Bird After Bird

by Leslea Tash

  There’s something really relieving about work like that. You just have to do it to get through it. You don’t have to feel it, acknowledge it, claim it, or heal from it. It’s just work. Back then it was just math.

  “Billy’s got a great voice,” I said. “You must be so proud.”

  “I hope the baby takes after him,” she said. Her eyes shone with happiness. I didn’t want what she had, but I couldn’t help but be happy for her. “Did you know we’re getting married next month? I’ve always wanted to see Gatlinburg! It’s full of wedding chapels. Just like Vegas.”

  The band started an Avett Brothers tune and Laurie swept me into his arms to slow dance. I was having trouble relaxing into the rhythm. Lynette was sweet, but I worried that Cindy Wiseman would show up again and launch into me.

  “What’s wrong? Is Lynette annoying you?”

  I smiled. “She’s fine. Really sweet, actually.”

  “So what is it? This place just too boring?”

  I didn’t answer, but I tried to smile.

  “That’s it, isn’t it?” he said. “Don’t worry, I just gotta slap Billy on the back a few times in congratulations, then we can hit the road.”

  I was just about to agree with him when Peter cut in. “You don’t mind do ya, kid?”

  Laurie bit his lip, then smiled. His eyes said that he minded very much, but he couldn’t answer before Peter pulled me away.

  “Surprised to see you slumming it with that Byrd kid,” Peter said. His breath smelled like a brewery.

  “Not half as surprised as I am to be slumming it with you right now, Pete.”

  He laughed. “Touché. God, I’ve missed you, Birdy.”

  “Don’t call me that,” I said.

  Peter laughed, pulling his face away from mine to give me an appraising look. “Your boy. He’s a few years younger than you, right? Can’t handle a man your age?” He pressed his body against mine and I pushed him away, but he held me firm in his arms.

  As Laurie came to my rescue, I heard laughter in the doorway leading out to the deck. Red cup in hand, Cindy Wiseman laughed as she entered the bar.

  Chapter Thirty-three

  Wren

  Cindy hovered on the edge of the bar whispering to Pete and laughing, not even trying to hide the fact she was pointing at me. I desperately wanted to leave, but Laurie was talking to Lynette and waiting to give his best friend a congratulatory hug.

  I had a raging headache, and when the band finally broke, it was at the tail end of an electric banjo solo Billy performed under the guise of covering “Purple Haze.”

  “You haven’t lived until you’ve heard a drunk redneck banjo rendition of Jimi Hendrix,” said no music fan, ever.

  It felt like Laurie and Billy talked forever. Billy was asking Laurie to sing and he was shaking his head no. “Not if my life depended on it, man.”

  “One of these days, brother. I know you still got it. Heard you singing Sweet Home Alabama at the shop the other day.”

  “Speaking of Sweet Home, I’m gonna take Wren and head out.”

  Billy leaned in and said something that earned him a middle finger salute in return. Laurie didn’t tell and I didn’t ask. Some things can just remain a mystery between guys, as far as I was concerned.

  My ears rung all the way home.

  We made an early night of it, and though I loved the sweet comfort of Laurie’s body wrapped around mine, I couldn’t get the harsh memories of growing up in Birdseye out of my mind. The altercation with Cindy from a couple months prior had been easy to forget in Chicago, but seeing her tonight brought back unnecessary torment.

  We lingered over coffee in the morning, watching the full variety of wild birds visit Laurie’s feeders through the floor-to-ceiling windows in his living room, even as Hap worked double-time trying to scare them off. “This is such a gorgeous space,” I said. “I feel like I could just step right out into the woods.”

  “Come here,” he said, taking me by the hand. “I want to show you something. It’s about time I gave you the full tour.”

  Laurie showed me his childhood bedroom-cum-art studio, and I was speechless at the beauty of the forest mural. Immediately I realized that if I stood in the right spot, the trees would line up with the outdoors. As an Eastern Towhee alighted on the window frame, I wasn’t sure if I was looking at a real bird or part of Laurie’s painting. “It’s breathtaking, Laurie. Really. You are so talented.”

  “Thanks,” he said. “Nothing like that Hartt you’ve got on your wall, but I was proud of it when I first started it, in middle school.”

  “You know all about my heart, Laurie,” I said, winking. His face lit up and I loved it. I gestured to the wall. “You did this as…a child?”

  He nodded.

  “You should have been tapped for art school, you know that?”

  He grimaced, and turned off the light switch.

  I found him in the living room a few moments later, one long leg slung over the side of an easy chair as he sipped his coffee and watched a half-dozen Cardinals bicker and chase each other away from the suet cakes.

  “I can see why you stay here,” I said. “The whole house feels like you. My dad’s house was like that.”

  “You going to sign the papers?”

  I took a deep breath, then sat in the opposing chair, popping out the leg rest before reaching for my coffee. Laurie had chosen a white mug with an owl motif for me, and its cartoonishly large eyes loomed up at me, making me smile at the serious question. “Yes, I think I should. I don’t live there. I don’t like the idea of the place going to waste.”

  “You know whoever buys it is going to change it, right?” Laurie said quietly.

  “Yeah, I know. Everything changes.” I gave him a grin. “It’s okay. I’ve got my memories. Remember the bird book? And—”

  I started to say “I’ve got you,” but he beat me to it.

  “I know it doesn’t make sense, because I’m not from your old home, but…you’ve got me, Wren. No matter what. You’ve got a home in my heart and wherever I lay my head there’s room on my pillow for you.” He reached out and touched my foot, the closest part he could reach, and squeezed. I felt my whole body warm with the love of his touch.

  “I brought something to show you,” I said, getting up and finding my bag. Inside the bird book, I found the snapshot Kerry Price had said was of Laurie and me.

  Birds of a feather, my Dad had written. Something like that, anyway. I knew I had met my match.

  Now to meet his family.

  Chapter Thirty-four

  Wren

  “So, I’ve got something to tell you,” Laurie said as we pulled up in front of his parents’ home. It was a nice place, all beiges and bricks and gabled windows.

  “Yes?”

  “It’s my Dad’s birthday.”

  “Oh. I don’t even have a card for him.”

  Laurie pulled a greeting card out of the glove box. “No big deal. Sign your name to mine.”

  I smiled. “I guess that makes us official, huh?”

  “Not until after you sign. Then it’s a contract,” he said, winking.

  “Did you bring him a gift?”

  Laurie shook his head. “No, Mom doesn’t believe in giving gifts to men, so Dad and I don’t really expect stuff like that on our birthdays. We usually get a Christmas present, but on our birthdays ‘your presence is our present’ is the usual line.”

  “Wow, Laurie, that’s…” He’d warned me his mom was a bit harsh, but no presents for men on birthdays? Did she not realize how unfair that was?

  “Don’t worry about it, I just wanted to let you know. Anyway, we won’t stay long.”

  As we walked up the drive, I was greeted by a voice I hadn’t heard in years.

  “Wren!”

  “Louisa?”

  I was surprised to learn Louisa Byrd was Laurie’s older sister. I’d known her in school. We weren’t close, but she was one of the cooler girls in Math Club—okay, the only ot
her girl in Math Club—and we’d gotten along really well during math tournaments.

  “So awesome to see you,” I said, and meaning it. Between meeting with the realtor and my headache from the night before, Laurie’s warnings about his family had really started to get to me. It was a real relief to find a friend waiting in the driveway. “Laurie made your family out to be a bunch of savages,” I said in her ear, as she gave me a hug.

  Louisa laughed. “My little brother’s not wrong,” she said. “Dad’s cool, but I want to extend advanced apologies on behalf of my mother and little sister. Neither Laurie nor I have been able to teach them manners—and Dad’s given up trying.”

  Louisa gave her baby brother a quick hug and they led me into the garage, where a door to the kitchen was open, smoke rolling out. I started to ask if everything was okay, but Laurie leaned in to whisper “Mom’s not such a great cook, but don’t tell her that.” Louisa nodded in agreement, making a “shh” gesture over her lips.

  I wanted to ask Louisa if she had a spouse or significant other that I would meet over dinner, but before I could get the words out, a little pug-nosed blonde was filling the doorframe.

  “So. This is the great Wren Riley we’ve heard so much about?” she chirped. Her attitude was strange. Was she joking? It didn’t feel welcoming, but I was sure she thought she was being witty. She reminded me of Nellie Oleson from Little House on the Prairie reruns.

  “Nice to meet you,” I said, extending my hand. “You must be Jo.”

  She ignored my hand and mock-curtsied, then laughed as she spun and re-entered the smoky kitchen. I followed Laurie and glanced back at Louisa at my rear. Louisa rolled her eyes. “She’s nineteen, but she still shows off like a two-year old,” she whispered.

  Laurie reached for my hand, and pulled me through the cloud to the dining room, where the door to the back deck was open. As though this were a familiar drill, he started opening and closing the door to fan the air.

  His mother emerged, waving a kitchen towel and cursing. She didn’t make eye contact, and I was grateful. Although she was only about five feet tall and couldn’t weigh more than 100 lbs., she was pretty scary.

  A big man came lumbering up from the basement, holding a fire extinguisher. “Need this?” He smiled my way after his shrieking wife ignored him. “The Dairy Bar is open—want me run out for corn dogs?”

  He said it so softly I thought there was no way his wife could have heard him, but she stopped waving her towel long enough to shoot him a withering look. Through gritted teeth, she swore, “You mention that god damned Dairy Bar one more time, and you’ll get a corn dog up your ass!”

  She stormed back into the cloud that filled her kitchen and opened the window over the sink.

  “Um, should we go?” I asked Laurie.

  He and Louisa eyed one another, wan matching grins on their faces. “Whenever you’re ready,” Laurie said.

  I shook my head and started for the open garage door, but I felt a hand on my arm, pulling me back.

  “Not so fast!” Jo said. “Give Mom a few minutes to chill out and she’ll be human again, I promise. She’s just blowing off steam…or smoke, I guess.” Jo was cute, her long blonde spiral-curled hair making her look almost unrelated to her darker-complected siblings. “C’mon. I’ll show you around.”

  I didn’t want to be completely rude to the Byrd family, so I went along.

  The house was well decorated in that vaguely generic style so many parents seemed to favor. Soothing, non-descript colors accented by the art show find of the month or Hallmark shop knickknack; a spare bedroom outfitted in the latest color combo craze; and a den with built-in bookcases, lined with crisp new tomes bearing uncracked spines, as though the books were bought with good intentions and never read. A sewing room upstairs revealed a mannequin modeling a work-in-progress. “Mom’s making me a dress,” Jo shared, running her fingers down the side seam. She took me by the hand and led me away. “C’mon. There’s more.”

  We passed four bathrooms on the tour, each of them so spotless I was sure no one ever used them. With the exception of the smoke-filled kitchen, the house was comfortable enough, if excessively bland.

  “And where is your room?” I asked Laurie.

  “I don’t have a room in this house. When they moved, I stayed in the old one.”

  “Same for me, sorta. I was in college when they moved,” Louisa said. “Feels kind of weird, not having a room in your parents’ house, but…whatever.”

  “These two have shitty taste, anyway,” Jo said, leaning into our huddle. “I can whisper, too, you know. C’mon, Wren, I’ll show you my room.”

  The last room on the second floor was the biggest. Cascades of blue ribbons lined one wall, and a shelf bearing a row of glittering tiaras rode atop it. I recognized the achievements from reality television. “You do pageants?”

  Jo nodded, reaching up for the biggest crown of the bunch. “I was Miss Dubois County this year. Did Laurie tell you that? Fourth runner up for Ms. Indiana.”

  “Uh, no, sorry. Congratulations!”

  Jo smiled, a tight-lipped grimace. “Would have been nice to have the whole family at state, but somebody was in Chicago that weekend.”

  “And I wonder why, with such a charming little sister,” Laurie said. “I’m sorry, Wren. Jo’s figured out how to wear a swimsuit and answer questions about world peace, but she’s still a little twerp. Let’s go say happy birthday to Dad and then we can split.”

  It was such an awkward situation, I didn’t know what to say. I went along with Laurie as he pulled me downstairs to the main floor, then out onto the back deck where his father was taking some sun. “Jo’s being herself and Mom’s no better, so we’re just going to sneak out,” he said. “Meet you at the Dairy Bar later?”

  His dad waved us off, and we were almost to the car when I heard a blood-curdling scream from the garage. I turned on my heel, terrified, and realized Laurie’s mother was running at us, full-steam. She wore an apron that was charred on one corner, as though she’d set it on fire trying to prepare dinner. “Oh, no you don’t!” she yelled. “Laurence Byrd, don’t you dare leave now!”

  My headache upgraded itself from dull roar to F5 tornado.

  The neighbors on either side of the Byrds’ home were out working in the yard, or talking to one another on their porches. You could practically hear the neighborhood screech to a stop as all eyes turned to watch the drama in the Byrd driveway.

  Laurie hesitated, eyeing his car. Louisa stood slump-shouldered in the garage, a hand hiding her face. When Jo flounced out and stuck out her tongue Louisa mock-choked her from behind. I couldn’t help but smile.

  And that was when Laurie’s mother finally made eye contact with me.

  “Is this funny to you, Ms. Riley? Yes, yes, I know you. I knew your mother, Lark.” She said the word mother like most people would say bitch. “You look just like her.”

  I wasn’t sure what to say. “Nice to meet you” didn’t seem like it would cut it. I wasn’t used to people bringing up my mother, anymore—and Laurie’s mom seemed like she’d despised her. I wanted to escape and didn’t understand why she wanted us to stay.

  Laurie stepped closer to me, and put his arm around me. He opened his mouth to speak, then seemed to think better of it. His eyes were flashing rage. He opened his mouth again, and stopped.

  His mother looked up at him, wiping her hands on her apron and grinning like she’d just called checkmate in some elaborate game of dysfunctional family chess. She tapped her foot.

  And maybe this was their family dance, which would explain why Laurie didn’t want to get me involved. But, screw it—I was a grown up. It wouldn’t be the first or the last time I stepped on some toes.

  “Mrs. Byrd, is there anything we can do to help with dinner? Laurie and I were just about to run to the corner store for some…for some gum, anyway. Can we pick anything up for you?”

  I used my business tone—the tone of voice that said in the nicest
of all imaginable ways “I am capable, I am smart, and I will not be intimidated by you.” It was the tone that got me where I was at Parker & Bash. It was the tone I used to say goodbye to boyfriends I never wanted to see again. It was the tone I used with the realtor today when I’d counter-offered the buyers for ten-thousand more dollars on the selling price of my father’s home. It was Business Wren. And Business Wren by all accounts was a tough lady to say no to.

  Mrs. Byrd took a deep breath. “Call me Lynda,” she said, her visage softening. “And as long as you won’t be gone too long, you can pick me up some cigarettes. I picked the wrong weekend to stop smoking.” She smiled then, and I caught a glimpse of the beauty she used to be. “Do you need some money, sweetie?”

  Laurie shook his head no, and walked me to the car. “Be right back, Mom,” he said.

  On the way to the store he was silent. He didn’t speak until I asked him what brand his mother smoked. After a quick dash into the store while he waited in the car, he turned to face me, smiling. “I’m so sorry. I told you she was nuts.”

  I smiled. “You did. You did, indeed.”

  “And she has no idea how thoughtless it was of her to ask someone who lost two parents to lung cancer to go buy her cigarettes.”

  “I know. But you can’t go through life expecting people to remember that.”

  “I’m embarrassed,” he said, giving me a sad smile.

  “Why?”

  “Because my family is so dysfunctional and I let my mom scream at us like that. I wanted to tell her that if she was going to scream at me, I wasn’t going to stick around, but—“

  “But what?”

  “The last time I did that, she smacked my face.”

  “Shit, Laurie. How old were you?”

  “It was the night before I left for AIT.”

  As he parked the car in front of his parents’ McMansion, he looked thoroughly exhausted. I reached up and touched his cheek with the back of my hand. His fingers closed in mine, pressing it into his flesh until his stubble tickled me and I pulled it away.