“Hi, Jasmine,” I said, touching her finger. “I’m so glad to meet you.”
We were fast friends from that moment on. So when the reporter asked me about the shooting of Nadine Truelove by the LNB, I lost it. She’d been the youngest female senator to ever serve in California, a woman of color, and they had killed her. Killed her. I ranted for three solid minutes about religious oppression and the rise of overt white supremacy, about the terrified little boys running around trying to control the world with their violence and attempts to corral and kill women.
It was only at the end, when I realized that the entire set was quiet, that I knew I’d gone too far.
I thought they’d trim it, cut it, shape it up.
After four decades in the entertainment industry, I should have known better. They knew they had a click-generator. The interview went live two days later and was viral in fifteen minutes. I made every hit list for every nutty right-wing organization in the country. Maybe the world, because I didn’t spare any of them.
After we left the Pig ’N Pancake, I was shaking so hard I couldn’t get my shoulder bag over my head. Phoebe had to help me loop the strap over my body. I was so unsteady that she sat me down in the booth and brought me a glass of water.
“Can you take me home?”
“What about Yul Brynner?” Jasmine asked.
“I’ll come get him later,” I said. “You’ll look out for him until then, right?”
“Of course. Can he come sleep with me when I take a rest?”
“That’s up to your nana.”
Phoebe said, “Are you sure you want to be alone? I don’t mind if you come to the house.”
“I need to talk to my therapist,” I lied. “I’ll come down later, if that’s okay.”
“That’s fine. I have some more work to do, so I’ll be in the studio later. Join me whenever you’re ready.”
The healing atmosphere of the studio brushed over my mind, but at the moment I couldn’t contemplate being even that far away from the locked and bolted rooms of my house. When they dropped me off, I unlocked the door, slammed it behind me, and made a beeline for the kettle. I’m still shaking, but less violently. It’s turned into a fine trembling that runs below my skin, through my veins. I plant my palms against the counter and try to breathe, all the way in, all the way out, but my body remembers—a blast of something solid coming out of nowhere, slamming into the back of my head—
—A boot blasting into my left ribs—
—Yanking on my hair, pulling up up backward—
—My father’s belt making a sound as it swung through the air, the slap as it connected—
—A knee pinning me down as a razor ran over my scalp—
—A baby’s cry—
I press my fingers to my temples.
One of the things my therapist has been working on with me is my wrecked nervous system. Right now it feels shattered, maybe broken beyond repair. All these years I’ve turned the traumas of my life into bricks I could use to climb up and out, but now all those steps are crumbling and—
A bright knock lands against my kitchen window. I yelp, crossing my arms defensively as I stagger backward.
But it’s a seagull. He’s landed on the railing around the deck, and the noise is him rapping his big yellow beak against the glass.
He’s a big bird. A factoid I know from Phoebe, the bird fanatic, is that some of the largest seagulls in the world live around here. This one is bright white with black wing feathers and banded stripes on his tail. He’s fully two feet tall, and when he cocks his head sideways, looking at me, some of the wild terror in my body eases. “Hello. Has someone been feeding you?”
He taps his beak against the window again, as if he’s answering me, and it surprises a laugh from me. “You’re used to getting your way, aren’t you?” Phoebe would kill me if I fed him, but I’m sorely tempted. I mean, I perform for my supper. Why can’t seagulls?
But I don’t feed him. Phoebe has impressed upon me the importance of letting wild animals be wild. Instead, I brew my tea and watch the waves, trying to anchor myself in their rhythmic movements. A low bank of clouds rolls in, heavy and purple, and beneath them the sea starts to toss. I wonder what storm is out there on the feral ocean, and something in me eases as I think of it, the water and the beings beneath it, and the clouds and the rain. A hardness in my chest slips away. The gull sits with me, just on the other side of the glass, until rain starts pattering against the window and his feathers. As if it annoys him, he flaps his big wings and flies down to join his cronies at the shoreline, where the rough surf has left a thick row of debris. Good eating for birds.