37
EVERYTHING ABOUT MYapartment felt worse than I remembered. The walls were starker, the color of urine under the dim overhead light. The rooms seemed like they’d shrunk, the furniture drab and dingy. Nothing about this place would ever feel like home.
“Hi, Richard,” I said, greeting my sad, deceased plant on the windowsill.
It was a little after midnight, and I promptly got to work unpacking my duffel bag. Then I read over the final pitch document Lydia had forwarded for tomorrow’s meeting and washed the wineglasses she and I had left in the sink. When that didn’t provoke even as much as a yawn, I wandered into the bathroom and pulled out a clay face mask my mom had sent me as a Christmas gift last year, slathered it on, and crawled into bed for thirty minutes of Tetris on my phone.
I followed it with a sleep meditation, and two melatonin, and still, nothing.
I officially couldn’t sleep.
By the time the sun started to creep up around the skyscrapers outside my window, I was showered and dressed, and I still had four hours until I had to be at the Alewife office downtown. If I was in New Hampshire, I’d probably be diving into the lake right now. But I was back in Boston and had to improvise, so I did the next best thing I could think of: I got the largest cup of coffee sold at Starbucks, and I set off walking.
At the end of Charles Street, I crossed into the Public Garden, following a winding pathway past a giant blooming willow on the edge of the park. I said hello to the bronze duckling statues that lived along the cobblestone path and meandered toward the tiny pond in the center of the park.
I wondered what my friends were doing at Pine Lake at that very moment. Sam was probably awake, propped up in bed reading her werewolf romance. Nick and Trey—if they were speaking—were almost certainly asleep. Eloise and Linus were probably, well, not asleep.
Then I imagined Mack, lying in bed with one arm tucked underneath his head, reading a letter from one of his campers. Or maybe he was out on the boat, wind tossing his hair around, watching the dragonflies wake up with the morning light.
I missed him. It was an ache so complete that my body actually throbbed. I considered texting him for a moment, but there was nothing left to rehash, or say, even. Instead, I let my mind play tricks on me as I walked, fantasizing that I could still smell the sweet, dewy grass outside Sunrise, feel the chill of the lake water against my skin, hear the wail of the loons calling in the distance.
I stopped short in the middle of the path, cutting off a runner who cursed at me under his breath. I listened, my ears straining until I caught it again, clearer this time. That sound wasn’t just some wish in my head. Somewhere nearby was a loon, in the middle of Boston, no less, warbling like crazy.
I tossed my half-drunk coffee into the nearest garbage can and took off jogging down the winding strip of gray asphalt that led me closer to the water. The pond spread out before me like an oasis, and tucked just under the bridge that bisected its middle was a row of swan boats.
“Am I losing my mind?” I said out loud to a couple of pigeons who pecked at something underneath a bench nearby. But there it was again, the unmistakable high-pitched call of the same birds who had floated alongside me all week in Pine Lake.
I’d never once seen a loon outside of New Hampshire, much less in an actual city, but as I wandered off the path and down the grass, there it was, smack-dab in the middle of the greenish-black water.
I got as close as I could to the edge, close enough that I could see tiny guppies darting along the surface. My eyes trailed the loon as it moved toward the far end of the pond, and then scanned back toward the boats, where I noticed a woman crouched close by. She also seemed to be studying the bird intently, and I took off toward her, as if she might hold all the answers as to how a loon ended up in the middle of the Public Garden.
As her features came into clear view, I realized she was young—no more than seventeen—though the way her brow tensed over her cat-eyed glasses gave her the air of an ancient professor who’d had tenure longer than she’d been alive.
“Hey. Is that…” I pointed, unsure of what I was even asking.
“A loon, yeah,” she said as the small black bird disappeared under the water.
“How the hell did it end up in the middle of Boston?” I asked, squinting as I scanned the murky water, willing it to appear again.
“No idea. It just showed up last week.” She tucked a strand of short, black hair behind her ear as she looked up at me. “I interned all summer with the Audubon Society so I had to learn a lot about birds. I think it’s a female; the male loons are normally bigger.”
“Is that why you’re here? To take care of the bird?” I asked, and she laughed at this in the particular way only a teenager could, like it was the dumbest question in the world, but they didn’t judge you at all for asking it.
“No,” she explained, fiddling with the hem of her ruffled, floral dress. “I just did my internship for my community service credit for school. I go to Boston Latin.”
“That’s a good school,” I said, trying to figure out how to make small talk with a teenager. How the hell did Mack do this? I felt like a robot.
“It’s fine.” The girl shrugged, shifting her scuffed-up black Doc Martens underneath her knees. “I only have one more year, and then I can get out of Boston.”
“College?”
“Yeah,” she said with a nod. “I’m applying early to Brown.”
“Well, I’m actually from Providence originally,” I said. “And I couldn’t wait to get out of there. So I guess we swapped cities. I’m Clara, by the way.”
“Mei,” she said with a quick wave. “I live nearby.” She pointed at the row of townhouses that ran along the edge of the park. “I come here in the morning sometimes, and a few days ago I noticed the loon.”
I scanned the ground near where she sat cross-legged. Beside her were a phone, a notebook, and a small vape pen, and I understood instantly why she was down here by the water at six-thirty in the morning. For a fleeting moment, I recognized everything about her, even though I’d never seen her before in my life.
The need to escape, the itch that came from being this close to the start of adulthood, the childlike wonder that still shared a home alongside her teenage cynicism.
“I like your haircut,” I said. “It’s cool.”
She fingered the choppy edges that stuck out just below her earlobes. “Thanks. I did it myself. My mom hates it.”
“Well, that’s normally a good thing, right?” I asked.
She laughed. “I guess.”
We were quiet for a moment, and in the silence, I noticed the beauty of the gardens around us. Lush greenery, curving, meandering paths, blooming hydrangeas. Even the swan boats, which I’d always written off as cheesy, were lovely up close, delicately carved, and regal in their beauty.
“I haven’t been down here since my boyfriend and I broke up,” I said. “It’s actually kind of pretty.”
“You broke up with someone at the swan boats?” she asked with a hint of incredulity in her measured voice.
“Yeah. I don’t recommend it.”
Then there was a splash in the water, and we both turned to watch the loon, who was craning her sinewy neck as her wings pounded against the water.
My heart thumped with excitement but also worry; it felt like I’d unexpectedly run into an old friend who was now in a very bad place.
“It seems…” I leaned closer to the water, watching its frantic movements. “Like it can’t get out.”
She nodded. “Yeah, I googled it and texted my boss. I guess loons sometimes get stuck in small bodies of water because they need a lot of space to actually fly away, like a plane on a runway. She’s been trying for the last couple of days to take off.”
Worry immediately settled itself in my chest. “What if she it doesn’t figure it out?”
She shrugged, twisting back around to study the bird. “They’ll bring some animal rescue people in to help, move it to a larger lake. But I think it’ll get there on its own. Poor thing just needs some time.”
We stood there quietly, watching it dip its head underneath the water every now and then in between frustrated attempts at flight. Finally, it stilled and floated, giving up on escape for now. But you could see it in the bird’s eyes: She was plotting. She knew it was time to go, now or never.
She just had to figure out how to leave.