My phone rings while I am out across the property, shoveling pathways in the snow through the chicken run. The chickens do not enjoy walking through snow, and will all just stand inside the doorway to their coop for the entire day if they don’t have a trail dug for them to follow. I suppose if my feet were a half an inch thick, I wouldn’t want to be walking through a foot and a half of snow, either.
I pull off one of my gloves and take my phone out of my pocket. “Rivi,” I say when I answer it.
“So I’m out here,” Rivi says, dropping immediately into the middle of a conversation without wasting time on a greeting, “and you know what the weather’s like today.”
“I have no idea,” I say. “I’m on the other side of the country, remember?”
“Jesus, Sebastian. Put a pin in an app or something. This is the 20th century, not the 16th.”
“21st century,” I tell her.
“Don’t be a reply guy. Anyway, it’s sixty-five and sunny, since you obviously don’t care enough to keep track.”
“I’m a beast.”
“It’s true, you absolutely are. So it’s sixty-five and sunny,” she repeats, “and I’m in the park right now by the Arboretum.”
“I’m putting you on speaker and sticking you in my shirt pocket,” I tell her. “It’s 24 degrees here and about to snow, and I’m shoveling paths for the chickens.”
“Mr. Green Jeans,” she says. “Stop talking and listen to me. It’s SIXTY-FIVE and SUNNY and I’m in the park by the Arboretum.”
“Yes, I’ve got the picture.”
“And there’s this white pigeon bopping around on the sidewalk, pecking at something, I dunno, part of a donut or whatever.”
“It’s San Francisco,” I say. “There’s always a pigeon eating part of a donut.”
“Yeah,” Rivi says, “but this pigeon is white, and he only has one leg.”
I scoop up a pile of snow in my shovel and fling it to the side of the run. “I can’t tell you how many one-legged pigeons I’ve seen in San Francisco, Rivi.”
“But a white one?”
“Yes, even white ones.”
“Doesn’t matter,” she says. “The pigeon isn’t important.”
“Then why are we talking about it?”
“Sebastian,” she says. “Listen to me. The pigeon isn’t important.”
“Okay,” I say. “The pigeon isn’t important.”
“Not at all. What’s important is that I have stopped here by the Arboretum, right here, right this second, to look at this white one-legged pigeon eating a piece of a donut, and it is sixty-five degrees and sunny.”
“And why,” I ask, shoveling snow, “is this important in Rivi world?”
“Because it’s snowing sugar on me right now,” she says.
I stick the shovel into a pile of snow and leave it standing upright on its own. “Say that again, please.”
“It is sixty-five degrees and sunny, and right now there is powdered sugar coming down out of the sky.”
“Did you fall out of bed and hit your head this morning?”
“Of course not,” she says. “Well, I did fall out of bed, but I didn’t hit my head. Don’t change the subject.”
“How do you know it’s sugar?” I ask.
She makes a nyah sound. “I just stuck out my tongue, and I can taste it.”
“It’s not snowing sugar,” I tell her. “It hardly even rains regular water on the west coast anymore.”
“I eat a lot of sugar,” Rivi says. “I know what it tastes like.”
I fish my phone out of my pocket. “I’m going to FaceTime you. I want to see how dilated your pupils are.”
“Let me fix my hair first.”
“I’m sure your hair is fine.” I disconnect the call and hit the FaceTime button. In a few seconds, Rivi pops up on my phone’s screen.
“Should have let me fix my hair,” she says.
“Is that snow?” I ask. Her dark hair is speckled with bits of white.
“I told you, it’s sugar.” She brings her phone in closer to her hair, and it doesn’t look like snow, but it’s certainly something.
“Rivi,” I say. “Turn your phone around. Show me where you are.”
“By the Arboretum,” she says, and in a moment her image changes and I can see where she is, in the bright sun, on the sidewalk near the entrance. “There’s the albino pigeon,” she says, tilting her phone down. The pigeon ignores her, as city birds do, and puts all its focus on the half a donut it’s tearing to bits.
“Is there sugar on the ground?” I ask her. “I can’t tell from what I can see from here.”
Her camera shifts and moves closer to the sidewalk, I assume from her squatting down. “Nope,” she says. “Just a pigeon and a donut.”
“Any sugar anywhere else except your head?”
The camera swings quickly from side to side, showing first the entrance to the Arboretum, then ending up pointing at a MUNI bus waiting at the light on the corner. “Maybe not?” she says.
“Rivi,” I say. “Were you eating popcorn in bed last night?”
“Sebastian,” she says. “Of course I was eating popcorn in bed last night. It was Sunday. I was watching a movie.”
“And Rivi.”
“Sebastian.”
“Do you still put butter and sugar on your popcorn?”
“Obviously,” she says. “I’m not a barbarian.”
“And Rivi.”
“Sebastian.”
“Do you still just leave your bowl on the floor when you’re done with it?”
“I’m not a barbarian,” she says again. “So yes, I just leave it there until I forget about it and step in it.”
“Or fall out of bed into it.”
She turns the camera back on herself. “What are you accusing me of, Sebastian?”
I pinch the bridge of my nose between the fingers of my ungloved hand. “Go home and wash your hair, Rivi.”
“You are mocking my pre-Christmas miracle,” she says.
“It’s not a miracle, Rivi. It’s sugar in your hair because you don’t pick up after yourself.”
“Unbeliever,” she says.
“I’m going to hang up now and finish shoveling snow.”
“It’s probably not even real snow,” she says. “It’s probably just sugar.”
“Go take a shower, Rivi.”
“The pigeon is looking at me, Sebastian. He looks hungry.”
“It’s a city pigeon. You’d better get moving.”
“I think he wants to eat my head.”
“Call me later, Rivi. After you’ve unsugared yourself.”
“This is turning into a Hitchcock movie, Sebastian. A Hitchcock movie directed by Willy Wonka.”
“Better run, Rivi. Save yourself.”
“This is why I should come move in with you guys,” she says. “So you can pick up after me and save me from myself.”
“Goodbye, Rivi.”
“Remember me in song, Sebastian!” she shouts. “Immortalize me!” There is a blur of motion on her camera, and a flutter of wings, and then she disconnects.
The chickens in the run have come out of the coop and are milling about in the shoveled areas, watching me with their lizard eyes.
“Don’t get any ideas, chickens,” I tell them.
“Berp berp berp,” say the chickens.
I return to my shoveling.
But I’m keeping an eye on the birds, just in case.