Plumage Read Online Free PDF Page A

Sassy stiffened.
    â€œThe damn thing tried to attack me earlier today,” she said.
    â€œIt did?”
    â€œWell … it tried to land on me. I fended it off.”
    â€œIt must like you,” Racquel said. “I haven’t heard of it trying to sit on anybody else.”
    The parakeet still perched quietly in its tree like a yellow-headed spirit. Sassy felt like it was watching her.
    â€œYou just stay there,” she told it between her teeth.
    Racquel nodded. “Hotel management wants to get rid of it,” she said. “It hasn’t pooped on anybody other than you that I know of, but it poops plenty. Did you know a bird poops on the average every fifteen minutes?”
    Sassy contemplated this. She knew from somewhere that horses pooped forty-five pounds a day. If birds were the size of horses … it did not bear contemplation. She shied from the poop stats and backtracked to Racquel’s previous statement. “Get rid of it how?”
    â€œWell, they can’t exactly shoot it in here. Trap it, I guess. Or maybe poison it.”
    There began to grow in Sassy a queasy sense of unease. She could tell Racquel all about Frederick, which was a relief, but certainly she could not tell her—no. She could not tell anyone about the bizarre budgie that faced her in the mirror every day. They would think she was insane.
    And maybe she was. The idea that they might poison the parakeet troubled her. Okay, she wanted it to leave her alone, but—did they have to kill it? Also—she hadn’t quite admitted the connection until this moment, preferring to think that sequence did not necessarily indicate cause and effect, but still … it sure looked as if that parakeet had made her start seeing birds instead of people in mirrors. Maybe some sort of weird virus in its poop had instantaneously soaked through her skull into her brain. And if they killed that bird, she might never find the cure.
    â€œThey can’t do that,” Sassy blurted.
    Racquel leaned forward, her dark eyes large and friendly, like a puppy’s. “You a bird lover?”
    â€œNot hardly.” But it began to look as if she was going to have to start acting like one. Reluctantly Sassy admitted to herself that she hadn’t been thinking. Damn, she needed that bird.
    And it had tried to land on her, she could have grabbed it, but she had driven it away.
    â€œI am an idiot,” she said to Racquel.
    â€œWhat, honey? Why?”
    â€œI just am.” Sassy scrambled up, thanked Racquel for the raspberry-flavored espresso, and scuttled out.
    The next day around lunchtime, Racquel ambled out on the mezzanine to get away from the bookkeeping and noticed Sassy in her white-and-green uniform sitting at a café table. Racquel peered across the atrium with interest, because this was a violation of hotel rules; uniformed maids were supposed to be seen only when at work, taking their breaks and meals down below. Sassy must have some sass in her after all. Something about the little woman tugged at Racquel’s heart, and she wondered what it was. Sassy made her wince with thoughts of what it must be like to be quite so relentlessly middle-aged—but that wasn’t it. Pity was boring, and Sassy was not; Sassy was—Sassy was a bit of a mystery.
    Sassy sat bold as gold at that café table scanning a large book. A stack of books squatted at her elbow.
    Leaving PLUMAGE to the mercies of her employees, Racquel headed over there, her slit grosgrain skirt snapping as she walked, her feather-fringed sash swishing.
    Even when Racquel was not conscious of her own secret, it rode in her like the mythic jewel in the head of a toad. Was it the weight of her own secret, Racquel wondered, that made her think that Sassy had a secret?
    â€œHey, woman,” she greeted Sassy.
    Sassy glanced up at her with the glassy, unsmiling look of one who has been interrupted. “Oh, hi,” Sassy said, coming