The three of us rode out of that parking lot like visiting dignitaries. When we were safely around the corner I hollered, “Pull over, pull over,” leapt out, and threw up on the curb.
Brenda handed me a bottle of water and a tissue. “What now?” she asked again.
“Now we go to the bank.” I rinsed my mouth and wiped my face and the two of us climbed back into the car. I slumped back against the seat. Christ, I need a drink, I thought, as she pulled away.
GRACE
It was a good thing my mom didn’t follow me to the fire station and try to haul me right back home again because I was right about the baby robin. He’d been on the ground because he was learning to fly, and that boy had picked him up too quick. And if she’d tried to make me dump that baby on the grass and leave, we’d have started fighting all over again, because somebody had to make sure no one else picked him up again.
Joe and I knew right away where the little guy belonged because his poor parents were still calling for him and flying all over the place, looking and looking. I was a little afraid they would dive at us when they saw us opening the box with their baby inside, but once we laid him on the grass, we backed away real fast so they’d see we weren’t going to hurt him.
Joe had to go back to work, but I stayed like I promised even though I didn’t have to because those robins were good parents and they came down right away. First one, then the other, giving him bits of food and yelling at him, probably telling him he was grounded for making them worry, and all the time trying to get him to fly.
I pulled out my cell phone and took pictures while he hopped around after them, mouth open, begging for more food. But they wouldn’t give him any more and after a while he tried to fly again. Just like the lady mockingbird, he went a little bit farther and a little bit higher each time. Landing on a garbage pail, then a bush, then a branch in one of the trees until he finally made it all the way to the next tree and disappeared.
I should have gone home myself then, finished cleaning up the rest of the cage. But if my mom was signing those papers, giving Chez Ruby to Lori, then I didn’t want to see it. And I sure didn’t want to be there if they started moving everything out right away.
I couldn’t imagine the kitchen without the barber’s chair. Couldn’t picture our house without women lined up on the couch, their heads wrapped in towels or slathered in hair color. All of them laughing and talking while my mom and I worked and the Andrews Sisters sang in the background. And I didn’t want to think about any of that right then either because it made my throat get all achy and the end of my nose start to burn, and it was too nice a day to cry.
I headed over to the ferry dock instead, to tell Joe the good news about the bird. But it was the middle of the day by then and the dock was jammed with people and I could see from the railing that he was really busy. So I went for a walk. Over the Algonquin bridge, and up and down all the streets. Except Lori’s. I didn’t want to see her street or her house. Didn’t want to know if she had a sign outside now or what she was calling the place. Or if some of my clients were there that very day, letting Lori do the back-combing and roller sets that should have been mine, all because they got the call from my mom days ago. I’m winding down the business. Don’t tell Grace.
Bitch.
That was Liz’s voice inside my head, and for the first time ever I didn’t tell myself that voice was wrong. I just kept walking because once Mark and Jocelyn left Algonquin and moved into my mom’s house, there was a good chance I would never walk over the bridge again.
I spent a long time wandering around, looking at what people were doing with their houses and their gardens. Wishing I wasn’t so mad at my mom because she’d like to know that the pink house with the white shutters was now a grey house with no shutters. But I wasn’t going to tell her anything. Just like she didn’t tell me anything.
When I got tired of walking, I went back to wait for the Ongiara. But when the ferry docked this time, it wasn’t Joe lowering the ramp. I couldn’t see him on the deck at all in fact and I figured he must have finished working and gone home. I told myself not to be disappointed. Just because he smiled and talked nice to me didn’t mean a thing. He was probably being polite, and I’d be silly to waste any more time thinking about that smile or those brown eyes, or the way his fingers touched mine before he left to get back on the ferry.
My mom always said there were no Prince Charmings in this world. But she’d found one, hadn’t she? And she was going to marry him, wasn’t she? And they were going to live happily ever after in her little castle where she would be queen forever and ever.
It was just me who couldn’t have a Prince Charming. Or a castle. Or a job or even a room where I could lock the door and say, Stay out of my stuff!
Jocelyn would probably put a lock on her door. I hoped so, anyway.
Leaving the dock, I hurried over to the tennis courts to see if that Fly or Die list was posted someplace and if anyone had bet on the right day. I didn’t know what to think when I saw my mom’s name in that spot. Ruby Donaldson, Five to Fly in One.
As curious as I was about why she put her name on that list, I didn’t ask her about it when I got home. I just took my dinner into my room, put a chair under the door, and stayed there all night. Lying on my bed, sending text messages and pictures of the baby robin to Liz.
She sent me pictures of her new friends, Brenda and Nadia, and they looked like they were having fun playing video games and drinking strawberry milkshakes. I was happy for her, glad she’d found some new friends. I didn’t tell her about Lori. Why spoil her night too?
The next morning, my mom left the stack of five-dollar bills on the table where I’d be sure to see it when I came down to go biking. She tried talking to me like it was any normal day. “Have you thought about a dress for the wedding? Would you like to see the invitations?”
I purposely hadn’t thought about a dress because there was never going to be anything fancy enough at the Bridge Boutique. And I did want to see those invitations more than anything, but I still couldn’t talk to her, couldn’t hardly look at her without that dumb lump in my throat starting all over again. So I said, “Maybe later,” and I didn’t tell her about the baby robin. Even though she’d won the Fly or Die bet, I still didn’t ask her about it.
“When is Lori coming to take everything away?” That was all I wanted to know.
She sighed. “Around ten today. We could use your help getting things packed up.”
“I won’t help,” I said, and she didn’t argue. Just watched me take my binoculars from the hook by the door, and my bird book from the shelf above that.
“Grace, you can’t keep this up,” she said when I got on my bike.
But she was wrong. I kept it up all the way down the walk and through the gate. As much as I wanted to, I didn’t look back once as I rode down the street and around the corner. I wasn’t going to wait for Jocelyn this morning, and I only hoped Mark had some groceries at his house for a change because I was not going home for breakfast either.
I thought I might run into Mark and Jocelyn along the way. But I was on their walk and almost to their front door before they stepped out onto the porch with Kylie, Brianne, and Courtney—all of them yawning and blinking in the sunlight.
“My dad let me have a sleepover,” Jocelyn said.
“Weak moment,” Mark mumbled on the way to his bike. “Is your mom up?”
“She was in the kitchen when I left. Are you helping her pack up everything?”
He looked down as he kicked back the stand. “I don’t like it any more than you do, Grace, but I can’t let her do it alone.”
I nodded because it was true. She would be his wife after all. And I would be what? There, I guess. I would just be there.
“Tell Lori to watch out when she’s moving my workstation around,” I said. “If you bump it over a cord or anything, one of the wheels will fall off.”
I should have warned him about my chair too. Tol
d him that if you turned it round and round too many times to the right, the seat would pop off. But I didn’t. Lori could find that out for herself one day.
“If my mom goes looking for my kit,” I added, “tell her I took it out of the workstation last night and I’m not telling her where it is. Those are my scissors and my combs, and no one else is getting their hands on them.”
Even if I only threw the kit in the Eastern Gap one day, it was my kit to do it with, not hers. And never, ever Lori’s.
“I’ll let her know.” He gave Jocelyn and the girls a wave and left, pedaling slowly toward the bridge.
“I still think her mom’s a bitch,” Jocelyn whispered to the girls then came down the stairs. “I told everybody they could come biking with us this morning. And that we’d look for the cuckoo too. Is that okay?”
We wouldn’t get to watch the planes, because that was still a secret—one Jocelyn was really good at keeping—but I didn’t care. We could see them tomorrow. Or not.
I looked from one girl to the other. “Do any of you have binoculars?”
Lucky for us, Kylie and Brianne’s mom and dad had two pairs of binoculars, so there would be enough to share. Mark still didn’t have a lot of groceries, but there was toast and peanut butter and orange juice, which was okay. Funny, but I didn’t miss the eggs as much as I thought I would.
After breakfast, we rode across the Island to the woods near Gibraltar Point and pulled our bikes off the road where Jocelyn and I had last heard the cuckoo. I showed the girls the picture in the field guide and told them how to use the binoculars, explaining that you had to move them nice and slow over the branches or you wouldn’t find anything.
They nodded and said, “Yeah, yeah,” pressed the binoculars to their faces and took off into the scrubby brush before I could tell them anything else. They were back in about two minutes, all of them frowning and shaking their heads.
“I think the only cuckoos around here are us,” Courtney said.
“He’s in there,” Jocelyn assured them. “I heard him.”
Brianne looked around. “I hear all kinds of birds. How do you find the one you’re looking for?”
“You have to listen carefully.” I put a finger to my lips to keep them quiet, closed my eyes, and listened. “Hear that? Four notes, really low, all the same. Cu-cu-cu-cu. Cu-cu-cu-cu. Then ten notes, higher but still all the same. Now back to four.” When I opened my eyes the three of them were still looking at me like I was making it up. “Close your eyes. It helps.”
They closed their eyes and scrunched up their noses and listened.
Kylie shook her head. “I don’t know what you’re …” Then all of a sudden she stopped talking and opened her eyes wide, like she was real surprised. “I heard it. He’s not as interesting as the mockingbird, but I heard him.”
Brianne scrunched her eyes up tighter. “I still don’t hear it.”
Her sister punched her on the arm. “He’s over there. Listen that way.”
Within a few more minutes, all the girls had heard him, and could make out the low cu-cu-cu-cu, without closing their eyes.
“Now all we have to do is find him,” Jocelyn muttered.
The girls headed off again, searching the branches, still finding nothing. “They like to hide,” I reminded them. “And the leaf cover is thick this time of year so you have to take your time. You have to be patient.”
“Come on, you stupid cuckoo,” Jocelyn said. “Where are you?”
“You’re not looking in the right place, any of you,” I said. “He’s over to the right.”
Courtney glanced back at me. “How can you tell?”
“Because I can hear him, clear as a bell, right through there.”
Jocelyn stuck her tongue out at me, then shifted the glasses to the right. The other girls did the same and started checking again, passing the bins back and forth, checking the branches from left to right a little more slowly this time.
After a few more minutes Brianne froze, binoculars pinned on something. Then she flapped a hand frantically. “Everybody, stop,” she whispered. “I see it. I see it!”
Kylie adjusted her position. “What’s it look like?”
“Brown on top. White chest. Just like the picture.” She grinned and held out the binoculars to Courtney. “You want to see?”
Courtney put the binoculars to her eyes. Brianne helped point her in the right direction and after a few seconds, Courtney’s mouth fell open. “I see it, I really do.” She lowered the binoculars and grinned at me. “Oh my God. I see it!”
“I still don’t see anything,” Jocelyn grumbled, then stopped moving the binoculars, held perfectly still, and grinned too. “It is there.” She held out the bins to me. “You want to see?”
I stared at the binoculars. Shook my head. “Cuckoos are pretty cautious. He’s probably gone by now.”
Jocelyn kept holding the binoculars out to me. “You don’t know that for sure.”
I took the bins and snapped the covers on the lenses. “Don’t worry. I’ll see it another day.”
“That was kind of cool,” Courtney said to her. “How come you never told me you were doing this?”
She turned to her friend. “Are you going to tell anyone you did this today?”
The girls all shook their heads. Probably not, they agreed.
“But it was fun,” Kylie said, obviously as surprised as Courtney.
“You’re really good at teaching people how to do it,” Brianne added.
“You should take people out birding and charge for it,” Courtney said. “Make it like a business, now that you’re not working and all.”
Jocelyn whacked her on the head. “Shit, Courtney, what is wrong with you?”
“It’s okay,” I said. “Plus it’s true. I’m not working and all.” I bent down to pick up my bike. “But I’m not a good enough birder to charge anybody anything. Maybe in another ten years, I can think about it.”
Kylie looked down at my bike. “Are we finished here already?”
“I think so.” I took a slow look around, hearing waxwings and warblers, finches and phoebes. Even a Lincoln sparrow, and all I could think was, so what? He’d be there tomorrow too. Or not. What difference did it make? There would always be another bird somewhere. If anyone wanted to find it.
I rolled my bike forward. “The birds are getting quiet now. Makes them harder to find.”
Jocelyn narrowed her eyes. She could hear that Lincoln as well as I could.
“Where to now?” Brianne asked.
“Feels like a swan day to me,” Jocelyn said, and wiggled her eyebrows when I glanced over at her. “What do you say?”
I smiled. “You hate the swans.”
“But we love them,” Brianne said, then shrugged, embarrassed. “We just don’t tell anyone that either.”
Jocelyn started to roll her bike forward. “Let’s go do some swan. Last one there sucks.”
The three other girls hopped on their bikes and shot out ahead. “How do we swan?” I heard Courtney asking just before they were out of range.
“You should hurry,” I said to Jocelyn. “Or you’re going to suck.”
She looked over at me. “You’re not coming, are you?”
I threw my leg over the bike. “Not this time.”
“What’s wrong with you?” she asked in her wonderful, blunt way.
“I’m just tired. I didn’t sleep much last night. And I promised Mary Anne I’d help her with wedding stuff today, so I should get back.”
She seemed to accept that and we started riding, neither of us hurrying to catch up. “I wanted to thank you for yesterday,” I said as we rolled along. “For telling your dad you don’t mind living on the Island. I know it’s not what you want and I wish things could be different—”
“One day it will be.” She smiled at me. “I really believe that.”
It was funny. In seven weeks, Jocelyn would start junior high school. In ten, she would be a teenager. But right
now she looked like a little girl. Nose freckled, eyes shining—trusting that everything was going to work out fine. And I felt nothing but old.
RUBY
I knew there were eggs in the nest the moment the mockingbird launched a surprise attack on a group of tourists. It happened around ten this morning. I was outside deadheading roses when they stopped by the gate, but they barely had time to raise their cameras before the male went to work. Diving, reeling, diving again—moving those interlopers along as efficiently as any of Grandma Lucy’s belly dancing routines, and without a single visit from the authorities. They were birds after all, protecting their nest. Not a dotty old woman with cymbals on her fingers.
To be honest, after everything the female had been through, I was surprised there were eggs at all. With the nest only five feet off the ground, I assumed it would be easy to take a quick look, find out how many she’d been able to lay. But those two birds drove me back before I had the first leaves parted. Flying at my head, beating their wings in my face, making it clear that I was tolerated as a neighbor but would never be a member of the family.
I went inside and asked Grace to take a look, certain she could find a way to take a peek, find out how many babies we could expect. But she shook her head and said, “We’ll know when they hatch,” which made sense but wasn’t at all what I expected of a committed birder.
Then she gathered up the box of Styrofoam balls and dowels that Mary Anne had assigned to her and went outside to work on centerpieces for the wedding—just as she had done for the last three days, ever since Chez Ruby changed hands. She was out there now, sitting on a blanket with a few of the neighbors, all of whom Mary Anne had recruited to help with her endless projects. Centerpieces, table favors—there was no end of silly things that needed doing. While Grace had never been the type to take up crafts, I could see she was enjoying herself. Laughing with Mary Anne, fishing for sequins with Carol, helping Renata with a glue gun—finally discovering that life without a blow-dryer could be fun.
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