5. Wren
“Wren! Come set this table, please!”
My mother’s voice called up the stairs, strained but trying not to be. She was like that more and more lately; tense and anxious and pretending that everything was fine.
Everything was not fine.
Not since the men down at the paper mill had gone on strike. Dad said that it’s just a matter of time, that the big shots down at head office will pull their heads out of their asses any day now, and everyone will go back to work.
Mom didn”t seem so sure, though. She had started searching the want ads after dinner, when Dad was watching TV so he wouldn’t notice.
She wasn’t looking for him, though; she was looking for herself.
I had been working extra hard to get more babysitting jobs whenever I could, but with most of the men in town on the picket lines, there wasn’t a lot of people heading out to dinner and a movie anymore.
I finished sketching the feather on the outside of the envelope before I tucked it safely inside my binder. I had planned to swing by the post office on my way to school; times may be tight, but I could come up with thirty-seven cents for a stamp, right?
Making my way to the kitchen, I snagged four plates from the cabinet and placed them on the table before turning to the utensil drawer and grabbing some forks.
Mom glanced over from where she stood, aggressively stirring the gravy, and frowned at me.
“What the hell is that on your arms?”
I glanced down, sighing when I saw what she was referring to.
“Just something I made,” I said, trying for casual and dismissive.
“Is that why you had me order those stupid stockings last month? I thought you were finally going to start dressing like a young lady, but I guess I should have known better.” Mom shook her head and her stirring got even more aggressive. “I am not throwing good money after bad around here just for you to turn the things I buy into trash!”
“It’s not trash, Mom. It’s the style.”
And I was fucking proud of what I’d made, too. I’d taken a three-dollar pair of black fishnet stockings and turned them into a badass pair of fingerless gloves. They looked wicked with my dark navy nail polish and the matching eyeliner I’d been practicing wearing.
Speaking of which, I finished setting the table and turned, trying to escape the kitchen but it was too late.
“And get that stuff off your face before your father comes home, young lady. I won’t have my daughter looking like some sort of tramp at the supper table.”
“Yes, Mom,” I moaned, returning to my room and removing my precious gloves. I’d worn them at school today, and I’d been so excited when I’d slipped them on at my locker. It hadn’t been long before Denise had sauntered by, arm in arm with her stupid jock boyfriend, Jason Mason.
Yeah, that was his actual name. Even his parents were dumb.
“Oh, my god, Jason. Look,” she had said dramatically, the gaggle of Denise wannabees behind her all stopping to stare. “Wren forgot how to wear her clothes properly.” The girls all tittered at her joke, and Denise preened under their approval. Denise would never be caught dead wearing the same things as I did. I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d seen her in anything other than a short skirt and the latest pair of Steve Madden shoes. I guessed the dress code regulations only applied to us peasants.
“Wren, sweetie. Stockings go on your legs, not your arms.” She paused for effect before continuing. “I mean, if you even have legs buried somewhere under all that awful denim.”
Before I could respond, the whole gang of them wandered off to torment the next kid who dared to be different.
Denise and I had been friends once, before we were old enough to realize that she was rich and I was poor. Before we learned that her daddy owned the mill while my daddy just worked there.
Once we figured that out, I went from being her friend to her target, and it had never changed.
After I had placed my gloves carefully in the bottom of my sock drawer—just in case they should accidentally disappear on the next laundry day—I washed my face and headed back downstairs just in time for Dad to walk in the door.
Things had been different with him lately, too. He’d always worked long hours, but since the strike started, he’d been more and more angry when he’d come home. He’d sit at the table and complain about how McQueen Pulp and Paper Mill was screwing them all over. How they were taking all the profits, draining the pension fund, and cutting benefits.
I didn’t really understand it, but I did know that mom had started telling my sister Jasmine not to use her inhaler unless she absolutely had to.
Just in case.
“McQueen has really done it this time, Mary,” Dad burst out the second we’d finished saying grace. “He’s bringing in fucking scabs.”
“Tom,” Mom admonished, glancing at me and Jasmine, as though we were sweet innocents who had never heard a cuss word before in our lives.
“It’s disgusting,” he went on as if she hadn’t spoken, and I watched her shoulders hunch over a bit, her eyes going to her plate. “It’s about time the people in this town showed him we are not to be taken lightly. I was talking to a few of the guys down on the line, and they agree. It’s time to step things up. Time to show them we mean business.”
“Please, Tom. Don’t do anything foolish.”
“Foolish?” he spat, pausing his fork full of meatloaf and gravy halfway to his face. “Is it foolish to want to be paid fairly for my labor? Is it foolish to want to be treated with respect for doing a hard day’s work?”
“No, Tom,” she said meekly, and I cringed.
It never used to be like this. Why did it have to be like this?
“No, it’s damn well not!” he finished with a shout, and no one spoke again until his plate was empty of his second helping.
Once he had settled on the couch, remote in hand as he flipped between sports stations, Jasmine and I cleared the table quickly, packing any leftovers into containers for Dad’s lunch tomorrow before we disappeared into our rooms under the guise of having homework. It was still early in the year, but it was high school, so there was still a little that I needed to finish before tomorrow. Sliding on my headphones, I plugged them into my stereo and turned on my music.
The latest album by Black Kite was killer. I loved the dark sound they always seemed to have, the heavy beat of the drums and Hawk”s deep, growling voice seeming to sink into my bones. So much of the most popular music today was just so bright, the singers’ voices sounding like they were hopped up on sugar all the time.
The music that really spoke to me was darker than that, the words and the tone expressing all the shit that I seemed to be feeling these days.
That was why Hollow was my favorite song. Because it said exactly how I felt about my life right now. That who I was on the outside was just a shell. That the person I wanted to be, the person hiding on the inside, wasn’t someone I thought people would like, so I kept her tucked away in the dark, waiting until it was safe for her to come out.
And the way that Hawk Jameson sang those words? Incredible. I grew up on rock music, with dad listening to the classics like Bon Jovi and Motley Crew while he worked the grill on a Saturday evening, but Black Kite music just felt different, and I wasn’t sure why.
All I knew was that when I put my headphones on and listened to Hawk sing, I didn’t feel alone anymore. I knew that somewhere out there was a person who felt exactly the same way that I did.
Even if he was miles and miles away.
Looking at the envelope in my binder one more time, I smiled, hoping that when he read my letter, he’d know that there was someone out there who felt like he did, and maybe that would mean something to him, too.