“It’ll be better tomorrow,” Marella says. “I promise. Nothing looks as bad with a turkey and mashed potatoes. Not even to Coffee.”
* * *
Bird first spoke to Paul Simpson at Flower Mart, the May Day festival held every year on the grounds of the National Cathedral. He had always been more adult than the other Bradley boys in their grade: stronger, taller, broader. He had an easy smile and the kind of confidence that had made heartthrobs of boys far less naturally hot. She nearly fainted from astonishment when he followed her out of the stall of paper flowers and handed her one of blue and white — colors to match her dress. They inched toward each other for the first month of summer vacation, over text messages and weekend parties and not-quite-chance meetings in coffee shops.
The night he first kissed her, on the couch in his living room while his parents were away, she shivered and leaned back.
“Why?” she asked, surprising herself. She could have sworn she’d only been thinking of Paul’s soft lips and what Felice would say when she texted her later that night. But still, she pressed: “Why me?”
Paul’s frown smoothed into a smile, and he ran a hand through her hair. “Because you’re smart and hot. I don’t settle, Emily. And I want you.”
It was the most romantic thing anyone had ever said to her. He became her second official boyfriend, and the first one she really cared about.
“It’s because he said smart before hot,” she told Charlotte, later that week. “That’s how I knew.”
She knew that she could have felt more, but instead she felt just enough. Love has scared Bird from the moment she knew her mother’s name.
It still scares us. But we’ve realized something else, in the year and a half since that somewhat romantic declaration. The potential for pain can be its own reassurance.
It’s numbness that scares me now. Cut enough love away, Bird, and you could die without even knowing you had lived.
Thanksgiving morning, Bird and Marella and two dozen upper school boarders gather in front of the television with Mrs. Cunningham to watch the president’s special holiday address. Bird held out some half-formed hope that Roosevelt lied to her, but it fades the moment the president’s lined, exhausted face appears on television.
“After months of struggle, pain, and conflict,” he says, “after trials greater than any our nation has suffered in living memory, I am proud to face you, the great American people, on this day of thanks and announce that American scientists have developed a vaccine against the pandemic Venezuelan flu.”
Bird and Marella look at each other while disbelieving chatter rises to the rafters. Mrs. Cunningham’s expression is so impassive that Bird guesses she knew the secret of the vitamin shots. Charlotte, still perched on her bed, puts her head between her knees like she’s going to puke. The rumor mill says that her father is recovering, but her mother is still in the ICU. How will Charlotte feel if one of her parents dies of this disease just after the president announced the vaccine? If she found out she was immunized in secret weeks ago?
The president continues his speech, explaining that the vaccine was difficult to manufacture, so a lottery system will be employed to ensure its fair administration among the whole US population. Needless to say, he doesn’t mention that he and his family were vaccinated more than a month ago, along with probably the entirety of the audience applauding wildly in the East Room of the White House.
“Mrs. Cunningham,” says one of the freshman girls, who looks in her bunny pajamas and tangled hair so young that Bird has to blink. “Mrs. Cunningham, will we get the vaccine too? He said there would be exceptions to the lottery, do you know if we could get excepted?”
Mrs. Cunningham looks, for a fraction of a second, as nauseated as Charlotte. Then her mask reforms, seamless and serene, and she shakes her head gently. “I’m not sure, Tara. I know Mrs. Early will make an announcement on Monday for the whole school, and she’ll probably discuss all this then. For now, those of you going home for the day should get your things together. The buses are leaving in forty minutes.”
“Did you hear from your parents?” Marella asks softly.
Bird shrugs. “Mom called a few times. Nicky texted that they’re coming over for dinner. I’m postponing the agony.”
“And Coffee?”
She shivers, though the attic room is hot enough that someone cracked open a porthole. “Incommunicado. We’ll see if he shows.”
“You know, Bird, I was thinking … Roo — I mean, he might have meant what he said. About leaving you alone. Even though it didn’t work out the way we thought, he’s letting you and Aaron go back home, right?”
Despite having woken up a half hour before, Marella looks exactly as well-rested and beautiful as Bird looks disheveled and strung-out. Her perfect hair falls down her back in waves formed by her nighttime braids. Her eyes are bright and wide, without a single popped vessel to mar the shining white. Bird sighs and tries not to feel the comparison too deeply.
“He might have meant it,” Bird says, “but you asked me what I wanted.” She wants to win. Not just to be free of him, but to beat him at this game that he started. Even though it will put her in more danger. Even though she might lose. Even if her mother is back and Roosevelt is satisfied that he has done his duty, Bird doesn’t care. Something happened to her that night. Something she tried to remember. She left herself clues, she called Coffee, she struggled to get away, and now Bird is going to honor her past, forgotten self.
She is going do that most dangerous thing: remember.
* * *
Charlotte has her headphones on, a copy of Brides magazine in her lap, and an energy bar in her hand. Her compact stillness is a glaring beacon through the bustle of girls getting ready to go home for Thanksgiving. Bird gulps and puts her hand on Marella’s elbow.
“Wait for me downstairs,” she says. Marella follows the direction of her gaze and nods.
“You don’t mind?” Bird asks.
Marella shrugs. “Perspective, the silver lining of the apocalypse. Ask her.”
So Bird stands awkwardly at the foot of Charlotte’s bed and coughs. “Hey,” she says.
Charlotte makes a show of raising her eyes and looking startled. “Oh, Emily. What’s up?”
“I’m heading to my uncle’s for Thanksgiving. He says he fought it out for the last turkey at Safeway. Think you might want to help us eat it?”
Bird stills her erratically tapping foot, crosses her arms, and struggles to keep her gaze somewhere in the vicinity of Charlotte’s exhausted, guarded eyes. Charlotte used to be the nice one, but she doesn’t look the part anymore; she has the air of a wounded animal snapping at hands that get too close.
“I’m good here, thanks.”
Bird nods, and she’s half turned to escape when she hears herself say, “It really wouldn’t be a big deal. I mean, if you’re as tired of this place as I am. It would be nice to have you there. My mom is back, I could use some allies.”
She feels sick with regret as soon as the words escape her lips. They hang in the air between them, a poison gas. She tries to apologize, but the syllables catch on one another in a meaningless babble that Charlotte cuts short with a wave of her hand.
“I’m spending the day in the hospital. My mom went into respiratory arrest last night. I don’t know how many more days I’ll have to spend with her, so if you don’t mind, find some other allies.”
Bird digs her nails into her palm and forces herself to face Charlotte. “That was a shitty thing to say. I’m sorry. And I’m really sorry about your mom. I can bring back some leftovers, just in case.”
For a moment, Charlotte cracks that sweet smile. Then she shrugs. “Are you and Coffee coming to the go-go?”
“Me and Coffee?”
“I heard you finally went for him. Ditching Paul for Coffee …” She laughs. “Only you, Emily. But I don’t know why it matters anymore, so how about it? Will you come?”
Bird wonders about the layers
of Charlotte she never bothered to explore — why one of the nicest girls in class would be best friends with its resident queen bee, why she dreams of weddings the way other girls dream of college, why she’s determined to throw the perfect go-go when her mother might die of v-flu. Maybe one day they can be friends again. Bird promises herself to do it better the second time around. For now, she offers the only comfort she can.
“I’ll be there.”
“Good. And … I wouldn’t mind it if you saved me some of that turkey. I think I’ve forgotten what real food tastes like.”
* * *
Coffee slouches onto the bus at the last possible moment. Aaron waves happily, but Coffee just nods at them before stuffing his long limbs into the very back seat and pulling a baseball cap over his head. Bird’s stomach clenches. She wishes she could travel back in time and slap herself before she asked that question. If acknowledging the depths beneath them means they both drown, then she would rather spend her life staring out at placid waters. She would rather keep Coffee as a lanky totem at parties, Kokopelli curled around a hand-rolled cigarette and anarchist political theory, than lose him because she tried to force a normal relationship. Not when she’s pretended for more than a year that he was just some weird friend, the funny dealer who liked to argue. And now, with Paul finally gone and her mother about to descend, she decides that she likes him after all? Maybe he thinks she asked him as a consolation prize. Maybe after all this time, he’s decided he doesn’t want her. Or maybe it’s just like he told her at the party: He doesn’t want what Bird is, but what she could be.
The bus goes slowly, since it has to stop at each inspection point between the school and Northeast. By the time they get to Sixteenth Street, the churches have let out their morning services, and the crowds of people spilling onto the sidewalk and street slow the bus down even more. A group of people dressed in white hold up signs protesting the quarantine as being against “God’s plan.” Some kids heckle them in Spanish and English from across the street. Bird stares until they drop out of sight. The school insisted on curbside service for the safety of the lower schoolers, and Nicky’s house is at the far end of the route. Bird’s phone buzzes. She doesn’t even pick it up, but Aaron peels his nose from the window and pokes her arm.
“Your phone, Em.”
“It’s probably Aunt Carol.”
Aaron makes a face. “Oh,” he says. “I hope Dad cooks the turkey right this time. Aunt Carol is really picky.”
Bird laughs and squeezes his shoulder. “That’s one way to put it.”
“Em?”
“Yeah?”
“Even if your parents are back, do you think you’ll stay with us?”
A few months ago, the thought of permanently living with Nicky would have made her cry. It would be a vindication of her mother’s most painful accusations about Bird’s character. Now the prospect feels like a long-sought solace, a third way she never imagined possible. But how would it happen? Her parents will certainly expect her to move back home once things settle down with the quarantine, and it’s easier to stand up to Roosevelt than her mother.
“Mo will probably want her room back, Aaron,” she says tactfully.
Aaron nods but his shoulders slump. “But now that I’m at Bradley, I guess it won’t be too different, right? You’ll still come by sometimes and make me your funny salad?”
Bird squeezes his hand. “And you can play me all your new records,” she says, voice scratchy.
Nearly two hours after they started, the bus stops at the end of Nicky’s street and the four of them climb out on stiff legs. Nicky opens the door before they knock and picks Aaron up in a bear hug that leaves her cousin giggling.
“Your parents are coming by in the afternoon,” he says over Aaron’s shoulder. Bird can hardly nod for the dread weighing her down. She feels the heat of Coffee’s gaze, but shame keeps her from meeting it. He knows more about her relationship with her parents than anyone but Mo, but that’s just the trouble: There’s no more painful rejection than that of the person who knows you best.
They all crowd into the living room, while Bird makes introductions. A few shirts and jackets pile at one end of the faded red floral couch and a dozen empty beer bottles wait for the recycling bin in crooked rows by the door. Nicky tugs awkwardly on his do-rag. “I guess I should have cleaned up more around here. Em, did you want to —”
“I’ll get started with the cooking,” she says quickly.
Nicky smiles. “Your Aunt Grace is bringing some deviled eggs and that coconut cake. I might not have enough milk for the mashed potatoes, but that bodega on the corner is open till one.”
“You’ll do the turkey?” she asks.
He grimaces. “We’ll do the turkey. That way your mom can spread the blame.”
Their eyes meet and an understanding that Bird has resisted her whole life passes, at last, between them. Her mother’s nightmare is flowered and heavy with fruit after long years of growing in the dark. Their similarities, in the end, are due to no particular cosmic coincidence or genetic endowment, just the self-fulfilled prophecy of a woman they both are doomed to love. This might be Carol Bird’s tragic irony, but it is her daughter’s sudden strength. Her uncle’s eyes contain her every childhood terror, and they do not destroy her after all. She turns to Coffee in the moment of this realization, but he’s looking at her uncle with the frown he reserves for tricky problems of organic chemistry.
“We could cook it Brazilian style,” he says.
“You cook turkey in Brazil?” Marella asks.
He smiles. “Not really. But I figure it can’t be too different from chicken.”
Nicky gets that mischievous look she remembers from when she was a kid. “Brazilian turkey,” he says. “Now that’s practically Carol-proof.”
“If she has no idea what it’s supposed to taste like, how can she tell us we’ve done it wrong?” Bird almost laughs at the idea. Her mother conceives of herself as very culinarily adventurous, though in reality this never goes much further than the local Thai restaurant. Bird could hug Coffee for seeing the situation with such clarity and compassion, but he still hasn’t spoken to her directly; he’s still hardly looked at her.
“Coffee, why don’t you go down to that bodega and see if they have what you need,” says Nicky.
“I’ll take him,” Bird says, surprising herself. Coffee jerks. Marella clears her throat. “Aaron,” she says, “why don’t you show me around the kitchen? I can get started on peeling the potatoes, at least.”
Nicky smiles benevolently and settles down on the couch to watch the pregame talk shows, because even a v-flu vaccine has nothing on a Thanksgiving day match between the Cowboys and the ’skins. He doesn’t even think about helping, any more than her father would, with so many women in the house. And Bird thinks that her mother isn’t all wrong about her brother, any more than she’s all wrong about her daughter. Scared of everything, and only ambitious enough for a postage stamp of a mark on the world; gifted with the privilege of class and education and unable to articulate what she wants to do with it. She will disappoint her parents by the simple expedient of being herself.
Outside, braced by the cold, sunny day and the revelations of the morning, she turns to Coffee. “Did you get it?”
He snorts. “Of all the things I never expected to hear you say.”
She looks down at her sneakers, embarrassed. “Sorry.”
“I did,” he says after a beat. “And foda-se, don’t ask how. I’ll need an excuse to sleep over.”
She nods. She didn’t think they could manage this at school. The rest depends on her parents, but she’ll deal with them somehow. At the bodega, Coffee makes quick work of the sparse shelves. A few cans of coconut milk, dried chili peppers, cinnamon sticks, and cloves. A jar of orange palm oil the owner kept behind the cashier. He gets the least brown scallions and a few bags of frozen vegetables. Shopping has been hell in the District since the quarantine, with most of the produce t
oo wilted to use after the required holding period. Of course, there are small towns on the West Coast so decimated by the v-flu that trucking companies won’t even deliver there anymore. It can always be worse.
She walks slowly on the way back, hoping that Coffee might offer her some Thanksgiving truce, but he’s stone silent beside her. She nods to the few neighbors she recognizes, though yellow quarantine tape stretches across five houses on Nicky’s block alone. She wonders if that means her parents still won’t be allowed back home.
Coffee stops short at the foot of Nicky’s steps, and she stumbles into him. Dizzy, she looks up at the thick curls that brush the back of his neck.
“Do you really want me to answer your question?” he asks.
Turn around, she thinks, but she doesn’t have the breath for it. “Please.”
She can only judge his mood by the angry question mark of his long spine; he denies her his face, and nearly all inflection.
“I’ve spent a year drowning in you. Even when you listened and smiled when your friends made fun of me. Even when you would stare at me when you thought I wasn’t looking and I knew that I didn’t feel this by myself and I knew that it would take an apocalypse to make you admit it. And ha! God gave me an apocalypse, thanks but no thanks. Do you know what your question feels like, Bird? It feels like you’re giving me the scraps when everything else has gone to hell. And I hate how little that matters to me, how much I want whatever you can lower yourself to give.”
Bird gasps twice and reaches to touch his back, feeling his warmth and tension beneath the thin gray fabric of his hoodie. He groans and turns and stops, so she can just see the curve of his cheekbone and chin sharp against the baby-blue sky.
“You didn’t answer my question,” she says, brushing aside the rest with the selfish desperation of the emotion she refuses to be the first to name. He’s right, but it can’t matter now, not anymore.
He bites his lip and his shoulders tremble before he turns to face her fully. His eyes are an open wound that she gave him, while his mouth — that beautiful, terrible instrument — pronounces judgment:
Love is the Drug Page 23
