Paradise
Jean Ryan
I’m tired of bracing myself for the worst. Which is one reason I left Vermont and its spiteful winters and moved to Palm Springs. You don’t need pluck to live here; there aren’t any hurdles. My neighbors, lulled by gratification, are kindly and placid. If a calamity occurred they’d be helpless as farm animals. It’s only been four months but already I can feel myself changing; soon I’ll be just like the woman next door, who sits on her tiny patio and blissfully gazes at the pool.
They call this community West Wind Estates―the developers took some liberties there. We have the wind alright; I just don’t think you can call these flimsy condos “estates.” From a distance they look fine. It’s only after you move in that you notice how the drapes catch, how the sliding screen door won’t close all the way, how you can lose a fork in the gap between the orange formica and the kitchen sink. This constant scrutinizing has brought me nothing but disappointment and I’m determined to break myself of the habit. Everyone else has.
My refrigerator has an ice cube maker. I am still awed by the ease of it, those perfect scallops of ice obediently spilling into my glass. Ice makers are standard equipment here; nobody knows they’re a luxury.
Another marvelous device is the trash compactor; a week’s worth of garbage ends up looking like a boxed lunch. Everything in fact is miniaturized here, even the pets: you can’t own a dog over 17 pounds. I wonder if there’s a scale in the office, or one of those boxes like they use to measure carry-ons. Do they spot-check? What happens to Fido if he gains a pound or two? I wouldn’t mind having a pet, but I don’t want one of these shivering yippers―I want a big dog, dumb and reassuring, mute as a boulder.
Anyone who’s ever owned a parrot will know why I cherish my newfound peace and quiet. Parrots scream at dawn and dusk (ancestral behavior they can’t help), and at intervals throughout the day just for the hell of it. I can’t tell you how many dreams I’ve been yanked out of, how much coffee or wine I’ve spilled on the carpet, all because of Max. And what really irked me was Kelly’s insistence that we never, NEVER startle him. Undue stress, she claimed, killed more pet birds than any other factor, and so we had to give a certain soft whistle--one high note, one low―every time we approached his room lest our sudden appearance disturb his reverie.
No captive bird has it better than Max. Back in Shelburne, in the farmhouse he shares with Kelly, Max has his own room, with jungle scenes painted on the walls and two large windows that give him a view of the dogwoods and the pond and the distant green mountains. He has a variety of free-standing perches to suit his rapidly shifting moods and a wire-mesh enclosure that takes up nearly a third of the room. Inside this cage are his stylish water and food bowls, several large branches from local trees and usually four or five toys Kelly finds at yard sales. These he bites or claws beyond recognition; if he is given something he can’t destroy he shoves it into a corner. Of course she must be careful about lead paints and glues. Captive birds are never far from peril. I learned that the first week I was there, when I heated up a pan to make an omelette and Kelly yanked it off the stove and doused it with water. Didn’t I know, she scolded, that the fumes from an overhot Teflon pan could kill a parrot in minutes?
It was exhausting living with that bird, meeting his needs, second-guessing his wants. Kelly said I didn’t have the right attitude toward Max, which may have been true. I never did tell her what I really thought: that birds make lousy pets. Dogs and cats are pets. Everything else belongs in the sky or the water or the desert it came from. So right away I felt a little sorry for Max, even when I learned he was captive bred and able to fly, even when I told myself he was probably healthier and possibly happier living in his painted jungle, for what would he face in Guatemala but poachers and pythons and shrinking habitat? Even acknowledging their success―14 years of cohabitation―I couldn’t help seeing Max as a bird beguiled.
Maybe he sensed my pity and resented it. Or maybe he didn’t like the texture of my hair or the way I smelled. Maybe my voiced irked him. Maybe I reminded him of someone else. Whatever his reason, Max didn’t like me, no matter how hard I tried to please him. You’re probably thinking he was jealous, that he wanted Kelly all to himself; I thought that too, at first. Then I noticed how he welcomed the arrival of our friends and how charmed he was by Suzanne, Kelly’s former live-in girlfriend. I tried not to take it personally, but that bird was so shrewd he had me worried.
Some things I like about Palm Springs: the cascades of purple bougainvillea, the vapid blue skies, the easy-growing palms and the wide, forgiving streets―perfect for the large population of elderly who simply aim their Cadillacs in the direction of the market. They cheer me up, these cheeky seniors. I like to watch them rove down the aisles in their lime green shorts and tank tops, their limbs brown as Brazil nuts. I like to look in their carts and see the scotch, cigarettes and frozen poundcakes they live on.
Speaking of which, those freezer desserts aren’t bad at all. And some of the ready-made dips and pasta sauces are terrific. This may not be news to you, but a whole world is opening up for me.
14 years ago I took a job in a restaurant kitchen, figuring the knowledge I gained would enrich my life. This seemed like a sound plan and for a while I thought it was working. I learned how to blanch broccoli and filet big silvery salmon, how to make creme anglaise and form bread loaves. Eventually, inevitably, I developed a palate and that’s where the trouble started. Pretty soon nothing met the standards I unwittingly imposed. Grocery shopping led to aggravation; one after another the stores let me down. Dining out was an ongoing risk: I was offended by the vinaigrettes, insulted by the breads. Pastas were appalling, soups I avoided and omelettes were always amiss. Worst of all, I could no longer drink the wines I could afford.
The irony isn’t lost on me, that my culinary education took the fun out of food. I wish I could slip into something altogether different, but having labored so long in the messy chaos of kitchens I am ruined for office work. So this is my compromise: instead of impounding myself in another restaurant, I have joined a catering team. Much of what we offer comes out of a freezer―it doesn’t need to be sublime, just pretty. We do parties, food for fun. It’s a step in the right direction.
Kelly is a high school chemistry teacher, which is the first thing that impressed me about her (I was stymied by the physical sciences and had to charm and cheat my way through them). Secondly, I admired her swagger and the way she looked in pants. After that I started liking her shoes, her voice and her ears, and before I knew it I had lost all objectivity.
We met at the Shelburne Baking Company, where she came every morning for my orange-currant scones. For three weeks we flirted at the register, til one morning she leaned so close I could smell her berry-flavored lipsaver, and she said: “Would you like to meet for coffee sometime?” in that glamorous, throaty voice and I nearly leaped over the counter. What she saw in me I’ll never know, but I can tell you it wasn’t just my scones she wanted. She was nuts about me, she really was.
I used to squeeze my own orange juice; now I can’t imagine why. The premium grade in the carton is consistent and, frankly, better than homemade. Of course I buy the pulp-free variety―I loathe clutter. How anyone can eat raspberry jam with the seeds still in it is beyond me―all those little husks wedging up between your molars. Give me melon without rind, meat without bones, shrimp without shells. Life is hard; by the time the food hits the table I don’t want any fight left in it.
Max is an Amazon parrot and the rain forest still echoes in the deep green depths of his feathers. His head and neck are lemon yellow; crimson bands adorn his wings. The first time I saw Max I was baffled by his beauty, which seemed an aberration in the confines of the room. I could make no sense of those luscious colors, so wrong for the latitude we lived in.
They say that birds can’t understand the words they use and for most parrots this is probably true. But prodigies exist in every species and Max is unquestionably gifted. From the beginning, Kelly said, he took our language very seriously, never uttering a word out of context or speaking out of turn. Often we had to wait a moment while he searched his memory for le mot juste. Most of his vocabulary was initiated by Kelly of course, though he continually picked up words on his own and later surprised us with them. He also spoke a little Spanish, thanks to our housekeeper, Norma. “Buenos dias,” he’d greet her, precisely imitating her inflection. That amazed me, the way he could mimic voices as well as words. Sometimes, overhearing him and Kelly, I wasn’t sure who was talking.
Max also responded to dozens of Kelly’s hand signals (she’d wiggle her hand and he’d dance on his perch, she’d lower it slowly and he’d feign sleep). This was their private language and Kelly refused to entertain people with it; Max was a parrot, she declared, not a spectacle. She also devised cognitive tests to see if Max could discern colors and shapes. “Which one is yellow?” she would ask, pointing to a row of fruit. “Banana,” he would tell her. Then she’d hold up the banana and a melon. “Which one is round, Max, the banana or the melon?” “Casaba,” he’d answer, showing off.
There really was no end to the things that bird could learn. Occasionally Norma would clean our house in the evening, and Max, not to be fooled by her late appearance, would shriek, “Buenos noches, senora!”
The problem was, I never knew just where his comprehension left off, and as the weeks went by I was more and more aggrieved by his intellect. Could he read my thoughts, see my soul? In his company I began to grow wary, ashamed. Why didn’t he like me? What truth had he uncovered?
The woman next door―Gloria is her name―has given me a small cactus. This is not an empty gesture, for she is smitten with these squat, still lives and her patio is a shrine to them. Obligingly I have placed it on my own patio, where it sits in a stasis between life and death. I have no idea how to help it along and I hope it can manage without me.
There are six pools in this development, each one rimmed with flowers and supple palm trees. A wall of brown mountains serves as a backdrop. One of these pools is only 50 feet from my condo and each morning between 10 and 11 o’clock my neighbors, most of them female, open their sliders and head for the chaise lounges (they always sit in same places). They wear sunhats and carry paperbacks and brightly colored plastic tumblers. They delight in this ritual, in each other. Their voices, coming over the perfectly trimmed lawn, soothe me.
I am a 42-year-old woman who doesn’t exercise, and it wasn’t easy, that first time, to put on a bathing suit and join the throng. Behind their sunglasses I thought they’d be judging my thighs; I imagined their mouths turning hard and smug.
I needn’t have worried. They cooed and clucked over me as if I were an orphan chick, and that very day I earned my own deck chair. These women aren’t interested in the state of my thighs. They have lived for years beneath these palms; if they ever knew spite, I think they’ve lost even the memory of it.
June. Red-haired, big-mouthed June. Every time I saw her I wanted to step back, to make more room for her voice and gestures, her lipstick and nail polish. I couldn’t look away, couldn’t escape the force of her presence; she capsized my senses and left me bobbing in her wake.
“Oh I love these accents!” she’d cry, pointing to our country keepsakes. Often she would seize an object and clutch it to her bosom: “This wash basin is adorable.” Nothing escaped her strenuous approval. Of course she was wild about Max and the feeling was mutual. Parrots like noise and flash; June’s voluble enthusiasm, her vermilion lip gloss and turquoise jacket must have reminded Max of the raucous treetops he came from. He liked to listen to her chatter, and he spent a lot of time looking at her head, no doubt coveting that fiercely red hair.
June came into our lives suddenly. One day the drama teacher at Shelburne High got in a car accident and broke both legs, and the next day June appeared in her place. Right away, Kelly reported, she had a following, a mettlesome band of students who lingered in her classroom after school, vying for her attention. I suppose she was good at her job―it’s hard for me to credit her with anything.
June was also a bird owner, which is the first reason she start showing up at our house. She had an unruly cockatoo named Carmen and when she discovered, in the teacher’s lounge, that Kelly owned a parrot, she asked for some pointers. Obligingly, Kelly began teaching her about motivation and displaced aggression and how unnatural environments create unnatural behavior. Birds don’t bite in the wild, she said, and in order to stop your pet from doing so, you had to study it carefully and assess the possible provocation. June, it turned out, had been trying to pet Carmen. Stroking those soft white feathers might be fun for us, Kelly explained, but to Carmen that warm hand on her back might feel the wide open jaws of a snake. Fascinated by this revelation, June became a disciple and so began her long tutelage in our home. She showed up at at least twice a week, often with Carmen, and they would all gather in Max’s room, where Kelly demonstrated her training techniques. By the end of the first week, they moved a sofa into the room so that June could learn her lessons in comfort. Kelly advocated positive reinforcement, so instead of being punished when they were bad, the birds were rewarded when they were good. Tempted by treats and inspired by Max, Carmen stopped biting and started talking. The four of them made quite a racket some days and hearing their excited voices I’d become envious. I tried to join them a couple times but my presence only distracted the birds and, murmuring apologies, I edged myself out of the room.
June wore too much make-up. She was big and loud and self-assured. She was, in fact, everything I wasn’t, and I blindly assumed there was no cause for worry.
Catering is not just party trays and punch bowls. We do a lot of private dinners, usually in posh homes made of glass and concrete―this 60s architecture is trendy now and people are coming here in droves to buy whatever is left of it. Kitchens are tiny, wet bars enormous. From toy electric stoves I am expected to deliver seared salmon for 12. While I wait for the guests to finish their libations, I like to slide open a door and step down to the pool, where the lights and flat rooftops are mirrored in the still blue water. Sometimes, in a show of solidarity, the family dog will flop down beside me. I am trembling with fatigue by this time, having worked thirteen or fourteen hours. I don’t think people appreciate the scope of catering: how you have prepare the food, then load it into a van, then unload and cook it and serve it, and then wash all the dishes, all the pots and pans, all the forks and plates, every water goblet, wine glass, coffee cup and brandy snifter. And god forbid you should break anything.
I seem to be the only person in West Wind Estates who has a job. For the most part I live among retirees and well-off divorcees. There are also quite a few gay men here who have learned to make money without toiling. They send faxes from their bedrooms, make phone calls from their patios, hold meetings in outdoor cafes. They are all impossibly thin. They wave when they see me and their smiles are huge in their angular faces.
I moved to Palm Springs last December, when my life with Kelly had become a sham and a lonely Christmas seemed preferable to a tragic one. So far I have witnessed five holidays here and each one has come and gone quietly. The stores will dutifully switch out their merchandise, and certain events will appear in the paper, but no one is bullied into participating. The modest decorations are mere suggestions―you can ignore them if you wish. That’s what I like best about living here, the generosity, the thoughtfulness. There are streets in this town that have no end. Long after the shops and houses have disappeared, the streets keep on going, flat and wide and free, just in case you feel like driving.
Not long after I took up residence with Kelly, when I was still trying to win Max’s affection, I spent five dollars on a boutique box of sesame crackers. I was trying to find a novel delicacy, food a parrot couldn’t resist. The profits went toward saving the rain forest, so even if Max turned up his beak, the purchase wouldn’t be in vain.
Crackers in hand, I gave the requisite whistle and entered Max’s room. He was sitting on his perch near the window. As usual, he gave me a baleful look and changed position, turning his back to me. I was prepared for the snubbing and ignored it. “Hey pretty boy,” I crooned. “Hey Max. Are you hungry?” He stepped sideways, moving away from the food I was waving near his head. “Polly want a cracker?” I tried, idiotically. Max stopped his sidestepping and the feathers on his head went up, a reaction I mistook as interest. He cocked his head and focused an eye on the treat in my hand. Got you now, I thought. Slowly he brought the sharp gray horn of his beak to the cracker, and then he dodged it and bit my finger. I yelped and snatched my hand away; Max began preening his shoulder. He was skating on thin ice; Kelly didn’t tolerate bad behavior and he knew it. “Polly want a clubbing?” I said, glaring at him, my voice rich with menace. I was kidding, sort of, but Max, startled, stopped his preening and stared at me. For a long moment I looked into his eye, a thin brown circle around an orange iris, and inside that, the wet bead of his pupil, the blackest point on earth, the absolute end of everything. I was doomed.
Max never bit me again (that would have vexed Kelly), but he grew skillful at goading me in other ways. A good example is the time I found him gazing at a pair of male cardinals. They were sparring in the dogwood outside his window, hopping and flapping, flying off and coming back, and I wondered what Max was thinking, if he was reminded by those brilliant birds of a jungle he only knew in dreams. I pictured the rain forest, drenched and steamy, and Max, his gorgeous emerald wings spread wide, soaring among the leaves and vines. “Poor bastard,” I said softly. He didn’t so much as turn his head and I assumed he didn’t hear me. Later that day I learned the truth. When Kelly came home and greeted Max, instead of saying hello to her, he screamed, “Poor bastard!”―he couldn’t wait to get it out. Kelly looked at me aghast. Profanity, I well knew, was forbidden in Max’s presence.
“Do you teach him that?” she demanded.
“Um, no,” I said, “I didn’t teach him...”
“Poor bastard,” Max repeated, “Poor bastard!”
Kelly shook her head in disbelief. “Why would you even say such a thing?”
What defense could I offer? I could only stand there and suffer her disappointment. June had not yet entered our lives, but already I was losing ground, betraying my foibles one by one. Hearing myself talk about the restaurant, I was appalled at the trifling sameness of my anecdotes: “I asked him to prep the green beans and he cut a whole case into half-inch dice,” or, “So she told me she lost her bandaid--in thirty pounds of bread dough!” How entertaining could these stories be for a woman who dealt in atomic orbitals? Nor was I proving very helpful on the homefront. We lived in a house built in 1892 and all I could fix was dinner. To make matters worse, to whittle my chances even further, there was the trouble with Max. Kelly had scant patience with this complaint. Birds, she assured me, are not arbitrary creatures. If Max wasn’t warming to me, it was because I was failing to understand his body language. What I needed to realize, she went on, was the importance of association. And then she told me what to do. Each morning I was to bring him sprouted sunflower seeds; I was to put them in his dish, as quietly as possible, and then leave the room. In a few days Max would learn to associate my arrival with his favorite food, and he would look forward to seeing me. It didn’t seem right, having to trick her pet into liking me, but needing his support I did as I was told. Max, predictably, was delighted with the arrangement: I brought him his seeds, then got the hell out of his sight. There wasn’t any change in our relationship, though I’m certain he lost a little more respect for me.
There are scores of citrus trees here, glossy and sweet-smelling, planted just to please us. From the corner of my patio I can reach out and pluck a tangerine for breakfast. We are encouraged to eat the fruit, and though everyone does we can’t possibly use it all. The oranges get soft and wrinkly, the grapefruits get big and bumpy, and the gardeners tactfully dispose of them in the mornings while we sleep.
I’ve made another food discovery―marinated, oven-ready pork tenderloins: honey-mustard, barbeque, teriyaki or lemon-pepper. Believe me, you can’t do better. In a 400 degree oven they take 18 minutes, just enough time for a highball. That’s what they call them here―highballs. The cocktail hour is taken seriously in Palm Springs, like tea time in England, only it comes a bit later and blenders are involved.
I cut back on my catering―30 hours a week is the most I’ll relinquish. And I don’t watch the news anymore; now I have an extra hour each day in which to feel good. I usually spend it at the pool with a highball. Tell me I’m wrong. I dare you.
Kelly and I were in trouble; I was tripping over the signs. You’d think I would have shown better judgment. You’d think, given the circumstances, I would have kept my mouth shut. I still can’t explain what happened, why I steered straight into the falls.
We were dining at Katrina’s, the most romantic restaurant in northern Vermont. Candle-lit tables, deep red roses, discreet and clever waiters. I ordered the lobster and fava bean risotto; Kelly chose the grilled lamb with balsamic-black pepper sauce. The menu alone made me want to tear my clothes off.
I think Kelly was trying to make amends that night. She hadn’t been very attentive and I know she felt bad about it. I looked at her mouth and thought about the way we used to kiss, for minutes at a time, and I thought about the day I found her standing in front of my open closet, smiling to herself. What are you doing, I asked. She shrugged, I’m looking at your shoes. What about them? Nothing, I just like the way you have them arranged. Like I said, she was nuts about me.
So right away I started in on the bread. Didn’t she think it was stale? No, she didn’t. Well, I did. And anyway I didn’t care for this new peasant bread craze. Bread needed salt. And the crust was too hard―why was that supposed to be desirable?
By then she’d taken her hand away from mine and was looking around the room. I couldn’t help myself: I was becoming as wretched as Max made me feel. Maybe the bird was finally getting to me; maybe he was practicing mind control from his perch 30 miles away.
Kelly said didn’t the girl at the corner table have beautiful hair. Yes, I nodded. But look at the old coot she‘s with―yuck! Kelly frowned. What does it matter, she sighed. Besides, he might be her father. Sure, I winked, sure he is. That’s why they’re hiding in the corner.
After that I attacked the salad dressing (too acidic) and the lobster (there wasn’t enough of it). I was just about to mention the slight gumminess of the risotto when Kelly broke in and said thanks for ruining both our meals.
Everything went crashing downhill after that. The next week I decided to launder the bedspread and pillow shams. I tossed them into the washer and started dicing onions for black bean chili. A few minutes later I heard a banging noise coming from cellar and rushed down to find smoke coming out of the washer. One of the shams had gotten stuck between the drum and the frame, causing the machine to go off-kilter. There went $400. Later that same week some pipes broke in the basement and we lost three nice rugs and about six dozen books. Then there was the ice storm on Thanksgiving which snapped our power lines and most of the branches in the dogwood trees. I was beginning to question the charm of Vermont. Why did anyone live on this frozen little peg? I was sick of looking at bare broken branches. I wanted to open the curtains and behold a bevy of palm trees.
And June. I’d had a bellyful of her. She was always stopping by, she and that mouthy bird of hers. Ever since Carmen had learned to talk, you couldn’t shut her up. “Good morning! Good morning! Good morning!” she’d screech, no matter what time of day (unlike Max she had no idea what she was saying). The four of them would disappear into Max’s room, and then June, that nervy wench, would sit down at our table and eat the dinner I labored over while she and Kelly were having their “sessions.” I didn’t know this at the time of course, although I should have. It was Max who gleefully told me what was happening on that sofa.
I had come into Max’s room to collect his dishes and mist his feathers. He loved that daily dousing and would accept it even from me. Seeing the mister in my hand, he opened his wings and I sprayed him with the warm water and watched it bead up and slide down his feathers. Max rarely looked at me, let alone spoke to me, and I jumped when he said: “Love you June.”
I stopped misting.
“Love you June,” he said, louder.
What did he mean? It was Kelly’s voice he was using, but I couldn’t imagine Kelly prompting Max to say this. Teaching birds to utter endearments was just the sort of thing she deplored.
“LOVE YOU JUNE!” Max screamed.
“SSSSShhhhhhh!” I hushed. Max lowered his wings and turned around. Tilting his head, he aimed an eye at me, as if assessing my stupidity. Then, impatient, he lifted off the perch and flew over to the sofa.
“Love you June,” he insisted, hopping from one end of the sofa to the other. “Love you June, love you June, love you love you love you--” At last, exhausted, he stopped and gave me the eye. “June.”
“I get it,” I told him.
At least I was allowed a measure of dignity: a week earlier I had decided to move out, to leave Kelly and Max and all the other harsh New England realities and make a new life in California. I chose Palm Springs because it sounded like an antidote.
Under ordinary conditions I don’t think Kelly would have become enamored of a woman like June. But I had proved such a poor choice that I think she was fooled into loving my opposite. I doubt they’re still together and at this point I don’t care. I’m not one of those people who has to stay in touch with my ex’s, and apparently neither is Kelly.
Some mornings I still wake up and wonder where I am, if this place is real or just a mirage. It’s not easy getting used to pleasure―there are so many things to unlearn. I spend hours studying my neighbors, noting their manners and habits.
It amazes me how well I sleep, straight through the night. And the foods I eat, the strange and wonderful foods.
I’m not fit anymore for the world I came from. The other day it occurred to me that Max and I are in the same predicament. We’re both living in paradise and neither one of us can leave.
"Paradise" previously appeared in The Massachussetts Review
They call this community West Wind Estates―the developers took some liberties there. We have the wind alright; I just don’t think you can call these flimsy condos “estates.” From a distance they look fine. It’s only after you move in that you notice how the drapes catch, how the sliding screen door won’t close all the way, how you can lose a fork in the gap between the orange formica and the kitchen sink. This constant scrutinizing has brought me nothing but disappointment and I’m determined to break myself of the habit. Everyone else has.
My refrigerator has an ice cube maker. I am still awed by the ease of it, those perfect scallops of ice obediently spilling into my glass. Ice makers are standard equipment here; nobody knows they’re a luxury.
Another marvelous device is the trash compactor; a week’s worth of garbage ends up looking like a boxed lunch. Everything in fact is miniaturized here, even the pets: you can’t own a dog over 17 pounds. I wonder if there’s a scale in the office, or one of those boxes like they use to measure carry-ons. Do they spot-check? What happens to Fido if he gains a pound or two? I wouldn’t mind having a pet, but I don’t want one of these shivering yippers―I want a big dog, dumb and reassuring, mute as a boulder.
Anyone who’s ever owned a parrot will know why I cherish my newfound peace and quiet. Parrots scream at dawn and dusk (ancestral behavior they can’t help), and at intervals throughout the day just for the hell of it. I can’t tell you how many dreams I’ve been yanked out of, how much coffee or wine I’ve spilled on the carpet, all because of Max. And what really irked me was Kelly’s insistence that we never, NEVER startle him. Undue stress, she claimed, killed more pet birds than any other factor, and so we had to give a certain soft whistle--one high note, one low―every time we approached his room lest our sudden appearance disturb his reverie.
No captive bird has it better than Max. Back in Shelburne, in the farmhouse he shares with Kelly, Max has his own room, with jungle scenes painted on the walls and two large windows that give him a view of the dogwoods and the pond and the distant green mountains. He has a variety of free-standing perches to suit his rapidly shifting moods and a wire-mesh enclosure that takes up nearly a third of the room. Inside this cage are his stylish water and food bowls, several large branches from local trees and usually four or five toys Kelly finds at yard sales. These he bites or claws beyond recognition; if he is given something he can’t destroy he shoves it into a corner. Of course she must be careful about lead paints and glues. Captive birds are never far from peril. I learned that the first week I was there, when I heated up a pan to make an omelette and Kelly yanked it off the stove and doused it with water. Didn’t I know, she scolded, that the fumes from an overhot Teflon pan could kill a parrot in minutes?
It was exhausting living with that bird, meeting his needs, second-guessing his wants. Kelly said I didn’t have the right attitude toward Max, which may have been true. I never did tell her what I really thought: that birds make lousy pets. Dogs and cats are pets. Everything else belongs in the sky or the water or the desert it came from. So right away I felt a little sorry for Max, even when I learned he was captive bred and able to fly, even when I told myself he was probably healthier and possibly happier living in his painted jungle, for what would he face in Guatemala but poachers and pythons and shrinking habitat? Even acknowledging their success―14 years of cohabitation―I couldn’t help seeing Max as a bird beguiled.
Maybe he sensed my pity and resented it. Or maybe he didn’t like the texture of my hair or the way I smelled. Maybe my voiced irked him. Maybe I reminded him of someone else. Whatever his reason, Max didn’t like me, no matter how hard I tried to please him. You’re probably thinking he was jealous, that he wanted Kelly all to himself; I thought that too, at first. Then I noticed how he welcomed the arrival of our friends and how charmed he was by Suzanne, Kelly’s former live-in girlfriend. I tried not to take it personally, but that bird was so shrewd he had me worried.
Some things I like about Palm Springs: the cascades of purple bougainvillea, the vapid blue skies, the easy-growing palms and the wide, forgiving streets―perfect for the large population of elderly who simply aim their Cadillacs in the direction of the market. They cheer me up, these cheeky seniors. I like to watch them rove down the aisles in their lime green shorts and tank tops, their limbs brown as Brazil nuts. I like to look in their carts and see the scotch, cigarettes and frozen poundcakes they live on.
Speaking of which, those freezer desserts aren’t bad at all. And some of the ready-made dips and pasta sauces are terrific. This may not be news to you, but a whole world is opening up for me.
14 years ago I took a job in a restaurant kitchen, figuring the knowledge I gained would enrich my life. This seemed like a sound plan and for a while I thought it was working. I learned how to blanch broccoli and filet big silvery salmon, how to make creme anglaise and form bread loaves. Eventually, inevitably, I developed a palate and that’s where the trouble started. Pretty soon nothing met the standards I unwittingly imposed. Grocery shopping led to aggravation; one after another the stores let me down. Dining out was an ongoing risk: I was offended by the vinaigrettes, insulted by the breads. Pastas were appalling, soups I avoided and omelettes were always amiss. Worst of all, I could no longer drink the wines I could afford.
The irony isn’t lost on me, that my culinary education took the fun out of food. I wish I could slip into something altogether different, but having labored so long in the messy chaos of kitchens I am ruined for office work. So this is my compromise: instead of impounding myself in another restaurant, I have joined a catering team. Much of what we offer comes out of a freezer―it doesn’t need to be sublime, just pretty. We do parties, food for fun. It’s a step in the right direction.
Kelly is a high school chemistry teacher, which is the first thing that impressed me about her (I was stymied by the physical sciences and had to charm and cheat my way through them). Secondly, I admired her swagger and the way she looked in pants. After that I started liking her shoes, her voice and her ears, and before I knew it I had lost all objectivity.
We met at the Shelburne Baking Company, where she came every morning for my orange-currant scones. For three weeks we flirted at the register, til one morning she leaned so close I could smell her berry-flavored lipsaver, and she said: “Would you like to meet for coffee sometime?” in that glamorous, throaty voice and I nearly leaped over the counter. What she saw in me I’ll never know, but I can tell you it wasn’t just my scones she wanted. She was nuts about me, she really was.
I used to squeeze my own orange juice; now I can’t imagine why. The premium grade in the carton is consistent and, frankly, better than homemade. Of course I buy the pulp-free variety―I loathe clutter. How anyone can eat raspberry jam with the seeds still in it is beyond me―all those little husks wedging up between your molars. Give me melon without rind, meat without bones, shrimp without shells. Life is hard; by the time the food hits the table I don’t want any fight left in it.
Max is an Amazon parrot and the rain forest still echoes in the deep green depths of his feathers. His head and neck are lemon yellow; crimson bands adorn his wings. The first time I saw Max I was baffled by his beauty, which seemed an aberration in the confines of the room. I could make no sense of those luscious colors, so wrong for the latitude we lived in.
They say that birds can’t understand the words they use and for most parrots this is probably true. But prodigies exist in every species and Max is unquestionably gifted. From the beginning, Kelly said, he took our language very seriously, never uttering a word out of context or speaking out of turn. Often we had to wait a moment while he searched his memory for le mot juste. Most of his vocabulary was initiated by Kelly of course, though he continually picked up words on his own and later surprised us with them. He also spoke a little Spanish, thanks to our housekeeper, Norma. “Buenos dias,” he’d greet her, precisely imitating her inflection. That amazed me, the way he could mimic voices as well as words. Sometimes, overhearing him and Kelly, I wasn’t sure who was talking.
Max also responded to dozens of Kelly’s hand signals (she’d wiggle her hand and he’d dance on his perch, she’d lower it slowly and he’d feign sleep). This was their private language and Kelly refused to entertain people with it; Max was a parrot, she declared, not a spectacle. She also devised cognitive tests to see if Max could discern colors and shapes. “Which one is yellow?” she would ask, pointing to a row of fruit. “Banana,” he would tell her. Then she’d hold up the banana and a melon. “Which one is round, Max, the banana or the melon?” “Casaba,” he’d answer, showing off.
There really was no end to the things that bird could learn. Occasionally Norma would clean our house in the evening, and Max, not to be fooled by her late appearance, would shriek, “Buenos noches, senora!”
The problem was, I never knew just where his comprehension left off, and as the weeks went by I was more and more aggrieved by his intellect. Could he read my thoughts, see my soul? In his company I began to grow wary, ashamed. Why didn’t he like me? What truth had he uncovered?
The woman next door―Gloria is her name―has given me a small cactus. This is not an empty gesture, for she is smitten with these squat, still lives and her patio is a shrine to them. Obligingly I have placed it on my own patio, where it sits in a stasis between life and death. I have no idea how to help it along and I hope it can manage without me.
There are six pools in this development, each one rimmed with flowers and supple palm trees. A wall of brown mountains serves as a backdrop. One of these pools is only 50 feet from my condo and each morning between 10 and 11 o’clock my neighbors, most of them female, open their sliders and head for the chaise lounges (they always sit in same places). They wear sunhats and carry paperbacks and brightly colored plastic tumblers. They delight in this ritual, in each other. Their voices, coming over the perfectly trimmed lawn, soothe me.
I am a 42-year-old woman who doesn’t exercise, and it wasn’t easy, that first time, to put on a bathing suit and join the throng. Behind their sunglasses I thought they’d be judging my thighs; I imagined their mouths turning hard and smug.
I needn’t have worried. They cooed and clucked over me as if I were an orphan chick, and that very day I earned my own deck chair. These women aren’t interested in the state of my thighs. They have lived for years beneath these palms; if they ever knew spite, I think they’ve lost even the memory of it.
June. Red-haired, big-mouthed June. Every time I saw her I wanted to step back, to make more room for her voice and gestures, her lipstick and nail polish. I couldn’t look away, couldn’t escape the force of her presence; she capsized my senses and left me bobbing in her wake.
“Oh I love these accents!” she’d cry, pointing to our country keepsakes. Often she would seize an object and clutch it to her bosom: “This wash basin is adorable.” Nothing escaped her strenuous approval. Of course she was wild about Max and the feeling was mutual. Parrots like noise and flash; June’s voluble enthusiasm, her vermilion lip gloss and turquoise jacket must have reminded Max of the raucous treetops he came from. He liked to listen to her chatter, and he spent a lot of time looking at her head, no doubt coveting that fiercely red hair.
June came into our lives suddenly. One day the drama teacher at Shelburne High got in a car accident and broke both legs, and the next day June appeared in her place. Right away, Kelly reported, she had a following, a mettlesome band of students who lingered in her classroom after school, vying for her attention. I suppose she was good at her job―it’s hard for me to credit her with anything.
June was also a bird owner, which is the first reason she start showing up at our house. She had an unruly cockatoo named Carmen and when she discovered, in the teacher’s lounge, that Kelly owned a parrot, she asked for some pointers. Obligingly, Kelly began teaching her about motivation and displaced aggression and how unnatural environments create unnatural behavior. Birds don’t bite in the wild, she said, and in order to stop your pet from doing so, you had to study it carefully and assess the possible provocation. June, it turned out, had been trying to pet Carmen. Stroking those soft white feathers might be fun for us, Kelly explained, but to Carmen that warm hand on her back might feel the wide open jaws of a snake. Fascinated by this revelation, June became a disciple and so began her long tutelage in our home. She showed up at at least twice a week, often with Carmen, and they would all gather in Max’s room, where Kelly demonstrated her training techniques. By the end of the first week, they moved a sofa into the room so that June could learn her lessons in comfort. Kelly advocated positive reinforcement, so instead of being punished when they were bad, the birds were rewarded when they were good. Tempted by treats and inspired by Max, Carmen stopped biting and started talking. The four of them made quite a racket some days and hearing their excited voices I’d become envious. I tried to join them a couple times but my presence only distracted the birds and, murmuring apologies, I edged myself out of the room.
June wore too much make-up. She was big and loud and self-assured. She was, in fact, everything I wasn’t, and I blindly assumed there was no cause for worry.
Catering is not just party trays and punch bowls. We do a lot of private dinners, usually in posh homes made of glass and concrete―this 60s architecture is trendy now and people are coming here in droves to buy whatever is left of it. Kitchens are tiny, wet bars enormous. From toy electric stoves I am expected to deliver seared salmon for 12. While I wait for the guests to finish their libations, I like to slide open a door and step down to the pool, where the lights and flat rooftops are mirrored in the still blue water. Sometimes, in a show of solidarity, the family dog will flop down beside me. I am trembling with fatigue by this time, having worked thirteen or fourteen hours. I don’t think people appreciate the scope of catering: how you have prepare the food, then load it into a van, then unload and cook it and serve it, and then wash all the dishes, all the pots and pans, all the forks and plates, every water goblet, wine glass, coffee cup and brandy snifter. And god forbid you should break anything.
I seem to be the only person in West Wind Estates who has a job. For the most part I live among retirees and well-off divorcees. There are also quite a few gay men here who have learned to make money without toiling. They send faxes from their bedrooms, make phone calls from their patios, hold meetings in outdoor cafes. They are all impossibly thin. They wave when they see me and their smiles are huge in their angular faces.
I moved to Palm Springs last December, when my life with Kelly had become a sham and a lonely Christmas seemed preferable to a tragic one. So far I have witnessed five holidays here and each one has come and gone quietly. The stores will dutifully switch out their merchandise, and certain events will appear in the paper, but no one is bullied into participating. The modest decorations are mere suggestions―you can ignore them if you wish. That’s what I like best about living here, the generosity, the thoughtfulness. There are streets in this town that have no end. Long after the shops and houses have disappeared, the streets keep on going, flat and wide and free, just in case you feel like driving.
Not long after I took up residence with Kelly, when I was still trying to win Max’s affection, I spent five dollars on a boutique box of sesame crackers. I was trying to find a novel delicacy, food a parrot couldn’t resist. The profits went toward saving the rain forest, so even if Max turned up his beak, the purchase wouldn’t be in vain.
Crackers in hand, I gave the requisite whistle and entered Max’s room. He was sitting on his perch near the window. As usual, he gave me a baleful look and changed position, turning his back to me. I was prepared for the snubbing and ignored it. “Hey pretty boy,” I crooned. “Hey Max. Are you hungry?” He stepped sideways, moving away from the food I was waving near his head. “Polly want a cracker?” I tried, idiotically. Max stopped his sidestepping and the feathers on his head went up, a reaction I mistook as interest. He cocked his head and focused an eye on the treat in my hand. Got you now, I thought. Slowly he brought the sharp gray horn of his beak to the cracker, and then he dodged it and bit my finger. I yelped and snatched my hand away; Max began preening his shoulder. He was skating on thin ice; Kelly didn’t tolerate bad behavior and he knew it. “Polly want a clubbing?” I said, glaring at him, my voice rich with menace. I was kidding, sort of, but Max, startled, stopped his preening and stared at me. For a long moment I looked into his eye, a thin brown circle around an orange iris, and inside that, the wet bead of his pupil, the blackest point on earth, the absolute end of everything. I was doomed.
Max never bit me again (that would have vexed Kelly), but he grew skillful at goading me in other ways. A good example is the time I found him gazing at a pair of male cardinals. They were sparring in the dogwood outside his window, hopping and flapping, flying off and coming back, and I wondered what Max was thinking, if he was reminded by those brilliant birds of a jungle he only knew in dreams. I pictured the rain forest, drenched and steamy, and Max, his gorgeous emerald wings spread wide, soaring among the leaves and vines. “Poor bastard,” I said softly. He didn’t so much as turn his head and I assumed he didn’t hear me. Later that day I learned the truth. When Kelly came home and greeted Max, instead of saying hello to her, he screamed, “Poor bastard!”―he couldn’t wait to get it out. Kelly looked at me aghast. Profanity, I well knew, was forbidden in Max’s presence.
“Do you teach him that?” she demanded.
“Um, no,” I said, “I didn’t teach him...”
“Poor bastard,” Max repeated, “Poor bastard!”
Kelly shook her head in disbelief. “Why would you even say such a thing?”
What defense could I offer? I could only stand there and suffer her disappointment. June had not yet entered our lives, but already I was losing ground, betraying my foibles one by one. Hearing myself talk about the restaurant, I was appalled at the trifling sameness of my anecdotes: “I asked him to prep the green beans and he cut a whole case into half-inch dice,” or, “So she told me she lost her bandaid--in thirty pounds of bread dough!” How entertaining could these stories be for a woman who dealt in atomic orbitals? Nor was I proving very helpful on the homefront. We lived in a house built in 1892 and all I could fix was dinner. To make matters worse, to whittle my chances even further, there was the trouble with Max. Kelly had scant patience with this complaint. Birds, she assured me, are not arbitrary creatures. If Max wasn’t warming to me, it was because I was failing to understand his body language. What I needed to realize, she went on, was the importance of association. And then she told me what to do. Each morning I was to bring him sprouted sunflower seeds; I was to put them in his dish, as quietly as possible, and then leave the room. In a few days Max would learn to associate my arrival with his favorite food, and he would look forward to seeing me. It didn’t seem right, having to trick her pet into liking me, but needing his support I did as I was told. Max, predictably, was delighted with the arrangement: I brought him his seeds, then got the hell out of his sight. There wasn’t any change in our relationship, though I’m certain he lost a little more respect for me.
There are scores of citrus trees here, glossy and sweet-smelling, planted just to please us. From the corner of my patio I can reach out and pluck a tangerine for breakfast. We are encouraged to eat the fruit, and though everyone does we can’t possibly use it all. The oranges get soft and wrinkly, the grapefruits get big and bumpy, and the gardeners tactfully dispose of them in the mornings while we sleep.
I’ve made another food discovery―marinated, oven-ready pork tenderloins: honey-mustard, barbeque, teriyaki or lemon-pepper. Believe me, you can’t do better. In a 400 degree oven they take 18 minutes, just enough time for a highball. That’s what they call them here―highballs. The cocktail hour is taken seriously in Palm Springs, like tea time in England, only it comes a bit later and blenders are involved.
I cut back on my catering―30 hours a week is the most I’ll relinquish. And I don’t watch the news anymore; now I have an extra hour each day in which to feel good. I usually spend it at the pool with a highball. Tell me I’m wrong. I dare you.
Kelly and I were in trouble; I was tripping over the signs. You’d think I would have shown better judgment. You’d think, given the circumstances, I would have kept my mouth shut. I still can’t explain what happened, why I steered straight into the falls.
We were dining at Katrina’s, the most romantic restaurant in northern Vermont. Candle-lit tables, deep red roses, discreet and clever waiters. I ordered the lobster and fava bean risotto; Kelly chose the grilled lamb with balsamic-black pepper sauce. The menu alone made me want to tear my clothes off.
I think Kelly was trying to make amends that night. She hadn’t been very attentive and I know she felt bad about it. I looked at her mouth and thought about the way we used to kiss, for minutes at a time, and I thought about the day I found her standing in front of my open closet, smiling to herself. What are you doing, I asked. She shrugged, I’m looking at your shoes. What about them? Nothing, I just like the way you have them arranged. Like I said, she was nuts about me.
So right away I started in on the bread. Didn’t she think it was stale? No, she didn’t. Well, I did. And anyway I didn’t care for this new peasant bread craze. Bread needed salt. And the crust was too hard―why was that supposed to be desirable?
By then she’d taken her hand away from mine and was looking around the room. I couldn’t help myself: I was becoming as wretched as Max made me feel. Maybe the bird was finally getting to me; maybe he was practicing mind control from his perch 30 miles away.
Kelly said didn’t the girl at the corner table have beautiful hair. Yes, I nodded. But look at the old coot she‘s with―yuck! Kelly frowned. What does it matter, she sighed. Besides, he might be her father. Sure, I winked, sure he is. That’s why they’re hiding in the corner.
After that I attacked the salad dressing (too acidic) and the lobster (there wasn’t enough of it). I was just about to mention the slight gumminess of the risotto when Kelly broke in and said thanks for ruining both our meals.
Everything went crashing downhill after that. The next week I decided to launder the bedspread and pillow shams. I tossed them into the washer and started dicing onions for black bean chili. A few minutes later I heard a banging noise coming from cellar and rushed down to find smoke coming out of the washer. One of the shams had gotten stuck between the drum and the frame, causing the machine to go off-kilter. There went $400. Later that same week some pipes broke in the basement and we lost three nice rugs and about six dozen books. Then there was the ice storm on Thanksgiving which snapped our power lines and most of the branches in the dogwood trees. I was beginning to question the charm of Vermont. Why did anyone live on this frozen little peg? I was sick of looking at bare broken branches. I wanted to open the curtains and behold a bevy of palm trees.
And June. I’d had a bellyful of her. She was always stopping by, she and that mouthy bird of hers. Ever since Carmen had learned to talk, you couldn’t shut her up. “Good morning! Good morning! Good morning!” she’d screech, no matter what time of day (unlike Max she had no idea what she was saying). The four of them would disappear into Max’s room, and then June, that nervy wench, would sit down at our table and eat the dinner I labored over while she and Kelly were having their “sessions.” I didn’t know this at the time of course, although I should have. It was Max who gleefully told me what was happening on that sofa.
I had come into Max’s room to collect his dishes and mist his feathers. He loved that daily dousing and would accept it even from me. Seeing the mister in my hand, he opened his wings and I sprayed him with the warm water and watched it bead up and slide down his feathers. Max rarely looked at me, let alone spoke to me, and I jumped when he said: “Love you June.”
I stopped misting.
“Love you June,” he said, louder.
What did he mean? It was Kelly’s voice he was using, but I couldn’t imagine Kelly prompting Max to say this. Teaching birds to utter endearments was just the sort of thing she deplored.
“LOVE YOU JUNE!” Max screamed.
“SSSSShhhhhhh!” I hushed. Max lowered his wings and turned around. Tilting his head, he aimed an eye at me, as if assessing my stupidity. Then, impatient, he lifted off the perch and flew over to the sofa.
“Love you June,” he insisted, hopping from one end of the sofa to the other. “Love you June, love you June, love you love you love you--” At last, exhausted, he stopped and gave me the eye. “June.”
“I get it,” I told him.
At least I was allowed a measure of dignity: a week earlier I had decided to move out, to leave Kelly and Max and all the other harsh New England realities and make a new life in California. I chose Palm Springs because it sounded like an antidote.
Under ordinary conditions I don’t think Kelly would have become enamored of a woman like June. But I had proved such a poor choice that I think she was fooled into loving my opposite. I doubt they’re still together and at this point I don’t care. I’m not one of those people who has to stay in touch with my ex’s, and apparently neither is Kelly.
Some mornings I still wake up and wonder where I am, if this place is real or just a mirage. It’s not easy getting used to pleasure―there are so many things to unlearn. I spend hours studying my neighbors, noting their manners and habits.
It amazes me how well I sleep, straight through the night. And the foods I eat, the strange and wonderful foods.
I’m not fit anymore for the world I came from. The other day it occurred to me that Max and I are in the same predicament. We’re both living in paradise and neither one of us can leave.
"Paradise" previously appeared in The Massachussetts Review
