Bird Song (Grace Series)

by S. L. Naeole

  “Wow. That’s a reality check.”

  “Look, Graham, I didn’t really mean it that way,” I tried to explain but he brushed it off.

  “No, no, Grace. You know what? If I were in your shoes, I’d feel the same way. I guess I was just hoping that I wouldn’t have to deal with this for a little while longer…you know, like until you had your first kid or something.”

  We exited the car and walked towards my house. Graham stopped halfway up the walkway, his gaze directed towards his house. The blinds had been drawn back—the first time in over two months—and the chaotic mess that made up the living room could be seen from the outside. Graham seemed fixed to the ground beneath him, but I could tell that he was as curious as he was concerned.

  “Do you want to go and check on him?” I asked him. When he didn’t answer I didn’t press the issue.

  We walked through my front door and Graham groaned. “She’s making tofu casserole again. That’s it, I’m eating at work.”

  I grimaced as well. The aroma of cabbage and bean curd masked any pleasant odor that might have been detectable had we had anything but tofu and veggie-based faux meat products for the past few weeks. Our only saving grace was turkey bacon at breakfast.

  “Is that you, kids?” I heard Janice call out from the kitchen.

  “Yeah, Janice, we’re home,” I replied as I held my hand over my face.

  Graham wrinkled his nose and shook his head. “You know, it always smelled like tofu and cabbage at Stacy’s house, too, but at least her mom uses actual meat in her dishes. I didn’t know that when I agreed to stay here that your future step-mom would try to turn me into a rabbit,” he whispered to me as we walked towards the kitchen.

  “Shh,” I hissed. “Hey, Janice, what are you making?”

  Janice was chopping vegetables for what I could only assume was yet another salad. Her large belly kept her at a distance from the actual counter, causing her to lean forward uncomfortably, but she still wore a fairly pleased smile. “I’ve got a Tempe and vegetable lasagna with cabbage noodles baking in the oven, I’m chopping up some bell peppers for a wild rice salad, and in about thirty minutes, I’ll pop in a pan of organic whole wheat brownies for dessert. So, how was your day at school, kids?”

  I turned to look at Graham, who was too busy looking green to answer, and sighed. “School was fine. We’re going upstairs to do some homework before Graham has to go to work, so if you need anything…”

  Janice waved her hand in the air, the kitchen light glinting off the blade. “Alright.”

  I grabbed Graham’s arm and pulled him towards the stairs. We climbed up to my room and heaved a sigh of relief that the odor from downstairs hadn’t made its way upstairs, too. “When is she going to start eating normal food again?” Graham asked as he threw himself onto my bed facedown.

  I placed my backpack on the floor by the dresser and shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t know. I hope that after the baby is born she at least lets me start cooking more than once a week.”

  “Yeah,” Graham agreed. “At this rate, I’ll be thinner than you by graduation.”

  “Hey, you know you at least get to eat out when you’re at work. I’m the one stuck here every night eating tofu and bean sprouts while you’re stuffing your face with pizza and hot dogs.”

  Graham threw a hand negligently into the air, his finger pointing at me. “Your fault. You could always tell your boyfriend to bring you something to eat, or take you out once in a while.”

  To that I said nothing. I unzipped my backpack and pulled out my binder to go over my homework, ignoring the photographs and notes that framed my dresser mirror. Grabbing a pencil from my bag, I sat down on the floor beside my bed and stared blankly at the French assignment from this morning.

  “Hey, Grace?”

  “Mmm?” I said, the pencil in my mouth preventing any articulate sounds coming out.

  “Are you gonna tell me the truth about what’s going on between you and Robert?”

  I pulled the pencil from between my lips. “What do you mean?”

  The bed began to shift behind me, the springs moving loudly as Graham hefted himself off and sat down beside me, our backs pressed up uncomfortably against the metal bar of the bed frame.

  “I mean, there’s something wrong between you two, and I don’t care how many times you say that everything is fine and how it has nothing to do with Lark, because I can tell that everything is not fine, and that this probably does have something to do with Lark.” He grabbed the binder from out of my hands and tossed it a few feet in front of us, soon followed by my pencil. “I’m your best friend, Grace, remember? If you can’t talk to me about it, who can you talk to?”

  I giggled nervously, the idea that I could talk to Graham about what had happened between Robert and I seeming so much more like a fantasy than the reality of Robert and Lark being angels we had both fallen for.

  “Grace?”

  I looked into Graham’s eyes and I could see that there was genuine concern in them. He grabbed my hand and squeezed it reassuringly, something a best friend would do.

  “We had a fight,” I said, finally.

  “About…?”

  I looked at him and there was no mistaking what the reason was in my face. He put his head down. “Oh.”

  “Yeah, oh,” I said with a downhearted laugh.

  “But why? What’s so wrong with me loving his sister? I mean, besides the fact that I’m obviously not good enough for her and that I was pretty big jerk to you? That shouldn’t be reason for him to take this out on you,” Graham argued, his free hand flailing around to emphasize each point.

  “He thinks that I was plotting to get the two of you together,” I admitted. Though not the whole truth, it wasn’t a lie either and that was enough to save my conscience.

  “Well, I only wish that were the case. You helped me out when I needed you, but you never pushed me towards Lark. You never tried to get me to break up with Stacy, even though you knew how I felt about her. You were being my friend, and he can’t get mad at you for that. Not again.”

  I shook my head at Graham’s reasoning. “You don’t understand, Graham. When he accused me of these things, I got upset because I know that you’re good enough for Lark; maybe too good. I know that you would make Lark very happy, and I told him, but I was so angry…I said some things I shouldn’t have said.”

  Graham looked at me with surprise. “Like what?”

  I turned my face away and whispered my reply.

  “Well now that was stupid.”

  My head whipped back to face him, my mouth open in shock. “Thanks, best friend!”

  He shrugged his shoulders. “What? It’s the truth. You told him you never wanted to see him again, yet you take him up on his offer to drive you to school and bring you home? Talk about sending mixed-messages, Grace. He’s in love with you, and yeah, he was stupid for saying what he did, but he did it because he loves his sister. You need to apologize to him, Grace.”

  I slouched beside him and stubbornly folded my arms across my chest. “He hasn’t apologized either. What he said was wrong, Graham, and it hurt because he should have known better, he should know me better.”

  Graham nodded in agreement. “Yeah, he should have, but so should you.”

  “What exactly does that mean?”

  “You know exactly what that means. You of all people know how overprotective Robert is when it comes to his sister—I’d probably think it was kinda creepy if I didn’t know how much he loved you—so you should have known that he’d assume that if she was upset by something, it would be because of me. He was simply reacting the way a big brother would. Give the guy a break. He’s only human.”

  “You have no idea what you’re talking about, Graham,” I huffed.

  “I know more than you think,” he retorted. “I know that sometimes I do and say some pretty boneheaded stuff, but trust me when I say that I know a lot more about being a guy than you do, Grace, and Robert was be
ing a total guy.

  “I also know that what you said to Robert was you running away from the argument, instead of dealing with it like you’re supposed to when you love someone. I ran away from our friendship, Grace, so I know what running looks like. I know that it doesn’t have to involve anything but words, and that it can hurt you just as much as it does the person you’re running from.

  “You love Robert. He makes you happy and he loves you, so stop being stupid and just apologize to him.”

  I wanted to scream at him that he didn’t know what he was talking about, that he was just as wrong as Robert was but there was no point. He wasn’t wrong.

  “Grace?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Hate me?”

  “No.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too.”

  ***

  I was in the middle of washing the dishes after dinner when the doorbell rang. “Grace, Stacy’s here,” Dad called out from the living room.

  I placed the last dish in the drying rack and wiped my hands on a dish towel as she walked into the kitchen. “Hey, Stacy.”

  “You didn’t show up to practice. Again.”

  I grinned nervously at her stern expression. “Um…I’m sorry?”

  “Can we talk-” she looked through the kitchen entrance at Dad, who was too engrossed in whatever it was he was watching on the television to notice us “-somewhere private?”

  I pointed upstairs and she nodded. I placed the dish towel onto the counter and turned off the light as we headed towards the stairs. “I’m going upstairs, Dad,” I called out. His hand waved at us casually; he was too involved with his show.

  As we passed Dad and Janice’s room, I could see Janice laying out some clothes on the bed. She lifted her head from her task and smiled at me. I smiled in return and then headed to my room.

  “How goes the wedding plans?” Stacy asked once we were seated on my bed.

  “They’re going, I guess. I asked if I could help, but Janice said that she didn’t have anything for me to do and that she’d let me know when she did. She and Dad don’t talk about it much in front of me for some reason. I think that they feel I might not be ready to deal with it.”

  I looked at Stacy, who was dressed in a sports bra and what looked like gym shorts, and asked her what it was that she wanted to talk about. I should have known as soon as she started.

  “Do you know when Lark is coming back?”

  I shook my head. “I told you, Stacy. I have no idea.”

  She clenched her teeth, my answer obviously not to her liking. “You’d think that with all that money she’d at least carry around a cell phone that worked or something.”

  I laughed softly. Though Lark carried around one of the latest model cell phones, it wasn’t operational, merely decorative. “Well, she does have something far better than a cell phone,” I replied.

  Stacy huffed. “Fat lot of good that does anyone when she treats that gift like people do cell phones; something she can just ignore when she doesn’t want to be bothered.”

  “So what makes you think she’d be any different if her phone actually worked?”

  “I don’t know, but at least it would give me another way to get in touch with her without having to go through Robert.”

  I tucked my head down and asked in a low voice, “So you’ve asked Robert to try and get in touch with her?”

  Stacy nodded. “Yes, and he said that he wasn’t about to bother her for my human whims.”

  I glowered at the idea of Robert being so callous. “That doesn’t sound like him.”

  “I know. He apologized immediately of course, but said that he still wasn’t going to bother her.” She started to rub her arms as the breeze that blew through my window took a sudden chilly turn. “I asked him why he was so agitated, but he wouldn’t say. He just kept looking at you and then told me to leave you alone.”

  “Me? When did you ask him these questions?”

  She looked out of the window and struggled with what she wanted to say, but finally turned her head to respond. “Just before I rang the doorbell. He was sitting on his bike and staring through the front window.”

  I leapt off the bed and ran to my window, sticking my head outside to glance up and down the street. I pulled myself back in and sat on the edge of the bed when I was convinced that there was no one there. “Did he say anything else?” I asked expectantly.

  She shook her head. “He waved when I said bye, but that was it. What’s going on, Grace? You two have been acting very weird lately. The only one who’s been semi-normal is Graham, which means he’s told me absolutely nothing.”

  “It’s complicated, Stacy.”

  “I’m sure that this wasn’t too complicated for Graham,” she replied sulkily.

  “I’ve known Graham since we were kids, Stacy. He lives with me. He’s my-”

  “Best friend—I know. He told me the same thing when I called him up at work to find out what’s going on; he said you would tell me when you’re ready, that you don’t know any more than I do about what’s going on with Lark, and that I should just leave you alone. Why is everyone telling me to leave you alone? What’s the deal, Grace?”

  “I think you should leave Grace alone, Stacy.”

  Stacy and I turned to see Robert sitting on the ledge of my window, the inky color of his clothes blending in with the darkening sky outside. Stacy looked at me with wide eyes. “Does he always do this?”

  I nodded.

  “Well,” she began, turning to speak to Robert, “I’d say that was romantic, but seeing as you’re probably not here in any romantic capacity, I’ll just say that you’re being incredibly rude, which is pretty ironic considering that you’re supposed to be an angel.”

  Robert stood up and moved very quickly, his body turning into a streak of black before disappearing near the closet.

  The knock on the door caused both Stacy and I to jump. “Hey girls, we’re heading off to bed now,” Janice said from behind the door. “Stacy, don’t stay too late, alright? I’d rather not be woken up again at midnight by your mother looking for you.”

  “Okay, Miss Dupre,” Stacy called out.

  “Alright. Goodnight, girls!”

  “Night, Janice,” I replied loudly, my eyes growing wide as Robert appeared again, sitting on the sill as though he had never left.

  Stacy eyed Robert and waited until she heard the bedroom door across the hall shut before she launched into Robert. “What was that about?”

  “It’s one thing to have her friends know that I am in her room; it’s another thing entirely for her parents to find me in here, alone or not,” Robert answered woodenly.

  “You couldn’t just pop out of the window or, I don’t know, disappear into smoke or something?”

  “Hey,” I whispered. “Could you two quit with the bickering?”

  Stacy and Robert glared at each other but nodded, each one curt and matter-of-fact. “Thank you,” I sighed. “Now, why are you here?” I said as I turned to give Robert my undivided attention.

  Robert looked at me, his face still the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. I caught the flicker of something in his eyes, a slight softening that gave me a glimmer of hope that I didn’t know I had needed or wanted. His mouth twitched and he quickly covered it with his hand, blocking the smile I knew he couldn’t keep from appearing.

  Stacy coughed, a rough, disturbing sound that caused the both of us to turn our attention to her. “I’m okay. Just a bug. That window needs to be closed.”

  Robert stood up and pushed the window down, leaving just a small sliver of space between it and the sill. “Is that better?”

  She nodded and then dabbed at her eyes with the back of her hand. “So, before you and Grace start making up, could you please tell me when Lark is getting back?”

  “No.”

  Stacy turned her head to me, her eyes wide with suggestion. I sighed and looked at Robert as I, too, asked him the same question.
His answer was no less firm, although the look in his eyes had softened some more.

  “I understand you’re doing the whole big-brother-protective thing, Robert, but I really need to talk to her,” Stacy insisted. “And don’t try reading my mind to find out why. I don’t want her learning why through you. That’s not fair to her or to me.”

  “Stacy, reading someone’s mind isn’t something that is done by selection. It just…is. I can ignore most of it, but I cannot stop it from happening anymore than you can stop yourself from blinking. Also, I resent the notion that I would listen to your thoughts in an attempt to undermine your right to divulge your little secret to Lark yourself.”

  “Alright. I’m sorry for that. Now, will you tell me where she is, or get in touch with her for me?”

  Robert shook his head. “No.”

  “Well, what about for me?” I asked. “Will you tell me where she is?”

  “I’m sorry, Grace. The answer is the same. Lark made it clear that she was to be left alone; I promised her that she would and that she could return on her own time,” Robert insisted.

  “Robert, I know that this phrase probably means absolutely nothing to you, considering that you’ve never had to worry about it or anything like that, but time is of the essence here,” Stacy broke in.

  “Perhaps Lark doesn’t understand that your time doesn’t quite flow in sync with our time,” I added.

  The softness that I saw hinted in Robert’s face dissipated and was replaced with a new cold bitterness. “I’m very well aware that my time doesn’t quite flow in sync with yours, Grace, and so is Lark.”

  “Okay, good. Could you please tell Lark that I need to speak with her then,” Stacy interrupted, moving to stand between Robert and I. “This is important, Robert. I’m asking here. Please?”

  He looked at me above Stacy’s head as he answered. “I’ll think about it.”

  “Thanks,” Stacy sighed in relief. “This means a lot to me, Robert. Really.”