Page 7 of Songbird: Black Kite
Everything was not fine.
Not since the men down at the paper mill had gone on strike. Dad said that it’s just a matter of time, that the big shots down at head office will pull their heads out of their asses any day now, and everyone will go back to work.
Mom didn't seem so sure, though. She had started searching the want ads after dinner, when Dad was watching TV so he wouldn’t notice.
She wasn’t looking for him, though; she was looking for herself.
I had been working extra hard to get more babysitting jobs whenever I could, but with most of the men in town on the picket lines, there wasn’t a lot of people heading out to dinner and a movie anymore.
I finished sketching the feather on the outside of the envelope before I tucked it safely inside my binder. I had planned to swing by the post office on my way to school; times may be tight, but I could come up with thirty-seven cents for a stamp, right?
Making my way to the kitchen, I snagged four plates from the cabinet and placed them on the table before turning to the utensil drawer and grabbing some forks.
Mom glanced over from where she stood, aggressively stirring the gravy, and frowned at me.
“What the hell is that on your arms?”
I glanced down, sighing when I saw what she was referring to.
“Just something I made,” I said, trying for casual and dismissive.
“Is that why you had me order those stupid stockings last month? I thought you were finally going to start dressing like a young lady, but I guess I should have known better.” Mom shook her head and her stirring got even more aggressive. “I am not throwing good money after bad around here just for you to turn the things I buy into trash!”
“It’s not trash, Mom. It’s the style.”
And I was fucking proud of what I’d made, too. I’d taken a three-dollar pair of black fishnet stockings and turned them into a badass pair of fingerless gloves. They looked wicked with my dark navy nail polish and the matching eyeliner I’d been practicing wearing.
Speaking of which, I finished setting the table and turned, trying to escape the kitchen but it was too late.
“And get that stuff off your face before your father comes home, young lady. I won’t have my daughter looking like some sort of tramp at the supper table.”
“Yes, Mom,” I moaned, returning to my room and removing my precious gloves. I’d worn them at school today, and I’d been so excited when I’d slipped them on at my locker. It hadn’t been long before Denise had sauntered by, arm in arm with her stupid jock boyfriend, Jason Mason.
Yeah, that was his actual name. Even his parents were dumb.
“Oh, my god, Jason. Look,” she had said dramatically, the gaggle of Denise wannabees behind her all stopping to stare. “Wren forgot how to wear her clothes properly.” The girls all tittered at her joke, and Denise preened under their approval. Denise would never be caught dead wearing the same things as I did. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d seen her in anything other than a short skirt and the latest pair of Steve Madden shoes. I guessed the dress code regulations only applied to us peasants.
“Wren, sweetie. Stockings go on your legs, not your arms.” She paused for effect before continuing. “I mean, if you even have legs buried somewhere under all that awful denim.”
Before I could respond, the whole gang of them wandered off to torment the next kid who dared to be different.
Denise and I had been friends once, before we were old enough to realize that she was rich and I was poor. Before we learned that her daddy owned the mill while my daddy just worked there.
Once we figured that out, I went from being her friend to her target, and it had never changed.
After I had placed my gloves carefully in the bottom of my sock drawer—just in case they shouldaccidentallydisappear on the next laundry day—I washed my face and headed back downstairs just in time for Dad to walk in the door.
Things had been different with him lately, too. He’d always worked long hours, but since the strike started, he’d been more and more angry when he’d come home. He’d sit at the table and complain about howMcQueen Pulp and Paper Millwas screwing them all over. How they were taking all the profits, draining the pension fund, and cutting benefits.
I didn’t really understand it, but I did know that mom had started telling my sister Jasmine not to use her inhaler unless she absolutely had to.
Just in case.
“McQueen has really done it this time, Mary,” Dad burst out the second we’d finished saying grace. “He’s bringing in fucking scabs.”
“Tom,” Mom admonished, glancing at me and Jasmine, as though we were sweet innocents who had never heard a cuss word before in our lives.
“It’s disgusting,” he went on as if she hadn’t spoken, and I watched her shoulders hunch over a bit, her eyes going to her plate. “It’s about time the people in this town showed him we are not to be taken lightly. I was talking to a few of the guys down on the line, and they agree. It’s time to step things up. Time to show them we mean business.”
