Read Online Byrd by Kim Church - Free Book Online

Warren Finch is brewing a pot of chamomile tea for his favorite client, who is seated at the kitchen table with her hands folded in front of her. Her long red hair is pulled back. Her face is golden in the sunlight through the Indian-print curtain. A calendar of Hindu deities hangs on the wall behind her. February is Shiva, god of creation and destruction.
    â€œWhat do I smell?” she asks.
    â€œIncense,” Warren says. “Sandalwood.”
    The smell reminds him of India, where everywhere, always, there was the smell of burning. Burning sandalwood, burning hashish, burning opium, burning bodies on the ghats at Benares.
    â€œIt smells like burnt toast,” Addie says.
    â€œI burned my toast, but that was yesterday.” He pours their tea into china cups—his mother’s wedding pattern, white with yellow roses. He sets the cups on a tray, carries the tray to the table and sets it down stiffly. Getting started is always awkward, a little like striking up a love affair, Warren imagines. The trick is to be both casual and purposeful. He has found with clients that chamomile helps, gentles things.
    He serves Addie her tea and offers her half a candy bar. “For this kind of reading, I usually like to have both parties present.”
    â€œThe other party is in California,” she says.
    â€œI know. I’m just saying.” He wishes his voice weren’t so nasal. People always think he’s complaining when in fact it is his practice, in readings and in all things, to remain neutral. To live his life without attachments, to be as a still pond (an empty pond, the Buddha would have said, but that’s not so picturesque), brilliant as glass, without a ripple. No emotion, no desire—except the one wish, for a different voice, one that could express him perfectly. A deep, resonant, comforting voice that he could wrap around his clients like a coat.
    â€œWhat’s this candy?” Addie says. “It tastes like coconut.”
    â€œBean curd. It’s the Indian version of a Mounds bar. Believe it or not, it’s called a Barfy.”
    Addie laughs. Warren laughs. Laughter is good, an auspicious beginning.
    â€œSo,” he says, “what can I tell you? Which aspects of the relationship are unclear?”
    â€œAll aspects. I don’t even know what to call the relationship, much less what to do about it.”
    â€œWhat to do, what to do,” Warren says, trying to sound lighthearted. “That’s the Leo in you, wanting to do, never content simply to be.” As a rule, he isn’t attracted to Leos—too outward-manifesting. But Addie is an unusual Leo, with three planets in Virgo. She is powerful but doesn’t feel her power. She’s capable without knowing it.
    â€œHe needs to be in L.A. for his music,” she says. “I’ve been thinking about going back. Maybe staying awhile. You keep saying I should travel.”
    â€œYou don’t mean move? Give up your place here? Your job?”
    Warren has long been in the habit of stopping in the Readery on his nightly walks. The store is only two blocks away, in a once-fine Victorian house. A calm, welcoming place, full of lamplight and the tapioca smell of old books. Warren doesn’t much care for reading himself; his mind is too full already. But he likes to be around other people reading. He likes sitting on a lumpy sofa, drinking tea, listening to pages turn. He likes watching Addie at her square oak desk, an old teacher’s desk, wrapping books in clear plastic jackets. She works slowly, meditatively, laying the books open to measure them, folding the jackets down to size. Sometimes, for the smaller books, cutting the jackets. She handles the books tenderly, a glow of utter devotion on her face.
    She lives in an apartment on the top floor. Her window has a yellow lace curtain, always a vase of flowers on the sill.
    â€œTravel doesn’t necessarily mean move,” he