Page 53 of Other Birds
Oliver looked up in surprise. “You didn’t fail me, Frasier. Youdidraise me. I wouldn’t have survived without you.”
Frasier blinked a few times, then took a handkerchief out of his pocket and started wiping his runny nose. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” he said, embarrassed, as he stuffed the handkerchief forcefully back in his pocket. “Suddenly I’m this old man with all these… emotions.”
“You? Human?” Oliver smiled. “I don’t believe it.”
Frasier laughed and patted him on the shoulder. “Ready to see your place?”
“As long as there are no boxes,” Oliver said. “I could live my whole life and never see another box.”
“Not a single one,” Frasier said as they stepped out and waited while Otis took his time hopping out after them, complaining the entire way. “Zoey was very thorough.”
Charlotte and Zoey were sitting on Charlotte’s patio, Charlotte drawing henna on Zoey’s hand, when Frasier and Oliver walked by. Zoey watched them disappear into Lizbeth’s condo. She had imagined their first meeting being a much more mature one than screaming Oliver’s name and running to him. She couldn’t believe she did that.
“Someone that handsome should be on stage.” Charlotte smiled. “He certainly has a fan inyou.”
“Shut up,” Zoey said with a laugh. “He caught me by surprise.”
“But I think the feeling is mutual. I know that kind of tired. It numbs everything in you. It feels like you’re never going to feel anything ever again. But something brightened the moment he saw you.”
Zoey shook her head, embarrassed. “It’s not like that. It just feels right, his being here.” Charlotte was still smiling. “What?”
“I was trying to remember the first boy I fell in love with.”
“I’m not in love with him,” Zoey said quickly.
“Not yet.”
Okay, so she didn’t know exactly what she felt for Oliver. It wasn’t like she had tons of experience in this area. She did love thethoughtof him, of what his being here meant. He was another invisible thread, another connection.
“Why don’t you invite him to your birthday party tonight?”
That gave Zoey pause. She didn’t want to overwhelm him withtoo much attention. She’d spent so much time with his mother’s things and so much time staring at his photos that she had imaginary memories of actually knowing him. He was familiar to her without being familiar at all. She had to keep telling herself that he hadn’t spent nearly as much time thinking about her. “Do you think I should?”
“Misfits only. I think he’d fit right in. There,” Charlotte said, sitting back and studying her work on Zoey’s left hand. Satisfied, she set down the soft plastic squeeze bottle filled with henna paste she’d used to draw with.
“It’s beautiful,” Zoey said, holding her hand up. The design was a lace glove of flowers and paisleys with a single vine trailing down her middle finger. She’d chosen it from a binder of example photos Charlotte had shown her. Zoey had known how good Charlotte was, of course. She’d seen the work on Charlotte’s own skin. But there had been something hypnotizing about actually watching Charlotte draw, the way her brows knit and her eyes flicked around the design, the way she would lean away every once in a while to study it. It was like Charlotte was somewhere else, a place where she was wholly herself, when she was drawing. Zoey had never seen her that comfortable without a bottle of henna, around anyone, ever.
Frasier and Oliver stepped back outside to Lizbeth’s patio and stood there, talking. Zoey could only guess what Oliver thought of his mother’s place now, so empty, so different from the last time he’d seen it. That made her think of the box of Lizbeth’s things she was keeping for him in her studio. “I’ll be right back,” Zoey said.
“Aren’t you going to invite him?” Charlotte asked.
“Yes, but there’s something I need to give him, too,” Zoey said, trotting to the steps to her studio.
“Be careful with that hand until the paste dries!” Charlotte called after her.
By the time Zoey retrieved the box, which had taken some maneuvering to pick up because she could only use one hand, and then stepped back out onto her balcony, Oliver and Frasier had already parted ways. She caught Oliver’s back as the gate closed behind him.
She ran down the steps. “Oliver, wait!” she called to him through the gate, making him stop where he’d opened the door to a dark blue 4Runner in the parking lot.
She set the box down to punch in the gate code; then there was more maneuvering to pick the box back up. When she finally made her way to him, it was obvious he was wondering why on earth she had decided to do everything one-handed. “I wanted to get this part out of the way, in case you were dreading it. Here’s the box I saved,” she said breathlessly. “I know you don’t want it, and I get that now. But I didn’t think it was my right to throw it away, so you’ll have to.” He took the box without a word as she looked in his car with interest. There was a lot of luggage in it, tumbled around with small appliances, desk lamps, and books. “Are you unpacking?”
“No,” he said, “not yet.”
“But you’re moving into your mother’s old place?”
“I think so. For a while, anyway.”
“I bet Lucy will be glad,” she said, even though she had no way of knowing what Lucy was feeling. But Lucy had taken the photos. That had to mean something. “Where are you staying in the meantime?”
