A Flamboyance
Callie left the blinds open so the moonlight would keep her company. Alone in the house all weekend, by Sunday she’d only had a couple hours ragged sleep. She didn’t plan to get out of bed until she heard from her mother. Only sharp tooting as a pink blot streaked across the dawn sky brought her to the window. In the shade of the flowering redbud tree, a flamingo perched in the yard, S-curved neck, one leg tucked under its rosy belly. Callie watched through the screen transfixed as the flamingo nosed its feathered side with its beak, the sun’s rays shooting through the pink blossoms above its bobbing head.
The bird sauntered to the canal at the end of the yard turning its head upside down to feed. A crackled grey skull rose from the water, slitted black eyes gleaming. As the gator lunged, she cried, “No!” But the flamingo had already lifted itself, wings swiping air as it soared above the gator’s gaping mouth leaving Callie dazzled by its confident escape.
Escaping like her mother. Callie had been standing in the doorway of her mother’s room Friday, watching her stuff a swimsuit cover-up and flip-flops into her carryall as she told Callie about her trip.
“It’s only the Bahamas,” her mother said. “Fourteen’s old enough to stay alone for a weekend.”
Callie kept quiet. All she could think was: It really isn’t. How could her mother spring it on her like this? Her first time staying by herself and it’s two whole nights. If she’d told her sooner, Callie could have gotten a friend to sleep over. By the time she tried, everyone had plans.
At the ding of a text, she grabbed her phone. Jenny.
She home yet?
Boat trouble.
She didn’t like lying to her best friend, but she had to make some excuse. She hadn’t told Jenny much about Dean, the boat guy, because why? Just another jerk who wouldn’t stick around.
Callie didn’t mention being alone during her dad’s Saturday call. When he asked how her mom was, she said, “You know,” rubbing her thumb across her felted bunny finger puppet.
“I do, Honey. Hang in there.”
If she panicked she could call him, but what could he do? Last year his job moved him to Memphis. Her mother had asked their neighbor June to look in on Callie. She came over Friday evening with homemade chili and stopped by yesterday to chat. Callie’d been okay then, or at least not bad enough to confide in a woman she barely knew. Last night at two-thirty, she heard a rattle she’d never heard before that sounded like somebody trying to get in the back door. Spooked, she hadn’t fallen back to sleep.
In the kitchen she zapped a box of pizza rolls and washed them down with coconut water. Her mother would’ve scowled. She claimed she wasn’t a fat-hater; that she only nagged Callie about her weight because she wanted her to be healthy. This from a woman who lived on black coffee and No Cow protein bars.
The only other thing she could do to get back at her mom for leaving her like this was what she’d planned on last week when Jenny came over after school. Afraid of pissing off her mom on a day when she’d left for work in a black mood, she’d wimped out, but Jenny left the ingredients, “Just in case.”
The beet juice smelled musty, but dribbling it over her head felt like a cooling spa treatment sinking into her scalp, at least the way she imagined a spa treatment would feel. She pulled her mother’s shower cap down to her ears, grabbed a pool noodle and stretched out on a lounge chair, toes up to the sun’s warmth, her neck resting on the tube. A pair of flamingos passed overhead, their meeps like bickering.
An hour later the apple cider vinegar rinse left a fresh, tangy smell.
On her phone, the pink was a shock. She texted Jenny a selfie.
Yowza! Look at u. What’s ur mom think?
Too soon to know.
Bandaged heart emoji
She was about to risk calling her dad, when a cloud of honking flamingos descended on the back lawn. The flapping of their wings stirred the air causing pink redbud petals to cascade onto the grass.
The stalky birds spread themselves around the yard from corner to corner covering the lawn as if they were guarding her. Most stood upright, a few preened, a couple made their way down to the canal at the end of the yard. Entranced, she squinted into the sunlight. She was afraid of startling them, so she raised herself gradually to sitting, the chair letting out a small squeak of metal against metal as she pressed down on the arms. A few birds near her bristled, opening and closing their wings. She lazily rotated and set her feet on the ground. Standing without disturbing the air felt like unfolding. She shook her head, ruffling her pink hair.
Walking among them, her feet caressed the grass. Squawking paused then erupted. When she reached the middle of the flock, the flamingos began taking off. She held out her arms and lifted upward, propelled by the force of their wings. Floating across the sky, her hair blew back. Soaring, the wind embraced her. She felt buoyant — her bones hollow as bird bones.
At the coastline, a stand of mangroves dug their roots into the shore. Farther on, waves crested on a narrow sand beach. Islands dotted distant blue water. She could see everything, even a small sailboat, a woman shielding her eyes in a familiar pose staring skyward unable to distinguish Callie from the other birds.
The hum of flamingo wingbeats comforted her — a graceful rhythm. She continued to soar, her pleasure among the elegant birds so profound she didn’t worry where she might land.
• • •
Ellen Davis Sullivan is an award-winning writer of fiction, nonfiction and plays. Her stories have appeared in journals including Big Muddy, J Journal and Cherry Tree. Her essay “The Perfect Height for Kissing” won the Columbia University Non-Fiction Prize and was published in Columbia: A Journal of Literature and Art. Ellen’s one-act plays have been produced across the country and published in Ponder Review and anthologies including Best Ten-Minute Plays.