The Meaning of Birds

by Jaye Robin Brown

  “I never stopped hanging out with you when Vivi and I started dating.”

  “No,” she says. “But we went from two to three. And now that she’s dead, you’ve pushed me out of your life and snagged Levi as well. You’re not the only one grieving her death, Jess. She was my friend, too.”

  I lean back against the workbench, a wash of self-pity rushing over me until I shake it off and find my words. “Leading him on was not my intention. Neither was pushing you away. It’s just hard, Chey, it’s so hard.” All of my carefully cultivated party facade melts away and I fall onto her shoulder sobbing. I feel Chey’s arms wrap around me. I am loved. I am lifted. Why can’t I act the way I’m supposed to?

  37

  Then: Scattering Robins

  Waking up at seven a.m. on Saturday morning was not the day I wanted to be having, but self-pity would get me nowhere with my GF and BFF. Today was the first ACT opportunity for Grady High School juniors and there was no way Vivi or Cheyanne was going to miss it. And hoorah for me, they’d insisted I sign up, too. “Just in case we have to retake,” they’d said. It was really a reference to my unlikelihood of making a college-worthy score on the first try. But at least I knew they loved me.

  I downed a swig of coffee, grabbed two number-two pencils, and my ID. A horn sounded outside and I stuffed them in my back pocket.

  “Good luck,” Nina said as she stumbled out of her room into the living room.

  “Thanks.” I bolted for the door before she could enlighten me with test-taking tips, but when I hit the front stoop, I stopped. Parked at the curb was the shiny burnt-orange Honda Element Vivi’d been begging her parents for ever since she saw it sitting in the used lot at the dealership. I ran across the lawn and Vivi leaned over from inside and pushed the door open.

  “Welcome to my car.”

  “No way.” I ran my hand over the dashboard, opened the glove box, then moved my seat back. “When? When did this happen? Why did you not call me immediately?”

  “Last night, and I wanted to surprise you.”

  I tapped on the satellite radio console. “You are so spoiled.”

  “There is nothing about that statement that upsets me. But it is awesome, isn’t it? Dad got a royalty check from some song lyrics he wrote for a friend, ages ago, and surprised me. It’s seven years old, but this makes it smell new.” Vivi reached out and flicked the new car deodorizer hanging from the rearview mirror.

  “You need something classier than an air freshener for your car bling.”

  “That’s what artist girlfriends are for. To make classier bling.” Vivi leaned over and kissed me, letting her lips linger and tease before pulling away.

  I grinned. “Hmmm, new car, hot kiss. Makes getting up at the booty crack of dawn almost worth it.” I rapped on the dashboard with my knuckles. “Onward, Jeeves.”

  In the school parking lot, Cheyanne did the same double take I’d done. “Nice ride. You’ve bested me in style.”

  Vivi linked arms with Cheyanne and dragged her to look at all four sides of the car. “I could never best you in style overall, but I definitely win the car category.” Cheyanne’s car was a standard issue four-door used sedan in a dull dark gray.

  Inside the school, we looked up our names and the printed lists and found the classrooms we were to report to. Vivi and Cheyanne were in the same room since their last names were close in the alphabet, but I was in a room in an entirely different wing. “Good luck.” Vivi leaned in and kissed me on the cheek.

  “You, too,” I said, but I knew they didn’t need it.

  In the room, we had to hand over our cell phones and wait for the official intercom announcement that testing could begin. A cold prickle of sweat worked its way onto my palms. Why had I let them talk me into this?

  Halfway through the test at one of the breaks, I knew it was a disaster. The math was insanely difficult. My heart rate picked up a beat. I tapped my pencil on the table and ignored the glares of the people sitting around me. My good friend, rage, slipped into the corner of my brain and waved at me. He pointed at the glaring girl to my left. I drummed harder with my pencil, letting the thrill of pissing her off take over my actions. A cough came from the front of the room. The proctor held up her own pencil and made a slicing motion across her throat with it. Oh, how I wanted to leap out of my desk and let it scrape across the floor and make a big show of storming out of the room. The test would be a misadministration. All these people’s tests . . . invalidated, and I’d be at fault. I stopped drumming my pencil, closed my eyes tight, and clicked through the possible outcomes. Nothing good. I opened my eyes, sighed, and remembered—Vivi believed in me.

  The next several problems I darkened in the letter C and prayed at least a few of them would be right.

  After the test was over and they released us from our classrooms, I met Chey and Vivi in the parking lot.

  “Joyride?” Cheyanne asked.

  “Food?” I added.

  “Picnic,” Vivi said, pointing at the blue sky.

  We stopped at DaVinci’s Deli and gathered sandwiches, water bottles, and an entire bag of mini-donuts. When we got to the park, Vivi pulled a blanket out of the trunk. She held it up. “Dad’s emergency kit proves itself useful.”

  Once we were sprawled out in a patch of sunlight, I told them what I’d been holding in during their comparisons of feeling confident. “I bombed the test.”

  “Bombed it?” Cheyanne asked.

  “Total failure. The math was so much harder than I thought it would be.”

  Vivi put her hand on top of mine. “I bet you did better than you think.”

  Cheyanne garbled through a mouthful of donut. “I think you need like a twenty-five composite to get into State.”

  I flung a pinecone, inadvertently disturbing a flock of robins. “There’s no way. I’ll be lucky if I got an eighteen like Nina.”

  Vivi leaned in for a side hug. “You can take it as many times as you need and we’re here to help you. Right, Cheyanne?”

  Cheyanne nodded. “Yup. Here to help.”

  Sometimes it was easier when I was angry Jess and could bury myself with harsh words and fists. Meeting Vivi was the best thing to ever happen to me, but it also made me the most accountable I’d ever been. And the most studious. But then I thought about the test. Rage had come to visit and I’d dealt with it. I hadn’t reacted. I hadn’t blown up. I’d filled in every bubble and left the room with everyone else. Maybe I wasn’t a total failure.

  “Do y’all really believe I can do this?”

  They nodded and crossed their hearts.

  I lay back and stared at the sky. They believed in me. What if I could be a college girl?

  “Okay,” I said. “Study dates. See if you can transform me from average into State material.” I still doubted that was possible, but if your best friend and girlfriend thought you had the goods, the least you could do was try.

  Cheyanne chucked a donut into my hand. “Now can we talk about something else? Like when Vivi’s going to let us drive her car? Or how many band instruments will fit inside of that thing? My brain still hurts.”

  Viv jumped up. “Let’s go swing.”

  I stood up and watched them run across the park, scattering the flock of birds as they passed. The moment locked in my mind—a beautiful image for my sketchbook later that night. Then I thought about the image of me . . . making art, going to school, my mother, my sister, my girlfriend proud. My smile lifted and I leaned back, welcoming the warmth of the sun and the warmth of my thoughts. I’d come so far since Dad died. Then I smiled toward the sky, because I knew, if he were still around, that he’d be proud, too.

  38

  Now: Four Weeks, Six Days After

  I’m not too proud to admit that the only reason I agreed to hang out with Nina for the day is my trying to avoid something else. In this case, it’s hurting Levi’s feelings. After Greer and Eliza’s party, Cheyanne texted me a warning. I’m going to post that Levi is your new boyfri
end if you don’t tell him in VERY CLEAR terms that you are friends only. Instead of following through I was avoiding, hoping he would get the hint on his own, though judging by the number of hey what are you doing? texts, it hadn’t quite sunk in yet.

  Nina was blathering on as she spread butter on her toast. “I’ve got us booked for a mani-pedi at a salon on Wall Street and then I got us reservations at the pinball arcade because that seems like something you’d like and after that I thought we could find someplace extra cool to eat, a friend told me about this crepe place that has amazing skinny French fries, and then we can go to the shops down on Lexington, those are always fun, right?”

  “A mani-pedi?”

  “I know, I know. Not your thing. But you don’t have to get polish. They massage your hands and your feet and put lotion on them and it just feels good. A relaxing start to our day. I figured relaxing would be good for you. You have to admit you’ve been kind of tense.”

  “Nina. My girlfriend died.”

  Nina sighs. “Still? It’s been over a month, Jess. Shouldn’t you be snapping out of it?”

  There’s no explaining it to her, even though she should know grief doesn’t work that way, so I don’t answer. She finishes eating and we head to the car and before long we’ve made the junction with Interstate 40 and are hurtling westward.

  “How’s it going with that guy you’ve been studying with?” Nina asks.

  “He passed his vocabulary quiz.”

  Nina stares at me for a beat too long and I scream. She snaps her eyes back to the road and darts around the eighteen-wheeler she’s coming up on too fast.

  I press hard on my imaginary passenger’s side brake. “Could you please slow down? You’re driving like an idiot. How did you ever even get a license?”

  “Nice change of subject.” But she slows down. “I need more information. Since when are you palling around with guys?”

  I shrug and look out the window at the passing farmland. “Can we just drop it? You, Cheyanne. Everybody’s making such a big deal about who I’m hanging out with.”

  Then I start crying again, totally unexpectedly, and it comes out of me like a freaking gusher. Nina looks panic-stricken and pulls off at the next rest area.

  She tries to dab at my face with a Kleenex. “Did I do something? I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to ruin our day.”

  “Stop.” I push her hand away and unhook the seat belt. “I’m going to go pee and then we can go. I just cry now, along with getting into the occasional fistfight. I make stupid decisions. Welcome to the new Jess.”

  I leave her sitting in the car while I go in. There’s immediate relief when I let the stream out of me. I sit for a minute and stare at the drab green door of the stall. It was always easy with Vivi. I’d ask her what she thought, what she’d do, and then I typically took her suggestions. It never bothered me that I relied so much on her, but now that she’s gone, I feel untethered. Lost. I think maybe I’m ready to find myself. To stop feeling this way.

  Tourist brochures catch my eye on the way out. There’s one with an anvil on the cover. I pull it out. “Southern Highland Craft Guild,” I say to myself as I read the lettering.

  “Have you been?” This hippie-looking dude with a long braid smiles at me, a tiny white-haired woman by his side.

  I shake my head. “No.”

  “It’s all kinds of crafts from around the area. You can see our work there, too.” The woman’s voice is high and chirpy and enthusiastic. “I think today is a demonstration day.” She grabs a second brochure and flips it over. “Yep. Blacksmiths, potters, maybe even a weaver.”

  “Blacksmiths?”

  “Yeah.” The guy smiles. “You know guys, and girls, who beat on those anvils.” He points to the illustrated anvil on the paper.

  I smile back. “Yeah, I do know.” I thank them for their input and get the name of their craft company so I can see the glass and metalwork they do.

  When I get in the car, I hand it to Nina. “Slight change of plans. If I do your mani-pedi, can we go here instead of shopping?”

  My sister looks at the brochure, her eyebrows quirking just like Mom’s. “Yeah, I guess, if this is what you really want to do.” I can tell it’s killing her because shopping is way more her speed, but this day is supposed to be about me and I know she feels bad because of my tears.

  “Awesome.” I don’t complain about her driving the rest of the way.

  When we’ve finished Nina’s list of to-dos, I have to admit I am feeling more relaxed. I even agreed to let the nail guy put polish on my toes. Black, like my soul, but it looks cool. And my manicured nails look trim and tidy, all the little loose skin clipped away. The vintage pinball arcade is amazing and we find the crepe place where we gorge on herbed French fries and ham and cheese crepes.

  “You seriously want to go to this art place?” Nina looks longingly at the clothing shop next door to the restaurant.

  “I seriously do.”

  “Okay, then, we should get going.”

  We flag down the waiter and pay, then head to the car. I punch the address into the GPS and Nina drives away from downtown. The craft place is off the Blue Ridge Parkway so it takes us a couple of “make a U-turn” commands before we get sorted. When we pull into the parking lot there are a bunch of cars and a few white tents set up near the front doors.

  “This is the place.”

  A few little birds flit in and out among the trees. “Look.” I point. “Those are dark-eyed juncos, you only see those in winter near us.”

  Nina pauses and looks. “Vivi taught you that.”

  A sad smile comes with my agreement. “It was unreal all the facts she knew. Those look plain but they’re like the British royalty of birds. If you’re a low man bird, you stay low man bird. Every bird in its rightful place.” Vivi would have said my rightful place was at State, by her side. The reality is, the chances of my getting in, even with an intact portfolio, would be slim to none. No matter how many times I took the ACT, I could only manage to squeak it up as high as a twenty-one. Not shabby, but not top state school standards, despite Mrs. Swaley’s encouragement.

  As Nina and I wander around the tents, I look at all these people making cool things, fireplace tools, hooks, there’s even one woman, really tall and blond, who’s forging curled iron legs for tabletops made out of tree slices.

  “Do you think they earn a living doing this?”

  Nina shrugs and tries on a woven scarf at the weaving demonstration tent. “I don’t know, ask.” She puts the scarf back and looks at her phone. “But do it quick, we need to head back. I have a date with Sid tonight.”

  “Sid? What happened to Benny?”

  “He had commitment issues.”

  I bite my tongue because the real answer is probably the exact opposite, that Nina had the commitment issues, but I won’t argue the point with her. We’ve dealt with our daddy grief in different ways.

  I approach the blond woman. She smiles and quenches the metal she’d been hammering. I swallow my nerves and say the first stupid thing that comes to my mind. “Do you make all of this?”

  “As my mother would say, God makes it all. But I take the raw materials and craft them into something more. Are you interested in blacksmithing?”

  I nod and even though I’m nervous and a little embarrassed, I go for it. “Yeah. I just started learning how to work on the forge through a work-study program with my high school.”

  “How about that? I didn’t know there was a program like that around here.”

  “Not here. In Charlotte. Can I ask you something else?”

  “Shoot.” Up close the woman is older than I’d thought. Maybe in her sixties, but she’s in amazing shape and has young energy. More reasons to keep hammering.

  “Can you make a living from this?”

  She laughs out loud. “Now that’s a direct question. You sure you want to know?”

  “Yes.” Then, “Please.”

  “Depends on the kind of l
ife you want. If you think you have to have a brand-new car, and a big fancy house to survive, then probably not. But if you prefer a life of making your own rules and living simply, then yes.”

  I think about Greer and Liza’s life. Small house, big hearts, awesome friends. “I think that sounds good.”

  “Then go for it,” she says. “Here.” She hands me a business card. “If you have any questions along the way, feel free to be in touch. It’s always nice to meet more women interested in the craft.”

  “Can I have another card?” Maybe Greer doesn’t know about this place or this lady’s work. She hands me one and I wave bye before threading my way through people and booths back to my sister and the car.

  Once we’re buckled up, I turn to her. “Hey, Nina?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Would you think it’s weird if I tried to stay at the alternative school?”

  “Maybe a little. But you’ve always been different than me. I’d have died on a social level if I’d had to leave the main campus, but it seems like you’re doing okay there and it’s pretty cool you’ve gotten into this.” She gestures toward the blacksmiths. “One thing I’ve learned at hygienist school is having a trade that can get you an actual job is good. What does Mom say?”

  “No way, José.”

  Nina laughs. “Yeah, I can hear her. Do you want me to talk to her?”

  I consider it for a moment, but sometimes what Nina says, even if she thinks she’s being helpful, can twist in ways I might not expect. But it’s pretty cool that she’d offer. “Nah, it’d be better if I did it myself. But thanks for offering.” I pause. “And thanks for today. It did make me feel better.”

  “Yeah?” She smiles and twists a strand of her hair around her finger.

  I nod, then give her a hug. “Yeah. You’re not bad for a big sis.”

  She pushes me back. “Go on with your bad self. Now who’s going to cry.” When we get on the highway, she drives a whole lot calmer. Kind of how I feel after talking to the blacksmith. Calm and like I might have found a new way forward. One I never saw coming. One I never wished for. But one that, maybe, I need.