Page 34 of Talk Birdie to Me

“I don’t think you know what I’m thinking.”

His grin grew wider. “You’re thinking you should send me and Gary packing.”

“So now you can read my mind?”

She tried to sound stern, but she couldn’t help smiling herself. Cody’s smile was infectious.

Diseases were infectious, she reminded herself.

With a heavy sigh, she said, “Okay. Let’s give this a try.”

Cody nodded in acknowledgment and didn’t waste a second reaching for the door. She was pretty sure he was trying to get the bird out before she could change her mind.

Gary sidled over to the open door, peering out hesitantly. Geena didn’t know what she expected, but it wasn’t trepidation. Not from the brash bird she’d spent the last day with.

But Gary was as tentative as she would be. He took in his surroundings, even though he’d been examining the room from inside the cage all day.

Finally, he used his beak to help clamber onto the wire bottom of the doorway. A moment later, he was flying through the living room.

He landed on top of her TV, which was perched on a stand along the wall opposite his cage. She hoped he wouldn’t poop on anything electronic.

Cody waved a sheet of tray liner in the air, making sure Gary saw it, then handed it to Geena. “Put this where you want him to use it. Make it somewhere he can see it from wherever he is.”

Geena held the liner in the air like Cody had done, then she laid it on the coffee table. Gary tilted his head one way and then the other, studying the paper and the human who had placed it there.

He flew to another location. This time to one of the fan blades sitting idle above them.

As worried as she was about poop and feathers and getting pecked on the head, Geena felt bad for the guy. He’d spent his entire time here so far trapped in that cage, and once he got out, he was just allowed the illusion of freedom in the larger cage of her townhouse.

Geena could relate. A little, at least. She’d broken free of a bad marriage only to be trapped beneath paperwork and emails. Her ex was still holding back information, and he would until everything was finalized and she never had to hear or speak his name again.

But what would she do with that freedom?

Probably nothing different with her life.

Geena liked her apartment. She liked her job. And now she had this volunteer gig at the shelter with her sister and the rest of the staff there.

Still… something felt missing.

Or maybe it was that something else was just out of reach. Out of sight.

“These are cool.”

Geena broke out of her daydream and realized Cody was staring at a framed photograph on her wall above her couch. There were three hung in a row. Black and white shots of people enjoying a local festival. The one place Geena enjoyed more than her apartment. She liked the anonymity of being invisible in a crowd, everyone collectively lost in the music.

“Wait,” Cody said, turning his gaze from the photo to Geena, who now stood beside him. “Did you take these?”

She nodded sheepishly.

“These are really good,” he said.

“Thanks.”

She wasn’t sure what else to say. She never knew how to respond when someone complimented her creative efforts. Because they didn’t require much effort at all. It was almost like she didn’t do anything. The images appeared before her, and she merely captured them. The moments were art of their own. She was just a recorder, like someone taking minutes during a meeting.

He looked around the room. “Do you have any others?”

“Blown up like this? No.”

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