Other Birds, page 2
But she could do this.
She would.
* * *
It was now after midnight, but Zoey hadn’t moved from her sitting position on the balcony floor with her back against the stone wall. The humid air almost had a texture to it, and was unusually still.
God is holding His breath.
Her mother used to whisper that to Zoey in her mysterious accent when the wind abruptly stopped and everything went quiet for a moment, almost as if she’d made it happen. Zoey had a vague sense that her mother had been a great fabricator, as if to her there was no veil between what was real and what was not. It all existed together.
Zoey’s four neighbors were all now home. She’d just watched the man with a night job, Mac, come in. Squares of light from his doors spread onto his patio. Across the garden, Charlotte-the-artist had already gone to bed, presumably with the young man she’d brought home with her earlier. Zoey had watched from the balcony as Charlotte had gestured for the young man to be quiet as they’d entered the garden. She’d pointed to Lizbeth Lime’s condo, as if not wanting any noise to bring out her neighbor.
As for Lizbeth herself, she was still up, all her lights blazing. Her sister Lucy’s lights were out, but the pulse of a small orange ember was flickering near her doors, as if Lucy might be smoking a cigarette inside alone in the dark.
Zoey knew she should probably go in and try to sleep. It had a been a long day. But being inside made her feel closed-in and lonely. And Pigeon was still out. She could hear the whoosh of her wings right now as she flew over the garden to peer into the low trees, curious about the dellawisps. Pigeon was very selective about whom she chose to honor with her presence. She was probably wondering if the little turquoise chatterboxes were worth the trouble to get to know.
Pigeon was obviously trying to make the best of the situation, but she hadn’t wanted to move here. Judging by the years she tipped over glasses and stole trinkets belonging to Zoey’s father and stepmother, generally trying to make their lives miserable, Pigeon hadn’t wanted to stay in Tulsa, either. Sometimes there was no pleasing that bird. She nearly drove Zoey crazy on the plane that morning, perched on her head, pecking at her hair—hence Zoey’s decision to make her stay in her cage on the cab ride. It made no sense to Zoey why Pigeon chose to travel with her instead of just flying herself here.
But then, an invisible bird made no sense by definition.
Pigeon swooped close by Zoey’s head, nearly catching her hair. Zoey put her hands up to bat her away. Pigeon always did this when she thought Zoey was spending too much time in her own head. Pigeon believed in action, in being realistic, which Zoey had always thought was a tad hypocritical.
She heard Pigeon land in the wicker birdcage Zoey had put on top of the pink refrigerator. She cooed for Zoey to come in, but Zoey didn’t want to. She was so wound up that it felt like a current was buzzing through her. She had the strangest feeling something was about to happen.
God is holding His breath.
Her skin prickled. She could almost hear the words, as if her mother were right beside her, whispering in her ear. It made her uneasy but she didn’t know why. Hadn’t that been the reason she’d chosen to go to college here? So she could move into this condo and feel closer to her mother, to have someplace to come to on breaks, someplace that finally felt like home?
At that moment, the patio doors to Charlotte’s condo opened and the young man Charlotte had brought home earlier crept out. His skin was covered in swirls of tattoos that seemed to move in the darkness, like something alive. He pushed his long, straight hair out of his face as he strutted through the garden toward the alley gate. He walked like he was smiling to himself, like he’d gotten away with something. The dellawisps flew out of the trees and dive-bombed him when he got too close and he ran away, cursing softly into the night.
Pigeon cooed again and Zoey reluctantly got up and walked in, saying, “I think I’m going to try to make friends with them—Charlotte-the-artist and Mac-with-a-night-job and the Limes.” She wondered if she even remembered how to do it. Her last real friend had been Ingrid, in middle school. But surely it wouldn’t be that hard.
Pigeon’s silence told Zoey that she didn’t like this idea.
“What else am I supposed to do this summer?”
Zoey heard Pigeon flap her wings impatiently as if to say Zoey probably should have thought about that before coming here. There were a lot of things Zoey probably should have thought about. Like how she was going to get groceries, for instance.
Earlier, she’d asked Frasier if there was a store within walking distance. Zoey had a car, one she dearly loved, which she’d bought last summer. But it wasn’t scheduled to be delivered to her on the island for another few weeks. Frasier had directed her to a touristy specialty market down the street. Zoey had never bought herself real groceries before. The closest she’d ever come were the potato chips and white bread she bought at a convenience store on her way home from her after-school job at Kello’s. Potato chip sandwiches were one of the few things she remembered her mother making for her. Her mother had had more money than she’d known what to do with in her adult life, but she’d always eaten like she was still a starving girl, lost on a boat trying to make her way to America. Zoey’s father had been the very opposite of hands-on when it had come to raising Zoey after her mother died, but it now boggled Zoey’s mind the basic things that supernaturally appeared when you lived with other people—things like salt and butter and soap and toilet paper. Zoey had been adding new things to her list all evening.
She went to the refrigerator to look inside again at the neat rows of Snapple and Orangina and the blocks of cheese and the softball-sized tomatoes she’d bought earlier. It was like looking in a mirror after a dramatic haircut and not quite recognizing herself. Who was this person with hard cheese in her pink refrigerator? When she opened the door, a shaft of bright light arced into the darkness of the condo. The small bottles of Orangina rattled but didn’t mask the heavy thump that suddenly came from one of the units below.
Startled, Zoey closed the door and turned. She went back to the balcony and saw that Mac, a large redheaded man, had opened his door and was looking out into the garden, as if he’d heard the sound, too.
Something had just happened, something strange.
It left a quiet, ghostly feeling around them.
Zoey had spent too much of her life as an outsider to ever think of running to anyone when she was afraid. It wasn’t that she was particularly brave, she just didn’t want the disappointment of being turned away. But right now she felt a painful longing for something she couldn’t name. She thought wildly of texting her dad, but he hadn’t responded to her last text, when she’d told him her plane had arrived safely in Charleston.
She watched Mac step back inside and shut his patio doors, seemingly satisfied that nothing was amiss.
Before Zoey closed her own balcony doors and locked them, her eyes fell on Lucy Lime’s unit. The ember of a cigarette was still glowing near the glass doors in the dark, as if Lucy was watching everything.
And Zoey had the oddest feeling that Lucy knew exactly what had just happened.
Chapter Two
Pigeon was knocking against the doors.
It felt like only minutes since Zoey had finally managed to fall asleep. She tried ignoring Pigeon, but that didn’t work. If anything, the knocking got louder. She finally got out of bed and walked across the dark studio. As soon as she opened the curtained doors, morning sunlight flooded in, making her squint. She felt Pigeon zip by her.
The dellawisps were squawking in the garden, obviously upset about something. It sounded like a rain forest down there. No wonder her stupid bird wanted out. Pigeon was spectacularly incapable of minding her own business.
There were several voices below, almost drowned out by the dellawisps. Zoey was turning to go back to bed when she heard the crackle of a police radio add itself to the chatter, and that made her stop.
Police?
She stepped onto the balcony and looked down to see two officers talking to Frasier on Lizbeth Lime’s patio. Dellawisps were flying around them. A few of the birds had landed on Frasier’s shoulders. One was perched on his head like a fancy hat.
A clanking sound drew Zoey’s attention, and she turned to see a man and a woman guiding an empty gurney through the garden. Frasier and the police officers stepped aside to let them enter Lizbeth’s condo. The attendants looked relieved to be going inside, as it meant an escape from the cadre of little birds chasing them.
Zoey’s brows shot up with alarm.
What had happened to Lizbeth Lime?
She immediately went down the balcony steps, as if she hadn’t just accused Pigeon of being nosy.
Zoey reached the bottom of the steps and edged around the garden to Lizbeth Lime’s patio. She chewed at a hangnail on her thumb while she waited for Frasier.
She was still in her shorts and T-shirt from last night. She’d been sleeping in her clothes since she was a child, when she hadn’t truly understood what it had meant when her mother died. Her father had made it seem like Paloma had left on purpose in a fit of irresponsibility, as if she’d simply decided to go on a sudden vacation. Zoey began sleeping in her clothes so she would be ready to leave her father’s house at a moment’s notice when her mother finally returned. After her father remarried a year later, Zoey’s stepmother would sometimes comment about this habit of Zoey’s, which she found untidy—her own two tiny children from a previous marriage slept in very nice sleep things, after all. Zoey’s father knew exactly why Zoey did it, but he would always shrug as if he didn’t because he didn’t like saying Paloma’s name, and he knew his new wife liked it even less.
Frasier said a final word to the police officers and stepped off Lizbeth Lime’s patio. He walked right past Zoey as if he hadn’t seen her.
“Frasier?” she said, and he turned. “What happened?”
He reached out and patted her arm with a strong, bony hand. The force of it set her off balance a little. He was stronger than he looked. “Lizbeth died last night. But it’s nothing you need to worry about.”
Excepting her mother, Zoey had never known anyone who had died. Then again, she hadn’t really known Lizbeth. She had only last night resolved to get to know her new neighbors, so it felt like she’d missed a train to somewhere important. “How?”
“She fell off a stepladder and a bookcase landed on her.”
Wait, Zoey knew when it happened. She knew exactly when it happened. “I heard something last night!” she said. “A thump.”
He nodded. “Mac said the same thing.”
“Oh, right. Of course,” she said, remembering that the redheaded man had opened his doors last night at the sound. “So it was just an accident?”
“Yes.”
Zoey glanced over to Lucy Lime’s condo. What was there to say? That Lucy had been sitting in her dark condo last night, smoking villainously after the thump? And what about Charlotte-the-artist’s friend, the one who had left with such an air of secrecy?
“What about her?” Zoey asked, indicating Charlotte’s patio. “Did she hear it, too?”
Charlotte herself opened her doors at that moment, looking sleepy and aggrieved. She was wearing the same strapless summer dress she’d had on yesterday. She stepped out almost in sync with the gurney being pushed out of Lizbeth Lime’s condo next door. There was an unmistakable form buckled under a cover now. Charlotte automatically took a horrified step back. All three of them were silent as the attendants pushed the gurney out of the garden.
Charlotte turned to see Zoey and Frasier standing there. She looked too stunned to speak.
“Lizbeth died last night,” Frasier said before she could ask. “Excuse me, I have some calls to make.”
After he walked away, Charlotte finally spoke. “How did it happen?” Her voice was hoarse, as if she’d just woken up. She put her hands to her head and twisted her wispy blond hair into a topknot.
Zoey took her question as permission to step onto her patio. From the distance of her balcony, all Zoey had gleaned yesterday was that Charlotte dressed like she bought her clothes in vintage shops and drove an old powder-blue scooter. But she was even more interesting up close. What Zoey had mistaken for tattoos on her arms and legs was actually henna. Some of it was dark brown, as if done recently, but some was lighter, almost the golden color of Charlotte’s skin, like an impression left in sand. Her face was narrow, her eyes were large and blue, and her blond eyebrows were feathered into unruly wings at the tails. She was fascinating to look at, like a piece of art you had to stare at a long time before it made sense. “Frasier says a bookcase landed on her in the middle of the night,” Zoey said. Charlotte’s eyes kept sliding over to the police officers. “Does that sound odd to you?”
“Odd?” Charlotte repeated, as if Zoey’s words were processing just a second too slow. “No. She was always moving things around in there.”
“Did you hear anything?”
“No. I got used to the noise. And last night I was…” She paused. “Sleeping deeply.”
“What about the guy you were with?”
That got Charlotte’s attention. “Is he still here?”
Zoey shook her head. “I saw him leave around one this morning.”
“Oh. We’re just friends,” she said awkwardly. Then, without another word, she stepped back into her condo and began to close her doors.
“Wait,” Zoey said, startled by how quickly their encounter was over. She held out her hand. “I’m Zoey Hennessey. I just moved here. I’m in the studio.”
The woman shook Zoey’s hand distractedly. Her skin was cool to the touch. “Charlotte.”
“Nice to meet you!” Zoey said as the doors closed on her.
She stared at them for a moment, disappointed. Then she turned and looked out at the garden, wondering what to do with herself now.
With a sigh, she walked away.
* * *
Charlotte, listening from inside, heard Zoey finally leave. She slumped against the wall.
Just minutes ago the sound of voices in the garden had been a strange enough occurrence to wake her. No one at the Dellawisp stopped to chat. They didn’t want to risk the wrath of Lizbeth Lime, resident busybody and, unfortunately, Charlotte’s next-door neighbor. She knew whoever was out there was going to make Lizbeth go into full-on crazy-neighbor mode soon. Charlotte had gotten up and quickly walked into the living room, where she’d left Benny sleeping on the couch last night, to warn him not to go out or he’d find himself on the receiving end of an epic tirade.
But Benny had already left.
And Lizbeth was dead.
That was one too many things to process with a hangover.
She needed water. A lot of it. She left the doors and walked through the living room with its old stone floors and exposed ceiling beams. It was furnished with only a squashy yellow couch and chair she’d bought at a charity shop when she’d moved here. Furniture had never mattered to her, and this place was beautiful enough on its own. She sold everything every time she moved, anyway. It was the real estate that mattered most. She always bought a place outright, however small, when she moved. It wasn’t exactly the bohemian lifestyle that teenaged Charlotte had once dreamed of, but she’d never been able to totally overcome her need to have a place of her own so she wouldn’t have to be reliant on someone else for a roof over her head, like her mother.
The quilt she’d covered Benny with last night was crumpled on the floor by the couch like a ball of patterned paper. She bent to pick it up as she passed, and it made her head swim. She and Benny had spent the previous evening drinking and sharing their misery over the rent increase at the Sugar Warehouse, the artists’ enclave where they both worked. Unable to afford it now, they’d both been forced to give up their booths. Yesterday had been their last day. Benny, a wood-carver she’d only ever spoken to in passing, had unexpectedly offered to help her bring home her boxes of henna supplies, because it would have taken her several trips on her scooter.
She’d gotten caught up in Benny’s drunk enthusiasm about banding together to find space somewhere else on the island to do their art. But Benny wasn’t here now, and she didn’t know what that meant. She didn’t have his number. She wasn’t even sure he had a business card. Maybe he was out doing something charming like getting orange scones from one of the bakeries on Trade Street. He’d be back, she told herself, and then they’d scout out some new places. It felt good to at least be together with someone on this.
Life goes on.
She’d survived worse.
In the small galley kitchen, which was white and serene and probably her favorite part of her condo, Charlotte took a glass from the cabinet and filled it with tap water. Her leather backpack was open on the counter. It didn’t register at first as she drank. But then she lowered the glass from her lips and set it on the countertop with a click, an uneasy feeling coming over her.
She reached into the backpack and brought out her work pouch wallet. She zipped it open, holding her breath.
It was empty.
She immediately emptied her backpack and sifted through everything, frantically at first, then more deliberately, making absolutely sure.
Benny, who obviously held his alcohol better than she did, had taken her money.
She ran back to the front doors and opened them. The police officers were still on Lizbeth Lime’s patio.
The female officer turned to Charlotte. Charlotte smiled. When it came to the police, she never wanted to call too much attention to herself. She stepped back inside and closed the doors, willing her heart to stop racing.
Whenever she moved, all the money from the sale of her previous home went into buying a new place, for that one security she allowed herself. With everything else, she lived hand to mouth. She needed the money that had been in her backpack. This was the first time in her life she’d ever been able to support herself wholly with her henna, something teenaged Charlotte had always dreamed of. She’d been working longer hours and saving for weeks since finding out about the rent increase, so she would have something to live on until she found a new space to work in. She’d had a cushion. Now that cushion was significantly less soft.
