Page 8 of The Burbs and the Bees
“They never learn,” I add but feel a hint of guilt. Alyson was actually helping someone, and I probably shouldn’t have made any kind of comment about her lacy underwear. What was I thinking? I wasn’t, I guess, and that slipped out because it was hard to think straight with her half naked. Not that I was going to do anything about it. Right now I’m too busy righting all the wrongs I made. I promised my dad I’d take care of this place and my family, and that’s what I’m doing. I owe him at least that much. Besides, a city girl like Alyson—not in this lifetime. Not a second time, anyway.
“Pretty, was she?”
“Huh?”
“The girl you saved.”
I’m about to tell her I was more responsible than not for her falling in but stop. Yeah, I could be the poster boy for fucked-up good intentions. “How do you know it was a girl?”
She looks at me over the top of her glasses, and I just shake my head.
“Oh, honey, really?” she teases.
I grumble under my breath. I can never get anything by her. “I’ll get the pot going,” I say and walk up the three stairs leading to the wide deck I helped Dad build when I was eight. I drop the crate onto the kitchen counter and head to my cottage at the far end of the property. Actually, it’s an old carriage house, built by my great-great grandfather over one hundred years ago. Mom and the guys stay in the farmhouse, but I wanted privacy, so I moved back here with… Shit, I can’t even bring myself to say her name. I walk a little faster and damn near jump from my boots when our stealthy rooster comes running from the bushes.
“What the hell are you doing? You scared me half to death.”
He runs around me a few times, then takes off to see Tyler. You’d think we were gone for days. I laugh. Who needs a watchdog when you have a possessive rooster who keeps tight reins on the family?
I push through my door, and the cool air conditioning of the simple, one-room cottage with a loft overhead washes over me. I wipe my forehead with the back of my arm. I used to think a cooling system in an old, converted carriage house was a crazy idea, but… Juanita insisted on it. She insisted on a lot of things—including the adoption of a goddamn offensive parrot named Capone—before she up and left without so much as a backward glance.
From his cage in the corner, Capone flaps his wings, and his head bobs as I turn on the tap for a drink of water.
“Fuck me,” Capone blurts out.
I turn and glare at him. I have no idea why Juanita thought a rescue parrot would be a fun pet, or why I ended up with him in the split.
“Excuse me?” I ask.
“Fuck me,” Capone says again.
“Do you always have to be so offensive?”
“Jay’s an asshole.”
I shake my head. I’m going to kill Tyler for messing with my bird and teaching him this kind of shit. Then again, after living in a bawdy pool hall until it closed down, he came with his own raunchy vocabulary.
“You’re the asshole,” I say, even though I’m not helping the situation. Jesus, I really need to stop arguing with my parrot.
“Jay’s an asshole,” he says, his head bobbing like he’s the biggest and baddest bird on the farm as he struts around his cage. He’s not.
I open the gigantic cage that takes up half my place, and he hops onto my arm. With his red, yellow, and blue feathers, he’s a beautiful bird. Sometimes I think about getting him a friend. Sometimes I question my sanity. “Want to come up to the house for a bit? It’s Beck’s birthday.”
“Beck is boss.” Head bop. “Tyler is tight.”
“Fuck me,” I say and shake my head.
“Fuck me,” Capone repeats.
“None of that language in front of Mom.”
“Mom’s a peach,” he says, but he’s referring to Juanita, not my mother Barbara. It was one of the first things she taught him, and every goddamn time he says it, it reminds me how Juanita tore my heart out when she up and left without a backward glance. I shut my mouth and resist the urge to counter that if his mom, my ex-fiancée, were a peach, she wouldn’t have chosen the city over us. No need to hurt his feelings. Not to mention, arguing with a parrot is futile, and I hate that I know that from firsthand experience.
“Mom’s a peach,” I echo and head up to the loft with him on my arm and set him on my dresser as I tug on a pair of clean boxers, jeans, and a T-shirt.
“No comments,” I say. One time I got naked, and he spouted some pretty derogatory remarks. My “giblets,” as Capone so lovingly likes to refer to my balls, do not hang low, thank you very much.
“Beck is boss.”
