Chapter 1

David thought that the antique shop was a beautiful place. He loved the old horses with real paint and wooden bodies, the corded telephones that young college students bought for their novelty, the messy shelf of three-dollar records. He loved the posters of sixties bands and fifties actresses, the ones that the eclectic teenagers bought.

But, above all of the trinkets and expensive paintings, David loved the birds. Seven years ago, a man with large glasses and a small nose and a brown plaid sport coat came in with a rough wooden crate filled with birds. There were delicate porcelain birds, painted in subtle pastels, rough wire birds with long claws, wooden birds with chipped paint and one wing missing, plastic birds with moving bodies, and glass birds and solid metal birds and all sorts of birds. David loved the birds, and when it was cold outside or hot outside or a holiday or the middle of the day or simply not busy, David would go to the glass case of birds and place one slender, jointed hand on the pane, none of his fingers all the way straight, and look at the birds and try and think of the names of their species. If they were not realistic and had no species, he would make one up.

The blue one with the tiny beak and the perfectly round eyes and the wide tail was a Barrel Finch, named for its oval shape and gold bands.

David was trying to name one with black and red stripes and a tuft of fake feathers instead of a tail when she came in, five o’clock on a Tuesday. The bell was familiar, and he didn’t jump as he quietly let his fingers slip down and away from the glass. He didn’t hear any footsteps as he dutifully followed the invisible line that led to the cashier, but when he looked up, she was already there, leaning inquisitively on the desk, one elbow on the synthetic wood and her chin resting on her palm.

For a moment, David saw her, took her in like oxygen. Her hair was long and a Greek-goddess shade of blonde, ridiculously perfect on the top and slowly twisting into thick two-finger-thick curls, with strand-perfect bangs that stopped just above blue eyes. Her nose was aquiline, her mouth small and round. Her eyes were large and expecting, her hands curling like vines and her cheeks tinged with pink. She reminded him of his birds--of one bird, in fact, the one with the long beak and the large, sleek body, light blue feathers with white trim on the stomach and on the tips of the wings, with cool gray-black eyes and a prim, tall tail. The bird was made of wood and was one of the oldest of the set, but the paint was thick and smooth and unchipped, the tip of the beak still sharp enough to leave little indents in fingertips if pressed hard enough.

“You got any pants?” She inquired, her head turned just slightly, the fingers of her free hand twittering.

David glanced briefly at his legs, clothed in rough and dark brown, faded but clean. He looked back to her, then to his pants, then to her.

“Err... yes? Yes, I suppose I do.”

A curled smirk puckered her small lips, and she tilted her head just a bit further.

“I’m quite happy for you, Sir. However, does the store have any pants?”

David blinked at her for a moment, looking rather dazed with his half-brushed, thick, dark hair and the slight dark scruff lining his chin.

“Oh.” He quipped, years of customer service evoking a customary response. “Yes, right, of course. Yes, yes, we do have pants, this way, please...” In his methodical way, David maneuvered his lanky body around the counter, past the case of birds, past the wooden horses, past the rack of old records, into an alcove of sorts lined with racks and shelves of old clothes.

The girl whispered past him, swaying like slow music, and picked a single pair of ancient jeans from a shelf, drawing it delicately to her like blankets on a cold night. Her curling smirk was still in place as she nodded at him, swayed easily past, and swept her way smoothly to the counter.

Like a toy with a wind-up key in the back, David followed, shuffling quickly and worming behind the counter. With a flourish, she placed the pants on the cool countertop, smoothing the faded top portion of the fold. As though he were receiving a box of jewelry to be carefully appraised, David drew the thing toward him, and began to rifle through the folds like fluttering through folders, feeling for a tag.

He glanced at the price and typed it in with the quick easiness of seven years of practice, drew out a bag, snapped it open, tucked the jeans away.

“Those are men’s pants.” He stated bluntly, gesturing with a nod as he carefully received her clump of fives and ones. As he divided and smoothed and filed away, she chuckled.

“Mr. Observant strikes again, eh?” He glanced at her, mildly confused. She twirled one of her perfect curls as she leaned, and continued. “Yeah, I know. I’m gonna cut them and sew them into shorts.”

A ring. A muffled screech as the receipt machine spat forth its paper.

“Why not just buy shorts?”

“These ones are better. Way softer, buttons are easier to put together, really nice fade.” She took her bag with just as much delicate flourish as she had taken her jeans. “Besides, who else is gonna buy them? Some old guy who’s going to wear them as he sits on his porch, feeds his dogs, creaks around the house watching shows on politics? The most exciting thing they’ll do is maybe sit on some wet paint on a bench in the park. These things don’t deserve that. They’ve had to deal with that for years. With me, they’ll have to work. I’m going to be running in them, sitting on all sorts of things, from fancy chairs in fancy restaurants to the curbs of Hollywood. This way, they get a second chance.” She smiled at him in her big-eyed, expecting way, pushed off from the wall, twirled pleasantly, swung the bag. He watched, absently, the register forgotten.

“I...” He began, his lips wandering to the customary response, I hope you come again, Ma’am. or Thank you for shopping with us. or any of the syllables he’d been muttering for years. She stopped her twirl, turned her attention to him. He let the word fade, began again. “I agree. It’s a pleasant sort of feeling to take something old and make it contemporary, I think.”

Her smile widened, and she nodded a single, approving, quick nod.

“I concur, kind sir. Now, I must be off to attend to important pant-cutting business, but I wish you luck on your sales.” She gave the bag an excited swing, full-circle, centrifugal force trumping gravity for a brief moment as the bag hung in the sweet-smelling antique-store air. “Let me know if you get some more, kay?” She chipped, and fluttered her way out the door.

David didn’t know how he was going to inform her of any shipments, but he decided that he would keep to such a request, one way or another. More than a request. A quest.

He watched as the door breathed shut, as slow and creaking and satisfied as all the other things in the shop. He decided that, just for right then, the glass on that door was just a bit more beautiful that the glass of the birds’ box, if only because it caught a snatch of sunlight as it swung.