by Tory Cates
“I didn’t?” he asked, his voice giving nothing away.
“No. I know that it’s no fun feeling out-of-it and unaware. I probably like the feeling even less than you do. I’m sorry about what happened at my parents’. But those are my parents, not me. I love and respect them, but I recognize that they’re snobs. Intellectual snobs. Just because they don’t understand your world and what you’ve accomplished doesn’t mean that I don’t.”
“Don’t you?” Cam asked thoughtfully. “I wonder.” The elevator doors slid open. Though evening was crowding in fast, it was still light outside. “I think that before we come to any final decisions, we need a bit more data. We need one more stop on the tour. Landell Acres.”
“But Cam,” Malou enthused, “I’d love to see your development.”
“And so you shall,” he announced, sweeping her into the car. As he slammed the door shut, Cam looked off into a distance that encompassed more time than space, and he repeated solemnly to himself, “And so you shall.”
Malou saw signs reading “Landell Acres, Affordable Housing” for several miles before they pulled off the highway. Within minutes they were winding down the roads of the half-completed subdivision. The expectant smile on Malou’s face froze as she studied the frames for the houses that were Cam’s dream. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. Couldn’t believe that these were what he was willing to sacrifice her troop for. Nor could she stop the words that tumbled out, unloosed by her shock.
“The houses . . .” she muttered, oblivious to what she was saying, “they’re so . . .”
“So what?” Cam prompted, though he had no need to hear the words. He’d known what they would be for a long time. Though his heart had for a time tried to make him forget that sure knowledge, he’d known precisely how Malou Sanders would react to the materialization of his dream. She looked over at him with startled guilt, and he asked again. “So what?”
“So . . . so small,” she finished.
“So small and what? Tacky?” Cam probed.
Malou heard him badgering the words from her and felt she no longer knew Cam. Maybe she never had. Her father’s face, eyebrow cocked in disapproval, superimposed itself on his handsome features. Then came Ernie’s face, his round glasses two circles of light as he told Malou his worst suspicions about Cam. Behind Cam were the boxlike houses, crammed one against the other, that meant everything to him. Certainly far more than she could ever mean. She remembered him as he’d been on the racquetball court, a relentless predator who played to win or didn’t play at all.
“Yes,” she agreed, “tacky.”
“I had a terrible feeling that you’d see the houses that way.” Regret was the dominant emotion in Cam’s voice. He turned away from her to stare out at the row upon row of identical house frames cramped together. When he spoke, his voice had the flat monotony of his project. “I had a chance to see where you grew up today. Would you like to see where I grew up?”
Cam didn’t pause at her puzzled expression. “Well, just go to any movie that takes place in a big city slum. Watch any TV show where kids play in the street and their big brothers shoot heroin in abandoned buildings and their parents never have enough time or money or love for them. That’s my neighborhood, Malou. That’s where I grew up. There wasn’t chamber music playing in the background; there was the sound of the guy next door beating up his wife, and ambulance sirens and bottles breaking on concrete. That was where I grew up.”
“Cam, I . . .” Malou didn’t know what to say, how to answer the pain that was still raw and fresh on Cam’s face. She knew he’d grown up in the city and come a long way from his beginnings, but she’d never really stopped and thought about just how far he had come.
He was still staring out at the shell of one of the houses when he went on, oblivious to her. “You know something?” he asked, not caring if she answered. “I would have cut my little finger off when I was a kid to be able to live in a house like that one there is going to be. I didn’t know how I was going to do it back then, but I knew I would be one of the few that escaped. That I’d live in a real house someday with a real yard.
“Well, I did it. I got out, and these ‘tacky’ houses that you scorn are going to make it possible for a lot of others to get out too. That ‘affordable housing’ we advertise is not just a gimmick. The lots are small and the houses are small so that we can keep the prices small. People who could never dream of owning their own home before will be able to buy into a little plot of Landell Acres.”
He took in a deep lungful of air and turned to face Malou again. “And besides all that, I stand to make a lot of money. Not nearly as much as Chesler would make on one of his subdivisions filled with million-dollar houses, but a lot of money. That’s my goal, to make enough to go on to the next bunch of ‘tacky’ houses. No doubt you and your father would regard that as a fairly despicable goal. I’m sure the good professor would have been much more impressed if his daughter had brought home someone who was devoting his life to studying Botswana linguistics or something equally obscure rather than providing decent housing at decent prices. And you, Malou, you say you’re not like them, not a snob. But you are. In your own rarefied way, you’re a snob too.”
Malou, wounded by the judgment, leaned forward ready to defend herself. But Cam didn’t give her the chance. He had more to say and he said it.
“I imagine that you would have been much more impressed if Landell Acres had consisted of a lot of tasteful houses with ecological designs set on sprawling lots. And even more impressed if I’d cancel the whole project and let Los Monos go on draining my cash flow.” Cam’s features hardened against the prospect.
The truth Cam spoke did not set Malou free. It trapped her with a net she didn’t have the strength to struggle against. She could not deny what Cam had said, what he seemed to have known about her all along. She was her parents’ child and carried their particular variety of snobbism within her like a mutant gene.
Cam took her silence for the assent it was and started up the SUV. The drive back to Los Monos was filled with words that echoed in each of their heads but that they did not speak. Malou stared off into the darkness outside the car, and Cam trained his gaze on the narrow trail of brightness cut by his headlights. At the research station, he turned off the motor, and took up the conversation they had abandoned as if the intervening miles had never happened.
“Well, I’m not going to do that, Malou. I’m not going to give up the project. I am going to build my tacky little houses. I haven’t let anything stop me before, and I’ve already jeopardized the project by slowing down now. I have barely more than a week left to pay off my note. There’s no more time to search for alternate solutions. I’m putting Los Monos on the market Monday and contacting the labs that have expressed interest to tell them that the monkeys are available.”
Malou felt as though an invisible fist had knocked the wind out of her. “But what about Dr. Darden’s proposal? You said you were considering it.”
“I was until I remembered my place in my world. Dr. Darden’s proposal is to turn the ranch into a tourist attraction and charge to let people view the monkeys. It would eventually bring in some money, but not nearly enough and not nearly soon enough. There are no other choices left, Malou. The monkeys will have to be sold.”
“You never intended to do anything else,” Malou blurted out, anger now her only defense against crumpling into tears of despair. “You always planned to sell the troop. You were just leading me on, holding out false hopes.”
“Believe what you will,” Cam told her coolly. “You would anyway.”
In that instant one image stuck in Malou’s mind: Cam on the racquetball court, a relentless predator for whom winning was survival. Suddenly Ernie’s suspicions seemed neither wild nor paranoid. Ridding himself of the nuisance of the monkeys without soiling his image would be so easy for Cam, just as Ernie had said it would be. A phone call to Jorge and the job would be done.
“Y
ou would do anything to get that damned subdivision built, wouldn’t you?” she asked, a chilling certainty already building in her. “You have to win, don’t you, Cam? At any cost. Even if the price is the lives of some innocent animals.”
“What are you talking about?”
What else had she expected? That he would admit to poisoning the monkeys? She reached for the door handle. “No losers, no tears. That’s a fine motto for you.” She bit off the words, her outrage and anger growing with each one. “Because you never lose, do you? You’re never the one to shed the tears.”
Malou was inside the station, the door locked behind her, before she heard the motor start up again. She listened until it was a distant hum that blurred into the incessant buzz of the cicadas. But she would not allow herself to go to the window. There would be no last, lingering looks for Cameron Landell.
Chapter 10
The sound of the lock on the lab door clicking open brought Malou back to present reality. She took several deep breaths to steady herself as she both heard and felt Ernie’s tread approaching from the back. What she desperately wanted to do was to bolt for her room and lick her wounds in private. But she could not afford such histrionics. Not in front of a colleague. She remembered all the refined academicians at her parents’ party. Cam had illustrated to her in graphic detail that she was one of them. For a dangerous interval, she’d forgotten that. She’d forgotten and allowed herself to act like a love-struck teenager, running off and leaving Ernie with the full responsibility for the station. That must all stop. Beginning with this very moment, she vowed, she would start acting like a scientist again.
That vow was the reason that, when Ernie asked how the day had gone, Malou answered cheerily, “Fine.”
“Fine?” Ernie echoed. “Isn’t Landell’s time running out on his note? Seems like he would have come to a final decision about the troop.”
Malou knew that if she discussed anything about Cam or the troop, the tears would start, and she was determined not to cry in front of Ernie. He already had enough evidence to think she was a complete ninny. No need adding tears to the list.
“It does seem that way, doesn’t it?” she commented noncommittally. Tomorrow would be plenty of time to give him the bad news. Tomorrow, when she had a grip on herself. At the moment there was something even more important to tend to. “How’s Kojiwa doing?” she asked, bracing herself for the answer.
“Not much change.” Ernie shrugged. “Is it that late?” he asked, glancing at his wristwatch. “Time for a little shut-eye. See you in the morning.”
As he clumped heavily down the hall and into his room, Malou went to the cage holding the old-timer. Kojiwa was lying on his side, his eyes open, staring dully ahead. She despised Cam for doing this to the innocent monkey. Like warring rams, another thought rose in her mind to collide with the first—she ached for him with an intensity that nothing and no one had ever fired in her before. She raged internally for the loss, not only of Cam, but of the dream she’d tended of who Cam was and what they might be together. It was only then, in the extremity of her grief, that Malou was forced to acknowledge that what she was truly mourning was the loss of a love. What a cruel irony that it was to be a love she would only fully recognize at its death.
Grateful for the small tasks that demanded her concentration, Malou cleaned and filled Kojiwa’s water bowl, then diced up some carrots, apples, and cactus pads for the old-timer. She placed them next to him, but he showed no interest in the treat. Malou found the bottle she’d used to nurse Bambi with and filled it with formula. Cautiously approaching Kojiwa, she held the bottle to his lips and dribbled some of the fluid in. A tiny thump of happiness beat through her when he managed to swallow a mouthful. Malou continued dribbling until he turned his face away from the bottle to stare at the wall beyond his cage.
There was nothing else for her to do. Malou went heavily to her room and lay on her bed. Pain congealed around her, swaddling her with once-ecstatic memories that were now turning bitter. She brought them out one by one: the honey-wine taste of the sun-warmed dewberry Cam had pressed to her lips; the patter of rain on the tin roof at the stone cabin; the feel of Cam as he lay within her. Then quickly, before the hurt stabbed too deeply, she put the memories away, storing them up for another night, years away, when she would be able to bring them out again and remember without being lacerated by pain. But they wouldn’t stay stored away. Unbidden, the memories rose of their own accord to devil her.
Abruptly, she whirled off the bed. It was too easy for the memories to trap her there in the small room. She needed escape. She needed solace. She dressed quickly, grabbed her sleeping bag, and tiptoed out of her room, shutting the door behind her quietly so as not to wake Ernie. She would find that solace where she always had—with the animals that she understood better than treacherous, hurtful humans.
Kojiwa was still staring listlessly at the wall when she went to check on him. And he still hadn’t touched his food bowl. Malou slung the sleeping bag over her shoulder, lifted the cage, and left the research station. The cool night air seemed to revive Kojiwa. He lifted his head and sniffed at it. Malou was glad of her decision to bring him with her. If he was not meant to last out the night, surely he would want to spend it close to his fellow creatures.
The moon was full and shining silver on the field where the troop was huddled in sleep. No alarm was sounded by the peripheral males roosting in the trees at the outskirts of the compound. Instead a few soft hoots greeted her familiar presence. Malou felt welcomed. Kojiwa strained to right himself in the cage, to see the faces he had missed. They headed for the core of the troop, where Sumo slept surrounded by his court. The monkeys were all awake by the time they reached the center. The juveniles immediately began playing. Sumo stood on his hind legs to check out the intruders, saw that it was just the shiny-haired human female, then grumpily went back to sleep.
Malou settled the cage in Kojiwa’s usual spot a bit removed from the center. When she opened the door, the old-timer looked up at her, moonlight sparkling in his eyes, and he weakly crawled out. Malou left his food and water bowls beside him, then backed off a ways and unrolled her sleeping bag.
After a few minutes, some of the older females who had always remained loyal to their original leader cautiously approached. Hesitantly they sniffed at the ailing oldster; then, completely reassured that it really was the patriarch they’d known for so long, they began to gently groom him. The look of resigned apathy left Kojiwa’s face and was replaced by serene contentment, his customary expression when he was being groomed. Malou couldn’t have hoped for a better reception. For the first time she thought there might be a possibility of recovery.
Then one of the females stopped her grooming to pick a chunk of apple out of the food bowl. Malou’s heart sank. Unable to defend his food, the other monkeys would scavenge what she’d brought for Kojiwa, which meant that she’d have to take him back to the station. But the female didn’t gobble down the rare bit of apple. She sniffed it thoroughly, then took it to Kojiwa and pressed the chunk into his mouth. In the moonlight, Malou watched him begin to slowly chew.
One of the females grooming Kojiwa was Tulip. Bambi scampered about at her side. The baby looked plump and happy running about deviling her elders in an unexpected midnight romp. She even had the audacity to run up to the old monkey lying on his side who was the object of all this unusual attention. Whether he was too weak or whether he recognized the little one as his adopted daughter’s baby, Malou couldn’t make out. All she knew was that Kojiwa did not swat Bambi away when she crawled on him, tugging at his chest and neck fur until she had found a secure perch on Kojiwa’s grizzled head. He even allowed the little upstart to snatch away a piece of the fruit that was being fed to him.
Though an enormous hole still gaped in her life, Malou suddenly felt there were ways of building bridges over it and paths around it. There were ways of going on with life despite the emptiness she felt. She rolled out her sleeping bag
, and, lulled by the comforting rhythms of the animals she knew so well and exhausted by the day’s turmoil, she slept.
She jerked awake at the first cry of alarm sounded by a peripheral male in a distant tree. She didn’t know how long she’d slept but guessed it had been hours rather than minutes, for the moon had set and the compound was lost in an inky darkness. She felt the troop’s alert wakefulness and heard them stirring about her. The cry of alarm was taken up by more shrill voices. Malou wondered what could be exciting such an urgent reaction. Perhaps a javelina was sniffing at the fence or had even found a hole somewhere and gotten in. Or a bobcat.
Dimly, she saw Sumo’s vague silhouette as he stood up to survey the menace. She heard several dozen macaque noses sniffing at the air, trying to identify the danger that was approaching. Even Kojiwa, reacting to instincts buried deep within him, struggled to right himself so that he too might confront the intruder and protect his little band. Malou was thinking what a rare research opportunity she’d stumbled upon when she heard the steps. The crunch of dry vegetation grew louder as the source of the sound came closer. She strained to hear it, to make out a pattern of four quick crunches. But there weren’t four light crunches. There were only two. And they were heavy.
The sounds were footsteps.
Malou’s heart lurched within her chest. Cam had sent Jorge on one final mission. For revenge? So that he could claim one last monkey death before he sold them all off? She imagined the hulking Jorge and felt for her flashlight in the darkness. She tested its heft. It was precious little protection, but it was all she had to defend the troop. And herself. The metal flashlight grew slick with sweat in her hand.
Which monkey had Cam instructed his hireling to eliminate tonight? To which one would he offer the lethal honeyed berries?
A beam of light leaped out of the darkness. Its circle snared the wizened old face of Kojiwa.
