“That was…wow…” Brea said after Addison and Linneah had blown out like a summer storm.
“I need a drink,” Amy said, picking up the big pitcher of cocktails that Elsie had made and taking a sip without even pouring it in a glass.
I stood up and started packing my bag.
“You don’t want to stay for a drink?” Elsie asked. “I can make fresh ones that Amy hasn’t double-dipped in.”
“I have to go home and unpack all of my stuff that was taken out of Chris’s penthouse,” I explained. “I don’t want to leave it out, or the parrot will tear it up.”
“Godspeed!” Amy said, saluting. “We’ll have a cocktail in your honor.”
* * *
After a harrowing subway ride,during which I was jostled and screamed at enough to make me half wish I was in Chris’s private car, all I wanted was to spend the evening organizing my pillow collection. Instead, when I walked up to the crumbling old apartment building, I was confronted with fire trucks and irate movers.
“I just don’t understand why you think it was my fault,” Gran was loudly exclaiming to the landlord while the firemen roamed around outside and people videotaped the gaping, smoking hole in the side of our apartment unit.
“I know you were in there running an illegal candle business from your kitchen,” the landlord insisted.
“Lying liar!” the parrot squawked, flapping his wings and snapping his beak in the landlord’s direction. He was perched on Gran’s bare shoulder. Because Gran always said that she could not make candles fully clothed, she was only wearing a bra that had had its heyday in the seventies and purple underwear that read, COME AND GET IT!
“Zeus,” I scolded, trying to grab the bird before he bit off the landlord’s ear.
“There’s my granddaughter. Can you believe this?”
“Gran, what did you do!”
The wind shifted, and under the smell of burnt wood was the unmistakable scent of wax and gardenias.
“I was trying out my new recipe. Found it online. You have to infuse the wax with the scents in an Instant Pot.”
“You were cooking candles! I knew you were!” the landlord yelled.
The parrot spread his wings, his bedazzled yellow vest sparkling in the late-afternoon sun. He let out an almighty shriek and went for the landlord.
“Get him, Zeus!” my grandmother yelled, punching her fists in the air. “You show him! Good parrot, good boy!”
“Gran, stop encouraging him!” I yelled as I ran after the parrot and the landlord as the firefighters cursed and dove out of the way of the angry cockatoo.
“Bad bird!” I yelled. “Come here!”
The parrot screamed unintelligibly and gave the landlord one last bite before the man flung himself under one of the firetrucks.
“Rambo!” the parrot crowed and strutted over to me.
“Ma’am?” one of the burly movers wearing a bright-green vest said. The parrot lunged at him, and the man scurried back.
“No!” I scolded Zeus.
“Ma’am, what do we do with your things?”
I looked at a nearby firefighter. He shrugged. The fire captain came over to me.
“You’re on the lease?” he asked in a thick Staten Island accent.
“Yes, sir.”
He shoved a form at me filled out in an unintelligible scrawl.
