The Meaning of Birds

by Jaye Robin Brown

  “You said badass. And balls.”

  She clapped her hands to her cheeks and her eyes widened. Then she giggled. “I did. Maybe you’re changing me, Jess Perez.”

  I took her hand. “I don’t want to be a bad influence.” Then I didn’t give her time to ask her tenth question. I pulled her toward me and leaned forward. My lips touched hers in a whisper kiss. Simple. Sweet. When I stepped back, she put her fingers to her mouth and smiled. The doves began to coo again.

  Vivi and Jess. Jess and Vivi. Strong.

  11

  Now: One Week, Two Days After

  My head jangles as the alarm starts cooing on my bedside table. Why hadn’t I changed that stupid dove alarm tone? It makes my heart hurt as much as my head does. I slap it off, hoping to fall back to sleep, but the drumbeat in my skull is too loud.

  “Fudgesicles.” Vivi broke me of the F-bomb and the creative replacement comes naturally. I roll over and wipe the drool from the corner of my mouth onto my pillowcase. Emma Watson stands and stretches and gives me a widemouthed fishy yawn that brings bile to the back of my throat. “Damn, Emma. Warn a girl about the morning breath.” But the cat’s nose-wrinkle, in response to my talking, tells me I don’t have room to complain.

  I make the mistake of sitting up too quickly and immediately fall back to my pillow. Ugh. Then I remember—the vodka, the fight, the cops, Mom’s disappointment. What a stupid flub-up. I am a complete and total idiot. The hollow rush of gravity and cavity swell again. How is it possible to be filled with so much void? Vivi would never have let me get so far on the anger volcano. She would have calmed me, cajoled me, talked me out of doing something so stupid. But then, she’s kind of the cause of it all, isn’t she? I curl over sideways and pull my knees to my chest, and hope that if I ball up tight enough I can stop the ache.

  There’s a knock at the door and the squeak of hinges. “It’s past time to get up, Jess.”

  My mother’s voice is hurt, filled with tension and frustration.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “You get a strong warning from me—this time—but I’m not sure the school’s going to be on board. I’m going with you. And we need to talk about you going back to counseling.”

  I squeeze my eyes shut again. Money is so tight right now between Mom’s school, and Nina’s school, and all the regular bills. Therapy is probably covered by my health insurance, but I don’t want to start over. It was hard losing Samantha and even though she was there for me via phone those first six months after she left, it’s not something she’d want to start back up.

  “I’ll be okay, I promise. It was, what’s that word?” I rub at my damning skull. “An anomaly. I promise I can get it together. Use my tools.” Then, “What time is it?”

  “Past the first bell and the principal has already called. He told me about your first anomaly, too. Jess . . .” She sighs. “I thought we were long done with the fighting.” Mom crosses the room and sits on the bed, causing Emma Watson to leap and run for the hallway. She puts a hand on my shoulder. “I know this is hard, hon. I know it hurts. But I need you to hold it together. And if you can’t, we need to get you some help.” She brushes the hair out of my eyes. “I love you.”

  That does it. Floodgates open. Tears and wailing. I’m flayed down the middle and falling into darkness, but Mom lifts me up and cradles me and rocks me until I’m gulping air and rubbing at my nose. “I’m okay, now.” I roll upright and immediately clutch my head.

  Mom stands and smooths the wrinkles out of her pantsuit. “Alcohol will do that to you. I may only be giving you a strong warning about your anger behavior, but you are grounded. Drinking is not tolerated, drinking on a school night, even if you are grieving, extra not okay. Comprende?”

  “Comprende.”

  “Get dressed, let’s go.”

  “Won’t you be late?”

  “I’ve called.” Mom stands a moment longer in my room, her expression a combination of understanding and disappointment. “I’ll be in the car.”

  At school, they are waiting for me. The principal. The school resource officer. The guidance counselor. The story unspools. I blacked the other girl’s eyes but luckily, she did not have a concussion. Her parents are livid. They want to press charges. The school talked them down. My verdict? Alternative school for four weeks of in-school suspension to keep the peace and some kind of in-name-only mediated restraining order. My reputation has caught up to me.

  Mom argues, but it’s either hang out with the other lowlifes or a criminal charge. Grady High School does not tolerate violence between its students, either on campus or off.

  It doesn’t matter, the worst has already happened. Nothing else can touch me.

  The SRO leads me to my locker and I clear it out to the movie score of whispers and stares. Books, papers, a few bags of unopened Flamin’ Hot Cheetos that Levi brought me after I won some stupid bet with him. I can’t even remember what it was about, only that he surprised me by remembering to bring me my spoils. I shove them into my backpack though my stomach lurches at the thought of them.

  On the shelf, carefully placed, is a red portfolio with drawings I’d shown to the art teacher at Grady. I’d only gotten into one of her classes junior year, but she’d been advising me and letting me sneak in to work at lunch or after school when I waited for Cheyanne or Vivi to finish their extra-curriculars. Vivi was convinced I could get into the graphic design program at NC State, where she hoped to go. I toss it into the trash can. That part of my life is done.

  Cheyanne looks up from the open doorway of her math class, her expression a question mark. I keep my head down and keep walking. I practice my breathing to bring myself down, but I don’t really need to. I don’t feel the anger today. Somehow this feels right, like the change I need. It’s too hard to be in these halls without Vivi.

  “Can I go back home?” I ask Mom as we walk to the car, my backpack overflowing with packets of work given to me by my teachers. “I can’t do this today.”

  “Not on your life. Though I’m sure you regret last night’s decisions and a good day’s sleep would make you feel better, what’s going to make me feel better is knowing you are getting the education you so rightly deserve.”

  Guess Mom is pissed after all.

  “Can I at least get coffee and some breakfast?” Last night’s onion rings haunt my mouth even after brushing and flossing twice.

  Mom takes me to a drive-through and then speeds across town to the county’s central school office where the alternative school is located. “Take the bus home. It’s been arranged.”

  For the first time since the day began, I feel a flicker of fear. The alternative school is for the really troubled kids. The ones with ankle monitors and probation officers. The ones who punch doors and throw desks. It’s not for girl-fight girls.

  Mom and I wind our way through the old elementary school converted into the administration building. The hallway’s fluorescent lights are dim and the student art framed on the wall looks like it’s been here a good two decades or more. At the far end is a door. She says goodbye and I walk toward my fate.

  I’m greeted by cursing.

  The teacher, a man who looks like he could have been a Navy SEAL before he padded himself with a layer of break-room coffee and donuts, is in the face of some pocked-skin, buzz-cut kid I remember in the vaguest way from elementary school. Like a drill sergeant in his face. Voice raised, finger-pointing, spittle slow-motion moving to the floor.

  “Motherfucker, when I say sit down, I mean fucking sit down,” he yells.

  Mr. Alistair never talks like this. I stand, framed by the door, not moving, not knowing where to go.

  A tall shadow steps in by my side. “This is nothing,” the shadow whispers. “You’re going to love McGovern.”

  “McGovern?”

  The shadow nods. “Yeah, Mr. McGovern, Mac, Asshole.”

  “Asshole?”

  “Better stick to McGovern.”

  “Thanks.” />
  I watch Mr. McGovern, Mac, Asshole, stand down the boy until he practically topples into his seat. Then he notices me.

  “You.” He’s talking to me, not the shadow.

  “Yes,” I say, then add, “sir.”

  “You’re not going to cause trouble, are you? Not one of those girls to sashay her tail feathers and cause this neatly ordered platoon to fall ranks and drool on themselves as they writhe on the floor?”

  “I’m pretty sure you can’t say that to me . . . sir.”

  Someone yells from the other side of the disorganized room. “He ain’t no sir, that’s McGovern.”

  “Shut it, delinquent,” Mr. McGovern yells over his shoulder, then turns back to me. “I say a lot of shit I ain’t supposed to in here, but then, so have you to get your ass handed to me. Well?”

  “No, sir. I don’t cause drama.” I look around again and realize I’m the only girl in the room. There are maybe twelve guys and besides my tall shadow friend, they’re all staring at me, waiting.

  Mr. McGov . . . Mac . . . Asshole watches for a long second, then makes a throat noise to indicate he’s done with me for the time being.

  “Welcome to hell,” someone yells.

  “Nice ass,” someone else yells.

  I spin, my fists spontaneously clinching, a stab of excitement jabbing at some part of my reptilian brain before the weight of my mother’s warning kicks in.

  “Steady girl,” my shadow whispers. “I got you.” Then to the room. “Her ass will kick yours if you give her half a chance. This is Jess. She’s my crew from way back. And she ain’t into you. So leave it.”

  “I could have handled my own damn self.” I turn to look at my mysterious backup. “Deuces.”

  “Sup, pussycat. Been a while.”

  Marcus “Deuces” Lamar was my seat neighbor all through sixth grade. He was always good for a laugh or as a wingman in a fight. I glance down and see the bracelet on his ankle.

  “Wondered what happened to you.” Which is true, he was always one of my favorites but we just kind of lost touch.

  “Corner work. They caught me holding for my bonehead brother. But that’s old news. I’m out of juvie and working my way toward free. Seat’s over here.”

  He leads me through more stares, but the other boys seem to be over the fact there’s a chick in their midst and more curious about what I’ve done to land in hell.

  What’s left of the morning goes by in a blur that is painfully like regular school except without the switching of classes, gossip by the lockers, or, you know, girls. It gives me time to suss out my new environment. Blank cinder block walls interspersed with Chuck Norris posters. Things like “If at first you don’t succeed, you’re not Chuck Norris” and “Chuck Norris doesn’t read books, he stares them down till he gets the inspiration he wants.” There’s a circular book rack in the corner of the room with graphic novels and comic books. A sad plastic bin with a handful of art supplies. The clock sounds an overloud and constant tick-tick-tick. No wonder Mr. McGovern breaks it up with an occasional well-aimed curse.

  At noon, an alarm goes off from the front of the room.

  “Starving,” Deuces says.

  “What do we eat?” I ask, realizing there is no cafeteria in the county administration building where we’re housed. Now that my hangover is subsiding, I’m starving, too.

  The pock-faced boy who I remember is named Israel thumps his hands on my desk. “One of only two good things about this hellhole. Mac takes us out.”

  “Out?” I repeat.

  “Yeah, bitch.” A boy with short dreads and huge zirconia studs in his ears stops and puts his elbow on Israel’s shoulder. “He takes us all, prison style, to whatever shit-ass diner he’s in the mood for. Pity for you if you’re craving vegan gluten-free organic uptown sort of food.”

  “Fall out, men.” McGovern pauses on his words like he remembers I’m here, but he doesn’t modify his command.

  “What’s the other thing?” I ask Deuces.

  “The other thing?”

  “Israel said lunch was one of two good things.”

  Deuces’s smile spreads slow on his face. “Oh, that. Guess you’ll have to wait and see.”

  12

  Then: All Sparrows and Chickadees

  It was bound to happen. All good things must come to an end, or at least, that’s what they say. And I’d been good. So good. I’d held my anger like a precious thing whenever I was around Vivi. I’d been cautious and careful and aware of myself, but my prickly parts were still there, barely under the surface. I was like a porcupine, needles at the ready. All it took was the right sort of push and every bit of Samantha training I’d ever had flew out of the window.

  “Douchebag.” I twisted my torso so that my backpack knocked into the side of Daniel Lesotho, who’d just made a big show of sticking his tongue through the V of his forefinger and middle finger when he saw Vivi come walking up to my locker.

  “Dyke.” He shoved me sideways.

  Rage kicked its way out from the tidy containment system inside of my chest and I slipped my backpack off, ready to swing it at him with the full force of my fury. “You Are My Sunshine” turned into “I Hate Everything About You.” All I could see was Daniel’s contorted face and the sweet metal of the lockers behind him. I was going in and he was going to pay.

  Hands closed on my arm, pulling me back, and I turned, my backpack swinging wildly as it collided with Vivi’s thigh, sending her falling backward onto the hard tile floor of the school’s hallway. I froze. The raw energy drained out of me as quickly as it had come.

  Daniel’s laughter echoed off the ceiling as he walked away in the opposite direction and I stood staring at what I’d done, my hands over my mouth, my consciousness horrified.

  “Oh, shit, I mean swizzle, Vivi, I’m so sorry.” I squatted down to help her up but she scooted backward away from me and the anger that had triggered every cell in my body changed to shame and sorrow. I’d scared her. I never wanted to scare her, or hurt her, even if it was unintentional.

  “What was that?” She crawled her way up from the floor to standing and wiped the back of her skirt and leggings with her hands. There was a slight tremble in her fingers. “Why did you act like that? All he did was make some stupid hand motion. You were going to hit him?”

  “I . . .” My face flushed and embarrassment mingled with the shame that then sparked more anger because I hated feeling this way. “Never mind. You know I didn’t mean to hit you.”

  “All I know is you looked like you could kill that guy. Like a switch flipped or something. It was weird, Jess. And you did hit me. Whether it was intentional or not, it’s not okay.”

  Cheyanne chose that moment to come walking up. There’d been an unsteady truce between my GF and my BFF since the night at Stan’s. Both seemed to realize they were stuck with the other but it still wasn’t a love connection.

  “What’s going on, ladies?” She placed her elbow on my shoulder and looked at Vivi. “You look like somebody stole your Lucky Charms.”

  Vivi kept her eyes on me, waiting for me to say something, anything. But I went into defense mode. “Daniel Lesotho called me a dyke.”

  “Uh-oh. Did you go all bruiser on him?” Cheyanne karate chopped out into the hall, her stiletto boot almost nailing a group of junior girls in the process. They scurried out of the way.

  Vivi crossed her arms. “This is funny to the two of you? Normal?”

  Cheyanne shrugged. “Jess gets mad sometimes. So what?”

  Vivi grabbed up her bag. “I’ve got to go to class.”

  This was not good. I needed to stop her. Explain. Tell her the truth, but I’d avoided it so far, skirting around the issue, only hinting that I used to be a bit of a bully in middle school. Who wanted to hear that your girlfriend was flawed and capable of whiteout rage where she ended up clocking you with her backpack?

  “Vivi, wait . . .”

  But my voice got drowned out by the bell.


  I pleaded for forgiveness with an elaborate doodle of an owl that I tucked into her locker. On the back, I asked her to please call me. She did.

  “We need to talk.”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “My parents are headed out to the lake house tonight to fix something for next week’s renters and they said you could come with us. It’s a good place to talk.”

  Being invited to her lake house didn’t sound like we were breaking up. I let out a huge breath of air I didn’t even know I was holding in. “Okay.”

  When we got there, Vivi grabbed a couple of blankets and we walked out to the dock. We bundled up and sat facing the water.

  “I’m really sorry about what happened.”

  “What did happen?”

  I pulled the blanket tighter, cocooning myself in the threads. “If I tell you, you might not like me anymore.”

  “If it’s that bad you should have already told me. I told you about my asthma.”

  “That’s not something you can help.”

  She didn’t answer. She waited.

  I sighed and stared at the still surface of the water and our shrouded reflections. “In middle school all this anger inside of me boiled up and came out. I took it out on anybody I thought was weak or different. Mostly guys. Let me tell you, no eleven-year-old boy wants to have his butt kicked by a girl. I was a grade-A jerk.

  “My therapist, Samantha, said I was a ticking time bomb. Between unexpressed grief from my dad’s death and me figuring out I was gay, she said the two things built up inside of me—and mixed with puberty hormones, I went nuts. It took my mom about five months to actually take it seriously and get me in counseling.”

  “But you still have anger issues.”

  I glanced in her direction and she finally looked at me. “Yeah.” Then, “I would never intentionally hurt you. I want you to know that. I’m not sure why that guy triggered me. I think I felt protective or something and then I hit you in the process . . . by accident.”

  “You didn’t really hurt me,” she said.