Preview of Songs By Honeybird by Peter McDade
Preview of Songs By Honeybird by Peter McDade
1. Sid
Nina stands in the middle of her studio apartment, surveying the wreckage. The amount of trash is impressive: a multi-colored assortment of take-out containers, crumpled Grubhub bags, randomly tossed clothes, wine bottles, and Yoo-hoo cans. Did she really buy a six-pack of Yoo-hoo? It’s a snapshot from the life of someone who hit a rough patch two months ago, not two weeks. The morning light streaming in from the sliding glass doors behind her creates ominous, uneven shadows, as if promising that the worst is yet to come. At least this stage of her grief is a secret shared only with Sid, sound asleep on the bed she swore she would train him to stay off. She knows he won’t tell anyone.
She tilts her head, as if changing the angle of her view can diminish the scale of the wreckage. Inhales, exhales. Stretches.
Last night she’d promised herself she would do one challenging task this morning, and she has narrowed her choices down to cleaning the apartment or calling her mother for the first time in two weeks. Nina calculates it will take less physical exertion to pick up her iPhone than it would to find trash bags, never mind fill them up.
Nina delivers the news as soon as her mother answers. “Ben and I broke up.”
“That asshole. He hit you, didn’t he?”
“Jesus, Mom, no. He never hit me.”
“Men hit.”
“Yes, men hit.” She makes her way to the sliding glass doors, staring out into the parking lot behind her apartment building. “And dogs bite and cats scratch.”
“Well, I don’t know what that has to do with anything.”
Nina sighs. “Just because someone can do something doesn’t mean they do it.”
“But—”
“He made me kill all the cockroaches, Mom. Ben never hit anybody in his life.”
“Huh.” Pause. “I don’t think it’s drugs or booze.”
“You met him,” Nina says, wondering if it’s too late to hang up and clean the apartment instead. “Did he seem like someone who would hit me, or have an alcohol problem?”
“Just because I met him does not mean I know him. For that matter, just because you dated him does not mean you knew him, either. People have secret sides.”
“I know, Mom. But trust me, Ben had no secret violent side. He couldn’t even beat me in Scrabble.”
“He was cheating?”
“At Scrabble?”
“You know what I mean.”
Nina stares at Sid, still sleeping on the futon. Weren’t dogs supposed to sense when their humans were upset and offer comfort? Of course, most dogs run to the door at the sound of your key in the lock, and that was not Sid’s style, either. “That wasn’t it, Mom.”
Pause. “So why did you break up with him?”
Being too embarrassed to correct her mother and explain that Ben broke up with her makes Nina feel closer to thirteen than twenty-five. Her mother would ask why, though, and that’s something Nina can never reveal. “Relationships end, right?”
“Yes, they do. And you know I was not his biggest fan. I’m just trying to understand how things changed so quickly. Usually that means someone fucked around or fucked up.”
Nina wonders—and not for the first time—if she should leave Atlanta; maybe she and her mother have been in the same city for too long. “Does it matter? All that matters now is that I am alone again.” An overt move for sympathy, an obvious attempt to focus attention on Nina’s pain and interrupt her mother’s imminent monologue on the evils of men, but it works.
“Remember, baby,” her mother says, voice softening, “men may be like bad colds, but that also means there’s always another one just around the corner.”
“And there’s no cure?”
“Sleep and food.”
Nina closes her eyes, leans against the glass door, rubbing her forehead with her left hand. “Okay. I can do that.”
“Of course you can.”
For a moment there’s silence. It’s a rare occurrence in one of their phone calls, and exactly what Nina needs to hear. Just as she gives her mother credit for reading the situation correctly, the silence is broken.
“And a good vibrator. Cheaper than a man and a lot more reliable.”
“Goodbye, Mom.”
Nina moved into B-6, a studio apartment in an old building on 12th Street, four years ago.
She made the decision toward the end of one of those Atlanta Novembers when it never stops raining. She had just broken up with Michael Marone, a barback from Miller Union. Never intended to be anything more than a meaningless fling, one of those boys that never even met her friends, Michael missed the memo. It proved to be an uglier breakup than she’d prepared for. In the climactic scrum, held in the Krispy Kreme parking lot, he landed a solid punch with his line about her behaving like she was “afraid to live in the real world.” Then he drove away, leaving her in front of the darkened Hot Donuts Now sign.
She woke up the next morning and realized she was still sleeping in the same bed she’d gotten for her fourth birthday. Nina had shared the same small house with her mother, and her mother’s mother, since Nina’s father died. If she didn’t escape before they started collecting cats, she would never leave.
So she called her friend Denise. A year earlier Denise had asked her to split the cost of a cool two-bedroom apartment in Midtown, but Nina had worried about the money and about living with Denise, whose flakiness had threatened more than once to end their friendship. Denise had never found a roommate, and said she’d love for Nina to move in. The catch: she was in a studio, 400 square feet. “But Tony has a place in Buckhead,” she explained, “and I’m there a lot.”
“Oh,” Nina said, energized enough to sit up in bed. She’d never heard the name Tony before, but Denise was rarely without a boyfriend. “So this could work.”
“It could actually be great,” Denise said. “You can watch Sid when I’m not here.”
“Sid?”
“My dog. I know I told you.”
Denise remembered a lot of conversations Nina was sure never happened, and she certainly would have remembered hearing about a dog. Denise was the least likely of any of her friends to keep a plant alive, never mind an animal. “A dog? In 400 square feet?”
“He’s more like a cat, I promise.”
Nina looked up at the Depeche Mode poster she’d hung on her wall in ninth grade, hoping to find an answer, but none of the band members were even looking at the camera. It was up to her to decide. “Okay,” she said. “Let’s do this.”
She went down to breakfast and announced her plan. Her grandmother nodded silently, the way she did at any piece of news she received, large or small, but her mother was skeptical. “12th Street? It’d be nice to be close to the park, but Midtown has become a wasteland of Starbucks and expensive parking. How much is the rent?”
“My share’s only $350 a month.” She didn’t add that it was so cheap because it was a studio apartment.
“350? Now I’m worried. Do you have to clean the lobby? And Denise? The lesbian?”
“No. That’s Debbie.”
“Oh.” Her mother paused, and then shrugged. You could say many things about Marion Alexander, but you could never accuse her of lingering over decisions. “Just remember—they arrest you if there’s weed in the apartment, even if it’s not yours.”
Nina packed that afternoon, and hit the buzzer for B-6 before dinner. Her mother was right: Midtown had more yuppies and fancy restaurants than Nina remembered seeing when she cut school to go to the High Museum on its free Thursday afternoons. Yet Denise’s building, an old motel that had been converted into small apartments, looked as if it had not changed in decades. The exterior was stubbornly un-updated, its pale beige paint seeming to fade even as you looked at it. The interior was still dominated by the wonderfully flamboyant gay men who used to be the only people daring or desperate enough to live in this part of Atlanta.
The apartment itself did not feel as cramped as she’d feared. The large sliding glass doors along the exterior wall helped, letting in so much light that the room felt bigger. Denise quickly ran through the quirks for Nina: the toilet handle needs to be held down, and never flush before showering; don’t put too much in the garbage disposal, which sucks, but a new one is on the way; and the guys in C-6, one floor above, are loud when they have sex, but it never lasts long.
Sid turned out to be a bichon poo—part bichon frise, part toy poodle. A gift from the boyfriend before Tony, an older man who’d been a huge Sex Pistols fan, Sid was fifteen pounds soaking wet, with big eyes, shaggy black hair that always looked like it needed a comb, and a tendency to walk a little sideways. His best trait, as far as Nina was concerned, was his demeanor. Instead of being one of those small, yippy dogs determined to deal with a too big world by shouting at everything it saw, Sid was almost catatonic, so quiet that Nina forgot all about him as she and her new roommate chattered away. After Denise caught a Lyft to Buckhead to stay with Tony, it was as if Nina was living by herself.
Perfect.
She put Stevie Wonder on shuffle, ordered some tacos, put fresh sheets on the futon, and then carved out a drawer of her own in Denise’s dresser. It wasn’t until she was getting ready for bed that she remembered Sid, staring at her from his spot in front of the glass doors. “Huh. You probably need to go out, right?” she wondered aloud. When she walked to the front door to get the leash he followed her, patiently sitting still as she slipped it over his neck.
She hadn’t even taken her phone, planning to be out just long enough for Sid to do his business. The night was nicer than she had expected, though, and she discovered that the leisurely pace of a stroll with a small dog was enjoyable if you surrendered yourself to it. When they returned to the apartment, she was surprised to learn they’d been gone over an hour.
Denise only slept in B-6 half a dozen nights over the next two months, so it was not a surprise when she said she was going to live with Tony, who was tired of paying for her rides. Nina had landed a job at South City Kitchen by then, making enough to cover the rent, so she wasn’t upset by the news—especially when Denise said she was leaving the futon, dresser, and bookcase behind.
But that dog.
“What do you mean, you’re leaving him here?”
“Tony’s allergic.”
“But you keep talking about how much you love this dog,” Nina said. “How can you leave him?”
“I love my futon, and you’re happy I’m leaving that.”
Nina turned to stare at Sid, who was watching them closely. He looked like a child listening to his parents fight about who would be stuck with custody—then leaned back and started licking himself. “So what am I supposed to do with him?”
“Feed him, walk him? You’ve been doing it already, right?”
“Oh, I don’t know, Denise.” She had grown to like the mandatory walks, Nina had to admit, but there was a difference between taking care of a friend’s dog and having one of your own. Walking Sid felt like driving a rental car, because she knew if anything broke or got too dirty she wouldn’t have to deal with it. She’d never owned a pet of any kind; the one time she’d asked if they could at least get a hamster, her mother told her no living creature should be kept against its will.
That’s when Denise checked her watch, which is what she did when she was getting bored. “Fuck it. I have to pack up my stuff, and Tony really wants to see some Marvel movie. Put up with Sid for one more night, and I can take him to the pound? First thing in the morning?”
Nina began rearranging as soon as Denise left. She started in the corner next to the sliding glass doors, dragging the broken end table down to the trash bin, then pushing the low bookcase closer to the kitchen. Opening up the space made her imagine saving up enough to buy a decent electric piano, which could now fit there. She would play much more if she didn’t have to go back home to do it.
It was early evening by the time she finished. She took Sid for a long walk, following the same route from the first night she moved in. Over the last two months, she’d learned where Sid liked to stop and sniff, and had figured out which trash cans were best for dropping little bags of poop. As she strolled the now-familiar blocks she felt at peace, as if she were no longer a visitor but at home. And why not, she asked herself, when she walked back into B-6 and took off Sid’s leash. The apartment was now hers.
And so was Sid. When Denise inevitably called the next morning to say that something had come up, and she’d have to take Sid to the pound another day, Nina told her not to bother.
When Nina hangs up with her mother, she’s surprised to see it’s not even 9:30; she would have guessed it was almost noon. She leans against the sliding glass door and stares at the floor of her apartment. The clothes and trash are a minefield she must cross to make it to the small galley kitchen area, also known as the Land of Coffee. She decides the best strategy is to just look straight ahead and ignore the occasional crunching sound she makes as she walks. The noise wakes Sid, who catches her eyes long enough to shoot a look of annoyance.
The two grocery items she has made sure to keep on hand since the breakup are coffee and cream, a sign she hasn’t completely lost her sanity. She measures the grounds and water and then stands right next to the coffee maker, so she can pour a cup as soon as it is done. She checks her phone while she waits, hoping to see a message from someone asking her to cover a lunch shift. Working is the one thing that has distracted her since Ben left, and word is out that Nina will take anyone’s hours.
No messages, but one reminder: “First Day of Semester!” Had she really been excited enough to add an exclamation point? There’s still enough time to make it to her 10 a.m. class, but she knows she’s not going. Ben has a Monday/Wednesday/Friday schedule this semester, and the last thing she wants to do is run into him on campus. Last night she’d set up a walk with Troy, which sounds much more manageable than a trip to Georgia State.
When the coffee finishes, she fills her mug and drinks it standing at the kitchen sink. There’s no window, so Ben insisted on hanging up a picture of Water Lilies from some museum catalog. He was right: it is much better than staring at a wall. A trip to Giverny, to visit the house where Monet once lived, had been on their fantasy list of Places to Visit, never written down but frequently added to.
She should probably stop thinking of all the things they had planned to do together.
Once she has finished her first mug and poured another she has the strength to head back into the living room. It’s even brighter than it was a few minutes ago, the morning light throwing the mess into sharper relief. Why are there so many Chipotle bags? Has she really gotten delivery from there four, five—one more bag, under the futon—six times? Does she even like Chipotle?
Nina examines her current outfit—baggy sweat pants without any visible stains, oversized Led Zeppelin T-shirt—and decides it is good enough for a walk. She manages to get her shoes on, then heads back to the kitchen, pours the last of the coffee into a travel mug, and picks Sid’s leash up off the dining table.
Nina had always heard that dogs woke you up in the morning, desperate to go for a walk, but Sid prefers to sleep as late as possible. “Oh, you’re coming,” she says to him. “And I don’t want to hear a word of complaint.” As she watches him hop down and slowly walk over to her, she feels her phone buzz in her sweatpants. Troy is texting to tell her that he and Carol, his chihuahua, are outside and waiting. If Troy’s on time, she’s late.
“Hurry it up,” she says to Sid, rattling the leash again. “Your girlfriend is waiting for you.”
Preview of Songs By Honeybird by Peter McDade
