He knew that nothing is the same day after day. We all change, even though we think we’re the same. The haystacks are proof.
Let the light change the picture. You might see a different you.
I love you,
Lizzie
Wren Plumley
20080 21st Ave.
Spokane, WA 99203
14
BLURRED LINES
It’s Sunday. The wagon is in front of Rosario’s Market. Chief’s list is in my hands. The mechanical horse sits unridden, baking in the sunlight. I’m not sure how many pennies are in the jar hidden in my closet, but I have to imagine it’s enough to buy something. Maybe even freedom. The horse is watching me. Waiting.
Today Leia teaches me about reading food labels. And I want to learn, but it’s hard to concentrate knowing Luca might be somewhere in the store. My heart’s not really in it. It keeps wandering the aisles, trying to get a peek at Luca and his nose ring.
“You know what the food industry wants you to do?” Leia asks me.
“What?”
“Stay naïve. They don’t want you to read labels. They want you sitting on a couch, playing video games and stuffing your mouth with Doritos. But they don’t want you to know what’s in Doritos. They just want you to want them. Kind of like boys. But the truth is, when you get up close, boys smell really bad.”
I haven’t been up close with many boys, or any at all until recently, but that has not been my experience. Luca smells like sunshine and possibility. I keep finding his scent lingering on my clothes. Or maybe I’m imagining it, but just because something is imagined doesn’t mean it isn’t real.
“What’s in Doritos?” I ask, focusing on Leia.
“MSG, among other things.”
Leia is so alive when she talks about carcinogens and the “bullshit legal system that protects food companies all in the name of ‘flavor secrets’ when the majority of Americans are consuming poison and dying of obesity, clogged arteries, and cancer.” I can’t help but be in awe.
“We can’t survive without food,” she says. “It might be the longest relationship we’ll ever have, and yet we let it treat us like shit. What if food was a friend? Do you want a friend who’s nice on the outside and tastes great in the moment but afterward you’re riddled with a stomachache and regret from binge eating an entire carton of hormone-injected ice cream? Or do you want a friend who has nothing to hide? What you see is what you get.”
A visual of Chloe meanders through my mind. She hasn’t texted me, and she wasn’t at the weekly softball game last night. I was thankful for that. Her mom said she was out with Jay.
“You know me, I’m not one to tout my own kids,” she said, “but by God that Chloe has found herself one cute boyfriend. And he’s sweet. You should see how he dotes on her.”
“May God have mercy on her soul,” I said, as Anne Boleyn’s head rolled in the grass. Proverbially speaking. I wanted to gag. Jay is genetically modified food—bulky, tastes good, looks even better, but is high-school poison.
Today Leia is wearing a new pin. This one says, I TALK TRASH.
“What does that one mean?” I ask.
“It’s one of my things—composting and recycling. Did you know there’s a plastic island made from the shit people didn’t care to recycle, floating in the middle of the Pacific Ocean? And it’s a tourist attraction! If that isn’t representative of how messed up this world is, I don’t know what is. Thank God for patchouli oil.”
Leia dabs some on her wrist before offering me the bottle.
I know some things make her sad, but she’s so alive that I want to reach out and grab her turquoise-blue aura like it’s something tangible. Like maybe I could swim in it, letting it seep into my pores. Sadness and all.
“What are some of your other things?” I ask.
“Overalls.” She gestures to her outfit. “Glitter, but it’s terrible for the environment, so I don’t use it often. And Roller Derby.”
“What?”
“You’re looking at Princess Lay-Her-Out.”
“What does that mean?”
“I’m a roller girl,” she continues, “a jammer for the Crazy Daisies Roller Derby team. It’s a junior league.”
“What’s a jammer?”
“It’s basically my job to kick some ass and not get knocked over in the process.”
“Sounds . . . crazy.”
“It’s awesome,” Leia says. “There’s nothing like knocking over a bunch of badass chicks to release some emotion. What about you? What’s your thing?”
“I don’t really have a thing.”
“Everyone has a thing,” she says.
Lizzie was my everything. But now . . .
I could tell her about how I see auras. How the turquoise blue that surrounds Leia only makes her more beautiful. How when I look at a painting by Monet, I want to cry because it’s so brilliant. How he understood the human condition—that the moment we put concrete lines on a canvas, we’ve taken the imagination away. The possibility for more, for interpretation. That life is distorted and blurred and should be represented as such.
I could also tell her how I used to paint, how there was so much more I wanted to put on Lizzie’s walls and in our universe, but since she left, I can’t seem to do it. Some mornings I wake up desperate to hold a brush in my hand. To create something from nothing.
“Does it really feel that good to knock people over?” I ask, a lump stuffed deep in my throat.
“Yes.”
“Aren’t you worried they might knock you over, too?”
“Sure, but that’s what makes it exciting.”
“I’ve never knocked anyone over.”
“You’re young. There’s time.” And then Leia gets animated and says, “Oh my God. You should join the league!”
I’m too weak for that. Leia is covered in lean muscle, whereas I am simply covered in fragile skin. I don’t think I’m strong enough to handle blow after blow right now.
But I don’t get to respond, because at that exact moment, Luca turns down the aisle, ever so casually, his cadmium-yellow aura encasing him delightfully. Warmly. He’s wearing a red apron, but underneath it a tight blue shirt hugs his frame. He’s all primary colors, and I think for just a moment that
maybe Luca is the holder of limitless possibilities.
“Leia, I need your help.” He’s holding a carton of almond milk and regular milk. “Which one should I drink?”
“That all depends,” she says sarcastically. “Do you want boobs or not?”
“Depends on whose boobs they are.”
Leia groans and takes the cow’s milk from Luca’s hands. “Drinking this is like taking a shot of estrogen. How do you think they keep cows nursing all the time? Hormones. That’s how. And men wonder why they have man-boobs.”
“You said it again.” Luca grins.
Leia rolls her eyes in my direction. “Men. I told you they stink.”
Luca eyes me playfully. “Who’s your friend, Princess?”
“This is Wren.” Leia gestures in my direction.
“Wren,” Luca says. “I believe we’ve met before.”
“Yeah, you knocked her over last week on your skateboard. Dumb ass.”
Is that what Luca did? Knocked me over? Is that what this feeling is—the drifting, the light-headedness I feel when he’s around, like the ground can’t hold me?
“My apologies for the dumb-assery,” Luca says. “Can I make it up to you somehow? I make an excellent sandwich.”
“No, thanks,” I say. “It’s not on my list.” I flash Chief’s tidy grocery list.
“Maybe I can help.” He snags it and turns his back on me, reading it like it’s a diary or something.
“Actually, I’m not hungry right now,” I say more emphatically. “So I don’t really need a sandwich. It doesn’t fit into my life at the moment . . . I’m full.”
That might be the worst lie I’ve ever told.
Luca turns back around and says, “That’s OK. I can be patient. You’ll get hungry at some point. And then I’ll be here with open arms. Ready to make you a sandwich.”
He hands the list back to me. Leia eyes us suspiciously.
“What’s going on?” she says to Luca and me.
“Nothing,” I say quickly.
And simultaneously Luca says, “Something.”
For a moment no one moves. Awkwardness settles around us.
Leia says, “You better watch out, Luca. Wren’s going to join the Crazy Daisies. And if you mess with one of us, you mess with us all.”
“Really? I love a girl in roller skates.”
“I didn’t say that.” Embarrassed, I look at my feet. “I mean . . . I don’t even know how to roller-skate.”
“You’ll pick it up quickly,” Leia says casually. She has no idea how weak I am. How loosely I’m held together. One push . . .
And then Luca says, in a warm tone that trickles down my spine, “I promise, Wren, I won’t mess with you.”
I’m encased in his light once again, and it feels good. Better than good. It feels like I might actually heal.
But moments never last.
“You better get back to work,” Leia says to him.
“Fine. But first tell me again how almonds produce milk,” Luca says. “I’ve never seen a nipple on an almond.”
“You’re hopeless,” Leia says.
“You can’t be a failure unless you try.” Luca turns and meanders up the aisle. “I guess I’ll just have to stick to drinking Gatorade.”
“Gatorade?” Leia shouts exasperatedly.
Luca’s soft laughter lingers even when his body is gone from sight, but it’s as if the air-conditioning has gotten colder. I shiver without him near. And that scares me.
Some days I wish I made drawings with chalk. Then it wouldn’t hurt so badly when the picture disappeared after a rainstorm. But oil paint on a canvas . . . The artist knows how many mistakes are painted underneath the masterpiece. Oil can’t be erased.
“Doesn’t it ever get to you?” I ask Leia. “To care so much, and yet people keep throwing out plastic. People eat food that’s poison. People don’t change.”
“If there’s one thing being a roller girl has taught me, it’s that pain is a necessary side effect of progress.”
I look at Chief’s grocery list. Luca added his name to the bottom of it, as if he’s an item I’m meant to pick up and take home along with all the other food—another item that will either keep me alive . . . or be the death of me. And Leia has taught me that I need to choose wisely.
Me: Do u miss going outside?
Wilder: Sometimes
It’s late, the darkest part of night, when the sun is so gone it’s hard to imagine it’ll ever come back. And yet if you wait long enough, a dusty gray begins to form on the horizon.
Sometimes I stay up all night just to see it.
Me: What do u miss most?
From my windowsill, I see him, sitting in his room, the light on. Everywhere else in the house is dark, just like mine. We’re two lights in a sea of raven black.
Wilder: The smell of grass after it rains
Me: I love that smell
Wilder: Me too
Me: I’d miss the lilacs
Spokane is filled with lilac trees that bloom in May. It’s like the entire town is one gigantic flower coming alive after a long, dreary winter. For a while, when the lilacs are out, Spokane seems to forget its struggles. Chief says crime is even lower when Spokane turns into a flower.
Wilder: But there’s something I miss even more
Me: What’s that?
Wilder: I wish I could hold someone’s hand but I’m afraid to touch anyone
At that I face the window full on, my heart aching. Wilder is there, his thin frame taking up such a small portion of the window, his hair vibrant, a sad yet honest smile on his face.
Me: Will u ever get better?
Wilder: IDK
Me: Well until then we can pretend
I place my hand on the window. Wilder mimics me. Our fingers curl at the same time, and I imagine them interlacing, his palm pressing confidently to mine, our hands squeezing closed, sealing us together. Warm skin to warm skin. No fear. It takes the lonely away and heats the cold in the center of me until it’s dissolved into nothing. With Wilder I’m on the edge of forgetting.
We stand like this, pretending to touch, until my legs are sore and my eyes are drooping with fatigue. And I think maybe pretending is safer than reality, because when Wilder and I finally turn off our lights, I can still imagine his palm in my hand.
As the gray of morning comes in my window, I finally climb into bed. Before I fall asleep, I send Wilder another text.
Me: Maybe u should open the window
Me: Just to see what might happen
Wilder: I’m not sure it’s safe
Me: But if u don’t try you’ll be locked in there forever
15
DEATH BY HANGMAN
Luca is light, and I am a coward. I don’t know how to explain to him that the way he smells like sunshine, the way he casually sits during Driver’s Ed, his long legs extending forward, the cadmium yellow that emanates in all directions, warming an overly air-conditioned room, so much so that I want to inch closer and closer to him—it all scares me.
“Good morning, Wren,” he says formally, getting a notebook and pen out of his backpack.
“No sandwich today?”
“I’m trying something new this week.”
“What’s that?”
“I’m going to stay awake.” Luca makes the statement proudly. “My grandma told me that no girl wants to date a failure, so . . . I’m changing. Maybe I’ve been wrong all along. But that changes today. I figure I try pretty damn hard not to work. Why not take that effort and put it toward . . . working? So from now on, you’re my marshmallow.”
“What does that mean?”
“Delayed gratification. I thought success came to those who tried, but it turns out success comes to those who wait.”
“What does that have to do with a marshmallow?”
“It was a behavior experiment,” Luca says. He opens his empty notebook and writes down the date. “Kids were offered a marshmallow. They could eat it
or wait. If a kid decided to wait, they’d get another marshmallow. Turns out, the kids who waited became more successful in life. Hence . . . you’re my marshmallow. Though if all of a sudden there were two of you, I don’t think I could handle it. It’s hard enough sitting next to one of you.”
My cheeks heat instantly. “You think you can change just like that?”
“I can try . . . or maybe it’s more . . . I can wait,” Luca says. “The world is changed by people who simply attempt something new. Take Rodney Mullen. What if he never attempted a kickflip? A heelflip? A three-sixty flip? Where would the world be? The man basically created skateboarding as we know it.”
When he talks about skateboarding, it’s like Luca is speaking a different language.
“You really like skateboarding, don’t you?”
Luca becomes effervescent. “Yes!”
“Why?” I ask.
He leans in close. “The rush.”
And I can’t help but repeat, breathlessly, “The rush?” because he’s so close, and I don’t care what Leia says—not all boys stink.
“Yeah,” Luca says. “The rush—nothing is better.”
“Nothing?”
“Well, I suspect kissing you is way better, but I have yet to do that.” Luca licks his lips, and I realize I’m staring again. An infectious smile pulls Luca’s face. “Give me your hand.”
“No.”
“Please?”
“Why?”
Luca shakes his head. “Just this once, no questions. Just trust me.”
I reach out hesitantly. Luca grabs ahold of my hand so strongly, there’s no option to pull back. He places it on his chest, directly over his heart.
“I solemnly swear I will not fall asleep in class today.”
His chest is warm, the cotton of his T-shirt soft. Something happens to me. A rush. A wave of light-headedness. Of pure goodness. The moment of connection seems so worth it, no matter the consequences.
If this is the rush he’s talking about, then I understand why he skateboards all the time. Who worries about a broken arm when something feels this good?
But too soon Luca lets my hand go and squares himself toward the teacher, pencil in hand, and the longing sets in.
Postcards for a Songbird Page 7