Diana Abu-Jaber - Birds of Paradise

Brian looks longingly over his shoulder, the sanctuary of his desk.

“ Vámos! No problema —I know you’re busy, man. We’re all busy until we’re dead, right?”

Unlike many developers who contract out to other specialists, PI&B is so vast their staff includes architects, landscapers, surveyors, as well as a legal department, which Brian heads, and a wing of sales agents — Javier’s domain — to move units once the condos go up. At times it seems to Brian that he and Javier are very nearly adversaries. Most of Brian’s legal colleagues wouldn’t be caught dead consorting with real estate agents. As the last man on the “development food chain”—as Parkhurst dubs it — Javier is all about sales, speed, and profit. Brian presides over the beginnings of things — talking to environmental engineers, zoning boards, and county commissioners, patiently sifting through contracts, moving slowly, scanning the horizon for problems. It was well after law school that he heard corporate lawyers referred to as the handmaidens of the deal .

Javier cries at the partners’ obscene jokes, always has cash for big tips. Brian keeps to himself, but Javier spins legends about his compañero ’s oracular, “Vulcan-like” powers of reason. “See that dude?” Javier says to buyers, tipping a thumb at Brian, “Dude is like CIA, ice-cold intelligentsia.” He himself spends afternoons schmoozing poolside at the Biltmore while Brian logs hours in meetings with the regional planning councils, their Blackberries and legal pads lining the tables. Now Javier drops his voice to a private, closing-the-deal tone: “What about that little Fernanda? You check her out?”

A project manager at Lennar — her previous employer — had regaled Brian and Javier one afternoon with a string of rumors about Fernanda. Brian knew how it was: executives entertained themselves: private fantasies spun into whispered allegations. He tries to act amused, but now he feels defensive about Fernanda and ends up overdoing it, wagging his head. “Heh-eh-eh…” Trailing off, he tries for a hapless shrug. His shoulders feel heavy. “She’s something all right.”

Hap Avery and Dean Hayes burst out of Accounting talking intensely about a Heat game. Avery salutes Brian and Javier and says, “Hey.” Hayes nods. “Hello, Jav.” He brings his palms together and bows slightly. “Counselor.”

Javier and Brian stop speaking until they’re well beyond the others. Javier stops Brian just as they reach the glass door to the East Wing. “So… what? You’re really not interested in her? Or you just don’t go for that Jewish thing?” Jack Parkhurst once said that he’d hired Brian as much for his “moral compass” as for his research acumen: a comment Javier never tires of kidding him about.

His fingers loosen in his pockets. “She’s Jewish?”

“You know — Juban. Fernanda Levy Cruz? What do you think?” He peers through the glass door marking off the land of the bullpen. “That cute little fixed nose. That Russki hair.”

Another flash of annoyance. Proprietary, indignant, he says, “How’s Odalis doing?”

Javier gives Brian an immense smile. “My wife? What, are you kidding? I’m not going to actually do anything.” He pulls the glass door open and heads in, Brian close behind him. “Besides,” he says, clearly aiming for Fernanda’s office, “that’s there and this is here .”

Brian falls back, dwindles to a halt. He rubs the inner corners of his eyes: his pupils feel soft — is that possible? A sign of heart disease? There’s a diffuse ache in the center of his chest left over from the morning commute. He opens his office door: even the back of his hand looks old.

A stack of invitations and contractual materials are heaped on his desk. Brian’s desk is a piece of smoky green glass with one drawer adorned by a coral-shaped handle. Each morning, Hector places mail on the corner of Brian’s desk beside the screen, its wafer of light. Brian sits down with his coffee and releases a preliminary daily sigh that signals his immersion in contract review. This is the moment he craves: the vitality of his body stirring, his imagination focused on problems and solutions. He feels hints of the time when he met Avis and fell into a sublime entrancement. He bent over her bedraggled Economics 102 text in the tutoring center and the airy scent of her hair, the dented lower lip of her smile, turned him aphasic: all higher thought abandoned him. She passed her final somehow, then agreed to dinner with him.

Brian checks voice mail: there’s the usual barrage from his ambitious associate Tony Malio giving Brian the rundown on development locations and the status of new project plans. “The Little Haiti Corps people are back again — blowing hot air. Just rescheduled our sitdown with them — again. Probably looking to leverage more buyout. Keep you posted.” Brian jots “Little Haiti,” then shakes open the paper, but his attention keeps floating over the top of the page. Peering down the hall, he spots the patent leather gleam of Javier’s head as he arches over Fernanda’s desk. It’s hard to see through the sliding blebs of reflections in the glass wall — the curve in the glass imparting a whimsy to passersby — but it appears that Fernanda tilts her head — into laughter?

Brian squeezes the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. The newspaper lies on his desk, his other hand flat on the paper. For a moment, it seems that he can feel something insectival rattling around inside his body.

Juban .

This term, which he has heard bandied about Miami for years, now strikes him as somehow distasteful, impertinent even. He can clearly make out Javier’s gestures: the whisk of hand through air as he laughs. Brian imagines Javier sliding his eyes in Brian’s direction, whispering, “Our office Anglo.” The thought causes him to shove himself away from his desk, his legs lifting his weight from his chair. He pushes through his office door. Passing the corridor’s glass wall, he spots the skeleton of the Metro Building going up just two blocks from the Ekers Building, one hastily constructed story at a time. These days, Miami is a skyline of towering developers’ cranes operating in varying degrees of legality. Beyond that, filling the view, floats the striated, Caribbean blue of Biscayne Bay. By noon each day, three-quarters of each window glow like mercury.

As he moves down the glassy corridor, more reflections flicker before him; they glide sideways then and Javier is leaning out, holding open the door to Fernanda’s office. “The man himself! We were just talking about you.”

The air around him shimmers for an instant, like heat rising off blacktop. Brian closes his eyes, opens them, follows Javier into the office. “Here he is — here’s the man,” Javier says again. “Resident legal evil genius.”

Brian gives Javier a thin smile. “Don’t you have units to go sell?”

“You looking to invest?”

He realizes peripherally that Fernanda does not seem to be amused. There’s a pliancy to her shoulders, a pretty girl’s receding from attention. This had been one of Felice’s habits as she began to edge toward young womanhood. Fernanda’s eyes are sable black, so dark they seem to float slightly apart from the rest of her features. She has a funny, petal-shaped mouth — too much humor — or cunning — to be considered a real beauty. He smiles broadly. “I haven’t wanted to bother you while you were settling in — Investor Relations must be in chaos with the remodel.”

“We are.” She reveals a row of even white teeth. “It’s been insane, trying to stay on top of anything — I feel lost without my little nest.”

“Look at her smile,” Javier comments. “She was just being polite to me before. She didn’t give me any kind of smile like that . Where you been keeping that smile?”