Birdie (4 page)

Birdie

The last time I
moved in the middle of a school year was when we left Austin to move to San Antonio when I was in sixth grade. The Clements real estate empire was expanding from its base in Houston and Howard was eager to oversee it as he cemented his foothold in the family business.

Darla was sixteen at the time.  A former dancer, she used to describe herself then. True enough if you counted middle school recitals as a dance career.  She was long, slender and had her blonde hair perfectly cut in a straight line four inches past her shoulders.  She hated her face because her cheeks were kind of sunken and her chin jutted out “like a guy’s” but I think it made it fair because she ate whatever she wanted without gaining a pound and she could walk around after her shower without giving her hair another thought because it dried perfectly.

One hot day after school, I was at our kitchen table eating a bowl of oatmeal.  Darla, my sister, was in my parents’ bedroom, door locked.  In there with her was Jake Kensington who I guess was the It-boy in Westfield High’s sophomore class at the time. And across from my oatmeal sat Jake’s little brother, Randy, who was also twelve like me and equally uncomfortable.  I don’t like oatmeal.  But it was the first thing that popped into my head when I felt the need to make Randy more comfortable after our older siblings conspicuously holed themselves up in the bedroom and left no mystery as to what was transpiring.

“I was just going to have some oatmeal,” I’d said slowly, not really used to being in the proximity of boys.  “Do you want some?”

Randy then gave me a quizzical look and shook his head “no” silently.  I already felt like a moron offering oatmeal at three in the afternoon and I already said I was having some, so I dumped some Quaker Oats and water into blue bowl and popped it in the microwave.  I ate it one reluctant bite at a time across from him and trying not to imagine what was going on in that room.

“Darla’s your sister?”  Randy finally spoke.  I got that question a lot. Being half black in a white family means that question is frequently on someone’s lips or on a more tactful person, in someone’s eyes.

I simply nodded, not in the mood to venture into this familiar line of questioning.  He seemed to read my hesitance and left it at that.  My sister was not quiet.  Her ragged gasps heaved and withered, increasing in pace. My ears prickled flames and if my complexion matched the rest of my family’s, I know my face would have reflected various shades of red.  Randy squirmed in his chair.  Unlike me, he could change colors and did so then until his face was almost as red as the tint in his brown curls. 

“My name is Birdie.”  I needed to break this stifling silence.

“Randy.”

Darla let out a moan and I flinched.

“Do you want to see my room?”  I asked quickly getting up and Randy nearly bolted out of his chair after me.  Had I any time to think about my invitation, I would have chosen another room in the house as there were many which were far less personal and embarrassing.  But like my oatmeal offering, words spilled off my tongue in an effort to ease the immediate discomfort without thought to their consequences.

We climbed the staircase and padded our way down the carpeted hall.  My mother didn’t allow shoes inside her immaculate home and Jake and Randy had shuffled out of theirs in the foyer.  I hesitated on whether or not to close the door, but Randy flung himself on my white bean bag chair in the middle of the room and I settled on partially closed.  The physical distance between us and the escapades in my parent’s room lifted the cloud of discomfort and I saw Randy’s freckled features relax as he surveyed my room.

“You go to Willis Jr. High,” he said, his eyes still trained on my bookshelves.

I nodded, even though his statement was not a question.  Then I said quietly “Yes” because he still hadn’t looked at me and I don’t know if he saw the nod.  Nothing on my bookshelves gave away where I went to school, so I wondered if he knew of me or was just taking a stab.  I sat uneasily on the foot of my bed.  It suddenly seemed like my room was too childish for a seventh grader.  It was decorated with pale blue walls and white bedding patterned with little yellow daisies.  Yellow daisies in white frames hung on my walls in various sizes.

“So this is, uh, kinda weird.”  He jerked his head in the direction of downstairs and I knew he was referring to the going-ons between my sister and his brother.  I didn’t reply.  I didn’t know what to say.  He pushed himself off my bean bag and walked over to the bookshelf he’d been eyeing.  His hand ran along the spines of my books and then he glanced at me.  “Read a lot?”

I nod again.

For the first time since he shuffled silently through my front door behind his six-foot tall brother, he broke into a grin.  “You don’t talk much, do you?”

I shrugged before realizing this gesture added to his comment. 

His grin widened at that.  “You’re quiet.”

“I’ve never had a boy in my room.”  The words unwillingly tumbled out of my mouth.  I was completely and utterly uncomfortable with the whole situation – with Randy’s hands on my books, with his brother having sex with my sister downstairs in my parent’s bedroom – I suddenly ached to demonstrate that I was not like my sister. 

His grin vanished as quickly as it appeared.  “I can leave…”  He offered this, but didn’t move towards the door.

“No,” I said standing up.  “I just meant that this is all… new to me. I’m not like Darla.”

“I know,” he said, flopping back onto my bean bag chair.  I took up my previous position on the bed, this time cross-legged and more relaxed.

“You know?”

“Darla comes over to our house all the time.  My Dad’s always out of town and my mom has her garden meetings.  She and my brother usually just go in his room.”  His face reddened again.  I took comfort in his embarrassment and nodded knowingly even though this is all news to me.  I had thought Darla was at cheerleading practices every day after school.  “Anyway, you seem so different.  You’re so quiet in Mrs. Dewy’s science class and you always have a different book that you read.”  He grinned again and this time jerked his head towards my bookshelves.  “Now I know why.”  So he did know of me.  “I just never pinned you for
Darla’s sister
.”

I bit my lower lip.  A nervous habit of mine.  “Well, like I said.  We’re different.”

It was surreal staring at the front of Randy’s face while he sat in my daisied room.  Usually I stared at the back of his russet curls while he scribbled notes to Abby, his current girlfriend, who was also in our science class.  I did not recall him ever glancing back at me once to know I was even in existence.  Yet he had, and noticed not only that I preferred to sneak a book instead of listen to Mrs. Dewy prattle on about potatoes and currents, but also that I read so quickly I had a different book every two days or so.  A warmth seeped through me and I felt the hotness reach my ears again. 

Randy was looking at me now, intently.  He leaned forward so that his knees were touching his collar bone and he could grab the bottom of his socked toes with his fingers.  His chin rested on his knees.  “I didn’t mean to imply you were a whore or anything.  Not that I’m calling Darla a whore–” he rushed to backpedal on his statement as he realized his error. 

“It’s okay,” I nearly whisper. “We don’t get along that well.” And it was true. The latest move to San Antonio marked a change in the two of us. Darla started at this high school with a vengeance, shedding any and all social roadblocks. Including me. I remembered the fat lip she came home with one day several weeks before we moved. She didn’t tell me for a while, but I learned from overhearing Mom on the phone with one of the school personnel that another kid had called me a half nigger and Darla had tackled her in anger.

“You just never talk much at school, is all,” Randy was saying. “I always wondered what you were thinking.”

“You did?”  I was genuinely surprised.

Randy shrugged.  “You moved here like, what, middle of last year?  In sixth grade?”

I nodded, feeling myself relax again.  “Howard, well my… dad –” I stumbled over that word – “got a new job.  He’s in real estate.”

“You don’t have a lot of friends.  Why don’t you talk to anybody?”

“I talk to people.”  My tone took on a defensive quality.  He ignored it.

“No you don’t.  You’ve lived here a year and I never see you talking to anyone or walking to class with anyone or doing anything with anyone.”

“Are you stalking me or something?”  I demanded.

“No, not stalking.  It’s a small school, Birdie.  I’m not trying to offend you.  I’m just curious.”

“Well, it’s not as easy for me as it is for some people.”  I waved one hand toward him meaningfully as I say this.  “You came to the junior high with all your friends from elementary and you have a nice, normal name whereas I-”

“Have a name like Birdie,” Randy finished for me, smiling again.

I looked at him warily, but nodded. “Exactly.”

“Have you ever kissed a guy before?”

His change in topic had me blinking in surprise. “N-no,” I stuttered, growing hot. The heat prickles increased when he struggled up from my bean bag chair and sat next to me on the edge of the bed.

“Really?” he asked. “Because you’re really pretty.”

I shifted uncomfortably next to him. He was the first person besides my mother that had ever called me pretty or beautiful. When I looked in the mirror, I tried to imagine I was but it was hard to see it underneath the unkempt hair my mother was constantly learning how to manage and the clothes that didn’t fit properly over my emerging curves.

It happened quickly. Randy’s lips were soft as they met mine. I kept my mouth closed, my head tilted, and my eyes shut. When his lips moved to open, I followed hesitantly.

“There you are!”

I pulled away quickly and turned to see Jake’s sweaty head poking through the open gap in my door. “We gotta jet, Randy.  You’re already late to baseball practice.” He tossed Randy’s sneakers towards him.

“I wonder why,” Randy grumbled under his breath as he stood up from beside me. 

The air in the room went from friendly to awkward as Randy squished his feet into his shoes without untying them and gave me a quick, abrupt wave.

“Uh, seeya.”

“Yeah, seeya,” I replied quietly, not commenting on their shoes as they clod across my mom’s carpet.

I didn’t realize what my first kiss meant until later that week when I got to school and saw JUNGLE FEVER spray painted across my locker. Sarah Walker the girl with the locker next to the left of me and Alex Kim, the boy with the locker to the right of me got JU and ER onto their lockers. Collateral damage. Alex was glaring at me as I approached it in slow steps, my mouth hanging agape at the words, like his spray painted locker was my fault.

Randy came up behind me, grabbing my elbow and pulling me behind a corner next to the drinking fountain. He looked pissed.

“What’d you have to go and tell Abby for?” he asked me angrily. “She’s threatened to break up with me.”

“I didn’t!” I said defensively. Never mind that he was the one who kissed me. I felt trapped and scared and out of place. “I didn’t tell anyone!”

He looked like he didn’t believe me and his mouth hardened into a line. “I just wanted to know if it felt different kissing a black chick,” he said, shaking his head in regret. “It wasn’t worth all this.”

He turned and left me speechless by the water fountain.