Plumage

by Nancy Springer

  “Sassy, lighten up,” he said gently. “Didn’t you ever play dress-up as a kid?”

  “Not with a transsexual!” Thrusting the hat back at him, trying to stop this game that was causing her pain, she spoke more harshly than she had intended.

  “Transvestite,” Racquel said.

  “Whatever.”

  He settled back on his fuchsia heels and gave her a hard stare. “I really irk the hell out of you, don’t I? What bugs you more, that I’m a transvestite or that I’m black?”

  Sassy was tired, stressed, and in no mood for self-improvement. She snapped, “Actually, what bothers me most is that your hair never doggone moves.”

  His eyes opened wide, and so did his mouth, and a yawp came out, then rich contralto laughter. “Sassy,” he said, and he toppled off his cork-soled clogs, sitting on the floor, laughing some more.

  Because he was laughing at her and because he hadn’t taken the picture hat from her, she plopped it on top of his do, where it teetered, its white plumes bobbing and its pastel ribbons curling down over his boleroed shoulders. Sassy seldom laughed out loud, but she had to smile.

  “Oh, my sweet black ass.” Still chuckling, placidly accepting of his clownish appearance in the hat, Racquel heaved himself up from the floor, stooped over Sassy and combed her limp hair with his fingers. With one hand on either side of her face he lifted her hair into stubby wings, trying to fluff it. He crouched in front of her and removed her glasses, studying her face. He set the glasses aside and smoothed her hair down again.

  The feel of his careful hands on her head was heavenly. Sassy sat still, but said, “Racquel, it’s no use.”

  “White woman’s hair? It’s bad, all right, but it’s not quite hopeless. My stylist—”

  “It’s not just the hair. It’s everything.”

  Still gentling her hair, Racquel asked, “Everything?”

  “Everything about me. My hair. My wrinkly face. My pudgy little body. I’ve got nothing going for me. I’m almost fifty years old, I’ve been married more than half my life to a man who didn’t love me, and now it’s too late. Nobody’s ever going to want me.”

  Racquel stroked her hair into place. “Huh,” he said softly. “We’ll see. We’ll just see about that.”

  “Hey,” Racquel said to Sassy as both of them leaned on the mezzanine railing watching dawn turn the atrium glass the colors of mother-of-pearl.

  “Hey, what?”

  “Hey, I just had a brain spasm. Almost a brain orgasm.”

  “Lovely.”

  “About your name. Like, trees are just plants and we name people after some plants, why not other plants? I mean, we name people Rose, Violet, Daisy, Jasmine, Rosemary, Heather—why not Wisteria? Or Dogwood? Or—”

  “Or Sassafras, is that the idea?”

  “Yes! Why does it always have to be flower names? And why does it always have to be women named after the flowers, not men? I mean, if I had a baby boy, I shouldn’t have to just name him Oak or Spruce, I could name him Tulip, or Bud, or Clematis, Clem for short, why not? Why—”

  “Shhh!” Sassy hushed him, clutching at his arm.

  The parakeet was flying.

  Like a green-yellow spark in the creamy dawnlight it flashed up from its treetop—straight into one of the mist nets.

  “Ninth floor,” said Sassy rapidly, counting up to the balcony to which the end of the net was attached, seeing the parakeet flutter, struggle, thrash itself into a lump of gossamer mesh. “Quick, you run over to the other end and undo it.” She darted toward the elevator.

  “How come I get to run to the other end?” Racquel grumbled.

  “Just do it!”

  When she reached her end of the net, she could see the parakeet more closely. Still struggling. Tangled nearly into a ball.

  “Poor thing,” she muttered, feeling a pang in her heart. She knew all too well what it was like to feel entangled, trapped.

  The parakeet fluttered once more, then settled into a frozen, panting panic. Too terrified to move. Sassy had heard that small animals were likely to die of shock when they were caught in traps. Mice rescued from cats would still die of shock. “Hurry,” she whispered to Racquel, who could not possibly hear her.

  There she was—there he was, finally, on the far side of the atrium.

  Sassy had expected that Racquel would undo the fastenings that secured the net to the far balcony. But evidently Racquel had other ideas. Racquel flourished a massive pair of shears and simply cut the thing loose.

  “Whoa!” Sassy grabbed at her end as the net swung down, down—

  Its trailing tendrils caught in the treetops. “Oh, no,” Sassy moaned, pulling in yards of net which piled like froth at her feet. The bird formed a small, still lump in the cobwebby mesh about ten feet away from Sassy when the net went taut.

  So near and yet so far. “Come on, would you!” Sassy tugged, braced her feet against the railing and tugged harder, tugged with all her five-foot-five-inches’ worth of strength.

  It was not nearly enough.

  “They make these things out of fish line or something.” Like an unlikely angel, Racquel was there, reaching over her shoulder to grab a double fistful of net. “On the count of three. One—two—”

  Three. They both pulled at the net.

  It did not tear loose, exactly. Rather, it tried to tear up the tree by the roots, and the tree made some sacrifices to save itself. Leaves stripped, twigs gave way, and the net was free.

  Racquel stood back and let Sassy gather in the parakeet.

  “Oh, poor baby,” she whispered. Even through the wad of netting in which it was enmeshed she could feel it trembling. “Oh, poor sweetie.” Sitting on the carpet with the bird in her lap, she began to pick at the netting, uncovering the bird’s head. It stared at her with eyes that had gone silver with shock. “Hang on, honey child,” she murmured. “Just hang on a couple of minutes—”

  “Oh, for God’s sake, we don’t have a couple of minutes. Security’s probably already on the way.” Racquel crouched and took the Gordian knot approach, slicing into the net with his shears, cutting the wad of string and bird away from the rest of it. “Come on.” He ran toward the nearest service entry.

  A few minutes later they were in the back room of his shop, where Sassy sat on a cardboard carton and carefully, oh so carefully untangled the bird in her lap.

  She smoothed its wings and held them gently against its body as she freed them, but the parakeet seemed to have no desire to struggle against her or fly away. When she had untangled its tail and, last of all, its delicate legs and feet, it stopped trembling. It nestled in the cup of her hands as she held it against her flat chest. So low that she could barely hear it, it chirped.

  “I think that bird is grateful to you,” Racquel said.

  “I’m grateful to you,” Sassy said humbly. “Thank you. I wouldn’t have been able to—”

  “No problem. Hey, stay up all night with a crazy woman, destroy property, risk my sole source of income, why not?”

  “Look, don’t ever let me blackmail you again. I won’t tell anybody about you. I promise.”

  “Hey.” Racquel grinned.

  Sassy smiled back and stroked the parakeet. She liked the feel of its smooth feathers, its lightweight warmth against her chest.

  “What now?” Racquel asked. “You going to take that bird home?”

  “I guess so.” It seemed like the logical next step. Insofar as anything about her situation could be called logical.

  “You want a box?” Racquel began to poke around his back room, looking for one.

  With the parakeet cuddled to her chest, Sassy wandered out into the shop. With no lights on, but with the early daylight filtering in through the display windows, it was a place of platinum shadow, a tarnished-silver mystery in which feathers fluttered and rustled like living presences whispering.

  A thought occurred to Sassy. “Racquel,” she called.

  “Yo.” He appeared with a smallish c
ardboard box in hand.

  It had been a long night of waiting, with plenty of time to talk. After all that talking, Sassy found to her surprise that she trusted this weirdo more than anybody else she knew.

  That was just it. He was a weirdo. He was unlikely to pass any judgments on her.

  She said, “Racquel, do me a favor.” As if she had not asked enough of him already. “Look at me in the mirror and tell me what you see.”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s too hard to explain. It won’t take a minute. Just look.” Stroking the parakeet nestled against her chest, Sassy walked a few steps to stand in front of one of PLUMAGE’s floor-to-ceiling mirrors.

  She gasped.

  A resplendent ten-foot winged presence, an angel—no, a great eagle made of thunderstorm—no, a plumy winged tree with a serpent of lightning in its branches and the face of a—God, Sassy couldn’t say what it was, its wings and feathering all colors of fire and cloud and rainbow, she was shaking too hard to speak or think, and its featherleaf hands reached toward her and its eyes blazed like ten thousand sunrises and—it called to her, a great melodious cry—

  In answer to its cry the parakeet in her arms turned and yearned toward the mirror, gave a wild screech and took wing as if flying to a long-lost love. But somehow Sassy had not let go, and she flew too. Faintly she heard Racquel call, “Sassy!” but it didn’t matter. The bird-presence’s sunrise eyes offered to take her in, the parakeet’s flying carried her toward them as if on a river of light, and she did not understand what was happening or where she was going but it was all right. Nothing in her entire life had ever felt so right.

  Then she felt Racquel grab her arms.

  That strong grip stopped her like hitting the end of her bungee. There was a slingshot effect, and the parakeet flew loose from her hands, and everything was confusion. She struggled, thumped down, and found herself sitting on the floor of Racquel’s shop still facing the mirror. But there was nothing in it except her blue budgie. It looked distraught.

  “What—” Sassy gasped.

  “You were heading right into the mirror.” Standing over her as if to grab her again if necessary, Racquel sounded stupefied.

  “What—did you see it?”

  “See what? I saw you dive into the mirror. Into it!” Racquel’s tone had not changed.

  “I wanted to,” Sassy murmured, staring without moving.

  “You half disappeared. How did you do that?”

  “I wanted to.” Sassy struggled to her feet. “Where’s my parakeet?”

  “Good God, like I care about your parakeet?”

  “Where is it?”

  Racquel didn’t answer, but Sassy knew the answer.

  “In there, right?” She pointed at the mirror.

  Whatever “in there” meant.

  Racquel took a deep breath. Putting wide pauses between the words, he said, “I—want—to—go—home—now—please.”

  When in doubt, sleep. Sassy went home and slept as if she had been knocked on the head.

  FOUR

  Sassy, being Sassy, took her perplexity to the library, bypassing the main reading room, now given over to videos, and finding haven in the reference section, where books reigned. Into the computer she entered:

  SUBJECT: MIRRORS.

  Subject not found.

  SUBJECT: REFLECTIONS.

  Subject not found.

  For a fleeting but furious moment, Sassy longed for a real card catalog. Lacking that, she took to the nonfiction stacks. “Subject not found, indeed,” she muttered as she eventually located Joy of Mirrors in the home-decoration section. An hour’s further trolling turned up chapters on mirrors in Ghosts, Fetches and Ghouls, Jung for Dummies, and Everyday Magic.

  “Last week it was birds,” said the laterally challenged woman at the desk, bemused by this selection.

  “It still is, kind of.”

  “I heard there’s a lady in the high-rises has fifty birds in her apartment.”

  “Mm,” Sassy said, and she took her books home. Over the next several hours she learned that glass mirrors first appeared in Venice in the thirteenth century. She learned that mirrors were used for divination. She learned that mirrors were sewn on clothing to turn away the evil eye. She learned more than she ever wanted to know about Snow White, Alice Through the Looking Glass, and Narcissus. She learned that, to the Greeks, a dream of seeing one’s reflection in water was an omen of death. She learned that all over the world folk were afraid of reflections and mirrors; the reflection was considered to be the disembodied soul, and could be stolen. She was reminded that a broken mirror is bad luck, that mirrors in a sickroom should be covered or turned to the wall, and that if you look too long in a mirror you’re likely to see the Candyman, the Devil, or your husband-to-be, depending on your choice of superstition.

  “Same thing,” Sassy muttered.

  She learned nothing, however, that enlightened her regarding her own situation. After she was finished reading, she went into the bathroom, pulled down the blind, and stared at the darkened mirror for some time. But only her beady-eyed blue budgie stared back at her.

  The minute Racquel saw Sassy set foot on the mezzanine, he ducked into an empty fitting room and stayed there. Racquel had made up his mind that he was going to have nothing further to do with Sassy. That woman was just too weird.

  The PLUMAGE fitting rooms were top of the line, as befit a classy boutique; they had real doors that locked, and they were not a whole lot smaller than some people’s apartments, and they were carpeted. No pins in the carpeting, either. While he was waiting for Sassy to go away, Racquel kicked off his shoes, then checked his look in the full-length mirror, then put on the red velvet/gold kidskin ankle-strap heels again and checked some more. He loved ankle-strap pumps, twenties-style. He loved the Big Babe Hollywood look. Rita Hay-worth, Jayne Mansfield, Hedy Lamarr. Drop-dead glamour. When he was a kid living in the ugliest block in the city he had loved his mama’s Sunday dresses and hats, by far the bitchin’est thing in the house or the nabe. He still thought Mama had great taste though he hardly ever saw her anymore. He wished she would come in and shop sometime; he would give her a great discount. Maybe the best thing about having his own shop was that he could get really quality plumage wholesale. Today he had on the gold spiral earbobs with cockatiel danglies, the gold lamé slit sheath with cardinal-wing capelet just covering the shoulders, the gold-and-scarlet quilled—

  Somebody knocked at the door.

  “I’m not here,” Racquel said, assuming it was one of his “associates” with a stupid question about money or something. Dumb girls, when would they ever learn to think for themselves?

  “Racquel,” said Sassy’s plangent voice.

  Oh God. The woman had the nose of a terrier. She’d tracked him down.

  “Go away,” he said.

  “Racquel? I need to ask you something, please.”

  “Whatever it is, the answer is no.”

  “Racquel—”

  “Go away.”

  Sassy’s tone developed a deckle edge. “May I remind you that I could tell certain things about you—”

  “You said you weren’t going to do that anymore!”

  A long pause. Then in a very soft voice Sassy said, “Oh. That’s right, I did.”

  Such was the pathos in Sassy’s murmur that it made Racquel open the door and stomp out. “What is it this time?” Looking down on Sassy, Racquel scowled at Sassy’s limp hair. Gray. No, kind of taupe. The color of a squirrel, for God’s sake. It figured. Racquel had never met a squirrelier person in his life.

  “I need to ask you a favor,” Sassy said meekly to Racquel’s chest.

  “I know that! Spit it out!”

  Sassy explained her request. Thank God the woman had the sense to keep her voice down so the staff wouldn’t hear. Racquel stiffened as he listened. When Sassy had finished, Racquel burst out, “Why here?”

  “I’ve tried all kinds of other mirrors. They don’t work.” />
  Fervidly Racquel hoped it didn’t work here either. “Look,” he said, “what I thought I saw—it must have been because I’d been up all night. You get tired enough, you hallucinate, you know?”

  “No,” Sassy said.

  “That parakeet’s long gone. Probably zipped under the ceiling tiles or into the ventwork or something. Probably dead by now.”

  Sassy gave him an opaque look that contradicted him more clearly than words.

  He could feel his jaw begin to tighten with frustration and subliminal fear. He could not have seen what he had seen and she could not be asking what she was asking; it wobbled all sense, all logic, all sanity. He burst out, “Would you please explain to me what it is with you and that parakeet?”

  Sassy considered, then shook her head. “No.”

  “Woman, you owe me a hint at least. What’s the deal? Did the bird swallow the Hope diamond or something?”

  “No, not the Hope diamond,” Sassy said with just a hint of a smile.

  Racquel was later to learn that when Sassy got that Mona Lisa look on her face it meant that Sassy was putting him on. But he didn’t know that yet. He concluded that, okay, he was indeed in the middle of some sort of a warped Nancy Drew mystery, and yes, the parakeet did convey something of great value in its little birdy gut.

  He gave a hefty sigh. “Okay, whatever,” he grumbled. “If it works, at least I’ll be rid of you. Tonight?”

  Sassy looked thanks at him, her hazel eyes appearing huge, childlike, behind those industrial-strength glasses of hers. “Yes. Tonight.”

  Not knowing what to expect, Sassy dressed in layers—T-shirt, sweatshirt, windbreaker, shorts under her sweatpants—and wore her most comfortable shoes. She carried two tote bags tightly packed with basics: graham crackers, peppermints, Deep Woods Off, bread, store brand sharp yellow cheddar cheese, deodorant, granola bars, socks and undies, peanut butter, knife, ibuprofen, Kleenex, a spray of millet with which she hoped to entice the parakeet (all the books said they loved millet), wallet/money/credit cards, Boku Seven Fruit juice in the box, plastic tablecloth by the way of a tarp, Peterson Field Guide.

  Although it was eleven at night when she arrived at PLUMAGE, Racquel awaited her still dressed in that same awful gold dress with dead red birds on the shoulders, and those same vampish red shoes. How he could bear to wear that monkey suit and those stiletto heels a moment longer than he had to, Sassy would never understand.