Homing

by Stephanie Domet

  Leah laughed. “Um, it’s because of Psychic Sue that I think heaven is a big meatball party.”

  “No,” said Charlotte, “you think heaven is a big meatball party because you love Italian food. Seriously. Maybe Psychic Sue could tell you where Nathan is. I mean, isn’t she the one who told you where he was the first time?”

  “She was,” Leah said. “She sure was. And it was kind of a shock.” She thought about the last time she’d seen Sue. It hadn’t gone well. She pushed it out of her mind. “I don’t want to talk to Sue,” she said firmly. “Maybe this whole thing is ridiculous. Maybe Peter Pietropaulo is wrong, though god I hope he’s right. Or maybe it’s all in my imagination. I mean, what is Nathan doing with me, anyhow? Shouldn’t he be with Rebecca? Maybe he’s with her now.” She nodded her head slowly. “That’s probably it. It’s where he should have been in the first place, and she’ll probably be a whole lot nicer to him than I’ve been.”

  “But what about the book?” Charlotte said. “How can you say it’s ridiculous? You’ve put so much into it. I mean, the birds, for crying out loud.”

  “I know,” Leah said. She rubbed the back of her hand across her eyes. “I’m just tired of it, you know? Maybe you were right in the first place. Ghosts are supposed to have access to things. Nathan should know his story; he shouldn’t need me to tell it to him. And now Harold, and that just makes things so much worse somehow, you know?”

  “Well, so what are you going to do?”

  Leah shrugged. She started to answer, but she stopped, stiff ened, waited, listened.

  “What is it?” whispered Charlotte. “Is it Harold coming back?”

  Leah held up her hands. “Listen,” she barely whispered. “He’s playing it again.”

  The strains of the guitar sidled in through the wall between the houses. Such a familiar melody. And then the voice, rising to meet the chords. The words were ones that had always made Leah cry, about ghosts and wishing wells, and the necessity of mind-reading.

  Leah let her head drop into her hands. She cupped her forehead in her fingertips and just listened. She almost sang along, but she didn’t want to lose the thread of the song. Nathan, she thought. I am here, where are you?

  *

  Warmed up now, and finally ready to work, Henry played the guitar for all it was worth. He played whatever came to mind. New songs he was still working on, old songs he’d written in school, cover songs, songs he’d sung when he was a child, songs he’d hated in the ‘80s but couldn’t get enough of now. It was like his fingers were their own creature with their own agenda. His back ached from hunching around the guitar, but he couldn’t stop playing. He’d slow down for a few minutes, but then his hands would catch their breath and they’d be off again. He laughed between verses. He hadn’t felt like this in so long, or maybe he hadn’t felt like this ever. The pigeon woke up and flew all around the room, in graceful dips and swoops, never once threatening Henry even a little, and Henry ducked and laughed, laughed and ducked. How incredible to be here, to be playing. I am here, he thought. And then he called it out to the bird: “I am here!”

  *

  Johnny Parker was in Hell, one of his favourite places to be. The beer was cold, the girls were hot and the music was loud. Always. That was the thing about Hell, it never changed. He loved it for that. He was starving he realised, as he drank his first beer of the night. He hadn’t eaten much that day besides a bag of oatmeal raisin cookies, and Henry had had half of those. Henry. There was no accounting for that guy. Sure, he was a little messed up these days, what with Tina giving him the boot and all, but he was better off for it, he’d see that eventually, Johnny Parker was sure of it. Not that he’d shied away from telling Henry that soon as he got the call that Henry was out on his ass. But Henry hadn’t been ready to hear that yet. And what little of it he did hear, Johnny Parker was sure, Henry’d chalked up to loyalty. He knew it, because he’d done the same thing himself every time Henry’d told him that he was well out of one situation or another. It took a while to believe it, that was all. But Johnny Parker was confident that some day soon, Henry would be ready. Jesus Christ, he thought, Tina was stepping out on him, and giving him a hard time about being faithful. That was just fucked, Johnny thought, taking another long swallow of beer. Now, wait a minute, food. He needed to get a good base coat down to cushion the prodigious amounts of alcohol he was planning to pour into his gut over the next few hours.

  “Pizza ready yet?” he asked the bartender, who was a giant dude with greyish-blond dreadlocks.

  “’Nother ten minutes,” the bartender said.

  “I’ll have another drink till then,” Johnny Parker said, and as he took a final swallow of beer, another frosty one appeared before him. Hell. It was a great place.

  *

  “Well I’d say the soufflé was a big success,” Charlotte said, clearing away their dishes. Leah nodded.

  “Yeah, not bad,” she said, her voice small and dull. “I guess.”

  “And the cookies,” Charlotte said brightly, trying to fill the space her friend used to fill, “so good! Hey, can I take some with me?”

  “Sure,” Leah said. She smiled a half-smile as Charlotte crammed a handful of cookies in her pocket.

  “I wish you’d come with me, Leah.”

  Leah nodded. “Maybe another time. I’d better wait for Harold to come home.”

  Charlotte shook her head. “Okay,” she said, “but I’ll be at Hell if you change your mind, okay?” She put her coat on, wrapped her skinny scarf around her skinny neck and said, “I’ll call you tomorrow. Don’t stay up all night fretting about the bird. He’s a homing pigeon, he’ll come home, in his own time, okay?”

  “Okay,” Leah said. “Oh!” she said and jumped as if she’d been prodded. The lights had come back on.

  “That’s better,” Charlotte said.

  “Much.” Leah smiled and closed the door behind Charlotte.

  When the house was empty again, when she was alone, she sat on the steps and pressed her head to the wall. There was music there, still, music coming from the house next door. She closed her eyes and waited.

  *

  It was early yet. It’d be a while before the band was ready to hit the stage. Johnny Parker swung around on his barstool to see if he could see anyone he knew. Not yet. There was a smattering of NSCADets from the art school gathered at one table.

  God knew what kind of ruckus they were planning. Like everyone else in town, Johnny had heard the beautiful rumours of naked parties at the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design. He’d never been to one, but he wanted to believe. This group was made up of guys and girls and a few kids in between. There were pixie cuts and dreadlocks, those androgynous hairstyles of the middle class art school crowd. The predominant fashion statement was patchwork, that and dresses over pants, on both guys and girls. Johnny Parker watched them with a mixture of admiration and impatience. They were certainly disconnected from the real world, though that was no reason to disdain them. Hell, Johnny Parker did what he could on a daily basis to lose his connection with the real world. And more than that he made a living playing guitar in a bar band. It could not be said of Johnny Parker that he lived in the real world. No way, not for an instant. And if you asked his father, he never had. But there was something too willfully playful about the NSCADets, that’s what it was that disturbed Johnny Parker. Live and let live and all that, but these kids worked hard at being weird, or tragic, or sexually liberated or all three, and honestly, Johnny Parker found the whole thing a bit confusing. Then again, he reflected, it wasn’t really for him, their show. At thirty years old, he was ancient to them, and meaningless, made more so by his status as part of a mostly-covers band. They were all about pushing the boundaries, and Johnny was all about selling beer.

  And drinking it, for that matter. He raised his bottle to the art school kids, but if they noticed him doing so, they didn’t respond. He could smell the pizza now. His stomach called out to it. He swung off the
stool and went to check in with Sal.

  Johnny leaned on the sill of the pizza bar. “Hey Sally,” he said.

  “Hey,” said Sal. He was a flush-faced kid, maybe twenty-four. He wore an oversized paper-boy cap and his floppy hair pushed out from under it. He made pizza like an angel.

  “What’s cooking?” Johnny Parker said, pulling a smoke out of his pocket and lighting it up.

  “I am,” Sal said, hustling around the tiny kitchen. “Gimme a drag.”

  Johnny held the cigarette out to the pizza-making imp. The kid stopped his hustling long enough to take a deep drag off the cigarette. He held the smoke inside for a couple of beats, then tilted his head to the ceiling and let it out in a slow, controlled stream.

  “Whaddya want?” Sal said, once he was quit of smoke.

  “Whaddya got?” Johnny Parker asked.

  “Got pepperoni ready, veggie deluxe in the oven, be about five, six minutes for that one, working on mushroom double cheese right now. Be fifteen minutes for that one.”

  “I’m not picky, dude,” Johnny Parker said, reaching for his wallet. “Give us a slice of the pepperoni.”

  “Coming up,” Sal shouted. He grabbed his pizza cutter from the magnetized board on the wall and whizzed it across the pizza. He turned the pie expertly with just his fingertips and made another incision. Another turn, another incision. Johnny Parker smoked and watched. Finally, Sal lifted a slice out, put it, dripping and giant, on a paper plate and handed it to Johnny, who gave him a couple of loonies in return.

  “Thanks,” Johnny Parker said. He handed over the rest of the cigarette. “Want this?”

  Sal took it, stuck it in his mouth. “Anytime,” he said and then he was back to hustling around the kitchen, cigarette dangling.

  Johnny Parker turned away from the kitchen already mid-bite. Fucker was hot, and starting to stick to the roof of his mouth, but he was too far in to back out, and besides, there was a beautiful girl standing four feet away, staring at him.

  Johnny chewed and fought the urge to spit the burning mouthful back onto the plate, and swallowed in a blazing gulp. He held the slice up to the girl and said, “Pizza?”

  She laughed at him, her cap of brown curls bobbing. She looked like a fucking shampoo commercial, he thought, unbelievable. He moved toward her.

  “Want a bite?” he asked.

  “What kind?” she asked looking at it, and at him, with appraisal in her eye.

  “Pepperoni,” he said, “no one makes it better than Sally there.” He shot his thumb over his shoulder in Sal’s direction.

  “Sure,” the girl said, “I’ll have a bite of that.”

  “I’m Johnny Parker,” he said, handing over the pizza.

  “Okay,” the girl said, taking it from him and lowering her mouth to it. She looked up at him from under her bangs. “Thanks.”

  She took a bite; chewed it mouth slightly open.

  “Hi’s ho’” she said, steam pouring out of her mouth.

  “Yeah,” said Johnny Parker, “careful there it’s really hot. Just came out of the oven. Kinda burns your taste buds off. I don’t know why I don’t blow on it, or wait awhile you know? Happens to me every time.”

  She looked at him politely, mouth still open, steam still pouring. She waved her hand in front of her mouth. He heard himself rattling on like his grandmother, who was a world class rattler who could talk for twenty minutes about what was on sale down the IGA. He wished he could shut up, but she was obviously in distress, and there was nothing he could think to do short of holding out his hand and inviting her to spit the pizza in it, and that was making him nervous, and damn it, Johnny Parker was not used to being nervous, and it turned out that when he was, all he could do was rattle like an old woman. So rattle he did.

  “I play guitar,” he said, mortifyingly. “I’m a musician.”

  She turned away from him, her body shook once and then she straightened up, mouth still agape. She reached for his beer, took a swig without asking. Not that Johnny Parker would have minded, just — well, she didn’t seem to give a damn about anything, and here he was behaving like a twelve-year-old. A twelve-year-old grandmother. Jesus Christ.

  She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, smoothed down her hair with the palm of the other. “Huh,” she said. “That so?” She reached for his beer again, took another deep draught of it. “That’s better,” she said. She gave her head a little shake, and those curls bounced again, mesmerising Johnny Parker. She looked at him pityingly, and finally said, “So, are you going to buy me a drink, or what?”

  “A drink?” he said, as if he’d never heard of such a thing. “A drink, yes, of course, of course, I am. What, uh, what do you drink?”

  “Tonight,” she said, “I’m drinking JD.”

  “Coming up,” Johnny Parker answered. He ordered the drink at the bar, looked back over his shoulder to make sure she was still there. She raised her eyebrows at him and he looked away fast. What a tool he was. How many girls, how many dozens, maybe hundreds of girls, and now all of a sudden it’s the junior prom all over again? Jesus. He didn’t even know her name. He got her drink and ordered another beer for himself. He turned to go back to her and she was right beside him.

  “Oh,” he said, “there you are.” He handed her the Jack Daniels. “Um, there you are.”

  “Thanks,” she said, taking it and knocking half of it back in one shot.

  “Hey, I didn’t catch your name.”

  “I didn’t tell you my name,” she said.

  “That’s true,” Johnny Parker said. It was starting to grate on him how in a flap he was and how much she was enjoying and encouraging it.

  “So, how about you tell me your name now,” he said, gesturing to her drink with his beer hand.

  “I will,” she said, “but not because you bought me a drink. I’ll tell you because I feel like it, and because you’re kind of cute when you’re flustered.” She laughed a little, and put her hand in front of her mouth. It was clearly an act, but Johnny Parker was willing to fall a little harder for it.

  “Okay,” he said. “Thanks, uh, thanks.”

  She smiled at him and held out her hand. “I’m Charlotte,” she said, “and I’m charmed to meet you.”

  *

  Leah woke up shivering and stiff. She’d fallen asleep on the steps, head pressed to the wall, and she awoke the same way. The music had stopped. The house was quiet. She shivered again, remembered the open window, the missing bird. She ran up the stairs, sure she’d see Harold pressed against the bars of the cage, trying to get in to be with Sandy.

  But upstairs, there was still only one bird. Sandy sat unhappily in the cage, her seed dish empty, her partner missing, the room frigid and windy. Leah felt a wave of sympathy for the bird before her and a stab of worry for the one that hadn’t come home. She poured some seed out into Sandy’s bowl, filled her water bottle, and pulled the silk over the cage. She left the window open wide enough for Harold to squeeze through if — when — he came home. Then she took off her clothes and hurried into bed, pulling the duvet up to her chin and bringing her knees up to her chest. She waited for sleep as the wind that snuck through the window mussed her hair.

  *

  At the library, Nathan paced the paths up and down, up and down. Would the message get through? What would tomorrow’s pigeon post bring?

  *

  Henry laid his guitar down to rest. The bird slept soundly on the kitchen counter, not stirring even when Henry finally put the groceries away. That done, his borrowed little house in order, he mounted the steps for his first well-earned sleep in weeks. God, the pleasure of sliding into a bed made with clean sheets, he thought. How could anything this simple feel so goddamn good? And if this was all it took, why hadn’t he done the wash weeks ago? Didn’t matter, it was done now. Henry closed his eyes and drifted off, a half smile on his face. Downstairs, the bird whistled in its sleep.

  *

  Charlotte and Johnny Parker circled each other
like boxers in a ring. The band came on and played and was loud, but that didn’t stop their conversation, that didn’t change the way they looked at each other, that didn’t solve Charlotte’s desire to put her lips on Johnny’s or Johnny’s need to run his hand through Charlotte’s curls.

  “This is stupid,” she said finally. “Why don’t you just come home with me?”

  Johnny Parker was on his feet in a heartbeat. He didn’t even finish his beer.

  They were barely in her door before he had her clothes off. He backed her towards the bed, as if they were two tango dancers. She worked at his belt buckle, peeled his jacket off, pulled at his shirt.

  “I love you,” he said, just before she fell backwards onto the mattress.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” she said, as he fell down after her.

  *

  Leah awoke with a feeling of dread. What was that about? Oh yeah. No bird. She opened both eyes, looked hopefully around the room. Still no Harold. It was freezing inside; the wind had calmed but wasn’t quite gone. This had to end sometime. She couldn’t keep the window open forever.

  *

  Henry awoke to find the bird sitting on his bedside table. It was the flapping of the wings that woke him.

  “What’s up pally?” he said. “Wanna go home?”

  But the bird just looked at him and hopped off the table to the floor. It hopped to the hall then took flight, back downstairs to wait for Henry to get out of bed.

  Henry did just that. He followed the bird downstairs, prepared another saucer of cracker mash.

  “But that’s it, little guy,” he said, liking the sound of his voice, parental. “You’ve gotta get home, wherever that is.” Next door, he wondered, thinking of he bird he’d watched wriggle in the upstairs window. He’d knock later, see if they were missing a bird next door, he thought. He put the saucer on the counter and the bird hopped over to it and began to peck. Henry watched proudly for a moment, then turned and began to fix himself some coff ee. He pulled James and Emily’s cafetiere from beneath the counter and filled the top with espresso. He ran water into it and put it to boil on the stove. He put bread in the toaster and fried an egg. He sliced a tomato and laid the slices on the egg in the frying pan. When the toast popped, he transferred the egg and tomato to the bread; spread some dijon mustard on one slice, added a leaf of lettuce and sat down at the table to eat. It was the first time he’d done that since coming to stay at James and Emily’s, maybe even since well before that. He felt like a grown-up and that felt good. It was going to be a good day. The guitar leaned against the wall, ready when he was.