Asking After Margaret

She would have to keep it, she supposed. It wouldn’t look good if she got rid of the bird. It wasn’t the sort of gift easily forgotten. It was the sort of thing that stuck on a base level. For weeks after, acquaintances called up with other pretenses when all they really wanted to know was how Margaret was doing. Not she, Nancy, the one-time master of the Finalon house, now servant to a cockatoo's surprisingly extensive list of wants and needs. 

The preening white bird had been named in advance, so from the start, she was an unknown. A stranger presented smack dab in the center of the once smoothly-running operation of Nancy's life. The gift-giving was nearly over when Gene had wheeled a brass and lofty birdcage to the center of the room. He parked the cage just at the hem of Nancy’s gown. He flicked off the gold embroidered sheet that had been hiding the occupant from view.  

“And this is Margaret,” he’d said.

After a moment’s confusion and focus reorganized, the crowd erupted. 

“Margaret, oh how charming!”

“That’s, that’s a parakeet is it?”

“God no, of course it’s a cockatoo.”

“A cockatoo!”

“What a hoot!”

“What a tweet, you mean.” 

That line pushed the party over the edge. It seemed to Nancy that there wasn’t a soul there who wasn’t amused by the cockatoo. Suddenly Nancy felt quite mistrustful. Had she been so horrible this year? She racked catalogs of memory while all she knew in their finest Christmas attire flounced and sparkled with chatter. The champagne supply was unyielding, and it kept the people bobbing around the great hall like tops.  

Nancy had faltered after first meeting Margaret’s inky eyes. Margaret blinked at Nancy, her small head turning to various degrees. Nancy’s smile wobbled. She spent moments regaining her composure and searching for the right expression. Most people were beyond such subtle noticings. The room was not sober. They were jovial, the society friends, neighbors and acquaintances. Anyone and their mothers, brothers and cousins were invited to the holiday party Nancy had come to host traditionally each year.

Yet, Nancy knew a response to the gift was required from her. It was her gift after all. Gene stood near the cage, his accountant's face bright and expectant. God, had he turned 20 this year or the last? 

“Thank you, Gene, my- I’m afraid to say I don’t know the first thing about taking care of birds.”

“That’s what the second part of your gift is for.” Gene didn’t miss a beat. From a shelf under the birdcage he extracted a book-shaped parcel tied with a string. 

Nancy glared sharp thin blades at him. She took it out of his hands. They both knew she couldn’t risk looking less than gracious at such a handsome and exotic offering. Margaret, her ego, her plumage, her baggage, all of it now her charge. All public knowledge. 

Her phone rang off the hook for the next few days. The amusement over Margaret had not subsided. If anything, it seemed to be building in fervor.  

“Now tell me darling, is it true that birds shit over 100 times a day? Do you pay someone Or do you-“ A muffled giggle. “Clean it yourself?”

One person who did not once ask after Margaret was Gene. He was quiet for his part in the thereafter, seemingly satisfied with dropping the feathery bomb into the community. His job had been to ensure enough people took notice, and walk away.  Clever, clever boy. Nancy could just picture the smirk on his face as he thought about how he was responsible for the screeches and squawks that now ran through the lengths of a once peaceful home. 

She’d taken care not to have children. Richard had died in service at 34 and they hadn’t gotten around to having kids. Nancy kept herself active in society work, and projected enough stability to keep questions at bay. She was resigned to what was generally perceived by her community as respectful mourning. She didn’t complain. Any interloping by acquaintances or suggestions that she move on were softly and swiftly shot down. 

Of all people, Gene had the most to gain by needling her. Theirs was a misunderstanding that she should have taken more effort to squash. She’d let enough time go by to feel that it was small enough to be swept away and ignored. Those were thin hopes then, and Nancy knew she’d been foolish to believe them. Not since he’d given her Margaret and she had a rather loud and difficult charge to tend to. 

Sometimes Nancy would catch herself in the doorway, eyes scrunched and piercing as she watched Margaret with unspoken fury. She knew the list of things she hated about Margaret by heart and flitted through them when the poo was especially much or Margaret woke her up for the second or third time in a night. She knew it wasn’t healthy, but the diatribe made it easier to get through whatever she needed to do for Margaret.  

It was not a smooth settling. Margaret demanded more of Nancy than any person ever had. She was not merely a charming bird. She was complicated and intelligent. Nancy learned quickly that if Margaret were displeased, she would let Nancy know. First, it was her cage being too small. Then it was the type of food she was fed, and it eventually boiled down to Margaret screaming her head off if Nancy so much as looked at her incorrectly. 

Cockatoos need to spend at least 4 hours a day with their owner. 

This was the first point addressed in the book Gene had gotten her and it was certainly the hardest to swallow. Margaret wasn’t a pet she could tuck in a fashionable corner of the house. Oh no, she couldn’t have been a hamster or a fish. Margaret was a large noisy yet charming bird whose loss would be amiss in the community. She was nearly the size of a toddler. She couldn’t be killed off without suspicion.  

Often Nancy dreamed of drugging the bird, just in the hopes of a full night’s rest. No matter where she slept in her two-story house, and where she placed Margaret, Nancy could always hear her. Either through walls, vents, floors, ceilings. No nook or cranny could keep her far enough away from Margaret.

She refused to drug herself and would not be overtaken by the urge to drink more than one glass of wine or sherry at a go. Not Stonewall Nancy Finalon. She could not be shook. But the problem was, that was all past tense now. She had been shook. Anyone could see it in her face, the shadows that had become more challenging to conceal. 

Nancy was well-used to only taking care of herself. She hated Gene for his gift. No one in good conscience should ever give anyone a live animal as a surprise. It was inhumane. Gene didn’t care at all for the fate of the bird. Nancy thought of him with revulsion in his forest green, knitted sweater and shiny brown shoes. How he’d humiliated her. 

And still, the Margaret calls were coming. Damned Gene and his damned joke! She couldn’t be at all curt or dissatisfied when discussing Margaret, no nothing that would imply that anything was wrong. This was what he considered proper punishment for firing her father? It was absurd. So she had broken a long-standing partnership between families- times changed! She was certain this wasn’t the only place in the world to get an accounting job. But oh how personally Gene had taken it. How personally she hadn’t known prior to Christmas.

“Dandy Miss Margaret, Dandy Miss Margaret.” 

Margaret often repeated her own pet name when the silence felt too oppressive. Never Dandy Miss Nancy, no these days it was Dandy Miss Margaret and her special assistant. It had been a month since Margaret moved in. Nancy had lapsed on most of her beauty appointments. More than once she’d cried at night from loss of sleep.  

“Fancy Nancy, Fancy Nancy.” Margaret said from her perch, moving on to a new subject.

Nancy sat up in the armchair she’d been resting on. This was new. Nancy stared at Margaret and Margaret stared back.  

Two black blinking eyes on two brown. 

The voicemails played in Nancy’s mind. Oh, and Margaret what did she think of it? How is she, dear? and Don’t you dare forget to bring Miss Margaret to my pool party this Friday! Margaret’s social schedule was demanding. It could have been a blessing had Nancy not been the one who had to escort her to all these events. For in spite of what seemed a mutual dislike, Nancy and Margaret were bonded as soon as Gene placed the cage at her feet. Margaret recognized that she, Nancy Finalon, this sharp-looking creature before her was to be her new provider.   

Nancy grinned with abandon. I’ve got your number missy. You can’t read my thoughts, you’re just a damned bird.

She did it. She reached out and grabbed her from her perch. Nancy lobbied with Margaret’s flummoxing body. She fumbled with the bird clumsily. Her slippers staggered over polished wood floors. Black talons lashed out and left jags and zig marks on her arms, but Nancy bore the beating storm of wings and forced her enemy out of the room and into the open air. Onto the patio they wrestled, engaged with combative chaotic energy. 

“GET OUT, GET OUT!” Nancy yelled hoarsely. She let Margaret beat her some, but the devil was with Nancy. In her very joints burned a wrathful new blood. She would not put up with this, not a second longer would this beast tether her to its being. Not Margaret’s demands, or the endless streams of shit coming from her mouth and under her tail. Nancy was finished. She’d reached a new level of being. Margaret needed to know just how unwanted she was, and had always been. Nancy pinched and pecked at Margaret with her fingers as she continued to shriek. “GET OUT, GET OUT!”

Margaret kicked and thrashed at her mistress and finally twisted free. The full waning moon turned on the scene. Margaret's pearly form rising and then shrinking against the night sky. Nancy breathed heavily. The fists at her sides held bent white feathers. She smiled. There would be no more asking after Margaret.