“It’s not the same thing!” My mom had her Irish up now. “You are so tiresome!” Nell and I counted backward:five, four, three, two, one... for what we knew would come... Right on cue, my mother said, “And I’m not fat.”
We knew better than to get between them at times like these. They would turn on us like jackals, shouting, in unison, “We are not fighting!”
Meekly, Nell and I went our own ways. I headed back toward my old room, carrying a warmed-up cup of atomic coffee I had tried to tame with half a cup of cream, to muse on all the pieces of this narrative that did not fit.
At the turn of the landing, I looked down the hill of our block, the orderly descent of neatly lighted facades. How many of them were hiding something? Were the people who did not bring shame on themselves the exception?
According to everything I could discern from the police file, which had a lot of inconsistent information, Felicity had been nineteen years old, a sophomore, when she dropped out. The year wasn’t even over, which only sharpened the mystery. She gave up pursuing one kind of wildlife to pursue another kind—all that, and she hadn’t even been old enough to drink.
My radio reporter friend Sally Zankow had slipped me the name of the so-called gentleman’s club where Felicity might have met the men she was accused of killing. When Sally went there, the manager turned her down flat, as had the strippers she tried to enlist for interviews. But maybe I could in fact do something like what my mother did. Maybe I could learn about the world that Felicity entered—how many years ago? Two years? More?—from the inside. I wouldn’t have to work there very long, and every place needs a licensed bartender.
I had to keep digging. I needed to follow the thread to the past, and to those people who knew about her present life. I’d only begun to source this thing, and it would have been exciting—finally, a story that would demand all my skills, with all kinds of twists and dark corners!—if it hadn’t been so close to my own heart. All I could do was all I could do. I would use all the persistence and courage and style I had, and that would be enough. But what if I pulled the thread and pulled it and it led to a terrible truth? What if my own, my beloved Felicity, really had committed these crimes, for money? What if she had committed these crimes for a more righteous reason, a reason like self-defense... that only she knew? Even as I considered it, I knew that no such thing was possible. If it were, she would say it now; she would have said it before. She would be fighting for her life instead of throwing it away.
Three
American Goldfinch
Spinus tristis.This small bird is prized for its striking plumage and its distinctive call in flight, which some naturalists say sounds like “potato chip!” or “pretty pretty.” In folklore, goldfinches were believed to carry the spiritual message of resilience and the need to joyfully accept change. Commonly kept as pets in fourteenth-century Europe, these birds were a favorite of young girls, and a dream of a goldfinch meant that a girl would marry into great wealth. Their small size and relatively timid nature make goldfinches prey for more aggressive larger birds, especially blue jays, which are known to eat goldfinches if they get the chance.
“I’m not a real man,” Ross announced.
I said, “Is that so? Does Amira know?”
Ross had just become engaged to a wonderful woman from Chennai, another psychology grad student, whose parents and older sister, I’d learned at the Friendsgiving, were all tenured professors... Maybe Ross thought that he and his parents, who owned a hardware store, were outclassed by this dazzling collective of brainpower.
He said to me now, “Reenie, even a life crisis can be boring. Let me ask you first. How are you, Reenie? How are you really?” What did I expect? He was almost a clinical psychologist.
“We’ll get to that later. Your manhood issue first! That sounds intriguing.”
“Okay, who was it who said that a man hates himself if he never has his war or his sea voyage?”
“Beats me.”
“Come on! You always do that shit! You’re a show-off with your whatever... oh, I think it was Hemingway who said, I think it was Abraham Lincoln who said...”
“Not anymore,” I told him, buttering another piece of French bread. I buttered it so thickly that Ross stared. Why didn’t I just eat the butter? “I’m going to be one of those writers who says she doesn’t have time to read.”
Ross smiled up at the server. “Could we have more bread, please? My friend here ate the whole loaf.”
The young woman in white-person dreadlocks gave me a sour look. “That costs extra,” she said.
“Go crazy,” I told her. “Bring two loaves. I’m eating for two now.”
“Now she thinks you’re pregnant,” Ross said. “Are you?”
“None of your business. But why do men disapprove of women who eat?” I asked him then, “Does Amira like food?”
“Oh you bet. She’s this crazed cook, trying to learn how to make kimchi now.”
“I thought she was Indian.”
“She is, Reenie. You’re Irish. Do you only cook corned beef and cabbage?”
“So, let’s get back to why you’re not a real man.”
“I just feel like, what have I done? Have I taken risks? Have I proved myself? I’ve never even been in a fistfight.”
“I don’t think most people have.”
