All the Birds in the Sky(84)
Nobody thought to turn off the fabrication machine, so the air was still filled with churn. Laurence stared at the dead body in the long flowy skirt for a moment, remembering when he’d eaten tacos with her. Then he thought about the fact that Patricia had to be here someplace, and took off running again.
Patricia was rising off the ground. Laurence had thought she couldn’t fly, but there she was. She floated on the wind, like a balloon that some kid had lost hold of at the fairground. Patricia was so close to Laurence, closer than she’d been in months, but he had no way to get to her. He called out, but she couldn’t hear him over the white noise. He screamed her name until his voice was shot.
Patricia looked peaceful, her arms spread a little, like a snow angel. Her feet pointed down. She wore no shoes. Her socks had pom-poms over the heels. Her shadow fell right over Laurence’s eyes, and her path converged with the gantry that had the precious wormhole machine on it. He tried to get her attention, but she was too far away now. By the time Patricia reached the top, she was a dot. But what happened next was easy to see from the ground: Lightning poured out of the sky, from a cloud that hadn’t been there a moment earlier. Slash after slash, until smoke floated down. The light blinded him, but he couldn’t look away, and he screamed Patricia’s name with his hoarse, smoke-singed throat. Laurence could barely stand because he felt like his center of gravity was being crushed by seeing her dear shadow against the hideous white glare. Cinders and twisted pieces of the wormhole machine rained down and nearly hit Laurence’s hot wet face.
BOOK FOUR
28
EVERYBODY WAS SINGING madrigals. Tight staggered harmonies that rang with a lightness that had sharp pieces of melancholy embedded in it. Quartets, quintets, and bigger groups went door-to-door in residential areas or barged into bare-bones eateries, holding sheet music and wearing modest black linen-cotton outfits. A pitch pipe sounding a single note was your only warning that your heart was about to be wrecked. “Now Is the Month of Maying,” “O Morte,” even crazy Carlo Gesualdo. People would stop whatever they were doing and listen to madrigals, until they were tear-soaked. Something about the way the trebles and altos would introduce a soaring melodic line, and then the tenors or basses would come in to f*ck it up, was like the musical knife-twist you never saw coming. After the flood, everyone agreed that madrigals were the soundtrack of our lives.
Deedee dropped out of her ska-punk band and joined an eight-person madrigal chorus. She had a clot somewhere deep inside her that was connected to the people she had lost in the flood, or might lose in the aftermath, and the endless conversations where everybody compared notes on their respective tragedies only made her feel shittier. Just saying the words “My brother is still missing” made Deedee want to throw up and then head-butt whoever had asked. She needed an alternative to the dull repetition of facts, a way to share her uncut heartbreak without any particulars, and to her amazement she found it in these strange old songs about doomed lovers.
She was heading for the door, after putting on her white blouse and black skirt (from an old waitress gig) plus black high-tops, and she found herself staring at Patricia’s empty bedroom. A matter-of-fact off-white rectangle, it looked smaller without furniture. Scars in the wall and floor, where a bed had dug in.
Patricia had reappeared, after being gone for a few weeks, taking care of some business in Denver. And she’d seemed really content, as if whatever demons had sent her out until near dawn every night had been cleansed at last. Sitting with Deedee and Racheline for hours on that old sofa, Patricia had craned her long neck and listened to all their stories and fears, and somehow always said the exact right thing.
Deedee’s chorus rang the doorbell, and she rushed down to join them as they took to the rave-dark streets. The electricity kept turning off, and the people who still had jobs were going over to a four-day workweek, because PG&E only for-sure guaranteed power Monday thru Thursday. Worse yet, the Hetch Hetchy water kept getting diverted, and you never knew if the taps would turn on or not. Half the shops on Valencia were boarded. Deedee’s tights and skirt itched. Her throat felt dry. She did vocal exercises under her breath, and her fellow mezzo, Julianne, laughed in sympathy. The group walked past a house that was on fire, and the neighbors were putting it out with buckets. The smoke got in Deedee’s throat. But then they got to a café crammed with people holding hands and drinking simple coffee from a tureen and started to sing, and Deedee found the music carrying her, same as always.
Racheline had always been the mom of the apartment, being the master tenant and years older. But post-flood, Patricia had usurped her. Because Racheline couldn’t cope, even more than most people couldn’t cope, and Patricia had seemed to be made of coping. Some people just rise to a crisis, Deedee and Racheline had kept saying to each other in wonder. Thank goodness Patricia is here. Patricia had floated, effortless, and after a while they hadn’t even needed to ask for her to solve everything for them. They couldn’t believe this was the same girl who’d thrown hot bread at them.
After they were done singing, Deedee and her chorus hung around the café, accepting tips or presents. She found herself talking to an older gay man named Reginald, whose arms were covered with beautiful insect tattoos. “I suppose I identify with the Silver Swan, who waits to sing until it’s too late,” said Reginald.