An Inconvenient Elephant

by Judy Reene Singer

  Diamond was so wrong. Big slashes and little wounds, they all hurt like hell.

  I waited with Diamond and Mrs. Wycliff in the living room, peeking out through the bay window because Richie didn’t want us to be a distraction while he put Margo and Abbie on the truck. Mrs. Wycliff, dressed in her red wellies, jeans, white knit sweater, and pith helmet, was holding her old dart gun and grumbling about poachers.

  “They’re stealing the elephants!” she declared, raising the dart gun to her shoulder. “I think I can pick them off from here.”

  “No,” Diamond soothed her, and gently tried to take the antiquated gun from her hands. “They’re just taking them to another encampment where they’ll be safer.”

  “I can’t look,” I said.

  “She’ll be happy,” Diamond sternly said to both of us as if we were naughty children. “Think about her being happy.”

  The silver eighteen-wheeler made a slow circle of the parking area and neatly stopped right outside the doors of the barn. Two caretakers from the sanctuary in Alabama jumped from the cab and went inside. They emerged a few minutes later carrying the bales of hay, kegs of water, the fruit, the last ten bags of pellets, and the two boxes of donuts I had left for Margo.

  It was time to load the elephants. The caretakers rolled back the middle trailer doors, revealing an inner cage of thick steel bars, which he swung open. They were ready.

  “Oh no!” I grabbed Diamond’s arm when I saw Richie lead Margo from the elephant barn to the waiting truck, as though it was going to be just another day in the field. Margo followed calmly, in trusting, measured elephant steps, holding her trunk straight out in front of her like an arm, feeling the air. She had been given a very mild tranquilizer and seemed calm enough, though she flapped her ears at the truck and stopped to cautiously examine the steel bars, the doors, and the straw-covered floor inside. Richie gave her the command to step up. She looked back at him, then, it seemed to me, toward the window where I was standing. I pushed my fist in my mouth to keep from calling out. Margo put one foot up and stopped. I could see Richie coaxing her. She put her second foot in the truck, then lifted herself up and stepped in. Innocent little Abbie followed without hesitation. The men immediately closed the cage and shut the doors with a metallic finality that echoed through the parking lot. They jumped into the cab of the truck, leaving the back passenger door open for Richie to climb aboard.

  I couldn’t contain myself any longer and rushed from the house with tears streaming down my face.

  “Margo!”

  Richie put his finger to his lips so that my voice wouldn’t carry to the elephants. “We have to go,” he said.

  Margo was only a few feet from me, hidden inside the steel walls of the truck. I reached out to touch the metal sides with my fingers.

  Diamond and Mrs. Wycliff, with the cockatoo on her shoulder, came out of the house together and stopped on the edge of the driveway.

  “See?” Diamond said to Mrs. Wycliff. “Margo and Abbie are fine. Come on, Mum, wish them well.”

  “Safari njema,” Mrs. Wycliff called out softly, wishing them a good trip.

  “Fika salama,” Diamond added. Arrive safely.

  “Fuck you!” called the cockatoo.

  Margo heard their voices and trumpeted from inside the trailer. Abbie joined in. Suddenly, it didn’t matter how I was losing them. I sat down on the ground and wept. Mrs. Wycliff came over to pat me on the head as though I were an obedient dog.

  “Harry and I are breaking camp tonight to track them,” she said. “We’re leaving as soon as I find my teeth.”

  Richie leaned from the cab and blew us a kiss while the driver rolled down his window and saluted.

  “Thanks for buying us breakfast,” he yelled, waving the box of donuts I had left for Margo. “We’ll have them on the road.”

  If I could stop rain or gravity, if I had that power to summon, I would have summoned it to the full at that moment to keep my elephants.

  Gears slid smoothly into other gears, the truck heaved forward like a draft horse trying to gain traction, then rolled down the driveway, rumbling over the potholes, swirling the dust into curls, taking my elephants and my heart away with them.

  Chapter 36

  THE DAY AFTER THE ELEPHANTS LEFT, A SET OF construction trucks moved in. A large dump truck, two yellow prehistoric-bird backhoes, and a team of men in tight jeans, suggestive tool belts, and hard hats.

  They set to work immediately, demolishing the old elephant barn. The roof was pulled off, the wooden walls were splintered, the old giant spiderweb of wiring waved through the air, lifted by a Brachiosaurus-shaped yellow crane, then was dropped into the maw of a huge container.

  “Cool,” said Diamond appreciatively. “Safi! Very cool!”

  “The equipment is amazing,” I agreed with her, and she rolled her eyes and tossed her red hair.

  “I meant the men.”

  Well, they did work hard, muscles bulging under the warm fall sun, shirts tied around their waists. I could totally agree with the appeal. Diamond spent a large part of the workday standing nearby to watch them, giving little waves and smiles and a few encouraging remarks.

  “Be careful with that,” she yelled as the crane lifted out the bent, arthritic-looking metal poles that had once been part of the elephant enclosure inside the barn. “Don’t want you to drop it.”

  The man in the crane grinned back, lifted his hard hat to her, and continued working. A few minutes later she was directing the backhoe. “Watch behind you! Not so fast!” The operator gave her a courtesy nod and continued working.

  “You know?” Diamond remarked to me when I had to locate her for the fourth time that day for help with the animals. “I think these men take direction very well. I may have a new career if I can’t do safaris anymore.”

  In two days, there was not a scrap of barn left.

  On the third day, Genesis-like, a new barn was being created. A cement mixer pulled into the space where the barn had been. It had a rotating red spiral painted on the back, which swirled hypnotically as it disgorged what looked like a ton of oatmeal over the ground. New wood pilings were delivered, stout as an elephant’s leg, and shiny silver conduit wiring was heaped like uncooked pasta, along with thick, strong new fencing.

  We would all bring out our morning coffee to stand watch. The men in the trucks enthusiastically hooted and whistled at us. Well, maybe just at Diamond.

  “We seem to have here several fine examples of the broad-chested, yellow-hatted, American construction male,” said Diamond, after waving and whistling back. “How lovely to be able to study them in their native habitat.”

  “Observe the multilayered musculature that defines the appendages,” I said, getting into the spirit.

  “For a thorough study, some fieldwork is called for,” Diamond said, leaving my side. “I’ll be sure to report back as soon as I have enough data.”

  Mrs. Wycliff and I watched as Diamond strolled down to introduce herself.

  “It’s going to be a big building,” I commented to Mrs. W.

  “Well, I hope it’s an indoor pool,” she replied. “I was thinking of taking up swimming.”

  “No, it’s a barn,” I said. “It’s a barn for elephants.”

  She gave me a beatific smile and clapped her hands. “Oh! Are we going to have elephants again?”

  “I think so,” I replied.

  Except they wouldn’t be the right ones.

  The men worked for weeks, and Diamond made sure to visit them faithfully every morning. She brought pots of undrinkable coffee, occasionally roped in a few tools, and flirted relentlessly. The payoff was a date with Rocco, who was the general contractor and the man who operated the dinosaur. When she introduced me to him, I could see the basis of their attraction right away, from his mud-encrusted work boots and scruffy dark work pants, to his yellow construction helmet and manly unibrow. He read architect’s plans the way she read jungle maps, he offered her rides on the heavy e
quipment, and he ate her burned cookies with a certain cautious appreciation.

  “He’s very strong,” she enthused as we rode a pair of Appaloosas around the property in an effort to make them trail safe for their new buyers. “And romantic. Yesterday he bought me the most beautiful torch. It has titanium batteries!” She pointed to her belt, where, sure enough, next to her safari knife, a big yellow ProPolymer flashlight with sporty black trim hung from a loop.

  “Wow,” I said. “That’s really thoughtful. He must really like you.”

  “I know,” she crowed. “It’s wonderful to have a man in my life again!”

  I shook my head. “You know, you had the perfectly gorgeous Jungle Johnny practically drooling all over you.”

  “And where is he now?” she pointed out. “Back in Tanzania or Rwanda? And I’m here. The jungle always takes them back. I want local love.”

  So did I. Though I couldn’t stop thinking about that night in the barn with Tom, when he held me. I also couldn’t stop thinking about Victoria. Apparently, neither could Mrs. Pennington, who called me a few days later.

  “I’m very disappointed in you, Nellie,” she said. “I tried to help you, and you turned on me. What you did was very underhanded.”

  “What on earth do you mean, Mrs. Pennington?”

  “You’re trying to spirit Tom away from the love of his life,” she replied. “And I won’t let you. He and Victoria were meant for each other.”

  “I haven’t done anything,” I replied.

  “Victoria told me she saw you coming out of that other barn the night of the party. She just happened to be getting into her car, and then Tom came out of the barn a few minutes after you,” she said. “She was devastated. Apparently, you two were having a moment.”

  “I didn’t know Tom was going to be there,” I said. “And if Victoria meant so much to him, he would have had the moment with her at the party.”

  “Nevertheless,” Mrs. Pennington said, “I gave him my grandmother’s pink diamond ring, and I’ve arranged for a lovely little dinner party, and I promise you, my dear, he’ll be engaged before tomorrow night is over.”

  I called Diamond right away. “What do I do?” I wailed. “I do love him. But now it’s too late.”

  “If you pick the bud you will stop the fruit,” Diamond replied. “He hasn’t walked down the aisle yet.”

  “Why can’t you just for once, tell me something I can understand,” I shot back. “How in hell do you pick someone’s bud?”

  “You have to find a way to interfere,” she said. “You make it your karma to be with him.”

  I didn’t hold much hope that I could interfere with the powerful Mrs. Pennington’s plan.

  But karma and Mrs. Wycliff had other ideas.

  Chapter 37

  WEARING HER PITH HELMET AND HER RED WELLIES, and clutching a photo of herself and Harry gaily waving from a vintage jeep deep in the heart of Kenya, Mrs. Wycliff quietly passed away early the very next morning. Diamond found her in the living room slumped in front of the fireplace, near her many treasured pictures of her years in the jungle. Baako and Dafi, her faithful old dogs, were licking her face. Actually, Baako was licking her face. Dafi was finishing her toast.

  “She’s gone,” Diamond cried into the phone to me. “I just called the police, and they sent for the coroner to take her away. What do I do now? I’ve lost everyone!”

  “Wait there for me,” I told her, though there really wasn’t any other place that made sense for her to go to. Wait there is second to that other useless emergency directive to boil water. “You could put on a pot of water to boil,” I added, just to make sure.

  Of course I called Tom. And Richie and Jackie. Of course Tom drove up immediately from his office in the city.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll make all the arrangements,” he reassured a weeping Diamond, cradling her in his arms, his own eyes wet with tears. I felt a touch of jealousy—it should have been my moment with him. I wanted to say, Hey, I liked her, too, you know, but that would have been ungracious.

  “She left directives,” Tom said. “I know what she wants. I’ll handle everything.”

  “Oh, thank you,” Diamond whispered up at him, her glorious green eyes moist with grief. “You won’t leave me—us—” she amended, generously including me. “We’re just gobsmacked.”

  “I’ll stay,” said Tom, looking over at me. I gave him a watery smile. She gave me a wink behind his back.

  Her plea apparently successful, Diamond left Tom’s arms to make us coffee. He walked through the mudroom to the back door and stood there, contemplating the construction site and the fields behind it. I stood in the kitchen doorway and studied him. There was something about him, I always thought, that made him stand out stronger, more compelling, almost formidable, more than anyone I ever knew, and to see him, his eyes red, standing quietly, visibly saddened, touched me. He and Mrs. Wycliff had been partners and friends a very long time.

  “I knew she couldn’t live forever,” he said, without turning, “but she was a very brave woman.”

  “I know,” I said. “I would like a few photos of her. I did admire her very much.” He nodded and turned around to walk past me, to wander through the house, picking up pictures and the little mementos she had collected over the years, as if the act of touching them could reconnect him with her. I left him alone. And I left Diamond alone as she wept at the kitchen table over a glass of Irish whiskey, having abandoned the idea of boiling coffee. The cockatoo was sitting on her shoulder, eating a cracker, and the two black Labs were sitting next to them and watching Diamond expectantly, as if she were going to produce their mistress any moment.

  I was saddened, of course. I had known Mrs. Wycliff for ten years. My ex-husband had been her veterinarian and had taken care of the animals at the sanctuary, but on those odd occasions that I had accompanied him, I’d had only a few polite conversations with her. It wasn’t until recently that I had seen her on a daily basis. Yet I missed her. And admired her. I knew how hard she had fought to rescue the lions, the bears, the others in her odd collections of abused animals. I hoped Diamond and I could carry on her work. Tom came over to me and kissed me on the top of my head.

  “She loved the animals so much,” I murmured, then reached over to take his arm under mine, curling my fingers around the smooth sleeve of his shirt.

  “She put herself on the line, time and time again, to rescue them,” he said. “There must be a ton of clippings in the attic about her. She’s had shots fired at her and people trying to run her off the road while she drove away with some dying animal in the back of her truck.” He pursed his lips at the memory.

  “Don’t go by what she was like at ninety-three,” he said. “She was a hellion in her day.”

  Diamond was taking it very hard. She sat at the kitchen table and clutched one of Mrs. W.’s fine monogrammed linen table napkins to her nose. “I know she was old,” she kept repeating, her grief lubricated by the Tyrconnell, “but she was all I had.”

  “You have me,” I told her. “And I can share my mom with you again.” I was sitting with her and Tom. He had found some paperwork in Mrs. W.’s desk and was glancing through it.

  “You’re a good person, Neelie.” Diamond reached over to touch my hand. “A good person, indeed. How many people would have offered their home to a stranger they just met on a bus in Nairobi and then taken them home to become part of the family? And you have the best family.” She gave me a blubbery smile and hiccupped loudly. “The best family! Did I ever tell you that? You’re all perfect!”

  Tyrconnell aside, I hadn’t realized how much Diamond thought of my family. She wasn’t blood family, of course, but then again, family could be anyone. I reached down to pat one of the Labs on the head and thought how we can all make up a family—dog, cockatoo…I eyed the bird, who was shredding another linen table napkin and thought maybe I’d draw the line at cockatoos. My thoughts turned back to Diamond—she was the sister I never had.

/>   “So.” Diamond sighed loudly. “Would you mind if I moved back with you?”

  Oh no, I thought. I had just managed to replace the few pots she had scorched and finish scraping the last of the biltong slivers that had been deeply embedded in the rug in my office. Not to mention replacing the microwave, the toaster, the vacuum, and the washing machine, as well as a new remote for the TV.

  “No need to move out, Diamond.” Tom looked up from his paperwork. “You can stay in this house for as long as you want. It’ll be good for the house to have someone in it, and you can treat it like it’s yours.”

  She flushed. “Do you mean it?”

  Tom nodded.

  “Oh, thank you.” Diamond got up to give him a hug. “I’ve never had a real house before. The one in Kenya had thatched walls and a grass roof and leaked like mad in the rainstorms.”

  Tom gave Diamond a reassuring smile. “I’ll notify Elisabeth’s lawyers. There is money left in her estate—I’ll see what they plan to do with it.” He pushed his chair back from the table and stretched his arms and yawned. “I guess I’ll head back to the city. I have some appointments.”

  Like a dinner party tonight, t I thought, then stood up, too. Diamond was right about making your own karma. If I wanted Tom in my life, this was the time to make the move. “Since you’ll only have to come back tomorrow to plan the wake,” I said to him, “why don’t you just stay upstate with us a few days until the funeral?”

  His eyes met mine and I smiled at him. “You could stay with me, in fact,” I offered, even though the house we were currently in had three other bedrooms besides Diamond’s and Mrs. Wycliff’s, and Richie and Jackie’s former house with its own two bedrooms was perfectly fine and only about one thousand feet away.