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said.
    And Sassy laughed yet some more.
    Her brittle happiness lasted until she got herself together, exited the stall and reached the sink, where a mirror confronted her.
    Oh Lord.
    She had tried to reason with herself: it wasn’t like seeing a cute little blue parakeet in the mirror was life-threatening. It wasn’t even a terrible inconvenience. Not for her. It had been years since she had bothered to fuss with makeup, and her hair just lay there no matter what she did with it. On a scale of one to ten, she had told herself, her parakeet problem rated a one, maximum.
    But, oh Lord, she wanted to look in the mirror and see her own homely face. Even though she’d never particularly liked it, she wanted it now; with irrational intensity she yearned for her own reflection. She had lost her mother, her marriage, her home, her dreams—had she lost her self too?
    â€œPanty hose must have been invented by a man.” Racquel emerged from her stall, twitching at the irksome waistband under her emerald dress, resplendent under a green-gold peacock boa. Looming on spike heels, Racquel strode over to wash her hands.
    With relief Sassy focused on Racquel’s reflection, concerning which Birds of the World had set her straight. “You’re not a toucan after all,” she told Racquel. “You’re a hornbill.”
    â€œHuh?” Washing her hands, Racquel did not look up.
    â€œYou’re a hornbill.” Sassy knew she sounded inane at best and more likely insane, but she didn’t care. If she was going to be a bird, she’d be a bird. It occurred to her only belatedly that Racquel might be offended by being called a hornbill, and she amended hastily, “Hornbills are much classier than toucans.” If you considered projectile pooping classy. Which it was, in a way; it kept the nest clean. Hornbills nested in tree hollows and were therefore upper-crust birds. Sassy truly admired Racquel’s reflection, a turkey-sized, boldly marked black-and-white bird with a long, heavy down-curved beak, a rather disheveled golden crest, patches of bright red bare skin around its golden eyes, and brilliant cobalt-blue neck wattles. It was a barbaric-looking fowl, yet rendered appealing by long, thickly curling black eyelashes that would have been a credit to any mascara ad. The trademark bill was mostly black, surmounted by an enormous decorative extrusion called a casque—
    Sassy caught a quick, astonished breath, her glance darting to Racquel to Racquel’s reflection then back again. “Your bird is male,” Sassy blurted.
    Racquel froze over the sink with the soap still on her hands. Racquel’s face went—not pale, certainly, but a different shade of dark. Gray. Slowly she turned her handsome head to stare at Sassy.
    â€œMale,” Sassy babbled. “Your, uh, your bird.”
    â€œI don’t know what you’re talking about.” Racquel spun away, wiped her soapy hands on a paper towel with shaky haste, and strode out.
    â€œOh, just great ,” Sassy whispered to herself. Now Racquel was mad.
    But—great, that was the one, the Great Madagascar Horn-bill. Sassy distinctly remembered from Birds of the World —
    Sassy returned to work with a mind even more preoccupied than before. During her next break, she trotted out to her car and checked the hefty book she had left on her passenger seat. Yes. The casque of the Great Madagascar Hornbill was unmistakably characteristic of the male.
    Male. Racquel’s reflection was male.
    Bird-watching in mirrors for the rest of the day, Sassy focused on gender. Her own little mirrored parakeet was female, she knew—it had a cute pink cere (the leathery part above the beak where the nostrils were) just like the books said it was supposed to. When a woman in red walked by, the cardinal flapping in the mirror beside her was female, a subtle pinkish olive color. When the boss man Sassy knew to be self-deluded