Love and Ordinary Creatures

by Gwyn Hyman Rubio

  “A heart-healthy diet.” Joe laughs loudly, bringing Caruso back.

  “Exactly,” she says, laughing with him. “But my favorite dishes are those my granny made for me. Pork chops, fried up crisp and tender, mustard greens simmered for hours with fatback, vinegar pie.”

  He wrinkles up his nose. “Vinegar pie? Sounds even worse than my scrambled eggs and tuna.”

  “Believe me, it’s good,” she says, grabbing her wineglass, sipping. “Granny’s vinegar pie always brought the highest bid at the county fair. Butter, sugar, eggs, raisins, boiling water, and, of course, the vinegar. Plus her secret ingredient, but I won’t tell you what it is. Don’t wanna undermine your self-confidence.”

  He grins, digs out a lump of crab, and opens his mouth. “Mmm,” he says as he chews and swallows.

  “Tell me something about yourself,” she says in her most solicitous voice.

  “Well, I like to surf,” he says. “It relaxes me, especially here in the Outer Banks. You know, island hopping from one beach to the next, wherever the waves are best.”

  Lazier than a seagull, a beach bum, Caruso thinks, eyeing Joe disdainfully.

  “Waves are waves, aren’t they?”

  He nods and says, “Most often, I stay right here on Ocracoke. But sometimes I head out, take the ferry to Hatteras Island, ride the swells at Salvo, Waves, or Rodanthe. For some reason, the surf is better there.”

  “Is that all you do?” she asks.

  “Beg your pardon?” he says, turning his ear toward her.

  Caruso detects a hint of peevishness in his voice.

  “I mean, what do you do for a living?”

  “Right now, I’m in school,” he says.

  “Oh, so you’re a professional student,” she says, teasing him.

  He’s a beach bum! Caruso wants to yell.

  “I don’t understand,” Joe says, catching his lower lip under his huge top teeth, biting down.

  He’s thin-skinned, Caruso thinks gleefully. Lucky for me, there’s a little chink in his hard Herculean chest.

  “I’m kidding,” Clarissa says, meaning it.

  “No problem,” he says after a second. “It’s just that Mama’s been riding me for taking the summer off. She wanted me to come back home to work, but I wanted to do something for myself. I’ve been studying really hard, and I needed to unwind.”

  “School, where?” she asks.

  “Third year law at Chapel Hill.”

  Law. Caruso almost slips off his perch when he hears the word. A lawyer, just like Pascal Robinson, he thinks, his mouth filled with disgust.

  “What kind of law?”

  “Environmental.”

  “Good!” she says emphatically. “And your family?”

  “Dad owns a chain of medical supply stores in Raleigh. Mom has turned professional volunteer. The big issue,” he says, rolling his eyes, “is that I’m supposed to inherit the family business. After all, I’m Joseph Hampton Fitzgerald the Third. Rightful heir to their hard work and fortune, but the operative word is their. It is their hard work, their fortune, not mine. Everyone deserves to choose his own pathway in life, and my decision to go into law is not sitting well with them.”

  “I chose cooking,” Clarissa says. “And no one really cared one way or the other, except for Granny. She’s the force behind me, told me to do what I had a passion for.”

  “You’re lucky to have her.”

  “Had her,” she says. “She died five years ago at eighty-two.”

  “Sorry.”

  “Don’t be,” she says. “I had her for a long time, and I thank the good Lord every day of my life for that.” She picks up her glass of wine, taps her fingers against it, and sips. “Any allies?” she asks him.

  “Huh?”

  “Siblings.”

  “Five,” he replies, elevating his hand, spreading wide his fingers. “I’m the second oldest and the only boy.”

  “I bet those girls spoil you rotten.”

  “Not all of them,” he says. “My big sister, Jo Ann, bosses me around because she thinks she knows what’s best for me, but the others hang on to my every word, like I’m some mystical guru, spouting pearls of wisdom. But, yes ma’am, I’m spoiled, though not one of them can cook like you do.”

  “I’m a skilled enough chef right now,” she says, digging up a scallop and biting into it. “I hope to be great someday.”

  “I’m not sure what makes a great chef, but this meal”—he sweeps his hand over his plate—“is five diamonds in my review.”

  “Thank you, kind sir,” she says coyly. She stabs an asparagus tip with her fork and sucks it into her mouth, her lips glistening as she chews.

  “And what about your family?”

  “There’s not much to tell. My father teaches high school chemistry. My mother stays home to take care of my brother. He’s much younger than I am, although he should be out of the house by now.”

  “Only the four of you?”

  “Yeah. We moved from the mountains to the Bluegrass to get help for Randall when he was a little boy. He has big emotional problems. Started early on. Major ups and downs.”

  “Is he doing better now?”

  “A little, I guess,” she says, “but he’s still a handful. Can’t manage by himself. I love them all, but I keep my distance. For some reason—and I don’t understand it—Randall takes his anger out on me. Always has, but…” She pauses. Closing her eyes, she trails her fingertips along the underside of her arm, as if she’s yearning for her grandmother’s touch. “But…” she says again, her voice faltering. “I…remain…hopeful.”

  She opens her eyes and looks into Joe’s. Caruso cringes. “Let’s just say my parents continue to spend most of their waking hours worrying about my brother, but things could change. He could get better. I believe people always change, even if they don’t want to, don’t you?” she says, downing the rest of her wine.

  “If someone’s pointing a gun at them, they do.”

  Clarissa’s blue eyes darken. “So you’re a cynic,” she says.

  “Me and Flannery O’Connor.”

  “Who?”

  “A famous writer from Georgia—long since dead.”

  “Other than cookbooks, I’m not much of a reader,” she confesses to him.

  “Reading’s a habit,” he says. “I was ten when the reading bug bit me, and I read everything I could get my hands on. Boy stuff. You know, Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, even Louisa May Alcott’s Little Men. Can you believe it? My father had his own library. One wall was nothing but books for kids, and as soon as I finished one, I grabbed another off the shelf. I loved all the swashbuckling classics, then graduated to horror, mystery, sci-fi—anything to relieve my boredom. But it was Thoreau’s Walden—I was thirteen when I read it—that pointed me in the right direction. I began to read more and more about the natural world—books by Wendell Berry, Annie Dillard, and others—and these writers showed me how to see the flora and fauna just outside my door. They taught me that some things are worth fighting for, that compromise can destroy some things forever. You could say that books led me to environmental law.”

  “Cookbooks did it for me. M.F.K. Fisher led me to my two passions—cooking and Caruso.”

  “She writes about food, doesn’t she?”

  “Uh-huh,” Clarissa says with a nod. “But she garnishes her recipes with beautiful essays. In my favorite essay, she argues vehemently for the rights of pets—insisting that pets, like human beings, want to experience a variety of tastes. She gladly feeds leftovers to her dogs, she says, and feels that it’s just and right to do so. The more I thought about what she said, the more I began to agree with her. Imagine how boring it would be to eat the same food day after day as long as you lived! M.F.K. Fisher is the reason I find cooking so important. Caruso eats better than I do,” she says, giggling.

  She rises abruptly from her chair. “Time for dessert,” she announces. Joe opens his mouth to speak, but she is already wheeling aro
und and heading toward the back door. Caruso follows her with his eyes as she goes inside, then checks out the patio.

  Toward the rear of the terrace, near the kitchen, Sallie is perched between two tables, delivering cocktails to one before jotting down the orders of the other. Devon’s three young people, he notices, have been replaced by a well-dressed couple in their forties, while Pops leads a mother and her toddler to seats on the opposite side of the oak.

  The stars, visible through the top bars of Caruso’s cage, are gummed together like the sleep in Clarissa’s eyes when she wakes up in the morning. The breeze has died down, and the air feels soft and wet against his feathers. He can hear the buzz of mosquitoes beyond the torches, the scattered laughter of a handful of diners as they eat. Soon the night will be over, he thinks with relief.

  “First, flan. Then, port,” Clarissa says, approaching minutes later. She is holding a dessert dish in one hand and a long, slender glass in the other.

  “Ah, flan,” Joe says as she sets the creamy mound, with its dark cap of caramelized sugar, on the table, then puts the glass of amber-colored liquid beside it. “Aren’t you joining me?”

  She gives Joe a pouting look—familiar to Caruso—and shakes her head. “I’m sorry, but they need me in the kitchen.”

  She apologizes easily if it’s not to her feathered friend, Caruso thinks.

  “But Caruso will keep you company,” she says brightly.

  “How?” Joe says. “He doesn’t understand a word I’m saying.”

  “Trust me, he does,” Clarissa tells him. “It’s not just mimicry with parrots. He uses language correctly.”

  “Then he’s smarter than some of my drinking buddies,” Joe jokes.

  “I won’t be long,” she says. “I want to hear more about your studies. I want to learn more about the law.”

  The law, Caruso thinks, with a testy flap of his wings.

  “The l…a…w,” Joe says grandly, drawling out the word.

  “Ah! The l…a…w,” Clarissa says, imitating him.

  “L...a...w,” Caruso squawks angrily.

  “He doesn’t like to be ignored, does he?” Joe says, glancing up at Caruso.

  “Absolutely not,” she says.

  “Law!” Caruso screeches.

  “He wants my undivided attention,” she says.

  “I could discuss that with him while you’re gone,” Joe says. “Do you think he’ll mind if I see you again?”

  “The choice is mine, and I don’t mind at all,” she says, in her sultry Peggy Lee voice.

  Caruso feels a knife-point of agony in his chest as their fingers inch over the table toward each other and touch, her silky skin feasting on his.

  Eight

  The dark night disappears into the light of memory—his deliverance when he cannot sleep. Hours before, she had covered his cage, and, besotted, floated off to bed. Even though he’s wide awake, he knows she is sleeping soundly, dreaming about the evening she spent with him. Him. Caruso doesn’t want to think his name, for thinking it would make him real, would will him into being. This must be jealousy he’s feeling, Caruso reasons, the same jealousy Theodore Pinter had felt toward Pascal.

  “To hope is to risk disappointment,” the old man had told him one wintry day as they kept warm in the study. Caruso remembers that the gas logs were lit and that Theodore Pinter had pulled up a chair in front of the fireplace. “My life, so far, has been riddled with setbacks,” he said. “Still, I wouldn’t change a thing. Only cowards refuse to try because they fear frustration, and, for all my shortcomings, I am not that. I will keep hoping and fighting to win Olivia back until the last breath I take.”

  With a fervent cackle, Caruso rocked to and fro on his perch.

  Theodore Pinter blew on his cup, then took a sip of his Earl Grey. “But years ago,” he said with a swallow, “I must confess I was tempted to give up the struggle.”

  Caruso’s rocking came to an abrupt stop. Tilting forward, he stared into the flames, listening intently.

  “The temptation came in the form of another woman,” the old man said solemnly. “Esmé was her name. She sat across the dining room table from me on a Yugoslavian freighter—the Tuhobic. I had boarded it with my fellow teachers in Savannah, Georgia, and we were sailing to Savona, Italy. The Atlantic was as smooth as glass the whole trip. For twelve days, I got to know her, mesmerized by her sea-green eyes over breakfast, lunch, and dinner. You see, Caruso, once assigned to a table, you weren’t allowed to leave it. Which—due to her presence—bothered me not one bit. I was in my forties then; Esmé was younger, in her late thirties, I remember. She told me that she was meeting her husband in Florence. For over two months, he’d been away on a business trip, and she couldn’t wait to see him. With trembling fingers, she opened her billfold and showed me his photograph. He had a bulldog face, like Winston Churchill’s, and I couldn’t, for the life of me, understand what she saw in him, but then I don’t often understand what a woman sees in a man. In spite of the love she had for her husband, she showed an interest in me. At dinner, she wore long, flowing chiffon dresses, anchored over one creamy shoulder, and I instinctively knew that she had me in mind when she wore them. If I said something meaningful, she’d look into my eyes, reach out, and touch my hand. Whenever she found me witty, she’d laugh out loud. She was not timid. With a flick of her head, she’d toss back her sable curls and laugh so uninhibitedly that every head would turn toward her.

  “She both confused and intrigued me, and I feared I was falling for her, like I had for Olivia. She was bolder and freer than Olivia was. Strange, because she was also a Southern gal, born and bred in Savannah, but she possessed none of the Southern woman’s charm, that faux helplessness used to her advantage. Esmé was quite the opposite, in fact. Life had made her feisty and resilient, and we would argue about all sorts of things—politics, racism, books, and movies. You name it—we discussed it passionately. A liberal, she was. A new type of Southern woman. Very appealing to me.

  “One night on the deck after dinner, as we admired the sunset—aflame with red, orange, and violet—I forgot myself, slipped my arm around her smooth shoulder, and gave her a kiss. I was taken by surprise when she kissed me back, her tongue flicking flirtatiously inside my mouth. Had I pushed, I could have made love to her that evening, but something told me not to, and it wasn’t the immorality of sleeping with a married woman that made me stop but an awareness that she might be using me, in much the same way that I had used Trudy Fenton. Not from any calculated meanness, mind you, but from a kind of childish greed, wanting to fulfill a need without thinking of the consequences. Unconscionable, it would have been for me to let her do this, and so I removed my arm from her shoulder and left her standing there beside the railing, the wind blowing those sable curls against her cheeks. Later on, back in my cabin, I congratulated myself for acting honorably while also hating myself for not behaving like Pascal—for not being the bad boy that women want men to be—but I’m not a goody two-shoes, if that’s what you’re thinking,” he said, fixing his gaze on Caruso. “I am no virgin.”

  Caruso had heard him use this word several times before, knew it had to do with love and loving, but its full meaning still eluded him.

  “Are you listening to me?” Theodore Pinter asked, his voice insistent.

  Puffing out his cheek feathers, Caruso cawed.

  “Good boy,” the old man said.

  Caruso had been listening, all right, but he disagreed with what Theodore Pinter was saying. It’s fine to act honorably, he thought, if you’re willing to embrace a lesser life later. A life of dreaming, of regretting what you never did. Esmé wanted him. Theodore Pinter wanted her. So why did he restrain himself? What was so dishonorable about a romance between them? A night of pleasure would have yielded no negative results, only a few hours of bliss for the old man to treasure. Afterward, he would have resumed his longing for Olivia, and Esmé would have reunited with her husband. No harm done, Caruso had thought.

&
nbsp; “Honor,” Caruso squawks derisively into the quiet of the night.

  Maybe his species of cockatoo is monogamous, but the Seram cockatoo hen of Indonesia is not. She cheats on her mate whenever she chooses but never suffers any consequences for her infidelity. He always welcomes her back with open wings. Perhaps the female Homo sapiens is more like the Seram cockatoo hen than one of his own kind. If this is true, Clarissa will continue to flirt with men, even date them, but she will inescapably choose Caruso, and he will—without fail—forgive her. But what if…what if? Caruso thinks, his heart knocking anxiously against his chest. What if they aren’t fated to be together? What if she should forsake the touch of his wings for the touch of a man’s fingers? What would become of him then?

  Nine

  From the moment she uncovers his cage, dumps a handful of pumpkin seeds in his feeder, and checks his water, he senses her cheery mood. She sings out the door, doing a little dance across the deck and over the grass, not once glancing back at him as she quick-steps past a patch of nettles. Usually her Reeboks make impressions in the sand, but this morning her footsteps are as light as pixie dust. She foxtrots through the backyard toward Crab Cakes, lindy-hops up the steps, and jitterbugs through the glass back door.

  The kitchen is empty. He wonders why she went in so early, when the staff doesn’t arrive until two. She twirls from one place to another, opening and closing the refrigerator, unwrapping three sticks of butter, easing them into a stainless steel skillet that she grabs from a pot rack hung from the ceiling near the Viking stove. She sets the skillet on a burner and turns the flame down low, her hips swaying as she stirs the melting butter. He could watch her, working like this, for hours. Only if there are no human eyes on her—when she is cooking for herself alone—does she move loosely and effortlessly over the red-tiled floor, with no tension in her bones.