"Like Adults" [Leland/Birdie]

L e l a n d

What's so funny 'bout
peace, love and understanding?

(setting: Lockdown, week 6)

How many of you put down money that this wouldn’t have worked out?

Life goes on after the attack, just as sure as it always had.

A grainy video of the mill on the eastern side of the district going up in flames, roof collapsing, and scattering shit all of the place. I’d just sat down with a cup of coffee and an aspirin trying to rub the sleep out of my eyes that morning when they rattled off the number of casualties. No cause for alarm though – right – just a building coming down and ‘structural’ problems. Oh, but just to be safe, they were enacting a lockdown so that we could all shelter in place. Nothing out of the ordinary at all.

I’d thought about it for a half-second. Someone having a huge pair to set off some explosives and try to wind people up in district eight so that they’d finally rise up against the man and set us free. You know the types, a shadowy set whispering to one another dressed all in black ready to blow themselves to bits just for the revolution, or whatever it was they were trying to do. People that wanted to make the world a better place, get us up off the couch, and fight like hell just as we had near a hundred years ago.

Meh.

We took to the lockdown better than I could’ve thought we would. I mean, Birdie basically lived her life as though she was already under a quarantine, so just because someone told her she was supposed to be a shut-in wasn’t making much of a difference in her world. But a part of me had expected after the first night the two of us would be at each other’s throats for the littlest thing. Like – my underwear in a pile on the floor on my side of the bed. But there weren’t any blow ups, and here or there I managed to remember to put them in the gray laundry bin. I make her breakfast before heading out to work at the diner, and then I’m home again to make dinner.

I’d thought about going home to Arg and the apartment. In fact, the first few days, I’d come right up on the porch of Birdie’s house ready to tell her that I needed to get back to him and the plants, you know? Let her down gently, tell her that we both needed some space and to take care, I’d be back soon enough.

But every sunset at my back was another push forward. I’d get the spare key out from under the mat in front of the house (not really a ‘welcome’ mat when all it said was ‘home,’ Birdie always was literal) and push my way into the living room. Pistachio would chirp his way down the stairs and rub his way between my legs. I’d kneel down to scratch his ears before heading to the kitchen.

I bought groceries the third day, considering that the fridge contained a carton of expired milk, some frozen dinners, and a half-rotten head of cabbage. Stocked it full so that I could make a few things, some brioche for French toast, eggs, strawberries, lettuce for salad, chicken breasts, sausage, cold cuts – just a few things, for a few days. Had to make sure that at least one of us was eating, and if she wanted to pick at what I made, then, so be it.

I’d be cutting onion or tomato when the clock would tick right past seven, and – well, I wasn’t even legally allowed to go back home at that point.

And every morning I’d wake up next to her, breathe her in, and a part of me would warm up, too. I could wrap my arms around her, press my chest against her back, and think about how much I missed this. Feeling the way her chest would rise and fall. Listening to the sound of her breathing. The way the sunlight would come in through the crooked vinyl blinds and scatter all over her sheets. That it felt a bit like this could be a new normal because we were being told it had to be, strange as it was.

Oh, and that we fucked like we were going on sixteen again.

Tonight, I’d gotten paid which meant blowing all of it almost immediately.

We were six weeks into everyone else’s nightmare. I’d picked out one of the old records, something I’d force her to listen to when we were kids. Dimmed the lights (or rather, turned out one of the two lights in her living room). Spent less than half an hour on a buttery shrimp scampi, chopping up some garlic, throwing in shrimp, boiling linguini, little bits of parsley for some green on top. As I plated the pasta, I could hear Birdie on the stairs.

“Just a sec, babe,” I unscrewed the top to the bottle of white wine I’d bought and poured each of us a glass.

“You wouldn’t be-lieve the day I had out there.” I took a glass in each hand and moved to the living room. I extended a hand with her drink and smiled. “Arg showed up at the diner talking about how he’d had his wallet stolen again and asked for some money. And then my mom left a note asking why I hadn’t come to see her since ratmas.”

I tugged at the side of my cap.

“How are you? Good day? Bad?”