Mom puts the yellow roses in a vase on a table at the bottom of the stairs, next to the wilted red ones our dad gave her earlier this week. They smell so strongly as they wither and die that I nearly gag every time I pass them. I smell the roses and think of women let down by other women. Women who are told their obedience is more important than their voice, not by their husbands, but by their mothers, their friends. Women willing to watch each other get hurt for the sake of image and tradition.
After a few days, I can’t take it anymore, and I march the vases out to the trash cans and dump the flowers on top. I want to leave them there so Mrs. Stieg can see them in the garbage, but I don’t. I bury them under a bag, and even the trash is a more welcome smell than the rotting sweetness of those flowers.
Chapter Six
ON MONDAY, WHEN WE WALK PAST Mrs. Stieg’s home to get to our bus stop, something catches my attention. Beyond the crows lining her fence, in the far corner of her garden, another bush has been decimated. Not just broken like the first bush, but pulverized. All that’s left is disturbed dirt and pieces of crimson petals, smashed branches . . . nothing is intact.
When I point it out to Campbell, she shrugs, but there’s something there—something in Cam’s big brown eyes that shine with pride—and I know that if I checked her bike right now, I’d find matching bits of crimson petals on the tires.
I don’t check.
Chapter Seven
SOMETIMES IT FEELS LIKE I’M STANDING on a precipice, and there’s nothing below to catch my fall.
When I feel like this, I reach for someone else’s words to pull me back. To remind me that the world is bigger than my home. Bigger than Auburn. It’s the best thing I inherited from Mom—her love of words. She loves classic literature and poetry, and every memory of my childhood smells like the stacks of paperbacks she’d stash all over the house. She made books our home in a way our house never was.
But now I can’t stand the classics. She always said they were romantic, but someone always ends up brokenhearted or dead. Or brokenhearted and then dead. As though tragedy is the only ending that has meaning.
These days, I’ll take journalism over literature. I’ll take truth over grief. Leave romance at the door, I’m a newspaper girl.
But I still have to take lit class, and we are learning Tess of the d’Urbervilles, so I’m not done with the tragedies quite yet. I slip into class early, flipping through the chapters we were supposed to review this weekend. When Liam enters the room, we make eye contact, and he nods at me.
I quickly look down at my book.
But when he sits at the back of the room, I can’t help glancing at him. Naturally, Liam sits with the most popular kids, but in AP English it’s a special subset. The very smart populars. They sit with their desk pushed up to their boyfriend or girlfriend, somehow always just at the periphery of following the rules. Alexis and Brody are on-again, off-again, but today their desks are pressed tight, and his arm is wrapped around her shoulders. They are both tall and blond and leggy and athletic. People always stereotype popular teens as dumb, but they’re just teens with better-than-average social skills. Why stop at homecoming court when they can have Harvard? Especially when there’s nothing that would keep them from actually going.
On the other side of Brody is Amelia. She is definitely Harvard material. She has perfect teeth and parents who are surgeons, and she can probably quote both Austen and the latest Glamour magazine. The truth is, I’ve always been a little envious of Amelia. It seems like she’s friends with everyone. She’s approachable. Even if I wanted to be warm, inviting, I wouldn’t know how to untangle myself from all the barbed wire I’ve placed around me. It’s in the set of my jaw. The way my shoulders turn away from people. “Proceed with Caution” screams my body language, and it’s the only language I know anymore.
When my gaze returns to Liam, his desk is like an island. I guess he isn’t really a lone wolf when he’s the kind of guy who perpetually has a girlfriend, but somehow he still looks alone. Set apart. Like he has a little buffer around him. I think by senior year in such a small town, our social interactions are almost on autopilot. It’s been a long time since any of us has looked up. Or at least that’s true for me. Which is why I probably wouldn’t be noticing Liam if he hadn’t mistaken me for Lyla Jacobs.
Mrs. Riley launches into our Tess lesson, and I try to stop thinking about Liam and focus on her. Mrs. Riley teaches with Ms. Frizzle–level enthusiasm. She’s eccentric and loud. She runs the newspaper, too, so I’m used to her antics, but it feels a little offbeat when we are discussing gender inequality in the nineteenth century.
“The social commentary is considered way ahead of its time, especially when it comes to women. Any thoughts on this?” Mrs. Riley asks.
“What was he, like, a feminist? Can guys even be feminists?” Brody asks. He’s reclining in his seat now, and manspreading so hard that his leg blocks the whole aisle between desks.
He says feminist like it’s a dirty word.
“How do you define feminism, Brody?” Mrs. Riley asks.
“Uh, frigid bitch—I mean—chicks in pink hats?” Brody says, and chuckles break out throughout the room. I mess with my copy of Tess, folding the corners of pages like I’ll need them for something. If Mrs. Riley asks, I’ll tell her I was marking every time some pompous, entitled ass tried to ruin Tess’s life.
“Anyone else?” Mrs. Riley opens the question up to the room. “Leighton?”
“Sure, ask the ice queen about feminism,” Brody mutters.
My cool, collected exterior precedes me. Ice queen. Last year, I turned Brody down for junior prom, and he’s been making snide comments ever since about me being too cold for any guy to thaw out. He didn’t just ask me out, he promposed, getting down on one knee in the lunchroom and giving me a box that held the dance ticket. And I said no. In front of everyone. Public rejection didn’t sit well with Brody, and he’s called me an ice queen ever since.
“Guys can be feminists,” I say, and thirty sets of eyes turn in my direction. I’m feeling sharp around my edges today. “But probably only the more evolved ones.”
“Like me,” Liam says. “I’m a feminist.”
“Great,” Mrs. Riley says. “Define it.”
He falters. “Uhh. Wage gap. Wonder Woman. Bra burning?”
“Oh God, please stop,” I say.
“Thank you,” Liam says. “That was all I had.”
“You probably are a feminist, though. It just means you think women deserve equal rights. It’s not that complicated or scary. The hats aren’t mandatory,” I say.
“Sounds stupid,” Brody says.
“What’s stupid is thinking a girl is obligated to go out with you just because you asked her.”
“Retract your claws, kitty cat, this isn’t a protest,” Brody says, puckering his lips and blowing me a kiss.
“Go to hell, Brody,” I snap.
“All right, that’s enough,” Mrs. Riley says. “Let’s get back to Tess.”
The conversation veers back into the nineteenth century, but there’s still some commotion in the back of the room. “Leave her alone,” Liam says, kicking at Brody’s outstretched leg so that he pulls it back under the desk.
Liam.
I steal one more glance.
Something about him keeps drawing me in, curiosity outweighing my typical caution. Liam is self-assured, but it doesn’t come off as an ego trip like it does with most guys our age. He’s cute, but not a jerk about it. His brown skin is smooth, his complexion perfect. But it’s the less obvious things about him I’m starting to appreciate. Like how his jawline is so sharp, but when he smiles his whole face softens. Like how he smiles a lot. Like how his eyebrows are full and he uses them to his advantage, quirking them up, furrowing them down. His expressions are funny and warm, and I feel like they would make anyone want to be his friend. And I like his eyes, too. They’re kind.
I like that he calls himself a feminist and cares abou
t representation in books. Liam’s dad is white, and his mom is Black. His dad grew up in Auburn, which means he knows everyone, and his mom is the assistant principal at the middle school, which means everyone knows her. Liam is far from a stranger to me, even if we’ve never really talked before. There are no strangers in a town this small.
I even landed in Mrs. McNamara’s office a few times when I was in eighth grade. My grades were slipping, almost in direct correlation to the first few failures of Dad’s business—and the resulting anger we saw at home. But Liam’s mom didn’t lecture me or make me feel bad because of my grades, she just encouraged me to focus on school because it was the path to any future I desired. Her words stuck with me. An illuminated path was what I needed. The next semester I got a 4.0. I couldn’t control what was going on at home, but if I worked hard enough, I could control my grades. My future.
The McNamara family moved to Auburn from Philadelphia when the elder Mr. McNamara retired from his law practice, and Liam’s dad took over. I remember thinking that Liam and I had that in common—being stuck here because of our grandfathers’ businesses. But it was more complicated than that for Liam, coming to a town with so few people of color. On Liam’s first day at Auburn Elementary, we were all sitting at a long lunch table. I was at the far end, book open in front of me, but Liam, the new kid, was right in the middle, the center of attention. He was outgoing and funny, and everyone liked him and wanted to sit near him. He’d just told a joke that even made me crack a smile and put down my book and wonder about this new boy who had everyone laughing so hard.
Then another kid in our class said that he had a joke, too. But when he said it, it wasn’t funny. It was racist.
When I looked at Liam, I saw this moment of hesitation. I think he was waiting to see if anyone else was going to speak up.
“Dumb joke,” nine-year-old Liam said. “I’ve got a better one.” Within moments he had the entire table laughing again. But I’ve always felt ashamed of that moment. Of everyone’s silence. Of mine.
And looking at Liam now, I wonder how many things like that have happened since. The comments made, and the quiet that follows. I wonder if he ever hates Auburn, too. It’s hard to reconcile because he’s one of the most popular kids in school, but that doesn’t change what this town is like. Here they label ignorance as tradition and carry on as though they’ve earned the right to be cruel.
Chapter Eight
WHEN IT STARTS, I AM IN my room. My calculus book is open, but I haven’t finished a single problem when the voices rise from downstairs. I’d hoped to get my homework done before it began, but there’s been a ball of lead in my stomach all evening just from knowing it was coming. It’s been building all week: he gets quieter before he erupts. Tonight, the house felt as somber and soft as a graveyard, and I’ve been sitting for two hours in dread with my legs curled beneath me, listening as voices turn angry. My pencil is still sharp where I abandoned it on my desk.
It’s when the voices suddenly go quiet that I rise from my desk. Some perversion of fear that feels like curiosity wins, and I pull open my door an infinitesimal degree. A perfect, practiced angle—just enough to listen, stopping before it creaks.
I know why people open doors and check darkened basements in horror films. Why they look for the monster. It’s because sometimes it’s the anticipation that hurts the most. So much that I want to do some awful, stupid thing to piss him off and just make it start, because if it starts, then it can end. Because somehow right after is when I feel safest. A few hours of grace. Of not feeling like my nerves have been tugged line by line from my body and replaced with hot white electric wires, burning me from the inside out.
I move to my bedroom window and pull up the blinds. He’s in the yard now, carrying a trash bag to the can outside. His truck is parked out front—a massive thing that he uses for work. The logo pressed to the side of the truck reads “BARNES CONSTRUCTION, family owned & operated for more than 50 years.”
The sign implies that he wanted his father’s business, but that isn’t true. My father wanted to leave Auburn, to go play football at state college. He had a full scholarship. He dreamed of going pro. And perhaps he could have done all of that if he hadn’t messed up his knee in his second-to-last game senior year. They were this close to a state championship. Unheard of in a school district like ours. The town still talks about it. His greatest failure a local legend. The punch line for every drunk joke at the bar.
He takes pride in that truck, though. It’s cherry red, and he keeps it shiny and clean all year. It’s probably a beautiful truck to anyone who cares. I don’t. Not when the business is failing and there’s no food in the fridge and we aren’t sure if we’ll be able to fill the oil tank when it gets cold in a few weeks.
Right now, it is not a beautiful truck by anyone’s standard. It is covered from headlight to bumper in crow shit. I want to find it funny, but I know who will face the consequences for this act of defiance, and it isn’t the birds. Mom’s car is out there, too, parked just behind the truck, but it’s clean.
He sees the filthy truck. I can almost feel his anger, the tension pulsing in his arms. He lifts the trash bag and throws it at the tree. It catches a few branches as it falls back to earth, and they tear at the bag’s underbelly, spilling its garbage guts as it descends. His rage isn’t spent, though, so he reaches for another trash bag, and another after that. Some of the crows take flight. Most of them ignore him, which only fuels his rage. The drapes move aside in Mrs. Stieg’s window across the street. Curiosity killed the . . .
Joe lands on my windowsill. I tap on the glass softly in greeting. Hello, Joe.
Downstairs, the front door slams. He finally ran out of anger. Or bags. Our garbage hangs in the branches of our tree, on full display. It’s like our own special variation of Christmas ornaments. I spy with my little eye a banana peel, a cigarette carton, the end of a loaf of bread that no one ever seems to want. Used tissues abound, and the ones caught in the trees almost look like little doves.
I tap the glass again. Why were you up here the other night, Joe? Tap, tap, tap. Why do you watch us? Tap, tap. Can you help us? TAP.
A silver line appears on the glass. I’ve broken it. I tap again, and again, and the line grows, stretching up, slowly, a little with each tap, until it branches into three. Three little slivers of air, searching for the path of least resistance in the glass. Tap. Tap.
The silver lines hit the pane. I press my finger to the line and follow it up.
Sssht. I hiss a sharp intake of breath and shove my cut finger into my mouth. I taste the metal in my blood and the salt on my skin. When I look up, I can’t find the crack in the glass, even when I shift side to side, thinking a different angle will reveal the thin lines again. It’s gone. Or fixed, I guess. Just like the wall downstairs.
I want to see it again.
I slip out of my room. As I pass the girls’ door, it opens, and my sisters’ soft faces appear.
“I’m gonna check on Mom,” I tell them. “Why don’t you two go sit in my bed.”
Downstairs in the living room, I cross to the entertainment center. The voices in the kitchen are agitated but muffled by the sound of running water in the sink. I can’t hear what they’re saying.
I reach the wall where the plaster broke and run my hand over its surface. Smooth. Unmarred. No sign of fresh paint. It’s like it never broke.
The sound of shattering glass makes me jump. I run into the kitchen. Mom had been washing dishes, and one must have slipped from her hand. There are shards of glass all over the floor. She gets the dustpan and brush.
“What a mess,” he says, walking around the perimeter of broken glass. “What a fucking mess.”
“It’s just broken glass,” says Mom as she kneels, sweeping up the pieces.
It was the wrong thing to say.
“Just broken glass? It’s everywhere. So I guess we’ll just step on glass every time we have to use the sink. I guess this doesn’t matter
, either.” He reaches into the sink for another glass and throws it to the floor next to Mom. It shatters into crystals that reflect the light in a million directions. If it were anything else, I’d say it looks beautiful.
I step back into the living room as he reaches for another.
And another.
There are bits of glass flying everywhere, and Mom recoils, pulling her hands in to her chest. A piece must have hit her.
“Stop it!” I yell at him from the living room, and he whirls.
He reaches down and grabs Mom’s arm, hauling her to her feet.
“Leave her alone,” I say, running into the room and pulling at his hand where it’s squeezing her arm so tight.
“Leighton, don’t,” Mom says.
He releases her suddenly, stepping away.
“Yeah, well, I guess that makes me the fucking bad guy again.” He reaches for his wallet, keys, gun. It’s only in his hand a moment, the distance from the top of the refrigerator to the waistband of his jeans, but I can’t breathe until it’s away.
“I’m going to the car wash,” he says. “Those goddamn birds made a mess of the truck.”
He is gone a moment later, truck engine revving as he pulls away.
“You okay?” I ask Mom. She nods quietly and starts to clean up the glass again. I hop onto the kitchen counter and put my feet in the sink. I run the warm water, washing out the slivers of glass stuck in the soft bottoms of my feet. When she’s done cleaning the floor, my mom wordlessly gets tweezers and checks me, finding two more pieces of glass embedded in my skin.
“He didn’t used to be like this,” she says as she squeezes the bottom of my foot, trying to get an edge of the glass shard to stick out enough for her to catch it with the tweezers.
If These Wings Could Fly Page 3