Birdeggs

Sitting crosslegged, so that perspiration collected behind her knees, Velma Peach tore up thick blades of grass in her front yard. The strands were tough, “crabgrass” her father had called it, and they jabbed at the soft flesh of her palms. She ripped and ripped, then rubbed the shards against her hands, staining them green. The harder she scrubbed, the less she thought about William.

“Velma Peach. That’s some name.”

“I suppose. It seems ordinary to me. I’ve had it my whole life.”

“A whole sixteen years.”

“Well, William Rodgers is a nice name, too, a classic name.” Velma stared eagerly into William’s eyes. Blue with dark lashes, almost, she thought, like he had penciled around the lids.

“Sure, but no one calls me that.” William took her hand in his.

“I know.”

“Do you? Do you know what they call me?”

Velma blushed. Of course she knew. Everyone at high school knew. She looked around, hoping that someone would see that it was her, plain old Velma Peach, who wrote in her diary each night, who took vitamins each morning, whose strawberry blonde hair always hovered just above her collarbone, and who was still patiently awaiting her first kiss.

“Birdeggs.” She said. Her voice was soft. The word floated out on a feather. She giggled.

“And do you know why people call me that, Velma Peach?”

Willam stepped in closer to her now. She could see the specks of brown on his face, above his lip, where he must have shaved that morning. She did not know why people called him Birdeggs, but she was sure it was because of his eyes. They were the same color as the broken shells she once found inside a robin’s nest tucked in the roof of her father’s toolshed. A brilliant, beautiful blue.

“Your eyes?” Velma leaned in. “Is it because of your eyes?” William squeezed her hand. She squeezed his back.

“No, silly.” And then Velma felt her hand being wedged down in the space between the rough denim of William’s bluejeans and the warm flesh of his abdomen.

When Velma walked home that afternoon, she still had no idea why they called him Birdeggs.