Sugar Birds

by Cheryl Grey Bostrom

  “Other plans.”

  “We hired you because we need you. You coming back?”

  My job security was clearly intact. At a going wage of nine cents a pound, Farmer Leegwater wasn’t exactly fighting off applicants.

  “Sure. Tomorrow.” Given the farm’s location, they had me. Where else could I jog to work in twenty minutes, give or take?

  Eighteen minutes later, I was in the shower, sending sweaty grime and berry juice down the drain. By the time Cabot arrived at 11:00, I was on the front porch, squeezing water from my ponytail.

  Gram had met Jack Seamus, the “nice young veterinarian” who handled Loomis’s weekly herd health, so when I told her Cabot wanted to take me water-skiing with Jack and his girlfriend, she agreed not to turn Cabot’s car into a pumpkin before she set dinner on the table at 6:30. After all, we’d be outside. During daylight. In safe company, she must have figured. I’d remember that for next time. And since Daddy had canceled our Lake Chelan trip, perhaps she was trying to make up for it by allowing me to ski at least once before summer was over.

  Gram handed Cabot an insulated cooler at the door. “Lunch, kids. On ice. Have fun.”

  Cabot touched his cap and took the cooler from Gram as if it were a birthday gift. “You the best.”

  “Remember that.” She dropped her chin, knitted her brows.

  “You ever been on a slalom ski, Celia?” We were heading south to Lake Whatcom, a half hour away. His question confused me. I’d ditched my combo skis for a slalom when I was twelve; I’d told him that on our way up the mountain. I’d spent summers on the water since I was born. I had told him that, too.

  “Uh, yeah. A time or two.” When he saw me ski, he’d know.

  “Nice. We’ll get you going behind Jack’s boat. Water’s cold. Shelly’s got a wetsuit for you. Flat as glass out there today, so it shouldn’t be too hard for you. You ever ski tandem?”

  “Yeah, I—”

  “Wait’ll you see Jack and me. Shelly’s our driver. Solo, we’ve been pushing speed …”

  He gave me play-by-plays of his stunts: side slides, jumps, flips, three-sixties, tick-tock landings. As he talked, he occasionally drove the car with his knees, allowing his hands to jump and swerve like racing skis. I couldn’t get a word in edgewise, but I didn’t mind. His enthusiasm ramped me up. Best-looking guy north of the equator, and he was taking me skiing.

  We parked next to Jack’s truck and his empty boat trailer at a Bellingham city park. Forested foothills rimmed the lake, a “ten-mile, deepwater beauty,” as Cabot described it. Jack, a sandy-haired guy about my height, whistled and waved from the dock. A skinny girl with a huge blond perm was throwing life vests into the boat. Shelly. A pharmaceutical rep, Cabot said. Met Jack when she was selling cow drugs to his clinic.

  “So, robbing the cradle again, Cabot?” Shelly untied a line from the dock and exchanged a knowing look with Jack.

  Cabot laughed. “Celia, meet Shelly, stand-up comic and best driver in the state.”

  Shelly swatted Cabot with the boat’s bumper. “Who’s joking?” She tossed me a wetsuit and grinned. “Welcome aboard, Celia.”

  I slipped out of my shorts and tank top and quickly wrapped my towel over my swimsuit. I sensed Cabot’s eyes on me as I pulled on the wetsuit, and I fumbled with the zipper. I wasn’t used to anyone watching me like that. I was relieved when Jack pushed the boat away from the dock and Cabot’s attention shifted. He coiled the tow rope and sat in the rear-facing seat opposite me, studying the water as the boat planed toward the middle of the lake. Jack faced forward in the seat beside Shelly, reading the surface ahead. These people weren’t messing around.

  I liked that.

  Within minutes, Cabot was in the water, his ski tip pointing at the sky. Jack tossed him the tow line, Cabot signaled, and Shelly cranked the throttle. He rose from the lake and canted, launching a shining wall of lake water. Rainbows caught in it like flags, heralding a series of flawless stunts that hypnotized me. I couldn’t keep my eyes off him.

  When he pulled himself back into the boat, he shook his head and a thousand drops caught the sunlight in a sparkling arc. Matched the light in his eyes. He was radiant, his muscular good looks almost feral. My heart pounded so hard I forced myself to look away.

  After Jack skied his own admirable loop, it was my turn. I mentally clicked through his and Cabot’s stunts as I dropped into the water. I knew a few of them. Shelly started me out at about twenty miles per hour. I thumbed for more speed, jumped the wake in both directions and caught about four feet of air, finding my rhythm.

  What next? I rode straight behind the boat, mentally rehearsing, before I moved up on the wake, crouched, and landed a front flip without falling. Yes.

  Jack was laughing. Cabot’s mouth hung open, and he was pumping his fist. I fell during a hard slide but made up for it with a backward deepwater start. Two laps of the cove later, I climbed back onto the transom. I thought Cabot would give me a medal; he was that excited.

  Instead, he pulled me to him, with my back against his chest and his arms around my ribs, swaying with me as the boat turned and rolled in its wake, his chin on my shoulder, his breath hot against my ear. If those wetsuits hadn’t been between us, I expect I’d have melted. Even the brush of his legs against mine almost collapsed me.

  The day blurred by, mostly. Cabot filled the hours’ speed, the day’s race. When neither one of us was skiing, we sat in those back seats and spotted for Jack as he rode over the water.

  And stole looks at each other.

  By 3:00, an afternoon westerly kicked up a chop on the lake’s surface. “No point fighting this wind,” Jack said. “I’m on call tonight, anyway.”

  The spell broke. Froth seethed across the lake by the time we trailered the boat.

  At the Camaro, Cabot pulled on his sweatshirt and tossed me mine. Jack leaned out the truck window on his elbow as he and Shelly drove up beside us. Cabot called to him. “Vaccinate the dry cows tomorrow?”

  “You got it. I’m stopping by the office first. Won’t get to the farm until eight.”

  “While you’re there, will you pick up some ketamine? Gotta cut a cat for Loomis.”

  Jack laughed. “Will do. Anybody but you and I’d tell ’em to shove the cat in a boot like the old-timers do. We’re keeping that stuff under lock and key now. Date rape, party drug. Word’s out that veterinarians have it. Thefts all over the country.”

  “That tom’s gonna lose his balls, not use them.”

  Jack laughed again. “Remember what I told you about that scalpel. Bold strokes.”

  CHAPTER 22 ~ CELIA

  Blanket

  “What do you mean, ‘cut a cat’?” We were driving home from the lake through floodplain. Fields of pasture and young corn rolled to the foothills, with the westerly swirling the sunlit grass like cake batter.

  “Castrate him. That tom at Eppings’. Good mouser, but Loomis just got rid of the last litter. Doesn’t want the place overrun with barn cats.”

  “You know how? Why can’t Jack take care of it?”

  “Loomis won’t pay him for that. Nothing to it, anyway. Jack showed me on a bull calf at the dairy.” And then he was off, describing the process in detail far too vivid for my tastes. I was glad when sleepy little Marmot, population 894, interrupted his monologue, and he pointed to a bakery fronted with peeling, multipaned windows. I caught the aroma of fresh bread pouring through the screens. No reason to go home early. We still had a couple of hours.

  He ordered two apple fritters, which the clerk slid into a white bag. I’d asked for a cinnamon twist, but I guess he didn’t hear me. Cabot handed them to me and ordered a maple bar. He bumped the second bag against the fritters in a toast. “For Pam,” he said.

  “Pam?”

  “My mom. You won’t mind if we drop it by her house. I’ll be quick.” The jamb bell jingled, and he held the door. “A few blocks thattaway.” He thumbed toward a side street.

  “You always call her
Pam?”

  “I do.”

  Two minutes later, we pulled up in front of a freshly painted white bungalow with a brown asphalt roof and a deep green, weedless lawn. Not a tree or flower in the yard, but the place was tended, tidy. Someone peeked through closed drapes covering a picture window, then snapped them shut again.

  “Wait here,” he said. “Three minutes, max.” He took the maple bar from my lap and went inside.

  Cabot had a mother, and he took her doughnuts.

  I could barely claim half of that equation. The pain flared as I waited for him. For three months, the day Mother left had been scorching me. I leaned my head against the side doorframe and remembered. Precisely.

  Thursday, March 12, 1985—after track practice. An ice pack wrapped my knee as I hobbled out of the trainer’s room with Meredith.

  “Uh-oh. Dragon alert.” She pointed at a silver Beemer idling at the curb.

  Mother. Why now? She hadn’t shown for any of my activities all year. I pried Mer’s fingers off my arm and lowered myself into the car.

  “Hurt it again?” Mother kneaded the ice as if it were putty.

  I smiled and shook my head. “Nah. Just a precaution.”

  Her friendly question unzipped the wariness that usually insulated me against her indifference. Had I moved up on her priority list? I’d never beat out one of her stupid consulting gigs. Still, I felt a ridiculous shred of hope.

  “Good. You need your knees.” Her voice had a lilt in it. She actually hummed as she drove. My heart warmed like a piece of toasting bread, while I sat in surprised silence—until I saw our house ahead.

  “Three more driver’s ed classes. Come to my test?” When she didn’t reply, my voice shrank to that of a shy four-year-old. “You can think about it, I guess.” Her humming continued, quieter. “How was work?” We pulled into the garage and I unsnapped my seat belt. “Can you guess my 800-meter strategy for Saturday?”

  No answer. I sensed that familiar tide of dread, incoming. “Annie got appendicitis. Her fever—”

  “Celia Elizabeth, catch a breath. I came to get you for a reason.”

  Of course she did. Heat rose in my cheeks. I picked at a fingernail and waited.

  “I’m leaving.” Mother checked her lipstick in the rearview mirror.

  “What do you mean, you’re leaving? You just got home.”

  “Franklin offered me a contract in Chicago and I’m taking it.”

  “How long this time?”

  Judith E. Burke, JD, MBA—a.k.a. my mother—flew away from our family at the first whiff of a business takeover. Highstakes mergers, her specialty.

  “This is different. I’m moving out. You and your father will get along fine. Better, probably.”

  So nonchalant. Like telling me about a hair appointment. My eyes watered, but I realized I wasn’t surprised.

  “Does Daddy know?”

  “I’ll tell him tonight.”

  I closed my eyes as she left the car. Her heels clicked across the garage floor; the door to the house banged shut.

  When my father pulled into his stall an hour later, I still sat balled up in Mother’s passenger seat, only now my body buzzed and shook. Daddy had no idea what was waiting for him inside. I wanted to intercept him, protect him from her.

  Yeah, right. What could I do? I could scarcely breathe, much less help my father. I slid below the windows until he went in the house. Then I stumbled to our side yard and slumped beside a trash can, where my sobs erupted. And wore me out.

  When I climbed the stairs to bed, lamplight and my parents’ muffled voices leaked under their door. At 1:20 a.m., the garage door rumbled below me and a car drove out. Mother hadn’t contacted me since, except for that feeble card on my sixteenth birthday.

  Oh, I hated crying over that woman. Hated how she didn’t care if I cried or not. Hated what she was doing to my father. And to me. Hated that I’d welcome her back quick as a two-minute egg.

  Cabot emerged from that little white house scowling. He shoved the key in the ignition, revved hard, and dumped the clutch. Tires squealed.

  “She like her doughnut?”

  “Too wasted to care.”

  I opened the glove box. Closed it.

  “That bites.”

  “I’m used to it. She spends half her life in bed.”

  “How often you see her?”

  “Actually, every day. I live there. We don’t talk much, but I make sure she eats. Try to keep the place up, the outside at least. Inside’s another story. She’s a pig. Looks like a bomb went off.”

  “Hm.” I turned off the radio. “Rehab?”

  “Tried. Digs her heels in. Says she’s sterilizing her memory.”

  “From?”

  “My dad, I guess.”

  “Can’t he help her?”

  “He’s long gone. Started hauling cattle after we lost our dairy.”

  “You had a farm?”

  “Yeah. Out past Deming. Seventy-five cows. Forty acres. Nice little place. Until our herd tested positive for bangs … that’s brucellosis. Undulant fever … when I was eight. Slaughtered every animal. With no milk check, we missed payments. Sold the place cheap. Dad bought a cattle truck and started moving bovines before I turned ten.”

  “So where is he now?”

  “Met a chick at a California farm where he delivered a load of Holsteins. Moved down there. Still comes through occasionally with a shipment, but he doesn’t call anymore.”

  “Man. That hurts.” I knew how much.

  “I checked out drivers in every cattle truck for years.”

  I saw the little boy in him as he talked. His yearning for his father. How he wanted to make something of himself, to prove that his dad had made a mistake by tossing him away. No wonder he bragged or monopolized a conversation or didn’t listen sometimes. Part of him was still ten years old.

  “I made two decisions after he left.” Cabot slouched, sullen, his wrist slung over the wheel. “Am sticking by them, too.”

  “I bet.” I touched his shoulder. Let my hand drop.

  “Nobody’s gonna dump me like that again.” His left leg jiggled.

  He didn’t mention me when he said that, and I was glad. I hadn’t known him long enough to dump him, and if I could hold out picking strawberries, I’d be sitting on a bus in a few weeks. Reminding him seemed unwise. He wore a dour look I hadn’t seen on him before.

  His skunk father had ditched him, just like mine had. And with a mother sailing around in a vodka sloop, of course he’d be pissed.

  I could relate. No way I’d talk to my dad when he called. Felt good to hurt him like he had hurt me. He’d written me two letters, but I would not tear into those envelopes and let him get to me that way. I’d make my own plans now.

  “And?”

  “And what?”

  “The other decision?”

  He downshifted. “Nobody’s gonna take what’s mine.”

  “Or?” I shouldn’t have asked.

  “They’ll pay.” He punched the accelerator and passed a tractor hauling a silage wagon. Even his car sounded angry.

  The rest of Cabot’s story unwound along the country roads that led us away from Pam’s house—until he braked at an intersection and heaved a sigh. “We’ve got time yet,” he said. “Gotta show you something.” We crossed a two-lane bridge over the river and took a hard left down a deserted farm road, where the dirt lane dead-ended at a secluded crescent of sand. “I fish here sometimes,” Cabot said. For the first time since we left his mother’s, he turned to me and smiled, his expression melancholy, vulnerable.

  He pulled a blanket from the car and spread it in the shade at the water’s edge. I still carried the weight of his mood, but he brightened some when I sat beside him and bumped my shoulder against his. Dragonflies hovered over the green river’s surface. Barn swallows flung themselves after caddisflies in a reckless aerial ballet. The tension I’d felt on the drive eased.

  He dropped onto his elbows, then lay on
his back and slowly traced circles below my shoulder blades.

  “Spell something,” I said.

  “Huh?”

  “With your finger. Draw a word. I’ll guess it.” I kept my eyes on the water while he wrote SKI on my back. RAVEN. I turned to him and raised my eyebrows. “Too easy. I’m good. Try again.”

  “That you are.”

  “Gimme a sentence.” I was in uncharted territory, stalling.

  Wordlessly, he took my shoulders and drew me onto my back beside him. His arm bent under my neck, and he palmed my head.

  “My family. Never told anybody all that before, Celia.”

  “I can relate.”

  He didn’t ask how. Instead, he leaned over me. Brushed my lips with his. Then he lifted his head, searched my eyes, and found my mouth again, seeding me with heat I couldn’t arrest.

  And didn’t want to. I kissed him back this time, pulling him tight against me. His breathing quickened and the muscles in his back tensed. He rolled me up onto his chest, his hands in my hair, his fingers swirling in my scalp as his lips traveled over my cheeks and chin. Down my neck. His hands curved over my shoulders, exploring my sides, kneading my lower back. His kisses grew more urgent.

  I took his face in my hands and returned them. I swear my skin purred as he touched me with those inoculating fingers.

  His lips grazed my ear. “My beautiful Celia. Made for me.” He was whispering. “All mine now.”

  Though I wasn’t thinking too clearly, something seemed off. All mine now. All his? He’d known me for days, and now he was claiming me?

  I was beginning not to care when he reached under my shirt.

  I gripped his wrists. Got to my knees, reeling.

  “Time to go, Cabot.” I tapped my watch. I had no idea what my tone of voice conveyed. “Mender’s waiting.” I was the teeniest bit thankful that she was.

  He sat up, exhaled through vibrating lips, and ran his hands over his head. Scrubbed his cheeks with his palms. “Yeah.” His torso rocked. “Six thirty. Yeah.”