We Never Asked for Wings

by Vanessa Diffenbaugh

The class laughed. It wasn’t a mean laugh, but an amused one, and he remembered then what Mr. Everett had said about loving science. The class thought it was a joke. He looked to the front of the room, hoping Mr. Everett didn’t think he was trying to be funny. The teacher didn’t look amused, but he didn’t look mad either.

  Alex took a deep breath. “I love birds too.” He thought hard, trying to pull up some kind of elaborate language that would impress them, but all he could think of was the birds of the bay. He recited them in alphabetical order, as his grandfather would have done. “Acorn woodpecker, Allen’s hummingbird, American avocet, American goldfinch, ash-throated flycatcher, barn swallow. Bewick’s wren, black turnstone, black-bellied plover, burrowing owl—you know.”

  “I do know,” Mr. Everett said, raising his binoculars and pointing them at him. “I like birds too.”

  He dropped the binoculars and turned to the class.

  “So that’s it, right? You all laughed, but Alex hit it—he loves science and he loves birds. And he clearly contains a knowledge base that most of us don’t have. So that’s what I want you all to think about, before you get started on any of these projects. What do you love, and what do you know? And then, what are you curious about? Everyone in the class has a unique story, unique interests—and these are what should drive your inquiries. So if you’re having trouble figuring out your area of interest, spend some time thinking about what you know, and what you love, and what makes you different. The more different you are, the better.”

  Alex smiled. Proof, as if he had needed it: he was born to be a scientist.

  —

  Alex had promised Yesenia he’d meet her at the water as soon as school let out. But in his sixth-period English class, Mrs. Davis asked if anyone could stay late to help assign books for the year, and out of habit his hand shot up in the air. It took more than an hour to tag class sets of tattered novels, and then, even though he’d told himself he wouldn’t, he detoured past Wes’s house and looked in every window, for the first time feeling bold enough to walk up the driveway and into the backyard. Now—if Yesenia was still there—they’d have only a few minutes before she had to go home to dinner.

  His shadow was long when he finally saw Yesenia sitting at the end of the pier in her bathing suit, crumpled clothes and heavy black shoes in a pile beside her. His generic deodorant had failed him. Alex squeezed his arms tight to his sides and sat down.

  “Hey,” he said quietly.

  “Hey,” she answered, turning over a flat rock in her hand. She threw it into the water.

  It had been only twenty-four hours since they’d seen each other, but Alex felt suddenly shy. He’d lived a whole life in a single day, and he worried he’d changed, and she would see it.

  “You look nice.”

  “Thanks.”

  He scooted as close to her as he dared, given the failed deodorant.

  “So how was it?” she asked.

  “I missed you,” he said, avoiding the question. It felt like a trespass to tell her the truth: that it had been the best day of his life. But it was true that he’d missed her. “What about Bayshore?”

  “I survived.”

  “Survived?”

  She shrugged, not eager to elaborate.

  “Why do you say that?”

  “I don’t know. It was different. Last year, as long as I stayed quiet, no one said anything to me. But now, with all these new kids…”

  Her voice trailed off, and she looked out at the water.

  “What did they say?” Alex asked, fear gathering in his chest.

  She looked away from him and changed the subject. “Did you keep your promise?”

  He lowered his eyebrows, remembering: he’d promised her he wouldn’t raise his hand on the first day. It hadn’t been as easy as he’d thought.

  “Almost,” he said. “Not exactly.”

  Yesenia laughed. “It’s no use.” She wiggled closer to him on the pier. “You’ll never be normal.”

  “Thanks. I think.”

  “It was a compliment.”

  “Then thank you.”

  She shook her head, water spraying in salty pellets on his face and lips, and turned to him. “So what about zero period? Were you the only freshman?”

  He nodded. “I liked it. He said the more different you are, the better.”

  “Well, that’s good for you. What did you do?”

  “Just took roll, and talked a little. He asked us to think about what we have that no one else has.”

  “That’s easy.”

  She was right. Alex thought about the heavy drawers of feathers, all organized by color and species and date, and then his grandfather’s note: make wings. It was almost as if he’d left them there for this exact purpose, as if he’d known Alex would have the opportunity to use them, to design a project that could help him win, and that that win would take him somewhere far from the life they’d shared. He just wished his grandfather were there to help him; it was overwhelming to think about doing it alone.

  “So,” Yesenia said, pulling both her feet out of the water and turning to Alex, smiling impishly. He was sitting cross-legged and she climbed onto his lap, wrapping both legs around him. “What do you have that no one else has?”

  She was so small that even when she sat on his lap he had to bend down to look her in the eyes. “You?” he asked hopefully.

  Her lips were wet. As she stretched tall to kiss him, she wrapped her arms around his waist, and he did the same, moving his hands lightly over her bare back, down her sides, and over her legs. He hesitated and then reached out and held each of her feet in his hands.

  She gave a small shudder and pulled away, looking at the place where he had been holding her.

  “Is this okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  She held still as he ran his fingers from big toe to heel on each perfectly formed foot, the skin white and wrinkled from the water.

  “What happened?”

  Yesenia placed her hands over his. “I don’t know. My mom won’t talk about it.”

  It surprised Alex—from his dinner with Carmen, he couldn’t imagine anything she and her daughter didn’t share. “Was it a birth defect?”

  He regretted it as soon as he said it, but she didn’t react to the words.

  “I don’t think so. I always thought it was, but a few years ago in the grocery store we saw a baby, a tiny baby, with casts on both legs, and a face that looked like something heavy had fallen on it—all black and blue. My mom just turned around and left. I waited for over an hour, but she never came back. I had to walk all the way home by myself, and then there she was, in the kitchen, pretending like nothing had happened.”

  It made Alex feel sick, to think of Yesenia as a baby, to think that someone might have hurt her.

  She leaned toward him, closing his eyes with her fingertips.

  “Don’t think about it,” she whispered, and then she kissed him hard and kept kissing.

  Letty dumped a non-virgin virgin Bloody Mary down the drain. She hadn’t made this many mistakes since the first week she’d brought Luna to work. Why had she ever agreed to meet Rick for lunch? He probably wouldn’t even show up. Playing it out a little further in his head—movie nights with Luna wedged between them, taking Letty to meet his parents in their ritzy home in Mission Heights with her two disheveled children in tow—it wasn’t going to happen. Letty told herself she wouldn’t be disappointed when she walked casually by the McDonald’s at noon. Being stood up would merely be a disaster averted. That morning she’d even dressed in her oldest jeans and a black blouse with bleach spots, so that when he showed up to work at four with some thin excuse, he’d be able to see that she’d expected nothing less.

  At five minutes to noon she washed her hands, called the manager to cover her lunch break, and walked out of Flannigan’s. Speed-walking past McDonald’s, she threw a glance inside and was surprised to see him already waiting, his eyes on the door. He jumped up just as Letty s
queezed into a plastic booth.

  “I’ll have a number two,” she said. “With Coke.”

  “You didn’t actually think we were going to eat here, did you?”

  “Why not? Don’t tell me you’re one of those food snobs.”

  “I guess you could say that.”

  “So where are we going?”

  Rick held up a brown paper bag. “Follow me.”

  He led her to the end of the terminal, down an escalator, and through a long corridor where the express planes lined up, waiting for their five o’clock flights, to a second escalator she’d never noticed. The moving staircase lifted her into a round room, all windows, with low black benches pressed up against the walls. There was only one door. It might have been a gate once, an entrance for the kind of double-decker jumbo jets they’d stopped flying with the recession, but now the door was locked and the room was just a lookout. The view stretched all the way to San Francisco.

  “How did you find this place?” she asked. “I thought I knew every inch of this airport.”

  “I did a little research,” he said, “when I found out I was limited to Terminal Two.”

  He’d done well. She turned away from the majestic view of the city and walked to the south-facing window. Just on the other side of the hurricane fence, the three buildings of the Landing teetered at the edge of the bay.

  “I tried to move,” she said, as Rick pulled paper boxes out of the bag he carried. “You were wrong.”

  “Yeah? What happened?”

  “I didn’t pass the credit check.”

  “Why? Do you have bad credit?”

  “I don’t have bad credit. I just don’t have any credit.” She thought about the promise she’d made Alex: We’ll move over the freeway, just as soon as I can afford it, and how, in her disappointment, she’d briefly flirted with the idea of moving to Mexico with her children. “I have no idea how long it takes to build up credit. Alex will probably be out of school by the time I manage to do it.”

  Rick placed real silverware, two champagne glasses, and two take-out containers on a bench between them. With his thumb he popped a miniature bottle of prosecco and filled both glasses halfway.

  “Do they like their new schools?”

  “They love them. And Luna’s always hated school.”

  Handing her a glass, he lifted his own until they clinked. “It’s worth it, then. You’re doing the right thing.”

  She tipped the glass and drank it all at once. When it was gone, she looked at the empty bottle longingly.

  “I thought about bringing another, but I wouldn’t have ever forgiven myself if you got fired for being drunk on the job.”

  “Good call.”

  He knew more than anyone how much she needed to work, and management was strict about drinking.

  She opened the container he’d placed before her: fat butterfly shrimp, dripping in what looked like butter and chili, on top of a bed of lettuce. Thinly sliced avocado and jalapeños fanned around the edges.

  “Wow,” she said, her mouth full. She wasn’t sure if it was the hit of champagne (exactly enough, she thought now: all the happiness without the impaired judgment) or the fact that she hadn’t eaten breakfast, but it was the best thing she’d ever tasted. “What is this?”

  “Al mojo de ajo,” he said, his accent so beautiful it made Letty wish she spoke more Spanish. “From Avila’s. I used to work there.”

  “Really? Why don’t you anymore?” Avila’s was the most popular upscale Mexican restaurant on the peninsula. To say it was a step down for Rick to be working at Flannigan’s was to make the understatement of the century.

  “It’s a long story.”

  Letty checked her watch. “I’ve got twenty-five minutes. Talk fast.”

  Rick swallowed a bite of avocado and wiped his mouth on a napkin. “My dad owns it. I started working there when I was thirteen.”

  “What?” Letty’s surprise was tempered only by her complete focus on the food. Her mouth was full of shrimp and three different kinds of salsa, and she willed her eyes not to roll back in her head from pure ecstasy. She took another bite and nodded as she tracked with his story: the family business his father had every intention of passing over to Rick, his oldest child, but not until he earned it, starting as a dishwasher and working his way through every job—prep cook to line cook to host to runner. He paid for college with his salary as sous-chef.

  “So what did you do wrong?”

  “My dad wanted me out of the kitchen. He didn’t want me to spend the rest of my life smelling like grease and working past midnight. He told me I’d never find a wife, and he’d never expand his business. So he told me to go to business school.”

  “And you went.”

  “And I hated it. I love restaurants because I love food, not because I love profit margins and supply curves and tax accounting.”

  When he dropped out, he said, his father fired him. Letty listened to the end of the story while swiping the remains of the garlic sauce off the bottom of the paper box with her thumb.

  “So why are you working at Flannigan’s?” she asked when he finished. It was the only part of the story that still didn’t make sense. With all those years at Avila’s, he could have gotten a job at a much nicer place; it wasn’t true what he’d said when they first met, that he had to start somewhere.

  “My dad told all his restaurant friends not to hire me. I think he thought if I couldn’t get another job, I’d come around. I pretty much just took this job to spite him.”

  “So you don’t talk anymore?”

  “Oh, no, we talk all the time. He’s my father, and we love each other. This is just a test.”

  “A test of what?”

  Rick was quiet for a minute, as he looked out the window. Men in orange vests waved planes into gates, their arms like windmills. “He’s testing my passion. Seeing what I’m willing to sacrifice. Because it isn’t an easy life—especially if you want a family.” He looked away from her when he said this, embarrassed, as if he was suggesting he wanted a family with her.

  “What does your mom think about the family feud?”

  “She stays out of it. She’s got enough going on.”

  “What does she do?

  “She’s got ten kids. Four still at home.”

  “Ten kids?” Letty said in shock, although it explained the licorice rope and his facility at bribery. Rick was the oldest of ten. “I can’t even handle two.”

  “You have siblings?”

  Letty shook her head no. “I’m it. All of my parents’ disappointments, rolled up into one neat little package.” She dabbed at her jeans, where oil from the dressing had soaked through the cardboard box.

  “You act like working at Flannigan’s puts you on par with drug addicts and child molesters. It’s not that bad.”

  “You work nights,” Letty argued. “At least you make decent money.”

  “Decent. Enough to pay for my books.”

  “I thought you dropped out of school?”

  “Out of the MBA program. But I’m in my first semester at the California Culinary Academy.”

  “Ha!” Letty grinned at the accuracy of her intuition. “So you really are a food snob.”

  “Well, it looks like you enjoyed my food snobbery,” Rick countered, taking the box she’d all but licked clean and walking it to the trash can with the rest of the boxes and bags.

  As Letty watched she thought of something: “So how did you get those, if you don’t work there anymore?”

  “I still know everyone in the kitchen. I go to the back door and they’ll make me anything I want. I’m like that dog in Lady and the Tramp.”

  “You mean the Tramp?”

  “Exactly. The Tramp. You liked it?”

  “It was great. But I could eat another.”

  “You’re still hungry?”

  His face fell, and she stood up, twirling around in her tight jeans.

  “You don’t get this figure on a diet of shr
imp and lettuce.” He started to apologize, but she thought of something and pulled him onto the escalator. “Now you follow me.”

  They retraced their steps to the little plastic table in the dining area of McDonald’s, where they’d met only a half an hour before.

  “Wait here,” she said and returned a minute later with a small sundae. In the seat across from him she took a big bite, and then, loading up the spoon with equal parts vanilla ice cream and hot fudge, she held it out to him. He looked at her skeptically.

  “You’ve never had one, or you wouldn’t be looking at me like that.”

  “I haven’t.”

  “Well, trust me. These things are good.”

  “You know, their ice cream isn’t even made from milk? It’s some kind of oil-and-water thing that doesn’t melt. If you leave it out in the sun it separates.”

  She forced a spoonful of sundae through his protesting lips. “Who in their right mind would ever let this melt?”

  He stopped talking and swished the vanilla and chocolate in his mouth, his eyes glazed over with pleasure. He swallowed. “Point taken.”

  She shared the rest of her sundae bite for bite. After the final, extra-fudgy spoonful, Rick shivered involuntarily. “Thank you for enlightening me on the virtues of the McDonald’s sundae.”

  Letty laughed. “Thanks for lunch.”

  There was an awkward pause, where a kiss might have been, if it had been a real date, in a real restaurant, with a drop-off on a front porch instead of a race back to work. Letty threw away the plastic dish and returned to say good-bye.

  “Hey,” Rick said suddenly. “I don’t want to meddle, but I’m sure I could find you a place to rent over the freeway. All my parents’ friends have guesthouses. And a lot of them don’t even live in the main houses.”

  It wasn’t a world Letty understood, with main houses and guesthouses and neither one occupied, but if Rick wanted to take her there, she was happy to have him do it.

  “Meddle away,” she said, standing up to go. “I need all the help I can get.”

  For the rest of the afternoon Letty reverted to her old ways, abandoning her list of specials and pulling drinks straight from the frozen margarita machine. She was too distracted for the kind of calculated precision Rick had taught her, and she wanted only to move behind the bar like she used to, without thinking, so that she could think about Rick. Ricardo Lorenzo Moya. She replayed every moment of their lunch together, every exchange, every bite of food, from the expression on his face when she force-fed him ice cream to the still-hungry look in his eyes when he said good-bye. Her thoughts were so crowded that she forgot to beg leftovers from the kitchen staff, and for the first time since her return from Mexico, she left the bar empty-handed.