“He’s told me about their walks in the woods,” Neva said, reaching up under the smock to scratch an itch. “I wish the city hadn’t put up that fence along the property line. We can’t go there anymore.”
Corinna smiled, remembering. “Baby would pad along next to Miss Biedelman just as easy as an old dog and every bit that affectionate. You know the way a dog will look at his owner, just head over heels in love.”
“She looks at Sam that way all the time,” Neva smiled. “She thinks he hung the moon.”
“Yeah,” Corinna said. “I’ve seen her.”
She worked quietly, wondering how forty years could have gone by, with her and Sam no older now than they’d been then, at least in their eyes. Sam was catching up, though; she’d seen it on him, these last few months.
“Sam ever tell you about Hannah’s dream?” she said.
“What dream?”
“Guess not. There’s this dream he has, been having it for years—close your eyes now,” Corinna said as she began trimming Neva’s bangs. “He dreams he’s an elephant in a wide open place with other elephants. Go ahead and open again.” Corinna leaned down and blew hair clippings from Neva’s forehead.
“Is there a pond?” Neva said.
“Why did you ask that?”
“He said something about a meadow and a pond.”
“Yeah. He used to have that dream maybe a couple of times a month, but lately he’s dreaming it four, five nights a week. He says it’s Hannah’s dream, and he doesn’t know what to do with it except to bring her more Dunkin’ Donuts, and donuts don’t make up for things beyond a point, though.”
The women’s eyes met in the mirror. “The funny thing is, when he described it to me, it sounded like a place just outside Redding, California,” Neva said. “A real place, I mean. It’s called the Pachyderm Sanctuary.”
Corinna stopped cutting. “We’ve never been there, though—never even heard of it. What is it?”
“They take circus elephants that can’t perform anymore, and zoo animals like Hannah, ones who’ve been alone or abused or are just too old for anyone to want them anymore. The sanctuary makes a commitment that the elephants that come to them will stay there and be taken care of for the rest of their lives. Their goal is simply to let elephants live within a community, a herd, with as little human interference as possible.”
Corinna’s hands were pressing against her cheeks, her eyes welling. “Oh, honey. You think they’d take shug?”
“I don’t know. I honestly don’t know—wait. Wait.”
Corinna had begun humming with excitement. “Girl, I’ve been waiting for an apology from Jesus for years, for what He did to Sam and me with our baby and all,” she said. “But if He can just make this happen, this one thing, I’ll forgive Him for everything, I swear. I’ll be singing hymns to the rafters, be praising His goodness so loud they’re going to have to turn down the volume in Heaven. He can do what He wants with me, if only He’d let Hannah go there so Sam can retire.”
“Whoa—whoa! It’s not that simple,” Neva said. “The sanctuary won’t take an animal before an endowment has been raised for its care—I think it’s a minimum of a quarter of a million dollars, and that’s if they agree to take Hannah at all, instead of some other elephant that’s worse off. And you have to understand that there are animals that are worse off—animals that have been beaten, neglected, disabled.”
Corinna looked at Neva. “I don’t believe they’d turn my baby away if they got to know her.”
Neva sighed. Corinna drew a slow breath, a breath from the deep place where hope and intention begin. “You just tell me who I’ve got to write to at that sanctuary and I’ll write, and so will Sam. We’ve got some money put away, besides the social security. We’ll send them everything we have. You just tell me who, and I’ll send that check first thing in the morning.”
Neva turned in her chair to look Corinna in the eye. “Look. I’ll probably go straight to hell for even saying this, but I know the director down there. I’ve been thinking about approaching her. She’s discreet, so there’s nothing to lose by asking.”
Corinna took Neva’s hands in hers and pressed so hard it hurt.
“You’ve got to promise to keep this a secret,” Neva said.
“Girl, you’ve got my word. You can count on Sam, too.”
Neva nodded.
“You do this thing and I’ll take care of your hair for free for life. It’s not much, but it’s what I’ve got to offer.”
“Even cornrows?” Neva said.
“Amen, baby.” Corinna grinned. “Even cornrows.”
Two hours later Bettina Jones came into the Beauty Spot singing “Rock of Ages” and shaking out her plastic rain bonnet. “Whew! I know what Noah must have felt like,” she said. “It’s raining out there like it’s never going to stop.”
Corinna whisked Bettina into her chair and said, “Wouldn’t you just love to know what Noah told all those animals to make them hurry up and get on board? My daddy had chickens and goats, a cow or two, and those animals moved slower than grass grows.”
“You’re sure in a good mood this morning,” Bettina said, examining Corinna’s face in the salon mirror. “Is that makeup you’ve got on? Your face looks different. Brighter or something.”
“I never wear makeup, you know that. The day you see me wearing makeup is the day you’re going to be looking in my casket, because there is no other way I’d be smearing that stuff on my face. My mama used to say it was immoral and my daddy said anyhow we couldn’t afford it, so I never got into the habit.”
“Is Sam feeling better?” Bettina said, fishing.
“No. The only thing that’s going to help is for him to retire.”
“You finally set a date, then?”
“No, but I think it might be soon.”
“You sure are acting strange,” Bettina frowned.
“Nope, just the same old me. Come on, let’s wet you down.”
Corinna held Bettina’s smock like a train so she wouldn’t trip on her way over to the sink. She noticed the woman was getting more and more little skin tabs all over her face, looked like raised black freckles. Some people were put off by things like that.
“Hon,” Corinna said, guiding Bettina’s head back into the sink and turning on the water, “you might want to see somebody about those little moles on your face. Get somebody to get rid of them for you before they take over.”
Bettina said stiffly, “I don’t want some doctor cutting on my face, Corinna. I am not ashamed of what the good Lord sees fit to send me. I’m beautiful in His eyes, and that’s what counts.”
“They don’t cut, honey, they freeze you. I do a girl who told me she had a wart frozen one time. She said they dip a Q-tip into a little ladle of steaming cold stuff, rub it on the wart, and wait a couple days till it falls off on its own. She said it didn’t hurt a bit.”
“Thank you for telling me, Corinna,” Bettina said stiffly. “But I can’t afford a doctor like that, not on Social Security.”
Corinna wrapped Bettina’s head in a towel and helped her sit up. “Well, I tell you what. This appointment is on me, my treat.”
“Now, you can’t do that!” Bettina cried. “You’ve got to live, same as me.”
“Naw. It’s my treat, so stop fussing.”
“Something’s definitely up with you.”
Corinna waved her hand. “Just in a good mood, hon. No particular reason. Just in a good mood.”
Johnson Johnson lay on his back in bed, in the dark, admiring the constellation of stars on his ceiling. It was a work in progress, applied a single star at a time with glow-in-the-dark paint and the finest brush he could find. He figured he’d painted something like ten thousand stars already, plus a bunch of planets, plotted out according to a celestial map he’d found in an issue of National Geographic. He’d broken the photograph into a grid, and lined off the ceiling to match. So far, the project had taken seven years. He figured he’d be d
one in another two if he kept up his current rate of three hours a week. He wondered whether, if he asked Neva nicely, she would come up sometime to see it. But he’d noticed she was edgy about things unless they involved cookies or animals. He was certain she’d been happy about Chocolate, Chip, Kitty, and the tunnel. He’d even considered running a second tunnel to her apartment, right through the wall and siding, but that could wait. Right now he had another project in mind.
He had come up with the idea of making Neva’s elephant a musical instrument. He could buy several steel drums and hammer out their tops, maybe make them so they had different tonal ranges—a low drum, a high drum, like that. The elephant could play them using a rubber mallet. Or instead of steel drums, he could take those big blue plastic bottles people used in water coolers and fill them up with different levels of water, so they sounded different from each other when you hit them—and if they broke, why, you could just get a drink. He’d go to Home Depot in the morning.
Johnson Johnson loved Home Depot. He’d gotten some of his best ideas there. Once, he’d been in Plumbing Fixtures and figured out that he could paint the inside of a toilet bowl bright colors and patterns, like a swirling design that would go in the same direction as the water when the toilet was flushed. Even better, he could put one of those toilet deodorizers in the tank that would turn the water blue, then use colors like yellow to turn the bowl green. He had brought home a white porcelain toilet and china paints and created tropical islands in an ocean at night, with the sky lit up by fireworks. Then he’d taken the painted toilet to a porcelain manufacturer and they’d let him fire it in their kiln. They’d wanted him to do some toilets for their customers, too, but he told them he didn’t do something more than once. They’d made him promise to consider it, but that had been three years ago now, and he still didn’t have the urge to paint another toilet—unless, of course, Neva were to ask him to. That wasn’t likely, since she had never seen his toilet. Maybe she would sometime, though. You didn’t know what good things were going to happen to you until you were right in the middle of them, so it was best to always be ready. He’d had good things happen to him before, so he knew. One night, a Ferris wheel had broken when he’d been on it, and he’d been able to sit up on top and look at the lights of Bladenham for half an hour for free. And another thing was, he’d found Kitty in a ditch by the side of a road that he had never been on before and never went on again. Kitty had been bleeding from a cut on his head and one eye was swollen shut. Johnson Johnson had wrapped him in a blanket and brought him directly to a veterinarian, who’d asked Johnson Johnson if he really wanted the cat treated. He’s an old tom, son, probably sowed his wild oats a long time ago now, the doctor had said. You sure he’s worth saving? Johnson Johnson had been very sure then, and he was still just as sure now. Imagine Kitty dying unloved in some ditch instead of balled up all tight and cozy in the third hammock on the north wall in his living room. Johnson Johnson didn’t like to think about it. And now he had Chocolate and Chip, and he wouldn’t have wanted to miss them, either.
He pulled his covers up to his chin, basking in the faint light of the stars above his head and thinking with unfathomable wonder about how good the world was.
chapter 13
Neva was outside hosing down the elephant when Truman and Winslow approached on the path to Hannah’s barn. Neva smiled and saluted with the hose. Truman admired the way the sunlight set her hair on fire, like a Japanese maple in autumn.
“What brings you to my little corner of Paradise?” she called when they were within range. “Especially on a Saturday?”
“Winslow. Have you seen a boy named Reginald around anywhere? He and Winslow cooked up a plan to meet here this afternoon.”
“He just got here. He’s with Sam in the barn.” She opened the gate for them. Hannah stood in the yard, dripping with water, her eyes squeezed shut with pleasure, shuffling her feet in the mud. Neva turned on the water again, set the nozzle to the hardest stream possible, and pointed it straight into Hannah’s open mouth. Hannah moved her tongue back and forth and let the spray hit the back of her throat at full strength. “She loves this,” Neva said. “Go on in. I’m just finishing up.”
They found Sam and Reginald in the food preparation room, cutting apples. The boy lit up when he saw Winslow. “Hey, you remembered!”
“Course,” Winslow said.
“Well, we’re going to walk the elephant pretty soon,” Reginald said.
“Soon as she’s done with her bath.” Sam handed a second knife to Winslow. “If you’re going to hang around here, you’ve got to work, though. Hannah doesn’t like slackers.”
Truman said, “You think it’s okay for the boys to be here for an hour or so? It won’t interfere?”
“Nah,” Sam said. “Sugar likes the company, and we were going to take a walk anyway. You can come along, too, if you’ve got a mind to.”
Truman lifted his hand. “Thank you, but I’ve got some things I need to take care of in the office. Have you seen Harriet?”
Sam frowned. “No sir. I’m glad of it, too.”
Truman watched Winslow belly up to the counter beside Reginald and grab a couple of apples from a plastic wash tub. “You knew Max Biedelman very well, didn’t you?”
“We were friends. She was a fine lady, no mistake. It riles me to see that Harriet Saul strutting around here. You ask me, she’s nothing but a cheap trick in a safari suit.”
Truman tried to suppress a smile and failed, shaking his head. “She’s a vision all right,” he said. “Have you seen this morning’s newspaper?”
“No, sir, I generally don’t see the paper until I get home at night. Are you talking about the News-Gazette?”
“Yes. There’s a full-page feature about Harriet and Maxine Biedelman on the front of the Lifestyle section.”
Sam glowered. “Do they have any pictures of Hannah in there?”
“One or two,” Truman said, trying to remember. “Most of them were of Harriet with zoo visitors.”
Reginald and Winslow appeared in the food prep doorway, holding the wash tub of apples between them. “We’re all done, mister,” said Reginald. “We cut them real carefully, too. You sure she doesn’t mind eating the stems and seeds? I’d mind.”
“Naw, she doesn’t mind,” Sam said. “It’s good for her digestion. And she might just plant an apple tree along the way.”
Truman shook Sam’s hand. “I’ll say goodbye, then. And thank you for letting the boys spend time with you. Next time we’ll be sure to give you some notice before we show up.”
Sam clasped his hand. “We don’t need any notice. They’re good kids, plus shug’s always happy to have a new face to look at, especially a child’s.”
“Winslow, stay out of the way, now, and do what Mr. Brown tells you,” Truman said. “I’ll be back in an hour and a half.”
Neva was just stowing the hose when Truman left the barn. “Beautiful day,” he said. “It must be much harder to do what you do in the rain.”
Neva shrugged. “You adapt. It’s never good, but it’s not so bad, either.”
“Well, I’d whine,” Truman said.
Neva smiled. “So how’s Miles?”
Truman hung his head. Just that morning the piglet had chewed the bottom out of a plastic wastebasket in Winslow’s bathroom, but why go into it?
“Listen, can I ask you a question?” Neva said, walking with him to the gate.
“Sure.”
“How much does it cost a year for Hannah’s care and upkeep?”
Truman frowned. “I’d have to look at the budget, but ballpark, it’s around a hundred, hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars, if you include staff salaries and benefits. Maybe a little more. There’s actually a separate trust Max Biedelman established so that Hannah would always be given the proper care. It includes the money for one salaried position, Sam’s, and it’s separate from the zoo’s other operating expenses. It’s something I didn’t know about until recently. M
y father only unearthed it a couple of days ago. The money wasn’t a surprise, but the fact that it was in a discretionary fund was. God knows how much of it has actually reached Hannah, all these years.”
Neva squinted in the sunlight. “Hypothetically, if Hannah were to leave the zoo for any reason—not die, but be relocated, say—would the trust go with her?”
Truman looked at her, surprised. “I have no idea, but it’s probably addressed in the provisions of the trust. Why?”
Neva shrugged, but there was clearly more going on behind her eyes. “No reason.”
“Ah.”
“Listen, would you have lunch with me some time?”
“I’d like that. Not at the Oat Maiden, though.” Truman shuddered. “Anywhere but the Oat Maiden.”
Neva smiled. “All right. You can choose the place. How about Monday, then?”
“That would be fine. Harriet is a bit odd about employee fraternization so it might be best if we make this our little secret.”
“Is that why her receptionist was fired?”
“No,” Truman said carefully. “I believe Brenda failed to show the proper respect.”
“I wouldn’t last five minutes up there.”
Truman sighed. “Few do.”
From time to time, as they walked through the zoo, Hannah tucked her trunk under Sam’s arm.
“How come she does that, mister?” Reginald said. “Put her trunk in there like that?”
“Because she can’t hold my hand.”
“What do you mean?”
“Watch her,” Sam said. “She usually does it when something makes her feel nervous. Too many people around, especially on her blind side, or maybe she hears a noise she doesn’t recognize.”
“She’s scared?” Reginald laughed. “She gets scared? Hell, she’s bigger than anything I’ve ever seen.”
“Don’t be disrespectful, boy,” Sam said sternly. “If you’re going to be disrespectful, you can just walk home right now.”
Reginald ducked his head. “Sorry, mister. I didn’t mean anything.”
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