Dirty Wings

by Sarah Mccarry

  As far as she can tell, Byron is all of nineteen or twenty, and has not lived long enough to see much of anything a million times, but he seems adamant in his world-weariness. “Well,” she says. “Congratulations.”

  “You, too, newlywed. Looks like we’re both stuck with him now.” He pats her shoulder awkwardly. “See you in the morning.”

  “Thanks,” she says. He leaves her in the living room. She curls up on the pullout bed, trying not to let any part of the sleeping bag touch her exposed skin, and buries her face in the crook of her elbow. She can hear the rise and fall of their voices in the kitchen as she cries herself to sleep.

  Later, Jason wakes her out of her fitful slumber, sliding into the bed behind her and nuzzling the back of her neck. “You awake still?”

  “Mmmm.” She rolls over, burying her face in his chest, and he puts his arms around her.

  “You’re the most beautiful girl in the world,” he murmurs into her hair. His hands move lower, slide up under her shirt to cup her breasts. She lies still as a doll as he fits himself inside her, kissing her eyelids, her cheeks, her mouth. “I love you,” he says, “I love you.”

  “I love you, too,” she replies, but all through the depths of her she feels nothing, nothing at all.

  In the morning the boys load their equipment into the van and drive away, like sailors abandoning her to a widow’s walk. “See you,” Byron says. Jason gives her a hasty kiss, but he’s focused on his guitar, the drum kit, the amps, loading the equipment according to some precise system known only to him. “Don’t put that there!” he barks at Percy, who rolls his eyes.

  When they are gone Maia goes back into the house. It was too much to hope, obviously, that they would have a piano. She could call Oscar. She could call her parents. Neither of those options holds any particular appeal. Instead she methodically washes and dries the dirty dishes in the kitchen; from what she can tell, every dish they own. When that’s done she scrubs the dirty counters and sponges grease spatters off the cabinets. She unearths a filthy mop in the hall closet, rinses it out as best she can, fills the sink with clean soapy water and mops the kitchen floor. She rinses the mop out again and puts it neatly back in the closet, pokes around until she finds a battered vacuum cleaner serving double duty as a coatrack under a pile of old flannel shirts and thermal underwear. She empties the living-room ashtrays, opens the windows wide to let in the clean, rain-scented air, drags the couch cushions out to the front porch where she thumps the dust out of them. She picks up the beer cans scattered about the living room, dusts off the television, and vacuums the carpet. The vacuum cleaner belches dust and emits a faintly alarming odor of burning hair, but it seems to suck up the worst of the carpet’s extra coat of grime.

  She is afraid of what she will find in the bathroom, but it’s a little better than some of the punk houses she’s been in in the last few weeks. There’s a nearly full bottle of bleach scrub, perhaps purchased in more ambitious times, under the sink. The floor is piled with a collection of wet towels, which she kicks out into the hall, and the toilet is a horror. The bathtub is ringed with dirt, the sink coated with a thick spackle of toothpaste stains and hair. She sighs and gets to work. It takes a long time, but when she is done the bathroom is, if not clean, at least no longer a place that might scar for life an unsuspecting visitor.

  In the hallway, a rickety flight of wooden steps leads down into an abyss that proves to be a basement. A rusty chain dangles from a single bulb overhead; when she tugs it, the bulb’s feeble light illuminates an astonishing collection of rusted bicycles, skateboards in various states of decay, battered old guitars, blown amps, camping equipment, and, improbably, a brand-new set of skis. Maia crows aloud in triumph when she sees what she’s looking for: covered in lint and crusted, spilled detergent, but unmistakably a washer and dryer.

  She drags the dirty bathroom towels downstairs, stuffs them in the washer, and adds most of the contents of her own bag—a sad little collection of ragged cutoffs and T-shirts, a few pairs of underwear, her dirty socks, the New Order shirt she bought with Cass. There is just enough detergent left in the bottle for a single load. She starts the washer—Cass would be so proud—and goes upstairs to find something to eat.

  When the laundry is done she showers in the newly clean shower, dries off with a towel warm from the dryer—which she hangs tidily on the bathroom’s lone hook—and puts on clean clothes. It’s late in the afternoon and there is nothing left for her to do. In the living room, she picks up the phone and dials her parents’ number. Her father picks up. At his soft, familiar “Hello?” she feels a strange mix of love and relief and anger that pinches at her ribs with a sharp twang.

  “Dad,” she says.

  “Maia. Where are you?”

  “I’m in Seattle.”

  “You’re coming home.”

  “I don’t—I can’t. Not yet.” Not ever, now, she thinks, but she’s not ready to tell him that yet. “I have to figure out some things first.”

  “Your mother and I are—we are—we’re distraught, Maia. I don’t understand how you can do this to us. After everything we’ve done for you. We love you.”

  That’s not love, she wants to scream at him, that’s not love, you might have bought me but you don’t own me. I am a person, a person, a person, and I am not your child. “I’m sorry,” she says instead.

  He sighs heavily. “Can we see you? Will you give us that? Can’t you at least meet us for dinner? I can’t believe you’re in Seattle and you won’t even see us. Your mother called the police. You have to come home, you know. Where are you staying?”

  “I’m staying with—with a friend.”

  “I don’t understand how you can put us through this.”

  “Let’s meet for dinner. Tonight?”

  “Will you come here?”

  “Can we meet somewhere else? I just—” She falters.

  “I’ll make a reservation at that seafood restaurant on First,” he says. “Meet us there at seven. Do you have a way to get there? Should we pick you up?”

  “Well,” she says, trying not to laugh, “I do still have the car.”

  “Of course.” He doesn’t think it’s funny. “See you in a few hours.” He hangs up.

  She doesn’t have a key to the house. She writes Jason a note: Out for a bit. Back later tonight, and leaves it on the kitchen counter. She has nothing to wear to a seafood restaurant requiring reservations, but at least her clothes are clean.

  She drives to Cass’s house, hoping she can find it again, and is pleased when she sees the ramshackle, lopsided mess of it where she remembers. No one answers her knock, but the front door is unlocked, and she steps inside. “Hello?”

  A sleepy-eyed girl emerges, squinting, from a hallway that must lead to whatever passes here for bedrooms. “Who the hell are you?”

  “Is Cass here?” The girl’s eyes widen.

  “Oh, I heard all about you. Cass!” she bellows. “Your little princess is here!” Maia winces.

  “Thanks,” she says.

  Cass stumbles into the living room, yawning, and gives Maia a big grin. “Never thought I’d see you again.”

  “Don’t be stupid.”

  “Where’s your husband?” She pronounces it huzz-binn.

  “Cass. Come on. Please.” The girl who called Cass is watching this exchange with interest. Cass clicks her tongue against her teeth. “Can we go somewhere?” Maia asks.

  Cass shrugs, suddenly sullen. “Let me get my hoodie.”

  Maia drives them to Gas Works Park. Cass follows her to the grass slope that ends in the still grey water of the lake. Old, rusted factory works loom overhead against the gloomy sky. The air is chilly and damp; a goose honks at her irritably and poops on the grass in a defiant sort of way. Welcome home, Maia thinks.

  Cass is quiet, pulling out her tobacco and rolling two cigarettes. They smoke in silence. Maia watches a sailboat move past, headed for the harbor.

  “I’m going to see my parent
s tonight,” she says.

  “You moving back home?”

  “No way.”

  “They wouldn’t let you?”

  “I can’t even imagine living there now.”

  “You don’t have to keep running away,” Cass says.

  “It’s not that.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I don’t know,” Maia admits. “I don’t think so. I changed a lot.”

  “It’s only been a month, princess.”

  “But you know what it’s like. When everything changes. Even if it happens overnight. Like you can’t imagine being the person you were before ever again.”

  “Yes,” Cass says. “I know all about that. What about the piano?”

  “I don’t know,” Maia says again. “I don’t want to be—I don’t want what they wanted for me.”

  “Do you know what you want for yourself?”

  “No.”

  “Is that why you married Jason?”

  “Is that why you’re mad at me?”

  Cass narrows her grey eyes into a squint. “Oh, princess,” she says. “Yes. No. I don’t know, either. Do you love him?”

  “Not the way I love you,” Maia says. Cass flinches.

  “No,” she says quietly. “Apparently not.”

  “Can we be friends again?”

  “We were never not friends.”

  “You know what I mean.” She puts her head on Cass’s shoulder. Cass stiffens, then relents, gathers Maia up in a hug, rests her chin on the top of Maia’s head.

  “We can be friends again,” she says.

  I just want to be happy, Maia thinks. I just want to be dumb and happy and without dreams. I want to stop thinking. “‘The fault is not in our stars, but in ourselves,’” she says.

  “I don’t know about that,” Cass says.

  They sit in the wet grass and hold each other, and both of them find they have nothing else to say.

  Her father has chosen a restaurant with white cloth tablecloths and white cloth napkins and too many forks. They are already waiting for her when she walks in the polished glass doors. Across the restaurant, big windows overlook the Sound. Seagulls flap awkwardly in the breeze off the water, honking at one another in continual outrage. Her mother is in pearls, a neat suit cut to fit her body and highlight the graceful curve of her waist. Her father is drunk. Her mother looks her up and down, disgust registering clearly on her face, and then kisses her stiffly on the cheek.

  “You look nice,” her father says. Whether he is being polite or is so loaded he genuinely believes what he is saying is hard to say.

  A waiter shows them to a table by the window, brings a basket of sourdough bread. When she was little, she used to pull the soft part of the bread out first and then cover the tangy crust with butter. Maia’s mother pushes the bread basket to the edge of the table. Maia can’t remember the last time she ate a real meal. Mexico? She ate a package of ramen, today, in Jason’s kitchen. Before that, she has no idea. She reaches across her mother for a piece of bread, gnaws at it. The silence is excruciating.

  “So,” her mother says at last. “Were you going to tell us where you were?”

  “Renee,” her father says. “Let’s start with something a little less—why don’t you tell her about the end of your semester?” Her mother shoots her father a look of such withering contempt that even Maia cringes.

  “It’s fine,” she says. “I drove down the coast.”

  “In our car,” her mother says.

  “In your car,” she agrees.

  “It’s really my car,” her father says.

  “It’s our car,” her mother snaps. He wilts.

  “Something to drink?” The waiter is back.

  “Manhattan,” her father says immediately.

  “Make that two,” her mother says.

  “Three,” Maia says. She waits for the waiter to challenge her, but he is looking at her mother, who raises an eyebrow.

  “Three Manhattans,” says the waiter, rather uncertainly, and vanishes again.

  “Looks like she learned something from you,” her mother says coolly to her father. Flustered, he looks down at the tablecloth. “And what did you do down the coast, Maia?”

  “I got married,” Maia blurts. Her parents stare at her in total silence. Across the restaurant, a small child begins to scream. As its mother attempts to shush it, its desperate cries increase in volume and passion.

  “Please tell me you’re joking,” her mother says. Maia shrugs. Her mother pushes her chair back from the table. “Excuse me,” she says. “I believe I will go freshen up in the powder room.”

  “Don’t want potty,” the child howls. “Don’t, don’t, don’t.”

  Her father clears his throat. “Married,” he says. “I—my goodness. Will he follow you to school, then?” The waiter returns with their drinks, looks around for her mother.

  “You know what?” Maia says to him. “Why don’t you just give me hers.”

  So much for that, she thinks, on the drive back to Percy and Byron’s. The rest of the dinner had been, predictably, a disaster—“After everything we’ve done for you,” her mother repeated, “after everything we’ve given you, you do this to us”—but she had survived it. They had even told her to take the car, which was more than she’d dared hope for. She feels, if not the elated and glorious sense of freedom she’d felt in the first wild, magical days on the road with Cass, at least a sense of relief. Now they know what she is. Her father had pressed a wad of bills into her hand at the end of the meal, when her mother was in the bathroom again, hugging her close. “I don’t understand what you’re doing, sweetheart,” he soud. “Just let me know when you’re ready to come back. We can mail in your acceptance letter for you. I’m sure they’ll understand.” He still thinks she is going to New York.

  And, she realizes, she still can. Jason has a record deal. Maybe he won’t need her anymore. Cass could come with her. There’s no reason they couldn’t have their apartment with the patchwork curtains across the country, instead of here. Her mother will never forgive her, but her father has barely even noticed the extent to which she’s wronged them. He was the one who told her to keep the car. A new life away from Oscar and his failed dreams, her mother’s suffocating presence, her father’s tragic circle around the drain. The idea has more appeal than she’d been willing to admit, when she and Cass were still driving. When it seemed like everything was going to work out and the whole world was waiting for them. She’ll be eighteen in a few weeks. Old enough to go to war. Now, she feels as old as hell itself.

  The lights are on at Percy and Byron’s, the front door unlocked. She lets herself in. They’re drinking champagne in the living room, listening to records. Jason turns to her as she comes in, his eyes alight. He runs for her and picks her up and twirls her around, kisses her sloppily. “You’ll spill your champagne,” she says, laughing against his mouth.

  “Too late, too late,” he says happily, “here, here.” He finds a chipped mug, fills it, hands it to her. “Cheers,” he says.

  “What are we toasting?” she asks, raising her mug to clink against his, and then Percy’s and Byron’s.

  “The album,” Jason says. “Our album. Come into the studio with us tomorrow.”

  “Me?”

  “Play with us. On a couple of tracks. There’s a piano at the space. If it sounds good, we’ll record it. These guys have money like you wouldn’t believe, they can afford to pay for the extra time.”

  She looks over at Percy and Byron, who are not meeting her eyes. “I don’t know.”

  “I do,” he says, picking her up again. Her champagne sloshes over the rim of her mug. “I do.”

  “Okay, okay,” she says. “If you want. I’ll play with you.”

  They drink their champagne. He doesn’t ask her where she’s been, and she is too tired to tell him. He’s so excited he’s bouncing around the room, jumping up to change the record every three minutes, pouring more champagne, running to
the kitchen and back, bringing beer, whisky, ice, more glasses, a tub of ice cream, spoons. No one has said anything about how clean the house is, and she wonders if she’s offended them. After Percy and Byron stumble off to bed Jason pulls out the couch bed and undresses her slowly. She moves to turn the light off and he touches her hand. “No,” he says. “I want to see you.” She tries to be quiet, mindful of his bandmates in their rooms, but she can’t help herself. When he is intent like this, so focused on her, his clear eyes boring into hers, it feels so good. Like being seen at last, like finding her way home. Here, in her own body, finally, she is full. “I love you,” he says in her ear, “I love you, don’t ever leave me. Promise you’ll never leave me.”

  “I promise,” she says.

  “Never.”

  “Never.”

  “Not for anyone.”

  “Jason. I promise.” He tugs her hair back until she has to look him in the eyes. Sweaty skin to sweaty skin, under the now-clean sleeping bag she washed this afternoon. She can smell herself on him.

  “Promise,” he says. “Anywhere I go, you’ll come with me.”

  “I promise,” she says again. “I promise.”

  “Not for her.”

  “Not for who?” she asks, but she knows. He closes his eyes, rests his cheek on her shoulder, and she curls one arm around him.

  “Everybody leaves me,” he says into her neck. She can feel the damp weight of his tears on her skin. “Everybody. I’m going to make the best album in the world. And it won’t make anyone stay.”

  “I’m here,” she says. “I’m here. I promise. I won’t go anywhere. I’m here.” Long after he falls asleep at last, she lies awake, looking out into the dark with unseeing eyes.

  The next morning she gets in the van with them. Percy and Byron still aren’t speaking to her, and she knows without having to ask that they think bringing her along is a terrible idea. She wonders what they think of her; some “Chopsticks”-playing parlor trickster whose greatest accomplishment is banging out “Happy Birthday” from memory at some all-girl slumber party? She stares out the window, wondering if she’ll ever find another world besides Oscar’s where anyone takes her seriously. If this is what it is to be a girl, she’s no longer sorry she’s missed out.