Serious Moonlight(71)

“It is?” Jiji said, looking at me with surprise.

Sure. Why not? No one even gave me a chance to answer, so I dodged that bullet.

When we left the dining room, I thought Daniel might be taking me up to his bedroom so we could talk. Next thing I knew, he was urging me out the kitchen door and we were both slipping back into our shoes.

“Sorry about all that,” he murmured after we trekked through the workshop and headed outside. “I knew if we didn’t get out now, we’d be stuck there for hours.”

“Where are we going?”

“I’m house-sitting for a retired couple across the quad here. I’ve been sleeping over there and taking care of their birds while they’re in California, visiting their daughter. It’s this way. Come on.”

He led me across the grassy quad to a one-story home painted a strange, vivid shade of green. Then he unlocked the side door and off came the shoes again.

“Is this a Japanese thing or an Aoki thing?” I asked.

“Both. Shoes are filthy, Birdie. Why would you track dirt inside your own home—and dog shit and bacteria and everything else you’ve been carting around on the soles of your shoes? Plus, when you take off your shoes, you tell your mind that you’re entering a safe space. Leave all the stressful, negative shit you’ve accumulated outside.”

I hadn’t thought of it that way, but it made sense. I took off my shoes again, and then we set them inside the door and stepped into the house.

My mouth dropped open.

This house wasn’t just green on the outside; it was green everywhere. Green kitchen, where we stood. Appliances, counters, and avocado motif wallpaper. Green plants in every window. Green forest mural painted on the walls of the living room. Green shag carpet. Green jeweled lamps. And a bookshelf filled with spines of green books.

“What is happening?” I whispered.

Daniel closed the door behind us and laughed. “Welcome to Green Gables. It’s perpetually stuck in 1980.”

A green peninsula counter ringed with barstools separated the kitchen from a big, open living space. Daniel flipped on the lights, and it made the green glare so much worse. And that’s when the birds began chirping.

“Meet Dipper, Nipper, Chipper, and Kipper,” Daniel said, leading me to a wall of elaborate birdcages with four green parrots inside.

“Do they talk?”

“Not as much as you’d hope. This one says ‘Dottie’ sometimes—that’s her owner. Dottie and Roman. That’s them,” he said, pointing to a photograph of a couple in their fifties with armfuls of birds. “They’re super kooky and really nice.”

I glanced at the giant old TV in the corner and a stereo that looked as if it had been manufactured as a prop for a cheesy science fiction movie. “Who would want to break in?”

“Only someone who would realize the error of their ways and immediately run right back out. But Dottie and Roman knew I needed a break from my family, so they convinced my mom to let me sleep here until they get back in a couple of weeks. The first few nights, I had nightmares about Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, only all the candy was green.”

A laptop sat on a coffee table in front of a giant green couch scattered with blankets and a pillow. Clothes were piled in a chair and on the floor. Daniel hurriedly moved the blankets to the far side of the couch. “Wasn’t expecting company,” he said, apologizing. “Here. Have a seat.”

Holding my purse in my lap, I sank into the funky sofa. And sank and sank . . . “Whoa.” I tried to pull myself up, and the springs bounced. “It’s like a playground ride.”

He laughed. “Yeah, it’s got some mean spring to it. There’s a foldout bed inside, but it smells like mildew and has a metal bar under the mattress that’s a backbreaker.”

I petted the velveteen fabric. “Would you call this shade of green Puke or Infection?”

“I think it’s more of a Rotting Dill Pickle,” he said, sitting next to me. Not close. Definitely putting some safe space between us. “So-o-o. You wanted to talk?”

Did I? I wasn’t so sure anymore. All of this had drained my bravery levels. And the random parrot chirps were making me anxious. “How do you sleep with all that racket?”

“That’s what you wanted to talk about?”

“No.” It was hard to look at his face, but that was okay, because best I could tell from stolen glances, he wasn’t exactly looking at me, either. “I . . . uh . . . had some time to think about everything you said. I’ve tried to be honest with myself. It’s not as if I don’t have any doubts or worries about it, because I do. And I’ve been trying to sort them all out.”

“Okay,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest. “Let’s talk about them.”

“Remember when you texted me that Truth or Lie question? You asked if we’d still be together if we hadn’t gone to your car that first night.”

“Yes.”

“And when we were on our stakeout in the park . . . you said it could have been better between us.”

“I did say that, yes.”

“Well, I was thinking about it. We’ll never know about the first thing. But I’ve been thinking that you’re right about the do-over.” I fumbled around in my purse and gingerly set the box of condoms on the coffee table as if it might explode. And then, because I was nervous, I suppose, I couldn’t stop my mouth from running. “At first I wasn’t sure if we should commit to anything if we weren’t sure. Like, what if we aren’t . . . compatible that way? Then what do we do? Go back to being friends? Never speak again? But then I realized that we didn’t have to wonder.” I exhaled a long breath.