Canary

I WATCHED the trees, pointy and bare stare up the dull sky in dismay. The road was rough and bumpy, and the car jolted as she drove its small tires over the barks that littered the ground. I thought of what the people would think, seeing her bright yellow Volkswagen clambering slowly amidst the broken barks and autumn leaves. The stark color was hardly discreet, but it suited her. She said it reminded her of canaries. She liked canaries -- birds in general -- but specifically canaries.

Still, I wished we didn’t use her car. I told her so while she was managing a small corner that looked like every other corner we had passed since we had left the highway. The sound of the crunching leaves rung crisp through the desolate and lonely woods, and she laughed at my worry; a light laugh that sounded like chords of a guitar being strung together. She said I shouldn’t tire my handsome little head about it.

“Look around. I doubt if you’ll see another person for miles.”

And, of course, she was right. There was nothing but trees, brown, ugly and naked, and the flat gray sky above us to witness the journey of her canary-yellow Beetle. She knew these woods too well; trusted these trees who she knew would never betray her. And my thoughts drifted to who might have previously sat on my seat the last time she made this journey. Maybe he was another city boy, intoxicated by her charm, and uncertain of what he had gotten himself into. Or perhaps he was older. Taller or better looking, who knew exactly who she was the moment she approached him in the bar. I stole a glance at her as she concentrated on the knobby road. She never did talk about her past, in the same way she refused to think about her future.

She caught my gaze through the rearview mirror and asked me why I was so silent. I was making her nervous

I laughed. I could not imagine anyone making her nervous.

The car passed the last corner and entered a small enclave. Her small, wood cabin stood in the center, homey, charming and strangely surreal amidst the pointed and threatening naked trees.

“Well?” she asked.

I said I was expecting it to be yellow, like her car.

She smiled and took my frigid bare hands in hers. “Come inside.”

Hidden behind that bland exterior was a canary in disguise. The bright yellow walls greeted me as I entered. But other than that, the place was utilitarian. A small bed had been pushed against the wall on the left; across it was an empty table. Beside it, equally empty, was the kitchen. The door past the bed led to the bathroom.

“Sit,” she said, her smile beaming more brightly than the dusty yellow fluorescent bulb that hung overhead. I glanced around. There were no chairs so I sunk down the rug. She headed to the kitchen and began preparing something. I watched her move around, quickly; expertly, as if every visit had somehow hammered this routine into her hands that seemed to work on their own. Her thoughts, however, were somewhere else.

She took out the wine form the cupboard. It was half-empty, and the bottle was dusty with age. Then, the glasses came; worn out glass pieces; chipped and stained I looked away when she returned, feeling like a pervert watching a woman dress. But she didn’t seem to mind. She was glowing; maybe it was the wine.

At some other time, with someone else, I would have hesitated drinking the murky liquid she offered me. But her black eyes glimmered as she brought the glass to my lips, and I drank her intoxicating stare with that tasteless liquid.

She preferred to have a conversation first -- something to break the ice. Feels more natural, she said, as she propped herself opposite me. We talked as if we had known each other for years, imagining I had met her in college and believing that she was just any regular girl. Always about me, as though talking about her was a natural aversion. It was easy for her, I realized, to shift from one character to another, to pretend in the same way as her homey brown cabin and her trendy yellow car; from that safe girl-next-door lounging beside me on the rug, to another thing in bed.

It was past two in the morning when we finished. She jumped off me as soon as the clock struck three and reached for a sheet to cover herself in. Fueled by the bad wine, I asked her if she had plans for today. I was free. Maybe we could ---

Her startled stare cut through my thoughts and my giddy smile.

“You’re sweet, darling,” her voice rang with a coldness that rivaled the wintry chill of the room. “But I have work in the morning.” Then she laughed her chord-like laugh, listless and tired. I did not ask what work meant.

Tossing her brown hair back, she rummaged through her coat pockets for a cigarette, and then sat at the foot of the bed, her skin sallow under the dim yellow bulb. The nicotine smoke encircled around her. She was a stranger then, with no hint of the pretty girl who talked about college, or the intimidating, liberal woman who drove the stark yellow car. Only an older woman I did not know, her brown curls bathing in the yellow light, hidden beneath the smoke, unreachable and lost. In the delirium of the half-light, I reached out to touch a wisp of her hair, and only felt the icy empty air that separated us.

The air felt too constrained for small talk now. Only the quiet was natural, and despite sharing the bed, we were worlds apart. I stood up and asked if I would take a bath. She nodded without saying a word, engrossed in her nicotine. I glanced back at her from the door and she met my gaze. For a brief moment, the familiarity in her face returned. She smiled and I felt myself redden, my feelings suddenly caught bare.

The water was cold. I held my breath as I dipped myself into the tub. The silence of the house and the woods lulled me to sleep, and before I knew it, I had dozed off. It was morning when I awoke. The etherealness of the cabin had vanished in the harsh white light of the midmorning. And so did her car.

The gray landscape of barren trees and dead leaves stretched to the horizon, monotonous; without promise of anything remotely like her Beetle. Inside, the bed had already been made and my clothes were folded neatly on top. The wine was back in its cupboard; the glasses all washed clean. There was no note, no trace of her cigarette, no echo of her laugh.

She had gone.