Below is a preview of my novel in progress, The Winged Girl.


1.

The winged girl lived in a small town in western Massachusetts. Her wings were like those of a flying squirrel, a thin membrane stretched between her arms and torso. She could glide more than she could fly. When she was a young girl, she’d been very proud of her wings, and she’d often practice her gliding, first from the top step of her mother’s porch and later from the rooftop. There was one summer where she learned to launch herself from the high granite walls that surrounded the town’s reservoir. If there was a strong updraft she could suspend herself there for many moments, like a hawk or a buzzard. But most of those summer days she would whoosh down the walls of the small canyon, making an impossible turn near the bottom, so that her path was like that of a giant L, and then back up again, leveling out, gliding across the lake ten or twelve feet above the water. She was not afraid of the sand or the rocks that surrounded the lake. Her worst injury in her years of gliding was a broken arm that had been easily mended. But she was often terrified of the water. Her wings were not helpful at all for swimming, and they would instead often fill with water, pulling her in and dragging her down. She’d almost drowned more than once. But, that summer she’d been fearless, or pretended to be. Often a small crowd would form to watch her glide across the lake, and she would sign autographs on the backs of old newspapers, or let children touch her wings, but she did not like to have her picture taken.

Anyways, that was years ago, before the first year of high school where she was teased and made fun of endlessly, especially by Lindsey Morham. “Quack, quack,” they’d say as she passed them in the hallway. “She’s got wings but she can’t fly.”

She’d stamp her foot, something that worked with her mother sometimes. “Ducks can fly,” she’d say.

“Whatever,” said Lindsey.

She’d often hide her wings under a broad green cape that her mother had, reluctantly, knitted for her, and the winged girl kept to herself mostly and became a very good baker in her spare time.

Her mother did not have wings, though she’d briefly dated a winged man, and Natalie asked about him, as she did each birthday, when she turned fifteen.

“Handsome?”

“Of course,” said her mother. The woman was mixing frosting in a bowl.

“Was he nice to you?”

Her mother wriggled her nose and licked a dollop of chocolate off her finger. “Not particularly. I only knew him for a little while, Natty.”

“It’s Natalie.”

Her mother blinked and looked at her. “It used to be Natty.”

“If it’s not too much to ask,” said Natalie.

Her mother shrugged.

“Where is he?” said Natalie.

“Hmmm?”

“Mom.”

Her mother sighed and put the mixer aside. “He joined the circus.”

This seemed to cheer Natalie up a little. “Really?”

“Yes. Though I was against it. Winged people can do anything they want you know. Their options are not limited to the circus.”

“Was he a freak?”

“I don’t like that word, Natty.”

“I bet he was,” Natalie said. “I bet that’s what you liked about him.”

Her mother turned the mixer back on. “There was a girl who used to live here. She looked a lot like you, but she had proper manners and was not gloomy all the time. Have you seen her?”

Natalie opened the oven. “She flew away.”

~


2.

At night she had wonderful dreams about surfing, something she’d always wanted to do. There was often a tiger that surfed with her, and he could talk and said the most outrageous things.

“Sexy, you,” he’d say, riding a breaker just off to her left.

“Oh no,” she’d reply.

“Oh yes, grrrrrr.”

A new boy moved to town, and his name was Jacob Spearman. He was the same age as her and sat in front of her in Algebra I. He had the most wonderfully shaped head, like that of a Roman statue, and Natalie loved to watch his shoulder bone stick out against his T-shirt when he began to take notes. There were many weeks of this, during which time they’d had a total of two conversations. The first was of the Did you get caught in the rain? – I did – I see you’re all wet. – Yep variety, and the second of which was much more elaborate, and one that Natalie played over and over in her head at night, before sleep, before the tiger.

“Can I copy your homework?” He’d turned around and was staring blankly at her.

“My homework?” Natalie had said. This was cheating, and she didn’t think much of it.

“Did you do it?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to let me copy it?” He had the most beautiful brown eyes and his fingernails were trimmed down to the quick.

“No,” she said.

“Really?”

“Really.”

He shrugged and turned around. Their teacher started class by taking roll, and Natalie peered over Jacob’s shoulder at his homework. All the answers were filled in.

Tap-tap on his shoulder. She felt a warmth creep up her wings, just in touching him. He turned around.

“Did you change your mind?” he said.

She pointed to his notebook. “But you’ve already done it.”

“So?”

“So.” She was disoriented, but didn’t think this was wise to show. “So what kind of freak are you?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Are you the girl with wings?”

She considered lying. “Yes,” she said. “I mean,” she began. “Yes.”

“That’s what I thought,” he said. “I’m glad you didn’t let me copy your homework.” Then he turned around again.

He hadn’t said any of these things in a mean or sarcastic tone, and she still didn’t know what had overcome her, to call him a freak like that. She had almost gotten over her crush on him, just the day before their conversation. She’d been stalking him a little, and had seen his mother pick him up at the curb outside the gym. On the back bumper was a “Bush/Cheney 2004” sticker, not a small one, but one larger than the license plate. Natalie and her mother had collected signatures in the spring for Howard Dean, a candidate who Natalie secretly wished was her father.

So, she was not going to date a Republican, and she would certainly no longer stalk one. Over dinner, she asked her mother about the situation and promised herself that she’d do the opposite of whatever her mother said.

“Why’d you call him a freak?” her mother said.

“He wanted to copy my homework,” said Natalie.

Her mother rolled her eyes. “Lighten up. You want my advice?”

“Yes.”

“You know what your best angle is?”

“What?”

Her mother stared at her. She’d been a teacher when she was younger. “You tell me.”

“Mom.”

Her mother began to count on her fingers. “It is sports?”

“I hate sports.”

“You used to like soccer.”

“No, I didn’t,” said Natalie

“You used to say that you did.”

Natalie sighed. “That’s because you were depressed, and I didn’t want to make any more trouble for you.”

Her mother squinted. “Really?”

“Really.”

“That’s too bad. Thanks though. Okay, is it conversation?”

“I hate talking.”

Her mother put her elbows on the table. “You talk to me all the time.”

“You’re not scary.”

“You told me the other day I frightened you.”

“You’re a different type of scary,” said Natalie. “You frighten me in a way that will scar me for life. The kids at school, I’ll get over that eventually.”

Her mother pointed with her fork. “Short-term.”

“Exactly.”

“Do you want to know the angle?”

“I said I did.”

“Will you empty the dishwasher later tonight?”

Natalie thought that over. “I’ve got homework,” she said.

“It’s a good angle.”

Natalie smiled. She had taken to playing this game with her mother, as if they were just getting to know each other for the first time.

“If it’s good,” she said.

Her mother put the fork down and placed her hands flat on the table. “You find a subject that he’s good at. Then you pretend to not be good at it. Then you ask for help with a project.”

Natalie couldn’t believe her ears. “You want me to play dumb?”

The mother nodded. She considered herself a farminist, a word she and her friends had thought up to mean rural feminist. They’d even had T-shirts printed.

It was Natalie who put her fork down now. “You want me to play dumb so a boy can feel smart so that he won’t be intimidated by me?”

“So you won’t be intimidated by him.”

“That’s terrible advice. I’m telling Marcy.” Marcy was her mother’s friend who’d recently had her head shaved.

Her mother shrugged. “Suit yourself. Sometimes it pays to be more clever than smart.”


~

3.

She waited for two days, then she broke her pen in half and spilled ink down the back of his shirt. In a way, it was like marking her territory.

“I’m so sorry,” she said.

“What the hell?” said Jacob.

“I’ll buy you a new shirt.”

“You’re right,” he said. “You will.”

They went shopping the next day after school, to a department store in Amherst. They rode the bus together, past the cornfields and the barbecue stands on route 9. She felt like this was proper: traveling together, shopping as if they were an old married couple. He found a replacement for his ruined shirt, and she picked out another for him: a black shirt that was made of some shiny material and that might be good for dancing or for a party. She could only imagine these things though. She’d never been invited to any of these functions. At the register, he flatly refused her money and paid for both shirts himself, and this both annoyed the winged girl and it excited her. She wondered if it was a Democratic or Republican thing to do.

“Do you like swimming?” he said.

She touched her wings. “Yes.”

“I know a spot,” he said.

It was the reservoir, and it was late in the day and chilly out. The small beach area was deserted except for two couples who looked like they were seniors at the high school or townies. The sun was dipping across the far side of the lake, and the evening light cast a blue-red glow across the sand and the water. Natalie and Jacob stripped to their underwear. She wondered if they would have sex, right there on the beach, in an hour or so. She thought that would be okay, though she’d promised herself she’d wait till she was in college. Her wings were folded against her torso, and she spread them now, taking a chance. She had something that the other girls did not have.

“Wow,” he said.

“Yeah. Wow.”

“Can I touch them?”

She wanted him to, but said no.

“I didn’t mean anything by it,” he said. He was very handsome in the evening’s light, and she liked his skinny arms and his thick chest. She looked down at his feet, and she noticed that his toes were webbed, as if he was merman or a superhero. She felt a warm pressure at the base of her neck.

He saw her looking and spread his toes. They were like two flat flippers with ten stubby notches at the end. “Freaky, huh?”

“No,” she said. “Can you swim fast?”

“The fastest,” he said.

“I’m afraid of drowning,” she said.

He nodded and placed his hands on his hips. “I won’t let you drown.”

She twirled a string of her hair around her finger and busted out laughing. “I won’t let you drown,” she said in a deep voice, mimicking him. She placed her hands on her hips and stuck her chest out. “You’re safe with me young lady,” she said.

He seemed to be horrified at first. His eyes went wide, then returned as they were. He kept a straight face, trying to read her. The two couples down the beach were splashing in the water. When she laughed again, he did too, though only a half-laugh. The winged girl liked this, liked his uncertainty, liked how serious he took himself, liked this small power she’d exerted over him.

They waded into the lake, and the water was cold and thick with silt from the granite. She took hold of his shoulders, and he swam out toward the middle of the lake. He swam with a surprising power, and she liked the feel of his bones and skin in her hands. She breathed in the scent of his hair, and it smelled like potato chips and shampoo. The center of the lake was colder yet, and they floated there, both of them on their backs with his arms around her. Her wings kept filling with water, and it frightened her. He slipped his hands against her belly and kept her up at the surface.

“My father died,” he said. “Years ago.”

Natalie blinked and looked back at him. “How did he die?”

Jacob shook his head. “Why do those girls make fun of you? Lindsey and those others?”

“Because they’re turds,” she said.

“They look like turds,” he said and laughed. His head shook when he laughed.

She thought of something, and tried it. She kicked at the water below. “They’re Republicans,” she said.

He paused. Something flew over them, a bat or a night bird.

“My mom’s a Republican,” he said. “But otherwise she’s okay.”

Natalie took some water into her mouth, then spit it in a large stream above their heads. “I didn’t mean to insult your mom.”

“You didn’t,” he said. “All turds are Republicans, but not all Republicans are turds.”

“X is Y, but Y is not necessarily X.”

“Right,” he said.

“I need help with Algebra,” she said.

He shrugged. “Okay.”

~

4.

They spent their afternoons at her mother’s house, going over their problem sets and then afterwards watching television or listening to the radio in the den. She taught him how to dance, though she was making most of it up, and he taught her how to repair things around the house: a creaky stair or a light switch that had never worked, the old rattling fan in the refrigerator. They made coffee, and he’d often stay for dinner, sitting quietly while her mother talked about the planning board of the county, where she worked, and all the morons who were on the board with her. Once, they went to a meeting and offered support against a new zoning law. They held homemade signs that read “Out with the Super Mart,” and “No Tax Breaks for Owen’s Rich Friends.” Owen was the head of the board, a patient, smiling old man who nodded at the two teenagers in the audience and even talked with them about Alaska, where he’d grown up, after the meeting.

Natalie’s mother liked Jacob, and she’d often tease him about his proper table manners, the way he chewed his food thoroughly. She had a date one night and asked him the proper protocol in talking sports.

“How old is he?” said Jacob.

Her mother coughed. “He’s a few years older than me.”

“Pick a sport. Baseball maybe, and say ‘I just don’t think it’s as pure as it used to be.’”

Her mother frowned. “What do you mean by pure?”

“You don’t have to know that. He’ll tell you.”

He spent the night that evening, on the couch downstairs, and Natalie’s mother had not come home by midnight. Around one Natalie stomped down the stairs and sat in the rocker next to the couch. Her grandmother’s old quilt was tucked up under Jacob’s chin.

“Do you ever worry about things?” she said. “Like, how things are going to turn out?”

He opened his eyes. “Like what?”

“Like life.”

He licked his lips and stared up at the ceiling. “When my father died I had to take a train down to Philadelphia and pick up one of the uncles in my family. My mother’s uncle. He was an old man, and he needed help to get around. He and I talked things out on the way back to Boston, and he was a great help to me. I can’t even remember what we talked about now. But on the train ride down I just looked out the window at the rain and the factories and stuff going by. I was really worried then. I guess I still am. That was the longest day for me. I thought that train ride was never going to end. I don’t know how things are going to turn out I guess.”

Natalie pulled her feet up on the chair. “Why didn’t your mother go with you?”

“Because her husband had just died.”

“How old were you?”

“Twelve. I’d just turned twelve the week before. I was very mature for my age.”

Natalie laughed at that, and immediately she regretted it. She looked over at him, but he was smiling back.

“I think I’m in love with you,” she said.

His smile disappeared, and he looked at her as if she were suddenly a stranger. He pulled his arms out from the quilt and folded them across his chest.

“No,” he said.

Natalie looked away. “I was just thinking I might be. I didn’t say that I was.”

“I don’t want you to be,” he said.

“Why not?”

“Because I’m not in love with you.”

She looked out the window. A truck went past on the road, and the tree in her front yard was beginning to lose its leaves.

“Ouch,” she said.

“Sorry.”

“You’re an asshole.”

He sat up and pushed the pillow behind his back. “I don’t mean to be. I don’t really feel much for anybody. It’s not just you.”

She exaggerated a sigh. “That’s a relief.”

He held his hands together and looked at them. “I don’t feel very close to anyone, and I never have. I was afraid this was going to happen, but I do like you a lot.”

That made her feel even worse, if that was possible. The word inconsequential came to mind. She wished she hadn’t said anything. “You’ve felt this way since your dad died?”

He shook his head. “No. I’ve always felt this way. I miss him, but I didn’t feel very close to him. I missed that he wasn’t there anymore, but I didn’t feel him there anymore. Does that make sense?”

“No.”

“I guess I can’t explain it then. I don’t think I have anything to give you, but I would like to be your friend.”

Natalie got up and sat on his knees. He pulled them out from under her. She grabbed hold of one of his shins. “It’s okay,” she said.

He smiled. A little boy smile. “Thanks.”

“I could make you fall in love with me if you give me a chance.”

He shook his head. “I know that you couldn’t. I don’t think anyone can. I understand that you don’t believe that, but it’s true.”

She moved her hand down so that she had hold of his ankle. “Come on,” she said. “I’ll give you a dollar.”

“A whole dollar?”

She nodded. “A whole dollar. In nickels maybe.”

“That’s quite an offer.”

“I’m a big spender.”

He smiled. “I know you are.”

She pulled his legs apart and reached in and kissed him. She felt the turn of his cheek as she closed her eyes. He pulled away from her. When she opened her eyes he was sitting on the arm of the couch.

“Don’t do that again,” he said.

“I think you want me to.”

“You’re wrong,” he said. He wiped at his mouth as if he’d been infected. “You don’t know anything about me.”

She felt a great hate well up inside her, as if she’d been willing to give him everything and had it stolen instead.

“Are you gay?” she said.

“No.”

“I bet you are.”

“I don’t care what you think. I’m not though. You act like you care about me, but you really don’t.”

“I do,” she said, and she put her hand on his knee. She felt pathetic and small, and she hated him for it.

“Then be my friend.”

“Hold my hand.”

He shook his head. “Not until you promise to just be friends.”

She took her hand off his knee. She looked down at her grandmother’s quilt. Her grandmother had been a quiet woman with a house full of cats.

“You’re gay,” she said. “Gay, gay, gay.” She almost spit the words out. “You’re totally gay.”

He looked at her and didn’t say anything.

They heard a rustle of keys outside, and then a turn in the lock. Her mother came in and turned on the light. They squinted at her in the brightness. Her hair was ruffled up, and she was missing one of her shoes.

~

5.

The rumor spread throughout school the next day, not about Natalie and Jacob, but about Lindsey Morham, who’d been cutting herself with a razor on her thighs and forearms. She’d been taken to some kind of hospital, and the rumor was that she was kept in a straight-jacket night and day, like a crazy person. They turned quickly on her, Lindsey’s friends, and Natalie actually felt bad for the girl. She’d wanted to cut her own throat during the night, after she’d said those horrible things to Jacob. He’d slipped out the door without a word soon after her mother came home.

He’d left his jacket behind, and Natalie put it on the chair at his desk at school and waited, arriving early. She thought about her mother, who’d slept on the couch where Jacob had been, and was hung-over and obviously had had sex, or something close to it, earlier in the night. It embarrassed Natalie, not the sex, but the fact that her mother had scored – she couldn’t think of a better word for it – when she had not.

At the bell he walked in with two other students and took his seat. He did not look at all like he’d missed any sleep. It made Natalie’s heart jump into her throat. He stared straight ahead, did not even acknowledge her as he sat down. They watched Mrs. Merritt write problems on the board.

“Hey,” she whispered.

He half-turned and looked at her. He didn’t say anything.
“Do you, like, totally hate me?” she said. It made her sound like Lindsey, or one of her traitor friends. It was an easy and unearned way of speaking, of beginning an apology, and Natalie was appalled at her own cowardice.

“I don’t know you well enough to hate you,” he said and turned back around.

The student next to her yawned, and somewhere in the room someone opened a zipper on a bookbag. She’d remember that sound for weeks later, high-pitched and sudden. One of Lindsey’s friends, Amy Holladay, stared back at her in the next row over. It seemed that the girl could see right inside Natalie, and it made Natalie hate her to the core. She wished she could fly and not simply glide. She wanted to pick up the girl and fly high above the school and then drop her. Watch her go splat on the pebbled walkway outside the cafeteria.

“Fuck you,” she said to the girl.

Mrs. Merritt turned around and scanned the room. “Who said that?”

Natalie ducked and leaned forward on her desk. She whispered “I wasn’t talking to you,” to Jacob.

~

He avoided her after that, even having his seat changed in Algebra class so that he was two rows over and behind her now. She imagined him studying her, but whenever she turned, his attention was on the board or on his book. He made new friends and would talk with them in the hallways, leaning against a locker, laughing or poking someone. It drove her crazy that he would touch someone and not her. She jammed a note, explaining herself, into his locker and then checked her own after each period ended. There was no reply.

The tiger in her dream did not surf anymore. He drank gin-and-tonics and shook his head slowly at her. “Tut, tut,” he said.

“I can’t do anything if he won’t talk to me,” she said.

The tiger put his paws into his armpits. He made a flapping motion, like a chicken. “Bawk, bawk.”

Her mother, baking again one night, a rarity since she’d found a new man, asked, “Where’s your friend?”

“Where’s yours?” said Natalie.

“You’ll meet him soon enough.”

And she did, the next night over dinner. It was Owen Blakely, head of the planning commission. Old Man Owen, they’d called him, the one with the rich friends who’d pushed the Super Mart through. Fine, her mother was compromised now. Even her mother. They ate a loin of pork with baked potatoes and green bean casserole. A Republican dinner, Natalie was sure.

“Owen?” she said. She hadn’t said much after the first introduction.

He looked up at her and smiled. He didn’t seem bothered that she’d used his first name.

“Did you run a highway through anyone’s yard this week?”

Her mother put her fork down. “Natty.”

“Not this week,” Owen said. “That kind of thing takes time.”

“How about evictions? Did you kick anyone to the curb?”

Her mother’s mouth dropped open.

The old man took it in stride. “Nope, no evictions. But I am plotting a plague of evil for next week.”

“The early bird gets the worm.”

He nodded, dug into his potato. “You got it, sister.”

Off the subject of the Winged Girl for a moment: I won the Joseph Henry Jackson Award for my stories "The Boots" and "Coyotes." This is an award from the San Francisco Foundation and Intersection for the Arts. Scroll down the link to see what the judges had to say.