Tansy
I step into the middle of the path and turn in a slow circle. We’ve entered a jungle. Sure, it’s covered overhead and with wooden rail fences along the path, but somehow . . . somehow I don’t care about that. Even though it’s the opposite end of the spectrum from the soaring trees and mountain creeks of Idaho, it feels a little like home. It’s the chance to trade buildings and concrete for nature. My breath flutters, and I grin so hard my cheeks hurt. “The birds are everywhere.”
“Here, hold your cup like this.” Cai guides my hand so that I’m holding the nectar as if I’m making a horizontal okay sign.
It’s only a moment before a green bird with a bright-red chest lands on my wrist. I squeal a little. It hops but doesn’t fly away. Instead it leans down and licks up some of the juice. “Holy cannoli!”
I love her laugh. It’s full and rich in a way that sets my skin tingling. “Did you really just say that?”
“No?” I try, even though it’s a blatant lie.
“You don’t curse? Ever?”
“I work with little kids who are old enough to know what the ‘bad’ words are. If I slip, they take huge pleasure in acting incredibly scandalized. And then they run home and tell their parents. So I avoid the problem by not getting in the habit.”
And here I pause, waiting for the negative reaction that I’m so, so used to. It’s like waiting for the shoe to drop, and honestly, the fact that it’s not coming makes me kind of more anxious than ever. Like maybe it’s just building up steam and going to come down on me like a ton of bricks. My brain is so spinny that I can’t even keep my metaphors straight.
I focus on the bird, who’s taken over my wrist as if I was made to be its perch.
“We’re so opposite, it’s kind of ridiculous,” Cai says. “Half the time I feel like I have to practice cussing more so I fit into people’s expectations of a tattoo artist.”
I shouldn’t be surprised by Cai’s depths by now. But it’s a weirdly soothing circle. I want the unexpected since I always expect terribleness. “Maybe that means we meet in the middle.”
Her smile is huge. Not only the outside of her eyes crinkle, the inside corner does too. I step closer because I can’t help it. I’m caught in her orbit, and I like it here. She steps toward me too, but instead of touching me, she only holds her cup of syrup next to mine.
The motion is enough to catch the attention of more birds. One lands on Cai, then another lights on my shoulder. I giggle instead of squeal this time. Still completely childish, but I don’t care. I don’t feel that heavy stare that means I’d have to explain myself later.
The bird is dainty, but there’s no mistaking the pinch as it holds on. Another lands on me, shoving in between my neck and its friend. “Oh my gosh.”
“You’re Snow White.”
I stick my tongue out at her. “I’m Merida. I don’t look anything like Snow White. And besides, isn’t it Sleeping Beauty who has the birds? She sings with them.”
“I defer to the elementary school teacher.” She coaxes one of the green birds down her arm to the cup. “I’m sure you’re the expert in cartoons.”
“You’d be surprised how quickly the Disney stuff is fading.” Or maybe I’m just surprised at what it’s like to have a conversation without having to watch for barbs and sensitive spots. “I don’t know, maybe I shouldn’t say things like that. The kids I teach aren’t exactly run of the mill.”
“Tell me?” It’s gentle coaxing, not an order.
I breathe deeply, wondering where to start. The bird on my hand dips to drink, and I make the same squeaking noise, then follow it up with a giggle. I’m a wind-up sound box, but I can’t get my brain to make any reasonable response. “The kids I work with are totally normal in some ways—dead-on with the developmental scales and the full spectrum between whip smart and regular-old kids. It’s the world of privilege they’re in that’s absolutely mind-blowing.”
“Give me an example.”
“I only spent a week couch surfing with a friend.” This feels like some sort of confession. Like maybe I should have done more penance for leaving someone at the altar. Well, leaving them in a hotel room before we got to the altar, at least. “After that, I got an offer from the Lowensteins. Their son Barrak was in my class last year. They said they have a room I can use as long as I like.”
Cai slides me a look out the corners of her eyes. She runs a single fingertip down the downy head of the bird on her forearm. “I feel like their definition of ‘a room’ and my definition are going to be completely different.”
“It’s an apartment over the detached garage. Have you ever seen Sabrina?”
“The old one or the new one?”
“With Audrey Hepburn.”
“Yeah. I wanted to snatch Audrey away and tell her she could do so much better than a Humphrey Bogart who obviously didn’t want to be there.”
“I know, right? Total miscasting.” I shake my head before I forget that I have a bird practically nesting in my curls. I have to push them back, away from his beak. He chirps in my ear. She? I have no idea what I’m dealing with here. “I’ve got four rooms with a full kitchen and a view of the pool.”
“And they can just give it to you?”
“More or less. I’ve set a personal goal of getting out in three months, but Mrs. Lowenstein said I could finish out the school year. And that only started two weeks ago!”
“Come here,” Cai says. She nudges the bird on her arm toward my left shoulder, the free one.
“I have a cape of birds.” I laugh.
“It’s great. Hold still.” She pulls out her cell phone and snaps a couple of shots.
I try not to duck and run. It’s hard to look directly at the lens. I don’t always manage, looking away to the trees where dozens more birds are waiting. My smile is impossible to contain though, and honestly I don’t really try. It feels too good to let loose.
I don’t have a lot of experience with letting loose. The tattoo around my calf was probably the first time in five years that I managed it. Before that had been coming to California for school, but then I’d backed away from the reality of hard choices and adaption by hiding in the tempest Jody created for me.
I lift my hand and slowly turn my palm to the sky. The bird on my wrist travels with me until it’s standing in my palm. There’s a shaft of sunshine over both of us. I really am Sleeping Beauty or something. If only I could sing. “This is so fun.”
“I’m glad.” Cai’s hair slides like silk from her shoulder to cascade down her chest. Her neat, pleat-front shirt catches black strands. “It’d really suck if I brought you here and then it turned out you were afraid of birds.”
“Who’s afraid of birbs?” I coo at the green friend standing on my hand. “Birbs are adorabubbles. Tumblr says so.”
“Meme addict.”
“Only the good ones.”
I like the way she looks at me. I can’t put my finger on what it is, but it makes me feel . . . appreciated. Wow. That’s such a sad state of affairs. I crave being appreciated. That’s not something that I should have been missing considering I was hours away from being married.
Next time. I’m not screwing it up next time. I’ll pick someone who looks at me the way Cai looks at me. It can’t be her, since she’s made it perfectly clear she likes things uncomplicated, and I know I’m not ready for diving back in to forever. I don’t deserve forever with someone if I can’t keep Jody out of my thoughts for more than ten minutes. It’s like she haunts me. My own personal Jack the Ripper. I’m mentally looking over my shoulder every three seconds, wondering what it is about me that made her select me. Made her choose me as the kind of girl who could be bowled over and used.
A polite announcement that the facility will be closing in fifteen minutes floats from concealed speakers among the trees. I put the cup of nectar on my palm so my particular bird friend can finish it off. I love his weird, tube tongue.
“You’re a silly bird,” I coo. “Aren’t you? You like it in here? Do you like your tribe? Got a girlfriend?”
“Nope, I don’t,” Cai answers.
I laugh. “Gosh, I should hope not, or it would be really cruddy of you to invite me out.”
“No worries.” She pulls closer to me, wrapping an arm around my waist. The birds on my shoulder flutter away, but then one comes back to land on Cai’s head. “Crap! What the hell!”
Her words are filled with laughter, not sharpness.
“Here, hold still.” I try to shoo it away, but it’s got its finger-claw things wrapped in Cai’s black hair. “Get off her.”
“I don’t think it speaks English.”
“Maybe the problem is that I don’t speak lorikeet.”
“You should get on that.” She gives it a little push, but it doesn’t like that. It lets out a string of chirping. “I think I just got cussed out in lorikeet.”
My blood pressure is rising enough that my ears are tingling. I gulp. “Come on, birdie. It’s locked tight. I’m sorry.”
“It’s not your fault,” Cai says, and then she hands me her empty cup of nectar. “Here, hold that. Maybe he’ll get away from me if I don’t have anything good.”
Except the worst happens.
I see his tail feathers lift and flutter, and I don’t know how, but I know what he’s going to do before it happens. Every cell I have cringes. The world slides sideways into slow motion. I flap my hands at the bird, and Cai’s face contorts into confusion, but it’s too late. Oh, too late.
The bird poops. The bird poops all down the back of Cai’s perfect hair. It oozes. I die. Utter mortification makes me into a human goo pile. I can’t freaking believe this.
“Oh! Oh, I’m so sorry!”
“Not your fault, baby.” The bird finally launches away and flies to a close-by branch. I feel like it’s taunting us with loud tweets. I frown at it. “How bad is it?” she asks me.
“Oh. Um.” I lift my hands as if I’m going to wipe it away, but then pull back at the last second. There’s no way I’m touching the viscous, sticky stuff. There’s flecks in it. Poop covers the back of her head. “Yeah, not great.”
“Putting a helmet on is going to be so not cool.”
“I’m so sorry!” I catch my hands together, linking my fingers. “So sorry!”
“You have zero responsibility in this situation. I promise.”
I don’t understand. Her mouth is turned into a smile and her dark eyes are twinkling. It’s like she really means it. “I should have pushed it off you faster.”
“I have two perfectly able-bodied hands. I could have done it too. But, come on, I need a bathroom ASAP.”
We find her one just outside the lorikeet enclosure. She bends over the sink to rinse her head, and I help as best I can. The dribble of the low-usage faucet is about as warm as a coffee that’s been sitting out for an hour.
“At least it’s not frigid,” Cai says.
“That’s being generous.”
“As long as I don’t get bird poop in my eyes, I can afford to be generous.”
That makes me laugh, but I feel like I shouldn’t, so I bite my lip and hold it in. Cai peeks up at me from between damp chunks of hair. “You can laugh. I look like a goofball.”
“Maybe.”
“Definitely.”
“Well. If you insist.” I release my giggles. The way I can only see one of her eyes peeking out from between hanks is incredibly absurd. “You look pretty damn ridiculous.”
“There we go. Now scrub while you make fun of me.”
I get a handful of paper towels and go back to wiping away what Cai can’t see. We’re both laughing, which makes it a hundred percent okay with me. I get closer and closer to her, until we’re hip to hip. It’s just for convenience at first, so I don’t lose my balance leaning over her and the counter . . . and then it’s more.
There’s heat between us. Our feet become intertwined somehow, layered over so that the toes of her boots are against the arch of my sneaker. It’s the barest bit of pressure, but it’s in a place where I don’t know I’ve ever connected with another human being. A variety of footsie that I know I haven’t experienced before. Or if I did, it didn’t feel like this. Sure as heck wasn’t overwhelming enough to obliterate the fact that I’m washing bird poop out of my date’s hair.
“I am so, so sorry,” I say again. She peeks up at me and doesn’t say anything, but I can hear her telling me to stuff it. I blush a little. “I can’t help it. I was bred to be polite. Especially to my elders. Nanna Ethel saw to it.”
“Elders? I am so going to make you regret that.”
“I don’t believe you.” I get a wad of paper towel from the dispenser on the wall and wrap it around Cai’s hair so she can stand up.
She takes the brown paper from me and scrubs her head. “Did I get it all?”
“Bend down?” I like how much taller than me she is. It’s only five or six inches, but it’s enough for me to enjoy my girliness. I gently squeeze out the wet. She lets me, rather than taking over the job. I like feeling useful to her. “Yeah, I don’t see anything. I’d still probably take a Silkwood shower if I were you. All the scrubbing, head to toe.”
“Want to join me?”
“No way!” I shake my head. “That is not appealing. Nuh-uh.”
“Okay, fine.” She catches me by the waist, pulling me closer. “Want to join me once I’m clean and shiny?”
My blood thickens and settles in my pussy. I lick my lips, and my mouth feels as dry as if I’ve been eating sand. Swallowing is hard. It’s not that we’re pelvis to pelvis, or at least not only that. It’s the strong way she has hold of me and also the way she’s looking at me. She’s hungry. For me. It’s hard to believe that someone as beautiful as her would even want me. But I can’t deny what I see. Her lips are parted and I want to taste her.
I don’t know where I find the courage, but I lean forward and press an open kiss to her plump bottom lip. I trace my tongue over her satin skin. “My place is close. Only a few miles away. It’s about forty minutes.”
“I bet I can make it less than that on my bike.”
“I’d like that.”