Sparrow groaned, folding the pillow around her aching head as sunlight poured into the window through the torn shade. Her temples throbbed and she could feel a wave of nausea in her complaining stomach. What had she tried this time? Tequila? It tasted like acid on her thick tongue. It hadn’t worked of course. The old nightmares always found her no matter how deeply she tried to bury them in different spirits.
Angry with herself for having spent another useless night alone with a bottle, Sparrow threw back her covers and willed her body upright, swinging her feet over the side of the bed. For a brief—though vertiginous—moment she thought she was all right. And then her head exploded in pain and her stomach clenched. Bolting from the bed, a hand cupped over her mouth, she fled to the bathroom. She vomited as she threw her body toward the toilet, grasping the rim in both hands to steady herself against the involuntary heaving. She had eaten very little along with the tequila, and now it tasted like brewed poison searing her throat as she retched. She flushed the vomit away, washed her mouth with tap water, and waited for the next wave. It hit soon after, leaving her gasping for air and groaning.
“Wow, did you get fucked up,” her roommate Marti announced, leaning against the bathroom door and holding a steaming cup of tea. She was tall and willowy, dressed in a faded cotton kimono with a pattern of blue maple leaves. A long braid of fine brown hair hung over her shoulder, while stray tendrils framed the sleepy face. “Even the dog decided to give you some room. She slept out on the couch.” At Marti’s feet sat Lily, a white and liver-spotted pit bull, panting through a wide, tooth-filled smile.
“I feel like death,” Sparrow moaned, knowing it was close enough to be true. She reached out and gave Lily’s velvety ears a quick rub.
“I can’t imagine why,” Marti said dryly. “You know, that was my expensive bottle of Patrón you dusted last night? Just tell me you didn’t accomplish that all by yourself.” She blew cooling air across the surface of her teacup before taking a small sip.
“I’m sorry,” Sparrow said, suppressing a wave of nausea. “I’ll replace it as soon as payday comes. I promise.” She sat back, balancing her buttocks on her heels, one hand on the toilet while she wiped her mouth with the back of her other hand. “I guess I just didn’t realize how much I was drinking.”
Marti had put her teacup down on the rim of the bathtub and was running cold water over a washcloth. She squeezed out the extra water and handed it to Sparrow, who took it and laid it lightly over her face. The cool, damp cloth smelled fresh. “Thank you,” she murmured from under the cloth.
“You want tea? Chamomile maybe? Settle your stomach,” Marti said.
Sparrow smiled weakly. “Yeah, sounds good. Thanks.” She lifted the washcloth to show Marti a grateful expression.
Alone again, Sparrow washed her face at the bathroom sink, swallowing mouthfuls of water and spitting it out to rid her tongue of the acrid taste. She ran the cold cloth across her neck and then straightened up to confront herself in the mirror.
Pretty bad. Sparrow took in the hollowed eyes, the bright green irises flecked with dots of blood. The purple bruises under her eyes from sleepless nights contrasted sharply with her dyed neon-green hair. She thought she looked like a battered doll with plastic hair and a paint-smeared face. Her head throbbed with a headache and she closed her eyes over the welling tears. When was the last time she had truly slept free of nightmares? Long ago, she thought, when I was lost among the deer in the forests. But that world was gone. And she was here.
Sparrow opened her eyes, washed her face vigorously, and combed wet fingers through the short spikes of her green hair. Not for the first time she wondered what had possessed her to dye it such a garish color. Or why she had pierced her eyebrow, her nose, and ears.
Maybe to fit in, to find solace in a tribe of other like-marked men and women. Maybe to hide in a crowd.
Returning to her bedroom, she pulled off her nightshirt. She was thin, her clavicles rising sharply beneath the taut skin. Her small breasts bloomed above the corset of rib bones, while her waist arrowed into the soft curve of her hips. An old ragged scar marred the inside of one slender thigh. She searched quickly in a pile of mostly clean clothes and pulled out a red T-shirt she had picked up from a thrift store. Wriggling into a pair of tight, low-slung jeans, she grabbed a half-smoked pack of cigarettes and a lighter off her nightstand and padded to the kitchen in bare feet, hoping the tea was ready.
Sitting at the table, Marti was fussing over a teapot. Dry toast waited on a blue plate, next to a jar of dark honey. Lily slept in her usual spot under the table near Sparrow’s chair.
“Just in time,” Marti said, grabbing a mug from the counter behind her and placing it before Sparrow.
Sparrow filled her cup, squeezed out a liberal spoonful of honey, and started stirring it.
“Take,” Marti ordered, handing Sparrow a couple of aspirin.
Sparrow obeyed, even though she knew it wasn’t necessary. In an hour her body would be restored, healed of whatever damage she had inflicted on it the night before. She had learned that about herself when she was twelve. In one of his drunken rages, her father had stabbed a knife into her thigh, as though he thought he could pin her to the motel bed. She’d screamed and he’d reared back, horrified at the sudden rush of bright blood that spilled over her thigh and the cheap bedspread. Panicked, she’d pulled the knife free and—ignoring his hoarse cries—fled into the woods behind the motel. She’d wandered for hours through dense pines, until collapsing at last in a bank of ferns. Curling into a knot of pain, she’d pressed one hand against the pulsing wound in her thigh.
In her fitful sleep she’d heard them come, stepping quietly through the ferns: three deer—a buck and two doe. They lay down around her, the sheltering warmth of their bodies lulling her into a deep, irenic sleep. In the morning, only the tear in the fabric of her jeans and the pucker of a new scar remained.
“So are you doing all right?” Marti asked.
Sparrow blinked, aware that she had been silently stirring her tea much too long. Taking a sip, she smiled. “Yeah. I’m okay, really. Just got caught up in Saturday-night blues, I guess.” She broke off a piece of the toast and handed it to Lily, who had awoken and was now sitting with her head on Sparrow’s knee.
“You know a bunch of us are going to a late lunch at The Twisted Fork, around two. Why don’t you join us?” Marti offered. “It’s good to get out once in a while, you know. You’ve been living like a nun in this house.”
Sparrow ducked her head and freed a cigarette from her pack. She put it between her lips and pulled a small tin ashtray closer to her. She was going to light it until she noticed the frown of disapproval on Marti’s face. She put it down with a sigh and saw the clock, telling her she was late.
“Yeah, maybe I have, lately,” Sparrow admitted. “I’ll try and make it. And thanks for the tea too,” she said in a rush. “I better hurry and get going.” Sparrow reached under the table for her sneakers and put them on with a rough jerk. Lily stood up, her tail thumping in expectation of a walk. Sparrow grabbed the leash and clicked it onto Lily’s collar. “I promise, I’ll stop by after work,” she added as Marti, teacup in hand, headed for her bedroom.
“Later, then,” Marti called, with a wave of her hand.
Sparrow and Lily bounded down the stairs to the front door, Lily growling in the back of her throat when she passed the door to the downstairs apartment. “Assholes,” Sparrow muttered. Had she threatened to call the cops on them last night? At least they were as drunk as I was, she thought. And maybe they wouldn’t remember who had spoiled their fun. Their payback was always nasty.
Outside, smoking a cigarette and waiting for Lily to hurry up and pee, Sparrow kicked the plastic skull half buried in the dirt and made a note to herself to finally dig the creepy thing out when she had the time. But right now if she and the dog didn’t hurry, Sparrow was going to be late for work.
“Come on Lily, yer done!” she shouted and jerked the dog back up the stairs. Pausing on the landing, Sparrow remembered seeing a woman standing outside her door late in the night. Had she imagined it? The face looked lost, childlike and old at the same time. Sparrow shook her head. It was a face out of her dreams, one from a lineup of foster parents perhaps, laced with half a bottle of tequila. Forget it, she told herself.
* * *
AN HOUR LATER SPARROW UNLOCKED the door to The Constant Reader Bookshop, and was greeted by the jangle of tattle bells hanging on the door. She inhaled the musty aroma of book dust, and turned the sign on the door from CLOSED to OPEN. It was Sunday, and she knew there would be few customers in the small shop, which suited her just fine. Throughout the morning she worked alone, straightening shelves, and boxing up books for return on Monday. The first customer, an elderly gentleman named Frank who came every Sunday to read the papers, didn’t show up until midmorning, just as Sparrow was opening the new boxes of books and entering them into the computer. Sparrow smiled at the old man and left the counter to make sure the tea urns were filled with water. Frank liked his tea good and hot.
Sparrow worked through lunch and then, catching sight of the time on the store clock, made the decision to join Marti and her friends. Why not, she thought. Just this once. It had been a long time since she’d gone out. Sparrow called gently to the old man who was half dozing behind his paper in one of the store’s big overstuffed chairs.
“Hey, Frank, I’m closing up early today.”
“Yeah? Got something special to do?” Frank asked, carefully folding his paper and tucking it under his arm. He patted down a wayward strand of white hair over his pink scalp.
“Late lunch with some folks.” Sparrow decided that maybe Marti was right. It was time to go out for once.
“Good. Pretty girl like you shouldn’t hang around with old geezers like me.” Frank touched his hair again as if flirting with her.
“Hey, I’m all yours next Sunday,” Sparrow said, and laughed.
* * *
WHEN SPARROW ARRIVED, MARTI AND her friends were already sitting down at a table outside in the small patio. Sparrow recognized the square-chinned, dark-haired man next to Marti as her boyfriend Mitch, who was working on his degree in art. They made an attractive couple, she thought, fair and dark together. Three other women crowded together on one side of the table, dressed like parakeets in bright blues, yellows and greens. They were chatting loudly, breaking out in spontaneous laughter and hitting each other on the shoulders. They were Marti’s friends, that was clear from the way she leaned her body into the semicircle of laughing women. Opposite Marti was another woman. A friend of Mitch’s? She was dressed in dark clothing, a book bag stuffed with sketch books, and wearing a bored expression as she observed Marti’s chattering girlfriends. Her hair was shades of black and purple, her heavy lipstick startling on her pale face.
“You made it,” Marti called out as Sparrow approached shyly. “Take a seat,” and she gestured to a free chair next to the dark-haired woman.
Sparrow sat down, nodding to the woman as she glanced at Sparrow. Black-lined eyes followed the contours of Sparrow’s face and then her body. Sparrow waited, uneasy under the silent scrutiny. Unexpectedly, the woman smiled at her, and reached out a hand to grab Sparrow by the wrist.
“You’ve got great skin,” she said, stroking Sparrow’s forearm. “It’s so translucent. And pale. A perfect canvas.”
“Thanks . . . I think,” Sparrow said with a laugh. Unused to strangers touching her, she pulled her arm free of the woman’s grasp to reach for a glass of water the waiter had brought her.
“Don’t mind Jenna. She’s got a thing for skin. Go on,” Mitch urged, “show Sparrow.”
Jenna took off her black sweater, revealing not only the sleeveless T-shirt underneath, but her arms covered in sleeves of finely drawn tattoos. “I met this guy, Hawk, and he’s an amazing ink artist. The best I’ve ever seen. I couldn’t resist getting the work done. He said I had perfect skin. Just like yours,” she added with a smile.
“It’s beautiful.” Sparrow was transfixed by the intensity of the vivid artwork. Fanciful creatures, some with horns and fangs, wings and claws, furred and scaled, were entwined among scrolls of etched vines and leaves of fox grapes, mistletoe, nightshade. The vibrant colors pulsed, and when Jenna flexed her arm reaching for her glass, Sparrow gasped, for it seemed as if a wolfish-looking creature opened wide his mouth to attack her.
“I am having more work done,” Jenna said and Sparrow thought her eyes glittered feverishly, like lust or hunger. “You could come and watch if you like? Really it’s very cool. And the place has a good vibe, almost like a temple.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Marti said and Mitch frowned at her. Sparrow wondered if the couple was as matched as she thought they were. Clearly their friends had nothing in common.
“No, it’s not,” Jenna said archly. “Tattoo can be very sacred, you know. Not like bullshit you see frat boys getting. Hawk’s tattoos have a way of making you feel reborn. It’s a very spiritual experience.”
Marti rolled her eyes and her parakeet girlfriends turned their heads, trying to hide their obvious amusement.
Leaning back in her chair, Sparrow listened as they argued the merits of tattooing, spiritual rebirth, and—later—who owed what on the bill. She was glad enough to be out in the sun, eating a salad, and sitting on the edge of someone else’s conversations. It was enough to keep her engaged, but not involved. Just the way she liked it. Sooner or later, when people got to know her, they always asked about her past, her family—two subjects Sparrow didn’t want to share.
As they stood to leave, Jenna turned to Sparrow and took her by the wrist again. “Come with me to Hawk’s place,” she urged. “You can check it out for yourself. And I’ll bet you anything you wind up getting one of his tattoos.”
Thinking of Lily waiting at home, Sparrow wanted to say no, but hesitated, feeling the heat of Jenna’s hand on her wrist.
“Really,” Jenna said. “It’s awesome.”
Something tugged at Sparrow, pulled her into Jenna’s voice, into the intensity of Jenna’s dark eyes. She found herself changing her mind, suddenly wanting to please Jenna. She would go, meet this Hawk, and see his work.
“Okay,” she said. “Just for a little while. Then I got to get back.”
“Cool.” Jenna smiled warmly and linked her arm with Sparrow’s. Sparrow felt the subtle tug again in her chest, and when Jenna began walking swiftly up the block, Sparrow didn’t hesitate to follow.