Love and Ordinary Creatures

by Gwyn Hyman Rubio

  Ah, my beautiful Clarissa! Caruso thinks from up high on his perch as she moves hypnotically around the kitchen—splashing wine into a sauté pan, whipping cream in a large bowl, shaking black olives in a jar of hot pepper seasoning.

  When he glances around again, the patio is packed with diners, and he is cheered that Joseph Hampton Fitzgerald isn’t there. Jazz is now undulating through the speakers, camouflaged behind the white oleander shrubs, and the mosquito torches are flaming orange-red. He smells perfume coming from the honeysuckle hedge beneath the elbow of windows along the dining room wall. With a loud pop, Sallie uncorks a bottle of champagne at the far end of the patio, while Manuel removes dirty dishes from the table beside her. Nearby, a middle-aged woman is praising Clarissa’s famous crab cakes, and Caruso zeroes in on the tines gleaming toward her mouth. She chews and swallows and, leaning forward, asks the man across from her if he would like a taste. He nods, whereupon she scoops up a bite and passes the fork to him, sharing her food the way Caruso’s mother did with him.

  “Hi there, Caruso,” Sallie says, startling him as she shambles over, her big feet slapping against the bricks.

  “Miss!” a diner calls out, with a snap of his fingers.

  “I hate it when they do that,” Sallie says, ignoring the man. “Are you still mad at me, Caruso?”

  He is, but he trills at her anyway.

  From her pants pocket, she leisurely withdraws a pencil and spears her black mound of hair with it.

  “Miss!” the diner says again.

  Scratching her scalp with the pencil, she pretends not to hear him. “Joe hasn’t shown yet,” she says, leaning conspiratorially toward Caruso. “And I’m glad. I’m rooting for you, Caruso.”

  The man snaps his fingers three times in a row. This time, Sallie answers with a backward wave. “Don’t worry,” she says. “Clarissa’s a man magnet. They come, they flirt, they go. They never commit. And why?” she asks, fixing her owlish eyes on him. “Because there’s not much to her.”

  Not much to her, Caruso repeats to himself, mulling the words over.

  “Hey, miss!”

  “Okay…okay,” Sallie says, returning the pencil to her pants pocket, weaving leisurely toward the man’s table.

  Not much to her, Caruso thinks. Why would Sallie say that? Clarissa has soft skin, taut muscles, and strong bones beneath her white jacket, and, best of all, a kind-hearted spirit.

  Caruso feels air swelling to his left and shifts toward a white cloth, rising and falling upon the table usually designated for fresh linen. “Reservado,” Manuel says, thumping down two place settings of silverware, next a bouquet of deep red zinnias, then a placard against the vase.

  “Re…ser…va…do,” Caruso says after him.

  Manuel glances up at him and laughs.

  The melancholy voice of Billie Holiday singing “God Bless the Child” comes through the speakers.

  Deftly, Manuel unfolds a small metal stand and angles it beside the table.

  “Another bottle of wine, please,” a man orders.

  “Club soda with a twist of lemon,” drifts a girlish voice.

  Stars begin to appear like pinpricks in the veil of night. The outside lights flicker on. In front of Caruso’s cage, white porcelain plates float by like cockatoos in flight. He breathes in the crisp, sweet aroma of shrimp—lightly fried in a batter of egg white, beer, and flour—then the salty, lemony scent of grilled mackerel. Haughty as a peacock, Sallie saunters across the patio, toting a tray with two entrées: shrimp and grits, alongside scallops in saffron cream over linguine. Five feet away, Devon, the new waiter, is delivering glasses of white wine to a table of three. “Appetizers?” he asks, flipping a thick rope of blond hair off his shoulder.

  “Crab beignets,” the young diners say simultaneously.

  Caruso peers into the kitchen again, hunting for Clarissa. “Claaa-risss-a,” he trills when he doesn’t see her there. He swivels to his left, searching for gaps in the hedge of honeysuckle, yearning to catch a glimpse of her through the dining room windows, but the foliage is too thick. Next, he scans the bar through the long glass door. Not there, either. Maybe she’s in the bathroom or in the supply room, he thinks, his feathers itching with panic. It’s the same routine, night after night. He’s trying to follow her every movement from the solitude of his cage; she’s hard at work in the crowded restaurant, oblivious to his needs. He lets out a frustrated coo. Sometimes he would rather be elsewhere—with Theodore Pinter in his study, in the company of other birds at the pet store, or most of all with a wild flock of Sulphur-crested Cockatoos. “Claaa-risss-a,” he says, relieved, when he sees her gliding back into the kitchen.

  “My God, have you no pride, Caruso!” Sallie says, suddenly reappearing. “Do I have to draw you a picture?” she adds through clenched teeth, nodding at the table set for two beside his cage.

  He glances down at her huge feet, then back up to her blue-tinged face. With each passing second, she reminds him more and more of the Australian cassowary—the gigantic, blue-faced, flightless bird with claws sharp enough to rip apart a man’s stomach. Would Sallie, in a jealous rage, ever hurt Clarissa? he wonders.

  “Maybe you should be pining over me,” she suggests. “Why don’t you say my name for a change?”

  “Claaa-risss-a,” he says stubbornly.

  “She’s making a cuckold of you,” she says, taking an aggressive step toward him.

  I’m a cockatoo, not a cuckoo, he thinks, insulted, as he scoots to the far end of his perch.

  “Oh, come on, Caruso.”

  “Claaa-risss-a,” he warbles in an unsteady voice.

  “Why won’t you say Sallie?” she asks, leaning forward, invading his space.

  Crouching, he sends his mind back in time, remembering the sights and sounds that once calmed him—rose-breasted Galahs, like pink tutus pirouetting in the sky; pineapples ripening gold in the heat of the sun; deep notes pulsating from the didgeridoo—and, strengthened by these memories, he holds on to his courage. “Clarissa,” he says defiantly.

  “Be that way. But remember, three’s a crowd,” she says, wheeling around, her big feet spanking the brick patio as she storms toward the kitchen, flings open the door, flashes by the glass panels, and disappears from view.

  The bar door snaps shut, and Caruso pivots around to see Pops, the maître d’, moving sprightly down the walkway, dressed as usual in his white linen suit from the sixties. A retired jewelry maker from Wilmington, he is a member of the Ocracoke Art League and one of Beryl’s closest friends. “This way, sir,” he says to someone behind him. “Your table is over here by the oak.” Pops steps aside, and standing there in full view is Joseph Hampton Fitzgerald.

  Caruso shrieks in dismay.

  “Hello again, Caruso,” Joe says, sauntering toward his cage.

  Caruso stares at his faded brown shirt and frayed blue jeans. Where is his suit and tie? he thinks, for if he really liked her and wanted to impress her, he would’ve worn them. Even Burt donned a coat and tie that night he took her out to eat. Shiftless as a seagull, he thinks, deliberately changing his focus to Devon, who is energetically delivering the three orders of crab beignets to his table.

  “Don’t you remember me?” Joe persists, but Caruso continues to dismiss him.

  “Don’t take it personal.” Pops jumps in. “Sometimes he can be persnickety.”

  Caruso doesn’t know what persnickety means, but it sounds offensive.

  “Chef McCarthy has asked me to take care of you,” Pops says. “She’s prepared an extraordinary meal—off the menu—and hopes you don’t mind.”

  “Certainly not,” Joe says. “I’m honored to be placed in her hands. And what has the chef cooked for me?”

  Unable to control his curiosity, Caruso steals a peek at the man.

  “A delightful meal influenced by Spanish cuisine,” Pops says ardently, his Adam’s apple rising like a yo-yo in his throat. “We’ll start with a refreshing sangria,” he continues, “and f
ollow this with an appetizer of fried sardines.” Forming a tent with his fingers, he rocks forward on the base of his toes. “Then comes a spicy gazpacho. After that, a salad of tropical fruit.” He pauses for a second, releasing little puffs of air, before resuming in a fervent voice: “Your entrée will be a wonderful seafood paella, stuffed with snapper, crab, scallops, and shrimp—most of it caught fresh around here—except for the mussels, that is. To top the meal off is a flan beyond your wildest expectations. Now, how does this sound?”

  “Terrific,” Joe says.

  “Relax and enjoy this lovely evening,” Pops tells him. “I’ll be right back with your drink.”

  “Caruso,” Joe tries again, as soon as Pops leaves.

  What to do? Caruso thinks. Ignore his rival or face him—bird to man?

  “Remember? I’m the fellow with the ridiculously long name—Joseph Hampton Fitzgerald.”

  Undermine his strengths, or play to his weaknesses?

  “Joseph Hampton Fitzgerald,” the man repeats.

  Play to his weaknesses, Caruso decides. “Jo-seph Hamp-ton Fitz-ger-ald,” he mimics.

  “Or just Joe,” he says with a grin.

  “Joe,” Caruso relents, locking eyes with him.

  “That’s right,” his rival says. “Joe. Short and sweet. Really, Caruso, I’m not so bad once you get to know me.”

  Once you get to know me. Which means he plans on staying around awhile, Caruso understands him to be thinking.

  A glass pitcher in hand, Pops passes through the barroom door with the ruby-red drink, his footfalls staccato against the walkway. With each step he takes, the orange slices and lime wedges in the sangria bob like exotic, tropical fish. “Would you like some now?” he asks. Joe nods, and Pops fills up his goblet.

  “Very good,” Joe says after taking a healthy swallow. Caruso notices a red-wine mustache, like a thin smear of blood above his lip, and lets loose a squawking laugh.

  “Now, the appetizer,” Pops says, thunking the pitcher on the metal stand before making a beeline to the kitchen.

  Minutes later, Joe is devouring crisp sardines smelling of olive oil and garlic. Next, he’s tearing off a wedge of crusty Cuban bread, baptizing it in the gazpacho, and ripping it apart with his big white teeth. If Clarissa were hand-feeding him now, he’d bite off her fingers, Caruso thinks.

  In the background, Mel Tormé is crooning about lost love. Caruso hopes this is not an omen, hopes that this won’t be his fate. Nearby, a portly woman savors her last spoonful of Clarissa’s best dessert—her chocolate bread pudding—while a young mother, breast-feeding her baby, dips a fried shrimp into a container of freshly mixed aioli and pops it gingerly into her mouth.

  Joseph Hampton Fitzgerald has now started on his fruit salad. Caruso glances down at his feeder of parrot pellets. Short shrift for a bird, he thinks as Joe enjoys chunks of papaya and pineapple, two of Caruso’s favorite fruits. Is there no justice? he asks himself, remembering the apple-cantaloupe flavor of papaya that his mother would regurgitate into his mouth. The Velvet Fog’s voice rises to a crescendo, reminding him that the past is the past.

  “Mel Tormé,” Caruso says longingly.

  “Who?” Joe asks.

  “Mel Tormé. Mel Tormé. Mel Tormé,” Caruso repeats.

  “Oh, yeah. The singer. I like him, too.” Joe props his fork against the inside edge of his plate and raises his goblet of sangria. “To Mel Tormé,” he toasts, taking a big gulp.

  Mel Tormé belongs to Clarissa and me only, Caruso thinks, contemptuously flapping his wings.

  “What’s wrong, buddy?” Joe asks, setting his goblet down. He forks up some more papaya, slips it between his lips, and chews. “Why all the fuss?” he says, swallowing. “Are you hungry? How about a piece of this?” he asks, pushing away from the table. He picks up a sliver of the yellowish-orange fruit and walks over to Caruso. “Here,” he says, poking his fingers through the bars, dropping the papaya into the feeder. “Try it. You’ll like it.”

  Caruso flattens his feathers against his body and liberates a hiss.

  “Okay…okay,” Joe says, holding up his hand, backing off.

  “Better not feed him,” Pops warns. “One bite of something like avocado can kill him. Clarissa has read us the riot act. We don’t feed him anything.”

  “Sorry,” Joe says, moseying back to the table and reclaiming his seat. “Last summer, I lived with a family in Mexico. They had a parrot named Lorito—original, right? A dog called Perro and a cat called Gato, but for some reason, their rabbit was Roberto.” He laughs so wildly that it makes Caruso blink. “Anyway, I fed Lorito papaya every day and he lived, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt Caruso either.”

  “Well, Clarissa’s awfully protective of that bird.”

  “I won’t do it again,” Joe promises.

  “The chef will be taking care of you now,” Pops says, putting a bottle of white wine and two fluted glasses on the table. “I’m resuming my job as maître d’. Are you finished with your salad?”

  “Yes, sir. It was mighty tasty.”

  Pops bends over and retrieves the empty plate.

  “Thanks for everything,” Joe says warmly.

  “It was my pleasure, sir, serving you this evening.”

  Clarissa passes Pops on his way to the kitchen. Like a goddess with an offering, she is carrying a large, round, shallow container, her fingers wrapped around the red handles. His eyes crackling with resentment, Caruso watches her place the carbon steel pan on the table. “Seafood paella,” she announces. Caruso sniffs the briny scent of shrimp, the honeyed aroma of crab, and the musky odor of mussels.

  “It looks delicious,” Joe says. “You’re a great chef,” he adds in a voice so unctuous Clarissa could grease her paella pan with it.

  “Before you say that, you should taste it first,” she teases. “Have you ever had paella?”

  “Only once,” he replies. “In Charlotte, but the rice was too gritty.”

  “Mine, I hope, will be perfect,” she says, reaching for two stacked plates on the metal stand, depositing them in front of her. “I use Bomba rice—what the chefs use in Spain,” she says, “but I’ve toyed with the traditional recipe. Authentic paella Valenciana has no seafood in it, but in these modern times you can do what you want. So I decided to stick to seafood, most of it caught fresh—today. Paella Clarissa, made just for you,” she says, making her voice even softer than usual.

  Listening to her, Caruso flinches with suspicion. He stares resentfully at the asparagus tips, pimientos, and peas decorating the circumference of the pan—at the mussels and shrimp fanning out like bicycle spokes from the center. She has never made this dish—not for anyone, not ever.

  With large spoons, she plucks up a mound of yellow-tinged rice and lowers it to a plate, and next she tops the rice with mussels and shrimp, along with some of the vegetable garnish. After giving this plate to Joe, she fixes the other one for herself. She pours wine into both glasses and sets the bottle down.

  “To the chef,” Joe says, standing, lifting his glass up high.

  “To my rescuer,” she counters. Then, like a gorgeous angelfish, she undulates above the tabletop and taps her wineglass against his. They take several slow sips, staring at each other.

  Reaching behind her, she curls her fingers around the top of a chair and slides it over. They put their glasses on the table and lower themselves down. Joe forks up a mouthful of rice and eats it slowly. “How is it?” Clarissa asks, eating some, too.

  “Definitely not gritty,” he says, breaking into a smile. “What gives it that yellow color?”

  “The smoked paprika,” she tells him, “but mostly the saffron.”

  “I know saffron’s an herb, but where does it come from?”

  “From the yellow-orange stigmas of little flowers that look like crocuses. It’s very expensive, you know, and a rice dish can’t be called paella unless there’s saffron in it. It’s one of the secret ingredients.”

  “Seems not much of
a secret,” he says, laughing, his big teeth gleaming in the dark like those of the Saturday-morning cartoon character Dudley Do-Right of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. “No one but me knows the secret to my scrambled eggs and tuna,” he says. “I’m not going to tell you what it is.”

  “Why not?” she says, leaning forward. “Don’t you want me to be a better cook?”

  “It might have the opposite effect,” he says with a mischievous grin. “Might undermine your self-confidence.”

  “Nothing could make that dish sound appetizing,” she says, giggling.

  “It sounds worse than it tastes,” Joe says, stabbing a shrimp and nibbling on it. “Best not judge a dish by what’s in it.”

  “Okay…then the next time I cook for you,” she says, “I won’t mention beforehand that the mashed potatoes are laced with peppermint oil.” He looks amused as she tweezes a mussel from its blue-black shell and slips it into her mouth. “Needs lemon,” she says, taking a wedge off the side of her plate, squeezing it over her shellfish.

  Simultaneously, they lift their glasses and drink.

  Caruso ruffles his feathers in indignation.

  They eat and drink some more—taking their time, relishing the different flavors, not speaking.

  “Thank you, Clarissa. This is a real treat,” Joe says, breaking the silence at last. “I’ve been trying to watch my money, staying at Blackbeard’s Lodge, subsisting on crackers, Vienna sausage, and canned sardines.”

  “No thanks necessary,” she tells him. “Cooking is what I do.”

  “Do you cook like this for yourself?”

  “Nothing this fancy. I have simple tastes.”

  He raises his eyebrows and crooks his mouth in disbelief.

  “No, really. I’m a country gal from Kentucky. I like plain, simple food—ham biscuits, pinto beans and cornbread, fresh sliced tomatoes, fried chicken with cream gravy and mashed potatoes. Anything home-cooked with plenty of salt, pepper, and lard.”

  Chicken, Caruso thinks with distaste. No self-respecting raptor would be proud of such a kill. But then, a raptor is a bird, too, isn’t he? Same as a chicken. Same as Caruso. Same as the blue-faced cassowary, who long ago lost his ability to fly. Wings are just one of the many traits they have in common. Wings let them soar into the sky with the grace of a parrot, the power of a bald eagle, the speed of a hummingbird. So what is the difference, he asks himself, shuddering, between fried chicken and fried cockatoo served on a plate?