Page 119 of A Better Place

I turn to Jack. “Okay, you stand here,” I tell him and point to a spot in the middle of the room. “I’ll try to shoo them in your direction with my racket, and you do the same with your stick, only you shove them toward the door. Carly, as soon as they go out the door, shut it, okay?”

“Got it,” Jack says seriously, raising the stick above his head.

“Aye aye, Captain.” She salutes in my direction.

“Oh, good grief. Okay, here we go.” I advance toward one of the birds that’s sitting on the curtain rod above the window. I mean, why wouldn’t it just fly out the unscreened open window just below it? That would be too easy, right? Again, it cocks its head to the side, like its studying my moves. Almost like I’m the one out of place here.

I move forward one step and reach over with the racket and nudge. It flaps its wings dramatically and immediately takes flight. Carly squeaks from the doorway, and Jack makes a noise that sounds very similar, but a much deeper octave. I swing at it lightly so as not to hurt it, encouraging it to go in Jack’s direction. He does the same, and it flies out the door.

Huh. I can’t believe how easy that was.

“VICTORIOUS!” Carly shouts, her arms up wide in a V. She reminds me of Molly Shannon doing her Superstar skit on SNL.

“Babe. There’s two more.”

“So? Celebrate the small successes, baby!” she says excitedly.

I chuckle and look around the room for the other two birds. One is flapping around in the ceiling, hitting it every so often, and the other is… nowhere to be found.

I jump up and swing toward the bird in the ceiling. It flaps and hits against the painted surface a few times. It lands for a brief moment on one of the ceiling-fan blades before flying down closer to my reach. I swing a few times, and it flies toward Jack, and he immediately swings. In a staggering motion, it soars toward the door that Carly still has open, and we somehow manage to get it out just as quickly as the first.

We all look at each other, breathing heavily before glancing around the room for the third suspect, but it’s still nowhere to be seen.

“Where the shit did the other one go?” Carly asks, making Jack guffaw at her use of a curse word in his presence.

I hear a loud noise in the kitchen and jerk my head toward it.

“Oh, heck no!” Jack shouts. “Not in my sanctuary.”

He lets out a loud cry, rushing into the kitchen armed with his stick and ready for battle. Pots and pans clang, grunts are heard. Carly and I stand next to each other watching the doorway, waiting for the commotion to settle.

Jack comes running out of the kitchen, stick still above his head, but this time with what looks like a bird trapped in the net with a clear skillet lid on the other side. “Open the door wider!” he shouts, and I quickly jerk the door open to make room for him.

He throws both the stick and bird out of the doorway, apparently not chancing it coming loose and flying back into the house, and slams the door closed. He turns around, his chest heaving and eyes frantic, the lid still clutched in his hand.

“Holy crap,” he says.

We all fall, literally, into a fit of laughter. All of us crashing together on the floor of Carly’s living room.

“Seriously, babe. Only you,” I tell her, kissing her on the temple while we all continue to laugh and recount what just happened.

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