Diana Abu-Jaber - Birds of Paradise

To Brian’s gratification, Fernanda’s smile hardens in place. “I know it’s silly.”

“ Ya, what’s silly?” Javier ticks back his head. “Good Cuban girl needs su familia .”

Watching them, Brian feels a jealous pang: it’s the trace of collusion he seems to sense in the air around him — not only between Cubans but between the hip young African-American women buying tabouli and the languid Arab men at the counter at Daily Bread, between the Italian models at South Beach and the Swedish au pair girls sauntering around Cocowalk. Javier says that Brian suffers from Anglo paranoia. So many people seem to know something that they’re not sharing with Brian. Everyone flirting, accents magnetically attracted to accents: everyone dusky, sexy, Spanish-speaking. Brian slips his hand to the back of his neck, trying to collect his wits, wishing for Javier’s dragonfly quickness. “I can understand—” he begins, just as the door flashes and Agathe pokes her head in, a bolt of gray pageboy swings forward.

“Mr. Muir? I’m terribly sorry — someone’s been waiting on line 2?”

Irked, Brian twists toward her, about to bark, So take a message— but Fernanda is listening. He flips a hand in Javier’s direction. “Duty calls.”

“YEAH, HI, UM, THIS IS NIEVES?” a young voice says.

“Excuse me?”

“ Nieves . Stanley’s girlfriend?”

There’s a minor ringing in his ears. “Um. I–I don’t—” He plunks back into his office chair. “I’m sorry— who is this?”

“Oh.” There’s a long pause. Then: “Did he not tell you about me?”

“I don’t know.” Brian places one hand on his desk. “He might have. What can I do for you?”

“It’s concerning — well — I just thought — I just wanted to make contact, you know? Only you don’t know about me. So, okay. This is weird now.”

“Excuse me, I—” He pats his keyboard very lightly with his open hand. Over his shoulder there are dark files of clouds reflected in the interior glass wall; it looks as if he is caught between cloud banks. “Is there something I can help you with?”

“I think I goofed here.”

Another pause. This time he can hear a swipe like a hand being squashed over the receiver, muffled voices in the background. “Hey — hello — is Stanley there?” He raises his voice. “I’d like to speak to my son.”

A muffled squeak. “I’m sorry — what?”

“I want to speak to Stanley.”

“Ha — me too.” Her voice is lightly serrated. “I can’t believe he — well, I’m embarrassed now. I’m sorry for troubling you.”

“That’s all right, dear. Why don’t you have Stan call me when he gets in?”

There’s a pause in which she seems to be weighing her answer. “Look, it’s — everything’s okay,” she says at last. “We’ll get back to you.” Then she hangs up.

BRIAN’S CALLS TO STANLEY’S cell and office number go unanswered; he leaves messages at both: Call your father . Stanley is a bit of a local celebrity: the girl was probably some sort of crank. Brian sits back and stares at the bay that fills his windows. He thinks of a time, an hour like a silver-blue membrane, that covered him and his infant son, tucked into the crook of his arm, sitting in the creaking leather rocker. They were still in Ithaca and Stanley was six months old when Avis went back to work at the Demitasse Pâtisserie. She had to be at work each morning by 4:30, so Brian took over the early feedings with Stanley, then dropped him at day care on the way to his own job. Those recalled mornings possess a quality of translucence: Stanley’s bare shoulders, his curved fingers touching Brian’s lips, his gray eyes fixed on his father over the curve of the bottle. They breathed together into the slow drinking, Stanley’s body flung across Brian’s legs, his tiny arm flung back, his hand rhythmically crushing and releasing a lock of his own hair. Brian memorized the globe of his son’s forehead, the silk of his eyebrows, the frog-crouch of his legs. Avis was always bringing work home: their counters, refrigerator, and freezer were filled with boxes of danishes, layer cakes, and cookies, the kitchen was crowded with cake pans and rollers and an enormous, hunched-over Hobart; the whole house had the pink scent of sugar. He read to Stanley (reaching for the book with groping, swimmer’s fingers) about a witch who baked a gingerbread house to lure children. Brian felt as if he and Stanley were the children in this story and Avis the good witch who baked the house they all lived in.

Brian couldn’t imagine that things would ever be otherwise. But then somehow he lost his job. Dan, one of the partners at the firm in Syracuse, kindly made a few calls on his behalf, and Brian was able to tell Avis he’d been made a better offer, pure opportunity — perfect for their growing family. It was the truth: he just didn’t tell her that he’d been “laid off.” Didn’t mention that Dan had first expressed the feeling during an early performance review that Brian wasn’t sufficiently “tuned in” to their office “culture.” With her baker’s hours and physical work, she slept instantly and deeply and had no idea that Brian no longer slept well at night, his dreams laced with shreds of morning meetings, the dread of unmanageable research, massive client folders, the creak of his hated office chair. He’d finally drop off around two each night, then drag himself stupefied and shivering from the bed when the alarm went off at five.

Fortunately, business at Parkhurst, Irvington & Benstock was exploding, the WSJ filled with their ads luring land investors to South Florida. Back then, Miami seemed to drowse in a heat stupor; the highways were wide, gray, and quiet. The Everglades encroached on the roads — Brian could smell the swamp air and sulfurous mangroves — and every winter, black motes of vultures spun high overhead like genies. The city was lonely then, populated mostly by old folks. God’s waiting room. Yet, to his surprise, Brian loved the sun-soaked landscape.

His father, a litigation expert, had told Brian he was a fool to take the job — that he was trading earning potential for the security of a retainer. “You’ll be a kept man,” he insisted. “You’re too young to be playing it so safe. Hang up a shingle, take divorces. A little malpractice — just to get going. You’ll bag ten times as much inside of two years and have all the security you please. It’s billable hours, Bry, that’s all it comes down to. The hours.”—his father scratched at the loose skin under his neck—“What’s in Miami? The dying and the dead.”

Still, Parkhurst offered Brian enough that Avis could afford to start her at-home business. PI&B were her first clients: she supplied the Austrian chef at their executive dining hall with linzer tortes, lebkuchen, strudel, Black Forest cakes. Gradually other corporations and local businesses began to request her goods for retreats, conferences, and boardroom lunches. At the same time, Brian found he enjoyed working for a big developer. They hired brilliant architects and contractors; their buildings became part of the sharp, pale skyline. Brian believed he and Avis were helping to build an actual city — food and shelter — inside and outside. Unlike New York or Boston, Miami was a place you could go to and really create something new. Best of all, its boom-or-bust energy, a penchant for dreaming: a dream of a city in a dream of a state.

Avis hired assistants; they hosted dinner parties, bought a 34-foot Sea Ray, a twelfth-floor getaway on Marco Island. There were season tickets, box tickets: they joined the board of the Fairchild Garden; contributed to the Deering Estate.

Avis and Brian had lived in Miami for about ten years when the father of one of Stanley’s classmates invited Brian to an art opening. Brian wondered if there was something prohibitive in the nature of practicing law — he found it difficult and frequently stressful to connect with other men — at least to the point of real friendship. But there was something easy and agreeable about Albert. A publicity rep for the Miami Symphony, he was the sort of cultivated person Brian had tried to emulate as a student. Albert talked about opera and dance and “performance.” He saw hidden meanings in films and books — what he called the “layers” in things; he brought up the uses of symbolism in theater and music.