Bird After Bird (28 page)

“You’re gay? I thought that wasn’t allowed in your religion.”

She smiled. “Oh, it’s not…but it’s not exactly frowned upon now, either, with the new Pope. Bigger fish to fry, as it were.”

“That’s awesome,” I said. “I mean, it’s awesome that you can be open. But you’re a nun, so I guess it’s not as awesome as all that. And I’m sorry about your lover.” It felt weird saying the word
lover
to a nun. I began to wonder just why I was here, and if this was all a huge mistake.

“So, tell me about yourself, Laurence.”

For some reason I didn’t mind that she called me by my proper name, so I didn’t bother to correct her.

“Well…like you, I lost someone right out of high school. I joined the Army and she stayed here. We used to work with a search and rescue dog. I’d asked her to put it on hold, or at least stay out of dangerous situations, until I got back. She didn’t want to wait. She got picked for the FEMA team and she and the dog were both killed during a search.”

Generose nodded. “I remember reading that in the paper. We prayed for her and her family for quite some time.”

“Oh.” That surprised me. “Okay, then.”

“Is there more you’re not telling me, though? Your sister said you’re going through some big stuff lately.”

“Yeah. Um…I met someone else. Someone I really cared for. Things were going well.”

“Until they weren’t.”

“Right. She broke up with me on the night I was going to propose.”

“She turned you down?”

I shook my head. “I didn’t get the chance to ask. We got into a fight right before I was going to pop the question and that pretty much ended it.”

Sister Generose gasped. “Ouch!”

“Hey, aren’t you supposed to be more…stoic or something?”

Generose reached out and gave me a quick hug. “Laurence, I think the world’s suffered long enough from stoic nuns and counselors. I just want to keep it real. Is that okay with you?”

I smiled. I liked this weird lesbian nun with the questionable filter. “Yeah. Actually, that’s perfect.”

I saw Generose twice a week. When it had been two months, we cut our time down to once per week. That woman was amazing. She listened patiently while I told her everything—about my guilt over Sylvia and over Rodriguez, and my heartbreak over Wren. She shared stories from her life—she was a few years older than I’d guessed when I’d met her, and she’d traveled a lot before she’d taken her vows.

She never asked me to pray. She never forced her religion on me. All she did was listen, talk, and make it clear her door was open anytime.

One day I showed up in a bad mood that even our weekly stroll couldn’t cure. “Laurence, didn’t you tell me that you are an artist?”

“Yep.”

“When’s the last time you painted, or drew—which is it you do? Or do you sculpt?”

“Sketches and paintings, mostly.”

“How long?”

I shrugged.

She shrugged back.

I shrugged again.

“Weeks?”

I nodded.

“Laurence, I’m sending you home early today. Don’t come back until you’ve painted something.”

“But—“

She turned her back on me and walked briskly away.

“What do you want me to paint?” I called to her back.

She didn’t stop walking, and she didn’t speak. She just threw her hands in the air and shrugged.

Chapter Fifty-two

Laurie

I didn’t know what I was going to make, but I knew I wanted to talk to Generose again, so I didn’t see that I had any choice but to comply. It had been so long since I’d opened the door of the Community Center, I wasn’t sure my key would still fit. They might have changed the locks, for all I knew.

I set at my easel with my brushes and paints before me, ready to go. A million images flashed through my mind. The hawk I’d painted for Sylvia. Wren’s face. The mural on my wall at home. The woods. My truck. Hap with his tongue hanging out. Rodriguez—more specifically, the snapshot of him with his little boy that he’d kept on his bunk, in Iraq.

That’s when I knew what I needed to do.

I didn’t have a model to work from, but I thought I could freehand it well enough.

Little by little, feather by feather, I painted the bird. Its wide, majestic head filled the canvas, its piercing eyes and bold, golden beak springing to life before my eyes. This painting was either going to turn out very, very good, or horribly bad.

I worked all night. I got so worked up that I kept turning the A/C up. Finally, I stripped off my shirt and threw it on a table—the same table where Wren and I had painted birds on one another. I pushed that out of my mind and kept working.

As dawn broke, I looked at my finished work, in acrylic. The head and shoulders of a bald eagle, the symbol of our nation and a personal favorite of my fallen friend. I was pretty sure it matched the tattoo he’d gotten on his right shoulder to celebrate graduation from AIT.

I wasn’t sure if Generose could receive texts, but I snapped a pic of my work and tried sending it to her phone, anyway.

-Lovely work, Laurence! Tell me about it on Tuesday night.-

And I did. I told Generose I wanted to send it to my friend’s widow.

“Why not take it, yourself?”

“Well, they live pretty far away.”

“So?”

I started to shrug, but stopped myself.

She laughed. “Are we going to play the shrug game again?”

“No,” I said. “I think I learned my lesson.”

“Laurence, there’s this thing called ‘closure.’ We’ve talked about that, yes?”

“Yes, ma’am. Closure galore. We’re all closed up.”

She smirked.

“Okay, maybe not ‘all closed up,’” I conceded, “but, yes, I’m familiar with the concept. Are you saying I need to get closure?”

She shrugged.

“Did you really just shrug at me, Generose?” I couldn’t help but laugh.

She smiled. “Look, Laurence, you’ve been through some heavy shit. The kind of shit that doesn’t resolve itself without some effort. All I’m saying is—a long drive can be a kind of therapy, too.”

Chapter Fifty-three

Wren

The project started out so strong. As I jogged alone, I wondered what had gone wrong.

Janice had tasked me with finding a way to leverage more market share from the major chains, and it should have been a no-brainer. I had the SKUs, I had the consumer feedback, I had plenty of capital to invest in advertising subsidies, and I’d even managed to line up some social media promotions that would tie-in with the Super Bowl ad for our brand two years out. I’d done all the research to show which plants and product lines could be optimized for maximum output, and researched where to break ground on new facilities to maximize our tax credits, delivery matrix, and employ the most American workers for the most reasonable wage. We were ready to pounce, ready to sell.

The assignment should have been a slam-dunk. It was right there in front of me, within my reach, similar in many respects to the kind of packages I had contributed to as a staffer at Parker & Bash, but now from the corporate side, I got to weigh in with opinions on marketing and sales.

“With your vigor, I’m sure you’ll double our shelf space in all the big chains!” Harold had said over dinner. “No can say no to you, Wren.”

And I agreed. I thought he was right. I knew we had all the facts online, all the data ready to go, selling our increase in shelf space to the three largest grocery chains in the US as a win-win scenario.

So why did I fail? At my first at-bat for Harold’s family business, why did I crash and burn?

I was in the park, staring at a warbler through my binocs when the texts started rolling in.

-Krojer Stores passed on the deal. Said they’d give you another foot in all the stores, but said no to the other 75% of the offer.-

Janice texted a frowny face at the end of her message. Crap—a frowny face didn’t cut it. We needed that shelf space to recoup the costs of the marketing & infrastructure we’d already set into motion. We counted on this deal going through.

Let me see what I can do.

-I’ll handle Krojer. You get on the phone with Law-Mart and see if you can wheedle any wiggle out of them. They agreed to 3 more feet per store—maybe you can get them to bump up to 4. When they say yes, Krojer and KostGo will probably fall in line.-

I sighed. Janice stepping in to save the day on my first major project for the company wasn’t my idea of starting strong.

You got it.

I clicked a photo of the warbler and shoved my phone in my pocket as I made my way back to my apartment. I could make all the calls I needed from my office there—no need to go into corporate.

My first month in the city, I’d been there every day, and out pressing flesh every night. I’m not sure when it happened, exactly, but at some point I decided to try working from home, and ended up sleeping all day.

That had felt really, really good, so I did it again the next day. Worked all night, slept all day. That got me out of doing the parties and seeing the people.

And now it was affecting the project.

I just hadn’t felt like leaving my apartment, unless I had to. I had food delivered only when I was really starving, and I only hit the jogging trail when I knew Janice wasn’t available to go with me.

I wasn’t living the NYC dream. I really wasn’t into shopping or Broadway or the museums or…

I saw the paper crane before I saw the little girl reaching for it. My hand was nearly on it when she swooped in and scooped it up. “Look, mama!” she said, showing off the tiny bird to her mother.

“I think that belongs to the lady,” the mother said. “Give it back, sweetie.”

I smiled. “No, no, it’s okay—I just noticed it the same time your daughter did. Let her keep it.”

The girl smiled and the pair played with the crane as I walked away. It felt like mine—I felt a jolt through me when I saw it. It felt like one of Laurie’s cranes, and I ached at the fantasy that one of his letters or drawings was inside.
Even if it’s not a letter to me, just some part of him would be
something
.

I took care of the phone calls, managing to conjure enough sparkle to woo Law-Mart into agreeing to the entire four foot section increase, and hanging up the phone in triumph as they assured me they’d fax over the paperwork that very day.

“Janice, I did it!” I said, ringing her at the office.

“Awesome. You got time for lunch? We need to talk.”

I didn’t like the sound of that. Who likes the sound of that?

“I’m at the building. I can meet you…”

“I’m upstairs. Had my calls forwarded. Be right down.”

In minutes, she knocked. “Come on in, J!”

I tried to be cute, upbeat, sunny, funny—I tried to be Birdy.

Janice smiled, but it was a wan smile, stretched and thin. “Wren, have you tried Lombardi’s yet? C’mon. I know you can never say no to pizza, no matter how shitty.”

I laughed. “You’re taking me for shitty pizza?”

“Well, some people say it’s gone downhill, but I still think it’s the best in the city. Let’s walk.”

“How many blocks is that?”

“Several. The better to work off the calories, right? Not that you need help with that. You look like you’re losing weight.”

I shrugged. My eyes had taken on a hollow look in the past few weeks. I’d thought NYC would be more intriguing than it was. I guess I’d expected non-stop entertainment in the off hours, and I was truly surprised when I didn’t feel excited about the parties and the shows and the shopping. I wasn’t sure what was wrong with me, exactly, but I didn’t feel hungry anymore, and even though my best friend was here, I felt so very, very lonely.

“Let’s go try that pizza, then,” I smiled. The truth was, I was finding it hard to fight the tears from forming. I’d stayed holed up in my apartment because I’d never in my life felt so vulnerable—so weak. I’d come to do a job and I’d been doing it to the best of my ability, but I’d lost something—some pizazz, some finesse, and I refused to put a finger on what the difference was.