The Lovebird (12 page)

UPSTAIRS AT GELATO AMORE
, the faces that looked into mine were kind and open. Raven played me a new melody on her guitar. Orca wore her favorite bowler hat tipped at a saucy angle. Ptarmigan did not fiddle at all with the wheels of his chair, but clasped his hands elegantly in his lap. Bear pulled the daisy from behind her ear and passed it to me across the table. Bumble folded closed his laptop and leaned back, ready to listen. I had a feeling they had conferred amongst themselves and decided to accept me as their leader, or at least to give me a chance.

“I have some ideas,” I said.

9
DOLPHIN
(Tursiops truncatus)

MY IDEAS FOR OPERATION H.E.A.R.T. WERE MANY
, and my feelings for Simon fueled them all. He was always in my head, buried beneath everything I thought and did and dreamed of doing. His remembered voice, and the words I imagined it speaking, had a kind of mastery over my mind. His own mysterious mind, and the thoughts I imagined it thinking, gave shape to the smallest aspects of my days.

I remembered that first intoxicating sensation of being seen, the sensation only he had given me. The loss of that sensation was too painful to allow. And so, in my daydreams, he still saw me. If, in the morning, I put on my stalks-of-wheat sundress, I fancied that he might see me on campus later that day. “There she goes,” he would think to himself, “that winsome girl I love so much. Wasn’t that the dress she was wearing the first time I touched her? It wounds me to see it. I was a fool to let her go …”

Of course, never was this kind of dreaming more vivid than when I envisioned the future of the Operation he had entrusted to me. Every campaign I considered—establishing an official San Diego Spay & Neuter Day, encouraging local high school students to walk out of their frog dissection labs en masse via cleverly
distributed flyers, exposing the truth about the dolphins at Ocean World who were literally driven insane by their confinement in the petting tank—was immediately followed by Simon’s reactions as I foresaw them. Some of these reactions, of course, were better than others, but none would be as wonderful as the synthesis of deep, desirous love and profound pride that I most wanted to arouse in him.

Whatever we did under my leadership would have to be great. I wanted Simon to see a headline about us in the
Sun
. I wanted him to hold his breath in anticipation until he reached the end of the first paragraph, which would reveal our stunning exploit. And I wanted his mouth to fall open, to rustle the paper with an awed sigh. I wanted his gray eyes to widen, their lids to fall and rise with disbelief, and then to close with final pleasure as he tipped his head back in a capitulation to ultimate fulfillment. I wanted him to say my name, to murmur “Margie” as if into my neck, to utter it to himself in a tone of sated amazement.

These were the gestures I could no longer inspire Simon to make in person, in the jasmine-scented nights. Now I could only hope to make him do them from afar. And my love for the animals, enormous as it was, was rendered doubly powerful by my loss of Simon, who had taught me and tossed me away. Yes, whatever we did would have to be great. And so, for a long time, despite my abundance of ideas and the eagerness of the crew, we didn’t do anything at all.

THEN, A NEW RESTAURANT OPENED IN TOWN
. “ ‘Untamed’—isn’t that ridiculous?” said Raven, holding up a full-page newspaper ad. We were gathered around our usual table at Gelato Amore.

“Makes me want to throw up,” said Orca, raising a hand to her inky mustache.

“It is truly offensive,” added Ptarmigan, shaking his head.

Raven read the ad. “In the mood for something wild? Untamed, San Diego’s most daring dining establishment, celebrates its grand opening in University Heights. Specializing in wild game meats from around the globe! This week we offer deer, buffalo, grouse, antelope, elk, snake, crocodile, kangaroo, camel, llama, emu, peacock, and, Friday night only, African lion meat. Sharpen your fangs, San Diego, and taste the difference. Meat the way it was meant: Untamed.”

I snatched the paper from Raven’s hand to read the ad myself. “Meat!” I exclaimed. “It isn’t just
meat
. These are living creatures they’re talking about!”

“
Were
living creatures,” noted Orca.

“It’s all so callous,” said Bear.

“Yeah, and people are eating it up. Literally,” said Raven. “They’ve only been open for a week and there’s already a three-week wait for a table. I called yesterday. Every night, they are filled to maximum capacity.”

“That’s a lot of dead animals.”

“As if it isn’t bad enough,” I said, “that millions of animals are already born and raised to be slaughtered and eaten, suffering the tortures of factory farms this very moment, now
other
animals, the ones ostensibly lucky enough to be wild, are being killed so that adventuresome diners with disposable incomes, no longer satisfied with run-of-the-mill flesh, can satisfy their spoiled palates.” I took a breath. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the ever-present man in the newsboy cap lower his book and raise an eyebrow.

“Yes.
Exactly
,” said Bumble.

“Hunting is always wrong,” declared Orca.

“I don’t know about that,” said Ptarmigan. “I can see some impoverished family living in, oh, I don’t know, rural Appalachia, surviving off the meat of one felled deer for a winter.”

“But to hunt and kill
these
animals,” I said, “peacock, kangaroo,
African lion
?—this is just about people wanting to dine on something exotic and tell their friends.”

“The hostess I spoke to when I called told me the meat tastes so much better,” said Raven, “because the animals haven’t been penned up—they’ve been using their muscles, they’ve had good exercise—”

“Yeah, dodging bullets!” cried Orca.

“Let’s keep this in mind,” I said. “Gather as much information about Untamed as you can. We’ll meet again in three days.”

“Three days?” asked Bear. “So soon, Margie?”

“Yes,” I replied in an all-business tone. “We need to meet more frequently now. It’s been a month since Simon resigned,” I added, “and it’s time to make some decisions.”

“Have you heard from him?” she asked. Her face went soft and sorry when she saw the look on mine. “I mean … have you …” She bit her lip.

“It’s okay, Bear,” I told her, but my eyes stung. I put my hand on top of hers. Raven, Orca, Ptarmigan, and Bumble added theirs, and we recited our motto and disbanded.

“I LIKE THE DIRECTION WE’RE GOING,”
Bumble said. “It feels more … serious.”

We lay on the steeply slanted roof of the old Victorian and watched the airplanes sail past. I’d brought up a blanket and a bottle of wine (I always kept one on hand now, and the mumbling man at the Middletown liquor store never asked about my age). Bumble had his digital camera aimed skyward. He’d been wanting to lie on my roof and take photographs of the planes ever since I’d told the crew about my new studio.

“It
is
more serious,” I said. “I
want
it to be.”

“I have to be honest.” Bumble snapped some shots of the belly
of a Boeing as it whooshed over us. “At first, I wasn’t sure if you could handle it. Taking over, I mean. You seemed so fragile—well, more fragile—after the whole thing with Simon ended.” I took a big draught from my glass. Bumble looked at me a bit bashfully. “I want you to know, I’m not going to ask what happened and I promise I never will.” I noted wryly that I didn’t really know what had happened myself. “Simon’s a complicated guy,” Bumble said, “and—anyway, it’s none of my business. But I wasn’t sure at first. About you. Now I am.”

Another plane rushed overhead and, gratified, I lay back down on the blanket, letting the stirred-up air lift the locks of my hair. A few birds sent end-of-day trills out from hidden boughs. “Do you think any of those birds are the ones we let out of Azar’s?” I asked. The wine was making me fanciful. Bumble laughed and said yes. I noticed he had decorated his red dreadlocks, which had grown long and woolly, with a single plastic barrette of the sort Annette wore. It was shaped like a poodle. “I’m almost perfectly content at this moment,” I said, and I was. The wine moistened and cooled my still-smoldering heart, the twilight delighted my senses, the planes seen from our perch electrified me, and Bumble was a bolstering companion. “You’ve grown so fiery on us, Margie,” he said.

It was true: I had become more fiery, and not only because I wanted Simon to notice me and to be proud of the things I would accomplish as the leader of the Operation, but:

because I wanted there to be a reason I was born, so Rasha didn’t disappear in a blur of red poppies and Dad didn’t consume an ocean’s worth of Maker’s Mark with a splash of water for no purpose at all;

because I was alone, Always Alone, and wanted to be among, to be a part, to be a piece of a whole, to be a portion of all that was alive, linked to the tendrils and the peacocks and all the people of the world;

and because of the way Charlotte always sat on my chest and licked my face with her narrow pink tongue when I lay on my daybed staring at the ceiling, and I knew her mind was a finely wired web of perceptivity and sensitivity that my own could appreciate but would possibly never fathom, and I wanted to honor her and her kind.

And, since I was feeling so fiery, it was fire that captured my attention. I was interested in things that sparked and flamed, that contained and exuded heat, that built to a frenzy and then released their tension, that spent themselves.

I took to buying red taper candles and burning one beside my bed each night. I thought the warm, flickering light might help me to sleep, but I was always still awake long after my candle had disappeared.

I WENT TO GELATO AMORE FOR
our next Operation H.E.A.R.T. meeting. While ascending to the second story, I met Jack Dolce coming down with a tub full of freshly cleaned and clattering dishes. They gleamed like his grin, and a few iridescent soap bubbles slid joyfully atop their surfaces. “Curly,” he said. “Long time no see.” He stopped and leaned against the stair railing. I stopped too.

“Hello,” I whispered. I didn’t mean to whisper, but he inspired such a feeling of shyness. With one glance I could see the brightness of his spirit.

“I’ve been missing a lot of work lately. You probably noticed.”

It was true. He had not been at Gelato Amore for weeks, and I’d assumed (with a little pang of regret) that he’d finally been fired for clumsiness. Even now, a ceramic mug teetered dangerously out of the dish tub and threatened to bounce into bits down the concrete stairs. I flared my eyes at it, and Jack Dolce steadied it with his chin.

“Yeah,” he continued, “I had mono. You know”—he winked—“the kissing disease.” I rolled my eyes. “Just kidding,” he said. “I really was sick though. With mononucleosis.” He looked down and leaned more deeply, with real weariness, into the railing of the stairway.

I stole a good look at his fair face. There were bluish half-moons beneath his eyes, and the vivid Tuscan ruddiness was absent from his cheeks. Also, I couldn’t help but notice that some of his dark eyelashes were damply clumped together from the steam of dish-doing. My left ovary flamed at the sight of frailty in the fancy-free rogue. His singularly sweet quality was more evident than ever, and I had an almost overwhelming impulse to tell him all the sadness of my heart, as if he were my best friend in the world. The gentleness of his brown eyes when he fixed them on me made my own tingle with imminent tears, and I had to look away. “I’m glad you’re feeling better,” I said, and resumed making my way up the stairs.

“None of your pals are here yet,” Jack said. “Neither is your old man.” I tripped slightly on a step. “Shall I bring you up a cup of spumoni?”

“No dairy, thank you,” I said over my shoulder, thinking of how his favorite offering—ice cream—perfectly epitomized what I was certain was his fundamental innocence.

Our table was empty, and the only person around was the man in the newsboy cap, who was reading
Famous Rose Gardens of North America
. We exchanged nods, and I sat down to wait. It was early spring, almost Easter, and the air had a spun-sugar softness. I rested my face in my hands and stared out the window at the traffic on the street below, at the green-gray ocean in the distance, and, hovering above it all, the dusk, the dusk shimmering with specks of pollen spread by bees during the day, shimmering with fibers of feathers shed from flapped bird wings, and shimmering with seadrops sprayed by whales, the dusk where the
secrets of all hearts hung suspended for a few delicious minutes before they were enfolded into the night and dissolved, before they closed like pink undersea anemones, only to be unpacked and hung out like almost-stars again at dusktime tomorrow. The moonflowers in the Middletown Community Garden would be unfurling soon. Jack Dolce came upstairs and pulled me out of my chair for an embrace. His T-shirt was damp from the sea air, from washing dishes, and from his own self. I felt his wet eyelashes against my cheek as he squeezed me close. A small seed sprouted in the center of my chest and flooded me with comfort. He lifted me up so my feet dangled with delightful helplessness five inches above the ground. His chin nuzzled my neck. He sent soothing rumblings into my ear, low and warm, and I recalled how, before I’d opened their cage, the lovebirds in Azar’s had spent so much of their time side by side on their perch, so pressed, so pleasantly pressed, and I knew that
this
was the feeling of
that
, safe and animal and soft. I sighed. The man in the newsboy cap laid down his book with a thump, and I saw that I was in my chair with my face in my hands. One star had come out. Jack Dolce was still downstairs, and I was still alone.