Free The From-Aways by C.J. Hauser

NONMARINE OCCUPANCY ZONING LAWS CHANGING THE COAST .
    “I’m so bored,” I say. “You say zoning, and immediately I’m so bored I want to gouge my eyes out.” I use a pencil to mime some gouging.
    “You keep saying that,” Leah says. “But you can’t tell me what would be better. Give me one better suggestion. And don’t even try bringing up—”
    “Kept women!”
    “No!” she says. “We’ve been over this. A woman supported by her husband is not necessarily a ‘kept woman.’ And you don’t know that the Elm Park women are kept. They could be independently wealthy professionals.”
    “There are two papers in front of you,” I say. “One says, ‘Kept Women vs. the Lobstermen.’ The other says, ‘Boring-Ass Treatise on Zoning.’ ” I weigh the imaginary options in my hands. “You know I’m right,” I say.
    “But you’re not!” Leah clonks her head down on the table, but she’s laughing.
    Charley appears. “Give it to me,” she says. “I can’t stand listening to the two of you for another second.”
    Leah types and clicks. “It’s uploading,” she says to Charley.
    “You wench. You went with zoning, didn’t you?” I say.
    “I did,” she says, standing and stretching. Pleased with herself. “Bar?”
    “Sure,” I say.
    At the Uncle, we argue about the headline for another hour. Even though it’s already gone to print. Even though Jethro covers his ears and asks us to please, please, talk about anything else.
    W HEN I GET home, Rosie is sitting on the brown couch that is also my bed. She has my guitar out and is strumming an open G, over and over again. One of her breasts rests in the valley of the guitar. It never occurred to me that if I had a decent pair, they might interfere. She strums and stares at me pointedly.
    “You know I love to sing and you never even told me you could play guitar?” she says.
    “It’s not like that,” I say. “It’s complicated. I don’t want to talk about it.” Rosie has showered recently. A warm, steamy clean hangs over the apartment like a weather system.
    “Complicated how? Do you not like my singing?”
    “I like your singing fine,” I say, and plop on the couch next to her.
    She strums again, thoughtful. “It’s pretty,” she says.
    “A G chord is like that.”
    “I mean the guitar. The Dove.” She runs a finger over the lacquer pick guard. It is a Dove, I see now.
    My mother loved birds. Back in Connecticut we heard the mourning doves when we woke up, oo-waoh, and the barred owls dolefully hooting at night. Sometimes she’d point out an owl, sleeping in the hollow of a tree, the hole seemingly stuffed with fluff. All this was fine till she started hooting at them. She’d stand out on our wraparound deck and hoot and hoot, trying to call the owls down. I gave her a lot of shit for that. I said she was going to become the crazy bird lady of Mystic. But she kept at it. I got looks, a mix of pity and disgust, from our neighbors. From the cigar-smoking ones, the compulsive laundry-drying ones, and especially the just-clearing-sticks-from-my-yard-which-is-the-thinnest-damn-excuse-for-spying-ever ones. But fuck all of them. Did they want to take care of her?
    One night, Marta slid open the glass door, her body set against the black, and said, Pssst, Quinn, come here. Pssst, pssst.
    I went out into the dark, into the spring cold, and stood on the deck with my mother. She was barefoot and wore a white nightgown, the kind with cutouts at the bottom. The hem swirled around her ankles as she paced about the deck, calling between cupped hands hoo, hoo, hoo hoo . It’s “Who cooks for you,” she said. That’s what it sounds like. Their calls. “Who cooks for you!” So I sat on the deck railing, feet dangling like a child’s as I smoked through half a pack of cigarettes and my mother continued hooting.
    Then, dead silently, this owl the size of a football came and perched on a branch not three feet from the deck. He had drag-queen