The Book of Fate - Brad Meltzer [69]
Crashing against the brown Formica walls of the elevator, I jab the button for the fifth floor and smash the Door Close button like a punching bag. The elevator door’s still open. In the hallway, a broken fluorescent light sizzles at half-power, adding a yellow, mucusy pallor to the floor and walls. I close my eyes for some quick calm, but as I open them, the world goes black-and-white, my own personal newsreel. In the distance, a woman screams in C minor as Boyle’s ambulance doors bite shut. No, that’s not . . . I blink again and I’m back. There’s no one screaming. As the door eventually rumbles shut, I touch my ear as my hand shakes uncontrollably. C’mon, Wes . . . hold it together . . .
Pressing my back into the corner to keep myself upright, I grit my teeth to slow my breathing. The elevator rises with a lurch, and I focus on the indicator lights. Second floor . . . third floor . . .
By the time I step out on the fifth floor, beads of sweat ski down across my rib cage. Leaving nothing to chance, I check the left side of the hallway before darting out and heading right.
I run for apartment 527, ram my key in the lock, and twist the knob as fast as I can. Inside, I flick on every light I can find . . . the entryway . . . the living room . . . the lamp on the end table . . . I even double back to do the hall closet. No . . . better to leave it off. I flick it on, then off. On, then off. On, then off. Stop . . . Stepping backward and crashing into the wall, I shut my eyes, lower my head, and whisper to myself. “Thank you, God, for keeping my family safe . . .” Stop . . . “For keeping me safe, and the President safe . . .” Find a focal point, I tell myself, hearing the counselor’s voice in my head. “. . . for me and . . .” Find a focal point.
Pounding myself in the ear, I stumble around, almost tripping over the ottoman from my parents’ old leather sectional sofa in the living room. Find her. Sprinting up the hallway that leads to the back half of the apartment, I run past the flea market picnic bench we put in our dining room, past Rogo’s room with the stack of unread newspapers outside the door, past the hallway’s life-size cutout of President Manning with a hand-drawn word balloon on his head that says I don’t remember how to drive, but I lovey that downwithtickets.com! and eventually make a sharp right into my bedroom.
Tripping over a pile of dress shirts on the floor, I race for the square metal birdcage that sits atop my dresser. As the door slams into the wall, Lolo pulls back, wildly flapping her beige wings and bobbing her yellow head from side to side. Watching her reaction, I catch myself and quickly find my calm. Lolo does the same, lowering her wings and grinding her beak. Her head sways slowly as I catch my breath. Just seeing her, just the sight . . .
“Hi, Melissa—whattya doin’?” my cinnamon cockatiel asks. She’s got a bright orange circle on each cheek and a pointy yellow crest on her head that curves forward like a feathery tidal wave. “Melissa, whattya doin’?”
The joke’s too old to make me laugh—Lolo’s been calling me by her old owner’s name for almost seven years—but the counselor was right. Focal points are good. Though familiar voices are even better.
“Crap away,” I tell Lolo, who for some reason was trained to poop on command.
True to form, three tiny runny droppings splatter through the bottom of the cage onto the waiting newsprint, which I quickly replace, along with fresh food and water.
The bird was my dad’s idea. It was six months after the accident,