“I feel like I should knit it a sweater.” Lindsey scrunches up her nose and shakes her head. “It looks so pathetic.”
Its name is Raphael, or, as Simon pronounces it, Ray-feel. He’d belonged to Jasper, and, according to Simon, it was Jasper’s dying wish that the bird live in the only home he’d ever known. “I couldn’t leave him here by himself,” Simon told us as he set the cage on a big brass stand in the front parlor. “I had to take him with me, but he got so depressed from Jasper’s death and leaving his home that he quit eating and started pulling out his feathers.”
“Depressed?” If I’d known he was saddling me with a pitiful bird, I wouldn’t have opened the front door. I’d been expecting someone from Cadillac of New Orleans to drop off the shiny Escalade I leased. Instead, I opened the door and got a naked parrot.
He’d pulled a business card from his breast pocket and left it on the side table next to Mother. “I’ve written his vet’s name and number on the back.”
“That’s kind of you,” Mom said as she picked it up.
“You can’t leave that bird here.”
“He won’t cause you any problems. Y’all will hardly know Ray-feel’s here.” Then he’d turned to Mother, who was carefully reading the white card. “It’s nice to see you again, Ms. Patricia.”
“Thank you.” Mom smiled up at him, all sweetness and light and nothing like the she-devil of the previous night. “Can you stay for coffee or tea?” she asked, though we don’t have either.
“Next time,” he’d said as he walked back out the front door. “Have a nice day, ladies.”
I chased after him. “I can’t take care of a sick bird!”
“He’s doing a lot better already.” He jogged down the steps and practically ran to his truck. “Don’t stress him out, though.”
Don’t stress him out? A bird? What about my stress? The last thing I need is a self-harming parrot with an eating disorder. I watched Simon practically peel rubber out of the driveway. “Jerk,” I muttered, and returned to the parlor. Number thirty-five of Lulu’s Rules of Love: Avoid the jerk who shirks responsibility, leaving others to deal with his problems.
“If he’s thirty-two now…” Lindsey skims through a care-and-feeding book Simon thoughtfully left behind. “I’m assuming this is human years…” she continues. “African parrots can live to the age of seventy.” She’s wearing smiley-face scrubs today, but the corners of her lips turn down as she looks over at me. “That’s as old as dirt.”
I glance at Mother, who doesn’t appear to be insulted by the comparison. Her hair is coiled into a thick bun on the top of her head today. She looks pretty in lavender pants, a paisley blouse, and pink lipstick that is almost neon. It’s way too bright for
anyone over the age of sixteen, but I’m not going to tell her. Rattlesnake Patty has retracted her fangs, and Patricia is in a good mood. Thank God. I just hope it lasts through tonight.
“?‘Green parrots can be affectionate and highly amusing, but if left untrained can be very annoying and irritating. If they are frightened or bored, biting can become a problem. Do not poke your fingers in the cage, as that can seem threatening and may result in a painful bite.’?”
Mom leans close to the cage, but not close enough for me to risk upsetting her with another warning.
She turns her face toward me. “When’s your wedding to Tony?”
Her mood might be good, but she just took a big dump on mine. I smile patiently and answer, “We broke up a while ago.”
“I didn’t know that. Why?”
“He’s a cheating bastard.”
“That’s too bad.” She returns her attention to the cage, and I don’t know if she means it’s “too bad” he’s a cheater or it’s “too bad” I didn’t overlook that minor detail.
“Polly wanna cracker?”
Raphael flaps his wings and shrieks like someone is chasing him with an axe. Mother screams, I suck in a startled breath, and the book falls from Lindsey’s hands. Evidently, Polly did not want a cracker.
“Maybe we should leave him alone.” Lindsey’s brown eyes are wide as she backs out of the room. “It’s like in The Witch.” I suspect The Witch is a horror movie, and Lindsey confirms my suspicions when she adds, “Pure evil.”
So much for hardly knowing “Ray-feel’s here.”
Raphael flaps his wings, hops the short distance to the side of the cage, and wraps his talons around the wire. He’s one of the ugliest things I’ve ever seen, and as if he can read my mind, he lets loose with another shriek. Mom and I both jump.
“That thing is giving me heart flutters!”
One thing I know for sure is that Mother’s heart works just fine.
Nevertheless, she puts one hand on her chest and shoves the white card at me. “Call the doctor.”