It
happened because she was edgy and bursting. It was the first day you could
really feel Spring approaching. It was that brief time in between seasons that
she could feel something new happening, and it made her anxious and excited. It
was like new air, or sweeping cobwebs. There was a light rain outside and
Madeleine wanted to throw open her two little windows to her small apartment
space and let the warm mist fill the room. But the noise from the traffic
would've been too much, and she was worried for the bird. As it was, the hiss
of the scratchy needle was barely audible. She crouched down beside the heating
vent to listen. The music was low and tired. Something like Billie Holiday. It
was Billie Holiday, but for the two weeks she had looked, she hadn't been able
to find it in any of the record shops. She leaned against her raggedy old
reading chair and stared at the stack of books and odd art supplies next to
her. Too much time spent inside reading and dreaming, she worried.
She looked up at the small, blue-green bird in the cage
next to her bed, and then picked up a blue crayon. The bird was quiet. Quite
still and beautiful. Every once in a while she would turn her head slightly to
observe her new surroundings. She was calm. Even when Madeleine had brought her
home a week ago and taken a polaroid of her, she had fluttered her wings, but
in a gentle way. The softly blurred movement was a moment of perfect grace,
Madeleine thought, as she ran her fingers along the edge of the picture which
now hung on the wall beside the chair. She looked like the sea. As she put down
the crayon for another, it started. She wondered how long Maggie had lived down
there. How long she had been there. She rested her head against the wall and
began to slowly peel away the old crayon's paper label. She reached for a jar
of rubber cement and twisted off the top. The music mixed with the sound of
Maggie, as if the sobs were a part of the song. Not like an instrument - not an
accompanying sound - but interior, as if growing from within the music. A
ghost. Madeleine brushed a streak of glue next to the polaroid and stuck the
green paper to the wall. "Seafoam," she whispered.
Typically, she had only gone on Wednesday afternoons. It
was the one day that they ran a bargain matinee and it only cost her $3.
Besides the price, she liked the fact that the theatre was empty then. It was
an old movie house where they played revivals and art films. Madeleine liked
the musty smell inside, and the worn crushed burgundy of the seats. She liked
the warm glow of colors that were muted by the darkness, like the old Hopper
painting that hung above her chair. Occasionally, she would bring her little
reading light and a sketch pad and work on a face from the film.
It was on a Sunday night that she had met her. One of
those odd times when she had to pay full price, because the film she wanted to
see was only a weekend run. It was Stardust Memories, by Woody Allen. He had
been one of her favorites before the awful thing with his wife's daughter.
Before the fear of age and death had become too overwhelming for him. She had
seen one or two of his newer movies, and it made her feel embarrassed. Like
finding out a close friend has been lying to you.
"Do you ever draw birds?"
Madeleine looked up from her wallet. "I'm
sorry..."
"The drawing pad. You're a painter?"
"Um, I sketch."
Madeleine was startled to realize it was the woman from
her building. She had seen her in the basement laundry room that first day she
had been down there. One of the woman's laundry baskets was overturned and used
as a step, so that she could climb up onto the washing machine and then again
to nestled herself in a window above the machines. She had pried open the dingy
window frame and was quietly feeding a few small birds through the security
bars. Madeleine watched as they hoped in and out, pecking crackers straight
from her hands. It was three days later that she first heard her through the
vent and realized she lived in 3c, directly below her. She had seen her one
other time out her window one evening. She had been exiting the building,
alone. Madeleine remembered the way that her hair had lifted softly, caught by
the wind as she walked off out of view.
"I like this one," the woman said, tearing an
orange ticket from her ticket spool. Madeleine struggled with the loose bills
in her wallet.
"Although, he's kind of a creep, now."
Madeleine put her $6.50 on the booth counter and looked
up again. She noticed the woman was smiling at her. She had a beautiful, quiet
smile, that was enhanced by deep pensive brown eyes. Madeleine wanted to tell
her that she didn't really like Woody Allen anymore either, and that she was
only coming to draw the sad woman who had played Woody Allen's first girlfriend
in the film. That she hadn't seen the woman in anything else, as if she had
disappeared. And that there was one particular scene that she adored. Just
simple shots of the woman - jumpcuts of different expressions: manic anxiety,
whimsical laughter, pain, sorrow. She wanted to tell her that this was all she
had come for. Just to sketch her in her book, to take her from the film and
close the door on Woody forever.
"Yeah, I know what you mean," she eeked out in
an apologetic manner. Lame, she thought.
"Here you go." The woman nonchalantly slid
Madeleine's money back at her, with her ticket.
"But won't you --"
The woman smiled softly and nodded. "Go ahead, I'll
see you around. You can get me another time."
"Oh. Thanks ..." Madeleine smiled. She
gathered her things.
"Maggie."
"Thank you, Maggie."
The lines were simple, as Madeleine let her hand go. She
was half-conscious of what she was doing, caught somewhere between the last
sounds of Maggie and her fading song, and the tapping of the rain which had
started to fall hard on her window. It was the bird who brought her out of it.
She had pecked the tiny silver bell, hanging from the top of her cage. The bird
tilted her head to look down at Madeleine on the floor. Madeleine stared for a
moment, smiling, and then turned back to the wall to finish her sketch: a
ribbon around the bird's neck drifted across the wall into words: HELLO, SAD
MAGGIE.
She didn't take the elevator, because she wasn't sure if
it would bother the bird. By the second set of stairs her hands were beginning
to tremble. The rain clattered off of the metal dumpsters outside, and filled
the stairwell with echoes. "You okay, honey?" The bird hopped from
one perch to the next, calmly inspecting the passing walls and handrails. As
she entered the hallway and stepped up to the door, a horrific thought occurred
to her: "Hello, Maggie? I know i've only seen you around a couple of
times, and well, there's this vent in my place, you see...anyways, I hear you
crying and I...I just wanted to give you this bird?" Yeah, right. Shit.
She began to freeze up. "Don't. Don't freeze up," she thought. She
looked down at the bird. She turned back to the stairs, and just as she was
about to retreat, it happened. The bird cheeped. A little one. She froze. She
looked back down at the bird. The bird was staring up at her. Another.
Madeleine couldn't move.
The apartment door opened. Maggie peered out.
"Bird?"
The bird began to sing. Maggie stepped out into the
hall.
"Oh, sweetheart. You're lovely. Yes." she
said, as the bird continued. She turned to Madeleine. "Hi."
Madeleine smiled. Her face was red. She wasn't sure if
she could move. She raised her arm tentatively to present Maggie with the cage.
The bird sprung up against the front of the cage door to greet Maggie. Maggie
leaned in an ran her finger against the bars near the bird.
"Um. I bought her for you."
Maggie looked up at Madeleine. She was quiet.
"Oh," she said. She smiled softly, looked serious for a moment and
then her eyes started to become wet.
She took the cage from Madeleine's slightly trembling
hands. She continue to stare at Madeleine. "Can you come in?"
Madeleine tried to relax into a smile.
"Yeah. Sure."
The first thing Madeleine noticed, once inside, were all
of the plants. Not the amount of them - although there were a few - but how
green they were. She had never seen such lush house plants in the city before.
Or, anywhere for that matter. They surrounded the two small window spaces.
"How do you keep your plants so green?"
Before she could get an answer, she felt a soft hand
touch her neck. She turned and Maggie leaned in and kissed her.
"Thank you." Maggie whispered.
Madeleine looked into her eyes, as Maggie reached up and
brushed Madeleine's hair lovingly from her forehead. She kissed her again.
"I talk to them," Maggie said. Madeleine
smiled.
"There was something I've been wanting to tell
you," Madeleine said, feeling Maggie's hands still brushing against her
waist. She looked over at the bird, who was still leaning tight against the
cage door, staring up at the two women.
"Well. This is kind of stupid but ... the first
time when I ... well ...," She paused, serious. "When I came to the
theatre I wanted to tell you ... I really don't like Woody Allen anymore, I
think he's gross. I just really liked that film. Yeah. There." She exhaled
and laughed awkwardly.
Maggie laughed. She kissed Madeleine's forhead.
"I sketched the woman in it." Madeleine
continued shyly.
Maggie nodded, smiling.
Madeleine looked around the apartment and then back at
Maggie.
"The first girlfriend," Madeleine added.
Maggie nodded, knowingly. "Jumpcuts," she said
quietly.
Madeleine smiled. "I used to think you were a
ghost."
"How do you know I'm not," Maggie grinned.
"Well. I guess I don't." She paused and looked
over at the bird. "But, the bird sees you, too."
"That lovely bird's probably seen lots of
ghosts."
Madeleine was quiet. She looked down at the ground. She
looked back up at Maggie, her head tilted slightly like the bird. "Are
you?"
Maggie paused. She sighed. "I'm not sure," she
said softly. Her look became distant. Madeleine took a deep breath and step
towards Maggie, squeezing her hand lightly. Closing her eyes, she leaned in and
kissed Maggie just below her ear.
"I don't mind," she said.
No comments:
Post a Comment