Draft

 

{ Will be finished soon. Check back here for the updated version }

One day two Irish men were digging in a ditch / One called the other an Irish son of a / Peter Murphy had a goat, a wiser goat was he / Along came a bumblebee and stung him on his cock / tail gingerale, five cents a glass / If you don’t like it shove it up your as / k me no questions, tell me no lies / If you get hit with a bag of / it just close your eyes.

- Warren Barnes, great grandfather of Kayla Mae

The yard was lush with grass, delicate against Kayla’s olive-brown skin. Rays of sun shone through the trees in Fred’s front yard, reflecting off the pallid water in a stone birdbath, making steamy waves in the air. Fred was laying on the grass, admiring Kayla’s smile as she laughed at something he said, her head burrowed warmly against his well-muscled arm.
 

It must have been at least one hundred degrees, but the humidity didn’t bother him, and it didn’t seem to bother Kayla either. The weather channel has been reporting record highs all week. There hasn’t been a hotter day in the danity town of Birch Falls since June of 1943. This was good news for Fred, who appreciates quiet, relaxing drives to the beach on weekdays after work. He’s always busy on Fridays - that was the day Tom put aside for band practice and meetings. Saturday and Sunday nights were for playing gigs at local clubs. Because of this new whacked-out schedule, Fred’s alone time with Kayla was very short and limited. Working out at the gym on the first floor of his apartment building took up the first few hours of his mornings, and work took up the rest of the day. His shift at Scrappe ends at four o’clock, giving him two hours of retreating daylight to drive down to the shore with the windows of his beat-up Chevrolet rolled down, the cool evening breeze smacking his hair across his sunglasses.
 

“I’m glad you came by the house, Freddie.” Kayla said. “I miss you.”
 

Fred looked down, his eyes glancing over her red tube top, and said, “I miss you too. It’s been hard finding a way over here - Tom’s been booking gigs left-and-right and Holly has been having me close the shop for two weeks straight!”
 

Kayla stopped smiling and said, “I could close the shop for you, Freddie. I don’t mind it. I’m there late enough anyway. I wait around the back room until ten o’clock so Tom and I can get dinner.”
 

Fred shook his head. “No, no. I can close the shop, that’s not a problem. It just takes up a lot of time since the place stops serving customers at eight but stays alight until nine-thirty. How late does Tom work?” Fred’s arm tightened around Kayla. He felt her breasts press against his side and smiled.
 

“Oh, it depends on the day. He locks the doors at nine o’clock and then goes through all the buckets of film to make sure everything is in the right place. He tidies up and sweeps the floor of the back room: stuff like that. He doesn’t make it to Scrappe until after ten. We go for dinner and end up here. He doesn't leave until after midnight. I ask him to stay, but he often doesn’t.”
 

“I don’t know how he could decline such an offer, pretty lady.”

 

Kayla laughed at this, and Fred couldn’t help but wonder what Kayla and Tom’s relationship was really like. On the outside, they seemed to be the perfect couple. But, knowing Kayla for as long as he has, her relationship with Tom could be in the gutter and she wouldn’t say a word about it. Fred thought he could read Kayla pretty well, though, so he wasn’t concerned about the later thought. If something was wrong, he was sure he could catch something in her voice or smell it on her. Their relationship was weird like that. Fred could always sense when something wasn’t right.

 

“Fred,” that was Kayla, speaking in nothing more than a whisper above the highly anticipated gust of wind that rattled the grass around them, dancing gently over their skin and cooling the sweat on his brow.


There was something in her voice that made Fred uneasy.


Later, he would remember this moment. He’d think about it in his dreams: the way her hair felt on his arm, the brilliant flame in her amber eyes, the way her bottom lip twitched between words.

Murder Bird

{ 1987 }

 

Kayla awoke to the sound of a motor running. The waking was gradual; at first the sound was there at the back of her consciousness as part of a dream, and then it seemed to grow louder and louder so that the dream itself was lost in a roar. Then she became aware of the fact that she was in bed and that the sound was not within her head at all but from someplace outside of herself.

She opened her eyes to find the room flooded with morning sunlight. Below her bedroom window the caretaker was cutting the grass with a power mower.

I slept, Kayla thought in amazement. How could I have slept so hard when Tom--

Just the thought of his name brought her to a sitting position. The KISS alarm clock on the bedside table showed ten-fifteen.

Why, the morning’s half over, Kayla thought incredulously. I’ve been asleep for over six hours!

It had been three in the morning when Tom had decided to leave. Tom’s mother, who had been seated in a chair opposite the front door, had sprung to her feet when Tom came rushing down the stairs, a leather handbag thudding against his legs.

“Hurry now, Tommy. It’s late.” Mrs. Keifer told him wearily.

“Please don’t go with her. Tom!” Kayla put out a hand to steady herself against the back of the couch. “Don’t believe a word she says about me! You know me better than that, Tom! Please, you can’t go with her. You can go tomorrow if you still don’t believe me.”

Mrs. Keifer and Tom had crossed to the foyer. Mrs. Keifer’s face was white and drawn, and for the first time since she had met her, Kayla thought the woman looked old.

“That’s it? You’re going home?” Kayla asked. “After everything we’ve been through?”

“Yes. Tommy is exhausted. He’s been putting up with you for far too long and he’s finally had enough. You’ve manipulated him enough, and you’ve embarrassed him enough.” She turned to Fred, who had risen to stand at Kayla’s side. “This is all your fault. Tom wouldn’t have wasted his time with this girl if you had just--”

“Of course,” Fred said, cutting her off before she could even point a finger in his direction. “I let everyone down.” There was a spark in his eye that made Mrs. Keifer huff and turn her back. She opened the door, gestured to Tom for him to follow, and then they were gone.

“I won’t be able to sleep,” Kayla said, watching Tom through the window as he got into his car. “I don’t think I’ll ever sleep again.”

But she had. The golden light of midmorning proved that. She had slept so hard that her body ached from having been so long in one position, and when she got out of bed her legs felt rubbery, as though they might give way at any moment.

The events of the night before rose in her mind with the odd, unfocused quality of a nightmare - the argument at The Empire, the drive home, the cold, sharp hatred in the eyes of Tom’s mother, who was waiting for them on the front porch.

“If she hadn’t been messing around with Fred,” she had cried. “If she hadn’t insisted on dragging out this affair--”

“But I didn’t!” Kayla had told her. “I didn’t!”

Mrs. Keifer had not heard her, or she had heard but not listened.

“I’m not blaming you any more than I’m blaming Fred.” Mrs. Keifer had said, but in fact she was blaming Kayla.

“I didn’t,” Kayla said aloud now, her voice coming strange in the empty apartment. “I didn’t have an affair. I have never even had the smallest feelings for Fred. I’ve never touched him! I’m a good girl.”

Why was Mrs. Keifer making up these lies? How could Tom believe any of them?

There was a rap at the door. Kayla snapped out of her reverie with a jolt.

“Who is it?”

“Freddie. Just checking to see how you got through the night.”

“Wait a minute, will you? I’m just getting up.” Hurriedly, Kayla went to the closet and got a robe. A glance in the mirror as she passed it caused her to stop to comb her hair. Fred might only be a friend, but he was, after all, a male friend that Kayla didn’t want to totally disgust.

The fact was reflected in his eyes when she opened the door to him.

“I was going to ask if you slept,” he said. “I thought you’d be haggard and baggy-eyed. I sure thought wrong.”

“I did sleep,” Kayla told him with a touch of apology in her voice. “I don’t know how I could, but I did. I’m just going to make breakfast. Would you like some?”

“I’ve already eaten, thanks. I’m on my way out to work. Have you called Tom yet?”

“No. He wouldn’t answer if I tried.”

“You’re probably right.” He hooked his thumbs into his pants pockets. “Maybe you could show up at the house.”

“I’m sure that Mrs. Keifer isn’t permitting visitors.”

“Okay, okay.” He reached out and gave her chin a tap. “Keep it up. Enjoy your breakfast. I’ll see you after work.”

He was off, and Kayla pushed the door shut behind him. It clicked in place and she turned to walk away from it - then, slowly, she turned back and slid the bolt.

She went back into the bedroom. The sound of the lawn mower was dimmer now; the caretaker had moved a yard across the way. The sunlight had shifted slightly, and shafts of gold fell across the rumpled bed and reached over to touch the alarm clock on the dresser, Tom’s picture reigned supreme, surrounded by a jar of cold cream, a tube of lipstick, a pallet of eye-shadow.

Statuesque

“Kayla! Kayla, Tom’s here!” Ren’s voice floated up from downstairs.

“I’ll be down in just a minute! Tell him to wait!” In the room at the end of the hall, Kayla began hurriedly to take down her curlers.

Sprawled out on Kayla’s bed, Fred regarded her with amusement.

“Tell him to wait? You know he’s going to wait with Ren down there. She’ll be flirting with him.”

“If that’s so,” Kayla said wryly, “I’ll never have him come to the door to pick me up ever again. Ren acts like Tom’s heaven’s gift to the earth.”

“I know someone else who acts the same way,” Fred said teasingly.

“Don’t be an asshole, Freddie.”

“When you wake up at six o’clock on Sunday morning to wash and set your hair before going to the beach, I’d say that’s a sign of something.”

Kayla shot her friend an irritated glance and dumped a handful of clips into the tray on the dressing table. The frustrating thing was that Fred, as usual, was right. It was ridiculous to take pains with your hair when you date was to go swimming. Still, here she was, taking down the curls, relieved to find them falling in the right direction, wondering if Tom would like her bangs curled forward over her forehead instead of pushed aside in the way he was used to.

You’re an idiot, Kayla Roman, she told herself helplessly, letting a man you hardly know turn you inside out like this. True, you’re not exactly a glamor girl, but with Ren’s lingerie show in a couple of weeks, you’ll be a model and that certainly counts for something. There will be plenty of nice-looking guys, parties, and dinners, and you’ll get asked to them. Why do you have to go all soft in the head about some skinny rocker who likes cheese pizza and has more jewelry than you.

She knew as she asked the question that she would have no answer for it, and she reached for a comb, smiling ruefully at her reflection in the mirror before her. From the moment she kissed Tom, sitting in his beat-up car at the curb in front of her house, the glow of the streetlights bright against his blue eyes, all the other men she had ever known had faded into nothing. It had taken her three days to carefully plan a phone call. It was the first time she had ever done such a thing, and she had worried that he might decide that she was too forward and never make any effort to go out with her at all.

The worry had been unnecessary, for he had turned up at Scrappe the same night. She had glanced up from the table she was clearing and had seen him there in the doorway, and relief had washed through her. It had taken her a moment to steady herself enough to cross the room to him and say lightly, “Tom, hello!”

“Hello, miss,” he had regarded her with mock seriousness. “I’m looking for a beautiful gal with big brown eyes and lovely blond hair. Has she been in here tonight?”

“Not that I’ve noticed,” Kayla told him happily. “but if you’ll sit down, I’ll bring you something to drink, and maybe we can wait for her together.”

They had sat over hot chocolate and talked that evening until Holly had finally told them that she had to lock the doors for the night.When she thought back on it, Kayla realized that it was she and not Tom who had done most of the talking. He had sat across from her, smiling and interested, asking questions, laughing at her stories, seeming fascinated by the antics of her and Fred. He had volunteered little, however, about his own background. Even now, after knowing him for a month, she knew only that he has lived in Birch Falls all his life and he lives with his younger sister; Georgine was her name.

Still, she thought reasonably, it wasn’t as though they had spent a lot of time alone together where confidences would come out easily. Their working hours did not coincide. The only time they really had to date was on weekdays after work. Tom had gigs on the weekends with his band and Kayla had fittings with Ren at her lingerie shop on Jackson Street, which happened to be across the street and seven shops down from The Galaxy, a club that Tom played every Sunday night.

Giving the curls a final pat and glancing around for a T-shirt to pull over her bikini, Kayla had a feeling that it was going to be a good night.

“See you later,” she said briskly to Fred.