My head jerked up so fast, the egg whisk flew out of my hand.
It was four days after the mysterious phone call, four days after I’d spilled my guts to Katy and told her everything. Sharing my story had been a relief, but doing so had brought back memories—memories I’d rather have forgotten, and now, I was all nerves. I hadn’t slept for days and I was starting to hear and see things everywhere.
With three months to go before I returned to Goa, my mind was buzzing with mixed feelings of hope, worry, relief, and nerves, tumbling through my mind, day and night. I thought I spotted Ashok at the grocery store, Franky at the gas station, and someone who looked suspiciously like Kristadasa at the bakery parking lot. I shook my head. I had to get rid of these wild imaginings or I'd end up in a straitjacket.
I picked up the whisk, threw it in the sink, and plucked a clean one from the drawer. My hand was shaking. Stop it. I shook my head to clear my mind. I’m working too hard and I’ve become paranoid. What do I have to be so worried about? Sure, Dick was the worst boss in the world, but he’d not let anyone hurt his best baker, would he? I was bringing in good money now.
And Jose, who’d started to date Katy in earnest, was turning out to be tolerable—nice, even. I knew he thought me demanding, but he respected me. He’d help if I’m in trouble, wouldn't he? Maybe, I thought, it was time to stop mistrusting everybody and ask for help for once.
I continued to mix my batter, but my mind was elsewhere, back in the past, remembering Mrs. Rao’s home, those odd moonlit nights, Tim’s crazy escape, Ashok’s sudden arrival, Franky’s call, Preeti’s letter.… My mind got stuck on Preeti’s letter. What did last week’s call mean? What did he mean when he said they were waiting for me? Who? Where?
“Misses Rao!”
I put my whisk down and listened. The sound was coming from the front of the store.
“Raoooo!”
This wasn’t my imagination. This was real.
I tiptoed toward the front trying not to make any noise, glancing around as I went. Did someone come in?
But the front door was locked and I was the only one in the bakery. Katy always locked the front door when I was working alone in the kitchen and everyone had stepped out. It was Friday afternoon and Dick, while telling us he was at a church fund raiser, was really with his brother at the local strip joint having a beer and ogling women swinging naked around poles. And Jose had taken Katy on a lunch date at a fancy restaurant downtown.
No one should have been in the store other than me. And Jim, of course.
I peeked inside Dick’s office.
“Hellooo!” Jim said, cocking his head at me.
“You silly bird. Is it you making all this noise?”
He gave me a condescending sniff and looked away grandly like I wasn’t worth the effort.
He was perched on top of the safe on Dick’s desk. Next to him was a glass tumbler half-filled with dark rum. While I watched in surprise, Jim casually slipped his curved beak into the glass and took a sip. He tipped his head back and swallowed expertly. This was the first time I’d seen a bird drink liquor. Hiccup! Oh, no. I looked at him closely, hoping he wouldn’t get sick.
Right next to the tumbler was a magazine turned upside down. I didn’t have to turn it right-side-up to know what it contained. On the back cover was a platinum blonde holding a leather whip and wearing nothing but tiny black panties. It was one of Dick’s magazines. I looked at the bird sitting nonchalantly next to it, one claw over the woman's breast and the other scratching his head.
I shook my head. This bird was something. Jim seemed to agree. He rustled his feathers proudly and opened his beak. “Rao!” he cried out, nearly splitting my eardrums. I jumped.
“What did you say?”
He gave me an innocent look and blinked.
“Heeellooo,” Jim replied solemnly.
“Where did you learn that name?”
“Dammittohell.”
“Tell me. Where’d you learn that new word, Jim?”
He cocked his head and scratched it with a claw.
“Come on, talk to me, Jim. Please.”
I sighed. I was trying to have a conversation with a parrot. I considered the possibilities. Jim had never met Mrs. Rao, so he must have heard the name from somewhere or someone else. Or had he met her? At a meeting after Katy and I had left for the day, maybe? Someone calling on the telephone? I stared at the bird. He stared back.
“Why can’t you speak intelligently for a change, you silly bird?”
Squawk! he said with contempt in his eyes. He glared at me as only an annoyed parrot can glare. Then, he turned around and preened his feathers. Squawk... squawk...he muttered softly to himself, as if in disdain he had to talk to a lowly human.
The front door banged open, making me jump again. I turned around and stepped out to the front.
“Hi,” Katy said, her face pink from the crisp air outside.
“Hey, you’re early.”
“Is Jim giving you trouble again?”
“You could say that.” She’ll think I’ve gone bonkers if I tell her what I'd heard. “What happened to your lunch date?”
Katy looked crestfallen. “Jose had a business meeting, so we just went to the corner café.”
“Oh, I’m sorry.” She’d been looking forward to the fancy outing and had even dressed up for it.
“Yeah, me too,” Katy said plopping down on her chair in the den, letting out a big sigh.
“Everything all right?”
“Not really.”
“What’s wrong?”
She paused before speaking. “Things have kinda changed.”
“Why do you say that?”
“It was great at the beginning, and then, he started to act kind of like...”
I looked at her expectantly.
“Not very nice,” she said finally. “Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night and he’s gone off.”
“Gone off? Where?”
“I dunno.” She shrugged. “When I ask him, he tells me he’s got insomnia or something and goes for long walks to shake it off, but every time he comes back to bed, he smells of cigarettes and rum. Just like Dick used to. But he never lets me go out at night. I have to stay home alone while he’s out.”
I looked away. Why did sweet, lovely Katy always have to pick the wrong kind of man?
“He got mad at me today for leaving fingerprints on his car.”
“What?”
“Called me useless.”
“Katy!” I looked at her, shocked.
“And yesterday, he told me he’s going to make me work from home because he thinks I'm checking out other guys.”
“What?”
She nodded forlornly. “And that trip to Mexico...”
A series of red flags were going up now, one by one. I crossed my arms and stared at my friend, half-wishing Jose was here so I could tell him what I thought of him.
“What about your trip?”
“He said I’ve got work to do and he doesn’t want to waste time or money on trips.”
“Are you serious?”
“I know,” Katy said, looking down at her shoes.
“He sounds controlling. Totally controlling. This isn’t right.” This was the guy who made a big fuss of calling us “ladies” and even opened doors for us like a gentleman. I knew he had another side.
“He was mean to me at lunch today. Was on his phone the whole time and didn’t even look at me when I left.”
“Oh my goodness,” I said. What I really wanted to say was “Drop him now!” but those words didn’t come out.
“Ever since he started that important project with the Indian company, he’s been acting strange.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Indian company?”
“That’s his twelve thirty meeting.”
“Who’s he talking to?”
“I dunno,” Katy said, shrugging her shoulders. She started to mindlessly straighten her ledger books. “He doesn’t tell me much anymore. Anyway, I guess I’m not important enough to be at the meeting.”
“Why are they meeting at a coffee shop? Don’t customers normally come to our office?”
“Think they had a few meetings already here last week after our shift ended. Saw them on Jose’s phone calendar,” Katy said, looking slightly guilty. “I thought he was seeing someone else at night, so I peeked.”
“I don’t blame you.”
“That’s why I’ve been sleeping at our apartment because he’s working late here.”
I stared at her.
“Come with me,” I said.
“What?” she asked, not getting up from her chair.
“I want you to hear this. Come.”
I walked into Dick’s office with Katy shuffling behind me. Jim was half-asleep on the desk now, the tumbler next to him empty.
“What is it?” Katy asked, looking around the room.
“Shhhh,” I said, putting a finger to my lips.
“Hello, Jim,” I said in a soft voice, stooping in front of the bird.
“Helloo,” said a slurred, sleepy voice.
“Hey Jim, wake up, sweetie, and tell us what you learned recently,” I said.
“Helloooo,” the bird said softly, without opening his eyes.
“That’s good. What else, Jim? What’s the new word you’ve learned?”
“Dammittohell,” Jim said happily to himself.
“Come on, Jim. Try once more. Please.” I looked around, wondering how to prompt his memory. Ply him with more rum? Give him another porn magazine?
“Missus Raooo!” the bird called out.
“Ha!” I said, whipping my head around. “Did you hear that?”
“What?”
“How many people do you know called Mrs. Rao?”
She shook her head.
“Missus Rao,” Jim said again softly, cocking his head and regarding us warily with one open eye.
“See? I know I’m not imagining this,” I said, pointing at the bird. “I don’t know where he’s heard it, but it has to be recent. You know how he likes to repeat his new words? Who knows what goes on here when we’re out making deliveries or after our shift ends?”
Katy’s face was blank.
“Mrs. Rao must have been here for Jim to hear her name. Or someone called her a few times and Jim heard the name.”
Katy’s face looked strange like she was remembering something.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“At lunch today—”
“Yes?”
“Jose took a call. He was talking to his phone, but I was close enough to hear. It was a woman on the other end, a woman with an Indian accent. I didn’t think much of it because he said he was meeting an Indian company, but I remember the photo avatar on the screen now. It was an Indian woman with a short bob haircut and warts on her face. I couldn’t help notice the warts.”
My blood ran cold. “They’ve found me.”