“Well, like you said, if I eat too much cookie, I die a painful death, and I don’t think I get to come back after that. So, yes, I’d like to taste some actual food.”
“You got it, Grandma Cockatoo!” I grab my bag and keys and head for the door. This is too easy. I needed to go to the store anyway. There’s not much toilet paper left, and we need Band-Aids in case she gets mad again, and, well, this is my home now. I’m ready to start making it feel like mine.
But the second I open that door, Maggie is ready. She launches herself outside and off the balcony, fluttering to the ground.
“Oh, you ornery idiot!” I bark. “Something’s going to kill you!”
“It’s got to catch me first!”
I guess she’s been practicing with her wings, as she’s getting more air than I’d prefer. Although one of her wings is clipped, preventing her from bursting up into the clouds, she can get some good distance as is, fluttering for ten feet or so, and she’s already got the lead on me, as I have to go down the stairs. She’s hopscotching down the alley, much faster than I thought she could go.
Damn a stubborn human brain in a bird’s body!
I trip on the stairs and almost fall, barely catching myself on the railing.
As my feet hit the concrete, she flutters over a tall wooden fence and disappears.
25.
I walk aroundfor half an hour trying to find my grandmother, but she has truly flown the coop. Thank goodness the alley is relatively private, as I mutter quite a few expletives trying to find some way past that wooden fence, which I’m assuming is Hunter’s handiwork. It’s annoyingly sturdy, so I finally have to give up and leave my stupid grandmother to suffer the consequences of her own actions. As angry as I am, I don’t want her to get captured by an alley cat or trapped in a thorn bush. Even if she deserves it. A little.
I’d love to go to the grocery store, but I want to stay close to downtown in case she turns up or flies back home to peck miserably at my door and beg for forgiveness. I walk down the street for a slice of pizza and settle in for a sulky soak in Maggie’s tub—no.Mytub. Normally, I’d be totally absorbed in a book, but instead I’m catastrophizing about the many horrible things that can happen to a rogue parrot. I give up on reading and work on the grocery list on my phone.
It takes forever to fall asleep, and then my phone alarm isgoing off, and then I’m staring up into the trees as I walk down the street, hunting for a flash of pink, and then I’m accepting a hazelnut latte from Nathan and making my biscuit, and then I hear Hunter’s footsteps on the stairs outside my apartment.
As usual, he looks annoyed. “I thought we were working on the video store.”
“Oh. Sorry.” I look at my phone. “You’re ten minutes early.”
His face might as well be made of granite. “My grandmother taught me that on time is late.”
I gaze wistfully at the empty bird cage. “I have two messy sisters and a pet parrot, and I used to get pulled over at least once a week by my ex-boyfriend’s grudge-holding brother, so I haven’t developed that kind of discipline. I won’t be late on you again, though.”
He tries not to smile, his jaw gone tight; I’m getting accustomed to this look on him. “I have some prices on the wood for your shelves, if you’d like to get down to business.” He gestures to the open doorway, and we head downstairs. I turn on the lights, and he lays out his notebook. It’s covered in tidy rows of numbers. I didn’t realize before now that good handwriting is apparently one of my turn-ons.
“Here’s the cost of the wood.” He points at a number that frightens me. “This lumberyard is usually cheapest, but I can call around if you want to try something else. Now, that’s for the cheapest option, as bare-bones as I can build your shelves. Here’s the Full Beast Library option.” The number he points to gives me heart palpitations, and my dream bookshelves have never been so far away.
The dictionary sits heavily in my pocket, but it can’t offer the help I need. It’s odd—I don’t actually know the shape and parameters of my magic yet, but I feel a pull to use it.
Like itwantsto be used, an itch waiting to be scratched.
“Let’s try something.” I poke around under the cabinet until I find what I’m looking for.
A phone book.
I know they don’t even make them in more cosmopolitan parts of the world nowadays, but I had a hunch that Arcadia Falls was still a Yellow Pages kind of place. I drop the heavy old book on the cabinet, noting that it’s six years old.
Hunter can no longer contain his amusement. “Of all the ways people respond to high quotes, I have never seen someone whip out a phone book like that. You’re not going to hit me with it, are you? I’m just the messenger here.”
I close my eyes, flip through the pages until I’m compelled to stop, and put my finger down. When I open my eyes, I’m not surprised to see that I’ve selected a lumberyard. “Is this place still open?”
Hunter squints at the tiny words. “I don’t know. I’ve never heard of them. But if you think it’s worth a quote, I’ll give them a call.” He eyes me with curiosity. “What’s your knack?”
“Books. They help me figure things out. They kind of did, even before”—I gesture wildly—“all this.”
He chuckles as he dials his phone. “No wonder you dream of shelves. I’ve never heard of that one before, but let’s see how it plays out.”
Someone answers, and Hunter’s voice goes into Classic Good Ol’ Boy mode as he asks questions that make no sense to me. Needing something to keep me busy as he writes new rows of sexy figures in his notebook, I go through the shelves under the counter, hunting for things I can throw away. There’s a stack of mail dating back so far that they’ve changed the stamps. I think about going through every envelope, but why? If it’s important, they’ll resend it. Out with the old, in with the new and clean.
