Plumage (26 page)

You—betrayer—

She felt fire run through her veins. She felt herself blaze into incandescent fury.

“Let go of him, you banana turd!” she screeched. “You goddamn consummate dick-challenged jackass! Traitor! Go ahead, take everything I've got! You did it before, try it again, you jellobutt, you donkey breath, you—you pretzel stick! I hope you get pinkeye all over. I hope you get crabs. I hope you get foot fungus and jock itch and terminal acne and—and pickle dicks grow from your ears. Salami face! Onion balls! Stinking tomato fart, go—”

She wasn't nearly finished telling Frederick all the things she had never said to him, she had raised her voice to a banshee howl to be sure he could hear above the splashings and thrashings, what a mess, dripping sopping wet with her feet in the water at the edge of the pool she hung on to Racquel while Frederick kept trying to pull him in and Racquel yelped like a scared puppy and Sassy cussed and blurrily amid too much slosh Sassy heard somebody laughing, laughing like music, a clear sheer soprano laugh of delight while Sassy yelled at Frederick, “Go eat boogers! Go stick yourself in a weed whacker! You cheese prick! Garlic tits! Son of a slime mold! You—” and she still had more to say but she heard Shadow's laughter right in her ear, felt Shadow's breath warm on her cheek, felt warm slender arms go around her from behind, hugging her, oh heaven, oh help, thank Shadow, Shadow would help pull Racquel away from Frederick—

Wrong. Shadow gave a gentle shove.

Aaaaak!

But after that first shriek, Sassy did not scream. She did not cry out in fear. Instead, she yowled a yawp of pure joy as they all toppled into the oval together.

Flat on his back on the carpeted floor and soaking, streaming wet, Racquel blinked up at plumage swaying over him like the feathery fronds of lost-forest trees, at marabou and oriental pheasant and peacock, ostrich, bird of paradise—was that real bird of paradise? It decked barbaric capes and masks, chalky masks displayed bizarrely upside down—no, those were the faces of his employees. And a very startled cop. And that turd-ball Frederick.

Still lying on PLUMAGE's deep-pile moss-soft carpet, Racquel yelped, “Sassy?”

“Right here,” she said, her voice a sunny soprano, from somewhere off to his side.

The cop bawled, “Youse two cut that out! Wasting my time, trying to be smart with your fancy tricks. I ought to run youse in!”

Paying no attention, Racquel sat up, his head momentarily spinning. Sitting nearby, Sassy grinned back at him.

“Hey!” he whispered.

Her smile shone in her shadow-green eyes. Funny that he had never noticed the wonderful color of her eyes before; they were to die for. Hard to tell for sure the color of her dripping-wet hair, but Racquel thought he saw a tawny auburn glow to it, and for sure he saw not a trace of gray. Her face looked ten years younger—or maybe it was just the smile, but—no, something more. The light in her golden-green eyes. A glow about her more than just watergleam. She was paying utterly no attention to Frederick. Maybe she hadn't even noticed him.

She said
—
she said she loves me
.

Racquel could not think what to say, so naturally he blurted the stupidest thing he could. “Hey,” he babbled. “Hey, Sassy, you're okay. Where's your glasses?”

She raised her brows, lifted one hand from the floor to feel at her face, and smiled even wider. “I must have lost them in the fracas.” She scanned him like a sunbeam. “Hey! I don't need them anymore!”

“Have you looked at yourself?” Racquel asked.

But the cop wasn't standing for any further debriefing. “Okay, youse two, on your feet!”

Racquel thought it best to obey the police ossifer. He stood up, feeling a bit unsteady, and very conscious of the way his wet tights clung; should he try to maneuver something in front of him? Sassy looked better than he did all wet.

As she stood, Frederick complained, “Sassy,
what
are you trying to prove? I've been looking all over for you.”

Sassy peered around for the noise, then focused on Frederick as if she barely knew him. “What for?”

“You said something very disturbing to me and then you disappeared!”

“So what's the problem?” Tired of him, she turned to the mirror, and her eyes widened. “Whoa!” She gazed at her own reflection.

Whoa, indeed. “No more blue budgie?”

She shook her head, her gaze fixated on the mirror. She seemed to lack breath for the moment to say anything.

The police ossifer seemed to be getting more exercised rather than less. He roared, “I want some answers here!”

Three PLUMAGE employees, Racquel noticed, stood looking at his jerkin and tights and yes, his codpiece, and grinning like jackals. Didn't seem too surprised.

Frederick said imperiously to Sassy, “I am going to take you to a doctor.”

“Not until I'm done with her!” the cop snapped at him.

Sassy seemed to hear none of this. She gazed at the mirror. “Shadow,” she whispered, her eyes alight like candles. “I got my shadow back.”

Racquel felt his eyes misting. She was really something. She really was. “Yeah,” he told her softly.

“Wings and all. You can't see them, but they're there. Wings. In me.”

“Yeah.”

For a moment he felt like he heard the heartbeat rhythm of wings.

He did. He heard a fluttering that was not his own heart, and there was Kleet winging down. Whir of wings, and the cop startled as if somebody had pulled a gun. Goofy little parakeet must have been hiding on top of the belt rack or something.

Kleet landed on Sassy's shoulder. “Sweetie!” Turning away from the mirror, Sassy put up a surprised finger to stroke his breast feathers.

“Twee,” the parakeet said sadly.

Frederick barked, “What is that animal doing in here? You know I'm allergic! Get it away from me!”

For the first time Sassy seemed really to see Frederick. Her eyes narrowed. “Oh, stuff yourself with a cucumber,” she said.

“
What
?”

“You heard me.” Sassy sounded irritated and bored with him, nothing more. “Go away. Get out of my face.”

“You need psychiatric help!”

“I did when I married you. Not anymore.”

“You—”

The parakeet perched on her finger now. She lifted it to her face and puckered her lips, making kissy noises. Kleet nibbled at the corner of her mouth.

“Ewww!” Frederick flapped his arms and strode out.

That left the cop and the grinning employees to deal with. Racquel looked at the cop. The cop looked at him.

Racquel shrugged, arching his brows in mute inquiry.

The cop's square, flat face flushed, looking more uncomfortable now than irate. He turned and said gruffly to the employees, “Youse people go back to what youse were doing.”

They did, grinning. The cop waited until they were out of earshot before he asked, “Where you been?”

“Behind the mirror.”

“Thought you were going to say that.”

“It's true.”

“Her too?” He glanced at Sassy, who was whispering to Kleet.

“Yes. All two of her.”

“Don't talk no riddles at me. Give me something I can put in the report, dammit.”

Racquel asked, “What's the complaint?”

“None anymore. Youse were missing. Now you're not.”

“Tell them we went to Saskatchewan.”

“Look,” the cop told him, “no more. I don't want no more people jumping at me out of mirrors and I don't ever want to see your he-she face again. You understand?”

Racquel nodded. Understandable sentiment on the ossifer's part. “I think we're done,” he said. “Really.”

“Youse stay put,” the cop growled. “You hear? You better say yes, sir, you hear me.”

“Yes, sir. We hear you.”

“Good.” The cop stomped out.

“Welcome home,” called one of the “associates” from across the store.

Home. What a concept.

Racquel went and hugged Sassy, laying his head for a moment on her hair. Despite sogginess, a kind of psychic warmth emanated from her. He felt—he felt very much at home.

“Twee?” asked the parakeet.

Sassy hugged Racquel back, and leaned against him. Probably feeling his warmth. “I think you're right,” she told him with only a little sadness tinging her tone. Mostly, she sounded bemused. Whimsical. And happy. “I think we are back for good.”

“Twee?” Kleet whimpered.

Sassy told him, “Sweetie, I'm not your tree. You couldn't have made me your tree if I'd been whole to start with.”

“Twee?”

“Oh, poor baby.” She stroked his green wingfeathers, as green as Eden. “What am I going to do with you?”

FIFTEEN

Wearing lip gloss, lavender eye shadow, and a glossy-feathered periwinkle-and-canary baseball cap, Sassy knocked on Lydia's door. Same old sign,
LOOK DOWN
, with eyeballs in the
OO
and a Magic-Marker arrow pointing to the floor. It had been, what, a week since her last visit? Seemed like it had happened in a different life.

Lydia opened the door and said, “Sassy!” Sounding at first glad to see her, and then totally surprised. “Sassy?”

“Hi!” Sassy stepped in, watching the floor so as not to step on a cockatoo or anything. “I brought Kleet to visit.” She opened her coat to unswaddle the parakeet riding on her chest.

“That's—that's great.” Lydia's broad, homely face appeared dazed. She wore a different T-shirt, this one advertising safe sex, but the same spangles of poop. “You look good.”

“I feel fantabulous. A lot has happened.”

“I can see that! You've dyed your hair, got contacts, what's next, pierced ears?”

“Probably.” Sassy smiled and let Lydia's misconceptions pass. “I've been thinking about it. I'd like wearing pretty earbobs. Feathered ones.” She felt her smile dimming, though, as Kleet flew across the room. She had hoped being with Lydia's birds would put some life back into him, but he hadn't made a sound.

“That's good.” Lydia took Sassy's coat and hat, parked them on the coffee table, then sat down on the sofa to study Sassy some more. “How's your job?”

“Haven't got one right now. I'm looking.” Ambling around Lydia's apartment with the other bipeds, Sassy watched Kleet land on the mirror perch with the other parakeets. “I'm living with my friend Racquel,” she added.

“Good! It's good you're not living alone no more. Is she nice?”

“Yes. She's a he, and he's very nice.” Sassy felt a smile spring warm from her heart to flower on her face.

“She's a he!”

“Yep. He has the most fabulous clothes. Runs a boutique at the hotel.” And neither his employees nor the hotel management had said a word about his gender. At least not to his face. They grinned a lot, that was all, and not even nasty grins. Sometimes people do okay.

The denizens of Racquel's apartment building grinned a lot too. “His neighbors think we're a pair of lesbians,” Sassy added.

Lydia's soft mouth had stretched wide open in an O. Eventually she got it closed enough to gasp, “Well, are you?”

“Lesbians?” Sassy said just to tease.

“Lovers.”

Sassy gave her a Mona Lisa smile. “We're two people who love each other.”

“You can do that now?”

“Sure.”

A dayspring light shimmered in Lydia's eyes, like dawn on quiet water. “Well, color me stupid,” she murmured.

“Huh?”

“I see now. I was thinking it was just changes. But it's a lot more, ain't it? You found what you lost.”

“Yes.”

“That's way special, Sassy.”

It had been a while since Sassy had actually blushed, but she did now, like a preview of the hot flashes she could look forward to in a few years. She felt the warmth rise clear to her eyes, which kind of boiled over. She stood still, facing Lydia, but she could not speak.

In that moment she realized that more than one person loved her.

And she had more than one person to love.

Life could be good.

Scanning her some more, Lydia nodded and said, “You ain't worried about anything now except Kleet.”

“Yes!” Surprise helped Sassy recover. How did Lydia know she was worried about Kleet? But then, why not? Lydia knew things. Obviously.

Sassy turned to study Kleet … dammit. On the perch with the other parakeets, he sat. That was all. Sat. They gathered around to gabble at him, but he did not reply.

Lydia asked, “How long's he been like this?”

“Since I got back.”

“Back?”

Sassy sat on the sofa next to Lydia, shooed a parrot away from her ear, and explained as best she could. If she closed her eyes and listened to the conures and cockatiels and finches whistling and singing all around her, she could almost imagine she was in the forest of lost dreams. She felt bad for Kleet, yes, but also for herself when she remembered that unicorn place; the sorrow in her life right now was that she would never visit there again. That world where lovely lost souls wandered was closed to her now.

How could she feel so happy in this world yet so aching, so yearning?

When Sassy had talked herself out, Lydia said, “That's really something. Let me look at you in the mirror.”

“Sure.” Sassy bounced up with the energy of a teenager. At the mirror, she offered her hand to Kleet. He stepped onto her finger. She ruffled his feathers with her other hand, and he leaned into the caress, but he did not look at her. His sadness was unmistakable.

“It's too bad, sweetie,” Sassy murmured to him, feeling the tug of a similar longing, a similar sorrow.

“You're you,” Lydia said from beside her.

“I know.” Sassy's reflection showed Sassy just as Lydia's reflection showed Lydia. Of course, Sassy did not see other people as birds anymore, either, not even Racquel as a hornbill. She told Lydia, “I'm kind of betwixt and between. I feel so good just to be alive, you know? But I—sometimes I wish I'd never been there if I can't go back. And I wish I could think what to do for him.” She tilted her head toward Kleet.