Birdie (22 page)

Birdie

I lock up the
library. This time I don’t pretend to take care of this or that. I sit down at my desk and stare at the phone.

I miss him.

I miss him more every time I talk to him.

I love the man he has become and I hate myself for not seeing us through. I hate myself even more for these thoughts I’m having. Katy’s desk haunts me. It has a half eaten granola bar on top of her calendar, a spare pair of running shoes underneath by her wastebasket, and her chair is turned outward. It’s like she’s just run to the bathroom and will be back any minute instead of gone for the day.

The phone rings and I snatch it up while Katy’s desk watches me disapprovingly.

I do this again the next week. And the next. And the next.

Only on Wednesday. Only for an hour.

That’s how long I borrow her fiancé and pretend for a moment that I didn’t fuck everything up seven years ago.

Wes

“
You are so Worf
! Raised by white parents and having to figure out your own culture.”

“I don’t speak Klingon.”

My sigh is exasperated. “Klingon Shmingon. That’s not the point. You’re missing the essence.”

“If I’m Worf, who are you?”

“That’s easy. Picard.”

Her snort sounds hearty, like I caught her mid-sip on her water bottle. Sure enough, I can hear her sputtered coughs over the line. And then I’m still hearing them, and then it’s a bit superfluous so I come in with a, “Hey, hey, hey. I
am
like Picard.”

“He’s a sexy, diplomatic, French, bald leader. Most of those traits don’t apply to you,” she disagrees but I get stuck on the word “most.”

My skin prickles because I shouldn’t, but I can’t stop myself from asking, “Most? So which ones apply to me?” I use a teasing tone to cover the nervous edge this conversation has danced to. When she doesn’t answer and the silence stretches, I throw in a, “I guess diplomacy is a nice trait to have, Mademoiselle.” I put a ridiculously strong French accent on the last word and her genuine laughter, free from the quiet nerves I sensed moments ago, relaxes me.

“They’re releasing a new Start Trek movie,” she says.

“I know. A twist on the original series.”

“I hate the original series. I’m strictly a Next Gen fan.”

“And I love them all. But I heard this new movie is going to be really good.”

“Yeah. J.J. Abrams. That man got me to watch all four years of
Felicity
. So naturally, I’m going to go see it.” A pause. There’s no invitation inserted here to join her. In normal circumstances with normal friends, in a normal environment, there would be. But there’s nothing normal about this. “I’ll have to drag Lacey, I think. She hates the series but she owes me one since I went to see god awful Napoleon Dynamite with her.”

“I love that movie! Wait, that came out a long time ago.”

“Yep. I’ve been waiting to cash in that card for years.”

My cell buzzes in my pocket. I take a quick look at the screen. Katy asking me if I want her to pick up a Coke for me on her way home. Her yoga class has ended. Is it eight already?

“It’s about that time,” Birdie is saying on the other end and I snap my attention back to her. We’ve never discussed why we usually hang up around eight but we don’t need to.

“Next Wednesday?” I ask. I don’t pretend that calling on Wednesday around seven occurred to me in that moment and she doesn’t pretend to be tying up some loose ends after work to keep her in the building a few minutes later.  Not anymore.

She answers me. “Next Wednesday.”

Birdie

“
You don’t just skip
the GAP.”

“I did.”

“Wes. It goes Old Navy, the GAP,
then
Banana Republic. No one goes from eleven dollar pants to ninety-five dollar pants. Somewhere in between dirt poor and established salary you buy the fifty dollar pants.”

“It wasn’t like that for me. My parents cut me off. I had to pay my own tuition. I was that stereotypical Ramen noodle eating college kid wearing eleven dollar pants. I just kept doing it until one day I realized I could afford a pair of decent slacks.”

I snap my fingers. “Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“Well. My transformation was a bit lengthier.”

“And well worth the time!” Wesley adds. “Our class reunion is in May. Could you imagine what Garret Winston would say if he saw you now? Remember him?”

“I remember,” I answer. “He’s probably married with a bunch of sporty Winston juniors running around.”

“One junior running around.”

“Facebook?”

“Myspace,” Wes corrects. “We never transferred our online quasi-friendship to Facebook. Are you going to go to the class reunion?”

I make a face. “I didn’t even walk at graduation. I barely spoke to anyone and I’m still friends with Lacey. Why would I go?”

“Because I’ve only seen your face for five minutes and maybe I need another five before we go on another seven year hiatus.”

I pause, heart pounding, because if he asks to meet me at this moment, I would. But he doesn’t and after a few beats I say, “I’ll think about going. No promises.”

“When did you start wearing your hair down?” he asks, changing the subject.

“When we stopped fighting and agreed to stare down Houston humidity as a united front.”

“So you found some awesome leave in conditioner?”

“Basically.”

The microwave dings in the break room. “Oh. Hold on, my dinner dinged.” I set the receiver down and go to the break room to pull out my leftover dirty rice. I also snag a water from Mark’s desk because I forgot to pack an extra in my lunch. I’m not used to packing dinner also.

“Hello?” I ask a little breathless because I hurried during this errand. For some reason, I had the feeling if I left him on hold too long, he wouldn’t be there when I got back.

“Happy Birthday,” he replies.

I freeze in the uncapping of the water. “You remember?” When he didn’t say it at the beginning of the phone call, I figured seven years apart justified in his forgetting my birthday was two days ago.

“February first, you cross my mind every year.”

I am stunned. “Oh,” I say. “Well, thank you.”

“I got something for you,” he says, his voice sounding muffled.

I laugh sarcastically. “Sure, just pop it in Katy’s purse and have her drop it on my desk tomorrow.”

Right after saying it, I wish I could take it back. We rarely talk about Katy or his upcoming nuptials and on my part it’s because I fear that he’ll realize these phone calls have tipped past the point of acceptable and the line will stop ringing every week a few minutes after seven.

If that thought enters his mind, he doesn’t share it. Instead he says, “It’s not that kind of gift. Shhh. Just listen.”

I do as instructed and in a few moments I hear Madonna’s
Cherish
fill the line. It’s just a snippet, a few lines, and it’s immediately followed by The Breeder’s
Cannonball
and then Elvis Costello’s
Veronica
. By the time 10,000 Maniac’s
Wonder
is playing, my eyes are watering. It’s my journal. He’s recorded the lyrics I had written in that journal and spliced them together.

I realize I’m on speaker when I can hear him singing along softly in the background. I don’t know where the end is because it’s been so long since I thumbed through that thing but I finally hear Simon Garfunkel fade into silence and then I can hear him shuffling around.

“Wes!” I yell. “Wes!”

His voice comes clear over the line as I’m taken off speakerphone. “Yeah?’ he asks.

“I love it.”

Now his voice is carrying a smile. “Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m glad. Happy Birthday, Birds. Good night.”

“Good night.”

I hang up the phone.

Shit.

Wes

I glance at the
clock. Seven-seventeen. My cell burns a hole in my pocket.

"I'm going to pick up deli meat from the store," I say, walking into the kitchen and giving Katy a peck on the cheek. "I decided I'm packing my lunch this week. Do you need anything?"

Katy sucks tomato sauce off her finger. She decided to skip her yoga class tonight and make spaghetti out of the ingredients I ended up freezing to keep them from going bad. "Some Diet Coke and those gummy Swedish fish thingys," she requests and my chest squeezes guiltily. Absurdly, I do feel a little bit better that my errand will produce something she actually needs and won't solely be my excuse to call Birdie in our weekly conversations that are getting harder to rationalize in my head.

Seven-eighteen. "All right. I'll be back."

I rush out of the house and decide to walk it the seven blocks to the Kroger's at the front of the neighborhood. I still feel bad but the guilt is distracted by a clench in my stomach when the sixth ring passes and she hasn't picked up.

And then she does.

"Pine Oak Library. This is Anne speaking."

My sigh is audible. "I thought I missed you."

"I was on my way out when I heard the phone ring."

"I'm surprised you waited this long before leaving." The statement is out of my mouth and I silently curse, wishing I could take it back. I don't want to imply she was waiting for me and I certainly don't want to highlight the fact that I was late calling.

Instead of making a Mother Theresa joke that I've been ribbing her about, she says plainly, "Wednesday nights have become one of the most important moments of my week."

I stop walking and bend over, putting a hand on my knee to steady myself. My heart is racing. I can't help but say it. "Mine, too, Birdie."

We've left our weak pretense of two friends catching up and have slipped into the real reason why she stays after work every Wednesday night and why I encourage my fiancé to go to yoga every week.  We put words behind it. This dangerous exchange is no longer hidden, if it ever was.

"Wesley." She whispers it and I have to stifle the moan the rises up in me. I'm thankful she's not in front of me right now because I don't trust myself.

"Birdie." Her name sounds erotic coming out of my mouth. It's just as breathless and full of the need I'm feeling right now. I walk a few paces and lean against a tree. My knees are weak.

She's quiet for a few moments and I can hear her breathing, almost a pant. It's driving me wild. I feel the effects in my gym pants.

"I think about you," she finally says after she composes herself. "All the time. I can't get you off my mind. I blew it with you more than once. And I'm so sorry I did. My chest hurts just thinking about Wednesday nights and I can't close this library fast enough."

I take in her words. They are like a temporary balm to the ache I have for her right now but it's a sham because after they soak in the ache intensifies.

"So...I'm leaving Pine Oak at the end of the week," Birdie finishes. "I don't want to be that woman. I had my chance. But I'm falling for you again. Or more like falling for you harder since I never stopped loving you. And this isn't right. I'm sorry. I'm really sorry. I'm going to fix this."

"Birdie..."

"I have a job lined up, it's okay. I was offered a position in another library system. I just held off accepting it because...well, because I didn't want to lose our nights."

I don't want to lose our nights either. I'm about to say as much when my phone beeps with a text. I pull the phone and away and glance at the screen.
And sour cream please!
Love you!

"Wes? Hello?"

I put the phone back to my ear. My thoughts are racing and everything's jumbled. "Yeah. Hey. I'm here."

"Okay, so." She sighs. "You take care."

"Yeah." My reply is slow. Confused. "Yeah, you too. Uh, congrats. On the job."

"Thanks." The word is sad. "Bye, Wes."

So this is it. I sigh, too. "Bye, Birdie."

And when the line clicks off I feel empty.