The Blackbird Season
Page 16
Sometimes they’d end up at the mill, in the parking lot, chucking stones at the glass, hollering at the loudest breaks, a forty of Colt 45 in a paper bag clutched in Andrew’s fist, the girls passing around Mad Dog 20/20, their lips pink and wide like watermelon. They all dared each other to go in alone, and it was on one of those Saturday nights when the air seemed to zing, when their laughter seemed to bounce around them, when even Taylor was being overly nice.
“Here, you need this.” She smiled sweetly, slicking glittery lip gloss across Lucia’s mouth, and Lucia felt the pull of anticipation, something sweet and swirling in her center, down her legs and into her toes.
Lucia stood up. “I’ll do it, I’ll go in.” She was feeling bold and, newly, like one of them. Andrew’s flirting had elevated her: she was no longer Taylor’s weird sidekick but a girl in her own right. She walked in through the ajar steel door, the smell of dust and rotting paper stinging her nostrils. Her head pounded, her hands shaky as she pressed them against her belly, pushing the air out of her lungs. She stood in the first room, the biggest room, with the stainless steel pulper and held her breath. Waiting.
It was that kind of magical night, when she knew how things would unfold, where everything seemed inevitable. He came up behind her, like she knew he would. His hand on her back didn’t startle her, and she felt the smile on her face before she turned around and he was there, taller than she thought he’d be, but so close. He smelled like Abercrombie cologne and fabric softener and something lemony and soft.
“What are you doing?” It was a stupid question, but the only one she could think to ask, and she breathed it right into his face, laughing.
“I’m saving you. Didn’t you scream? I heard you scream.” He leaned closer to her, his lips so close to hers, his head dipped. “I came in to save you.”
And that’s all he said before he kissed her, his hands then around her waist, down her back, her first real kiss, and it was slow, measured, like Andrew himself, his hands finding their way under her filmy top, inching up to her bra, and she let him. He cupped her, unhooking her bra strap and then easing her back against the cinder-block wall.
She let him do anything he wanted, drunk on his Andrew-ness, the newness of belonging. She was still there, in their first kiss, when she started thinking of their couplehood—like Kelsey and Josh—sneaking away from the group, away from Taylor. She would have something, someone, that Taylor wouldn’t.
The idea both excited and terrified her.
When Porter started hollering and making noise outside, they broke apart, Andrew laughed a little, and said, “We should go.” He walked out ahead of her and Lucia waited for him to take her hand, but he never did.
What she didn’t know then, but she knew now, was that sometimes beginnings and endings feel the same.
• • •
On Monday, when Taylor and Riana scampered off to track, she waited in the lobby until long after the final bell. Long after all the other students had cleared out, the buses left, the parking lot had emptied, until she finally started the three-mile walk home. Summer was looming, next year they’d be sophomores, starting to think about college and leaving Mt. Oanoke. Not Lucia, though. She’d be working at the Goodwill until she was old and gray.
She pictured Andrew and Porter, stoned and sleepy in his bedroom without her. Would they talk about her?
She felt the fury rise in her chest, a metallic bitter taste on her tongue. She’d only wait once, she hoped he knew that. One time, one chance. Jimmy taught her that. Fool me twice, shame on me.
She can’t deny that she looked, though, for those two bobbing heads in front of her, one abnormally tall, one short, dark, and blond, thin and round. She saw nothing.
Her toe kicked it before she saw it, its black wings shining in the sunlight. She bent down and knew it was dead, its eyes frozen open, but unscathed, like it had simply dropped out of the sky. They all came to her that way, perfect, unharmed, but utterly still, like the breath had simply left their little lungs and never come back.
She picked it up, the blackbird. It was still soft, like it had died only seconds ago; the feathers were smooth in her palm, and she ran her finger under its silken wing.
In the distance, she saw Andrew’s house, out of her way in the cul-de-sac at the end of the street and began to walk. She tucked the bird in the crook of her arm, like a doll, or a real baby.
She heard the music from his room, heard his laughter. Imagined she could smell the smoke. She could taste that cool pop of raisin and the warm sweet oatmeal on her tongue.
She laid the bird down on the welcome mat (the one that said Wipe Your Paws) and wondered if they’d think the cat brought it in, but then decided she didn’t care. She nudged it with her toe, almost changed her mind, but didn’t.
She ran all the way home.
• • •
“What’d you do?” Taylor hissed, dragging Lucia into the bathroom the next day.
“What?” Lucia shook her head, her ears buzzing.
“I know it was you. You have the bird thing. What the fuck, Lulu.” Taylor pinched her arm, twisting the skin.
“It wasn’t me. They have a cat. It was probably the cat.” The skin on Lucia’s arm started to welt where Taylor’s fingers were.
“You can be such a freak sometimes. Why? Was it because he made out with you at the mill?”
Lucia blinked hard. She hadn’t told Taylor. Then, reflexively, “No.”
“He makes out with everyone. Did he do that thing with his hand?” She motioned down toward her pelvis and fluttered her eyes. She flipped her hair and looked in the mirror, her reflection watching Lucia, her eyes narrowed. She inspected her face, pulled at her nose, mumbled about her pores. “You’re lucky, you know.”
Lucia’s stomach felt hard and heavy, like she’d swallowed a rock.
“You’re so moony over him. We all see it. But you didn’t really think, did you?” She turned then, her eyes wide, her mouth open in a little O.
Lucia shook her head again, her mouth dry, a film of hot tears she’d never shed against her eyelids. The warning bell clanged. Taylor turned to leave, leaned in close, her hair soft against Lucia’s face, her fingertips against Lucia’s arm cool and light.
“I’ll drop you so fast, Lucia Hamm. I will. This is high school now.” She said it like a warning.
And that’s when everything changed.
CHAPTER 22
Bridget, Thursday, May 7, 2015
“It was a poisoned berry bush. By the paper mill, arsenic in the soil, and it poisoned the berries.” Dale’s face was flushed, breathless with the delivery. Bridget was grading journals, her feet propped up on her desk, her chair leaned back. She read every third one, skimming the rest. So tired of teenage angst.
“What?” Bridget asked, distracted.
“The birds. The DEP figured it out. It’s all rumor right now, but they’re saying it was an arsenic poisoning. From the paper mill.” Dale’s hands waved toward the window.
“I’m not sure that makes sense. Wouldn’t the water be contaminated, then?” Bridget tapped her pen against her teeth, thinking. They’d taken air, water, and plant samples from around the town for days after, their vans and Tyvek suits all anyone could talk about.
Bridget was beginning to think the town itself was a blight. A poison.
It reminded her of something.
“Dale,” she said, but he was already halfway out the door, hot to be the first to spread two-week-old news that no one cared about anymore. Talk of Nate and Lucia had replaced the birds in the halls, in the cafeteria, the faculty lounge. Everywhere. The story of Lucia’s “abilities” had spread, well, like wildfire. She even heard that Lucia’s eyes glowed red and she mumbled some kind of spell that everyone, even Principal Bachman, had heard. It was all nonsense, but it seemed like only Bridget treated it that way, brushing off the whispers with a wave of her hand, a little burst of air from the back of her throat in disgust.
Dale turned back, poking his head back in, his glasses slid so far down his nose she couldn’t see his eyes.
“Have you seen Lucia?” Bridget asked. “She hasn’t been in school since the paper incident. Today is day four.”
“Hmmm, was she suspended?” Dale asked, obtuse. Deliberately, Bridget thought.
“No. Because Riana almost set her on fire? No, Dale. Lucia was not suspended for that.”
“Well, not exactly, and we don’t know what happened,” Dale stammered, then backed out of the room, waving a little, his smile watery.
Bridget sighed. Because Lucia was clearly capable of setting things on fire with her mind. The idea that there were teachers playing into this, well, the whole thing was disgusting.
The phone on her desk buzzed. Her mother-in-law’s number, but Bridget declined it with a twinge of guilt. Sorry, Petra. The voice mail later: Have you thought more about a location? Please call, Bridget. Time is running out.
Bridget deleted the voice mail. She had more important things to take care of. Between classes, she snuck into the office and peeked at the attendance sheets for the week. Lucia’s name had been on the list Tuesday, Wednesday, and today. She asked the secretary if anyone tried to contact her.
“How?” Bridget had heard it before, only a few weeks ago. The only number they’d had was Jimmy’s.
Bridget thought about how a person could just drift away from their life and leave not one ripple behind.
After the last bell, she packed up her bags, quick, at the last moment, throwing Lucia’s black leather-bound journal in.
She drove slowly to Lucia’s house, the porch sinking like she remembered, a yawning mouth. The window dormers were like angry eyes and the upper left one with a cardboard patch reminded her of that nursery rhyme.
Cry, baby cry, stick your finger in your eye.
This town was the curse, not Lucia. In the right dormer, the curtain moved and Bridget thought she saw a face. Lenny. Bridget pounded on the door, but no one came.
She sat in her car, in front of the brown ramshackle house, and called Tripp’s phone, letting it ring over and over. She gripped the steering wheel, willing her heart to calm. Her skin buzzing, hot and cold. She pressed a hand to her cheek.
Her phone rang in her palm and she almost answered it, assuming Tripp. Petra. Again. Her finger hovered over the red button, shaking in midair. She hit decline.
• • •
At Tripp’s house, Bridget rang the doorbell, a finger pressed and held there.
Tripp finally came to the door, his face pinked with sleep, his eyes heavy lidded. He wore a faded T-shirt and basketball shorts, barefoot. It felt too intimate, somehow.
“I’m sorry. Were you sleeping? I can come back.” Bridget felt her face flush.
“Bridge, what’s up?” He opened the door wider, yawning, and motioned her in. She slid past him, into the house.
“I think Lucia’s missing?” She came right out with it, but it got hung up at the end, like a question.
“Again?” He lifted up the hem of his shirt and wiped his mouth, a boy gesture, something she’d seen Holden do a million times. “This girl runs off a lot.”
“I think it’s real this time. There was an incident at school and I haven’t seen her in four whole days.” Bridget’s voice hitched up, a shrill squeak.
“Bridget, are you okay?” His face slackened, worried.
“Everyone thinks I’m going to drive my car off the bridge into the Lackawaxen.” She lifted her hair up, sweat popping up at her hairline. She’d been having these hot flashes lately, her hair suddenly sticky at the neck, her cheeks bursting red.
“It might be . . . understandable,” Tripp said. Like he would know anything about it, his singly focused life. He didn’t, as far as Bridget knew, even have a girlfriend. No one to care about but himself. Bridget tried to envision Tripp taking care of anyone else. The kind of shit-piss-vomit end-of-life care. Bridget fanned herself with her fingers.
“Do you have any water or something?”
Tripp got her a glass of water that he filled from the tap, no ice, and when he handed it to her their fingertips brushed. She downed it in one gulp.
“I think I need to fill out a police report.” She handed the glass back to him. “Will you come with me?”
Tripp rubbed his chin, looked out the window above the sink, through the yellow gingham curtains. The sun was burning too bright for such a weird day; the air had a circus-music feel to it.
“Yeah, I can come. But, Bridget, why are you the only one doing all this? What about her family? Other teachers?” He looked back into the living room. “You know Nate is staying here, right?”
Bridget nodded. Alecia had told her, perfunctorily, when she’d called the day before. Her voice had been so flat. Everything is so different now, you don’t even know. I found things.
Bridget flashed back to Lucia kissing Nate, her hand pulling him against her by his shirt. The way he seemed to lean into her, his body seeking it. His words, later, saying a different thing.
She had asked Alecia what things, but she just said, I don’t want to talk about it. Their conversations were so halted now. Formal. How is Gabe? He’s doing great! How’s school? Oh, you know, end of the year coming. They didn’t talk much about Nate, neither of them sure where the other’s loyalties would lie. That’s the trouble with “couple” friends. When there was no longer a couple, was there still a friendship? She’d asked her once do you believe Nate? Alecia just snorted into the phone. Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Which didn’t really answer the question, but Bridget, being southern, didn’t press even though she wanted to. Nate’s situation, as they called it, flowed between them like a wide open river, fast and furious. They didn’t cross it, or talk about it, except in roundabout ways (we should get together soon), but sometimes, Bridget could hardly hear Alecia over the loudness of the rushing water. They talked louder to cover the noise but it all felt a little bit hollow.
Bridget missed her real friendship, the one before the river. And the past few days, Bridget couldn’t breathe and maybe if she talked to someone about it, it would get better. If she could just say I don’t know why but I can’t breathe, maybe she’d be able to breathe again. But Alecia was in the thick of it, and maybe she wasn’t the right person to talk to anyway.
“Where is Nate now?” Bridget looked around, seeing no trace of him at all.
Tripp just shrugged. “I haven’t talked to him yet today. I got home from work, I worked a double. He was passed out on the couch. I went to bed. He’s gone now. Sometimes he leaves a note.” He gestured to the empty table.
“Tripp, do you believe him?” Bridget hadn’t meant to ask it, didn’t even know what she’d hoped to accomplish.
“I do.” Tripp straightened and did that thing with his shirt again, lifting it to his mouth. Bridget could see his stomach, muscled and carved in a new way. She wanted to press her palm to the ridges, feel the dew on his skin. Feel how it was different. Holden had been fit, he could run miles and often did, but he was rounded in the belly, soft with age. She used to move her hands around it, holding it like a globe. Tripp was still talking. “Nate is complicated. He wants everyone to like him. I think he was trying, in a weird way, to rescue her. But, he, uh, sometimes goes too far.”
Bridget didn’t ask what that meant. She didn’t want to know.
“I just mean that he tries too hard,” Tripp clarified.
“You don’t think he slept with Lucia?” Bridget asked.
“He says he didn’t. I’ve never known him to be a liar. I can’t ask too many questions, you know?” He shrugged and saw her face. “Because I’m a cop. I’m no
t on the investigation, but if I knew anything definitive, I’d have to report it, right?”
“Tripp, I think she’s missing. I went to her house. It’s just that creepy weird brother there. He didn’t answer the door.” She gulped, her throat thick. Something occurred to her, an awful, clawing feeling. “Do you think . . . ? Do you think it’s possible that Nate is with her . . . ?”
Tripp blinked, then puffed out his cheeks. Looked around his kitchen like he’d never seen it before.
“I’ll get dressed,” he said.
“Tripp, wait,” Bridget called to his back, and he stopped, turned his head so she could see his profile. “Do you think we should call Nate?” Where did Tripp’s loyalty lie? Would he risk his job for his friend? Would either of them? It really didn’t seem possible that Nate and Lucia were together.
Tripp didn’t say anything for the longest time and Bridget stared at his back, the broad expanse between his shoulders, the flex of his calf muscles and the whiteness of one heel, then the other, as he shifted his weight, the curve of his ankle.
Finally, he answered her. “No.”
• • •
Mt. Oanoke police station sat behind a Texaco on Route 543. A wide, flat building, it reminded Bridget of a strip mall with a trailer hanging off the side like an afterthought. Inside, it smelled like fresh paint and new carpeting. The front desk was encased in a glass window, like a doctor’s office, and the room behind it boasted open cubicles and bright blue paint. It was such a surprisingly cheerful place, maybe the most uplifting place in all of Mt. Oanoke.
Tripp leaned over the desk and called out to someone in the back. “Is Harper around?” Bridget heard the low murmur of another voice and then the sound of a lock being disengaged. Tripp motioned to follow him through the metal door.
They walked to his desk and Bridget hung back, out of place. Tripp’s cube was low and simple, a computer, policy papers thumbtacked to the sides, and a single framed photo of a beautiful Asian woman and a girl about ten years old. Tripp caught her staring.