I Hate Everyone, Except You(38)

We bought this apartment to escape the winter doldrums of the Northeast. I need to see blue and green, and birds that aren’t pigeons, I told Damon when attempting, successfully, to convince him we should shuffle some of our money around. We’ll probably sell it soon, now that I’ve renovated and redecorated it. I need a new project.

My hand is curled around the mug that holds my cappuccino. Despite how pretty it is, with its pink-and-white arabesque pattern, the cup reminds me that I am a failure. I designed it along with coordinating plates and bowls for Macy’s, but the line was not reordered. Sales were fine, the buyers said. Not great. There’s no room in the retail world for fine, I’ve discovered. I wonder if I should have tried harder to promote them and give a little shrug.

The caffeine seems to be waking me up, albeit slowly, so I decide to check my social media accounts. Usually someone is out there, somewhere, wanting advice on what shoes to wear to an upcoming wedding or how to break into the world of television. I enjoy answering them. Nothing of any interest on Twitter today, just a few people saying nice things about my recipes on The Chew. I tap the little heart icon to let them know they’ve been heard. On Instagram, I discover some old messages in my inbox. (I didn’t even know I had an Instagram inbox.) There’s one from six months ago that catches my eye, from a fan who’s attached a screen grab of a young, fairly pretty comedian’s post. She, this comedian I’ve never heard of, has taken several images of me on a recent episode and arranged them into a collage and written a caustic caption about what a terrible haircut I have. Many of her followers have chimed in, some with LOLs, others with derisive comments about my face or sexuality.

It stings a bit, considerably less than the things I read about myself online thirteen years ago, when I first began my television career. He’s so ugly he’s so gay he’s not funny he’s got no style. The usual stuff. Over time, skin grows thicker and one learns not to go self-searching. I consider composing a private message to this comedian, informing her that she will never find love and most probably die alone because she’s a shitty human being. But then I realize she’ll figure that out on her own anyway. Best not to waste a moment of this beautiful day fanning online flames.

Perhaps Facebook will be less bitchy. I log in to my fan page and see that overnight I have received dozens of private messages written in Spanish and Portuguese, languages I don’t speak. After copying and pasting their e-mails in Google Translate, I learn these people, mostly young men and women in their twenties, are raving about a show called Amor en Linea or “Love Online.” It’s what executives at Discovery networks have apparently renamed Love at First Swipe, a makeover show I created, executive produced, and starred in for TLC. After one season, the president of TLC told me she chose not to renew the show because it “couldn’t find an audience.” Evidently it has found an audience—in South America, but at this point it is too late. I close my laptop.

Suddenly, a fast-moving blur out the window to my right catches my eye. I quickly turn my head and see a bird flying directly toward me and—bang!—right into the center of the hurricane-proof glass. The suddenness of the sight and sound causes me to jump in my seat, my heart racing a bit. I get up and look out the window. Nothing. Just the same blue skies and green palm treetops.

Maybe the bird survived, the optimist in me thinks. I pace around the apartment for a few minutes before I decide to go downstairs and see for myself. I put on my flip-flops, take the elevator down one flight, and as I walk through the lobby toward the courtyard, I realize that if the bird is not dead, he may be crippled. What would I do if I found him with a broken wing or a shattered beak? I wonder. How horrible it would be to see an innocent creature suffer. Now I hope he is dead.

I search the ground directly below our dining room window. Nothing. No tiny avian carcass. No peeping invalid. Not so much as a weightless feather lying in the mulch. The little guy must have hit his head and shaken it off. I am relieved.

And then I find him, dead and curled up in a philodendron. He is lying in what strikes me as the sweet spot of the plant, where the firm stem meets the floppy leaf—a little hollow like the palm of a cupped hand. He is roughly the size of a sparrow and the gray of a dove. He is not a bird one would look at and say, “Now there is a gorgeous animal.” Yet I find his abject simplicity attractive. He looks like the type who, when alive, may have been content with what little he had. What would that be like, I wonder, to be happy with less, to live simply? I was once, I did once. I think. The past is getting hazy. All I know is that now my little bird has nothing, except what appears to be a comfortable spot to begin his inevitable return to unconstrained atoms, some of which may float to the sky, or in my window.

Back upstairs, I notice a very faint stain on the glass; I assume I left a smudge, perhaps with my hand or forehead, when looking for the bird earlier. But the smudge is on the outside, left behind by the bird, an almost perfect three-inch imprint of itself, head turned to the side, wings spread, eye open. A little bird ghost. I consider taking a picture to show Damon, but decide that the impression is too faint. And for some reason to do so seems like a breach of trust. Evidence of the bird’s stupidity will remain my secret, until a rainstorm washes it away.

I need to leave this place, have some breakfast elsewhere. I decide on a nearby restaurant situated amid cycling and yoga studios and a boot camp–style gym. Some class or other must have recently ended because everyone around me is in perfect physical condition and wearing athletic wear.