Hi folks,
Sorry, it’s been a while.
It’s more difficult to sit and write these days. But with that said, I am still full of stories. Some would finish that sentence differently.
I have posted a story on Substack and remind you that I am still hitting the keys on the keyboard when I can.
I will upload a pic of the vintage-looking keyboard my wife gifted me for fathers Day. It is a joy to use.
You have to be of an age where you used a typewriter, but it is heaven to feel the keys and hear the tapping.
So, with that said, here are Chapters 1, 2, and 3 of Love Birds. (Title is a work in progress.) Please let me know your ideas in the comment area.
Love Birds
1
The Matchmaker and the Parrot
Maurice Heartman Cicero wore a small, dark mustache that curled like punctuation above his pointed goatee – an exclamation at the end of a carefully composed face.
He was not born in a metropolis, nor had he spent more than a fortnight within its hallowed, hectic confines. In truth, Maurice hailed from a modest island town off the coast – a place of windswept docks, salted fruit, and storm-heavy skies. Fish were bartered at sunrise. Oranges ripened in humble baskets. The moon, when full, hung like a pearl over the ocean, drawing in tides and restless dreams alike.
Still, Maurice had found – quite shrewdly that the appearance of urbanity served him well. Cosmopolitan trappings lent him both allure and authority. And if they also helped with the occasional pleasurable pursuit? Well. A gentleman rarely comments on such things.
Of course, Maurice was not his true name.
He had been born Albert Heartman – a name more suited, he always thought, to a man who sold bacon, or perhaps oversaw the king’s tithings in a dusty back office where love was weighed by the pound and taxed accordingly.
It did not, decidedly, conjure the mysterious air of a romantic alchemist.
And so, he became Maurice. Dressed in dark silks and resplendent waistcoats, adorned with gold chains and silver rings, his black leather boots rising boldly to the calf, he looked every inch the seasoned traveler. He carried himself with the air of a man who had danced with duchesses, debated with poets, and once – only once, drunk absinthe with a duke and lived to tell the tale.
The disguises we wear, Maurice often mused, are not always born of deception. Sometimes they spring from a quiet longing to express something more truthful than our given selves – something aspirational, or archetypal. Not always form, fashion, or faith—but practicality.
In the small cities and seaside towns he frequented, Maurice’s exotic edge gave him credibility – especially among Mothers with unwed daughters and urgent hopes. The name opened doors. The boots sealed deals. The parrot, of course, did the rest.
And at heart – beneath the silk, the moniker, the practiced bow – Albert Heartman, alias Maurice Handsome Cicero, was an honest man. He merely understood the need for theater. He was not above orchestrating the ambiance, nor enhancing the experience of the stage called life.
He had been called a charlatan, a fraud, a conjurer of nonsense – and worse. These protests, however, came from a narrow slice of his clientele: those few dissatisfied, disillusioned souls who had arrived already dishonest – not with Maurice, but with themselves.
Affairs of the heart, after all, are rarely straightforward. They are mercurial, impossible to guarantee, and frequently quite upsetting. If not disorienting, they are at least inconvenient. Maurice never promised miracles. In truth, he never promised anything at all.
It was the parrot who was the wonder.
2
Enter Mrs. Macchiato
Maurice was comfortably past his twenties, though his precise age remained an elegant mystery, gently hinted at by subtle greys at his temples and a striking tuft of white nestled in his bangs. Each ivory strand whispered a story. And were one to listen attentively, each tale would unfold an experience—a quiet revelation of age and character. Yet, the cover of a book and the outward appearance of a man can only reveal so much upon first glance; one must linger over each chapter, patiently reading the quiet truths between the lines to fully grasp the epic story each person embodies.
He plied his curious trade along the coast, moving northward in harmony with spring’s slow advance, as winter’s harsh grip yielded gracefully to warmth and bloom. Love, Maurice observed with quiet irony, blossomed much like the flowers, and the ardor of townsfolk rose steadily alongside the mercury.
He had rented a modest shop just off the quay, where on sunny days the door would stand propped open, inviting in the maritime breeze, salty and lively with the cries of seagulls and the gentle murmur of waves. It was upon one such sunlit afternoon, the sea’s fragrance gently perfuming the air, that Mrs. Macchiato and her daughter appeared in his doorway.
Mrs. Macchiato halted dramatically on the threshold, squinting into the dim interior as if peering into a dubious cave. She swiftly assessed the scene within: a couple engaged in what appeared to be spirited negotiation with a young—no, decidedly grown—man pacing energetically behind the counter.
The shop floor bore a richly patterned rug, bold and pleasant, valiantly masking the wear beneath. Despite attempts at tidiness, sand and dust stubbornly clung to the edges and cracks, remnants of the ceaseless inshore breeze. Mrs. Macchiato cast a critical eye over the rest of the interior, finding it festooned with ribbons, banners, and candles arranged in what struck her as distinctly dubious taste. It evoked, she thought with pursed lips, something akin to a poor man’s brothel.
She shielded her daughter, Anabel, from entering, visibly wrestling with her internal debate – her very presence a testament to her desperation. A matchmaker who relied on a trained bird to determine romantic suitability seemed positively absurd, yet hadn’t she exhausted every other avenue?
She had dutifully sent Anabel to the proper schools for a young lady of learning. Anabel had graduated from the sixth grade at the head of her class – a fact that should have been commendable, if not for the consequences that followed. The schoolmarm, a severe woman with chalk-stained cuffs and an unusual fondness for reason, had gone so far as to suggest that Anabel was better suited for advanced studies than any boy, she had taught in Tuscana since arriving a dozen years prior.
This, naturally, only worsened the situation.
Emboldened by such praise, Anabel had gotten it into her head that a woman might -brace yourself – pursue a career in academics. The audacity! She began reading at all hours, questioning everything, and referring to Mrs. Macchiato’s carefully orchestrated plans for debutante training as “ornamental pageantry.” It was as though the girl had been raised by philosophers instead of by proper society.
Even the esteemed Mrs. Malarky’s debutante classes every Monday and Wednesday had failed her daughter—or perhaps her daughter had failed them. Anabel had, after all, proved infuriatingly uncooperative; rather than mastering the delicate arts of laughter, posture, and rouge application, she stubbornly preferred to retreat into quiet corners, lost in books and contemplation.
What, Mrs. Macchiato lamented inwardly, was a mother to do?
Maurice, concluding his current business, glanced up and offered a courteous smile to Mrs. Macchiato. “Please, come in. I shall be with you momentarily. Thank you for your patience.”
Mrs. Macchiato forced a tight-lipped smile—a smile not unlike one conjured by the painful necessity of slipping dainty shoes onto overly large feet blistered by coals. She cleared her throat, signaling discomfort more eloquently than words might.
“Ahem!” Her voice carried the authority of uncertain dignity. “Perhaps we are in the wrong establishment…”
Maurice raised an inquisitive eyebrow, silently inviting her to continue.
“Well, there is no sign outside, and your—establishment,” she paused delicately, selecting her words as carefully as one chooses produce at market, “seems rather bare. Is this truly the matchmaker’s shop?”
Maurice’s smile broadened gently, causing Mrs. Macchiato’s apprehension to deepen.
“Are you Maurice, the matchmaker?” she pressed, as though clarity might somehow improve the shop’s appearance.
“Indeed, madam,” he replied smoothly, with a small, reassuring nod. “You are precisely where you ought to be. Please, do make yourselves comfortable—I will be but another minute.”
Mrs. Macchiato hesitated briefly, an internal battle waged clearly upon her brow. “Well, we’ve come this far,” she said.
Finally conceding, she motioned Anabel forward. Her daughter, stepping into the shop, seemed more amused than troubled, eyes bright with curiosity – her eyes scanning the mismatched banners, her fingers brushing a ribbon with idle interest, as though cataloging curiosities in a museum of misguided intentions.
3
The Nose did seem a bit Familiar
Mrs. Macchiato adjusted the frills of her peach-colored dress, precisely matched to the parasol and wide-brimmed hat she carried. If she were about to entrust her daughter’s romantic future to a man and his bird, at least she would do so impeccably dressed.
At the counter, Maurice was concluding an appointment with a pair who had, until that afternoon, regarded themselves as the glowing embers of a slow-burning courtship.
The lady – Miss Percival – was adorned in violet lace, the sort that whispered of provincial theatre and unfulfilled destiny. Her posture was impeccable, as though every vertebra had been trained to aspire. Her companion – Mr. Wexley – was gentle, pale, and spoke in tones soft enough to lull wild animals into confession.
“Well,” Miss Percival said with the tragic poise of one born to deliver bad news beneath moonlight, “it seems we share more than an affinity for poetry and melancholy. We also, as of this morning, share a great-grandfather.”
Maurice did not flinch. He merely inclined his head with the gravity of a clergyman officiating an annulment.
Mr. Wexley cleared his throat. “My mother called with the family bible. Pages seventy-four through eighty-two were… illuminating.”
“A curious twist,” Maurice replied, hands steepled like an academic. “Love, like ancestry, often travels in circles—occasionally overlapping in the most inconvenient places.”
Miss Percival sighed. “We considered eloping anyway. But then… then I asked him about the painting.”
“She means the portrait,” Mr. Wexley confirmed, visibly wilting. “The one with the nose. It’s the same nose. My nose.”
“Which, of course,” she continued, gesturing vaguely toward her own features, “is also my nose.”
Kodao, silent until now, emitted a short, wheezing hiccup—something between a sneeze and a judgment.
“And so, we must part,” she concluded, “with civility, grace, and no more shared lineage than is strictly necessary.”
Mr. Wexley nodded gravely. “And, if I may add…” He hesitated. “I’ve also come to suspect that my interests may lean in a somewhat different… direction.”
Miss Percival tilted her head, unsurprised. “I always suspected you preferred Whitman to Wordsworth.”
Maurice placed a hand on his heart. “Ah,” he said. “Then let us celebrate, not mourn. For while love may have misfired in form, it has clarified in truth. And what, dear friends, is more romantic than the moment a heart finds its truest compass?”
He reached for a small slip of parchment and penned something quickly. “For you,” he said, handing it to Mr. Wexley. “A tea shop in the next town. Wednesday evenings. There is a baker there with gentle hands and a tragic backstory.”
Miss Percival blinked. “Do you always meddle so gracefully?”
“I don’t meddle,” Maurice replied, already turning away. “I merely facilitate fate’s finer points.”
The pair left together but apart – talking amicably, already composing poems about doomed affection and the cruel arithmetic of bloodlines. Kodao ruffled its feathers and gave a slow blink, as if to say, Well, that could have gone worse.
Maurice, ever the optimist, dusted off the counter and turned to his next clients with a smile already prepared.
T.L. Johnson 
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