“You are a slow learner, aren’t you?”
“Not that slow.” I took her hands, leaned in, and kissed her. Her eyes closed, and her face smoothed and leaned into mine. The bill of her hat tapped my forehead, so I slipped it off and let my hand rest on her shoulder.
“I believe in you.” She kissed me again.
“I’m getting that. It means everything to me. You mean everything to me.”
“I just couldn’t be the only reason you stay.”
“There are so many reasons to stay, but I think you’re the best reason.”
“I mean it, you can’t just stay because of me. We have a lot of things to figure out, a long way to go before …”
“Before what?”
“I don’t know, we become ‘we’.”
“Are you out, you know, to your family, at work? No one has ever said anything to me.”
“Some places, yes, others I’m more guarded. It’s complicated. Something we can talk about later.”
“Okay, get this on the books. I am staying first and foremost because I love this goddess-forsaken place and some of the people here, you being one of them. The main one of them.” I wrapped my arms around her. “I would stay even if we were just friends, if that’s what you mean, but I think you were right. I needed to give myself permission. You helped me. And, I hope going forward, whatever happens, there will be a ‘we’.”
I became aware of a crunching sound, something treading on dry leaves.
“Look there.” Jodie pointed to the dead-looking bushes, and I saw a dozen or so turkeys walking through the grass.
“They’re beautiful.” The sun highlighted their feathers, making their pod shaped bodies appear like shiny chrysalises. Their long necks jutted forward, and their legs moved, pushing their bodies along, too. They maneuvered around the bushes, checking the grass for bugs, each moving independently, yet still obviously tied to their flock.
“Oh, just wait.”
We stood in silence, holding hands and listening to the bird calls. Nothing like the “gobble-gobble” I’ve always heard about. It was almost like a bark “rawk-rawk-rawk, rawk-rawk.” The birds edged our way, gleaning the field for treats. When they were within a couple dozen yards, Jodie motioned for us to sit down. Instantly, the birds took flight and soared across the field towards the road. We could hear the whap, whap, whap of their wings as they nearly flew over our heads.
We lay back on the cold ground and stared at the bright blue sky for a long moment.
“So, you’re staying?”
I turned and gazed into her eyes. Every worry I’d had for the last two months seemed to fall to the way-side. I was here, lying in a cold hay field in Nowhere, Idaho with a beautiful librarian, watching birds fly across the property – my property – and enjoying this exact moment in time. There were tragic and wonderful events that led me to this place, and the best way to honor my father, my mother, Elliot, Jodie, and all of the people that care about me is to be open and let it all in. I felt Jodie’s fingers intertwined with mine and I rolled over and kissed her again.
“Wild turkeys couldn’t drag me away.”
Excerpt From:
Chickenshit Volume II
March 30, 2013
At the risk of sounding like a girl. I am in heaven. Jodie and I finally went on an actual date last night. We went to Boise, of course, to a movie at The Flicks, followed by a late dinner at a Pho restaurant a few streets over. I don’t know how, but we never run out of things to talk about. Not only that, when we are quiet for a moment, there’s this warmth, a connection between us, that makes the silence comfortable, too.
We sat close together on the hood of my car, holding hands and gazing out over downtown from the top of the parking garage. Drunks of all types, North Enders, families, couples, and loners shuffled along on the streets below us.
“There used to be a Subway, over there.” Jodie pointed. “My family had a booth at Saturday Market one summer, back before it was so big, and I would run over and grab a sandwich. My parents always gave me shit about eating fast food when there was so much good food at the market.” She shrugged. “I was a kid; I was kind of limited. That Pho was great, though. I’ve never had it, or those spring rolls.”
“It’s kind of a Seattle staple. I never had it growing up in Sacramento. Chinese was about as exotic as it got there. They do have Pho now, though.”
“My mom loved Chinese food. We have the place in Emmett, but she liked this restaurant here that used to be over next to the steakhouse. A few streets over that way.” She arched her arm and pointed like a bomb dropping. Billie found it endearing the way that Jodie liked to use her hands to speak.
“You don’t talk about your mom much. It must still be really hard for you.”
“Well, yes and no.” She sat, thinking it over. “She’s everywhere. And that’s both comforting and heartbreaking. Sometimes at work, I feel like she’s about to hand me a book to re-shelve, and when they call me Mrs. Miller, I want to turn around and look behind me.”
“She must have been an amazing mom; you turned out great.”
“Well, she wasn’t great when I was little. She would be the first to tell you she wasn’t perfect. She drank a lot and kind of got around, if you know what I mean. My biological father could have been one of any number of guys.”
“Russ isn’t your real dad? I mean,
