She tried talking to him for a few more minutes then finallygave up. She would go to him in a couple of hours and see if he would at least acknowledge she was in the room. Shame and self-reproach accompanied her as she worked in the store. She felt awful and couldn’t shake the sick feeling in her stomach.
“No joy?” Cheryl asked later that afternoon. “You’re looking like you lost your best friend so I’m guessing Ramon isn’t speaking to you.”
“He won’t even look at me.”
“Give him time. He’s a smart bird. He knows you love him.”
“I think he’s a whole lot less sure of that now.” She held in a sigh. “Let’s change the subject. Now that we have the dates from Marcus for when the wall comes down, we need to get an announcement out onPort Palmas Talks.”
The daily newsfeed provided residents with updates on everything from bad weather to garage sales to restaurant daily specials.
Cheryl nodded. “I’ll get going on the wording. I want to make it stern enough to capture people’s attention.” She smiled. “What if I threaten to read all the diaries not claimed by the authors?”
“We said we’re not reading people’s diaries. That would be wrong.”
“Yes, but also very fun. Think of all the secrets we could find out.”
Jax eyed the former teacher. “You have an unexpected bad girl streak.”
“I know. I’ve done my best to rein in my inner evil twin, but every now and then she gets the best of me. Don’t worry, I’ll run the announcement past you before I post it.”
“Thanks.”
Cheryl looked past her and smiled. “Ah, someone’s here to see you.”
Jax’s already bad mood took a jog for the worse as she braced herself to have to face Shawna, but when she turned she only saw Marcus walking toward her. Relief eased some of her discomfort.
“Him I can handle.”
“You say that now,” Cheryl murmured. “But I think he might surprise you.”
Jax had no idea what that meant and decided to let it go. She wanted to talk to Marcus about the junk room refresh and hear what he had to say about the work on the store.
“Hi,” he said as he approached and Cheryl stepped away. “I wanted to talk to you about...” He paused. “What’s wrong?”
“Everything.” She shook her head. “That’s not true. I’m fine. I tried to introduce Lucy to Ramon. It didn’t go well.”
“She tried to kill him?”
“What? How can you know that? Of course not.” She paused, then hung her head. “Yes. It was horrifying and it’s all my fault.”
“You’re trying to get your bird a cat as a pet. That’s not natural. What did you think would happen?”
“That they would be friends and hang out together and he would be happy.”
“She’s a cat.”
“I’m clear on that. Stop saying it.”
“Okay, then I’ll point out, as we’ve discussed, Ramon is perfectly happy now.”
“I know,” she admitted, wondering how long she would feel sick to her stomach. “I just thought he could be happier.” She sighed. “I’m very clear you’re regretting your comment from before. The one where you said I was a good pet parent, because I’m not. I’m responsible for the near death of my beloved parrot. To channel my eight-year-old, I stink.”
Marcus surprised her by putting his arm around her. “You don’t stink.”
The weight and the warmth of his body was unexpectedly comforting, she thought, leaning into him for a second.
“I do. I’m an awful parrot mom. I should be arrested.”
