Bird of Paradise

Abstract

Bird of Paradise Shannon Sanders (bio) Evening fell and up came the automated glow of the citronella torches. Cassandra had noticed them as she first stepped into her boss's backyard, a dozen earthen obelisks discreetly lining the patio and the outer reaches of the lawn, and registered them as a particularly un-Jon-like aspect of his Takoma Park home. Difficult to imagine the university president—who dressed each day as if for a press conference, fleurs-delis flashing at his jacket cuffs and the school colors shining in the satiny threads of one bow tie from his bottomless reserve—strutting into a Lowe's in search of these garden lights that looked like mud sculptures. Now, though, the darkness-activated torches turned majestic, their steely basins emanating scent and showy little flames. This was Jon: drama, spectacle, pomp and circumstance, and so forth. Presidential! However, while the torches gave off a warmly flattering aura, performing small mercies on the zits and crow's-feet of the faces in the assembled crowd, they didn't provide nearly enough light if one [End Page 674] happened to be looking for someone, which Cassandra was. "Sorry, just a minute," she told the group clustered around her. She touched the arm of the person before her—some young hanger-on from Student Affairs—and the seas parted; she pushed through. She needed her nieces for a photo, quickly. They'd only just been here, gathered with the crowd on the patio to hear Jon's end-ofevening remarks, and then seemed to disperse as Cassandra was swept up in toasts and congratulations. She thought now that she saw one by the koi pond, a high-piled puff of hair above a shadowed young face, a lissome body in black. She headed that way, gathering the skirt of her dress in one hand and clutching her glass of Opus One in the other, careful, so careful not to trip. "Beautiful dress," murmured a woman named Janet as their shoulders grazed each other in passing. Janet would start the upcoming semester as the new dean of diversity and inclusion, once Cassandra ascended to the role of provost. Passing Cassandra the name of her favorite fashion rental service had been Janet's first act of solidarity with her predecessor. "A little birdie helped me find it," said Cassandra, winking, and hustled past. For Jon, for this, Cassandra had chosen a dress called the Zofia by a designer well outside her ken, a magenta cocktail number with a plume of shirring for a shoulder strap. She had done so understanding that it would draw even more than the usual share of Michelle Obama comparisons so many of her colleagues seemed dead set on making, suggestive as it was of last year's inaugural ball gown. That was all right; one could see that as a sort of compliment. The Zofia had been a nod to Jon's preference for sartorial regality. Cassandra had had her hairstylist put in a bronze rinse and take off an extra inch to dilute the Michelle-ness of the overall look, and—it was all fine. But the structure of the dress, its constrictive boning and the flare of tulle at the hip, made hurrying difficult. Especially now that [End Page 675] night had fallen. And by the time she reached the koi pond, the phantom niece had disappeared behind a wall of party guests. Of the eightyish guests, Cassandra supposed that half—including Jon, hence the party, the heavy hors d'oeuvres, the unending cases of upper-midlist French wines—were sincerely happy for her appointment. Twenty-eight or so had openly backed Neil Margolis, the other apparent front-runner. Another nine were utterly goddamn inscrutable, their faces sealed in neutrality all evening as they burbled their congratulations and clinked Cassandra's wineglass. Fine. They had their own aspirational reasons. But of course it left her to twist in the winds of uncertainty, both tonight and once they were all back in the hallowed halls. And so—operating on such a slim margin of confirmed support—how grateful she had been all evening for the true agnostics! The catering staffers...