Broken Wings Read Online Free Page A

that described my life, it was disappointment with a capital D.
    We got out of the Beetle. She said we should find Cory first and then bring along our things.
    “He’ll help,” she told me.
    The apartments looked seedy to me. The stucco was stained and discolored after years of rain. On some of the balconies, I saw old furniture, rusted exercise equipment, and sick-looking plants. The walkway through the complex was cracked and chipped and, at one point, gouged, with a chunk of the cement gone. There was a swimming pool, but it was empty and there wasn’t anyone around it. As we passed it, I looked down and saw all sorts of garbage at the bottom, including what looked like a little child’s tricycle.
    Cory Lewis’s apartment was on the second floor, number 202. Mother darling, still smiling from ear to ear with excitement and expectation, pushed the buzzer. I didn’t hear anything. She pushed it again.
    “Maybe it doesn’t work,” I suggested.
    “Oh.” She knocked, but there was still no sound from within. I knocked harder, practically pounding the door.
    “Robin!”
    “Well, maybe he has the radio on. Doesn’t everyone in Nashville have the radio on?”
    She scrunched her nose and then the door finally opened and we looked in at a tall, lean man with a thin nose and thin lips. He had what looked like a two- or three-day beard, stiff enough to sand off paint. His light brown hair hung listlessly down the sides of his head to his shoulders, where the split ends curled. Dressed in a black T-shirt with the faded words Bulls Are Always Horny and a pair of jeans, he stood barefoot and looked like he had just woken up. His blue eyes were glassy. I saw he had a small scar just under his right eye. It had tiny spots in it like it had been created with a dinner fork.
    “Cory, it’s us!” Mother darling was forced to declare because his face hadn’t recorded any recognition yet.
    “Whaa…” He ran his hands over his eyes and blinked. Then he smiled. “I’ll be damned. So it is. Kay Jackson herself,” he cried. “Never thought you’d do it, Kay. We was just thinkin‘ about lookin’ for another singer.”
    “You’d better not,” Mother darling said. “I told you I’d be here, and I’m here.”
    “Yeah, but you been tellin‘ me that for some time now.” He turned to me. “And this is…”
    “Robin Lyn.”
    “I like to be called just Robin,” I said quickly.
    “Whatever you like, sweet thing. Well, I’m sorry to say the place ain’t exactly in prime condition, Kay. I had the boys here last night playin‘ cards until three in the mornin’. I didn’t get a chance to clean up or fix up the other bedroom yet.”
    He stepped back and we gazed in at the small living room. The coffee table was covered with empty beer cans and a pizza box in which two dried pieces remained. There was a bowl with cigarette butts in it and various articles of clothing scattered over the sofa and the two easy chairs, each with thick arms and what looked like holes burned into them by dropped ashes. Pieces of newspaper were scattered about, and I saw what looked like a racetrack form under the table.
    “What the place needs badly is a woman’s touch,” he said. Before Mother darling could say it, he flipped his forefinger at her like a pistol and added, “Make a good song.”
    She laughed.
    “Still the same old Cory. Well,” she said philosophically. “We didn’t expect it would be a picnic right from the start, now did we, Robin?”
    “Never that,” I said dryly.
    “Why don’t you go back to the car and start getting our things,” she told me. “I’ll help Cory get organized and then maybe he can come out and get the heavier pieces.”
    “That’s a good suggestion,” he said. “It’s been a while since I was organized.”
    I started away.
    “Oh,” he said, looking out the door after me. “I forgot. Welcome to Nashville.”
    “Thanks,” I said, and walked on.
    I wished I could just keep going and