chapter thirty-nine
Wren
We arrive to find the birdwatching group getting out of their senior center van on a balmy summer morning. The rattling of the wheels of the many walkers interrupts the sounds of the park’s birds as the old birders head down the sidewalk to the pavilion.
“Good morning!” I say as I approach them with pep in my step. The large platter in my hands is laden with freshly baked lemon scones and a basil frosting drizzle. Colton trails behind me with a banquet sized coffee brewer full of some amazing coffee, a shopping bag full of sweeteners and cream in the crook of his elbow.
The senior citizens are quiet but watchful as Colton and I set up a small coffee and pastry display. The employee of the senior center who drove the van today provides us with paper cups before hopping back into the van to scroll on their phone.
Once everything is set up, I turn to the gathered group. “I brought coffee today. Sorry I missed last week.”
“I feel unsafe with him out of his muzzle,” Marjorie says and points at the unmasked Colton.
Colton growls at her playfully, but at least three old people startle. Marjorie only glares at him with no true heat in her eyes.
“I, for one, feel it is a pleasure to know someone so rich that still loves nature,” Frank says.
I sigh, realizing they are owed an explanation. “Everyone, my name is Wren Taylor. Yes, my dad is Geoffrey Taylor. This is Colton Taggart. He’s my personal security.”
“Is he your boyfriend?” one of Marjorie’s friends, Nancy, asks.
“I am,” Colton replies for me.
There’s a collective sound from the gathered group. Some in celebration and some groans of defeat as they all pull out what look like blue carnival tickets. There are people raking in tickets with laughs and whoops of celebration.
Colton shifts on the bench next to me. “What are those?”
“Our center does an event on Friday nights and we pay for our drinks with these tickets,” Marjorie explains as she pockets a wad of blue tickets into her quilted top’s pocket.
“Wait, you guys were placing bets on us being a couple?”
“I said there is no way a single girl wasn’t trying to climb that tree of a man no matter what his face looks like under the mask,” Marjorie says with a waving gesture at Colton.
“And I said a man would be a fool to not tie himself to a woman that can bake like you, even if she dresses like a haunted babydoll,” Frank says as he folds a strip of blue tickets into a neat stack.
I look down at my outfit. I’m wearing a pink and white lace shift dress and some strappy sandals. “It’s supposed to be grandma chic, cottage core.”
“I’m a grandma and I’ve never worn something like that,” Marjorie says and shakes her head.
Colton chuckles next to me.
“On that flattering note, have some pastry and coffee.” I pout and help Colton serve the people who have a harder time getting around.
Everyone enjoys the pastry and coffee, and I’m inundated with questions about my life. I answer as much as I can within my own personal boundaries and do my best to steer conversations back to the person I’m talking with.
The sun is out in full force and the grass is dry by the time we’re finished with our snack and we’re ready to go find some birds. “Before you all scatter, there’s something I want to tell you,” I say before everyone gets up. “I looked into your senior center and talked to your director and heard many of you have outstanding medical bills, need home repairs, experience food insecurity, and need individual help.”
“Yeah, we’re old and this economy stinks,” Frank grumbles.
“All the issues you’ve shared with the staff at the center and asked them for help with have been paid for. If there’s something you haven’t shared with them but you need, please talk to their outreach coordinator and she will help you.”
A few gasps, but mostly shocked silence fills the shelter.
“The food pantry you all use at the center has been stocked and is staffed with nutritionists that can help with things like diabetes and heart health. And a mobile spa company I love dearly will come to the center to help with personal care once a month.”
“Why?” Marjorie asks.
“Because you let me join your group,” I reply simply, but I hold Marjorie’s eyes.
She reaches across the table and grips my hand in her wrinkled and blue veined one. “You’re a good kid. I’m glad the world gets to know you.”
It’s the first nice thing she’s ever said to me and it renders me speechless. Everyone scatters to walk the paths or to sit on the benches surrounding the park. All of them insist on hugging and taking a picture with me before they go. I know these images will end up blurry and on their Facebook pages, surrounded by Farmville and Candy Crush posts, but it’s a comforting place to be.
Colton is tricked into practically carrying almost every old lady over the smallest puddle on the path to the wooded area. The beaming smile on his face says this is the easiest chore. He gets muscle squeezes and kisses on the cheek and even a few booty pats from the more ballsy old ladies. I laugh and wait for him to be done, my bird book in hand.
“Did you look in your bird book?” he asks as he jogs over.
“No, why?”
“Look what I did,” he says and takes it from my hands to open it.
Every journal entry for each type of bird we’ve seen on our adventures is now accompanied by a small sketch. I gasp as I take the journal from his hands and flip through. He must have done it in the time we were in New York. The sketches are so well done I would have thought they were printed into the book if I hadn’t bought the book blank.
“Colton!” I whisper as I flip through each page. “You’re so talented!”
He shrugs.
“No, don’t shrug it off! I want prints of basically all of these and put them in frames around the house!”
“I could do some bigger ones, sure,” he says and scratches at the back of his neck.
“Well, now I want to see what you have in your journal,” I say and point to where the leather-bound journal I bought him at the craft show rests on a picnic table.
“No, that’s alright. Let’s go see if we can find that tufted titmouse,” he says and pulls my arm toward the woods.
“What’s in there that I can’t see?” I ask and narrow my eyes suspiciously.
“Nothing, let’s go.”
I drag my heels in the gravel and he’s forced to stop or let me fall. I yank out of his hold and hit him with a strike to the neck. He chokes and scrambles after me. I evade two more grabs and make it to the table. I hold his journal in my hands. I must remember to tell Master James at my next taekwondo class. The leather of the journal is sun warmed and soft. I look up at him with doe eyes. “Can I please look at it? I won’t be mad if there are more pictures of me with five hundred chins.”
“I only did that one and you totally deserved it that day,” he defends, his eyes still on the journal.
“Then what is it? Pictures of other women?”
He shakes his head.
“Naked women?”
He shakes his head again.
“Naked men ?”
“No! Ugh, fine, just open it,” he says and flops down on the picnic table bench.
I sit next to him and open to the first page. It’s a sketch of me with Angelica on my shoulder. My arms are crossed and I look like a petulant toddler. On the next page, it is more of the same pose, but in some I am wearing a pirate’s hat and eye patch. Angelica with a wooden leg on my shoulder.
I giggle as I move to the next page. It’s me and Gemma at a table. Probably the coffee shop based on the mugs in front of us. Our heads are bowed together as we’re laughing. The picture is just pencil on paper, but it encapsulates the joy and love we have for each other.
The next few pages are pictures of things we’re growing in the garden with pressed pieces of the plants taped to the pages. Then a few pages of Angelica. Her hiding her beak under her wing, her preening, eating a snack, and one of her staring out the window. In a tidy scrawl is a list of some of her favorite things to say, primarily curse words and snippets of viral sounds from social media. Some of the pages are cut from another journal and taped into this one. The earlier pages are all additions.
But most of all, there are pictures of me. Smiling, sleeping, angry, sad, with makeup, no makeup, eating, and smiling over a mug of coffee. Each of these pictures takes up an entire page. Me in the garden, sunbathing, reading, curled on the couch, watering plants, baking. Pictures of me holding a whip, ropes, and handcuffs with a hard look on my face. I giggle as I look at these.
“Is this your wish list?”
“God, yes,” he groans.
“There’s none of you,” I say.
“My face was a secret, remember?”
I nod as I flip through a few more of me and Gemma and Angelica. A few more pressed plants.
“It’s like a journal of me falling in love with you,” he murmurs.
“Which one was when you knew?” I whisper as tears fill my eyes.
“For sure it was… here,” he says as he takes the book from me and finds a page before handing it back to me.
In the sketch, I’m looking up at him, my eyes wide and my fingers pressed to my lips. There are tears gathered at the bottom of my lashes, and my expression is fearful and sorrowful. My hair is in a messy bun on my head and I’m wearing pajamas. My nipples are poking through the thin shirt.
“It’s when you pulled me into the panic room,” he explains.
“When I almost got you fired?” I ask with a laugh through my tears.
“Mhm.”
“When my nipples had you hard as rock hours later?”
“Yeah, I guess so.” He grins and pulls me to kiss him.
“Not in front of the birds!” Marjorie calls as she comes back into the pavilion.