Postcards for a Songbird

by Crane, Rebekah

  “You not built for sport, Wren.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I know.” Olga eyes me. “You delicate. Sport is too dangerous. You get hurt.”

  “Life hurts,” I mumble, picking myself off the floor. Leia pulls into the driveway and beeps.

  “Where are you going?” Olga asks. Her eyes don’t leave the television screen.

  “Out.”

  “That’s the second time this week. You never go out.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “No, you don’t. You sit on roof.”

  “Not all the time.”

  “Yes, all the time.”

  “Things change.”

  “Not for you.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Ever since I know you, you don’t change. In the fourteen years I come here, I take care of you since you were baby, you never change. Always the same. No cry. You barely make a peep. You give me no problems. Eat. Sleep. Poop. Repeat. Now, Lizzie—she give me problems.”

  Something happens on TV that shocks Olga, and she sits forward in her seat, captivated. I think I know why she constantly watches TV—my life is too boring for her to pay attention to. I’m vapor that slowly dissolves and doesn’t leave a mess. Tears start to form in my eyes.

  “How do you know what I do?” I say. “All you do when you’re here is watch TV and sleep.”

  “I been here for long time,” she says. “Longer than you remember. And people see things even in their sleep.” She looks at me intensely for a moment, and then, as if she’s decided I’m boring, she assesses my outfit—jeans and a white shirt—and shrugs right before aiming her attention back on the screen. “I change the shit in your diapers. I know more than you think.”

  I have to clench my jaw and hold my heart in place. My heart is in desperate danger of falling straight to the ground and splattering there. Olga wouldn’t even notice the mess, and I’d be the one to clean it up, like always.

  A fight breaks out on Keeping Up with the Kardashians. Olga smiles. There’s no way I’m about to confess my heart to a woman who finds entertainment in other people’s pain.

  And the truth is, I blame Olga. She was sleeping on the couch the night Lizzie left. She was supposed to be watching us. It was her only job, and she failed.

  “If that’s the case, if you see things even in your sleep, then you let her go,” I say pointedly.

  Olga turns from the television screen. It’s hard to imagine this tough woman ever changing my diapers or cradling me as a small child, but she’s been with us ever since we moved to Spokane and Chief started on the graveyard shift. Seeing the hard look in her eyes makes me feel vacant and cold. How many nights did Olga stay on the couch and let me shiver in my room instead of offering me an extra blanket?

  “No,” she says. “No one could have stopped your sister.”

  My cheeks burn with anger. An anger that might be misplaced, but my heart is heavy today. It’s been four days since my date with Luca, and still no word from him. It’s amazing how much even nothing weighs on a person. So much I might break.

  And I’m mad that nothing changes. That Olga thinks I’m predictable. That she thinks I’m weak and delicate. That it was always Lizzie who would leave, but never me. That Olga knew and did nothing to stop it. That Chief knew and did nothing. That I knew and put my faith in hope instead of fear.

  “Do you even care?” I say. “We’re just a job to you.” Olga offers no response. “Chief should have fired you.”

  If my words have any effect on her, she doesn’t show it. I can’t stay inside with her any longer.

  “He know it’s not my fault,” Olga says, turning back to the television screen as I walk out the front door. “Be home by eleven, or I tell your dad.”

  Leia picks me up in this old beat-up blue truck with a bumper sticker that says, BEET IT. The air-conditioning doesn’t work, the seats are duct-taped together, and there’s a weird smell coming from the vents. The car is so completely Leia. It’s authentic and recycled and odd. I can’t help but wonder what kind of car I am. I think I’m the police cruiser Chief bought ten years ago and that’s been parked in the driveway ever since, just waiting to be driven. But lately I’m sick of being stalled.

  I miss Luca. My muscles don’t hurt as much anymore. I want the ache back.

  The Valley, Spokane’s largest suburb, is east of the city, on the way to Idaho. Leia parks in front of a large house on a street that’s filled with other large houses and big lawns and SUVs and people gone on summer vacation to places like Sandpoint and Vancouver, BC. We are most definitely in the suburbs.

  We stand in front of a house that’s lined with perfect magenta flowers and a tightly mowed parakeet-green lawn. From the front, no one would know a party was raging inside, except for the slight thumping of bass.

  All I can think about is Olga.

  You don’t change. Always the same. You delicate.

  I want to scream.

  “The burbs creep me out,” Leia says.

  “Why?” Baby Girl asks.

  “You know what hides under manicured nails?” Leia gestures to the flowers.

  “What?”

  “Dirt.”

  They exchange warm stares that speak of something more. “I don’t mind getting a little dirty,” Baby Girl says.

  “Me neither. As long as it’s organic.” Leia winks.

  Baby Girl says, “I’m in the process of cleaning out the bad stuff in my life. I’m not there yet. Can you wait?”

  Leia runs a hand over Baby Girl’s shaved head. “I can wait.”

  Love might be growing in the Valley, along with magenta flowers.

  “So what exactly do people do at parties?” I ask.

  Leia turns to me. “What do you mean?”

  “I want to do what people do at parties. So, what is that?”

  “They hang out. Listen to music. Dance. Drink.” She grins at Baby Girl. “Hook up.”

  “What about weed?”

  Leia shrugs. “Sometimes there’s weed.”

  “My weed days are over,” Baby Girl says. “I’m still clearing resin out of my head.”

  “Will there be weed tonight?” I ask.

  “Maybe,” Leia says.

  “I want to smoke some weed,” I say.

  “I didn’t think you were that kind of person.”

  The person I was isn’t working. She never worked.

  I say again, “I want to smoke some weed.”

  “First of all, smoking gives you lung cancer. And you know where I stand on that. Let’s see if anyone has an edible.”

  “Great. Have you ever been high before?”

  “Yes,” Leia says matter-of-factly.

  “What does it feel like?”

  Baby Girl says, with a hint of nostalgia, “Like . . . you’re in your body but not in your body.”

  “Fantastic. I want to get high.”

  Leia laughs. “Just whatever you do, stick to one edible.”

  “Why?”

  “Just trust me.”

  I take two.

  And when they kick in, it’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before. My feet are on the ground, but my head is in the clouds, and I know what it feels like to be a bird. To walk and fly in one body. For all my life I’ve been chasing this feeling, and all I needed to do was get high. But instead I followed Chief’s rules and his schedule and his stupid grocery list.

  The music is loud inside. People are everywhere. Leia introduces me to the roller girls—Pre-Keri-Us and Helen Killer and Annie Maul and so many more whose names go in one ear and fly right out the other. And they have muscles and tattoos and piercings and hair colors that clash with their auras, and yet it all looks so perfect.

  And there are people making out everywhere. In the bathroom. In the bedrooms. On the couch. Auras swirl together—tangerine mixing with eggplant mixing with midnight blue. It’s a rainbow of bodies.

  I can only half listen to what people a
re saying, because my skin keeps distracting me. It feels like I’m covered in a suit that I could take off and set to the side. I want to live in someone else’s skin suit. Like Leia’s. Then I would know what it’s like to kick some ass and to love with reckless abandon.

  I understand why Baby Girl tries on so many personalities. It feels good to set myself aside tonight and be someone new.

  “Can we trade bodies?” I ask Leia. “I think mine is broken.” I knock on my head. “I can’t feel a thing.”

  She laughs. “That’s the weed.”

  “Freud said, ‘Everyone is broken. Get used to it, and always have a spare tire,’” Baby Girl says.

  “No one here looks broken. They all look . . . badass.” I grab Leia’s bicep. It’s like my hands have their own brains tonight. They’re working without my consent. “I can’t even do a push-up.”

  “You just need to practice,” she says.

  “Luca gave me roller skates,” I confess. “He thinks I’m stronger than I am.”

  “Or maybe he sees something you don’t.” Leia shoves my arm, right where my muscles ache, and I wince.

  “How is it possible to look in the mirror every day and not see myself correctly?” I ask.

  “I’ve been wondering the same thing for eighteen years,” Baby Girl says.

  “It’s because corporate America manipulates you to see what they want you to see so you buy their products,” Leia adds. “Even though they’re all stuffed with parabens that cause breast cancer. But as long as you smell ‘powder fresh’ and don’t have white lines on your black shirt, your life is moving in the right direction and boys will like you.”

  “I haven’t worn deodorant in years,” Baby Girl says.

  “You’re better without it,” Leia says.

  “You’re a freaking prophet,” I say.

  “I just don’t like bullshit,” Leia says.

  “I’m pretty sure I painted bullshit on my sister’s walls,” I say.

  “So paint over it,” Leia says, like it’s nothing.

  “But I hid the paints in the basement, and now I’m afraid to go down there.” I try to make a muscle, but my arm is Jell-O. “See, I’m a wimp.”

  And right then, Helen Killer breaks into our conversation. “No more talking! More dancing!” She grabs Leia and Baby Girl and me and drags us into the living room, where music is blasting and people are dancing and no one gives a shit how expensive the furniture is. People are standing on couches and jumping off tables, and I’m pretty sure a vase is smashed on the ground, but the music plays on.

  Leia starts bouncing to the beat and swinging her arms, and soon her dark hair is flying all around her and she’s laughing uncontrollably. She takes Baby Girl by the hands and pulls her close, and they give each other this look that says, It’s OK. Go a little crazy.

  So Baby Girl does. She catches the beat, her hands clasped with Leia’s.

  “Come on, Wren!” Pre-Keri-Us yells in my ear.

  “I don’t want to break anything.”

  “Don’t worry about that! It isn’t a party unless something breaks!”

  Pre-Keri-Us howls like a wolf, and the rest of the roller girls echo her. It’s loud and powerful. The room has gone completely wild.

  And wild is catching.

  It starts in my toes and travels up my legs and into my belly and out to my arms, and before I can contain it, before I can think any better, I’m howling, too. And dancing with every inch of me, like I’ve never done before. My hair sticks on my lips and tickles my nose, and I whip my head around, making the room blurry, and spin. But this is what I wanted tonight.

  Then Leia is next to me, practically exploding. “Dance, Wren! Dance until you can’t feel it anymore!”

  And I know what she means—dance until my worries go numb. Until all I can feel is the burn in my muscles and the sweat on my skin. Until now I never understood why Lizzie spun herself into a tizzy. Why she would want the world to be in chaos.

  Because in chaos it’s impossible to focus. You can’t overthink. You can’t analyze. You can’t even see straight. All a person can do is be and let the world spin around her.

  I get it now.

  Leia laughs, and Baby Girl smiles, and I jump until my legs hurt and my heart is pounding so hard I think it might come out of my chest. I look down and swear I can see it knocking, like a bird in a cage, trying to break free.

  Knock, knock, who’s there? Are you going to let me out?

  When I look up, Baby Girl and Leia are kissing. But it’s not like other people hooking up with desperate, hungry lips and hands. Baby Girl and Leia are slowly discovering each other, taking their time, right here in the world’s messiest living room, and it’s beautiful.

  “Can I shave your head?” Leia shouts over the music.

  Baby Girl says, “Only if you’re careful with me.”

  Leia takes Baby Girl’s hand in the gentlest of ways, in the same manner Lizzie held Baby Girl when she was sad and broken in junior high—preciously—and they disappear upstairs.

  It’s magical, and I want Luca to touch me like that. Tears spring to my eyes before I can hold them back, so I go outside and lie under a blanket of stars. The night smells like a forest floor, like pine needles and dirt, even in the suburbs, where people cut down too many trees and hate messes. I lie like a gigantic starfish, sinking into the earth and letting it hold me like a mother should.

  I’m lying there by myself for what feels like a while. Each second that I’m here, I’m not with Luca. That fact sits heavy on my chest, making it hard to breathe. When the chaos settles, reality inevitably returns.

  I take my phone from my pocket to text Wilder.

  Me: I’m stoned

  Wilder: I’m jealous

  Me: I can’t feel my legs

  Me: Or my tongue

  Wilder: Wicked

  Me: Problem is I can still feel my heart

  Wilder: That’s the rub

  Lying back on the grass, I let my heart beat as it wants—wild and chaotic and broken and whole at the same time. Because that’s the rub—that something broken continues to work.

  In the background the party hums and life moves, broken and messy. Time slips away. Second by second. Breath by breath. Somewhere love is wandering the streets of Spokane. Waiting. And I know what it feels like to wait. Love shouldn’t have to.

  Somewhere the sun is shining cadmium yellow in the night.

  Lizzie is right. Monet hated lines, and yet I’ve painted too many of them.

  Me: I think I want to start a revolution

  Wilder: How?

  Me: It’s time to open the window Wilder

  25

  THE BUS STOP TO NOWHERE

  Leia and Baby Girl drop me off at Happy Homes Assisted Living Center. It didn’t take much to find Luca. All I had to do was text him. That’s the rub—doing what’s easy is sometimes the hardest of actions. Luca told me to meet him here.

  It’s late, well past my curfew. We had to drive around while I slugged down coffee, with all the windows down so the cool wind and caffeine could put my head back into place.

  We eventually found the light in the dark. Luca sits at the bus stop in front of the assisted living center. An ellipsis forced to be still, waiting. I’m sorry I took so long.

  “You need to start thinking of a name,” Leia says as I climb out of the car. One of her hands grasps the steering wheel. The other holds Baby Girl’s.

  “A name?”

  “Your Roller Derby name.”

  Baby Girl says, “Once you put a name to something, you can’t go back. Choose wisely. Labels are hard to pull off cleanly.”

  “And some labels lie,” Leia says. “Beware of deli meat.” She looks at Baby Girl with admiration and intimacy. “You’re a goddamn genius. You know that, right?”

  “I wish I would have known that in high school. I would have gotten better grades.”

  “Most teenagers are so hopped up on synthetic sugar, high-fructose
corn syrup, and food coloring, it’s a wonder our brains work at all. And parents think weed is a problem. It’s the most natural thing we put in our bodies.”

  “I love when you talk,” Baby Girl says. “I have keys to the carousel downtown. You want to break in and take a ride with me?”

  “I’d do anything with you.”

  As they leave, love hangs out the window of Leia’s truck and waves goodbye.

  I sit down next to Luca, not so close that our legs touch, but enough to flirt with the line of intimacy and warmth, and I don’t waste a second soaking up his cadmium-yellow light. When you miss something that much, you hug it close when it comes back. Now isn’t the time to play coy. Or play . . . anything.

  Now is the time to exist.

  For a while the only sound is the light summer wind traveling through the night, passing its way through Spokane to rattle the leaves and swirl loose garbage in parking lots.

  “When does the bus come?” I ask.

  “No one really knows.”

  “Well . . . where are you going?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” he says. “Alaska sounds kind of nice.”

  “That’s a long trip. I’d miss you if you went to Alaska.”

  Luca looks at me. “You would?”

  “I would.” My leg inches over to touch his.

  “OK. I won’t go to Alaska. Vancouver?”

  “Still too far.” Now my shoulder touches his.

  “Seattle.”

  “Not good enough.” I place my hand on his leg.

  Luca glances down at it. “I’m sorry. When you touch me, I lose all perception of time and place.”

  “We should probably just stay here, then.” Taking Luca’s hand in mine, I skim my palm against his and slowly tangle our fingers together.

  “It’s a good thing the bus never stops here,” Luca says.

  “Sounds like we’ll be waiting here for a while. Why don’t you tell me a story in the meantime?”

  So Luca tells me what happened. About his grandma, how she lived with him ever since he was a baby. How she has calloused hands from living on a farm most of her life, how her hands match her personality, and how even though she is rough, he loves her fiercely.