The Bird Market of Paris Read Online Free

Liberty with her flame igniting the sky. He spoke one word of English: milk .
    After the family moved to Miami, Poppy opened his design studio downtown not far from the famous Coppertone billboard featuring a little suntanned girl and a black puppy pulling down her bathing suit bottom to reveal her tan line. Poppy ascended into the top ranks of the local fashion designers in the mid-1960s. He became somewhat of a celebrity, appearing on The Dick Cavett Show , The Jackie Mason Show , and The Merv Griffin Show .
    Every Christmas, Poppy decorated a giant evergreen for Miami’s courthouse with heart-shaped ornaments dotting the tree like hibiscus and pairs of live doves in gold cages embedded into its branches. On the tree’s top, a sparkling flocked dove with outstretched wings readied itself for flight, holier than any angel.
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    I don’t think Poppy saw much of my father while he was building his couture business in Paris, and then again in Miami, so when I came along, it was a chance for him to “raise” another child.
    He would open his wallet and ask people, “Do you want to see a picture of my pride and joy?” They would nod, and he’d show them a wallet-size photograph of the furniture wax Pride and the dish soap Joy, both sitting in front of a blue photo backdrop as if they went to Sears to have their portrait taken. After the laughter, he’d turn to a photo of me and say, “That is my little girl.” Most people assumed that I was his daughter.
    Both of my parents worked long hours, first in the garment business and then in luxury car sales, so Poppy took me everywhere with him: to the ballet, classical concerts, and the racetrack. I thought everyone’s grandfather took them to grown-up parties to meet the mayor. I accompanied Poppy to events with the who’s who of Miami and beyond. Walter Cronkite said he liked my curly hair, and Dionne Warwick asked me if I wanted to sing when I grew up—of course I did, but I couldn’t carry a tune in a basket. I met Count Basie and scored autographs from the ballet dancers Rudolf Nureyev and Mikhail Baryshnikov. Poppy had dined with everyone from kings to congressmen, from Pavarotti to the Grand Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan—he used to show me the man’s business card and laugh. My childhood was full of celebrities I didn’t recognize, and rail-thin models with jutting clavicles pinching my cheeks and painting lipstick on me at fashion shows.
    Poppy sewed dresses of flowing, colorful jersey, embellished with gold rope and dyed feathers, and he invented a dress called the “M” that could be worn a hundred different ways, his trademark design in Miami in the 1970s. He created miniature versions of his dresses for me, and I walked the runway by myself at the opening of his lavish fashion shows at the Doral, the Biltmore, and various country clubs, tossing rose petals onto the runway from a wicker basket. The spotlights in my eyes blurred the audience into a black mass, a huge, dark lake that issued a collective gasp—the sound most people make at a basketful of puppies—as I stepped from behind the curtain and minced to the end of the catwalk, smiling and terrified, tossing each petal for Poppy, taking each step as if it were the most important step of my life. I was a shy, bookish, frizzy-headed imp with deep-set eyes and cowlicks at my hairline that formed my bangs into a heart shape on my forehead, but in those few minutes, I was a model.
    Poppy hung my finger paintings and drawings all over his studio and showed them to everyone who came through the door as if I were Picasso himself. We spent long beach days together at Crandon Park, where he gave me paddleball lessons at the edge of the surf as seagulls screeched like faulty brakes and plunged at our blanket to steal my potato chips. He indulged me with hot fudge sundaes and bought me an encyclopedia volume every