Sara Gruen

by Ape House (v5)

  The restaurant was a small vegan place called Rosa’s Kitchen. Isabel was giving her retainer a test run, having been warned by the denturist that it would take a few days for her to get used to it and speak clearly. The students conspired to make her say things with esses and then laughed uproariously at the resulting lisp.

  Isabel was about halfway through her green curry with eggplant when she caught sight of someone at a table in a darkened corner of the restaurant. She recognized him instantly—he was the oldest of the protesters, the one Celia always referred to as Larry-Harry-Gary. He was sitting with two other men, leaning in on his elbows, the jacket from his blue-black suit hung over the back of his chair, his tie loosened. He was deep in conversation, apparently unaware of Isabel’s presence.

  The smile dropped from Isabel’s face and her eyes hardened. “Excuthe me,” she said, leaning forward to spit her retainer into her hand.

  Celia’s head whipped around to see what Isabel was looking at. “Uh-oh,” she said.

  Isabel rose, pushing her chair back with a screech. She walked to the table and stood in front of it.

  Larry-Harry-Gary stopped laughing and looked up. “Can I help you?” he said, a smile lingering at the edges of his mouth.

  “Are you happy?” said Isabel, narrowing her eyes.

  He shook his head, confused. “I beg your pardon?”

  She leaned forward and shouted, “Are you happy?” A stray piece of basmati rice flew from her mouth.

  He sat back, alarmed. “What are you talking about?”

  As he continued staring, realization dawned on his face. Although he had waved signs at her every time she had driven into the parking lot for almost a year, he hadn’t recognized her.

  “My God,” he said quietly.

  “My God is right,” she said, lowering her tone to match his, and nodding rapidly.

  “Are you okay?”

  “Do I look okay?” She gestured toward her face and head, voice rising like a siren. She turned to address the rest of the stunned diners, some of whom had forks poised in front of open mouths. “You’re dining with a terrorist! In case you’re interested!”

  “Uh, Isabel?” said Celia. She came up behind Isabel and laid a hand on her arm. “I really don’t think—”

  Isabel shook Celia off and swung back to Larry-Harry-Gary. “Congratulations! You ‘liberated’ the apes! What a huge, enormous favor you did them. They’re so much better off at a biomedical lab. What good work you people do!”

  A handful of waiters gathered. The manager elbowed his way through them. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said, “but I’m going to have to ask you to keep it down.”

  “I had nothing to do with it,” said Larry-Harry-Gary. “On my mother’s grave, I had nothing to do with it. None of us did.”

  Isabel leaned over, eyes blazing, and knocked a bowl of curry from the table. It hit the floor, its contents skidding and splashing.

  “That’s it. Let’s go,” said the manager. He grabbed Isabel’s arm and spun her toward the door.

  A male voice bellowed from behind them: “Get your hands off her!” Isabel was startled to discover it belonged to Larry-Harry-Gary. He rose and took a step forward, face flushed with anger. “For Christ’s sake, leave her alone! Can’t you see she’s been injured?”

  Everyone froze. Isabel’s chest was heaving from the effort. Her eyes bored into the manager’s, and then moved to Larry-Harry-Gary’s. His dark brown eyes met her gaze and matched it.

  Isabel walked back to her table, put her teeth back in her mouth, retrieved her purse, and headed for the door. She felt every pair of eyes watching her retreat, and, just as surely, examining the long, crooked gash on the back of her nearly-bald head. She raised her chin and kept walking.

  ——

  The next afternoon, there was a tentative knock on Isabel’s apartment door. When she looked through the peephole, she saw Larry-Harry-Gary.

  She slammed her body against the door and struggled to get the chain on. “I’m calling the police! I’m not alone in here!” She was, of course. Her fingers trembled so violently it took several tries to get the chain on the door.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, his voice muffled. “I didn’t mean to scare you. I just want to talk.”

  “I’ve got my phone in my hand! I’m calling the police. Right now! I’m dialing!”

  “Okay! All right. I’ll go.”

  Isabel eyed her cordless phone, which sat out of reach on the coffee table, next to her teeth. When his footsteps receded down the hall, she lunged for the phone and returned to the door. She pressed her ear against it until she heard the ding of the elevator. Then, with phone in hand, she opened the door as far as the chain allowed.

  “Wait!” she said. “Come back.”

  After a moment’s pause, the footsteps returned and Larry-Harry-Gary leaned against the far wall, hands raised in supplication.

  “I still have my phone in my hand,” she said through the crack in the door.

  “I can see that.”

  “How did you find out where I lived?”

  “The Webcast.”

  “Oh. Right. Of course.”

  “Which I had nothing to do with.” His words tumbled out. “Look, I’m sorry. I wouldn’t have come if I thought it would scare you.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I just wanted to know if you’re okay.”

  Isabel simply stared.

  “All right. I know you’re not okay. I can’t imagine what you’ve been through. I’m so sorry.”

  “Great. Thanks.”

  “I also wanted you to know that our group had nothing to do with the explosion. Harming animals—including people—is against everything we stand for. Every one of us was taken in by the police and cleared. Peaceful protest coupled with education. That’s all we do.”

  Isabel centered herself in front of the narrow opening. “Okay, fine, maybe you didn’t blow us up, but what in God’s name were you protesting? All of our research was performed in a collaborative setting. There were no negative repercussions, ever. There were no cages, no coercion. Those apes ate better than most people I know.”

  He shifted from foot to foot. “You’ll have to ask your friend about that one.”

  “What friend? What are you talking about?”

  “I think you know what I’m talking about.”

  “Actually, I have no clue.”

  “Well, you should.”

  An uncomfortably long silence followed, during which he rocked back and forth on his heels. Eventually he said, “Do you really think they went to a biomedical facility?”

  “Yes. Because nobody will tell me anything, and if they went somewhere decent, why would it be a secret? I’ve contacted everyone I can think of, and nobody’s admitting to knowing anything about them. So, yes. I think they went to a biomedical lab.”

  “Let me see what I can find out.”

  Isabel laughed. “You’ll find out nothing is what. Those apes were the closest thing I had to family and nobody will tell me a damned thing.”

  He pulled a card from his pocket and held it forth. When she didn’t reach for it, he laid it on the floor in front of her door. “My name is Gary Hanson. Please call if you need anything.”

  Isabel crouched and snatched the card from the carpet. She glanced at it. An architect? He was an architect? She looked at him again. He’d always looked surprisingly normal, but somehow she didn’t expect this.

  Gary Hanson watched her for a moment longer. “I mean it,” he said. “If you need anything, call.” He ran a hand through his dark hair, pulled his coat collar up, and walked down the hall.

  Isabel clicked her door shut and stood clutching her phone. When she heard the elevator doors slide open and then shut, she checked to make sure the hall was truly empty.

  What friend could he possibly be talking about? Celia?

  ——

  Four days later, Isabel was lying on the couch in the dark, running her hand
back and forth across the sheared velvet of her hair. It felt like the patch glued to the heads of G.I. Joe dolls. Although she was no longer completely bald, when she held a hand mirror up to see the back of her head the jagged scar was still angry. It would be conspicuous until her hair was long enough to fall rather than stand. She supposed she should get a wig, or maybe some scarves, as Peter had suggested.

  The phone rang, startling her.

  Isabel dropped one leg to the floor and swung around to a sitting position. “Hello?”

  “Hello, Isabel,” said a female voice.

  The connection, the tone, everything was all wrong. Isabel sat forward, on alert. “Who is this?”

  “I’m a friend,” said the woman.

  A chill flashed outward from the pit of Isabel’s stomach. She glanced at the curtains, which, since Celia’s departure, were once again held together with chip clips and safety pins, and then at the door, which was chained. “I have caller ID. I’m recording this call,” she said, although her caller ID was registering a solid line of ones. Isabel’s mind raced back through all she’d learned about IP addresses and Internet anonymity—did it work the same way for telephones?

  “Don’t be scared,” said the woman.

  “What more do you want from me? You’ve already taken everything.” Her voice, raised in false bravado, betrayed her panic.

  “I’m a friend of a friend,” said the woman, “and I think I know where the bonobos are.”

  Isabel grasped the phone with both hands, her breath coming in short bursts. Her heart was racing so fast she thought she might faint. She closed her eyes for a moment, and rocked back and forth.

  “I’m listening,” she said.

  14

  John checked his watch. It was nearly two o’clock. According to his research, the credits to Sesame Street should be rolling right now and Candy’s tyke would be in bed shortly thereafter.

  Given the alarming proximity to his parents’ house, John was parked almost a mile away but he wasn’t kidding himself—he was still in grave danger of being recognized. To this end he was wearing a knit hat pulled low and a peacoat with the collar turned up. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and checked his watch again. He thought about the child, maybe in footsies pajamas, maybe sucking his thumb, being tucked under a quilt while a mobile dangled stuffed animals above him and plinked out a lullaby.

  John could not believe he had been reduced to this.

  Exactly what he had been reduced to had been driven home yet again that morning, when the first section of the Inky featured another report from Cat in which she pretended that she was the one who had visited the lab the day of the explosion, that she was the one who had brought presents and backpacks to the bonobos. It was extremely carefully worded—technically nothing was an outright lie, but she had made great use of the Royal “We” and the passive voice. The photographs Osgood had taken ran with the piece—images of Sam playing the xylophone, of Mbongo holding the gorilla mask and looking desolate, of Bonzi opening her backpack, and then another of her leaping up to kiss the glass. John had been carefully cropped out of this final one. Frankly, he was surprised that Cat hadn’t been Photoshopped in. Meanwhile, John was sitting in his car dressed like a hoodlum waiting for a part-time hooker to put her child to bed so they could begin their “party.”

  He waited an extra ten minutes, since he had no idea how long it took for a kid to fall asleep, and then slunk through the alley to the back of Candy’s townhouse. There was only one window on the main floor, which he assumed was the kitchen. He took a deep breath, looked around at the surrounding houses, and slid behind the holly bush to hoist himself up and check if the high chair was empty.

  He was clinging to the window ledge with strips of paint lodged beneath his nails and his nose pressed to the glass when the sound of rapid footsteps shuffled through the gravel behind him.

  “Get down from there, you … you … reprobate!” said a voice both wavery and sharp. “I have pepper spray!”

  John’s fingers slid from the sill and he toppled into the holly. He thrashed his way out and landed facedown in the gravel.

  “We all know what’s going on in that house,” the woman cried, “and we won’t have it. This is a respectable neighborhood!”

  John turned his head and found himself facing orthopedic shoes, opaque stockings, and a tweed skirt that fell well below the knee. He was also facing a can of mace.

  “Don’t you move!” The tiny canister trembled violently in the clutches of arthritic fingers, one of which hovered over the red trigger button.

  “Please,” John said, trying to recover his breath. “Please don’t.”

  “Give me one reason why I shouldn’t!”

  “Because it’s backward. You’re pointing it at yourself.”

  The mace disappeared and John rolled over. He sat up and wiped off the gravel that was embedded in his cheek. Both his hands were bleeding from the holly. He tested his left wrist, which had been overextended and was quite possibly sprained.

  “John Thigpen? Is that you?”

  He looked up. After a moment of sickening confusion, he realized he was looking into the face of Mrs. Moriarty, his childhood Sunday-school teacher.

  “Oh, Jesus,” he said, dropping his head into his injured hands.

  “Oh, for shame, John Thigpen, for shame!” she scolded. “What will your parents think?”

  ——

  “What the hell happened to you?” said Elizabeth, giving him a dismissive once-over as he entered her office. She had risen to answer the door, become visibly irritated at the sight of him, and sailed back behind her desk. “You look like something the cat dragged in.”

  “Don’t ask.” Although not invited, he took a seat.

  Elizabeth surveyed him dubiously. “If you say so.” She flung herself onto her spring-loaded chair. “So what’s up?”

  John pulled off his ski hat and held it on his lap, flicking off random bits of yard debris. “I’ve decided to take the buyout.”

  She froze. “You what?” she said, leaning forward.

  “The buyout. I’m taking the buyout.”

  Her eyes narrowed, drilling into him. “You’re taking early retirement? Are you insane?”

  “The buyout,” John said firmly. The terminology was important to him. He was thirty-six. He was not retiring.

  Elizabeth cocked her head. “Really. And when, exactly, did you decide this?”

  “Just now.”

  “And may I ask why?” said Elizabeth.

  “Does it matter?”

  “Yes.”

  John stared straight at her, feeling the storm cloud of his combined humiliations swelling within him. He had intended to come in, calmly announce his decision, and leave. Suddenly he found himself shouting. “Because in the last few weeks I’ve been sprayed with skunk oil, I have personally taken samples of random dog poo in parks for goddamned DNA testing, I have measured the depth of rotting trash in gutters and estimated what percentage of it was used condoms. I have hidden in doorways recording the license plates of the people who pick up tranny hookers, and today I was nearly maced by my Sunday-school teacher!” He thumped his fist on her desk to punctuate this last indignity.

  Elizabeth’s eyes were wide. He did not blame her; he had shocked himself. He knew he should try to collect himself, but at this point he had nothing to lose.

  “The ape story was mine,” he continued, pounding his chest. “I know you didn’t want to hire me in the first place, but I’ve done damned good work, and my reward for that is … this.” He flashed his hands, which were crisscrossed with lacerations. “You took my story—my series—and gave it to Cat Douglas the second it started to look like Pulitzer material.”

  Elizabeth’s eyes narrowed to pinpricks. She began tapping her pencil on her desk.

  “Cat Douglas, for Christ’s sake!” he reiterated. “Did you even read what she wrote this morning? She was never in the room with the apes. They wouldn�
�t let her in because she was sick. She was briefly in the building with them, but she never laid eyes on them. And that picture she posted of Isabel Duncan? Unconscionable. I hope she gets sued!”

  Elizabeth didn’t respond. Tap, tap, tap, went the pencil.

  John sighed and sank back in his chair. When he continued, his voice was lowered. “Amanda has an opportunity in L.A. I’m going to join her there. Hell, you should be relieved. Now you have one less person to get rid of, right? Make the executives happy?”

  Elizabeth sat forward suddenly and grabbed her phone. She punched four digits and waited.

  “Yeah, it’s Elizabeth Greer. I need an HR rep up here now. And a packing box. And someone from security.”

  “I can carry my own box,” John said.

  “Yes, right away,” Elizabeth said into the phone.

  ——

  When John told Amanda what he had done, there was a pause long enough that he wondered whether the line had gone dead. Then she said, “Oh. My. God. You did what?” Only then did he truly comprehend the enormity of it. He had just done away with their only source of income. Regret was useless—being escorted from the Inky by security guards almost certainly precluded any possibility of slinking back and begging for reinstatement.

  He began to babble, trying to convince Amanda—and himself—that they would be okay. He would put the house on the market immediately and come to L.A. His buyout was only one month’s salary, but if they were thrifty they could survive until he found work, which he would do immediately, even if it meant flipping burgers. They would have to dip into their nest egg, but not by much, and no matter what, they would be okay. They always had been, even in the lean student years.