I know inmyhome, I like to wander around and touch things.
The dizziness and nausea that always accompanies seeing blood (inconveniently including my own) has receded, but I brace my left hand on the small dining table as I stand, just incase. I’m sure Cal will pitch a fit if he comes back up here to find me out cold on his kitchen floor.
While he was pulling Murano glass out of my cut, I tried to distract myself by checking out my immediate surroundings, but I kept getting distracted from my distraction by the surprising roughness of his hands brushing against my skin as he worked. Cal always dresses smart, oxford shirts and tweed jackets and beautifully broken-in cognac leather boots. Very humanities-professor-with-a-retail-side-gig. He gives off the initial impression of someone who doesn’t seek out manual labor and maybe struggles to open pickle jars. But (most of) those calluses I felt can’t be attributed to holding a pencil, leading me to suspect that he is hiding more strength beneath those elbow-patched blazers than I assumed. Perhaps this is a man who can not only sell a midcentury credenza but also help load it into the bed of a truck. The mental image isn’t objectionable: him with his shirtsleeves rolled to the elbow, thighs straining against his chinos as he squats to grab hold of a corner, dark hair that’s charmingly a bit too long falling over his sweat-beaded forehead…
Oof. Maybe I lost more blood than I realized.
Anyway, I only have a few minutes alone up here. I should spend them more wisely than imagining Cal lifting furniture.
The galley kitchen is small and clean, with a traditional black-and-white-checkered floor. Old laminate countertops and painted metal cabinets take up one side of the space and a 1950s Formica dining table with matching chrome-legged chairs takes up most of the rest. Ticking comes from the wall behind me and I turn to find a black Kit-Cat Klock, its plastic tail swishing back and forth. It’s a much more whimsical choice than I ever would have expected to find here. I wonder what other surprises I might uncover.
I step through the doorway and into the living room. Thechange of scenery makes me aware that I’ve once again started quietly repeating the same few lines of the song that’s been stuck in my head since I learned that our customer Mrs. White’s first name is Eileen. “ ‘You in that dress, my thoughts I confess…’ ” I sing to myself as I take in a Chesterfield sofa that must be at least a few decades old given how worn the leather is. A brass-and-glass coffee table that looks sleek but vintage as well. A small TV sits on a black lacquered cabinet against the wall, flanked by cheap flat-pack bookshelves. I drag my finger over the spines of the tomes there, and spot one shelf that solely contains fourteen different editions ofWar and Peace, a few in languages other than English. (This does not surprise me nearly as much as the cat clock.)
When I come to the end of the shelf, I turn around and spot a bright orange-and-green floral quilt in the corner. It’s much more vividly colored than anything else in the room, and it’s draped over something box shaped. What could that be about?
One of my childhood friends’ moms had a parrot, and sometimes she would drape a blanket over its cage to calm it down when it was being too loud. Maybe Cal has a pet bird?
Oh god, imagine a parrot mimicking Cal’s sarcasm.
I slowly lift the edge of the blanket to peek under it.
Holy shit.
Holyshit.
Well. I guess I wassortof right. Although this is definitely no pet.
No. What this is…well, it’s a dead fucking goose. That’s what it is. Clearly.
But…maybe…
Maybe it’s also an opportunity.
EIGHT
Callahan
With Virtu’s frontdoor locked and a quick handwritten sign taped to it letting any potential customers know that we’ve had to close a little early today, I hustle back up the stairs to my apartment.
I open the door and find Annie sitting on the couch. The first thing I notice is that her cheeks have returned to their usual pale pink. Thank god. My brain begins to relay to my body:It’s all good, she’s feeling better. We can start calming down now.But the announcement is cut off abruptly as I take in the rest of the scene. Because she isn’t simply sitting there with her usual light flush; she is sitting there looking downrightgiddyover something. Like Harold when he heard that the florist down the street that he’s always inexplicably hated was getting audited by the IRS.
And then I spot the probable cause: the goose, staring back at me from its uncovered display case in the corner.
Fuck. Fuck.Fuck.
“I can explain,” I say, but it comes out as a question. Because I don’t know for sure that Ican. At least not in a way that somehow negates the actual reality of the situation, which is that an almost certainly illegal taxidermy bird is in my living room. I’m pretty sure I can’t just cover it back up and convince Annie she didn’t see it.
She stares at me for a long time, that cat-that-got-the-cream expression on her face. Then, finally: “You know, this actually makes so much sense.”
“It…does?”
“I was wondering why you acted so weird with that customer yesterday.”
“You’ll, um, have to be more specific,” I say. “I act kind of weird with a lot of the customers.”
“Mrs. Eileen White. Who wanted to get a closer look at the porcelaingoosefigurine. And you acted so startled, as if she’d asked if you wanted her to get on her knees and blow you.”
“Jesus, Annie. I could’ve gone my entire life without that mental image.”
