Sara Gruen Page 9

  Until tonight, John had felt a sense of pride that other men found his wife attractive. Tonight, he had wanted to kill them. He had never been as keenly aware of their real intent. Married men, men with children, men whose wives and children were right there. How could he let her go to L.A. without him?

  Yet there was something that frightened him even more, something that was so terrifying he didn’t even want to think about it. John considered himself as faithful and devoted as they came. There was nothing he wouldn’t do for Amanda. If she needed his liver, she could have it. An eyeball? Hers. And yet right now, with his beautiful, perfect, coveted wife lying naked beside him, he couldn’t keep his thoughts from drifting across the city toward Isabel Duncan.

  9

  Bonzi crouched in a dark corner with Lola clinging to her chest. She was the first to hear the jingling of keys and screeched a warning to the rest of her family: the men were back.

  The fluorescent lights flickered spasmodically and then finally buzzed to life.

  In the cage opposite Bonzi and Lola, Sam screamed, “Whah!” and sprinted around the small confines of his cell. He stopped to sign, BAD VISITOR! BAD VISITOR! then leapt onto the front of his extruded metal cage and shook it violently with hands and feet. When he jumped backward, his right thumb was bleeding. Oblivious to the wound, he perched near the front of his cage, his hair bristled and head cocked, on full alert. The other bonobos sat waiting, watching.

  Human footsteps followed, heavy-soled steps that echoed in the concrete hallway. As they approached, panic flooded Bonzi’s body. She could never see them until they were immediately outside her space.

  Jelani, Sam, and Makena were in cages across the aisle from Bonzi, so she could see all of them and they could see her, but they could not see each other because the walls between them were concrete. Nobody could see Mbongo, but they knew he was there. He was the only member of the family out of sight of all the others, and the strain of this situation was clear in his vocalizations.

  The clomping got louder until the men came into sight. There were two this time. Bonzi recognized only one—he was the food giver, coming through the halls twice a day to slide trays of tasteless, homogenous pellets through the slots in their cages and refill their water with a hose. He never made eye contact. He never spoke to them, but was always in deep, angry conversation with some invisible other.

  The second man was new. He had light hair, gray eyes, and a crooked, joyless smile. “These look like chimps,” he said.

  “You’re the one who wanted them,” the food man said with a guffaw.

  The stranger turned his gaze on him.

  “I’m just saying,” said the food man, lowering his eyes, “we could have got chimps a lot cheaper.”

  The alpha male, having asserted himself, stood with hands on hips and did what Bonzi could not: he moved his eyes across her family members and evaluated them.

  “Are they eating and whatnot?” he said.

  “They appear to be.”

  PEARS, signed Bonzi. GOOD PEARS. BRING PEARS.

  “Because I want them to look healthy. They can’t appear to be mistreated.” The alpha male crouched down outside Bonzi’s cage and looked her straight in the eyes. “Which one is this? Is this the matriarch?”

  ME BONZI, BONZI ME, she signed. GIMME PEARS. EGGS. GOOD EGGS. SAM HURT.

  “What the hell is that? Is that some kind of monkey voodoo? It’s creeping me out,” said the food man, averting his eyes.

  Bonzi held the alpha male’s gaze and raised her left hand in a fist, which she flicked off her ear. Then she bounced her pointed index fingers off each other in front of her chest.

  “Shut up, Ray. She’s trying to tell us something.”

  SAM HURT, repeated Bonzi, more urgently. SAM HURT. NEED GOOD PEARS.

  “What the hell is she doing?” said the nondominant.

  The alpha continued to watch Bonzi, who repeated her assertions in ever more urgent motions. “She’s saying something.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know.”

  BONZI OUT KEY GIMME HURRY YOU.

  The nondominant’s voice rose. “I don’t like it. It’s not right. Are these things even natural? Are they genetically engineered or something? Anyway, aren’t they supposed to have sex all the time? They haven’t done it once since they got here.”

  “They’re caged separately, you imbecile.”

  The food man shifted from foot to foot, looking uncomfortably up and down the hall.

  “But you wait,” said the alpha. “This is going to revolutionize everything.” He leaned closer to the cage. “Are you my girl?” he whispered.

  Bonzi, whose response for no was simply not to respond, remained still.

  “You’re my girl, aren’t you?” he repeated. His voice was a hiss of rank breath between his teeth.

  Bonzi stayed motionless.

  “I’m going to move you soon.”

  He rose and addressed the other man. “Come on. Let’s go.”

  On his way past, he double-whacked the front of Sam’s cage with an open palm. The clash reverberated through the cement hall, and Sam shrank into a corner.

  10

  Amanda had brought so few clothes to Kansas that when she split her things out from John’s they all fit into her backpack.

  “I don’t suppose you’ll be going back to Philly anytime soon?” she asked ruefully, as she rolled up her fourth and final shirt.

  “I don’t know,” John said. “It depends entirely on what happens with the story.”

  “I wasn’t thinking about clothes when I decided to leave from here.” She zipped the backpack and stood staring at it. “I guess I could ask your mom to put some things together, although I really don’t like the idea of her rummaging through my underwear drawer.”

  John snorted. “Better than your mom.”

  She slapped his chest. “Ha! True, that.”

  John checked his watch. “Well, I guess it’s time.”

  ——

  They grew quiet as they approached the airport, and quieter still when they parked the rental car. By the time they got into the security line, it had been minutes since either of them had said a word. They held hands, shuffling closer and closer to the point where they would have to part. Amanda suddenly swung around and pressed herself against John’s chest. He cupped her face in his hands and raised it to his. He could see that she was trying not to cry.

  John wiped her eyes with his thumbs. “Are you sure you’ll be okay?”

  She sniffed and nodded. “Uh-huh,” she said, too brightly. “I’ll be fine.” She dug a tissue from her purse and blew her nose. “We’re not going to see each other every weekend, are we?”

  John hesitated, and then shook his head. He would have given anything to provide a different response, but he had spent much of the previous night awake, analyzing their new financial situation. They had been barely surviving on his salary as it was. There was not a chance they wouldn’t be dipping into their savings, even before taking into account any travel. “Not unless we win the lottery. But we’ll talk every day, and Ariel’s wedding is only two and a half weeks away.”

  Amanda was now second in line.

  “It’s going to be okay,” John said encouragingly. “Between now and then I’ll figure something out. We might be able to swing a visit every two or three weeks. That isn’t too bad, as long as it’s temporary.”

  Amanda brought her hands to her face and ran them over her forehead and cheeks. Then she said, “Am I doing the right thing?”

  “I think so,” said John. “I hope so. Anyway, we’re in it together. We’re a team, remember?”

  The man in front of Amanda passed through the checkpoint.

  “Boarding pass and ID,” said the TSA officer.

  Amanda handed them to her and turned back to John.

  “I guess this is it,” she said, kissing John. “Good-bye.”

  “Bye, baby,” he said, squeezing tight. “Call
me the second you get there.”

  “Will do.”

  The TSA officer looked from Amanda’s driver’s license to her face, squiggled something in highlighter on her boarding pass, and handed both back to Amanda, who flashed a tight, brave smile and disappeared.

  John walked around the glass wall until he could see her again. He watched as she took off her boots, purse, and laptop and placed them in gray bins on the conveyor belt. He watched as she was reprimanded, and removed her boots and purse from the bins and laid them directly on the belt instead. He watched as she stood in her stockinged feet in front of the metal detector waiting to be waved through, and then she was truly gone.

  “Bye, baby,” he said quietly.

  ——

  His cell phone rang just as he was pulling into a parking space at the Residence Inn. For a fleeting moment he dared hope Amanda’s flight had been canceled, or at least delayed. Even if it just gave them a final meal together—

  “Hello?” he said.

  “Hey, it’s Elizabeth.”

  “Hi,” he said, trying not to sound disappointed. “Did you get the amendment?”

  “Yeah. Hey, listen, I need you back in Philly. How soon can you arrange it?”

  “What? Why?”

  “I need you to cover something.”

  “I’m already covering something.”

  “Yeah, but that whole ape thing is becoming more like Cat’s kind of thing—”

  “The hell it is!”

  “—and you two don’t seem to be working too well together anyway—”

  “What did she say to you?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I need you here.”

  “What … did … she … say … to … you?”

  “It doesn’t matter. Frankly, I don’t have the resources to keep the two of you out there anyway, and she’s more than capable. And I need someone to cover another column. So get back here as soon as you can.” She hung up.

  John flipped his phone shut and threw it on the passenger seat. He parked the car and sat clutching the steering wheel with both hands, grinding his teeth and staring at the dog-poo station that was just outside the hotel entrance.

  She’s more than capable.

  And you, sir, are not. John felt as close to murdering someone as he ever had in his life. It was his series, his story, his idea, and Cat had extracted it from him as deftly as a prankster whipping a tablecloth from beneath a Thanksgiving spread.

  Ta-dah!

  ——

  Fran and Tim’s rental car was not in the driveway, but they could have just been shopping. It wasn’t until John checked the guest room that he knew for sure they had left.

  Evidence of Fran’s occupation was everywhere: lace antimacassars, shelves lined with paper, drawers rearranged, towels and sheets refolded, and everything ironed. John found it droll that she’d ironed his jeans and undershirts; he found it less amusing when he discovered his boxers were also pressed.

  The table was set with good linens, so John took his Hungry-Man frozen dinner to the couch, turned on the television, and put his feet up. As he spooned the gluey potatoes into his mouth, he couldn’t help thinking of Amanda’s version, mashed with rivers of butter. His mind then turned to all that beautiful food she’d prepared for him that was rotting in a dumpster behind the Residence Inn at that very moment. It had felt like an act of betrayal to throw it out—the sensation was almost painful—but there was no way in hell he was going to offer it to Cat. If Cat were drowning, he wouldn’t toss her a straw, and that was before he’d seen the photo. What he should have done was track down Cecil, who probably hadn’t had a home-cooked meal in years, but that option didn’t occur to John until he was already on the plane.

  He flicked through the channels, automatically bypassing sports stations until he remembered that Amanda wasn’t home to object. God, how he wanted her home. The house felt empty and huge without her. She had commiserated with him by phone about his new assignment, but he wanted to wrap his arms around her, to draw some comfort from her physical presence.

  Elizabeth had recalled John to take over a weekly column called “Urban Warrior.” The real “Urban Warrior” had just had twins, who were apparently colicky little monsters, and as a result she was severely sleep-deprived and going on leave. Very unwarriorlike, in John’s opinion. Stick a kid on each boob in one of those sling-type contraptions and go out and measure your own damned potholes. This was not just sour grapes. This was the actual nature of his assignments. Profiles on the crazy guy who patented a device to measure and compare potholes around the city, the valedictorian at the most troubled high school, Philadelphia’s most beloved doorman. Counting the number of abandoned cars on the expressway, and scoping out the city’s most trash-laden street. This week, he was supposed to conceive of and conduct a sting operation on dog owners who didn’t pick up after their pooches in Fairmount Park and Rittenhouse Square.

  And then there was the photo. John had gone to the Inky’s Web site to look up previous versions of “Urban Warrior” and had found Cat’s initial report from Kansas under a photograph of a catastrophically injured Isabel Duncan. He felt physically ill. He hadn’t even recognized Isabel—it wasn’t until he read the caption that he realized who he was looking at. He studied the picture closely, but the resolution was poor and there were too many bandages for him to get a real sense of what had happened to her. There was absolutely no way she had given permission for that photograph to be taken.

  He didn’t know when and he didn’t know how, but someday karma was going to catch up with Cat.

  11

  “Ready?” Peter kissed Isabel’s forehead and handed her a pile of clothes.

  She nodded and stared at the motley assortment. An unfamiliar ski toque sat on top, the price sticker still attached. She peeled it off, rolled it into a neat cylinder, and set it on the edge of the bedside table.

  “For your head,” said Peter. Under different circumstances she might have found his remark amusing, but Isabel thought she might never laugh again. Sixteen days before, Peter had walked into her hospital room and told her the bonobos were gone—sold, like toasters or snowblowers, like so many items at a garage sale. She had fallen completely apart, to the point that they’d sedated her again, and she suspected that the sedation had continued for several days. She was furious—with Peter, who had promised to look after the apes; with the university, for betraying them instantly and apparently without a second thought; with the world, for considering these creatures nothing more than property. Peter withstood her rage, comforting her when she’d let him, and swearing he’d find out what he could. So far the trail had ended abruptly against a wall of bureaucracy. One of the contract conditions was that the buyer remain anonymous, and, out of concern for campus security (and no doubt, contract violation), the university’s in-house counsel was hell-bent on honoring it.

  “We’ll get some pretty scarves,” Peter said, as Isabel continued to finger the hat. “It didn’t occur to me until I was almost here that you’d need something now, to wear home. So I stopped at the first place and this is what they had.”

  Isabel felt perfectly capable of walking, but Beulah was having none of it and so Isabel was wheeled from her room and past the empty chair in the hall, which until an hour before had been occupied by a policeman. He had been assigned to Isabel after the incident with Cat Douglas, although as far as Isabel knew, Celia was the only other person who had tried to see her, and she had been turned away on Peter’s orders.

  She sat silently at the curb while Peter pulled the car around, aware that people were staring. She couldn’t blame them. She was painfully thin, deeply bruised, and sporting an improbable plaster cast on her nose. She had the toque pulled low, but it merely accentuated the fact that there was no hair to cover.

  It was a typical winter day in Kansas, with a bright sky and gray earth, and the air cold enough to sting the insides of her nostrils. The rhinoplasty had been the worst of the surgeries, not
because of the pain, but because the relief of finally having her jaw unwired had been instantly displaced by having nostrils packed with gauze. The surgeon had taken some liberties and was clearly pleased with the outcome: the slight bump on her bridge was gone, and the tip refined, almost angular. It was a nose worthy of Hollywood, he’d said with obvious pride. Isabel would have preferred that he hadn’t done anything but repair her septum, but there didn’t seem much point in complaining after the fact.

  Peter pulled up to the curb, left the car idling, and came around to the passenger side. Beulah leaned over and snapped the feet of the wheelchair upright.

  “I bet you’ll be glad to be home,” she said.

  “You have no idea.” Isabel grasped the arms of the chair and stood up.

  “Oh, I think I do. Now go on. I don’t want to see you around here anymore.” Beulah waved her off with mock severity.

  Isabel tried to muster a laugh.

  Beulah leaned in and hugged her. “Take good care of yourself,” she said. As she pulled away she wagged a finger at Peter. “And you take good care of her too.”

  “You’d better believe it,” he said. He took Isabel’s elbow, steadying her as she lowered herself onto the seat of his Volvo. Beulah handed him the clear plastic bag that contained her belongings. There was not much: her purse, some magazines, and The River Wars, a novel she’d picked up in the waiting area of the radiology department. She’d meant to set it free for some other patient to find, but somehow hadn’t gotten around to it. Other than hospital socks, there were no clothes in the bag—everything she’d been wearing when she arrived had been cut off and taken away to be examined for traces of explosives.

  “Anything special you want to do?” Peter asked as they pulled away from the curb. “If you’re up to it, we could go ring shopping.”

  Isabel shook her head.

  “Movie on demand? We can order in—soft food, of course. Lentil curry? Saag paneer? Gulab jamun? We can have a picnic on the bed …”