Birdie and Me

  FOR MY PARENTS—ALL FOUR OF THEM

  KATHY DAWSON BOOKS

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, New York

  Text copyright © 2020 by J. M. M. Nuanez

  Illustrations copyright © 2020 by Jessica Jenkins

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  Visit us online at penguinrandomhouse.com

  Ebook ISBN 9780399186790

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Nuanez, J. M. M., author. | Birdie and me / J. M. M. Nuanez.

  Description: New York : Kathy Dawson Books, [2020] | Summary: “Ever since their free-spirited mama died ten months ago, twelve-year-old Jack and her gender creative nine-year-old brother, Birdie, have been living with their fun-loving uncle Carl, but now their conservative uncle Patrick insists on being their guardian, which forces all four of them to confront grief, prejudice, and loss, all while exploring what ‘home’ really means”—Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2019020270 (print) | LCCN 2019022239 (ebook) ISBN 9780399186776 (hardcover)

  Subjects: CYAC: Brothers and sisters—Fiction. | Loss (Psychology)—Fiction. | Sex role—Fiction. | Uncles—Fiction. | Home—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.N7 Bi 2020 (print) | LCC PZ7.1.N7 (ebook) | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

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  CONTENTS

  TITLE PAGE

  DEDICATION

  COPYRIGHT

  1 HOW TO MOVE AGAIN

  2 DINNER WITH A CLAM

  3 THE TORNADO

  4 THE LONG WAY TO TOWN

  5 LOOKING OUT

  6 A DOG WITH SNEAKERS

  7 SHOPPING WITH PATRICK

  8 THE PROPOSAL

  9 SUSPENSION

  10 WHEN TO USE THE MICROBLASTER

  11 GIFTS

  12 CRACKS IN THE ICE

  13 A DRASTIC THING

  14 ISLANDS ON THE LAKE

  15 PICKING UP THE PIECES

  16 AN ENIGMA

  17 ONE ISLAND NEXT TO ANOTHER

  18 A SMALL WOODEN THING

  19 BRIGHT SPOTS IN THE DARK

  20 WHAT HOPE LOOKS LIKE

  EPILOGUE JOURNAL ENTRY NO. 1, DECEMBER 13

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER 1

  HOW TO MOVE AGAIN

  Today is Saturday, the day we usually eat Honey Bunny Buns for breakfast and read the back page of the newspaper with Uncle Carl while he drinks coffee and smokes on the porch. The back page is the section of the newspaper that has weird news about things like two-headed llamas or people who get themselves stuck in air-conditioning vents or pets that are accidentally sent through the mail and survive.

  But today isn’t just Saturday. It’s also moving day. And right now my little brother, Birdie, is on the couch waiting for me to open my eyes. I pretend to sleep, but even in the half-light, through squinted eyelids, I can see he’s got Mama’s old purple eye shadow on and a towel draped around his head like a glamorous headscarf.

  “Jack,” Birdie whispers. “Miss Jackie Jack Jacko.”

  “I’m sleeping. You should too,” I say.

  “I can’t sleep any more.”

  He creeps across the couch, down to my futon, and lays his head next to mine. The smell of Dr Pepper lip gloss fills the air. In my ear he says, “I’ve got a stomachache and it’s probably critical. I don’t think we can move today.”

  I open one eye. “Critical?”

  Birdie leans toward me and whispers, “Critical is the worst stage.”

  “You’re not critical,” I say, sitting up.

  “Okay,” he says, “but I do have a stomachache.”

  I peek out the dusty blinds. Patrick will be here to pick us up in two hours. “I do too, Birdie.”

  Birdie straightens his towel scarf and rewraps it under his chin and says, “Do I look like Audrey Hepburn? With my scarf?”

  “Who?”

  “Audrey Hepburn. You know. Charade. Breakfast at Tiffany’s. My Fair Lady.”

  I wait for him to say something about Mama and her obsession with these old movies, but he doesn’t.

  “You’d look more like Audrey Hepburn if you had sunglasses,” I say. “But it’s not bad.”

  He smiles a little, but unwraps the scarf and drapes it over his head like a lampshade. Then he takes a fashion magazine from the coffee table and opens it on his lap. “Maybe we should go to the library today,” he says.

  I don’t say anything because even though he might pretend that today will be like any other day living with Uncle Carl, I see that he’s already packed his backpack and two duffel bags. Birdie’s only nine, but he knows there’s nothing we can do about this move. Uncle Carl messed up too many times and now we have to move in with our other uncle, Patrick.

  * * *

  • • •

  Two hours later, Uncle Carl comes out of his room in his shiny gold boxing robe. He salutes us, and then leaves the apartment with his empty coffee mug. His first cup of the day is always the free coffee from Juan at the Stop-and-Go down the street. He told us that him and Juan have an understanding. I don’t know what exactly they understand, but as long as Uncle Carl brings his own mug, he comes back with free, steaming-hot coffee.

  Birdie puts one magazine down and picks up another.

  I try writing in my observation notebook, but my pen doesn’t write anything except a giant question mark with a lopsided circle as its dot, which I color in until my pen starts to run out of ink.

  I make a second piece of toast because Mama used to say that toast was good for stomachaches and other ailments like sadness and nervousness and writer’s block. But after eating it, my stomach drops when I see Patrick’s truck pull up.

  Birdie must hear the engine, because he looks up from his magazine and says, “But Uncle Carl isn’t back from the Stop-and-Go yet.”

  “I think I see him now,” I say.

  Uncle Carl and Patrick meet on the sidewalk and stare at each other, and for just a moment, it’s like Uncle Carl is standing in front of a mirror: the same white skin, same wavy gray hair, same bushy mustache, and same lanky frame.

  But the mirror image isn’t wearing a gold boxing robe, sweats, and worn-out leather huarache sandals.

  Instead, Patrick’s wearing what he always wears: an old Chevy baseball hat pulled low, a tucked-in plaid shirt (rolled to the elbows, arms crossed in front), jeans, belt, and work boots.

  “Are they ready?” I hear Patrick ask Uncle Carl.

  “Of course they’re ready.” Uncle Carl starts up the stairs. “You going to come up? Or should I send them down so you don’t have to step foot in my apartment? Wouldn’t want you to break your—what—almost yearlong streak?”

  Patrick watches Uncle Carl climb the stairs to the second-story apartment, his hands now on the hips of his belt.

  When Uncle Carl blunders in, I start holding my breath.

  B
irdie and me stand up from the couch and go behind the coffee table, which holds Marlboro, Uncle Carl’s two-foot-long taxidermied bearded dragon. Birdie is still kind of freaked out by her glassy real-looking eyes and her spiky skin, which Uncle Carl insists is second to no animal’s in radiance and beauty. I keep thinking that Birdie will be less afraid of the giant lizard now that she isn’t alive, but that doesn’t seem to be the case.

  It’s ten heartbeats before Patrick shows up in the doorway.

  Birdie and me stay behind Marlboro.

  “They’re ready,” says Uncle Carl, after taking a long drink of coffee by the kitchen counter. “All packed just like you asked.”

  We haven’t been in Patrick’s truck since that seven-hour drive almost ten months ago from our home in Portland, Oregon, to here in Moser, California (aka a small town in the middle of Nowhere, Northern California).

  Patrick gathers up our bags that are piled by the door. He looks at Birdie in his yellow shirt that has polka-dot strawberries all over it and his rainbow sneakers. At least his leggings are just plain black and the purple eye shadow has mostly rubbed off. He cradles his favorite purple jacket like a stuffed animal. Patrick won’t stop staring.

  Then he silently goes out to his truck with our bags. Uncle Carl turns toward us.

  “Phew. Okay. I have some parting gifts even though I fully expect to see you tomorrow. I know it’s a bit of a walk from Patrick’s, but I promise a sundae from the Fry Shack or something better if you come visit me.”

  “We’re going to visit you,” I say. “You don’t need to use bribery.”

  “Okay, but I have to make a grand gesture so I don’t cry. Now here, just take them.”

  The big paper bag in his hands is full of individually wrapped Honey Bunny Buns, the mini cinnamon buns they sell down at the Stop-and-Go for fifty cents each.

  Before we can thank him, he puts a hand on each of our shoulders and says, “Now, look. I should have paid better attention to your schoolwork and your teachers, but how was I to know there are truancy laws, right? And I didn’t mean those things I said about your teacher, okay, Mr. Bird? You know I was just really broken up about Marlboro.” He stands up straight and rubs the back of his neck and looks away. “All I’m saying is, things are going to be different for you at Patrick’s. That goat has lived alone for thirty years, so who knows what he’s going to think of living with two kids. But just because you live with him now doesn’t mean you can’t come to me if you need anything.”

  He takes a deep breath and I think he’s going to continue his speech, but he doesn’t. Then all of a sudden he’s ushering us downstairs to the truck, where Patrick sits in the driver’s seat with the passenger door open. The engine roars to life.

  We don’t hug Uncle Carl. We don’t even say goodbye. After climbing in and clicking our seat belts and closing the door, I roll down the window. The truck pulls away from the curb as Uncle Carl says, “I’ll see you guys later.” He watches us go, sipping his coffee the entire time so that the mug covers his face.

  * * *

  • • •

  A week after Mama died, Patrick showed up at Mrs. Spater’s, who we’d known our whole lives because we rented the unit next to hers. She owned the duplex, but she was also our friend. And even though she’s eighty-two years old, there was no question that she’d look after us until family showed up.

  It was the first time I’d ever seen Patrick. Somehow he looked too old to be Mama’s brother. Mama had never talked about him and I never saw any family photos with him. She had three pictures of Uncle Carl, but she didn’t keep them on display like she did with ones of us or her friends.

  We’d actually met Uncle Carl four years before when him and his then-girlfriend rode up to Oregon on his motorcycle. Mama was not expecting to see him. He gave us all big hugs and gummy bears and two Honey Bunny Buns each, even Mama. I don’t remember his girlfriend’s name, but she didn’t have a full right leg. The part below the knee was prosthetic and we could see how it connected with her real leg since her leather skirt was so short. Her entire thigh was covered by a tattoo of a giant red lobster, which seemed to glow against her light skin. The next morning Uncle Carl gave me a short ride around the block on his motorcycle and I remember thinking how lucky his girlfriend was to ride it all day long. Mama wouldn’t let Birdie ride, though, since he was so small.

  So anyway, Birdie and me were sitting quietly like Mrs. Spater told us to when she answered the door.

  “I’m Patrick. Beth’s brother.” Patrick’s voice was a quiet mountain rumble. At first, I couldn’t think who Beth was exactly—I didn’t make the connection to Mama. “You and your brother are going to come with me,” he told us when he came inside. He seemed sad, but I didn’t see him cry.

  Instead of hugs and Honey Bunny Buns, Patrick just looked at us until Mrs. Spater directed him to our bags.

  It was almost like he’d come to pick up a family heirloom or a piece of expensive equipment—something serious and important, but not something real. Not his actual niece and nephew.

  Right then I had an urge to write that down in my observation notebook. My notebook was in a little bag slung across my back, but I didn’t move.

  I asked Patrick where Uncle Carl was and he said that we’d see him soon enough. He looked at our stuff and I was afraid that he’d say that we’d have to leave some behind even though he’d said we could bring three bags each. Uncle Carl didn’t have much room, he’d told Mrs. Spater over the phone.

  At first, I couldn’t believe we actually had to leave it all. But then she’d said her daughter was coming to help her pack everything else up. She’d take care of our things. We shouldn’t worry about it now. And then she gave me some of her lemon pound cake and all I wanted was to go back to a time when Mama was there to say, “This cake is so good I hereby request a bed-sized piece so I can sleep in it.”

  But Patrick didn’t say anything about our bags. He picked them up without a word and went outside. We followed him and got into the truck. Mrs. Spater asked him if he was sure he didn’t want anything from Mama’s house. But Patrick put up a hand and shook his head. “No, thank you,” he said in his mountain voice.

  Mrs. Spater looked at Patrick through the truck’s passenger window. “You take good care of these kids, Mr. Royland. And I’ll make sure to take care of the rest.” She pursed her lips and I know she was trying to keep from crying. “Goodbye, you two. Be good for your uncles. I know you will be.” And then she took a step back. “I’ll miss you.”

  I don’t remember what I said because I couldn’t decide what to say. I hadn’t thought about it at all. “I’ll miss you too” didn’t seem to make sense. We would more than miss her. I think Birdie said her name just as the truck began backing away.

  Mrs. Spater waved from her porch, her old cocker spaniel, Colin, staring at us through the window. With her other hand, she covered her mouth, so that only her eyes could be seen.

  I grabbed Birdie’s hand, each of his fingers with chipped turquoise nail polish, and squeezed it again and again, like a beating heart, the whole ride to California.

  * * *

  • • •

  I try not to watch Uncle Carl in the rearview mirror because I hate my last memory of Mrs. Spater and Colin and their sad faces shrinking down to nothing as we drove away.

  I tell myself that it doesn’t matter. I’ll see him soon. We’re only moving a mile or so out of town.

  Patrick doesn’t say a word and only once looks over at us when Birdie’s feet start fidgeting, which is one of his many nervous habits.

  I swear I see Patrick’s mustache sag into a frown.

  After a minute, we get onto the highway and pass a big gray-and-black bus going the other way.

  I know bus number 331 goes from here all the way to Portland, Oregon. I know that bus fare is twenty-six dollars for minors and thirty-tw
o dollars for adults. I’ve known this information since our second day with Uncle Carl when Birdie and me went to the library for the first time. But that was the same afternoon that Uncle Carl bought us our first Fry Shack ice cream sundaes and I forgot about the bus for a while after that.

  “When going to and from town,” Patrick suddenly says, “try not to walk along the highway. It’s too dangerous. There’s no safe place to walk. There’s another route I can show you.” He turns down a small road and points to a dirt path. “It takes a little longer, but it starts near my street and ends close to the elementary school.”

  He turns the truck around and goes back to the highway, only to turn off onto another road less than thirty seconds later. We drive past a few houses until we come to one that has a chain-link fence and hedge around it. The gate is open and we drive through and stop in front of a small garage attached to an old house.

  Patrick shuts off the engine. “Well, okay then.”

  He gets out and grabs our bags and heads to the front door.

  Patrick lives in a shoebox. At least that’s what it looks like to me, a giant shoebox with a few squares and rectangles cut out for doors and windows. The roof looks almost completely flat, like someone ran out of building materials.

  Birdie looks at me and I just shrug.

  Inside, we follow Patrick up a staircase without a word. He opens two bedroom doors, puts our bags down, and then opens the door to a bathroom. He doesn’t open the curtains, so everything is in shadow even though it’s almost ten o’clock in the morning and the sun is shining outside. Patrick walks back to the staircase and stops. A dog barks.

  “That’s Duke. He’s harmless.” Patrick’s baseball hat is pulled low, so low I can’t see his eyes. He rubs the back of his neck like Uncle Carl does. “I need to go back to work for a few hours. There’s some eggs and cheese in the fridge. Peanut butter and tuna and other things on the shelf. Carl says you know how to use the stove all right.”

  I nod.