Songbird Cottage

by Barbara Cool Lee

  Robin stared at her. "My great-grandmother?"

  "People don't spring up out of the ground like mushrooms, my dear. They have to have families. With the last name Johnson, being a dressmaker for the film industry, African American, and tall and slender like you, it is likely she's a relative of the woman you're looking for. As I said, it's a big world, but Hollywood's a small town. And given her age, and the similar bird nickname, Miss Sparrow would most likely be Birdie's mother, and your great-grandmother."

  "My great-grandmother?" Robin repeated. She hadn't even thought back that far. Of course Birdie would have parents of her own. Of course. "Tell me about her, please."

  So Zelda did. "Well, I remember Miss Sparrow had a wonderful way of talking. Quite erudite—a bit like you, actually. Very precise and measured in her speech."

  "A perfectionist," Robin muttered, and Ms. Zelda nodded.

  "It was charming really, especially when most of us on set cursed like drunken sailors."

  Robin smiled at the image of the elegant Zelda Potter cursing like a sailor. "Did she mention her family at all? I don't suppose you talked to her much."

  "Actually, I did. You see, the whole process of fitting the gowns was very time-consuming. So I would be standing there for hours on end, my arms all akimbo, and getting bored out of my skull, and we would talk while she pinned and stitched and worked. Oh, that dancing scene dress was a nightmare! It was skin-tight and silver-sequined, and I had to be sewn into it each day, and the sequins kept falling off every time I moved, so they had to be stitched back on one-by-one while I was still in the gown. And we won't even discuss how I got bathroom breaks! Believe me, you spend a lot of time with a seamstress on a film like that. So, yes, we talked quite a bit."

  She looked out the window, as if thinking back. "Let's see, her parents had been schoolteachers, I believe. She told me that when I commented on her elegant way of speaking. And her daughter was managing her dress shop while she worked on the film. That must be your Birdie, though I don't remember her mentioning her by name." She paused. "I assume by your questions that you can't ask your mother about this."

  Robin shook her head, then confessed, "she's my adopted mother, and she doesn't know any more than I do about where I come from."

  "Ah." Then Ms. Zelda did something Robin had never seen her do: she reached out and enveloped Robin in a big hug. She smelled of Shalimar, and the surprise of the scent almost kept Robin from dying of shock.

  When Ms. Zelda pulled back from the hug, she sat up straight, shoulders back, and went back to her supremely unruffled expression. "So, let's see. What else can I tell you about Miss Sparrow? Oh!" She stopped. "The most important thing—at least from my point of view."

  "What's that?"

  "Your great-grandmother—and I'm sure she is, so we'll just call her that—is the one who told me about Pajaro Bay."

  "What?!"

  "Oh, yes. That's what made me think of her when you asked. That and the bird nickname, of course."

  "But how—"

  "Miss Sparrow planted the seed that led me here." She looked out the window again, but her intense blue eyes went soft, as if she were seeing something far away and long ago.

  "During one of those endless fittings, when I said I was going to scream if I couldn't move, she distracted me by talking about her home town that she'd left years earlier. She hadn't wanted to move away, she'd said, but they'd had to, for some reason she never explained. She missed the beach, she said. Not the beach in L.A., but her beach, she called it. The one she'd known as a young woman. A little town far up the coast, filled with peace and quiet, and home to artists and writers. She made it sound like heaven."

  "Did she mention the Stockdales?"

  "I don't believe she did, because when we finally visited, many years later, I was surprised by them. She just talked about the sound of the sea out the window of her tin roof shack. That would be in what I now know was Wharf Flats. And she spoke of her husband working at the cannery in Pajaro Bay in between teaching jobs. She was a widow by the time I met her. So that would be your—"

  "Great-grandfather," Robin said, still having a hard time believing it. Her own family, right here in Pajaro Bay. And she'd never known.

  "And so, like I said, it planted a seed in me. Then, some years later, my dear Lucas McCabe—"

  "—your fourth husband—"

  "Third, but who's counting?"

  Lucas McCabe had been the famous cowboy star of the 1960s who had also retired here to Pajaro Bay, and had died not long ago.

  "Lucas and his partner Ron Sierra and I came to visit. Lucas had been in the car accident—you remember the one."

  She did remember the story. At the peak of his career, handsome actor Lucas McCabe had been in a horrible crash on Dead Man's Curve in Bel Air. He'd smashed up his face and broken some bones. When he'd returned to movies after a long break, he became an esteemed character actor, with his once-beautiful face bearded and rugged-looking, and a pronounced limp instead of his previous long striding walk. She remembered being shocked the first time she saw a gorgeous young cowboy in an old movie and realized he was the same grizzled old man who owned the florist shop across the alley from her in Pajaro Bay.

  "Anyway," Zelda continued, "Dear Lucas needed to recuperate, so we rented a big house up here and just got away from the rat race for a while. A place where Lucas could have peace and quiet and could heal without the tabloids following his every move. That must have been in the 1970s some time. You can look it up if you care, but I think your grandmother would have been gone by then. And that's when I decided I needed to make this my new home. I just fell in love with the place—you know the feeling."

  "I certainly do." So her family legacy was woven into Pajaro Bay in more ways than she'd ever imagined. She sat there, and stared out the window at the Japanese maple that was dropping its leaves on the brick path in the society's back garden. And she thought of the herringboned brick floor of the little cottage on Songbird Lane, and her own mother's tears so long ago.

  "It's such an odd coincidence," Robin finally said.

  "What is?"

  "You knowing my great-grandmother. I mean, when I came to ask you, I hardly thought you would have worked that closely together."

  "But is it coincidence?" Zelda asked. "Don't you see? If I had never met Miss Sparrow, I would never have come to Pajaro Bay. And I never would have met you, and we wouldn't be having this conversation."

  "Wow," Robin said.

  "Wow indeed," Zelda said. "I won't hug you again, my dear, because I know you like your space. But I'm thrilled to find this little thread binding us together across the years."

  "No," Robin said. "I don't really like my space, I just…." She just what? She just didn't like being weak? She didn't like being vulnerable? She didn't like opening herself up to people, in case they rejected her?

  Zelda just smiled at her, and then, this time, it was Robin who reached out and gave her a big hug.

  Chapter Ten

  She looked at everything with fresh eyes when she walked down to Wharf Flats a short time later.

  It was amazing to think that after all the years of searching, she now knew she was walking the streets her own family had walked. Her own grandmother had seen this same view of the boats in the marina. Her own great-grandparents had lived here. If she did a property search, she might be able to figure out exactly which building had been the site of the Tinseltown Dressmakers, or even which home her great-grandparents had lived in decades before that.

  She came around a corner and glimpsed the sandy beach that stretched away from the wharf. That was her great-grandmother's favorite beach. She cleared her throat to keep from choking up.

  She wasn't an outsider from The City. She belonged to this place, just as much as the fishermen shouting to each other from their boats did.

  She continued on and turned down one of the dead-end side streets.

  This little settlement next to the wharf had origi
nally been made up of cheap tin-roofed shacks, hastily thrown up to house the local fishermen and their families, immigrants who couldn't afford the nicer homes up on the hill above.

  But now, a century or so later, people had realized how special the little neighborhood was, with the constant boom of the sea out the windows, and its charmingly simple little cottages. The neighborhood was facing gentrification, and the weekenders and investors had begun to completely change the character of the original area.

  The first shack on this block had long since ceased to be a shack. The practice of "remodeling" by tearing a home down until there was one stick standing, and then building a completely new house in its place, may have gotten past the city planners, but it had led to a batch of oversized houses Dylan always referred to as squatting elephants for the ridiculous way they overwhelmed the lots they sat on.

  But it was profitable work, flipping the simple cottages after turning them into something that didn't even hint at their original purpose as modest homes for families who made their living by the bounty of the sea. And there was no point in lamenting the passing of time. The historical society didn't consider these shacks worth worrying about, so no one was going to stop the flippers from bulldozing the history of this part of the village.

  Then she stopped in her tracks, finding herself face-to-face with a home that was so warm, so charming, it was as if one of those original shacks had been brought forward from the past, intact and perfect, and set down in between another squatting elephant on one side, and a run-down beach rental that looked about to fall over on the other.

  The shack in front of her hadn't been remodeled out of existence. It was still tiny and adorable. The roof had been replaced, and it was now an enameled white steel that would last another hundred years. The siding had also been painted pure white. The front door was open, and the fresh coat of glossy navy-blue paint on it matched the shutters framing the windows. The house name was spelled out in natural jute rope on a board stained dark blue with the grain showing through. Two glass floats hung from a simple nail next to the sign: Sea Breeze, it read.

  She went inside. "White and navy blue," she said to the man bent over a sawhorse, planing a board.

  "I'm going for a nautical theme," Dylan said without turning around. "Seemed appropriate."

  She walked around, checking it out.

  Alonzo, who'd been snoring in a corner, got up to go with her, as if leading a guided tour. She gave him a pet on the head, and he licked her hand.

  Alonzo pointed out the fireplace (painted brick), the ceiling fan (newly installed), and then got tired and went back to his spot and resumed his nap.

  She continued the tour on her own. It was a small shack, still at the original size of barely 500 square feet. The shiplapped walls were painted dove white, and the floor was dark-stained oak.

  "I used an ebony stain to cover the floor damage," he said when he noticed her looking at it.

  "And the beams, too?" she asked, looking up to the open-beam ceiling, white as the rest of the house, but with heavy timbers in the same dark stain criss-crossing the room.

  "Yup," he said. "All original to the house."

  There was a big ship's lantern hanging from the center beam, of darkest bronze. Other accents of oil-rubbed bronze included the fittings on the jalousie windows, and light switches that looked like they dated back to the origin of the house, but were in pristine condition.

  "It had all these fittings when you bought it? That was a real find."

  He chuckled. "Not the fittings, unfortunately. I've been scouring the junk stores and online to find these pieces."

  "It wasn't like this when you found it?" she asked.

  "Oh, no. The previous owners had really spruced the place up. It was way better." The sarcasm dripped in his voice, then he let out a grunt as the board slipped.

  He straightened it back up and tightened down the clamp holding it in place. "Flocked burgundy wallpaper," he said shortly. "And avocado green shag carpet. That's all I have to say."

  "My favorite carpet," she said with a laugh. "Moldy, I'll bet, from being down here so close to the water."

  "You bet," he said. "That was first to go."

  He glanced her way and then pointed to the ceiling.

  She looked up at the beautifully stained beams.

  "They covered this with a popcorn ceiling. That was fun. Had to pay an asbestos abatement firm a fortune to get it all out of here."

  "Ooh," she said. "Is that going to cut into your profit when you flip it?"

  He shrugged. After one more run across the board, he set down the plane he'd been using and stood up straight. He wiped his hands on a rag and then motioned for her to sit in one of the plastic lawn chairs set up just outside the open French doors at the back of the room.

  He came to sit next to her, and opened up a bottle of water to take a swig. "Want some?" he asked.

  She shook her head. "I'm fine. You added the French doors, I presume?"

  He nodded. "They had boarded over the existing window." He laughed. "I guess they thought this little square box wasn't dark and dreary enough, so they'd better block the big window facing the morning sun."

  "Maybe they were vampires."

  "If you'd seen the black faux finish in the bathroom, you might get that impression."

  "Well it's beautiful now."

  "I think so," he said with a grin. "I'm having fun, anyway. That's the main point."

  He nodded to the door frame, pointing out the dovetail joint he'd created to set the door into the narrow, single-wall shack. "Had trouble keeping the door frame from sticking out, since it's thicker than the thin walls holding this place up. I shaved it down at an angle so it appears to fit."

  He looked at it contentedly.

  "You're so different here," she said.

  "In what way?"

  She leaned back in the chair. "I don't know. Relaxed."

  "Happy," he said.

  "Yes. I think that's it. You're not at all like the high energy salesman I know."

  "That's not really me. Real estate sales are a job. This is for fun. I was never really good at that other stuff."

  "You're good," she said. "You taught me the business."

  "Maybe I was good at making sales, but it wasn't my passion. So now I leave all that to Patrick, and I mostly do this." He stretched his arms over his head. "I handle a few sales, but he handles the property management and commercial development that always drove me nuts. And I have time for stuff I love to do."

  "Like this?"

  "Yeah. I love this. It's not about flipping houses for a profit. I like taking a place that's been run down and neglected and restoring it back to what it was meant to be. I just lose track of the hours when I'm working out here."

  She looked out at the yard, still unfinished. He had poured footings for a deck. When it was done, this little space would be a peaceful oasis, with the sound of the sea in the distance. "I can see how that would happen."

  They stood up and headed back in. "So," he said when they got back inside, "what did you want to tell me? I hope it's that you've fallen hopelessly in love with me." He said it in their usual bantering way, but she knew he meant it. And that scared her.

  "No way, Old Timer," she said.

  "I am not too old," he said with a grin. "Want me to prove it?"

  She stood, arms crossed. "Okay then. Who's Ashanti?"

  "If he's not a starting lineman for the 49ers, I'm lost," he said with mock seriousness. "A singer, right? I get half a point for at least knowing that, don't I?"

  She started singing Ashanti's Foolish, stopping after a couple of lines when he laughed.

  He frowned at her. "You are a terrible singer, Robin."

  She stuck her lip out in a pout. "I never claimed to be a professional singer."

  He leaned against his workbench. "Hon, I don't mean you aren't professional level. I mean if you weren't my friend I'd file a noise complaint."

  "All right,"
she said with a laugh. "I confess. Singing is not my strength." In fact, she was surprised she'd let him hear her. It was a flaw, an imperfection, and she never let people see those. Why had she showed it to him?

  "Let's see you do better," she said to him to cover how flustered she felt.

  Without hesitating a second, he started singing Queen's Crazy Little Thing Called Love.

  He was actually good, with a rich baritone voice that she could feel all the way down to her toes.

  He danced in place, swiveling his hips like a rock star, then held out his hand to her, still singing.

  She took it, and he dipped her in his arms.

  "Hey!" she said, pulling away.

  He immediately let go, and went back to his workbench to pick up his sanding block.

  She turned away quickly, before he could see how shaken up she was by her own reaction to him.

  "Okay," she said, trying to make it light, "I will concede you're a pretty good singer."

  "And dancer," he said.

  "Okay. And dancer."

  She walked over to the French doors and looked out. There was a pregnant silence for a minute, punctuated only by the sound of the sanding block scraping across the board.

  She turned back to face him. "So what are you working on?"

  He explained that he was preparing the pieces for a built-in bookcase along one wall. "But you didn't come out here to watch me work," he added.

  She didn't want to tell him that watching him work was mesmerizing. A statement like that would lead to questions about her feelings for him, and she clearly wasn't ready for that.

  So instead she told him what she'd learned about Birdie. About finding Eugenia Johnson's obituary, which confirmed that the woman in the photograph was her grandmother. And how the trail had led from there to Zelda Potter, and widened the circle of her family, connecting them into the history of Pajaro Bay.

  And Dylan listened, really listened, in a way that Taye never had. And that felt new. She wasn't used to sharing with a man, to talking about not just the facts of the situation, but about what was in her heart.