Page 15 of Other Birds

Mac nodded. “And he always buys back the condos when the owners want to sell. I gather he feels a little territorial.”

“Ha!” Zoey exclaimed, turning back to him as if he understood. “I knew it wasn’t someone sneaking around to get a look at Lizbeth’s condo to buy!”

“Excuse me?”

“Nothing. Sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know any of this when I moved in. I inherited my studio from my mother.”

“Then you should read the book Roscoe Avanger wrote about the Dellawisp, if you can find a copy.”

“Sweet Mallow? I have a copy. But I don’t remember this place being in it.”

“NotSweet Mallow,the other one. The little nonfiction one.Dancing with the Dellawisps.It’s about his renovation of the property and giving the birds a permanent home in the garden.”

“I had no idea Roscoe Avanger had written another book!”

“I’m pretty sure it was only sold on the island. I think he self-published it,” Mac said. “I never read it, but Frasier illustrated it. He told me about it once when I asked about the drawings of the birds on his office wall.” Zoey didn’t respond, obviously still thinking about the book, so he figured that was his cue to leave. Sometimes it was hard to tell. He envied people with a natural ability to walk in and out of conversations. Camille used to say it was because he kept waiting for people to say goodbye, when he knew good andwell that saying goodbye was not a prerequisite for leaving. “Well, it was nice to meet you.”

There were six parking spaces reserved for the Dellawisp residents in the lot between the back of Sugar and Scribble Bakery and the front gate to the garden, but only Mac with his Chevy Tahoe and Frasier with his beat-up work truck parked there. He walked toward his SUV, but Zoey called his name and he turned.

She pointed to his left shoulder. “You have some flour, right there.”

He didn’t have to look to know it wasn’t flour. “It’s cornmeal. Thanks.”

Quit it, Camille,he thought crossly as he brushed it off.

It was after midnight when Mac got home from work. He stuck his key into his door lock, but paused with a strange feeling of being watched. He turned and looked around. No one was there. Then he thought to look up and saw Zoey sitting on her balcony, her long legs dangling over the ledge. That studio had been unoccupied as long as he’d lived here. He’d always wondered why.

It was late and he almost called for her to go to bed. But he couldn’t have been much older than she was when he’d moved out on his own.We got wings we can’t see,Camille used to say.We were made to fly away.

Zoey waved at him. He smiled and waved back before opening his doors. He stuck his leg in first in case Fig tried to run out. She’d never shown any interest in life outside the condo, but he didn’t want to take any chances.

He flicked on the light and tossed his keys on the coffee table. Fig lifted her head from the couch and meowed in her croaky little voice.

“Hello, beautiful,” he said.

The only calico hair Fig had left was on her belly, which she rolled over and let him scratch. The upper half of her body was a road map of old scars, her ears burned down to tiny leaves. When he’d first brought her home, he’d left the radio on for her for company while he was at work before he’d realized she was deaf.

Three years ago, Fig had been badly burned behind the hotel. One of the dishwashers at Popcorn had tossed a cigarette at her, not realizing she’d had gasoline and oil on her from sleeping under cars in the employee parking lot. The dishwasher, Nigel, had taken off his shirt and doused the flames, then came running into the kitchen saying, “I didn’t know! I was just trying to scare it away!”

Mac had stopped what he was doing and grabbed the cat from Nigel. He’d been feeding her scraps for months and everyone knew it. Without a word he’d walked out and driven to an emergency clinic in Charleston. Nigel never came back to work. Several people said Mac had scared him, scared him with the look he’d given him. Mac didn’t know what look that had been. For a long time he’d assumed it had been anger, until he’d run into Nigel a year or so ago. Nigel had apologized again and said, “Man, that look you gave me. I still can’t get it out of my head. It was like I’d killed your grandma, like I’d taken your heart out of your chest.”

After weeks at the vet, Fig had been well enough to be released, so Mac had brought her home to the Dellawisp. He’d been hiding her from Lizbeth Lime and Frasier ever since. Pets were expressly forbidden in order to protect the bird population in the garden. But it wasn’t as if Fig had the agility or even the desire to catch any of those birds. Frankly, he was more worried about what those crazy birds would do to his sweet, fat cat if Fig ever wandered outside.

He went straight to the shower to wash the kitchen smell offhim. When he got out, Fig was sitting on the bathroom mat. She hopped into the tub and drank some of the water left dripping from the faucet while Mac dried off.

After putting on pajama bottoms and a T-shirt, he went to the couch and sat heavily. He turned on the television and flicked through the channels as he rubbed his aching knees. A few minutes later he thought he heard something. He hit the Mute button on the remote. There was a creak coming from the garden, like the gate was opening slowly. He waited to hear if it was Lucy Lime. She never came out during the day, but sometimes he heard her leave at night. When he didn’t hear the sound of her door closing, he got up and pulled the curtains back. The footpath lights in the garden were hidden by ferns and Knock Out roses, giving the area a muted green glow, almost like being under the sea. He saw a shadow move near the two units on the other side.

He thought of Charlotte alone over there now that Lizbeth was gone. Lizbeth had been a pain in the ass, but if something was going on, right or wrong, she’d been the one to notice and take action. He’d taken that for granted for years. He opened the doors and stepped out. The birds were rustling in the low brugmansia trees, chirping halfheartedly as they wound down to sleep. A faraway car puttered down Trade Street. Other than that, it was the quiet that only one o’clock in the morning can bring. He watched the garden for several more moments, but there was no movement. He looked up to see if Zoey was still on her balcony, but she had obviously gone to bed. He had the feeling now that she had been waiting up for him before going inside, like she was looking out for him.

He suddenly wondered why she had asked him earlier about Lucy. He looked over to her unkempt patio next door. The few times he’d actually seen her, Lucy looked rough around the edges, but in adefeated kind of way. It was as if life had thrown her one too many curveballs she wasn’t able to catch, so she had resigned herself to simply getting hit. He’d never thought there was anything dangerous about her.

Get yourself back in here,he imagined Camille saying.

He stepped back in and sat on the couch again. Fig jumped up and settled on his lap, purring. He zoned out for a while in front of the TV, until he was nearly asleep. But he never let himself sleep anywhere other than in his bedroom, not since Camille died five years ago and he began waking up covered in cornmeal.

The first time it happened, it was easy enough to dismiss. He was a chef whose specialty was dishes made with cornmeal inspired by Camille, so he thought he’d probably brought it in with him on his clothes from the restaurant. But then it happened again the next night. He dismissed it again, this time as the stress over Camille’s death making him sleepwalk into his own kitchen. But then it happened the next night. And the next. Weeks passed, every morning the same, waking to his bed sprinkled in cornmeal. His girlfriend at the time—a high-maintenance beauty named Evalina who had worked at the front desk at the hotel—began to freak out about it when she stayed over. She hated the way the cornmeal would stick like dandruff to her hair. She told him to stop doing it, and she’d gotten angry when he told her he couldn’t.

He said good night to Fig, who knew by now that she wasn’t allowed in his bedroom while he slept. He closed his bedroom door behind him and took a fresh white bedsheet from the stack he always kept on the leather armchair in the corner. He flipped the sheet over his bedspread, where it floated in midair for a graceful, cloud-like moment before covering the bed. He crawled under the covers, pulling the sheet over his head.

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