Like a Bird, page 10
When I woke up, it was my second week at Kat’s—early—before Kat and her children, Luc and Isaac (whom I was beginning to care for deeply), rose. I felt an itch. Thankfully, it was a weekend, which meant the café was closed. As I began to scratch, I felt it rise right into my ass, into that raw, cavernous hole. Shifting like a diffraction, the itch moved through me, showing no signs of slowing down. I fell back against the unhelpful comfort of my pillows. I wanted to cut myself out. Scratch, scratch, scratch.
Kat had emerged. “Babe, are you okay?” She had heard a commotion, knocked, and opened the door to find me defeated, my eyes pale with pent-up tears. I began explaining to her my bodily dysfunctions. She half laughed and said it in one way: “Sounds like a yeast infection, baby.”
“I thought I had had them before… but this feels really, really bad.”
She had a habit of researching things on Google and explaining to the boys, so she began reading off her iPhone. “Yeast infections are caused by the fungus Candida. This fungus is associated with intense itching, irritation… blah blah blah…”
I stopped listening, in pain, and instantly began to think of that night again. Fingers, slimy groping fingers. Those diseased hands. I was going to die. I mopped my wet brow as she read, squeezing the place between my legs as if I were a human-sized tweezer pushing down on the multiple ticks that were pulsing through me. It started burning, but I kept pushing with sweaty urgency. I was drifting. Don’t think of that night, Taylia. Everything tasted sour.
“Your eyes look like white disks. Are you okay?”
Her voice sounded distant, her tonsils jiggling as she coughed.
“Taylia?”
Tell her, Taylia. Tell her what? Tell her about that night. No.
My eyes were zeroing out and I could feel the life pumping, the blood flowing like a beat, in my down there. It felt like a boom box, bouncing pulses of sound and goop. I needed to get out. I felt like I was about to suffocate.
“What do I do?” I asked her.
Kat suggested medication, carefully giving me instructions to the nearest pharmacy. I could sense she wanted to volunteer getting it, but I was profusely wanting to prove that I was fine, so she patted me on the back with a kindness that she wanted me to feel, and I walked out. Outside, the city felt like glass and light, the windows high. The air made a sizzling noise as I walked on the pavement, and everything felt fuel-shimmered and smoky, hot to the touch. I walked into a Duane Reade on Dekalb Avenue and bought Monistat, skipping out like Wile E. Coyote. I wanted to pull my pants down right there, but instead I waited until I got home. Kat cooed outside the bathroom as I plied open myself and layered on swathes of the cooling cream. It reminded me of when I had had a burn as a child; Mama had run swiftly to the garden, cutting open the flesh of her robust aloe vera plant. She came back with such grace, holding it in her left hand, floppy with juice, and gently placing the transparent lobster-like flesh on my gibbous burn. The crustaceany aloe felt so cool, so right, on my bony little arm. I remembered her vividly for a brief moment, then cried by the chlorine-stained toilet seat.
Later that day, momentarily cured, I found books on the tarot in Kat’s bookshelf, which I wanted to look into. I was impressed by her ability to juggle life so effortlessly. At the current moment, she was in the backyard with her friend Crystal, who also had a young boy about Isaac’s age. I could hear them both roaring through the ecosystem, the boys playing with plastic lightsabers, doing the zhoom-zhoom sound as they waved them around like batons. Kat made me feel welcome. It’s the ethos she had with the café, too, of allowing people to come and create a haven against the harsh city. She’d seen the way the city could make you feel unwanted, she understood the perils. I think she longed for a community she could rely on, which is why she made her home an offering as well.
Our friendship was quite fortuitous simply because she trusted me and trusted that I could handle things for her in the absence of her ex, if need be. I was always good at filling in the gaps for other people. We came to an agreement that I would pay cheapish rent (since Kat’s family owned the place) for my room and that I would get paid an hourly wage for my three-month apprenticeship. If things worked out, I would get on the payroll, maybe even become a manager. We were both open to possibilities.
I felt grateful that, although I had left in haste, I had a small, sober inheritance that Dadi-ma had left me when she passed. Thank God I was naturally frugal—except for my apparently new pastry addiction. The inheritance from Dadi-ma of $15,000 had seemed negligible when I first received it. I had turned snooty after time with wealthy peers. But now, it was a godsend, and some part of me was relieved it didn’t come from my parents. There was a part of me that wanted to start anew. Dadi-ma must have known that I would need it one day. All of this made me feel that I had struck a good deal with the universe.
When I hurt, I let it hurt, but I tried—with Kat’s suggestion—to take my ego out of it as much as I could. And it was paying off: I didn’t know why, but the city was making me feel things were possible; it was reviving me. To make something of myself, on my own, and by my own definition, when I previously (just a few weeks ago) had felt like I was nothing. I knew investing in myself was a worthy pursuit.
Kat and I started a nightly ritual. We would smoke hash when the boys went to bed and Kat would read our tarot, teaching me the energetic science of it all. One night, as we sat at her back porch with a beautiful Oriental-style blue-and-white pipe, she asked me what my question was for the night. Up until then, my conversations with the higher forces had been naive, unformed, but tonight I was tender. I asked, “When will I find love?”
Kat cocked her eyebrow, teasing. “You mean like a boyfriend?” I snorted the Bloody Mary I was drinking right out of my nose, the gin firing through me with fusillade precision. “Noooooo!!!!!” I had not thought of men in an eternity. I shivered.
“Why’d you just shiver?”
“I didn’t.”
“Uh-huh, yeah, you did.”
She stared at me, and I felt my cheeks begin to burn with memories.
“Taylia.”
“It’s nothing.”
“Hmm…”
I sighed. “I don’t know if you’ve ever realized that I’m not good… with men?”
“Is anyone good with men, honey?”
“My sister—” I stopped. I hadn’t even realized what I was saying when it came out.
“Oh… You have a sister?”
I didn’t know how to answer that. “Hmm… But men are awful. They’re scary!” I said, changing the subject.
She laughed, by now fluent in my conversational swerves. “Ugh, women are scary, too.”
I felt the question rise through me like a wave; I wanted to know. “Kat, have you ever been in love? If so, can you tell me about it?”
I rarely caught her off guard, but here she was, suddenly silent. There were many pauses before she finally started to talk, hesitant.
“Yeah. I think… If I’m going to be frank… as much as Elijah is a major S.O.B….” She looked toward the boys’ room to see if the door was closed; it was. “We were massively in love. Hell, maybe that’s why it hurts so much. Even if you love somebody it doesn’t always work out.” She paused. “He was good when he was good, you know? Like good. And it doesn’t make any sense why he left me with two kids, scurrying off like an effing rat… and you know now that Claudia and I are getting more serious, or I don’t know… more intense or whatever… I find myself thinking about love again, but with fear. So much fear.” She had started crying. “And I hate that he took my faith away in love, Taylia. What if it doesn’t work out again? I hate being scared.”
She cried silently, composed. Her huffs like rhythms as she gently rocked herself back and forth. I went to her knees and pressed them gently, laying my head at her thighs. That was the beginning of our enduring connection.
I didn’t really know if I had the capacity to fully love, if I really had that ability to let go. My heart felt gutted out, concaved, yet at the same time I was tired of my grief. At this point, I was almost bored of it. I wanted so much to say something to her—to say that I understood, that I knew what it was like to have someone leave you with no remorse. To wake up one day and find that what loved you yesterday was no longer there. That the perversely banal life that you led was outshadowed by the one person who cared for you so supremely, but who had also abandoned you. I could never have fathomed the pain Alyssa would leave me in; I could never have imagined how her absence would make me feel.
Kat cried, and we sat together, cradled, watching the moon.
As I entered work the next day, trash bags swelled with decay near the back door. Kat must’ve forgotten, which was unlike her. The smell was so pungent that I felt temporarily hit by its tenacity. The dry heave of puke almost made it to my mouth, but I stopped it just in time. I had a whole day’s work ahead of me, I couldn’t afford momentary nausea.
Kat was off getting emerald-green polish on her toes and watching a movie at the Film Forum with her friend Frank, which she kept trying to back out of, and I—well, I was paying my necessary dues. She assured me I would do fine without her, and sincerely, I was managing. I was never good with people, but I had always been curious of others. I was trying to lean into this quality, into the thrill of new experiences. There were people coming in and out on the regular, and for the most part it was stimulating. Tracking the gentle back and forth of old customers who loved Kat and newcomers who were impressed by the place was enjoyable. My answers were always short, tamed, rehearsed, and yet still so stickily uncomposed. I didn’t have the conversational lucidity of Khadijah with a K. I took a breath and told myself, in my head, to have some compassion for myself. It’s the first time that ever happened.
Around eleven I was in the store’s back area, taking a quick break after the morning rush, when I heard a voice.
“Hello?”
Caught off guard, I ran to greet the person.
I got to the cash register and faced her. Her hair was dark and ponytailed, eyes round and cat shaped with eyelashes that were elegant and delicate. Her lips were pasted with freshly applied lip gloss, probably fruit flavored. I wondered if it was one of those sweet ones you could lick off.
“Hi.” I smiled. “Sorry, I was just—”
She cut me off. “I’m here to pick up a special order.”
Kat hadn’t told me about this. “Ah, sure, what’s your name?”
“Jade Leung.”
I was buying time. “What was your order?”
“A baked Italian cheesecake with a raspberry coulis.” She paused. “Wait, isn’t Kat here?”
I frowned, buying time. “You ordered it with Kat?”
“Yes,” she replied, “I ordered it with Kat.”
I turned around and made a face, mimicking her now imperfectlipped drawl. I walked to the fridge and took a peek inside: nothing. As I started freaking out I heard a commotion in the front of the shop. It sounded like another person had entered and I could hear that Jade was squealing. I rolled my eyes and felt frustrated. As I reentered I saw that there was a man talking to her, and as I came closer he looked up and smiled. I didn’t smile back. The man was tall and was wearing a brown jacket and pale denim. His hair was the color of dark, unmilked coffee. Long and matted at the sides. As he looked at me again, I noticed his eyes were a strange hue, and even from a distance I could see their peculiarly green-brown-colored gaze. He smiled at me, now for the second time, and I looked down quickly, pretending to not have been eyeing him.
“Did you find our cake?” Jade asked, milder now.
“No, I—I’m sorry…”
“Can’t you just call Kat?”
“Yeah…”
“Because she said today, and I’m not coming back again.”
“Okay. Yeah. I’m sure everything is fine.” I said it with a little too much reservation.
“Yeah, I’m sure it is, too,” she said curtly.
I called Kat desperately on her cell. Dinnnnnggggggggggg. It kept ringing, but she wasn’t picking up. They were both eagerly waiting.
“So?”
“She isn’t picking up…”
“Ugh, I take a chance on a local place—”
Just as she said that Kat walked through the door, a paper box in her left arm. “Hello, darlings!”
My heart pounded.
“Taylia, I hope you have been entertaining.”
I smiled a weak, thin line. I wanted to punch Jade in the face.
“She’s been great,” the man chimed in, looking back at me, smiling.
“So, here you go. All as requested. Raspberry coulis made, like, a minute ago.”
Sometimes Kat was like a magician—wasn’t she supposed to be at the movies? I watched her astounded but inspired.
Jade squealed again. “Roman is going to love this!”
“This is for Roman?” Kat asked. “You didn’t tell me that. He was my favorite regular, but I haven’t seen him in weeks.”
“We know! He’s been on this huge case, so he’s been in another zone, working nonstop. But this is why we asked for this cake from you. He just loves this place so much, and he’s been missing his daily dose. We’re actually going to go surprise him now! It’s his birthday and we’re so happy we could get this cake from you! Thank you.”
“Oh, what a sweetheart. Well, tell him happy birthday!”
As Jade and Kat talked, the man came up to me. “Hey, I’m Ky.”
I stared at his hand for seconds; the cuticles were well trimmed, and the moon-shaped part of his nail was pronounced, almost like Zeina. His hands were slightly tanned and laced with veins. There was even a tattoo in between his thumb and forefinger that looked like two bows and arrows crossed over each other. I looked back up at him, momentarily shocked by the giddy feeling that moved through me. He seemed unfazed, but his stare was intense. Like he was taking me in in a noncreepy way.
“Taylia.”
“Taylia? Cool name.”
I shrugged inelegantly.
In the background, Kat worked her charm—that’s why people flocked to her. She was genuine.
“How’s your day been, Taylia?”
I had not done this in so long. “My day has been fine.”
“How do you mean?”
I shrugged again.
“Your eyes tell secrets, Taylia.”
I assumed someone as empirically handsome as Ky would say this to women and they would feel understood and flattered by his observation, and even though I knew that, I felt that he really meant what he had said to me. Still, my guard was up. “Hmm, maybe.”
A loop went through my stomach, multiplying into a figure eight. I suddenly felt so immeasurably happy.
“Ky.” Jade broke the spell.
I felt embarrassed by my hypnotized state, like a deer caught in headlights. I felt seen again, an anomaly in this city. But that was it: I felt seen.
He turned to them both.
“Ky, you should start coming by more!” Kat cooed.
“Oh, I definitely shall.”
I heard them giggle and chatter, but my mind had gone, drifting in ethereal blackness, in a black hole; I felt like a star spinning through it all with such languid ease.
A few weeks later we were sitting inside the café, picking at an olive oil cake and sipping on a shared iced cappuccino. I was about to head out for a break when I felt compelled to ask.
“Kat, be honest, do you think I’ve put on weight?”
“What?” Truly astonished, she just stared.
“I feel so—so…”
“Fat?”
“Lethargic,” I corrected her.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I always feel out of breath, I think I’m getting sick…”
“You should maybe go see a doctor, my li’l principessa. Is there anyone you can go see?”
“Yeah, I’ll think about it.” I hadn’t even begun to comprehend what health insurance and accessing doctors would be like now that I no longer talked to my parents. But I also didn’t want to think about it, so I put it to the side.
“Well, honey, here’s the thing—if you think you’re fat, maybe you are and that’s okay. You gotta rejig that thinking and look around you. You are beautiful! I promise. Don’t let the man tell you otherwise.” She winked her left eye and blew a kiss. I laughed, rolled my eyes, tempering her mildly, and walked out.
Moving toward the park, I eventually sat down next to Cillian. The warmth under him, like in those first few days after I left, filled me with an immeasurable spirit. Now, he felt like the steadiness of family, like grounding; I felt connected to the earth through the roots of him. The first real spiritual experiences I had were through the narratives of Indian culture with Dadi-ma. Tales by Kalidasa and Shesher Kabita by Tagore, the rhymes and wordplay like stringed songs she’d sing, fluid poetry that was a gilded part of Bengali culture. Being under Cillian reminded me of India, the trees and nature such a part of its loamy terrain. Dadi-ma and I would often sit by big jackfruit and mango trees near the house, guarded by a small pukur filled with fresh, gulpy fish. The trees such a bright lime green, the tall palms bending across the waters in prostrated salutations.
Dadi-ma had a rounded knife with a cherry-red handle that she’d pull out of the belt of her petticoat to swiftly cut apples into halves and halves again, eight times in total. I’d count one, two, three every time. She put a slice in her mouth and then spit out the seeds through the whistle of her lips. Then she’d pass a slice to me, clucking with joy. In her presence, I learned that small, beautiful things could be treasured, too. There, I began my love for sitting on uneven grassy plains, the ants and soil-colored bugs crawling past my chubby limbs. We’d never talk, but she’d recite to me dramatic verses, her words resonant and voweled. Intermittently she’d smile and pinch the middle of my cheek with two clipped fingers, cackling at the annoyed faces I’d make in return. I started to learn broken Bangla: She’d give me a thumbs-up for good, thumbs-down for poor, her bangles clank clank clanking as she laughed her haughty, rapturous guffaw. The trees near the deep lakes, the water dusty and a lukewarm brown, made me think of death. Even in moments of bliss, it haunted me. Maybe it was the realization that this woman—in so many ways a soul mate—would soon be gone. I liked everything about her, even how much she despised us being American, rolling her eyes whenever we spoke English or said “wow.” She found English to be so unuseful, so unromantic, unfeeling, and callous. She felt like a role model, someone in opposition to Alyssa, and felt maybe more aligned with the person I wanted to be. That made me both joyous and sad. There’d be moments I’d stare into the infiniteness of the pukur and wonder what it would feel like to suffocate in its muddy, opaque waters. Living without her felt impossible.
