I know the next line by heart. I jump up and down with my right hand raised. “‘No one ever gets over the first unfairness; no one except Peter.’” Mommy smiles even though her eyes don’t. She takes my hand, leads me out of our loft, up the stairs to the rooftop, because she says I’m not Peter. I’m glad, because Peter isn’t a real boy. This means Mommy finally sees me.
Swift Jones is only a few feet from Raki. She stares up at her mother. The calf’s smile fades. She makes a high-pitched mewl. Raki tries to kick her with her free back leg. She misses but it’s close. The mother elephant strains against her ropes, head down, attempting to butt her calf away. When she realizes she can’t reach, Raki lashes out with her front leg. She misses Swifty by inches.
“Let’s take her out,” Steve says. The three men pull the struggling calf away from her mother. Swifty cries, the pitch higher and higher as the distance between her and Raki increases.
Addie takes off her glasses, swipes at her eyes. “That’s it.”
Steve walks Swift Jones down the hallway. When they reach us, Swifty stares through the bars at her mother. Raki turns her head away. Tears pool in Swifty’s eyes. They course down her cheeks. The salty tracks drip onto the floor. Drip. Onto. The. Floor.
“It’s despair,” Dr. Tinibu says. “I need to speak with Steve. Lily, take her to the farthest pen. Please.”
I slowly walk down the hallway, whistle. Swift Jones shuffles after me. I rest a hand on her head as we walk. “You don’t need Raki,” I say softly. But the calf keeps crying. When we enter the last pen, I kneel in front of SJ. Tears drip down the velvety folds of her face. I wipe them away, but they keep coming. When I lick my wet finger, it tastes like salt. “Okay, here’s the deal,” I say. “Of course you need your mom. But you can live without her.” Grabbing a blanket, I drape it over the calf’s shoulders. She shuffles in a circle then lies down. I take a photo of her miserable face, because Mr. Matthews made me promise to get a few more shots.
Shrugging off my backpack, I sit beside Swifty, rubbing her back like she’s a little kid, even though I understand that she’s not. “Brought you something.” She stares at me with red-rimmed, leaking eyes. I pull out a battered stuffed animal. “His name is Nibs.” The rabbit was once snow-white but is now a dingy gray. Most of his stuffing is gone. His ears are droopy. “He only has one blue eye,” I explain, “because when I was six, I flushed the other one down the toilet. I wanted to see the magical place where all my goldfish lived.”
I hid Nibs in a suitcase along with my mother’s dog-eared copy of Peter Pan the day my father tore all the Escher posters to shreds and painted over Violet’s rambles. He was erasing Violet. I thought that meant he’d take the stuffed animal she’d given me. Nibs remained in that suitcase until last night. “He’s for you, Swifty.” I hold out the stuffed bunny. It takes the calf a few tries to coordinate her trunk enough to touch Nibs. Its end quivers as she sniffs the rabbit. Then she wraps her trunk around the bunny, pulls him close. I take another photo—just of her trunk twisted about the stuffed animal. I lie down a few inches from her, face-to-face. She’s still crying. “Fuck Raki.”
Dr. Tinibu walks into the pen. She kneels beside Swift Jones, her fingers gently stroking the calf’s head. “What now?” I ask, sitting up on the opposite side of Swifty.
“Raki isn’t ready to accept her calf. She may never be.”
“She’s acting like she doesn’t even know Swifty.” I sound angry, not balanced.
“Lily, your perspective is skewed toward your human experience that all mothers instinctively do the right thing.”
I laugh. At first it’s just a chuckle, but then it’s full-blown, rip-roaring laughter that cramps my stomach, makes me hiccup repeatedly. Dr. Tinibu looks at me like I’m nuts. I try but can’t stop. She leans over Swifty and pats my cheeks frantically. My laughter slowly subsides.
Addie looks alarmed. “It’s okay,” I say, gasping, catching my breath. “I’m okay. No big deal.”
She drops her hands and hesitates, then nods at Nibs. “Yours?”
“I brought it, just in case.”
“Why were you laughing?”
“Violet gave me Nibs.”
“Violet?”
“My mother. When I was seven years old, Violet was arrested for attempted murder.”
Dr. Tinibu rocks backward. “I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. I’m the one she tried to kill.”
Dr. Tinibu recoils, like my words are an invisible slap to her face. “So when I said your perspective was skewed toward mothers doing the right thing?”
My face heats up. “It’s not funny. But, yeah.”
“What happened to her?”
“The jury found her guilty. She was sentenced to fifteen years in prison.”
“That’s terrible.”
Her eyes meet mine and it’s like I’m naked. My skin burns. “So...so what happens to Swifty now?”
“Wild Walker’s Circus will arrange a plane to transport her to Florida,” Dr. Tinibu says. “They’ve agreed to let me stay for a week to get our...to get the calf settled and make sure their elephant trainer knows how to care for her.”
“That’s good.”
“So you’ll write about this?”
“That’s the plan.”
“Then you should write about Swift Jones in Florida, too.”
For a second I feel kind of sorry for Addie. This is over, but she’s still trying to find a way to keep the calf. Swifty whimpers. The sound burrows under my skin. “I’m sure there’ll be a reporter from the Haven Gazette who’ll do a story,” I offer.
Dr. Tinibu shakes her head. “You started this situation, you should see it through to the end.”
We’re back to this being my fault. Maybe it is. But the idea that I’d willingly go to Florida with an elephant calf who is currently devastated is so far removed from my Twelve-Year Plan that it’s like asking me to fly.
But.
No, I tell my brain. Trying to fly definitely did not work out well for me. “Walker’s won’t want an intern reporter from the Times around,” I say. “Their PR guy could barely bother talking with me.”
“I’ll tell them that you’d mainly be there as one of Swift Jones’s caregivers, which is true. You’re the best we have. Truthfully, Lily, I need you.”
Swifty’s trunk is curled around Nibs, and her eyes are swollen and red. I visualize cutting the imaginary thread I can almost feel connecting me to the calf, because our stories are not the same. She’s a baby elephant. I was a seven-year-old human child. “I’ll talk to Mr. Matthews,” I hear myself say. There’s no way Otis Walker is going to agree to this...but if he does, the AP might pick up another story of mine. It’d be stupid to give up another chance to get into USC.
“You’ll need a week off school.”
“I’m sure that can be arranged.” I’m eighteen years old. My father can’t stop me.
I set my phone’s alarm to go off in three hours. Then I take a spare blanket, spreading it far from the calf. I pull homework from my backpack. I need to write a paper in French.
Dr. Tinibu doesn’t say good-night. I listen to her footsteps fade as she walks down the hallway. A door opens then closes. Silence descends.
“Psst.”
My head snaps around. The hallway beyond the bars is empty. Zoo sounds. But I wait a long moment before returning to my book, just to make sure no one is there.
The Pennington Times
OCTOBER 26
BY T. LILLIAN DECKER, INTERN
Swift Jones Rejected Again
On October 25, Pennington Zoo veterinarian, Dr. Steve Cohen, attempted to reunite Asian elephant Raki with her calf, Swift Jones. Although Raki was restrained for the calf’s safety, she was at first disinterested then aggressive toward Swift Jones.
“Raki’s hostil
ity means the Pennington Zoo has lost ownership of Swift Jones to Wild Walker’s Circus,” Dr. Tinibu said. “We cannot break our contract with the circus even though life-threatening problems can be triggered by the calf’s psychological grief over the loss of her mother that the Pennington Zoo is better equipped to handle.”
Swift Jones will be transported to Walker’s winter home in Haven, Florida, via chartered plane. Dr. Tinibu and her staff will spend a week at the circus getting the calf settled and educating circus personnel on proper care.
The Pennington Times has received thousands of emails, letters and tweets of concern for Swift Jones. One reader has been circulating a petition on Facebook to keep Swift Jones at the Pennington Zoo. He has more than five thousand signatures.
Walker’s publicist, Otis Walker, stated to the Haven Gazette that Howard Walker, the circus’s elephant trainer “has a deep respect and appreciation for the animals he works with and strives to create a loving bond with these magnificent creatures.”
20
Things are moving way too fast. Wild Walker’s Circus has agreed to let me accompany Dr. Tinibu as a caretaker and even write a few articles about the calf’s transition. It was the PR guy Otis’s decision. I assumed he’d say hell no and already dislike him for putting me in this situation, which is well beyond a huge deviation from my plan. Still, as long as I can remain detached, professional, this trip could propel me closer to USC and away from Calvin.
“We need professional photographs,” Mr. Matthews growls into the phone.
He and Shannon sit on his desk eating ice cream from the Ben & Jerry’s cart next to the Times office. Shannon’s is bright green pistachio in a cone. Mr. Matthews’s bowl is piled so high with broken Oreo cookies that I can’t tell the flavor.
“Dr. Tinibu, she’s not a photographer...No. Okay. Fine.” Mr. Matthews hangs up.
Jack looks up from the camera lens he’s cleaning. “All set?”
“Give the kid a quick lesson,” Mr. Matthews says with a nod at me.
“What?” Jack and I say in unison.
My boss takes a giant spoonful of ice cream. Somehow he gets it all into his mouth. He holds up a finger until it melts enough that he can talk around the Oreo crumbles. “Obviously it’s not my first choice. But that Tinibu gal has a way with words. Impressive. Is she single?”
“She wears a gold ring on her right thumb?” I venture.
“Kid, it’s called multitasking,” he growls. “Either Lily goes alone,” he says to Shannon and Jack, “or she doesn’t go at all.”
“So your school is good with this?” Shannon asks.
“My English teacher is giving me extra credit for a paper on my experience.” I don’t say that my chemistry teacher threatened to fail me.
“And your dad?” Mr. Matthews asks.
We aren’t talking. “He’s good, too.” If I didn’t need to pack, I’d spend the night at Sawyer’s.
“This story needs great photos,” Jack argues.
“This story has caught the nation’s attention. Charlie fucking Hamilton from CNC can’t get an interview. He called me last night,” Mr. Matthews says. “Nice guy. Believe me, Charlie has tried his best, but Dr. Tinibu is a tough nut to crack. Every article Lily writes gets scooped up by the AP, read nationally, even with her crap iPhone pics.”
“The one with the stuffed animal,” Shannon says between licks, “didn’t stink.”
That’s the first compliment she’s given me, so even though it’s sort of a noncompliment, it counts. Mr. Matthews used it on the bottom of the front page even though he told me it had shit lighting. Another noncompliment. But that’s two.
“Sorry, Jack. Teach Lily how to point and click.”
“The Times cameras are Canon 5D Mark IIIs,” Jack says, gingerly handing his to me. “Send me what you get at the end of each day. I’ll try to make your shots look decent.”
“Where’s the On button?” Jack jabs his finger at it like he’d rather be poking me in the eye. “Do you have an instruction manual?”
“No,” Jack says, looking at Mr. Matthews. “Because I don’t need one.” He points at another button. “HD video recording. And this is the slot for the memory card. There are two more in the case.”
Mr. Matthews scrapes up the last ice-cream-soaked crumbles of cookies. “I expect three articles during your time in Florida, all with photos. The public can’t get enough of that elephant. Let’s give them what they want then hope the AP follows suit.”
“I still think it should be more personal,” Shannon says. “An ‘our intern was there’ kinda thing.”
“No,” Mr. Matthews and I say in unison.
I’m not sure why he agrees with me, but if he hadn’t I would’ve refused to go, USC or no USC. I’m already taking enough risks. The tension in our loft, one being low and ten being high, is at twenty-three.
“Kid?” Mr. Matthews asks.
“Yes?” I say, hoping it was a yes-or-no question I missed and that I got it right.
“Are you sure you’re up for this?”
No. “Yes. Thank you for the chance. It means a ton.” I carefully put the newspaper’s fancy camera into its padded bag.
“Then get outta here,” Mr. Matthews says. “And find out if Dr. Tinibu is single,” he adds. “I like a gal with spunk.”
I start to jog home. For once, it’s not raining. I pause at a streetlight and wait for it to turn green, cross Everett Avenue then dial Sawyer and tell him about the meeting. “Do you have everything you need from me?” I ask. Sawyer is getting copies of my articles. He’ll mail the package to USC on Monday morning, because I’m going to be on a plane.
“No worries,” Sawyer says. “You have time to check out my final two?”
“Final two?”
“Apartments. I can pick you up in an hour and we can swing by both.”
I leap over a puddle. “I wish. I still need to email my French teacher a paper and pack. But spill.” Sawyer is quiet. “Please?”
“It’s either the loft or the furnished penthouse on Couch Street, which has a bocce court on the deck.”
“I don’t know what bocce is, but I vote for the penthouse. It already has a bed. Sorry I can’t see it,” I say. “Really.” I take a deep breath.
“What?” Sawyer asks, because he can basically read my mind.
“You sure that I can do this?”
“One thousand percent,” he says without hesitation. “I know you’re scared, but you’ve been stuck in one place for a long time. When you stop taking risks, you stop living life.”
“That’s definitely not a Freyism.”
“It’s a Sawyerism.”
“Right back at you,” I say.
“What does that mean?”
There’s something in Sawyer’s voice that’s off. “Well. I’m risk averse, which has been holding me back.”
“You said, right back at you.”
“It’s nothing.” A car honks. I back onto the curb. A really short guy walking a black Great Dane passes by. “I’m just distracted, that’s all.”
“But?”
I’m trying to backpedal with a guy who’s way smarter than me. “But nothing?”
“Say it,” he snaps.
Sawyer isn’t going to let me off the hook, which kinda pisses me off because I’m about to step off a cliff without knowing if I’ll ever land and he’s safe as usual. “You play it safe,” I say.
“Fuck you, Lily.”
The light changes, but I don’t cross the street. My feet have morphed into lead weights. “What? Seriously?”
“You think you’re the only one with problems?”
This can’t be a fight, can it? I reach for a joke. “You’re right. You might not score all the goals at your next lacrosse game.” I wince because it’s clear that this isn’t a joking
situation. I get that I need to come up with something better, some way to support him, but I can’t find the words.
“I don’t understand what it’s like to have schizophrenia hanging over my head, but my father is basically disowning me,” Sawyer says. “Cushing is an asshole, but he’s the only dad I have. My mother hasn’t even considered sticking up for me. She’s too busy starving herself and getting plastic surgery to give a shit. And my best friend, who I’ve been there for since, like, forever, doesn’t even spend a second thinking that for once, I’m the one who needs some support.”
This isn’t happening. “I didn’t realize you were keeping score,” I blurt.
“It’s not hard to count to zero.”
“Sawyer, I tried to talk to you about moving out!”
“Yeah, right. You diverted the conversation then made it all about you, like always.”
“That’s not fair!”
“Like you always say, life’s not fair.”
There’s a car sitting on my chest and it’s hard to talk around the massive lump in my throat. I manage to croak, “You didn’t have to push Cushing—”
“Jesus, Lily. You really don’t get it.”
I start to retort, but Sawyer has already hung up.
21
Calvin is waiting for me when I get back to the loft. Not pretending to sleep or cook or clean the kitchen. He. Is. Waiting. For. Me. He’s drinking Scotch. By the half-empty bottle on the counter and the bleary look in his eyes, he’s had way too much. I haven’t seen him drunk in a long time, not since the last few months with Violet. Mostly I remember the smell of his breath; the way he walked like the ground was tilting. I’m too exhausted for another fight, so I head to my bedroom to pack.
“What do you bring to wear at a circus?” I mutter. “It’s Florida in October so it’ll be hot, right?” I grab two pairs of cargo shorts, two T-shirts, two sweatshirts and then realize I’m stuck on the number two. I pull out seven pairs of undies, because I’m not planning to do laundry. A baseball hat Sawyer got me that reads: I Like You but if Zombies Chase Us I’m Tripping You goes into my duffel along with a toothbrush, toothpaste, brush, elastics and fake Ray-Ban gold-wire sunglasses I bought at the dollar store. I pause. That’s a mistake, because the second I stop moving all I can think about is Sawyer. He hates me, which is nothing I’ve ever experienced. I dial his number. He sends my call to voice mail. I try again. Voice mail.
When Elephants Fly Page 11
