Bird (14 page)

All these thoughts nibbled at me, didn't leave me alone. If I decided to go into his room, he might get upset that I asked a question or two, or he'd just ignore me, as usual. Or maybe he'd close the door in my face. That'd be all right, I supposed.

I had never been someone who would actually begin a conversation with Grandpa. But then again, I'd never been someone who would throw rocks at friends or demand that Dad tell me things either.

My lips twisted up. I heard the screen door slam as Dad headed outside and into his car; it was his turn to cook tonight and he was probably getting groceries. Mom was still at work. It was just Grandpa and me.

Again:
thud-thud-thud
.

I sucked in my breath, gave my stuffed rabbit a quick, tight hug, and got to my feet. The little white oscillating fan hummed back and forth, and I swallowed hard as I left my room and stood in front of Grandpa's door.

Maybe he could tell I was standing on the other side.

I made myself knock and fought a sudden desire to run away. Then I opened the door and stepped inside his room.

Grandpa was lying on top of his bed and wearing old-style headphones, which connected to an older-style portable tape player. Listening to music. His arm was draped over the nightstand by his bed. He had been pounding out the rhythms with his fist. That's what the noise had been.

His eyes flew open and he stared at me in shock. He pushed a big button on his tape player and yanked off his headphones, throwing his legs to the floor to sit on the edge of his bed.

All the questions I was going to ask had vanished. My mouth was suddenly rusted shut.

He stared at me, his eyebrows crunching together in surprise. Like,
How could you just let yourself in?

“Hi,” I said. I scratched my wrist.

He frowned, and the skin pulled deep around the corners of his mouth.

“How are you?”

Now, there are certain times in life where “Hi, how are you?” is probably not the best thing to say. Like if someone's bleeding to death. Or if someone's stuck in an elevator. Or, perhaps, if you just barged in on your grandpa and realized that he didn't want you to talk to him, but there you are, in his space, breathing his air and his grandpa smells and asking questions that really don't say what you wanted to say, anyway.

Or something like that.

“What are you listening to?” I asked, my scalp tingling.

Grandpa stood up, slowly. For a moment, I could swear I saw the skin around his eyes and mouth soften.

“John's not a duppy.” The words just shot out, like they had a life of their own.

The softness must have been my imagination. Grandpa shook his head violently and glared at me, like,
What do you know?
Then he clapped twice, perfectly hitting that angry, loud spot between his hands.

I tried to make myself as tall as possible. “John's my friend,” I said.

Grandpa suddenly took quick, cold steps toward me and grabbed my arm. He looked right into my face, his eyes wide and dark, and pulled me farther into his room.

I gave a strange yelp and yanked my arm back, my breath ragged. “He's my friend,” I repeated, louder.

Then I turned and ran.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

THE
next day, the clouds split open and rain poured down. It was one of those all-day kinds of rains, the kind that sinks into everything, good and deep. I couldn't mow the lawn like I was supposed to on account of the rain, and I didn't want to be stuck inside thinking about Grandpa on the other side of my wall, so I slipped on my shoes and headed outside.

I had decided not to say anything to my parents about how Grandpa had grabbed me. They'd probably scold me for going into his room. And they would be right: What was I thinking? Grandpa clearly didn't want to have anything to do with me. He never had.

I felt better as I walked down our long, gravel driveway and deeper into the countryside and the soft fall of rain. The raindrops were warm and nice and fat, the kind that splatter when they hit your skin. Dad says that rain walks water your soul, just like the rain waters the plants and the rivers. Although Mom shakes her head when he says that, she always has towels by the kitchen door for me when I return.

It's something special to go to the cliff when it rains. My circle of stones sits there, quiet and patient and dark-dripping, and the boulder, like an ancient friend, watches the clouds crossing the horizon. Sometimes, if you look hard enough and long enough, you can watch the grasses turn from brittle brown to green, right in front of your eyes. And my buried pebbles—well, it's just nice to think that they're being watered too and that they're turning into dirt again, drop by drop.

As I made my way along the wet road, toward the cliff, my mind wandered back to John. Eugene. Maybe, just maybe, by giving himself another name, John was attracting the attention of a duppy and didn't realize it. Just like Grandpa attracted a duppy for Bird. Just like there was maybe a duppy in our house. My pulse started racing thinking about all that.

I bent down to pick up some pieces of gravel from the road so I could bury those worries at the cliff when I spied a deer path cutting through the grasses. It was a faint, fresh path that the deer made last night. Before I knew it, I was trudging along, excited. Maybe I would see a deer nest, I thought. Finding sleeping animals brings good luck. That's what Dad says. It wouldn't take more than a moment or two, and right now a little luck wouldn't hurt.

The long grasses were bent slightly where the deer had walked, and I stepped on the slippery path as carefully and quietly as I could, my eyes open and ears straining as if I were a deer myself. Rain dripped from the sky and turned the horizon into a soft, gray mist. The path turned a curve before widening, revealing a small pond.

My breath caught when I saw Grandpa.

He was sitting by the pond in the full fall of the rain, using a mossy tree trunk for his bench. His head hung heavily in his hands, his back slumped and sorrowful.

My insides twisted inside me. I thought he was in his room. But by the looks of how his clothes clung to him, he'd been out here for a while. And he looked so openly sad, the way people do when they think they're alone. Like he'd been coming this way for a long, long time.

Hot shame swept over me. John was right: We just always
thought
he stayed in his room. And that he liked it. But obviously we didn't know Grandpa that well at all. He didn't look like the Grandpa I knew either, the Grandpa who throws rice and storms about the house and frowns awful and deep. How could he have all these knots of anger and sadness inside him?

I don't know how long I stood there staring at him, as if he were a painting, or a dream. A red-winged blackbird shrilled at me in a nearby bush, jolting me out of my daze. As silently as possible, I backtracked to the road.

I stayed outside for a long time collecting cattails in the ditches, until the twisting sensation inside me relaxed and the darkening sky started thundering on the horizon. Only then did I walk home with my squishing shoes, feeling quieter, my soul watered and growing. Grandpa's shoes were by the front entrance, but his bedroom door was closed; I wondered when he'd gotten back and if he felt better. The floor was dry, so he'd either returned a while ago or mopped up well. I was curious what he was doing in his room. Sleeping, or maybe listening to more music.

When I got to my bedroom, I was startled to find headphones and Grandpa's cassette tape player with a cassette inside it. On my bed.

For me.

It was reggae music, but to me it was a portal into another world. Slow rhythms popped heavy like heartbeats and settled into my blood. I listened to the whole first side of that unmarked cassette straight through. This is what Grandpa listens to, I thought as I lay on my bed, my feet bopping back and forth.

It was amazing.

And he shared it with me. I didn't get it. One moment he was smoldering with anger, the next he was sad and lonely by the pond, and the next he was letting me listen to his music. I never really thought of Grandpa as someone who had
feelings
—with him being all silent, I just thought his heart was silent too. But I guess I was wrong.

As I was sitting on my bed, I held Grandpa's old cassette tape player on my lap, and it felt like an invisible door was being slowly carved into our shared wall. And that made me feel pretty special.

I listened to the cassette as long as I could before I realized I was late to see Mrs. Rodriguez. I ran to my bike and wheeled over to her house, which was a ways down the road, in town. It was one of my days to visit her and pick up a tub of her salsa, which she always has waiting for me in the refrigerator. On the afternoons that I go, I think I'm supposed to keep her company, but I don't really know what to do. Even though she's old, she can take care of herself just fine. The dishes in her cupboard shake when she walks by, her footsteps are so solid.

Those same solid footsteps sounded when I rang her doorbell. The door opened, and a cool breeze from her air conditioner tickled my skin. Mrs. Rodriguez smiled broadly when she saw me, and her long, gray-streaked hair was pulled back nice and neat from her face. She was pretty, for an old lady.

Mrs. Rodriguez clucked and kissed me on the cheek, then pulled me into her house, an oasis from the summer heat. She was already heading to the kitchen, where the salsa was waiting. Sometimes she adds
arrachera
or chicken mole if she has any extra.

The smells in her house made me hungry, as usual. Her
molcajete
sat on the kitchen counter, its rough stone edges still wet with bits of tomato and onions and garlic, which had just been pounded by hand into salsa. I was salivating. I couldn't help it. The only time Mom uses our
molcajete
is to prop open the screen door.

Mrs. Rodriguez was still chatting at me in Spanish like a squirrel as she bustled about, grabbing plastic bags for me to carry the food home. I smiled blankly at her, trying to push down my discomfort. I mean, she knows I don't understand a word she's saying. Maybe she's hoping that if she talks at me long enough, one day the switch in my brain will flip on and I'll respond with smooth, perfect Spanish. Or maybe she's lonely and she needs to talk to someone.

Mrs. Rodriguez piled up the plastic tubs of food with a flourish, almost like a magician: Today it was cactus salad,
tinga
, and salsa. I nodded appreciatively as the tubs disappeared into the doubled plastic bags, which she then handed to me.

“
Gracias
, Señora Rodriguez,” I said, with an overly wide smile that I hoped distracted her from my awful pronunciation.

She gave me her usual hug, tight and soft. Then she turned to the staircase and bellowed. I jumped back a little, surprised. Mrs. Rodriguez held my hand.
Stay here.

A young woman stepped down the stairs, her hair long and flowing and beautiful. The curve of her nose was exactly the same as Mrs. Rodriguez's.

“Miriam!” I cried out, and ran into her arms.

Miriam was Mrs. Rodriguez's granddaughter and had gone to college last year. She used to babysit me all the time; after she left, my parents decided I was old enough to stay at home by myself. I missed Miriam something fierce, with the way we'd make
sopes
and
gorditas
out of Play-Doh and pretend to eat them or serve them to each other.

Miriam laughed as she swung me around. “What a surprise, Jewel,” she said, smiling. Her gold drop earrings dangled elegantly. “Abuelita didn't tell me you'd be here today.”

I got shy all of a sudden. “Today's a food day,” I said.

Miriam nodded. “Of course it is! You always come like clockwork for Grandma's food.”

“It's really good,” I said, blushing.

Miriam laughed. “Oh, we know that. You always come back for more, right?” Miriam said something in a flurry of Spanish to Mrs. Rodriguez, who laughed too, and their mouths smiled in the same way. Maybe it's because of the familiar aromas or how Mrs. Rodriguez looks like Mom, a little, in that moment I feel like I belong here with them. Then that moment dissolves away and there are more parts of me that feel like I don't.

It's like at school. I used to sit with Daniella and Silvia at lunch, and they were nice and all, but when they got excited or wanted to say something in secret, they just switched to Spanish. Sometimes they mixed Spanish into their English and didn't even realize it, like how you don't realize you're breathing. Then I would just wait, letting the sounds roll over me, ungraspable. When the girls burst out laughing, sometimes I laughed too, which made them laugh harder.

But Miriam wouldn't laugh at me. Maybe that's why I said, before I could even stop myself, “Have you ever heard of Xolo dogs?”

Mrs. Rodriguez jerked her head back a little bit. Miriam shot a look at Mrs. Rodriguez and then said, “Yes, Jewel. I have. Why?”

The plastic bag suddenly felt heavy in my hands. I looked down and stared at the pile of shoes by the doorway.