Ladies' Night Andrews, Kay (great novels .txt) 📖

He quickened his step until he was right beside her.

“Is there a problem?” he asked gruffly.

She looked up, puzzled. She had nice eyes, Wyatt thought, when she wasn’t pissed off.

“You really do have a bird in your truck,” she said, wonderingly.

“That’s what I tried to tell you,” Wyatt said. “What? You think every man is a liar?”

She ignored that, concentrating on Cookie, who was roosting on the steering wheel, her head tucked under her wing, eyes closed.

“It’s a parrot, right? What kind?”

“African gray.”

“Aren’t you afraid he’ll fly away, leaving the window open like that?”

Wyatt laughed. “Cookie? Nah.”

“You said he’s sick? What’s wrong with him?”

“She. Same old thing,” Wyatt said. “Cookie will eat any damned thing she can get her beak around. One of the kids at the park fed her something today. A gummy worm, probably. It, uh, didn’t agree with her digestive system.”

Grace looked closer at the slumbering bird. “Looks like she pooped all over your steering wheel.”

“Yeah,” Wyatt said with a sigh. “She’s bad to do that.”

She turned and pointed at his right shoulder. “I think she got your shirt, too.”

“I would make a joke about getting shit on by everybody, but I wouldn’t want you to think I’m bitter,” Wyatt said.

Grace straightened. “Are you?”

“Oh yeah,” he said easily. “Isn’t everybody bitter about something?”

She thought about it. “I’d hate to think so, but yeah, it seems that way to me these days. Although maybe my mom isn’t. God knows why, but I really think she doesn’t have a bitter bone in her body.”

“I’ve got enough bitter for both of us,” Wyatt said.

Grace was looking at Cookie again. “You said something about a park. Do you work for the city or the county?”

“Hell, no,” he said emphatically. “I work for myself. At Jungle Jerry’s.”

Her face lit up. “Jungle Jerry’s,” she said delightedly. “I remember that place! We used to go there every year on field trips for school. I used to love the parrots and the little Key deer. They were so adorable. Do you still have the parrot show? Where they ride the little toy bike on the high wire?”

“Yeah,” Wyatt said, feeling himself thaw a little. “Cookie here is the star of the show. When she isn’t eating Popsicle sticks and Happy Meal toys.”

“Jungle Jerry’s,” Grace said wistfully. “I haven’t been there in years and years. In fact, I didn’t even know it was still there.”

“You and everybody else in Florida,” Wyatt said. “But we are definitely still there, right where we’ve always been.

He hesitated, then reached in the pocket of his shorts and pulled out a bright orange card. “That’s a free pass. If you’re not doing anything some day, you get in free with that. Bring your kids, if you want. It’s good for the whole family.”

“No kids,” Grace said lightly. “Just me.”

“Guess that’s just as well,” Wyatt said. “Since you’re getting a divorce, right?”

“Yeah,” Grace said. “Just as well. Since he turned out to be a scumbag.”

Her mouth hardened and her eyes narrowed, and she looked like she had earlier in the evening, when he’d first walked into the therapist’s office. Wyatt found himself missing her smile already, and wishing he could do something to bring it back.

“Guess I’d better go,” he said, unlocking the truck.

“Me too,” Grace said. “Gotta go home and write in my divorce journal.”

“Yeah.” Wyatt opened the driver’s door and slid onto the seat. “Hey, uh, thanks,” he said.

“For what?”

“Covering for me with the therapist,” Wyatt said. “I can’t afford to get crossways with her, or that damned judge.”

“It’s okay,” Grace said. “Sounds like we’re all in the same boat. Divorce-wise,” she added.

“Yeah, divorce-wise.”

She gestured at Cookie, who was awake now, and hopping up and down on the steering wheel.

“Will your parrot be okay?”

“She’ll be fine,” Wyatt said. “I’m gonna pick up some Pepto-Bismol at the Seven-Eleven, and see if that settles her down any.”

“Hey. Does she talk?”

He laughed. “When she wants. If she likes you.”

Grace leaned into the car, and Wyatt caught the scent of her, faintly soft and sweet, like the flowers in the park after a spring rain. She held her hand out, and Cookie happily stepped onto her outstretched index finger.

“Ohhh,” Grace breathed. “Is this okay? She won’t bite, will she?”

“Not usually,” he said.

“Hi, Cookie,” she said.

The bird cocked her head and blinked. “Wassup?”

Grace giggled just like one of the kids at Jungle Jerry’s. “Cookie want a cookie?” She looked over at Wyatt. “Dumb, right?”

The parrot inched her way up Grace’s forearm, until she was perched on the crook of her elbow.

Now Grace was getting nervous. “She won’t try to fly away, will she?”

“No such luck,” Wyatt said. “She knows where her bread is buttered. Literally.”

“Gimme a beer,” Cookie demanded. “Gimme a shot of whiskey. Gimme some peanuts.”

“You don’t really give her beer and whiskey, do you?”

“Nah,” Wyatt said. “She just says that for the shock value. But she really does love peanuts.”

Grace smiled again, and Wyatt found himself smiling back. “I better get going. It’s trivia night.”

“You play trivia?”

“Not really. I’m terrible at it. Actually, it’s trivia night at the bar where I work, and it gets pretty busy about this time.”

“You work at a bar?”

She bristled. “Anything wrong with that?”

“No,” he said hastily. “Not at all. Which bar?”

“It’s just a hole in the wall. Over in Cortez. You never heard of it.”

“Try me.”

“The Sandbox.”

He grinned. “I know that place. My whole softball team used to go there after games. So it’s still there? I heard the owner died a while back. What was his name? Butch?”

“Butch Davenport,” Grace said. “Yeah, he’s been gone a couple years now.”

“You knew him?”

“He was my dad,” Grace said. “My mom runs the place now. I moved in with her, after the split with my ex.” She held her arm out straight and laughed as the bird waddled down her forearm and back into the truck.

“Good night, Cookie.” She looked in at the bird’s owner and was surprised to see him smiling at her, flashing those