The Darling Songbirds

by Rachael Herron

  ‘Heck, yeah.’ Jack said. ‘Let’s start with Cathy, the hostess down at Caprese. Have you ever met her? She’s the one with the black hair down to her butt and the lazy eye. Really lazy. Basically, her mama always said her eye went with her personality, but during this one storm, round about ten years ago, she proved that she was anything but lazy by saving four horses and three babies – human ones – from the Singing L Ranch. Give me an extra bag and go get that euc oil. I’ll tell you all about that night when you get back.’

  It took three hours, thirty trash bags, and two extra-large pizzas for Adele to work up the nerve to ask the question she’d wanted to ask when Jack had started his storytelling. ‘So, what about Nate?’

  ‘Oh!’ Jack looked upward, his slice of pizza hanging in front of him like it was about to be lifted out of his hands. ‘About Jackie Hammstein, I think I forgot to say! Did I mention that she had six toes on one foot? Like, that’s the whole point of the swimming hole story, because without that freak show of a foot, she would have never gotten married in the first place, you know?’

  Adele had already lost track of who Jackie was and what had happened at the swimming hole. ‘Ah. What about Nate Houston? The bartender?’

  Jack laughed and slid another piece of pizza towards his brother. ‘You say that like I don’t know who he is! I know Nate! You’re asking for a Nate story?’ He craned his neck to peer down the stairs as if the man in question might be climbing them to the upper porch where they sat. ‘Because I got some good ones.’ Jack paused and tilted his head, as if listening to something Adele couldn’t hear. ‘What do you want to know?’

  ‘Does Nate …’ Why did this take bravery? ‘So, does he date much?’

  ‘You want to know about his girlfriend?’

  Her stomach dropped. Maybe she’d had enough pizza.

  ‘Um. It’s none of my business. Never mind.’

  Jack perched a stack of what looked like religious pamphlets, the kind that get shoved under doors, on the edge of the sink and propped his elbow on the top ones. ‘Well now, it’s none of our business, either, but it sure is fun to watch. See, John and me, we’re confirmed bachelors. That’s what we say, and I don’t mind admitting to you that it’s just a thing men say when they can’t get the girls no more or never liked ’em in the first place. But we liked ’em, and we sure like to think about the days of old when we could still lock and load. We never married because none of ’em ever caught us, and maybe that’s why we like to watch old Nate. Yep. That could be it.’

  Adele felt as if she were only catching half Jack’s words. They were a waterfall, some were soaking her, and some were just running into the stream. ‘So he’s never been married?’

  ‘Nah. Not him. Likes to be single. A loner.’

  Something inappropriately hopeful propped itself up in Adele’s heart. ‘Really?’

  ‘Yep. Well, if by loner you mean always with a new girl. And I kind of mean that. Constant one-night stands, one after another, those can just make a guy sad, you know?’

  ‘Ah.’

  Jack bent forward and slapped his knee. ‘Lord, girl, you should see your face right now. I’m just playing. He ain’t a creep. He had a girlfriend last year, Christie? Christine? Something like that. She left, though, got another job in another town.’

  ‘Ah.’ She shouldn’t ask, but she did anyway. ‘What did she do?’

  ‘Nurse. Some specialty kind. Pediatrics, maybe? Always busy off saving kids. She was too busy for him, really. That was probably the last nail in that there homemade coffin. Pretty little thing, though. Kind of looked like you, actually, with that dark hair and blue eyes, but you’re bigger at the hips.’

  John looked up from the bag he was filling and cleared his throat with urgency.

  Jack straightened, as if he were about to snap a salute at Adele. ‘Not that you have big hips! Because you don’t! She was too skinny, that one. That’s what we thought, right, John? Not that what we thought mattered because we always thought he should go for someone local, someone more likely to actually stick around.’ He looked appraisingly at Adele. ‘What about you? You’re going to stick around? Not that I’m asking about Nate. I wouldn’t want to meddle in his life, not even a little bit. No, sir. But you’re clearing out this place like you might want to set yourself down some roots?’

  Mildly, Adele said, ‘Roots are good.’

  ‘Well, yeah. Me and John were born at home, didya know that? Just a mile and a half down the road. At home, ’cause our mom was a hippie before they had a word for what she was. Where were you born?’

  ‘Nashville.’

  ‘But you’re from here originally. Your family named the town – you can’t get much more local than that, I think. And your sister Lana was born in town.’

  Adele had forgotten how much of her family history was held by the locals here. It had always been something that soothed her, and at the same time made her skin itch. Or maybe that was just the dust mites they were surely stirring up by the bucketful.

  ‘You should date Nate,’ said John – the first words he’d spoken.

  A huge cloud of dust flew up from the box Adele was poking through, choking her.

  Jack said, ‘Yeah! He’s lonely. I can see that. I got my brother and all, and we watch Netflix at night. If you ain’t got romance, family’s the next best thing – am I right? Nate, he’s got no family no more. Even Hugh’s gone. Not that they were family, but they kind of were. And anyway, he’s got that look.’

  Adele didn’t want to ask which look he meant, scared he might tell her she wore it, too. She decided to move to a quieter place. ‘I’m going to go into the beer can room. Let me know if you need more bags.’

  Jack called out, ‘Okay, but let me know if you need more stories! Because I got a funny one about when that nurse of his got stuck on a rock when the tide came in too fast.’

  The story probably involved either Nate saving the pretty little nurse’s life, or the nurse saving a drowning baby herself on her way in, so no, Adele was just fine not hearing it. Thank God for hard work. Maybe if she kept dragging bag after bag of trash out of the apartment and down the stairs to the dumpster, maybe if she completely exhausted herself, mind and body, she’d manage to stop reliving the feeling of Nate’s lips on hers. The heat of them. Maybe she’d forget the way her whole body had reacted as if it had been plugged into an electrical socket, only hotter.

  She rolled her sleeves up higher and tied the kerchief more tightly on her head. Then she dove in again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Nate was growling again. He could hear it, he could feel it, and he couldn’t stop doing it. ‘Freaking piece of foreign-made crap. Gah!’

  Dixie wasn’t helping by laughing at him. ‘Maybe if you quit swearing at it, it would act better for you.’

  ‘You call that swearing?’

  ‘Not your last few sentences, no. But when I got here, the wallpaper was peeling off the walls from your blue streak.’

  ‘It’s a coffee machine. It doesn’t mind being cussed at. Needs it, in fact.’

  ‘Just buy a new one.’

  Nate sighed and slumped to a bar stool. He rubbed his face with his hands, cursing again when he remembered he’d had jalapeño on them from the burger Dixie had brought him. He stuck his whole head under the bar sink, opening and closing his eyes under the water until the burn stopped making him want to claw them out.

  Dixie just laughed some more as he wiped his face on a pile of cocktail napkins. ‘I love it when you’re grumpy.’

  ‘Sadist.’

  ‘It’s just that you’re so good at it.’

  He was. Even Nate could admit that. It was maybe one of the things he was best at. ‘It’s nice to know I have a specialty.’

  There was a thump and then a dragging noise at the back of the saloon, outside.

  Dixie jumped. ‘That scares me every time.’ She looked at her watch. ‘It’s almost seven. Isn’t that past quitting time?’

&
nbsp; ‘She never stops.’

  ‘Has she let you help yet?’

  Nate narrowed his eyes and pulled off the back of the coffee machine with a yank. It gave a louder crack than it should have, and he suspected he’d just bought himself a new machine even though he’d been determined to fix it one more time.

  ‘Ah. The answer is no.’

  ‘Every time I go up there, she says she’s fine.’

  ‘Even when the Post brothers aren’t there?’

  Especially then. The last time he’d clomped up the stairs, he’d heard her footsteps inside the apartment, light and quick, running for the front door. When he reached the porch, he’d been right in time to hear the lock click in the door.

  ‘Go, then.’

  ‘I just said that she doesn’t want me up there.’

  ‘So?’

  He gave Dixie the look that usually shut up the most belligerent drunk in the saloon. ‘So I’m not usually the kind of guy who ignores a woman’s wishes.’

  ‘Well, yeah. That would make you just an enormo-jerkwad.’

  ‘Attractive phrase.’ It wasn’t like he didn’t want to help. He did. Desperately. Watching Adele heave things up and down the stairs, watching her haul the huge bags to the dumpster – it was killing him. She and the Post brothers had been working for three days already. He’d gone from being annoyed at hearing their tramping overhead to it making him almost mental. Adele was working so hard. The stairs to Hugh’s apartment went right in front of the side window of the saloon, and he couldn’t help looking up every time she passed by it. She’d started every one of the last three days looking fresh. Clean. By the end of the day, her ponytail was frizzed, and her clothes were filthy. Usually her face was streaked with grime and sweat. Yesterday she’d looked on the verge of tears as she hauled up a mop bucket she must have found in the hotel maid’s closet.

  It was killing him, not helping.

  But she didn’t want him to. And if she failed, maybe she’d leave.

  That was the whole point. She needed to leave. It was too bad he was having such a hard time remembering that.

  ‘My point is that you’re not a enormo-jerkwad. Try one more time.’

  ‘Enormo-jerkwad. Me.’ Nate pointed at his own chest. ‘You’re buying me a new coffee machine if she kicks me in the junk.’

  ‘You got a deal.’ Dixie flapped a rag at him. ‘Go. There’s like five people here. I got this.’

  Nate went.

  Adele was in the middle of dropping huge contractor bags over the railing to the gravel parking lot below. Three had already hit, and one had split open. She threw another one over and it came so close to hitting him, he could hear the air whistling as it fell.

  ‘Oh my God! Be careful down there!’

  ‘Me? You should look where you’re throwing that stuff! You want to hit a customer?’ Without asking whether or not she wanted him to, he dragged the last bag to the dumpster and heaved it in. The trash company had already been out once to empty it, and they were going to have to come out and do it again. He wondered how much the extra trip was going to cost him. No, he had to remember – it would cost her.

  ‘You don’t have to do that!’

  He didn’t answer, just started shoving the glass floats back into the bag that had started splitting. Of course it had ripped – shards of glass were now all over the parking lot. ‘You had to throw this over the side?’

  ‘You try lifting that!’ Adele leaned over the railing and glared at him. She had two dark streaks of grime running up her cheeks, and the sleeve of her green shirt was ripped. She looked exhausted – he didn’t think the dark circles under her eyes were dirt.

  ‘Drop me another bag to double it, and I will!’

  She dropped it – hurled it, really – down to him.

  When he was done carefully picking up the shards and sweeping the lot, he went up the stairs. Heavily. So she could hear him coming and bar the door if she needed to.

  But she didn’t. She was sitting at the picnic table, her shoulders rounded with what looked like sheer fatigue. ‘Hey.’

  ‘Hey.’ Nate didn’t have a follow-up line. He wished he did.

  ‘What can I help you with?’ She lifted her head, and the sadness he saw on her face twisted something in his chest, something he’d forgotten he could feel.

  ‘You look like you could use a beer.’

  ‘Yeah, well. I dug out the refrigerator and cleaned it. I think it took a couple of years off my life, but when I plugged it in, it worked. But that was just a couple of hours ago. Very sadly, there is no beer in it. There was, though.’ She tugged on her ponytail, tightening it. ‘Did you know beer expires? The cans in there had actually caved in on themselves. They were mostly empty, even though they’d never been opened. And they were the cleanest things I found in that fridge.’ She shuddered, even though the air was warm.

  ‘Well, you’re in luck then, that a bartender came to check on you.’

  ‘Nope.’ She shook her head. ‘I thought about it, but I can’t go down there without a good wash and I want to finish cleaning the shower in there so I can do that, and therefore I’m stuck. Sitting here. Until I figure out how to solve this problem.’

  Was she almost ready to cry? Something about the shape of her mouth, the tight, miserable way she held it, made him think it was a possibility.

  ‘Well, just sit there, then.’ He turned and started down the stairs. ‘I’ll be right back.’

  ‘Nate. You don’t have to.’

  But he did. He had to do something to ease that tightness behind her eyes, to make that spot between her shoulderblades drop.

  In the saloon, Dixie shot him a loaded look. ‘Ah. Yes, I’m a genius. Don’t bother denying it.’

  ‘Don’t speak.’ He put two glasses under the Boont tap.

  ‘Hey, why don’t you take the rest of the night off, boss?’

  ‘Hey, why don’t you mind your own business?’

  Dixie held up her hands. ‘I’m just saying. If you don’t come back down here by one forty-five, I’m closing up,’ she winked, ‘and asking no questions.’

  Nate didn’t bother to dignify her suggestion with a response. He grabbed a round tray and put two bags of mesquite barbecue chips next to the pints. At the last minute, he added a couple of lime-flavoured jerky strips.

  ‘Classy.’

  Nate shot Dixie a look that should have killed her dead on the spot. She should be a smoking pile of ash. Instead, she just giggled and waved her fingers at him. ‘Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. So basically, don’t chew any lead paint. Beyond that, go for it.’

  He took the stairs slowly, keeping his eyes on the level of the pint glasses.

  Adele was still in the same place. She still looked defeated.

  That very fact, the simplicity of it, should have thrilled him.

  And it didn’t.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Something inside Nate lit and started crackling like a firecracker landing in dry weeds. ‘Here. It’s not much, but it’s the best I could rustle up with short notice.’

  He set down the tray and sat next to her, their backs to the open door of the apartment. In front of them, on the other side of the parking lot below, the enormous old oak tree spread its arms. The ocean’s blue curve could just be seen through the leaves. As the fog crept in with nightfall, the blue of the water was getting darker. The air smelled of dust and, faintly, lighter fluid, as if someone close by was heating up their grill.

  ‘Thank you.’ Her voice was so clenched it sounded like someone had strung her vocal cords too tightly, like a guitar string about to break.

  They sat together.

  He didn’t try to fill the air with words, just watched the oak tree’s limbs sway in the breeze.

  At first, the space between them felt as tightly strung as her voice had. Then it eased. This high porch had that effect on people. How many times had he ranted about his mother to Hugh up here? He remembered a time he’d been so
angry his hands had been shaking. His mother had been sober for almost three months. Long enough for Nate to get his hopes up again.

  Then, of course, she’d flamed out in a big way. She’d drunk a fifth of vodka and chased it with some pills she couldn’t even name she’d scored off a guy who had been staying in room three. That guy had gone one step further and accused Donna of trying to rob him after sleeping with him.

  Nate had sat right there, his hand wrapped around his lighter. He’d flicked it on, then let the flame die, over and over. ‘That guy basically said my mother’s a whore.’

  Hugh had kept his eyes on the bowl of his pipe. ‘Nah. He didn’t.’

  ‘I should kill him.’ Nate had looked at his empty hand, wondering if it were strong enough to hurt the man who threw his mother out of recovery.

  ‘If you think about it, he’s actually saying the opposite.’ Hugh had puffed lightly, sending the smoke up towards the oak’s limbs. ‘He said he slept with her and then she took money from him. He didn’t give it to her.’

  ‘Well, shit. What am I supposed to do?’ The anger had been so strong, the disappointment so sharp that Nate wanted to leave, to get in his truck and drive away from Darling Bay and every single person who needed something from him. Donna needed him to help her stay sober. Hugh needed him to run the bar. The patrons needed him to take care of them. It was his job, yeah, and he was good at it. He liked helping. But his mother falling off the wagon was one too many times. How was he supposed to help her up again?

  If he left town, he could start over. Start new. Start by not taking care of anyone but himself.

  Hugh had said, ‘What you’re supposed to do is just let your mother do what she’s gonna do. And love her if you can. If she’ll let you. If she won’t, that’s not your problem.’

  Hugh had that much faith in Donna. And in him.

  Now, sitting on the porch next to Adele, Nate said, ‘Your uncle was the best friend I ever had.’

  Adele sipped her beer and kept her eyes forward. ‘Why?’