Page 20 of Hot Tea & Bird Calls
“Boob...” Celene peeked over her shoulder, and when she looked back, her smirk caught Skye off guard enough to tip in a backwards sway. Skye’s butt thumped her bike and an angel must’ve saved it from falling, lest it’d hit Celene’s nice car. “Does anyone still call it that?”
“Rarely, I’d guess.” She searched the clouds, drawing from her memory bank and not Celene’s gaze. “I don’t hang out with children. Maybe they came up with something new.”
After observing two robins rustling in the oak, Skye let her eyes fall back in place. Only to see Celene staring at the sky, too. The wind rocked her as she stretched her legs out, less fearsome than Skye anticipated.
“I’ll miss the wildness of your land.” Skye swept an arm to the mowed grass, devoid of bark shreds and clumps of wet leaves. “It was an interesting study, watching nature take it back.”
“I don’t care who takes it back once it’s sold.” Not a trace of fondness touched Celene’s lips. “This is a project. I’m here to make it less of a deathtrap eyesore, then it’s out of my hands.”
“Ah.” The ache of a definite timeline rippled through her. Maybe it was hunger. “After I graduated from college, I lived in New York for six years, then Philly for a few more, and by the time my granddad had his first stroke, Yielding was calling me.” Skye worked her throat, momentarily hoarse. “He’s gone now.”
“Sorry about your grandfather.”
“Thank you.”
“The lead in this novel is obsessed with cremation—she keeps a shrine of urns for all her dead pets. It’s macabre.” Celene tapped at her book’s spine, asking, “Do you think you’ll die here?”
In the earthly realm or something more spiritual? Skye kind of liked candid, unorthodox questions over the standard condolences. Assuming ‘here’ meant Yielding, she shrugged, thumbs hooking into the front of her jeans pockets. “Probably.”
Celene roamed from the hammock, plucking at splints protruding from the faded planks of the deck. If they could agree on one thing,thatneeded replacing.
And again, the conversation flatlined.
Luce would hate this behavior, taking how she’d taught the value of making someone feel welcome despite Skye’s quiet disposition. For a guest, Celene couldtry. “There—” Skye swallowed when she squeaked that out. “There are worse places. To die.”
“Like where?” Celene asked without facing Skye. She wore tighter yoga shorts today, and that was none of Skye’s business.
Meandering off the driveway, Skye rubbed her fingertips along the curled bark on a birch tree. “Out in the ocean. Trapped underground?—”
“On the side of the road at night?”
Skye couldn’t wrap her mind around Celene’s supposed humor. Or commentary. It ached a tad, for the words didn’t accompany a smile or softer tone. Clasping the labradorite marquise hot from her skin, she asked, “Do you even remember me?”
It wasn’t effortlessly conversational like her rehearsals. Still, it sufficed when Celene turned around, black hair fighting against the wind. She leaned onto the side of the deck and, in her precise, surprisingly supple voice, replied, “I know who you are, Skye. You were my favorite part of the summer.”
Suddenly, Skye wished they were discussing death again. Less heavy. “Oh. Nice.”
Oh? Nice?Thalia wouldn’t be satisfied with that segment of this story’s recap.
Though how could Skye declare, ‘you were my favorite, too’ without sounding...she had no idea. Celene could be straight. Or worse, be some flavor of not-straight and take that response as a come-on.
Skye needn’t stress too much longer since a phone woke up in a muffled buzz, stuck within the thick hammock material. Celene moved like she was annoyed already, digging it out of its hidingplace and answering, “I saw your text. How do you think you’d possibly help?”
Hovering in the nebulous space between wanting to stay and finding a break to announce her leave, Skye stood around. A ladybug flew onto the tree near her, trekking up the trunk as a little spot of red. Seven dots decorated her rounded back. So interesting, Skye pondered, how their aposematic coloration warded off predators and in turn, attracted her as a human, mother earth’s biggest opp.
“You’re more than welcome to leave.”
Shit.
Who knew how many minutes Skye watched the ladybug, trying to imagine the world from her eyes, before Celene chose to mute her phone, holding it to her chest. “Sorry, sure.”
“My sister doesn’t know the meaning of a brief chat. Did you need anything, or were you just being neighborly?” Celene threw a hasty hand toward one of her windows, mostly blinded shut. “The fuchsia’s alive.”
“I didn’t doubt that, but thanks.” Skye retreated to her bike. Tightness constricted her chest, and somehow, she knew it’d dissipate once she left. A shame—she’d shown up to clear the air. To walk down memory lane. Now, she tucked her proverbial tail between her legs, feeling like a child and reacting like one, too.
As Skye spun her bike in an unsteady pivot, Celene paced the bare patches of the grass, as impassive in skintight Nylon as she’d been in her skirt and heels.
Lovely to gaze upon; inscrutable otherwise. Like a river, streaming and constant, its depth unknown until one false move sweeps a woman into its rapids: deluged, adrenaline spiking, gasping for her life.
