We’ll Always Have Parrots (3 page)

“I wouldn’t miss it for the world,” Dad said, obligingly striking a pose for a passing camera. Of course not; when had any member of my family ever passed up an opportunity to wear a silly costume in public?

Mother, whose train prevented her from skipping through the crowd, turned and waved from across the room. I noticed that she’d gotten quite good at the sort of genteel wave favored by the British royal family, a barely perceptible twist of the wrist that one could keep up for the entire duration of a parade with minimal risk of repetitive motion injury. And she’d already acquired parrot protection in the form of a purple umbrella.

My ten-year-old nephew, Eric, appeared in front of us, dressed as an Amblyopian knight, though most of his oversized armor looked as if he’d borrowed it from one of his older brothers. At first glance, I thought he was dragging a bundle of spare ostrich plumes behind him, but on closer examination I recognized a small dog, his blackand-white fur almost totally obscured by a headpiece of purple feathers.

“I see you brought Spike,” I remarked, without enthusiasm.

“Grandma says for you to keep him, Grandpa,” Eric said, handing Dad the leash. “I’m going to go carry her dress.”

Eric trotted back to resume his post, and he and Mother swept off toward the ballroom. Eric obviously considered it a point of pride to hold the train as high as possible, and I was relieved to see that Mother, perhaps anticipating this, had accessorized her outfit with only the most elegant frilly purple lingerie.

“Come on, Meg,” Dad said, seizing the leash. “You’ve got to see what I found.”

Spike didn’t seem to mind his change of handlers. He appeared totally absorbed in staring cross-eyed at the plumes over his head and intermittently growling at them. I couldn’t tell if he was moving his feet, or Dad was simply towing him gently across the polished lobby floor.

I followed Dad, trying to keep him from actually thwacking anyone with his magician’s staff, until we arrived at a small side room whose entrance had been decorated to simulate the opening of a small jungle cave. Dad darted inside, ducking low to clear the overhanging foliage, and I followed more slowly.

“Look what I found!” he exclaimed, waving his staff. “This is Salome!”

“That’s nice, Dad,” I said, following his gesture. “But I don’t think Mother will let you keep her.”

Salome was a full grown tiger.

“Fascinating,” Dad murmured, staring into the cat’s eyes.

“Don’t put your hands near the cage,” said a man nearby. Presumably Salome’s keeper.

“No intention of it,” I said, and I got a grip on the back of Dad’s robe, in case Salome’s unwavering stare was having an hypnotic effect.

Salome blinked, and shifted her gaze up to the ceiling, where several monkeys and a parrot perched on the light fixtures, watching her. The monkeys chattered, nervously. I don’t suppose it occurred to the silly things that if they didn’t like sharing the room with a tiger, they could leave—she couldn’t. Salome’s mouth curled back as if she were snarling, but no sound emerged.

I pulled out my camera with the hand that wasn’t holding Dad back and snapped a few quick shots of Salome’s snarl.

Spike suddenly stopped snapping at his plumes and noticed Salome. He burst into growls and barks.

Salome dropped her gaze to Spike. Was I only imagining the mild annoyance in her previously inscrutable amber eyes?

“Don’t let him go,” Salome’s keeper warned. “Salome could kill him with one swipe of her paw, and gobble him up before I could get the cage open.”

“Promises, promises,” I said. I shushed Spike, and he subsided into muted growls.

“Stand back!” the keeper snapped.

“We are,” I said, tugging Dad a little farther away.

“Wasn’t me,” the keeper said, and pointed at a gray parrot perching overhead.

“Stand back!” the parrot repeated, in an uncannily accurate imitation of the keeper’s voice.

“Amazing!” Dad said, shifting his admiration to the parrot. “I would never have guessed that wasn’t you.”

“African Grey,” the keeper said. “They’re the most talented mimics. A cockatoo or an Amazon usually sounds more like your stereotyped ‘Polly want a cracker.’ An African Grey could fool your own mother into thinking it was you.”

I suddenly realized what my own mother would think if Dad brought home a parrot, however talented.

“We should go,” I said, plucking Dad’s sleeve.

Just then the parrot trilled a scrap of Vivaldi in the chirping tones of a cell phone.

“It doesn’t just do voices,” Dad exclaimed, with delight.

“An African Grey can do just about any noise,” the keeper said. “Electronic noises are easy—a lot like the shrieks they use in the wild to communicate with the rest of the flock. I just hope this one’s never heard a car alarm. And I’d appreciate it if you could take the dog away before it learns to do him.”

“Surely it couldn’t learn anything that quickly,” Dad said.

“A talented African Grey can repeat something after one hearing,” the keeper said. “Doesn’t become a permanent part of its repertoire without some kind of reinforcement. Usually repetition…”

He frowned down at Spike, who was still growling repetitively.

“Come on, Dad,” I said. “We’ll miss Michael’s spotlight,”

“Oh, right,” Dad said. “I’ll come back later,” he told the keeper.

Yes and for that matter I planned to come back later myself, and find out why the convention organizers had arranged to have a live tiger as part of the proceedings, and why the tiger’s keeper had agreed to this demented idea.

But for now, we left, with Dad dragging Spike, who continued to growl until we succeeded in pulling him out the door. Then he finally shut up and began prancing along behind us with a jaunty air, as if his barking and not our change of location had caused the tiger to disappear.

The organizers had scheduled Michael’s spotlight in the convention’s main event room—the hotel ballroom, which contained a small stage and several hundred chairs, set up auditorium-style. Mother, of course, had snagged a chair on the aisle, to accommodate her train. Dad and Spike joined her, but I turned down the seat she had saved for me. I preferred standing in the back, where I could escape quickly at the end of the hour.

And where I could survey the crowd, about ninety percent of them in costume. Of course, I was looking at the backs of their heads but, still, I could see a great many purple ostrich plumes and pointed wizard’s hats, along with an astonishing variety of headgear—hennins, wimples, plumed knight’s helms, musketeer’s hats, space suit helmets, and even the odd set of antlers or insect antennae. This meant that as the crowd settled in, debates raged up and down the rows over whether or not people should take off their hats for the benefit of the fans behind them. The fans toward the back of the room also protested the umbrellas and parasols that some people wanted to use as protection from the monkeys and parrots—large numbers of whom, sensing something important afoot, had followed the human crowds into the ballroom and were squabbling noisily overhead for the available space on the crystal chandeliers.

By 8:57, the ballroom was packed. I was close enough to hear the convention security staff—all of them female, and dressed as Amazon guards—turning away latecomers.

“I’m sorry. Due to the fire marshal’s regulations, we can’t allow any more people in,” they kept repeating. “You can watch the closed circuit broadcast in the Rivendell Room.”

Closed circuit broadcast? I glanced up and saw that the ballroom boasted a small balcony that doubled as a lighting booth. At the moment, it held not only the lighting techs but also a camera crew, composed of a Klingon in full battle dress and a flying monkey from
The Wizard of Oz
. The cameras panned across the audience, setting the scene for the fans exiled to the Rivendell Room.

The cameras reminded me to pull out my own little camera and put in a fresh memory card so I could get plenty of photos when Michael took the stage.

I spotted familiar faces, but refrained from waving, since I couldn’t figure out why most of them looked familiar. Were they people I’d met, however briefly? Or after half a dozen of these fan gatherings, had I started to recognize the die-hards?

I was almost relieved to spot one face I definitely knew. Francis, Michael’s agent, stood off to one side, wearing the anxious look that no longer worried me, now that I knew it was his habitual expression. A pity because, as I’d told Michael, on those rare occasions when Francis relaxed enough to smile, he was reasonably attractive in a lanky, aristocratic fashion.

“Is it the long horsy face or the threadbare tweeds?” Michael had countered.

Obviously this wasn’t one of Francis’s relaxed days. I saw him reach into his right jacket pocket and then glance around to see if anyone was watching before slipping something into his mouth.

I sighed and shook my head. Francis had relapsed. Not that it was any of my business, but still. If it was humanly possible to OD on TUMS, one of these days Francis would do it. Should I sic Dad on him?

The crowd began shushing each other when a six-woman contingent of the Amazon security guards marched in and arrayed themselves in front of the stage.

“What the hell is this?” muttered someone to my right.

I glanced over and saw a small, round-faced man in a business suit standing, like me, against the wall. He stared at the crowd with—no, fascination wasn’t the word. Horror. In college, I’d briefly dated a man who kept a snake. Briefly, because he’d made the mistake of letting me watch him feed his pet. The expression on the small man’s face mirrored what I’d seen when the mouse spotted the snake at the other end of the glass enclosure.

We weren’t the only people in the room in civilian clothes, but the man’s conservative business suit, combined with the expression on his face, made me wonder if he’d strayed into the wrong convention. Possibly the wrong universe. He wore a convention badge, but turned around, so I couldn’t tell if it was a
Jungles of Amblyopia
badge like mine.

“It’s the opening session of the Porfiria convention,” I said.

“Yes, I see,” he said, holding up what I now recognized as a convention program identical to the one I’d studied earlier. “But just what is a Porfiria convention? I know I probably should have asked that question much earlier, but it never occurred to me.”

“It’s a television show,” I began. “Called—”

“I only watch CNN,” he said, with a slightly haughty air. “And sometimes The History Channel.”

Heaven preserve us from TV snobs, I thought. Aloud, I explained.

“That could be why you find this so…different. You’re at a convention for fans of a TV show called
Porfiria, Queen of the Jungle
.”

“Ah,” he said, still sounding puzzled. “And what are they all supposed to do at this convention?”

“They attend panels and presentations by the actors,” I said. “Also the scriptwriters and the costume designers and anyone else the organizers can round up. And they stand in line for the stars’ autographs, and they buy and sell Porfiria merchandise. Have a Porfiria costume contest. Things like that. Typical con. Convention, that is,” I added, realizing that for someone who’d never been to one, con might have other more sinister meanings.

“They really spend the whole weekend doing this?” he asked.

“And pay handsomely for the privilege.”

“Insane,” he muttered. “No offense meant,” he added, looking at me.

“None taken,” I said. “I’m not a Porfiria fan.”

“Then why are you…ah…”

He gestured weakly at the surrounding crowd.

“My boyfriend’s on the show,” I said, pointing to the stage, where Michael had just stepped out, accompanied by the diminutive Amazon, who walked to the microphone and began unsuccessfully trying to make herself heard over the cheering.

“Before I introduce Michael—” she began, but the cheers drowned out her words. She had to try again several times before the crowd finally let her finish.

“I wanted to remind you about our very special guest!” she said.

A murmur of anticipation swept through the crowd.

“Thanks to the diligent detective work of our organizing committee,” the Amazon continued, “for the first time ever at a Porfiria convention, we will be presenting…Ichabod Dilley!”

For a few moments, the auditorium remained silent. I could see people looking at each other with puzzled expressions, and shrugging their shoulders.

“What’s an Ichabod Dilley?” someone said, from the back of the room, and scattered titters followed.

Then Michael stepped forward and began applauding vigorously. I followed suit, as did the Amazon, and after a moment, so did the rest of the crowd. Still applauding, Michael took a step toward the tiny Amazon, bent down, and said something into her ear. She nodded.

“Yes,” she said, when the clapping diminished. “Ichabod Dilley, the author and artist who created the original
Porfiria, Queen of the Jungle
comic books!”

The applause that followed this clarification was genuine, if considerably less passionate than that which had greeted Michael’s arrival.

“Comic books?” said the civilian beside me.

“Yes,” I said, as the applause died down and Michael stepped to the microphone. “The TV show is based on a series of comic books from the seventies—written and drawn by a guy named Ichabod Dilley. Apparently someone hunted down the old guy and invited him to the convention.”

“Oh, my God,” he said.

As Michael began, I saw the little man slip along the back wall and disappear through the exit door.

Well, to each his own. I was going to stay for Michael’s talk, even though I’d heard it all before. There were only so many questions Porfiria fans ever asked, and only so many ways to answer them. I’d heard the same tales of his salad days in the soap operas, the same funny anecdotes about hijinks and bloopers on the set, dozens of times. Especially the story of how his old friend and fellow soap opera star, Walker Morris, who had been with the show since season one, had gotten him the part of Mephisto.

“They needed someone to play a dashing, debonaire, devilishly handsome, but thoroughly corrupt and conniving wizard,” he would say. “Of course Walker thought of me immediately!”

It always got a laugh, even though some of the crowd had heard it several times before.

But if Michael was disappointed at hearing the same old questions and tired of delivering the same punch lines, you couldn’t tell from his manner. That was part of his charm, I thought, with a sigh. Not only did he appear to be having the time of his life—he probably
was
. And he sounded better. The adrenaline boost he got from stepping in front of an audience had done the trick for his throat and nose, at least for now.

Of course he’d credit the gargling and the nose drops.

As ten o’clock approached, the Amazon came back to the microphone and reminded the audience that Michael would be signing autographs for the next two hours in the Innsmouth Room.

Two hours! Wonderful. His fans would get two hours of the cheerful, smiling public Michael. I’d get to hear about his writer’s cramp. I turned and headed for the door, hoping to beat the crowd who would disperse as soon as Michael disappeared.

“And don’t forget!” the Amazon chirped. “At noon, Blazing Sabers will be giving a stage combat demonstration, and at one o’clock, you can meet Ichabod Dilley, the creator of
Porfiria, Queen of the Jungle
! The man responsible for creating the wonderful fictional world we all know and love!”

“Balderdash!” exclaimed a voice behind me.

I glanced back to see a tall, gangly, fifty-something man, walking behind me toward the exit. His face looked vaguely familiar, though oddly naked. Probably because he was polishing rather than wearing his glasses, thick lenses set in thick, dark, retro-style plastic frames. When he replaced the glasses, recognition gelled—it was the show’s chief scriptwriter.

“Hello, Nate,” I said. “I see they let you away from the keyboard for the weekend.”

“Hey, Meg,” he said. “No, I brought the laptop along. Herself wanted to work on scripts for next season.”

I was astonished—not by his dedication to the job, but by the fact that he deigned to recognize me. Nate was a consummate snob with an unerringly acute sense of the show’s pecking order. The first time I’d visited the show’s set, Michael had been encouraged to find Nate actually talking to me. He’d interpreted it—accurately, it turned out—as a clue that they might want him back. If Nate now actually called me by name, that meant Michael’s position on the show was solid. Not a bad thing, since we could never afford the house we hoped to buy unless Michael continued plotting and conniving as Mephisto for at least another season.

“That’s too bad,” I said, as we escaped into the hallway.

“It’s not enough that I have to be at her beck and call, twenty-four seven,” he grumbled, falling into step beside me, “or that she has to mangle everything I write. But to sit there and hear some nitwit calling that stupid comic book writer the one responsible for creating the show! I’m the one responsible for the show! Every word of it!”

Except for the ones the QB mangled, I thought, and it seemed to me that the actors had more than a little to do with making it into a show instead of just a script. But I didn’t think he’d like hearing that.

“He did do the original comic book series,” I said instead.

“And who knocked that piece of junk into a working pilot?” Nate exclaimed. “Who keeps that heap of cardboard characters and clichés lurching along week after week?”

“You, of course,” I said.

“Damn right,” he said. “Do you know how hard it is to write an episode that lets Her Self-Centeredness think she’s the star while still giving the fans enough of what they want to see? Which is not her tired old mug, believe me.”

I made sympathetic noises. The first time I’d heard him raging about the QB I’d been flattered and a little worried that he’d be so indiscreet with a relative outsider. Now that I knew Nate better, I realized he wasn’t that disgruntled, just a recreational complainer. His griping never got him in trouble because everyone had stopped listening.

“Every time I need to introduce a new character, I go through ten, twelve different names before I get one that she thinks sounds like a real Amblyopian name. Real Amblyopian name! Who the hell knows what a real Amblyopian name is, anyway?”

“Maybe you should use the same method Ichabod Dilley did,” I suggested. “Haven’t you noticed that every one of the original comic book names came out of a medical dictionary?”

“A medical dictionary?” he echoed.

“Precisely,” I said. “Porphyria’s an obscure but serious blood disease. Maybe he thought no one would catch on if he misspelled it. Amblyopia’s an eye condition. All the original names were medical terms. You know the Duke of Urushiol, Porfiria’s arch-enemy? Urushiol’s the active ingredient in poison ivy; the oil that gets on your skin and causes the rash.”

He stared at me, for a moment. Then he smiled.

“So all I have to do is get a medical dictionary, and flip through it for some obscure diseases, and I’ve got my genuine Amblyopian names,” he said.

“You can tell whoever complains that you went to the original source material,” I said.

“Oh, I like it,” he said. “Is there a bookstore around here?”

“Probably,” I said. “But even better—see that man in the purple turban? Ask him.”

I pointed to where Dad stalked through the corridor in his wizard’s gear, trying in vain to look dashing and sinister.

“Ask one of the fans?” Nate said, recoiling.

“He’s not a fan—he’s only pretending to be,” I said. “That’s my father—and he’s a medical doctor. He probably knows more obscure diseases than Ichabod Dilley ever heard of. I’m sure he’d love to help.”

“Fabulous,” Nate said, and darted off in pursuit of Dad.

After several wrong turns, I found the dealers’ room. A long line of fans waited outside the main entrance, so I sneaked around to a side door one of the convention organizers had shown me the previous night, when I’d come down to scout the lay of the land. Only dealers and convention staff were supposed to know that this door was unlocked. I slipped in and glanced around to get my bearings when—

“En garde, Madame!”

I looked down to find the point of a sword at my throat.