Bird Song (30 page)

“I’d like to.
 
Graham’s right about my not liking all that gory stuff.
 
I’m perfectly content to stay out here and inhale the scent of stale popcorn and cola stained carpets.”

He looked over at Graham who had suddenly quieted, his face turned away but one lowly ear conveniently pointed in our direction.
 
“Do you want to come into the office with me?
 
I’ve got some paperwork to fill out but we could talk in there.”

I nearly burst out laughing as I watched Graham’s ear turn a bright shade of crimson.
 
“I think I’ll stay here and keep Graham company.
 
Maybe I can convince him that you joining us won’t be such a bad thing.”

Robert sighed in defeat and playfully tousled my hair.
 
“Fine.
 
I’ll see you later then.”
 
I love you.

I beamed at him, all teeth and gums.
 
I love you, back.

He nodded his head to Graham and headed back to his office, his movement so swift and catlike, I knew that he wouldn’t be in the office for long.
 
Whatever it was that he had planned for me had I said yes was now put on the backburner.

“So, are you going to stay here until closing again, or are you heading off someplace else with Stacy and Lark?”

My attention returned to Graham, his question barely registering with me as I worried over who it was that Robert was having to help cross over this time.
 
“What was that again?” I asked, knowing that I probably looked like a lovesick fool but not caring a whit.

“I asked if you were going to be staying until closing like the last time, or if you were going somewhere with Lark and Stacy.”

“Oh.
 
We’re probably heading back to the house to eat.
 
I don’t have the cash to go and eat out, and although Stacy might not know it, Lark’s mom is a horrible cook—real cafeteria grade material.”

That seemed to cheer him up a bit.
 
I realized my gaffe too late and couldn’t take it back.
 
“Sweet.
 
I call dibs on your leftover meatloaf, though.
 
Janice said she was cooking tonight, which means it’s all healthy and junk.
 
I swear, I’ve started having dreams that I’m a horse and she keeps trying to shove oats into my mouth.”

The sound of my laughter filled the empty lobby.
 
I hadn’t exactly taken a liking to Janice’s choice in menu as of late either, but I knew that she was doing it because of the baby.
 
I wanted to tell her that my mom ate junk food throughout her entire pregnancy with me, but that wouldn’t have been the truth.
 
I didn’t know what my mother ate while pregnant with me, and I had certainly never asked Dad about it.

“You know, you’ve got to start learning how to cook for yourself, Graham.
 
That way, you won’t have to eat bean sprout omelets and turkey bacon,” I chided as he threw a handful of popcorn at me.
 
“I’m serious!
 
You could do with learning a few recipes!”

He walked around the counter with a broom and long handled dustpan in his hand and shook his head.
 
“Uh-uh.
 
I’m going to marry a woman who can cook like Julia Child so that I’ll never starve and never have to learn how to boil water.”

I moved my feet around as he swept the popcorn from between them.
 
“Have you even tried a recipe from Julia Child?”

“No.
 
But the way she talked always sounded like she had some food in her mouth, so I guess the food has got to be good, right?”

There was little else to do with that comment than shake my head.
 
“You’re hopeless, Graham.”

He straightened his posture and looked at me forlornly.
 
“You’re right.”

The lighting quick change in his mood acted like warning flares telling me to back off, but I ignored them.
 
I stepped in closer and looked at the hard lines that had formed around his mouth and across his forehead, their paths burrowing deep as he tried to maintain a rocky silence.

“What’s wrong?” I asked, concerned and almost fearful.

“It’s just…I don’t think that it’s supposed to work out for me, you know?” he answered, pain and discontent written plainly on the lines that pushed his eyes downward.
 
“It feels like I’ve inherited the reasons why my parents’ marriage didn’t work out, only I’m twenty years younger.”

“That’s ridiculous,” I objected, “You’re only eighteen.
 
You’re too young to even be thinking about marriage, much less having problems in one that doesn’t even exist.”

He laughed mockingly.
 
“’It’s never too early to start planning for the future.’
 
That’s what my dad said every single day last year as he drank away most of his paycheck.
 
He and mom were always fighting, Grace—always.
 
Oh, they didn’t do it in the conventional way.
 
No.
 
Mom was always the one to start it.
 
She’d give everyone the silent treatment, even me, and then she’d sit at the table and mumble under her breath about being unappreciated, unloved, take for granted…it never ended.

“Dad would come home and the two of them would just walk around each other, mumbling about how the other one was worse.
 
They never yelled, they never argued out loud.
 
They just mumbled.
 
It got to the point where the only way I could hear anything either of them was saying was to talk to them on the phone.”

He stopped talking and went behind the counter again.
 
I opened my mouth to ask him to continue but soon realized that his internal clock had rung some silent alarm as the sound of doors bursting open echoed throughout the lobby and a rush of people filed out of a theater, empty popcorn and drink containers in their hands.

I stepped out of the way as several of them walked up to the counter to purchase additional drinks and snacks.
 
Soon, the crowd dissipated as they headed towards their cars.
 
Graham rushed from behind the counter once more, the broom and dustpan in his hands, and began to sweep up the shower of trash that the moviegoers had left in their wake.

“Do you need any help?”

“Sure.
 
Go and grab that extra broom and butler under the counter over there and get that side of the walkway, will
ya
?” he answered, never looking up from his task.

I walked behind the counter and looked beneath it for the broom.
 
I found a short handled one next to another long handled dustpan.
 
“Isn’t it against labor laws to keep a butler beneath the counter?” I quipped.

“The dustpan, Grace,” Graham said, annoyed.

“The dustpan, Grace,” I repeated mockingly, annoyed myself.
 
“You know, it’s not nice to annoy the boss’ girlfriend.
 
I might make him schedule you for longer shifts.”

Graham stopped sweeping and stomped towards me.
 
“I think you need to get out from behind my counter and go back and finish watching the move before Lark and Stacy notice you’re missing.”

“I’d rather not,” I disagreed.

“I’m not asking.”

Realizing that I had worn out my welcome, I shrugged my shoulders and left him standing in front of the counter.
 
I stopped before entering the hallway that would lead me back to my theater of gore and turned around.
 
I walked back to him and stopped with just inches left between us.
 

“You know, I hope that one day you realize just how fortunate you are to have seen firsthand the mistakes your parents made in their relationship so that you can stop yourself from making the same ones, like not communicating with the person that you love.”

I didn’t bother to wait for a response.
 
I simply headed towards the theater where I knew Lark and Stacy were still busy tearing apart the movie, oblivious to my absence.
 
I could only hope that Graham wasn’t oblivious to what I was trying to say to him.

When we left the theater that night, it came as a surprise to me when Lark insisted on being dropped off at home first.
 
“I have a need to eat some of my mother’s cooking,” she said acerbically when asked why by both Stacy and I.

“I’m sorry if I offended you, Lark,” I apologized but she held up her hand in rejection.
 
I looked at Stacy’s reflection in the mirror and saw her smirk.
 
Lark’s head whipped around to face Stacy.

“You think this is funny, too?” she snapped, shocked that her only other ally had turned against her mother’s cooking.

“Well…Grace isn’t exactly known for lying, and I don’t see any reason for her to insult your mom’s cooking other than because it was genuinely awful,” Stacy struggled to answer as she fought with a bubble of laughter that seemed stuck in her throat.

“I don’t believe this.
 
Two humans are insulting an angel’s cooking,” Lark shook her head disapprovingly.
 
“You two just wait until I get my wings and my call.
 
If I’m called to be a guardian angel, you can forget asking me for help.”

Stacy and I locked eyes in the mirror once more and we both burst into amused hysterics while Lark unceremoniously crossed her arms across her chest and huffed, her lips forming a perfect pout.

The laughter had died down a little when we reached the house with the white walls and ironic angel guardians standing in front of the large, wrought iron gate.
 
Lark climbed out of the car without saying goodbye and disappeared into the night.

“You think she’ll forgive us?” Stacy asked in between chuckles.
 
As she pulled out, I crawled up to sit in the front seat.

“Oh, she will.
 
She’s probably just as amused by this as we are,” I replied, watching the gate disappear behind us.

We rode in silence for a little while, the radio’s music substituting for conversation.
 
I looked at the time and sighed.
 
“It’s nearly ten.
 
Are you sure you want to come over to my house for food?”

She nodded her head emphatically.
 
“Actually, I’m sort of glad that Lark’s not here.
 
I needed to talk to you about something…private.”

The way she said “private” made my ears burn, as though it had just heard something it shouldn’t have.
 
I nodded hesitantly and remained silent the rest of the way to my house.
 
The lights inside were off, but the front door light was blazing a bright creamy white when Stacy pulled up into the driveway.

“What time does Graham get off?” she asked when she noticed that his car wasn’t parked in its usual spot.

“He’ll be off soon but I don’t think he’ll be in any rush to get home.”

“Good,” she sighed and unbuckled her seatbelt.
 
I did the same and exited the car.
 
I reached into my pocket to pull out my key and fumbled with it in my gloves as I tried to unlock the door.
 
After a few moments, I succeeded and we quickly rushed in from the cold.

“You ever wish you could be able to handle the frigid cold like Lark and Robert?” Stacy asked as she removed her gloves to rub her hands together.
 
“I mean, they never look cold.
 
They dress the way they do because they need to fit in.
 
They can be sitting butt naked in Siberia during a blizzard and it’d feel like a tropical day for them.”

I smiled at the image and then shook my head.
 
It was starting to feel quite tropical in here!

“I’ve only ever wanted to be considered normal,” I confessed.
 
“I’ve never wanted to be something as unique as an angel.”

Stacy shook her head at my response.
 
“You’re crazy then.
 
I’d give anything to be one of them.
 
To be immortal, never sick, never weak…how can you not want something like that?”

I didn’t answer until we were in the kitchen and I had placed a bowl of what appeared to be warmed lentil soup in front of each of us.
 
“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be, Stacy.
 
You see the things that we cannot do and you think that’s great, but they have their weaknesses, too.”

She nodded as she ladled some soup into her mouth with her spoon.
 
“I know that.
 
The whole lying thing, and the secrecy issue.
 
I just think that if there was some way for me to change into one of them, I’d do it in an instant.”

I dropped my spoon in shock.
 
“You don’t know what you’re saying,” I gasped.

“What?
 
You mean there
is
a way?”