Free We’ll Always Have Parrots by Donna Andrews Page A

was talking to moved away and she reached out mechanically to take it.
    Maybe it was stupid, but I held the program out of reach until she finally looked up.
    “Oh, hello….” she said.
    “Meg,” I said. “You’ve seen me often enough to know my name by now. At least before the cocktail hour.”
    A faint crease appeared in her forehead. Anger? Alarm? I didn’t care which. Maybe just irritation at the monkey who’d used a trailing vine to drop down nearly level with our heads, and kept looking back and forth between us, rapt by our encounter.
    “What do you want?” the QB asked. Not openly hostile. Just cold.
    “Sign this,” I said, slapping the program down on the table in front of her. “I don’t know why you wouldn’t sign it for my nephew just now, and I don’t care. If you have some problem with Maggie West being at the convention, take it out on the organizers, not on a child.”
    She was looking at me intently now, as if seeing me for the first time. And she was taking a deep breath and drawing herself up for a tirade. I ought to know the signs—I’d seen her do the same stunt on every other episode of the show and countless times in person when hapless people crossed her. The monkey hissed, as if warning that danger approached.
    “Stow it,” I said. “If you start shouting at me, I’ll shout louder, and you may not like some of the things I’ll say, but I’m sure everyone else will be fascinated.”
    I wasn’t sure exactly what I would have shouted if she’d called my bluff, but it’s easy to blackmail the guilty. To my relief, she glanced over at the fans in line, and then bent her head and signed.
    “You don’t want me as an enemy,” she said, handing the program back.
    “No, I don’t want anything to do with you at all,” I agreed. “I’d be just as happy not to see you for the rest of the convention. Though you’ll see me, if you mistreat another child the way you did my nephew.”
    I checked to make sure she’d really signed, and not just written something rude in Eric’s program. No, there it was; Tamerlaine Wynncliffe-Jones. More legible than usual.
    “You’ll regret this,” she said.
    “What are you going to do?” I said. “Fire Michael? Go ahead, if you want to see your stupid show go down the tubes.”
    She jerked as if I’d struck her, and I smiled, and I’m not sure what would have happened next if the monkey hadn’t startled us both by beginning to shriek loudly, baring its teeth in what was obviously a gesture of aggression.
    Though when you come right down to it, so was my insincere smile. Points to the monkey for honesty, I thought, as I turned on my heels and walked out.
    Behind me, I could hear someone trying to shoo the monkey away, and then the QB’s voice.
    “I’m tired now, Nate. I’m afraid I’ll have to cut this short.”
    None of the people in line seemed upset that the QB was leaving before signing their programs. In fact, some looked relieved.
    Mission accomplished, I decided to detour through the green room for a snack.
    I found Michael there, sitting in a corner with Francis, his agent. Michael looked stern. Francis looked unhappy. Good. Michael needed to put some backbone into Francis. Or better yet, get a new agent. A good agent. He’d had a very good agent, back in his struggling, soap opera days, but unfortunately about the time Michael left acting for academia, she’d given up agenting to open a trendy restaurant. So when Walker recommended Michael for the part on Porfiria, Michael had started working with Walker’s agent, Francis. Who had been a disaster.
    Michael smiled when he saw me, and beckoned me over to their table.
    “I mean it,” he was saying, as I came within earshot. “You’re the one who got me into this. If you can’t fix it, I’ll find someone who can.”
    “I’ll try,” Francis said, standing up hastily when he saw me. “I really will.”
    Michael was shaking his head as I took Francis’s chair. I could