The Meaning of Birds

by Jaye Robin Brown

  He kisses me again then and I feel his hands spread open against my back, pulling me toward him, and the music is still playing in my ear. I’m not really thinking about the what of this thing I’m doing, rather I’m experiencing the sensations. Train rattle, percussion, wind, flesh. My mouth opens to his tongue and now I’m exploring the inside of his mouth and it’s warm, kind of wet but not really. He tastes like chocolate and I’m surprised by the scratch of stubble near my mouth.

  The train cars keep coming and Levi’s mouth is getting bolder against mine and his hand starts to slip around the edge of my shirt and that’s when I realize, shit, he’s actually into this. Levi’s getting worked up and I’m just stoned. My brain wakes up and shrieks at me. . . . Stop.

  I shriek at him. “Levi, stop.”

  He looks up and his eyes are glazed, like one of those cartoon animals in love. The last car finally rattles past.

  “I need to go home. I can’t get caught if the conductor called the cops.”

  “Yeah, okay. You’re right. I’ll walk you.” He puts a hand on my shoulder. It feels proprietary.

  I need to cut this cord right here and now. “Levi, I, about what just . . .”

  He shakes his head. “No, don’t say it. Let me hang on to it for a little bit. I need the fantasy. I need to wake up tomorrow morning with a smile on my face and the memory of kissing a girl I think is super cool and that I really like.”

  “I like you, too, Levi.”

  “You do?” His smile is hopeful, his eyes crinkled, and the music just smooth enough that all I manage is a nod, even though I should be adding the necessary “as a friend” statement.

  When I’m shut safely into my room I grab up Emma Watson and the photo of Vivi. “I am messing crap up left and right.”

  Vivi’s smile is enigmatic. But I think she’d agree with me.

  Emma Watson purrs.

  I pick up the phone and text Cheyanne one word.

  —Sorry.

  Because not only have I totally pushed her out of my life when all she wanted to do was help, but it seems like I may be doing the same thing I’ve accused her of doing all this time, leading Levi on.

  32

  Now: Four Weeks After

  I’m getting dressed so Nina can drop me at Greer’s house when my phone buzzes. I grab for it.

  It’s not Cheyanne.

  —Hey. Last night. Kind of wack, right?

  Ugh. Levi. Last night was so bizarre. Between Sahara, the train, the kiss. I want a rewind button. My chest aches because none of it feels like me. None of it feels like the me that Vivi loved. I’m scrambling and reaching and I feel like I’m trying to dig myself into a hole while at the same time hold on and get myself out. It’s apparent this text is his way of checking in on what happened last night. Do I answer him? Or ignore it?

  I go for ignore but then I opt for a simple thumbs-up emoji.

  He texts back right away.

  —Um. You want to meet up tonight?

  I need to put a few days between me and Levi. We’ve been hanging out a lot and even though having a bunch of nights to myself is a sure invitation for the wallow of Vivi thoughts, it might help set him straight on the “just friends” thing again.

  —Can’t. Have to work. A bunch going on this week.

  Oh. Sure thing. Had fun last night. He adds a train and a lips emoji, followed by the goofy closed eye, tongue out smiley face.

  If I were to emoji interpret, he’s bringing up the kiss and then giving me, us, an out with that smiley. I scroll through and choose the one with angle eyes and tongue out. Hopefully he’ll read it as “yeah that was left field, we were totally messed up, and omg.”

  Before I stick my phone in my pocket, I check to see if Cheyanne has texted me back.

  Still nothing. My heart sinks a little, but at this point I get it. If it were me on the flip side, I might hold out. Make me wait to prove a point of what a bitch I was.

  Greer puts me straight to work. I mastered the welds she needed to connect the rebar rods to her garden creatures and I’m working through the group of them. The welding helmet protects my eyes from the flash of light and the leather apron keeps any stray sparks from popping holes in my clothes. Soon I find a rhythm, sanding the weld spot, brushing it clean, lining up the rebar, hitting it with the weld. The sound, kind of like the bug zapper my neighbors have hanging in their backyard, is as satisfying as watching the welding wire melt and fuse the pieces together. Once I have all the welds done, I move the pieces to a big table and plug up the handheld sander to clean up my work a bit.

  Greer comes over from where she’s been forging to check out what I’m doing. “Nice job.” She holds up one of the rabbits, its ears longer than its body, its face a cartoon menace. “I like this guy. Hopefully there are art buyers out there with an imagination as twisted as mine.”

  I wipe the grime from my hands onto the apron. “He’s not that twisted. He just has character.”

  “Thanks.” She inspects the rest of my work, then motions for me to follow her. “Come on. I’ll show you how to work the plasma cutter. It’s how I cut out these flat pieces.”

  We walk to a machine that looks similar to the welders but says PlasmaPro on the front of it. Greer hooks it up to the air compressor. It has a handle that reminds me less of a torch and more like a glue gun. A flat sheet of metal is edged out over the concrete floor and Greer has drawn the outline of one of her creatures in chalk on its surface.

  “It’s pretty amazing, this thing. Draws in metal and cuts it right out. Only thing to remember is to keep a steady hand and keep it about a forty-five-degree angle, like so.” Greer hits the trigger and a bright flame lights up that she lowers onto her drawn line. The plasma cutter eats the steel like it’s butter.

  As I watch the machine cut out perfect metal reproductions of Greer’s surrealistic creatures, I think about birds. How my drawings might be interpreted in metal. And then I shut it down. Because making art is another way of cheating on Vivi. It’s moving forward. It’s picking up the pieces. It’s saying I can still find passion and joy in a world without her and it feels so, so wrong. Despite what Samantha might say.

  When we’re done for the afternoon, Greer invites me in for a cold beverage. Their house is decked out in Halloween finery. There’s even a full-sized coffin crawling over with stuffed spiders in their den. “Whoa.” I look around, my eyes not even able to take in all the details.

  Greer laughs and hands me a Coke. “Yeah, Eliza and I are sort of obsessed with Halloween. We have a massive party every year. Bunch of tattoo folks and lesbian ladies. I would have invited you but it’s Thursday and that’s the day of the kid therapy gig you told me about.”

  I don’t want to seem pushy, but I actually want to go to this party. Otherwise it’s me, dressed up in my Minion onesie with only the littles from VA therapy as my witnesses. And also because Halloween was something Vivi and I loved. Even though being out with Sahara was not what I wanted, I actually didn’t mind the dancing and the people watching. It made me forget myself for a minute. A party at Greer and Eliza’s would be safe, nobody trying to know too much about me or dancing too close, just a bunch of undoubtedly freaky cool people.

  “I’m done by five. I could come. I mean, if you were thinking I couldn’t.”

  “Settled then. Come. Bring a plus one, if you want. Won’t be many folks your age here. And there might be some drinking going on. Not for you, of course.”

  “Of course,” I say. Then I remember what I’d decided to ask Greer. “Hey, um, I was wondering when I might get paid?”

  Greer kills the rest of her soda. “Won’t be till the end of next week. Have to wait till Cabinetworks pays me. Is that going to be okay?”

  I clench my feet and my big toe’s knuckle hits the steel toe of my boot. “Yeah, sure, that’s fine.” Hopefully Mom won’t notice the money I’ve been nicking from her cash envelope before I have time to replace it.

  “Cool beans.” She pauses.
“You know, the invitation’s still open if you want to make a few of your own things to sell at the show. It’d be a way for you to pad what I’m paying you on the back end. Give yourself a little extra holiday money or put it toward the wheels you said you hope to buy.”

  My fingers itch when I think of it. My grief is lonely and when I’m working with metal, my mind is free of anything but the work. I can see the way my drawings will transform. There are pieces in the scrap pile I want to claim for my own. Nests and feathers and elongated beaks out of discarded industrial parts. I clench my fingers into fists, but my mouth opens and speaks without me, “I’ll think about it.” Try as I might to hold back the want, it’s there.

  33

  Then: Bird of Prey

  My locker was a disaster. I had a binder between my knees, my latest English assignment in my mouth, and my elbows blocking the avalanche of donated Halloween makeup that Mrs. Thompson, the art teacher, had put me in charge of. I was trying to hold it all in but it was barely working. I grunted as I shoved my massive algebra book in sideways under the bags, but as I almost had it in place, hands snuck around my waist and I jumped, spilling art supplies, lotions, and potions all over the hallway.

  “Vivi.” I turned to face her. “Maybe give a girl some warning?”

  She laughed and started picking up the things that had fallen. “It’s way too early to get scared. We haven’t even done our makeup yet.”

  Mrs. Thompson had stayed true to her word and let me switch my schedule and take Art 2. As part of it, I’d been wrangled into doing face painting at the local arts council center for their Halloween celebration. After the elementary trick-or-treaters had cleared out, the art students and plus ones were going to participate in a zombie crawl down an alley behind the building, where regular people would pay good money to walk through and have the ever-loving crap frightened out of them.

  Vivi rode the bus with me to my house so we could get ready there before Mom gave us a ride to the event. I instructed Vivi to sit at the vanity chair in Mom’s room. In addition to the makeup Mrs. Thompson had collected, we’d gathered all kinds of abandoned makeup from Cheyanne, Nina, and Vivi’s mom, and even bought a bottle of liquid latex for creating realistic wounds. The arts council was providing most of what was needed for the kids’ face painting, but Mrs. Thompson had suggested we bring whatever we could to add to the tools available.

  Vivi, of course, hadn’t made it easy. She wanted to be a zombie bird of prey. I brandished a makeup brush and a beak I’d crafted out of toilet paper rolls.

  Vivi raised her eyebrows, her look skeptical. “That is what?”

  “Your beak. You say I’m an amazing artist, now you’re going to have to trust me.”

  Vivi grinned. “I like the new confident you. Have at me.”

  I placed the cardboard beak of the small falcon onto her nose and applied layers of latex and toilet tissue to hold it in place. Once I was satisfied it wasn’t going to fall off, I sponged a layer of white base makeup over Vivi’s whole face, then slowly built up the layers of black, rusty browns, and golds, and the touch of blue gray that made the bird so beautiful.

  After about forty minutes, Vivi looked transformed enough for me to swivel the chair toward the mirror. “What do you think?”

  Vivi touched the beak extending from her face. “This is amazing.” She tilted her head in quick birdlike movements as she looked at herself. From her bag, she pulled out the wig she’d made from feathers and a shower cap, and tucked it on over her hair. “What do you think? Am I a fearsome zombie falcon?”

  “I need to blend in the shower cap line, but then yes. Fearsome.”

  “Okay, blend, then one thing before I do your zombie face.”

  I dabbed at her hairline. “Vivi, I can’t kiss you now, there’s no way.”

  Vivi swatted me. “No, idiot. You have to take a photo of me. For your portfolio. I was looking on the site for State’s graphics program, very prestigious by the way, and they want a well-rounded portfolio. This”—she circled her face with her hand—“is excellent.”

  “You really think so?” I knew I was fishing for a compliment, but at the same time I was thinking about Vivi’s words. I’d never thought of myself as one of the four-year college people. But my mom did it as an adult, and now she was applying to law schools. Maybe I could do something awesome, too. Maybe Vivi’s dreaming for the both of us wasn’t out of reach. Maybe I actually had what it took to be that girl.

  “Finish me up and get your mom’s good camera. We’ll let the photographs answer that question. Okay?”

  “Deal.”

  When Vivi’s makeup was complete, and we stared at the images on the back screen of Mom’s SLR, I finally agreed with Vivi. The transformation was unreal. I’d figured out how to take the flat image of the falcon and turn it into something three-dimensional. And awesome.

  “Now do you believe me?” Vivi asked.

  I nodded and kept staring at the image on the tiny screen.

  “Please apply with me. When I’m studying my butt off you won’t be bugging me to go for pizza, because you’ll be busting your tail in the art studio. Then we’ll graduate together, move off to somewhere like the Outer Banks where I can work for the Park Service and you can work from home and take care of our many cats.”

  I looked up from the camera. “Indoor, of course. We don’t want them hunting the birds at our many feeders.”

  “True.” Vivi grinned. “I solemnly swear to clean the litter box a zillion times a day.”

  Emma Watson appeared in Mom’s doorway meowing for effect. Vivi squawked at her and the cat took one look at the makeup on her face and bolted back out into the hallway.

  “Big, bad bird girl.”

  “You know it.” Vivi winked. “Now let’s go scare some civilians.”

  34

  Now: Four Weeks, Three Days After

  “Damn civilians,” McGovern grumbles as he walks away from whichever not-ex-military school staff member has knocked at the classroom door, then calls my name. “Perez. Hallway.” He jerks his thumb toward the door, but doesn’t get up. Everyone turns to look at me, but I don’t know what’s going on any more than they do.

  I step outside. Mrs. Swaley is seated at the bench by the door. She stands when I come out.

  “Jessica, how are you?”

  “Fine.” Suspicious.

  She has a folder in her hand with my name on it and a laptop in the other. “Have a seat.” She pats the bench next to her as she sits again. “I would have waited until you return to main campus next week, but Mrs. Thompson seemed to think time was of the essence and was concerned you’d slip through the cracks. I promised her I’d check in with you since I was going to be at county office anyway.”

  “About what?” I ask.

  She opens her laptop and the page for NC State pops up. “She gave me the impression you were going to apply to a program with a very specific deadline date. I believe the fifteenth?” She looks to me for confirmation.

  I shrug. I’m conflicted, yet not. I know for sure I don’t want to go to State, but maybe . . . somewhere else?

  She keeps going. “In looking at the requirements, it seems as if your grades and test scores are close enough in line you have a chance to get in. But for this program there’s also a portfolio requirement.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “I know.” What I don’t say is all the pieces that were good enough are gone. I suppose someone with enough technological savvy could retrieve them, but why bother?

  “Are you able to get online at home? Is there someone there to help you with the application if you have questions? I’m happy to work with you now to get done what we can get done.” She looks at her watch. The offer doesn’t feel genuine and judging by how many times I’ve seen her walking through the halls of Grady with a Starbucks cup in her hand, I feel certain all she wants to do is leave so she can sneak over to the drive-through on her way back to main campus.

  “Yeah. I have people
to help me.” I do have people. Everyone wants to help me. But what I’m figuring out is I have to wade through it myself. My fingers twitch. Like the flick of wings. I stuff them into my back pockets as I stand and return to the classroom.

  I go home to an empty house. It’s me and Emma Watson and the sound of nothing. My feet take me from bedroom, to living room, to kitchen, and back again. In the past, I’d be talking to Vivi, or working on sketches, or doing homework. But life tastes like cardboard and I don’t want to do any of those things. I consider going and sneaking from the gin bottle again. But then I think about Darla from the VA group and getting buzzed doesn’t feel like who I want to be. I also don’t want to cry tonight. I don’t want to dredge up memories that make my chest fill with shards of glass or my limbs grow heavy with ache. I open my computer. I pull out the brochures Cheyanne left for me. I start flipping through. There are clean-cut students with dentist white smiles and books under their arms, there are handsome guys with legs lifted onto brick steps and pretty girls seated on the step wall next to them. Some photos are diverse. Most are not. But college doesn’t seem like the place for a Vivi-less me.

  Out of curiosity I type in “blacksmithing + North Carolina + school” to see what I get. The first several links are for short-term schools where you can go to learn to put shoes on horses. Though it’s interesting, it’s not for me. My Texas cousins never could get me past my fear of the massive animals. Until they start putting shoes on cats, that is not my kind of blacksmithing.

  I read some more and stop when I come across a school up in the mountains. It’s a craft school that teaches all kinds of things, blacksmithing included. I follow the links and click through, looking at pictures. The people in the classes are all different ages, ethnicities, but they each have a certain cool factor, like Greer and Eliza. Loads of tattoos, not so shiny as the kids on the college brochures. I’m disappointed when I read it’s not a place where you can get degrees, rather, a place where you take specialized classes for a few weeks in the summer. I wonder if Greer has heard of it. I bookmark it and go back to my search bar.