Diz frowns. “Do you think we need The Nose?”

“I think we might need The Nose, and I think better safe than sorry.”

“Sure, but if we don’t end up using her and she has to” — we’re at the door to Starbucks, so Diz lowers his voice — “you know. It’s not good.”

“Hey, I don’t love telling her to prep if we don’t know for sure we’re going to need her either, but, you know, that’s the job, she knows that.”

“She knows that, it’s explaining it to Jenny that’s the issue.”

“See, but this is where you run into problems, because you ‘explain it’ to Jenny instead of just telling her to do it.”

“No, that’s where you run into problems, because you tell Jenny to do it and she gets all pissed off.”

“Noooo, that’s where Jenny runs into problems, because I don’t give a shit if Jenny gets all pissed off, fuck her in the ear. Split a scone?”

“Sure.”

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“What?”

“Nothing! Except don’t pretend you don’t care — you just did that thing with your neck.”

“I did not do that thing with — I don’t have a thing with my neck, and anyway, if Jenny wants to get all over-involved and think she’s that, that guy, from Rocky, his friend with the hat –”

“See, this is what I’m talking about.” Diz hands me the coffee tray and goes ahead to hold the door. “You’re like, I don’t care Jenny whatever, but then you’re calling her Burt Young and slamming doors –”

“She thinks she’s Burt Young.”

“How come you always tell me to call, then?”

“Because –”

“And how come you hover over me while I’m talking to her, making gestures to tell her to –”

“I don’t hover.”

“What happened the last time I called over there.”

“You called and I, I, I asked how it went! What, now I’m not allowed to ask –”

“You asked how it went? You asked if I told her to fuck off!”

“Oh, please.”

“And then you asked why I didn’t tell her to fuck off.”

“Well, but — okay.”

“So, okay, thank you, this is my point!”

“But can I say something? Because that time? You should have told her to fuck off.”

“And that time was different from all the other times –”

“Diz. Come on. She used the royal ‘we.’ That was bullshit and you agreed with me, don’t deny it.”

“All right, but –”

“And she used the word ‘fragile.’ ‘We’re feeling fragile today,’ that’s what she said. And you said –”

“Ladies and gentlemen, this is ‘not caring.'”

“And you said, you came into the outer office and you said, Jenny just told me that ‘we’re feeling fragile today,’ what do you want me to tell her, and I said –”

“Remembers the whole conversation, but doesn’t care, no sirree.”

“And I said, are you fucking kidding me, that’s bullshit, and you said, I know, seriously –”

“But it’s just Jenny, so who cares!”

“I care! She said ‘we’re feeling fragile today’! That is obnoxious!”

“But who cares?”

“But it’s obnoxious!”

“But who — hey, did you come out the alley?”

We’re at the head of the alley, the one the passage out of my office leads out onto.

“No, I went out the bar, like always. Why, what?”

“Oh, nothing, I just thought I saw the door was open.”

The door is closed, though, so we’re about to keep walking around the corner and go back in through the bar, but just as I’m passing beyond the alley, I see it out of the corner of my eye.

A feather. A feather is eddying in an air current, right around knee level.

I grab Diz’s arm and point to the feather.

“What? Oh, that feather?”

“‘Oh, that feather’? ‘OH, THAT FEATHER’?”

“It’s probably a pigeon feather.”

I yank Diz out to the curb and point to where Gio’s truck is parked.

“What is that, Diz.”

“It appears to be Gio’s truck.”

“That is correct. AND WHAT DO YOU SEE IN THE TRUCK, DIZ?”

“I don’t see anyth– okay, I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation.”

“Well, you can give it to Gio’s mama because he is a DEAD MAN.”

I hand Diz my coffee and sprint around the corner, dodging the mailman, and run through the bar. As I’m running by, Andy calls out, “Shell, slow down, we just mopped in here!” and I slip-slide to the door of the outer office and burst in. Marie is standing by the printer, humming to herself.

“Oh, you’re back. Gio’s here — did something happen? You’re all — frizzy.”

“Did Gio come in through the front?”

“No, through the alley. Why?”

“I — nothing. Continue printing.”

I march up to the door of my office and press my ear to it. I don’t know whether I want to hear a chorus of boks, so that I have an excuse to kill Gio, or whether I don’t want to hear it so I don’t have to deal with it, but in any case, I don’t hear anything, so I open the door as abruptly as possible, hoping to catch him in the act of — I don’t even know. Some sort of poultry concealment.

Wouldn’t you know, he’s fussing with the rug in front of my desk, and he jerks up straight and basically starts nervous-sweating in verbal form.

“Shelley! How’s it goin’! You know, you had a little rumple here, in the rug, you know. So I thought I’d straighten it out for you. So, how’s it goin’!”

I don’t say anything, I just walk over to Gio and wave him off of the edge of the rug.

“I straightened it out already, Shelley! I straightened it for you. See? How it’s all straightened out now?”

I start rolling up the rug to get to the trapdoor. I am so angry that the blood roaring through my ears is interfering with my ability to form words.

“It’s straightened out. Now.”

The rug is rolled up. I crouch over the trapdoor and I flip up the ring, and I look at Gio. Gio’s lower lip begins to tremble. I flex my hand. Gio snuffles. I bend my knees and yank up on the ring.

Hens come pouring up the flight of stairs and into my office, dozens of them, tripping over each other, hopping around, boiling around my feet and past me to my desk and under my chair and into every corner, and as Gio bursts into operatic tears, the last chicken hops out of the dark stairwell, shakes itself violently, and stomps off, leaving a puff of hen dander in its wake. My entire office is under a low-lying cloud of irritated live poultry.

“Ohhhhhh it’s my truck, the radiator, it’s broken, I couldn’t leeeeeeeave them out there!”

Diz opens the door just then, then quickly slams it, then opens it again and squeezes into the office and shuts the door behind him. Gio is still boo-hooing, only now he’s picked up Bella and is drying off his face with one of her wings; I can tell it’s Bella because she has a little red sash on that says “Bella” on it. Diz folds his arms and puts one hand over his mouth so he can fight off giggles while appearing to be deep in thought.

“They get overheeeeeeated!” Gio snorks back some snot.

On every flat surface in my office, there is a chicken, except where there is a Gio crying or a Diz trying not to laugh, and all of a sudden the blood drains out of my ears, because I’ve done this to myself. I could have just pretended Gio really was straightening the rug; I could have just pretended I didn’t know that he’d stuffed his avian regiment into the stairwell. But no, I opened the trapdoor and flooded my office with hens, and it can’t be undone, so now I have to move on to the next thing.

I walk around my desk, evict a hen from my chair, and open the petty cash drawer.

“Gio, hand Bella to Diz.”

I count out five hundred dollars and hold it out to him.

“Take this. Go to Spatoia’s, get your radiator fixed.”

Gio stands, frozen, clinging to Bella, looking back and forth between me and Diz. I flap the money a little. Diz looks at me, arches a brow, and holds out his arms for Bella.

“Gio. Go on.”

Finally Gio hands Bella to Diz, and then he leaps forward and snatches the money and runs out of the office and slams the door behind him and it’s just me and Diz and half a hundred hens.

Oh, and the intercom.

“Shelley, Ally Logan’s here.”

Diz raises his other brow at me.

“Find the file, would you, Diz? I need to pee.”

I walk into the little bathroom off my office and close the door, and for a minute I just lean against the door in the dark. A little chirring noise lets me know that there are hens in the bathroom also, and that if I want to pee, I will have to remove a hen from the back of the toilet, and if I want to wash my hands afterwards, I will have to remove another hen from the sink, and although I can’t see anything, I can sense a hen preparing to roost on my foot. I turn the light on, and sure enough — hen on the john, hen in the sink, hen sleepily eyeing my boot.

I pick up the toilet hen and sit down with her in my lap. She settles right down on my legs. She’s very pretty, actually, white and downy and clean-looking, and she smells like a day in the country. I just sit and pet the hen for a few minutes and try to think.

“Do you guys think you can just chill out until Gio comes back?” I ask her. “Can you be nice well-behaved little hens for a while? Not peck anything? Or poo everywhere?”

“Birrrrok,” the hen says. “Bik.”

“Fair enough. Down you go, then.”

I put the hen down, square my shoulders, and step out of the bathroom to find Diz still standing by the door with Bella under one arm and the McKittrick file in his other hand.

“Everything okay?”

“I’ve spoken to one of the hens, and I think we have an understanding.”

Diz blinks. I nudge another hen out of my chair.

“You have an –”

“I know. Just go with it.” I reach under a hen and slap the intercom button. “Marie? Send her in.”

“In here? Where’s she going to sit?”

“Good point. Let’s de-hen the sofa.”

We’re bucket-brigading hens from the office couch onto the top of a bookshelf when the door opens behind us, and as I hand a roaster off to Diz and turn around, ready to start apologizing profusely and swearing to our eminent professionalism, Ally Logan punts a hen from the doorway into the supply closet and says, “I hope someone brought slaw.”

A little boink! noise comes from the direction of Diz, and either love at first sight really does make a sound or I’ve finally lost my mind.

July 5, 2004

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