Flight Patterns (8 page)

It was almost as if my car didn't need directions to Aunt Marlene's. Although I'd grown up in my grandfather's house—except for a brief stint living with Maisy's father for the two minutes Birdie had been married to him—I'd spent much of my time with my father's sister. She'd never married, calling the various statuary and her pack of mutts that yapped around her heels her family. They didn't ask her to do anything for them and never talked back—two advantages over a husband that she wasn't willing to trade in. Unless the man looked like Pat Sajak. She was a lifelong
Wheel of Fortune
watcher and usually came up with an answer long before the contestants did.

The daughter and sister of oystermen, she was whipcord thin but strong enough to help haul in a net or stand for hours shucking
oysters—which is what she did throughout high school and into her twenties until she'd saved up enough to open her own business. Her skin was lined and weathered from years spent outdoors in the Florida sunshine and, according to Birdie, looked like it could be used to reupholster a couch. Or fix a flat tire. Despite having my daddy in common, they'd never been friends, but it had never seemed to bother Birdie that I always chose my crusty aunt over her.

Strings of small clear lightbulbs wrapped around trees and strategically placed poles, illuminating crushed-shell-covered paths and the unsellable remnants of concrete statues of cherubs made to look like marble and a local artist's interpretation of Greek gods and goddesses, along with a liberal dose of commercial and mythical creatures. The most remarkable of these included a small replica of the Loch Ness Monster, swimming in its spot on the sandy soil between Poseidon and Ronald McDonald. Despite painting Nessie purple and putting her front and center for years at her business, she'd yet to find a home. Feeling sorry for Nessie, Marlene had brought her to her house to rule over the other rejected statuary in her front yard. I remembered climbing on her as a girl, having the scars on my knee to prove it.

The house was a nondescript structure that had probably been built around the 1920s and added onto over the decades without any thought to form or design, including the paint color, which had always been the same Pepto-Bismol pink. It was odd and quirky, but as long as Aunt Marlene was there, I considered it home.

The bare bulb over the front door flicked on as I parked the car in the mostly sand driveway, and Marlene stepped out surrounded by a yapping entourage of four dogs of varying sizes and indeterminate breeds. She wore her usual uniform of T-shirt, denim shorts, and flip-flops, and just the sight of her made me want to cry.

“Is that you, sweet girl?” Although she'd given up smoking two decades before, she still had that smoky rasp that would always give her away. Her unadulterated and unapologetic Southern accent was as pronounced as ever.

“It's me, Aunt Marlene,” I said, grabbing my bag, then running
to be embraced by the woman who'd always been more of a mother to me than the woman who'd given birth to me. The dogs ceased their barking when they saw that I wasn't there to attack and began earnestly sniffing my feet and legs, one of them brave enough to saunter over to my car and pee on a tire.

She pulled me inside the house, the dogs following faithfully on her heels, bringing me back to the small kitchen with the same linoleum floors and lime green Formica countertops that I remembered. The dogs flopped down on the floor beneath the table, tongues lolling. “Let me look at you.” She held me at arm's length, where we studied each other for a moment. She still wore her hair long and curly and dyed black, along with the thick blue eye shadow and false eyelashes that I'd figured out as a teenager looked right only on her.

“You look even more tired than the last time I saw you.” She came to New Orleans with a group of her friends every Mardi Gras and shared all the news from home, including what my grandfather omitted from our frequent phone conversations. Gently she pressed the pad of her thumb under my eyes. “You got more purple circles than Saturn. Having problems sleepin' again?”

“No more than usual.” I smiled. “I'm guessing Grandpa called you?”

She pulled out a green vinyl chair, the foam stuffing held in check by strategically placed strips of duct tape, and indicated for me to sit. “He did, but he didn't have to. Half the town's called to let me know you were back.”

I rolled my eyes. “Great. So much for hiding under the radar.”

“Sugar, this is Apalach. There's no such thing as hiding here; you know that. Besides, don't you want to see your friends?”

I shook my head quickly. “Not really. Most of my friends have moved away, and the ones who stayed are mostly people I don't want to stay in touch with. Besides, this is a business trip.”

She reached into her harvest gold–colored refrigerator, where rope and duct tape had been formed to replace the broken handle, and pulled out a pitcher of sweet tea. Without asking, she poured me a tall glass and then one for herself before placing both on the table.

“Business, huh? Then who's that nice-looking young gentleman with the expensive shoes?”

I took a sip of tea and stared at her for a moment, knowing it was pointless to ask her where she'd gotten her information. She knew everything about everybody, had even known things about me before I did. Like the time I'd been expelled from school for punching Dale Cramer in the nose for teasing my little sister about her crazy mother. It hadn't occurred to me until later that we shared the same crazy mother. All I knew at the time was the sight of my sister huddled in a corner of the playground while Dale taunted her with words she didn't even understand.

“He's a client. We're on the hunt for a china pattern.”

“Sounds fascinatin'.” She winked so I'd know she understood what it was like to be passionate about something other people didn't get. “Maybe he'll want a little lawn ornamentation to take back with him as a memento.”

“I'm sure he'd love that, but he lives in New York City and I doubt he has a lawn.”

“That's a shame.” She grinned and winked again, and I felt a real smile cross my face.

“I've put fresh sheets on the bed and clean towels for you in the bathroom. You know you're welcome to stay as long as you need to.”

“It shouldn't be more than a couple of days to find the china or give up.”

“That's not what I mean.” She reached across the table and put her roughened fingers on my arm. “Maybe it's time to set old rumors to rest. People 'round here say you bolted, leaving Maisy the burden of caring for your mama and grandpa.”

“That's not true, Aunt Marlene, and you know it.”

“Yes, I do. And Maisy does, too. But you girls have had a lot of time to grow up. To put things in perspective. To understand that the past can't be changed, but it can be accepted.” She leaned back in her chair. “You're both old enough to pull up your big-girl pants and move on.”

I thought of what my grandfather had said after I told him that I
wasn't there to dig up the past:
But you are.
I looked down at my hands. “I wish it were that easy. I left because I wasn't a good person, Aunt Marlene. And everybody knew it. Leaving was a lot easier than staying, and I've always been particularly good about taking the easiest path.”

She reached over and patted my arm again. “I know what you gave up, sugar. And what you left behind. There was nothin' easy about any of it. But Maisy's your sister, and you once meant the world to each other. Just like me and George. That kind of bond can't be broken—even if it needs a little glue now and again.”

I stood, my legs sticking to the vinyl seat, and took both of our empty glasses to the sink, promising myself I'd wash them in the morning. Aunt Marlene had never had a dishwasher or any intention of getting one, thinking it was a symbol of the growing laziness of Americans.

“I'm tired. I think I'll turn in now.”

Marlene stood, too, and surprised me by cupping my head in her hands. “You look so much like your mama—and that's not a bad thing, no matter what you think. Nobody can deny she's a beautiful woman. But that's where the resemblance ends. You wasted all those years trying to be different, and all you had to do was be yourself.”

I pulled away, angry and embarrassed. “I told you—I'm not a good person, and I don't deserve Maisy's forgiveness.”

“Oh, sugar, you're so wrong. You're the best kind of person. The kind who's smart enough to know when to bend so she won't get broken. Your mama was never strong enough to figure that out.”

“I'm going to bed,” I said again, turning away from her.

“Good night, darlin'. Sleep tight, and don't let the bedbugs bite.”

Despite myself, I grinned, remembering that from my childhood good-night rituals. “I'll try,” I said. “Good night.”

I sat in the dark on the narrow bed in the small room at the front of the house, watching the moonlight creep stealthily between the statues, altering the ground so it resembled a silver sea with the hulking shadow of Nessie keeping watch over us all. I stayed there for a long time thinking about what Aunt Marlene had said, and how far a person could bend until she snapped in two.

When a hive is invaded by a wasp, the bees cluster around the intruder and fan their wings to make it 117 degrees, knowing that wasps cannot survive temperatures above 116. This is the ultimate act of survival, as the bees will die if the temperature reaches 118 degrees.

—NED BLOODWORTH'S BEEKEEPER'S JOURNAL

Maisy

M
aisy watched impatiently as Birdie moved her manicured finger over the rows of neatly arranged lipstick tubes in her dressing table drawer, hesitating slightly over individual colors before moving on again. She wasn't usually this indecisive, and it most likely had everything to do with a return visit from Georgia and her client, James.

At this rate, Maisy would never make it to work, and Becky would be late. Again. It never ceased to surprise Maisy how Birdie could still control the entire household without ever uttering a word.

She crossed her arms tightly over her chest to prevent herself from grabbing a lipstick and forcibly applying it to her mother's rosebud lips. Maisy had worn the same shade for years, and sometimes wondered why she even bothered at all. Habit, most likely. One couldn't emerge unscathed from living with Birdie and Georgia for as
long as she had. She'd begun wearing makeup early, in a misguided attempt to fit in with her mother and sister. But Maisy had always felt too tall, too dark, her feet too large. Like an ostrich among doves.

And then there'd been Lyle, and she'd felt beautiful for the first time in her life. But even that had been temporary. She turned her back on Birdie to stare out the window. The circular view encompassed the bay at the back of the house, along with their grandfather's apiary on the side, and the driveway and wide front yard that abutted Bay Avenue.

Birdie had the largest bedroom: the room in the turret that had seemed so magical to Maisy and Georgia when they were small, playing Rapunzel or other fairy tales, where Maisy always played the prince because she was so much bigger than Georgia, even though she was almost four years younger.

Growing up, this had been Maisy's whole world, and unlike her mother and sister, she'd been content to picture herself right there, standing in that turret, for the rest of her life. And here she was now, exactly as she'd always wanted. Yet all she wanted to do was scream.

She spotted her grandfather in his apiary, a lawn chair pulled up near the first row of hives, his back to her. He did this sometimes, Maisy knew, to work out a problem. “Unraveling life's knots,” was how he described it. Something about the hum of the bees, their regimented work schedules and the irregular flight patterns of their small, striped bodies and the incessant flapping of their wings held answers to life's complexities, according to him. To Georgia, too. But to Maisy, bees were just annoying flying insects, much like mosquitoes or cockroaches, with nasty little stingers on their backsides. She'd been stung too many times to believe them to be anything but pests.

A loud clattering brought her attention back to the dressing table. Unhappy about being ignored, Birdie had taken out the lipstick tray from inside the drawer and thrown it on the ground, scattering the shiny tubes on the rug.

Maisy looked down at the mess and then at her mother's petulant expression and pulled her cell phone from her skirt pocket before
hitting the first stored number. Lyle answered on the first ring. As a patrol officer, he was usually not too far away.

“I'm going to be late. Can you pick up Becky and take her to school? I have no idea how much longer I'll be.” It had been her decision to teach at the high school in Eastpoint across the bay rather than at the ABC charter school that Becky attended on nearby Twelfth Street. Maisy thought it would help Becky to be more independent if her mother didn't teach at the same school. It had made things more complicated, but Lyle had supported her, even though he didn't necessarily agree. It was one of the things that she loved about him, the way he always put family unity first.

“I'm on my way,” Lyle said, then hung up.

Maisy ignored the hurt of his abruptness as she bent down and began retrieving the tubes of lipstick, making a mental note to deny purchasing another color until these were all used up. Like she really would. Like Maisy would finally decide one day to stop trying to win her mother's affection.

She heard a car door shut outside and she stood, wondering how Lyle had gotten there so quickly. Peering out into the driveway, she was surprised to see Georgia's Cadillac, an hour and a half earlier than expected. “Georgia's here,” she said. “With James.”

Her mother brightened, and immediately selected a lipstick. Maisy dumped the loose tubes in the drawer and moved toward the door. “I'll meet you downstairs. I'll have your coffee waiting.”

But Birdie wasn't listening, instead slowly smearing the lip color over her lips, humming to her own reflection.

Maisy met James and Georgia in the foyer. Her sister wore a white lace dress that looked like it came straight out of
The Great Gatsby
. Maisy had once shared Georgia's love for vintage clothing, allowing her sister to select things for her to wear. She'd loved the way she'd felt, thinking she looked pretty, like her sister. At least until their mother had told her that Maisy was too tall and big boned like her father to look good in any of the delicate silhouettes from previous decades. Maisy
had always resented Georgia for lying to her, for making her believe she was something she could never be.

“You're early,” Maisy said, not bothering to hide her annoyance.

“I'm sorry,” James said. He was carrying a small box that he set carefully on the hall table before removing a china teacup and saucer and placing them next to the box. Maisy wasn't near enough to see it closely, but it looked like bees flitting around the white china background. She repressed a shudder, wondering why anybody would want painted insects on dishes that held their food.

“That's my fault,” James continued. “I've become a bit of an insomniac, so I spent most of the night Googling various china Web sites. I found a museum of antique china in a small town in Illinois. I thought we should contact them, and wondered if Georgia knew anybody there. I couldn't wait to tell her.”

Maisy could tell that Georgia was more amused than annoyed, and that surprised her. She hadn't seen her sister in so long she thought Georgia would be a stranger to her, that her emotions would be off-limits. But she wasn't. How could she be? Their grandfather used to say that they were like oysters from the same bed, clinging together despite the vagaries of the tides. Their girlhoods had been spent dreaming fearlessly together in the house on the bay. Before Maisy learned how Georgia liked to discard people like used linen, and that they weren't so much alike at all. But Maisy could never forget that her first memory was of her sister's face peering over her in the crib, Georgia's name her first spoken word.

“At least he waited until seven o'clock to call Marlene's to tell me,” Georgia said. “Although he could have called earlier, since I was awake. I'd forgotten how quiet it is here at night. I kept waking up, thinking something was wrong.”

“If you had a cell phone, I could have texted you so that you'd have known to call me when you were ready,” James said matter-of-factly.

She sent him a withering look. “It would still be an hour earlier in Illinois. I doubt anybody would be in at the museum answering phones.”

“Remind me to tell you sometime why she doesn't have a cell
phone,” Maisy blurted out. She wasn't sure why she'd said that, thinking it probably had to do with lingering resentment over the incident with Birdie and the lipstick.

Georgia stared hard at the floor, while James only raised his eyebrows, making Maisy wonder how much he'd been told—or warned about—by Georgia.

James cleared his throat. “Anyway, I went for a run, and it was still early, so Georgia took me to Dolores's Sweet Shoppe for breakfast. So we're already fed and ready to get started.”

“Get started with what?”

Their grandfather emerged through the back hallway from the kitchen.

“Looking for the china piece I remember seeing in Birdie's closet. The soup cup with the bee design,” Georgia said, her face brightening at the sight of their grandfather.

He paused, breathing heavily, as if he'd just run all the way from the apiary. “Yes, well, good luck with that. Right before she got . . . sick, Birdie went on a huge cleaning-out and remodeling phase. You remember that, Georgie, don't you? It was right before you left.”

Georgia's face had stilled, and Maisy knew she remembered, too. Remembered their mother's reaction when she'd heard rumors about a movie being filmed in Apalachicola, and how the actors and director might need housing. Maisy wondered, too, if Georgia remembered everything else about the summer of '05 and the double hurricanes of Katrina and Dennis, the external storms matching those going on inside their house. Or the moment their mother went up to the attic and had to be brought down in a catatonic state by their grandfather. Probably not, Maisy thought. Georgia was very good at brushing her hands clean of a messy past.

“Yes,” Georgia said, her voice strained. “Birdie made it through the downstairs closets and cabinets, but stopped when she was halfway through the attic. I always thought . . .” She stopped. “I figure I'll ask her, see if I can get through to her. . . .”

Whatever else she was going to say trailed away as Georgia's
attention focused on the stairwell behind her. Turning, Maisy saw Birdie standing on the landing, a delicate hand poised on the banister, her hair swept up in a French twist, her pink silk shantung suit decidedly retro but still glamorous. She looked so much like Grace Kelly that Maisy almost went to her to put her hand on her arm, to let the others know that despite appearances, Birdie meant to be taken seriously.

But there was something about Birdie's face, the way her jaw trembled and her eyes shifted, that made Maisy aware that she'd heard their conversation, had understood most of it. And maybe even comprehended that Georgia wanted to ask her a question and even expected an answer.

Grandpa stepped forward, and Maisy smelled his sweat, and noticed that beads of perspiration were slipping down his nearly bald head. Two bright spots of red had erupted on his cheeks as he walked toward Birdie. “You look beautiful, my dear. As always.”

Birdie looked at her father's outstretched hand and then up to his face, and for a horrifying moment, Maisy was sure her mother was going to cry. After a moment's hesitation, Birdie stepped down into the foyer, grasping Grandpa's hand and moving into the center of the group.

“Good morning, Birdie,” Georgia said quietly. James must have said something, too, because Birdie turned her head to smile at him. But there was something brittle about her, something glasslike, at risk of shattering. Maisy tried to remember what they'd said that might have upset her, but was distracted by the sound of tires rolling over broken oyster shells in the driveway.

Taking her mother's elbow, Maisy began leading Birdie into the kitchen. “I'm going to get her breakfast. When Becky comes down, tell her that her dad's here to drive her to school.” She'd barely made it halfway across the foyer when there was a brief knock on the door before it opened. Lyle stood on the threshold in his uniform, seemingly as surprised to see everybody as they were to see him.

“Sorry,” he said, taking off his hat. “I didn't expect . . .” He stopped, his gaze resting on Georgia. And then he smiled, and Maisy felt the old longing, the old hurt. Her own inadequacies. The old anger.
Lyle and Georgia had always shared a special friendship, one that had excluded Maisy, made her feel like an intruder. Despite their claims that they were strictly platonic, Maisy knew Georgia too well, and couldn't completely erase all doubt that there was even one unrelated male in town her sister hadn't slept with.

Maisy pulled on Birdie's arm to leave, but Birdie remained where she was, a silent spectator to what promised to be a good show.

“Hello, Lyle,” Georgia said, her head tilted like that of a little girl choosing which hand holds a surprise. “It's good to see you.”

James reached out his hand toward Lyle. “I'm James Graf. A client of Georgia's.”

Nobody said anything as they shook, making Maisy wonder again what Georgia had told James, and whether he was aware of the role he played; whether Georgia had to beg him to come with her, to deflect all the stares and under-the-breath comments that were bound to come her way regardless of how short her stay was supposed to be.

“Lyle Sawyers. Pleased to meet you.” Lyle took in the stranger with what Maisy had used to joke were his “cop eyes.” They were light brown, just like an actor's on one of the police shows they used to watch together when they were in high school and they were supposed to be studying.