Songbird's Call

by Herron, Rachael

  Molly knew that he hadn’t dated anyone seriously in at least a year, maybe two.

  Nikki talked. Molly just listened.

  Now, up almost to the end of the clifftop pathway, she pushed the thought of him out of her mind yet again. In front of her, Adele took the last few steps with an enthusiastic stride. Molly followed more slowly, each step deliberate. She leaned carefully against the cold metal railing. “You trust this thing?” Its legs appeared to be sunk into rock, but the metal didn’t feel heavy enough under her fingers.

  “The fire department tested it with something like a thousand pounds of pressure. It’ll hold. Hey, you okay?”

  Molly took a short, sharp breath and tightened her grip on the railing. Below them, the Pacific pounded the coast. It was deep blue today, with a lighter strip of cobalt close to shore. Four pelicans flew above the water, appearing to be swimming through the air, slow strokes of their wings almost touching the surface.

  To the left, they could almost see the old folly on the shore. Built with leftover iron from when the rail was constructed, the decrepit, open-air structure had been the site of the Darling Songbirds” first concert for Darling Bay.

  “Molly’s Folly,” said Adele, pointing. “That way.”

  “You’re never going to let that go, are you? She’d been fifteen then, and had kissed a thirteen-year-old boy because her sisters had tricked her into it

  Adele laughed so hard she choked. “We told you he was seventeen.”

  “You two bossed me into kissing him. You made us go on that walk.”

  “You could have said no!”

  “It’s funny now, yeah. It wasn’t then. His breath tasted like corn nuts.” She’d wanted to kiss the boy, though. He’d been a tourist from Eureka. She couldn’t remember his name, but she remembered he had bright-blue eyes and freckles. He’d been her first kiss. She hadn’t known both her sisters and her parents were watching, that she would never live down the way she’d moved her head back and forth, swiveling it as she’d seen people do on TV. At least she’d kept her tongue in her mouth, which was more than she could say for the boy.

  Adele leaned forward, too, her hair lifting in the wind.

  Molly tried to catch her breath. “Man, I was in better shape last year, I swear to God. I weighed twenty pounds more but I was doing yoga every day. I had stamina. Now I’m skinnier but weaker.”

  “Well. You look great.”

  She made a face. “Thanks.”

  “What?”

  Molly’s hair thwapped her in the face, and she pulled it back and tied it with a rubber band. “Nothing.”

  “No, what? You have that voice.”

  Sisters. Molly did have the voice – she knew she had it. And she couldn’t help it.

  Molly turned her back on the view of the water and faced the hillside stretching far into the distance. The way the oaks and eucalyptus swayed, hundreds of yards in the distance, was comforting to her. The air smelled of salt water and, distantly, of cattle. “It’s just that – you always say I look great when I’ve lost weight.”

  “I didn’t mean it that way.” Adele looked stricken.

  “I know.”

  “I didn’t. You look good no matter what.”

  “Not true.”

  “It’s just that now you look so healthy –”

  “Dude, I just said I was healthier when I was heavier. I’m skinnier because I’ve been stressed and not eating. This isn’t healthy.” Her sister wouldn’t get it. Adele had been thin her whole life. Perfect body. Perfect face. She’d never kept a food journal. She’d never gone to a food counselor. She’d never been called country-fried anything by the media.

  “I’m sorry.”

  A wave of cold air slapped Molly in the face and she shivered. “What are you sorry for?”

  “For making you feel like…” Adele’s voice trailed off.

  That was the trouble. Adele knew the topic was fraught, that there were things she should understand about how Molly felt, but she didn’t know what the exact problem was. Molly would never be just right, just as she was, for anyone. If she was thin, she felt weaker. If she was heavier and stronger, people called her fat. On national media. Okay, that hadn’t happened in a long time, but once it did, it was practically impossible to get over.

  It wasn’t worth explaining. “It’s fine.”

  “No, tell me.”

  “Really. I’m fine. Look at that.” Molly turned back and pointed down the hill. “Frankie Stunenberg’s roof is still covered with blue tarps, see? How long have they been up there?” The Stunenberg house was a sprawling property, big enough to see clearly even from this far away. They were known as the reclusive millionaires who never spent a dime on anything, including roof repair.

  Adele’s smile was thin – her nervous smile – but Molly watched her decide to go along with it. “Since dinosaurs splashed in Lathrop Creek. Before I mock him too mercilessly, where else can you see that particular color of plastic-tarp blue?”

  Molly scanned the town – there. The hotel. Of course. “Whoa. That’s a lot of tarp.”

  “Six rooms.”

  Molly took a breath, held it, and then said, “What are we going to do about that?”

  Adele’s shoulders relaxed – Molly could see them drop the slightest bit. “I don’t know,” her sister said. “Get Lana to come help?”

  “Never going to happen.” But the mood was broken, the string that always ran invisibly between them smooth and untangled again.

  “I’m still going to hope.”

  Molly leaned against her sister’s shoulder briefly. “You’ve always had altogether too much of that going for you.”

  “No such thing. Hey. Remember that time we came up here to do that photo shoot?”

  “Oh, man. For some glossy magazine.” Molly wished she couldn’t remember that. But she did, clearly.

  “Vogue or something awful like that. Maybe Elle or Glamour.” Adele’s eyes crinkled at the corners as she smiled, and Molly wondered when she’d gotten those tiny, almost invisible lines. Smile lines. They made her sister even prettier. “That was a terrible shoot.”

  Molly leaned on the railing. “They made us put on our first performance outfits. The ones Mama sewed for us.” The magazine had thought it would be a cute call-back to the way they’d gotten started, and they’d worn the outdated, old-fashioned clothes on the cover of their first album. They were ridiculous: button-down western shirts, the kind with the heavy embroidery over the breast pockets, wide red skirts over crinolines, and pink cowboy hats.

  Adele nodded. “Lana had outgrown her dress and it was just awful, remember? They had to cut up the back of her shirt and safety pin it together so that it looked normal in the back? And it was about this cold and windy and we lost at least two spare cowboy hats before they came up with the idea of tying them into our stupid braids –”

  “It was me.”

  “What?”

  “Who outgrew the shirt.”

  “Oh, honey, it wasn’t.” Adele looked desperate. “It couldn’t have been.”

  “Of course it was.” How could her sister have forgotten that? Molly was the big one. Molly had always been the big one. If anyone was going to rip her pants, if anyone would be embarrassed by the media, it would be Molly. Never Lana, never Adele. Always Molly.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Well, I’m ready to go whenever you are.” She wouldn’t meet Adele’s eyes. Molly should be a grown-up and realize that things had changed, they weren’t kids anymore, and God knew they weren’t teenagers, either. They’d been so naïve when they had been in the band, all of them. Everything had changed.

  Especially Molly.

  “It’s fine, it really is. I don’t want to talk about it. I’ve got a ton more work to do in the café before it gets dark.”

  Adele gave a quick nod. “Promise me you’ll come to the bar tonight.”

  The bar was the last place Molly wanted to be. Surrounded by loud, happ
y people who had money to burn buying drinks didn’t sound like her idea of a good time tonight. “Can I give you a firm maybe?” She smiled to soften the words.

  “No, it’s important.”

  Since when was it ever important to hang out in a bar? Fun, sometimes. Important? Just about never.

  “I’ve been so exhausted every night. I’m not good company, I swear. And I don’t want you buying me any more drinks. I can buy my own.” There was pique in Molly’s voice, she could hear it. She felt twenty-two again, when she was trying to make her own way in the world, never able to quite afford the essentials, even with the royalty money that used to come in a lot more regularly than it did now.

  “You have a loan from the bank. That’s for fixing up the café. I’m not letting you buy your own drinks, don’t be ridiculous. Just promise me. Tonight is going to be something different, and I think you’ll like it.”

  Awesome. Adele was probably going to sing with hunky Nate, and everyone in town would swoon when they looked at each other with stars in their eyes. It would be some brilliant song that Adele had probably dreamed up in her sleep, and Molly would watch, impressed and loving her sister hard while hating every second of it at the same time, and despising herself for feeling that way.

  When was she finally going to grow up? Why was this so hard?

  “Honestly, it’s a surprise especially for you.”

  Her sister would sing a genius song, and the everyone would kvell. Adele was their darling, that was already obvious. People grinned like idiots when she walked into a room. It was like the band had been reimagined as Adele and her Darling Sister Songbirds. No one remembered Molly. That’s how it felt, at least. Not that she wanted them to remember her – the fact that people’s eyes skittered over her was a good thing. She didn’t want to sing for Darling Bay, God, no.

  As if Adele could hear her thoughts, she said, “Sing with me?”

  “On stage? No way.”

  “No. Here.” Adele’s voice was so soft the wind carried it partially away, and Molly could only hear the echo, feel the shape of it.

  “Adele.”

  “Please? Remember how Mama would ask us to sing right here when we were little?”

  That was the problem. Molly did remember. And it hurt to feel those memories so close to her skin again. “Yeah.”

  “Just a few verses. For old time’s sake.”

  Molly didn’t answer. She looked down at the toe of her orange canvas sneaker. She nudged a rock so that it touched the one next to it, and then she gave her ankle a quick snap, sending the rock over the edge in a silent low arc. She was literally contributing to the downfall of this cliff. Someday it would collapse and she would be partially to blame, for hastening its subsidence.

  “Please? For me?”

  When had Molly ever been able to say no to Adele? Almost never. And this wasn’t going to be the time to begin, obviously. “You start.”

  They talk about the rainbow

  Like we could fly above,

  But those who always say that,

  Don’t know anything “bout love.

  Fly, fly, fly…

  Till none are in the sky.

  The wind stopped, as if it were listening. A murmuration of starlings blossomed in front of them, then parted, wheeling lower, diving down below the cliff’s edge so that the collection of birds was actually lower than they were. They spiraled back up again as if lifted by the sisters” voices.

  As you rise a little higher,

  The air, it gets real thin,

  The thing that brings a bird down

  Is a little piece of sin.

  Fly, fly, fly…

  Till none are in the sky.

  Molly had always sung lead on it, with Adele’s sweet harmony twisted around the edges of the verses. Adele’s voice was exactly the same, in perfect pitch and tone, clear as a bell. Molly couldn’t quite hear what her own voice was doing, but it felt right, like her pitch was in just the right place.

  As they reached the last verse, Molly stretched out her hand and took Adele’s.

  They didn’t look at each other.

  That was good because Molly was one hundred per cent certain that if she’d seen her sister’s face, she would have cried.

  They sang the last verse.

  When you fly above us,

  And look down at what you lost,

  Remember when we fell to earth.

  We’re love’s true cost.

  The only thing missing was Lana, holding Molly’s other hand.

  Fly, fly, fly…

  Till none are in the sky.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Colin entered the Golden Spike, glad to be out of uniform for once. He spent too much time in this bar helping Nate clear it of rowdies while wearing his badge, and it felt good to be in old jeans and a black T-shirt. He would never completely fit in – everyone knew the sheriff always had his badge in his pocket. Even in plain clothes, he could feel people reacting to him. The men hunched over their poker game sat up almost imperceptibly, while the cash that had been on the table disappeared as if the players were magicians. Scott Tinker punched in songs at the jukebox. He turned and looked over his shoulder as if he’d heard Colin enter the bar. Yeah, he knew about Scott’s outstanding warrant, but it was for two hundred and fourteen dollars on a parking fine he hadn’t taken care of, and while the guy was a jerk, Colin was off duty. He didn’t give a crap about the warrant.

  He said hello to the mayor’s daughter and the head librarian, and he gave a brief wave to the brother of one of his deputies. What would it be like to police a different, bigger city? What would it feel like to be able to go to a bar and simply be a regular person? People knew he wasn’t on duty, but if the shit hit the fan, they’d be looking to him. Just like a paramedic had to spring into service if someone stopped breathing, a member of the police force had to jump in when bad things happened whether he was on or off the clock.

  Maybe soon he’d take a vacation somewhere. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone out of town for more than a weekend. The last time he’d done that, it had been with Maggie, and she’d complained the whole way to Monterey. She’d picked a fight with him on the journey home. It hadn’t been awesome.

  He could go to Oahu for a week and dip his toes into the sand. Or somewhere else warm. Cabo? Spring Break was coming, and a couple of his deputies liked to go ogle the girls on display. They’d been trying to talk him into going, too. But while Colin liked to ogle a girl as much as anyone else, the idea of eyeing women so recently out of their teen years made him more than a little uncomfortable. He liked a woman who was ripe.

  For a second he imagined the way Molly filled out the back of her jeans. That was a prettier sight than any twenty-one-year-old in a bikini by about a mile.

  The Golden Spike was packed, a great crowd for a Thursday night. There had to be twenty people lined up at the bar, and five or six couples already dancing to Lizard Lips. A local cover band, they reliably played the old country tunes people wanted to hear. They used to have a pretty solid repertoire of Darling Songbird tunes, but Adele had put a stop to that shortly after coming to town. Nate’s band, Dust & Rusty, was always fun to watch, and a long time ago Colin used to sing more regularly with them. For a short time, he’d considered even joining the band when Nate had asked him, but one night he’d had to jump off the stage to arrest the guy who had punched out a man who’d just kissed the arrestee’s wife. Again, the sheriff wasn’t welcome at every party in town. Better usually just to be part of the audience.

  It took him six tries to make his way to the bar as he said hello and exchanged pleasantries with half the town. One of the two Homeless Petes shook his hand and wanted to chat about the stock market, and then the other Homeless Pete started jabbing in his ear about how he was going to build a tiny home behind City Hall if Colin would allow it. “Sure, let’s talk this week.” Finally, he made it to a miraculously available stool and sat next to Norma.


  “How you doing, young lady?”

  Norma grinned like she was seventeen. She always lapped up his flattery like a cat with milk. And that made it fun. “Doing great, Sheriff.”

  “You know that I can’t handle it when pretty girls call me anything other than Colin.”

  Norma batted her eyelashes at him and shook her head, a waterfall of necklaces tinkling as she did. Norma always looked like a short, round hot-tub in whatever full muumuu-like dress she wore, and with her jewelry, she usually sounded like a beaded curtain as she moved. “You’re a terrible flirt.”

  Colin doffed an imaginary hat at her. “I do my best. You seen Nate? He wanted to talk to me.”

  “He’s around but he’s got a terrible cold. Shouldn’t be here at all but he’s a stubborn cuss, ain’t he?”

  “The worst.” He gave a short wave at Dixie, Nate’s busy-night bartender.

  “Oh, yeah?” Dixie, her short curls bouncing as much as her breasts did in her red half-shirt, leaned up and over the bar. “A wave isn’t good enough. Kiss.”

  He kissed her cheek with a big, wet noise, and Dixie gave a whoop. “That’s more like it! What can I get you?”

  “Johnnie Walker, Coke back.”

  Dixie gave her patented grin, the one that would have won her all the male attention in town if that had been the way she went, which wasn’t. “Oooh, left the badge at home, huh?”

  It burned in his pocket. “Yep. Know where Nate is? He said he needed a favor.” Colin didn’t mention he hoped the favor had something to do with Adele’s sister Molly. He stood up to look over the crowd. Nate was nowhere to be seen.

  “He’s in the back with Adele. I’d get him, but I’m always a little bit scared to sneak up on them, you know what I mean?”

  “I do. But you know what? I ain’t scared.”

  “Oh, God. At least knock first.”

  Colin knocked on the door of the back room, just once. He pushed it open with a roar. “Fire exit! I’m here to check your emergency fire exit!”