The Weight of Feathers

“Just one.” He folded his collar down. “He’s the biggest alright.”


He straightened up, collar and cornflower and the rest of him all put back in place. He had about six or seven inches on this girl, her body small but not willowy. There was enough on her that she seemed soft instead of fragile like the thinnest and shortest of his cousins.

He wished he hadn’t noticed. Noticing came with the thought of touching her, and a sureness that she would not break under his hands.

“What’s your name?” Cluck asked.

“None of your business,” she said.

“How’s that look frosted on a birthday cake?”

She laughed, but didn’t want to. The corners of her eyes fought it.

“What are you doing out here?” he asked.

“You first.”

“My family needed milk.”

“You couldn’t have gotten it in the morning?”

“They get up early.”

“First shift at the plant?” she asked.

The plant. Two words, and Cluck’s tongue tasted dry and bitter as the charcoal off burnt toast. The plant, where his grandfather once worked as a safety engineer, making sure everything ran clean. He oversaw the safety measures, implemented new ones. That was before the plant let him go, all because of what the Palomas did.

Now his grandfather traveled with the rest of the family, the life he’d never wanted. He’d gone to school to get away from it. All he’d wanted was to work, use what he’d learned, live in a house that was his. He’d had these things—the position at the plant, the house with a lemon tree that blossomed every May—until the Palomas took them.

But none of that was anybody else’s business, so Cluck just told the girl, “No, they don’t work at the plant.”

The girl pointed at Cluck’s left hand. “You should get that looked at.”

That was a new one. Strangers usually assumed it was a deformity, that he came this way, his fingers balled into a fist at birth and never fully opening. His hand had been that way for years, the ring finger and pinkie stuck curled under like talons, the third finger always bent. He could only straighten his thumb and forefinger, only had full range of motion in those two. Even if he could spread out his whole hand, his fingers wouldn’t match. The third, ring, and pinkie would never get as big as the ones on his right hand, the growth plates cracked and knocked out of place years ago.

“Too late,” he told the girl.

Then came the few awkward seconds that made her hunch her shoulders as though she were tall. Her ear almost brushed her jean jacket. She looked caught, like strangers when he noticed them staring.

“Let’s get you some ice,” she said.

Her guilt made him wince.

“You don’t have to do that,” he said.

But she waved him into the liquor store, slid quarters into the ice machine, and filled a plastic sack. The light from the refrigerator case shined through the soda bottles, casting bands of color on the linoleum. Stewart’s Lime, Cheerwine, Blue Vanilla Frostie, all bright with dyes his grandfather said were no better than the chemicals the plant mixed up a hundred thousand gallons at a time.

The girl pulled the scarf off her hair. Her messy bun came undone, her hair falling down her back. She plunged her hand into the ice and wrapped a fistful in the sheer fabric. The water darkened the flower pattern, turning the white space between the roses gray.

She held it to his temple. “That’s gonna be blue by tomorrow morning.”

Cold water dripped down his cheek. “Don’t worry. They look good on me.”

She switched hands and shook out her fingers. “This happens a lot?”

“Must be my sparkling personality.”

She put his hand on the scarf. “Could be the way you’re dressed.”

“Eye-catching, isn’t it?” Cluck had the same thing on he wore most days. Collared shirt, sleeves rolled up from working on the wings. Vest and trousers. “Fetching, you might say?”