Blackbird

by Averil Dean

  “Do you want that to be a lie?”

  “Maybe.”

  “It isn’t.”

  “Whatever you say.” He plucked a strand of wet hair from her face. “I notice you don’t wonder why I’m asking. Don’t you want to know whether I’m happy?”

  A suffocating weight pushed at her chest. She wished they could go outside, where the air was thin and light.

  “I...I thought...”

  Eric ducked his head to get closer to hers.

  “You thought what? That if you’re happy, everyone else is, too?”

  “No, no—”

  “Yes, yes. I think it hurts your tender little heart to imagine anything else. Easier not to look too close. That’s what I think.”

  “That’s not fair.”

  “No. Maybe not.” He laid the towel aside and reached for her hand. His thumb traced a small nervous pattern on the inside of her wrist. “But you have to see that this place is no good for us. I think we should leave. Just leave, right now. Tonight.”

  A lump of panic rose in her chest.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I just think, all of this, it’s too much.”

  “You’re tired,” she said. “We’re all tired. We knew it would be this way at first. Probably jet-lagged, too...”

  She drew her hand away, fussed over an open drawer and found a bottle of sleeping pills. She shook out two tablets. But Eric curled her fingers with his palm and held them closed.

  “I don’t need another pill,” he said. His words, which had started uncertainly, tumbled out. “I need you. I need it to be just you and me. We can go someplace warm, someplace with palm trees and sand, where we can listen to the ocean every day, lay under the stars every night. We can get one of those big hammocks, baby, we can live someplace new, and you wouldn’t have to work so hard, and there wouldn’t be so much goddamn snow...”

  His voice raced on, a current of words sweeping him far away from her. She looked at him, light-headed, as if some crucial underpinning had come loose; they could be sliding right now, down the Ridge as so many others had done before. She gripped the edge of the sink.

  “I like the snow,” she said.

  He drew back as if she’d struck him.

  A slow anger bloomed in her chest. How like Eric to throw down something this impulsive and expect everyone else to follow.

  “You want us to leave here after all this work?” she said. “Leave the hotel half-finished. Just walk away, with no reason and no explanation—”

  “Oh, I’ve got my reasons.”

  “No,” she said.

  He dropped her hand. The sleeping pills clattered to the floor. He backed away a step.

  “You won’t come,” he said.

  “How can you even ask? This is our home. This is what we’ve always talked about. You and me and Rory. How can you think of leaving him behind?”

  “Easily.”

  “Look, I don’t know what’s going on between you two—”

  “Because you don’t want to know.”

  “Because I don’t need to know. It’s not my business. If you and Rory had a fight, go to him and work it out, because I sure as hell am not going to leave in the middle of the night and go off to sip mai tais on the beach with you.”

  “I see,” he said. “You choose him over me.”

  Celia sighed. She reached up to stroke the hard line of his jaw, as though it might soften if she were patient enough to smooth it away.

  “I choose us,” she said. “The Blackbird. Like it always has been.”

  He shook her off, his mouth set in an unhappy line. His gaze traveled down her body, and he reached for the towel she had tucked closed against her chest.

  She caught it first. Her fist curled across the knot of terrycloth.

  “Let’s rest tonight,” she said.

  He laughed bitterly, peeling off his shirt as he turned to start the shower.

  “And so it begins,” he said.

  * * *

  Celia changed her clothes, pulled her damp hair over her shoulder and opened the door. Julian was standing just outside the bedroom door, in the dim hallway. His shoulders blocked the light from the staircase and cast his face in shadow, but even so she could see the smile creep across his lips as he bent toward her.

  “Trouble in paradise?” he said.

  His voice was low and rich with amusement, as though they were sharing an inside joke at the back of a crowded room. He propped his hand on the wall behind her head. She couldn’t look him in the eye without stepping aside or craning her neck; either choice felt like a concession, so she willed herself not to move, not to lift her face to him. She stared past the shadowy bump of his collarbone at the wall sconce near the end of the hallway.

  “Let me by, Julian.”

  He leaned in closer, lowered his head to speak from just above her ear. His breath was warm on her temple.

  “What are you going to do when they leave you—tell me that. Do you even know?”

  A shiver crawled up her neck. Don’t speak. He doesn’t know us; he doesn’t know what we’re about. But the question in her mind bubbled through the tarry silence and burst from her lips before she could stop it.

  “Why do you hate me, Julian?”

  For a moment she imagined a flash of surprise in his expression.

  “I’ve been nice to you,” she said.

  The surprise, if it had been there, was gone. His face hardened. He pushed back from the wall and turned away.

  “You haven’t been,” he said. “You haven’t been nice at all.”

  Two Days Earlier

  “CLOSE YOUR EYES.”

  “I’m a grown man, Katie.”

  “What does that have to do with it?”

  “Only that years of experience have made me wary of surprises.”

  “You shouldn’t be wary of this one, because it’s excellent.”

  “Hmm. What are you up to now?”

  “Five foot three.”

  “Seriously. What.”

  Kate sighed as Julian leaned back in his chair. His friends had turned back to their drinks and conversation, lost under a low din of chatter and the chink of plates and cutlery from the open kitchen behind them. She had tracked them down to Paco’s, finally, where they sat amid a detritus of ski clothes and half-eaten lunch.

  “Come with me—I’ll show you.”

  “I’m eating,” he said. “And we haven’t paid the bill yet.”

  “You can come right back.”

  He took an enormous bite of pulled-pork sandwich and pointed at the plate of fries.

  “This is meant to be a hot meal,” he said.

  “Okay, okay. But hurry up.”

  He raised his eyes to the ceiling. Not quite an eye roll, but almost.

  He didn’t know what she’d gotten him, though. Once he saw it, he’d understand why she was so excited to show it to him. She helped herself to his Coke, tapping her foot while he finished the last bites of his lunch. He wasn’t in any hurry at all. With every bite he looked up as if to point out the fact that she was watching him eat.

  “You’re driving me crazy,” she said around a mouthful of fries.

  “That makes two of us.”

  “Don’t you even want to know what it is?”

  “What what is?”

  “The surprise, for fuck’s sake, Julian. Try to follow the plot.”

  He wiped his hands on a paper napkin, which t
ore as he used it, leaving shreds of paper all over his fingers. He summoned the waiter by holding up his sticky hands. “Cheap-ass paper napkin. Bring me a real one, will you, please? Like, out of cloth?” And to Kate, “Okay, honey, lay it on me.”

  “You have to close your eyes first.”

  “I’m not doing that.” When the napkin came, he wiped his hands, tossed some bills on the table and zipped his wallet back into the breast pocket of his jacket.

  “Jesus. Fine. Come on then.”

  She took his hand and led him outside, leaving everyone else behind with their coffees. Through both sets of double doors, down the icy steps and into the snow. At high noon the sky was so flatly blue that it looked like plastic. All the shadows stood narrow and hard under the glare of the sun, the pine trees spiked and dripping.

  When they reached the corner of the lodge, Kate stopped.

  “Ta-da!”

  Parked beside the building was a brand-new snowmobile. Glossy red, sleek as an apple, with a fine spray of snow over its bonnet. Kate held out the keys.

  “Happy birthday,” she said, an unstoppable grin spreading into her cheeks.

  Julian’s face didn’t change at all. He didn’t take the keys.

  “You are unsurpriseable,” she said.

  “Ye-ah.”

  “You don’t like it?”

  “Oh, I like it. It’s just...a lot of present, Katie.”

  “Well, it’s your birthday—”

  “How did you know about that? Nobody else does.”

  “Well, somebody does, obviously.” She tried to smile.

  “Nobody.”

  She felt her face redden. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to go.

  “Have you been snooping around my stuff?” he said. “My wallet, maybe?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “Then how did you know.”

  “Your mother told me, last month.”

  “My mother told you.”

  “Yeah.”

  “You don’t even know my mother.”

  “Well, I do now, a little.”

  “How did you even get her number?”

  “From my phone, of course. When you borrowed it to call her a couple of months ago.” No need to explain how she had dialed and hung up twice before she found the voice to introduce herself and strike up a conversation. And how awkward it had been, as if Kate was the first person the woman had talked to in years. She kept asking whether Julian knew Kate was calling, in a hopeful voice like the phone call would have meant more if he had instigated it.

  Which it would have, of course, but why point it out? Why treat Kate as though she were being dishonest when she was only trying to do something nice for Julian?

  “Let me get this straight,” Julian said. “You called my mother, weaseled my birthday out of her—”

  “Saw it was coming up and scored you a prezzy! I know—clever me, right? It’s really sweet, too. I rode it up here to meet you. I thought we could play on it this afternoon.”

  He stood back, eyeing the snowmobile as if it were still on the lot and he couldn’t decide whether to take it home.

  “Come on—let’s go for a spin,” she said.

  “I’d love to, but I have plans for the day.”

  “Just with Zig.”

  “I have plans, Kate.”

  “Why are you being such a dick right now? This is a present that I bought you for your birthday. It’s supposed to be fun.”

  He looked at her as if bewildered by the concept.

  “But, I mean, what am I supposed to do with it? I don’t live here. I don’t have any place to store it.”

  “You can leave it in our garage. There’s plenty of room.”

  “Then really it’s yours, isn’t it?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “But I’d have to ask to take it out, right? Someone would have to let me in to get it?”

  “Sure, but—”

  “So then it’s yours.”

  “Well, you don’t have to keep it at our place, obviously. Stash it wherever you want. I’ll ship it for you, if there’s somewhere else you need to be.”

  She was offended now, and Julian sighed.

  “That’s not the point. And I do appreciate the thought, truly. But let’s just call it a loan. We can go out on it tomorrow, okay? I promise. Not today.”

  “You have plans.”

  He stepped closer and chucked her under the chin with his forefinger, smiling indulgently as if he’d just granted her a huge favor.

  “I’m not trying to be a dick. It’s just too much right now.”

  “Yeah,” she said. “Sure.”

  But her throat was tight and the back of her mouth stung with bitterness.

  “Come on,” he said. “Let’s go back inside. I’ll get you a hot chocolate and schnapps.”

  She reached for his hand as they went back up the steps. But he had already tucked it into his pocket.

  Three Days Earlier

  SNOW EVERYWHERE. SNOW on the mountains, poured thick as cream over the rivers and meadows. Snow on the rooftops, and in round downy pillows on the boughs of the pines. Snow in the air, lifted and churning, and pushed along the high street, where the town’s battered green snowplow angled its wide shovel and scraped it to the shoulder, piled up in knobby humps ten feet high, leaving stripes of tawny gravel down the center of the road.

  Jawbone Ridge looked its best under heavy snow. The leaning town seemed cushioned, the spidery supports lost in the snowbanks and the windows grouted with white.

  Since Rory was working the slopes, Celia had borrowed his truck to pick up Eric and Julian from the airport. As they turned up the high street, she shifted into first gear and let the engine lumber up the mountain with her foot barely touching the gas, and as always the sturdy truck delivered them through town and up the treacherous slope without a slip. The Blackbird waited, huddled against the steely sky. Snow had collected in a smooth white cap over the roof, and the eaves were lined with fat icicles that had dripped to the crusted snow to form muddy craters along the walls.

  They collected their gear and went inside, where the embers of a fire were crackling on the kitchen hearth and the table was already laid for dinner. Celia had strung Christmas lights in all the rooms, tiny twinklers in bright colors that lined the windows and trailed across the mantel. A spice cake rested on a rack next to the old range, ready to be iced.

  She felt a rush of affection for the old hotel. So crooked and forbidding outside, so warm and friendly within. Like a curmudgeonly old man with a sentimental heart.

  “Home sweet home.” Julian leaned over the cake, inhaling. “It sure smells better than Zig’s cabin. Eau de socks. What’s for dinner?”

  “Lasagna,” she said. Eric’s favorite. But he didn’t seem to hear. He had been quiet all the way back from the airport and was gazing around the room as if he’d never seen it before.

  “Nice,” Julian said. “Well, I told Kate I’d go down to the Adelaide and meet her for a drink.”

  “Bring her back with you. We’ll eat around seven.”

  After Julian left, Celia followed Eric up the stairs to their room at the end of the hall. As soon as they were inside, Eric shut the door behind them and tossed his bags on the floor.

  “You’ve been busy,” he said.

  He circled the room, picking things up, putting them down. He sniffed at the candles, tweaked the white fairy lights on her dresser, ruffled the pages of the book she’d left beside the bed.

  “A Fair Maiden,” he said. “Still working the JCO list, I see.”

  “It’s a long list.”

  “Mmm-hmm. All those dark and devious little girls. I can see why you’d be drawn to them
.”

  He held the book in his palm and let it fall open to the pages she’d opened most often herself. She felt the heat wash over her face as his eyes moved down the page.

  “You probably think Katya’s the victim, here, don’t you,” he said. “Got no sympathy for Mr. Kidder and how he must have felt about that spade tattoo on her thigh? Poor old freak thought he was laying a track through virgin snow.”

  He snapped the book closed and looked up, smiling. Not the kind of smile she could answer with one of her own.

  As she opened her mouth to speak, he caught her around the waist and backed her slowly against the door.

  “You need me to tell you what to do right now?” he said.

  His voice shook with tension. Already he was a mile down the tracks on his own train of thought. She knew from long experience that they should talk about whatever was bothering him. She should soothe him down, make the necessary appointments, get him on the phone with the doctor and back to the clinic for an evaluation. Those were the things she knew she ought to do immediately, out of love, out of a wish for him to be calm and happy. But a selfish need had stolen her resolve. Her heart had risen to her throat, where it tripped and rolled and snagged her breath.

  He was in the zone.

  He might say anything. Do anything. He was beautiful and dangerous, his energy snapping all over her skin.

  “You’re using me,” he said, “to do your thinking.”

  It was unanswerable. She couldn’t begin to decipher what he meant, and for now she didn’t care. Out of long habit, she dropped her own monosyllabic responses—the ones most likely to soothe, least likely to be misinterpreted.

  “You don’t want to figure it out. You don’t want to make any decisions.”

  “No.”

  “You’re a coward, Celia.”

  “Yes.”

  His eyes flicked down her body. “You’re such a girl.”

  He meant to insult her, but Celia was not offended. She looked up at him, waiting. A tight, almost painful excitement was building behind her sternum, in her stomach, twisting her breasts as if he’d already plucked them between his teeth.

  Say it. Whatever you want, say it, take it, whatever you want from me, anything at all.