Page 42 of Say Yes to the Hot Mess

“But how?” she says, cutting him off. “I’ve turned off all the lights and closed the blinds—I thought maybe that would make the open door seem like a big, bright spot. All the doors leading to other rooms are closed.”

“You did exactly right,” Don says soothingly—like this is a daily occurrence to him, talking people through bird evacuations. “If he’s still dancing on the ceiling, the best thing to do is wait for him to get tired. When he stops panicking he’ll take that exit.”

“You think?” Maya says. She sounds hopeful, which is more than I can say for myself. I’m still trying to get around the shattered sliding door and the blood spots that are apparently on the ceiling.

“Yep, just give him a minute.”

So we sit in silence, the oddest group I’ve ever been a part of, staring at the phone. We’re a group of kids surrounding a handheld radio in the parking lot of the football stadium, our breaths hitched in our chests, our toes tapping as we wait anxiously, excruciatingly, for what we cannot see.

I know it’s not an hour later, or even ten minutes later, that I hear Maya’s whisper. “Ooh, okay, he’s calming down, he’s—yes—no, no, go back!”

Come on, common grackle,I think.Get out of my house.

“Good, good…” Maya says slowly.

Come on, come on…

“Good…and…he’s gone!” she ends on a shout.

And the Oldies erupt into cheers. Surprisingly, I find myself cheering with them. Nothing to get your adrenaline pumping like a common grackle, I suppose.

“Dex, I’m so sorry,” Maya says when we’ve all calmed down a few seconds later. She sounds close to tears. “I just wanted toaccomplishsomething, and Archer is sleeping, but I broke your door, and I accidentally mangled part of the flower bed. I’m so sorry. I’ll pay for the replacement and the paint for your ceiling—”

A pang of affection sounds somewhere in my gut, tentative and new, and I find myself just wanting to make her feel better. “Don’t worry about it,” I say, smiling. I’m not sure why I’m smiling, because this shouldn’t be funny, and itdefinitelyshouldn’t be funny to me—I should be losing my head at the thought of broken glass and bloody ceilings in my personal space—but…I don’t know. “I’m not mad,” I say instead of trying to figure out my weird brain. “I promise I’m not. And it’s not your fault anyway.”

“I mean, it kind of is,” she says skeptically.

“Eh,” I say, waving this aside even though she can’t see me. “You were just mowing the lawn. Things like this happen.”

There’s silence for a second, and then Maya sniffles and says, “You’re being super chill about this, and it’s weirding me out.”

Me too,I think. But this isn’t the kind of conversation I can really have at work, especially in front of my coworkers, so I just say, “Don’t worry about it. I’ll take care of it, okay?”

“Okay,” she says after a second, still sounding unsure. “Thanks.”

I nod, tell her goodbye, and then hang up. I’m not sure why, but my mind jumps back to the conversation we had yesterday about the way she uses the handicap amenities—maybe because of what she said about feeling like she was failing—and yet again, a little twinge of guilt hits me. A new mother isn’t necessarily handicapped in the traditional sense, but I hadn’t realized how difficult that life is. And I certainly hadn’t contemplated that she might have reasonable, valid uses for things like the larger shower or the stair lift or the shuttle service.

Is asking her to move a good idea?

I sigh, forcing that question aside and returning my focus to the present. We finish the meeting with a much more lighthearted air about us than was there before Maya’s bird, deciding to add another stop to the bus route.

Later that day, my phone pings with a message from Hanan. I check it, intending to tell her all about the common grackle that invaded my home, but that thought flies out of my mind when I see what she’s written.

Hanan:I totally rescued a bird today, and it was terrifying. I hope you’re proud of me.

I sit back in my chair, my mind whirring. What are the odds?

Is Hanan…?

No. Not possible.

Except…technically, itispossible. Right? Maya and Hanan are both involved with Sunset Horizons. But still, I would have noticed something, right?

My brain launches itself back through every interaction I’ve ever had with Maya, plucking out little coincidences I didn’t think anything of at the time. And with each realization, my heart beats a little faster.

I know Hanan is in her early twenties; Maya is twenty-two.

Maya said something about watching Turkish TV; Hanan loves Turkish shows.

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