“Thanks,” said John, lowering his own voice accordingly.
He set his briefcase on the floor and perched uncomfortably on a red furniture arrangement. After a moment, he dug a tissue from his pocket, folded it, and used it as a coaster for the latte so he wouldn’t besmirch the beveled glass.
The receptionist looked into his eyes and flicked her perfectly manicured fingers against her shoulder. John knitted his brows. She repeated the gesture. John glanced down and found his tie still tossed safely over his shoulder. He flushed and smoothed it against the front of his shirt. No wonder the barista had thought he was a bumpkin.
The receptionist took a phone call, and John trained his eyes on the door to the street and the legs that paraded beyond its vast panes—the starched creases, the sheer stockings, the teetering stilettos. The combat boots, oxbloods, and running shoes. Waddling legs, strutting legs, purposeful legs—furry legs that lifted so a stream of urine could hit the corner of the stone before the leash above yet another set of legs gave a firm tug.
John’s heart was pounding.
On the table beside him was an array of glossy magazine phantasmagoria—tousled hair extensions, bubble dresses, and impossibly high heels with red soles. White veneers peeked between lips that looked like platypus bills. Surgically enhanced faces balanced on necks as skinny as stems.
DIET OR SURGERY? shrieked the headlines.
THE FEUD GETS NASTY!
CAUGHT!
HOLLYWOOD NANNIES TELL ALL!
BOOB JOBS GONE BAD!
John glanced up and found the receptionist flirting with a FedEx man. He picked up one of the magazines.
A morbidly obese blond-bouffanted drag queen named Madam Butterfly offered quips on the worst of the week’s red-carpet disasters. Tiny starlets hid behind Sputnik-sized sunglasses, and pencil-thin women gazed mournfully over their shoulders at phalanxes of cameras.
John had one leg straddled over the other, completely absorbed, when someone called his name.
——
The newsroom was enormous, with waist-high cubicle walls that allowed for no privacy but nearly equal access to natural daylight. Monitors streaming news stations hung overhead, and young, thin, well-coiffed people rushed through the aisles with armloads of paper, proofs, and photographs.
As John entered a corner office with floor-to-ceiling glass panes, Topher McFadden stood to greet him. He was expensively and colorfully dressed, in an apple-green shirt and periwinkle silk tie, a combination that should not have worked but did. His glasses and shoes were chunky and square. He was fit and tanned, with a thatch of blond hair, and could have been anywhere from twenty-five to forty-five. John hoped he was closer to forty-five, given the obvious differences in their situations. They shook hands.
“Have a seat,” said Topher McFadden, gesturing toward a couch. He retreated behind his desk.
John sat and toppled downward into the buttery leather. He struggled to the front—no small feat while balancing a hot drink, as it involved a fair bit of scootching and an unfortunate chair fart. He balanced carefully on the edge. The differences in furniture rendered him almost two feet shorter than his interviewer.
“Uh, here,” said John, stretching forth to set the skinny ultra double-freaking la-ti-dah on the desk.
Topher McFadden grabbed the coffee. He located the drink hole and sucked long and hard.
“So. Brass tacks,” he said, reaching for John’s résumé. “I see you interned for Ken Faulks. Were you friendly?”
“He’s Ken Faulks,” John explained, although he perked up at the mention of Faulks’s name.
“Huh,” said McFadden. He swung his feet up onto his desk and made a steeple with his fingers. “Have you seen his new project? With those monkeys in that house in New Mexico? It’s huge, unprecedented. And it’s going to get bigger. I want someone out there, someone with an edge.”
John’s heart skipped a beat. He caught his breath. He tried to hold back, but before he knew it, he was rambling.
“That was my story at the Inky. Never mind just interning with Faulks at the Gazette, which I did, of course—I’ve also met the apes. I was in the language lab literally hours before it got bombed.”
“Really?” said McFadden. He shifted slightly, changed the angle of his head, examining John more closely.
“Really. I know the history of those apes. I know their names. I know the work they were doing—hell, I talked with them. I talked with them—a two-way conversation. And the scientist who got hurt. And I worked for Faulks. I’m good. I’m hungry. I want my story back, and I’m the best person for it. I’ll do anything to get it. You won’t be sorry.”
Topher McFadden looked at John long and hard. His fingers were once again undulating like a jellyfish. “So why did you leave the Inquirer again?”
John stared and tried not to grind his teeth. “Let’s just say a colleague there threw me under the bus, and I had very strong reasons for wanting to be here.”
“Your wife?”
“Yes. My wife.”
McFadden smiled and swung his feet down from his desk.
“Well then. Looks like the Inky’s loss is our gain. How soon can you leave for Lizard?”
——
John’s cell phone rang while he was pulling out of the parking garage. It was Amanda.
“Did you get the job?” she said.
“You’re a goddess! A genius!” he said, propping the phone between his ear and his shoulder so he could pay the attendant.
“I am?”
“Yes! I’m back on the ape story!”
She shrieked, so loudly he nearly dropped the phone. “Oh my God! Honey! I’m so happy for you!”
“Did you get your face done?”
“Yes, but never mind that. Tell me about the assignment.”
“It means I have to go to New Mexico almost immediately, but I’m—”
“Oh, shit,” Amanda said, cutting him off. “That’s Sean on call-waiting. Sorry, babe. I have to take it. Which reminds me, we’re going to a party tonight. See you soon. Pick up champagne!”
——
John went home with champagne in hand and found a note from Amanda on the fridge explaining that she would be at a series of appointments in preparation for the party and didn’t know how long she’d be out. She asked him to be ready by eight and signed it with exes and ohs.
She walked through the door at five minutes to the hour, took one look at John, and said, “You’re not wearing that, are you?”
Her hair was swept up in a pile of loose blond curls of the kind achieved by hard work, hot rollers, and hairpins. Her perfect toenails peeked out of open-toed high-heeled shoes whose crimson soles sent a warning chill up John’s spine (he had seen celebrities teetering on similarly red-soled shoes earlier in the day in an issue of the Weekly Times). Her body was encased in a black knit sheath dress that went over only one shoulder.
She blinked expectantly. He remembered her question.
“I was planning to, yes,” he said, looking down at himself. He was still in his interview garb, minus the tie.
“I’m in Christian Louboutins,” she said by way of explanation. John had no idea what that meant.
“You want me to put my tie back on?” he asked.
She shook her head and smiled. Clearly he was hopeless.
“Here, let me look at you,” he said, going over and tilting her face up to the light. She turned obligingly.
The contours of her face looked exactly the same to him as they had that morning. “Remind me—what’s supposed to be different?”
“I’m a little fuller here,” she said, indicating the area between her nose and mouth, “and here.” She pointed toward her lips. “He also injected a little bit under my eyes, and my freckles are gone. And in a few days apparently I won’t be able to frown.”
“How will I know if you’re mad at me?”
She laughed. “Oh, you’ll know.”
“How much did it cost?
”
After a slight pause she said, “Eleven hundred dollars.”
John blanched. “Eleven hundred dollars?”
“But on the bright side, if I keep it up I’ll never get wrinkles,” she said quickly. “The muscles will atrophy. And I think we can write it off … maybe.”
At that moment, the doorbell rang.
Amanda turned and ran her eyes over John.
“Look, why don’t you just go without me?” John said. “I’m not all that good at schmoozing anyway.”
“Are you sure?” she said, swiping her tiny sequined purse from the hall table.
“Yeah,” said John, although he was more than a little curious about this world of celebrities his wife was starting to inhabit.
“We’ll have the champagne when I get back,” she said.
“Okay,” he said.
She kissed him good-bye and opened the door long enough to reveal Sean, who appeared to have gone to great effort to look like a greasy and unshaven addict. Sean muttered something to John and raised a hand in greeting as Amanda lurched out on what had to be five-inch heels. The door slammed.
John stared at the back of it for a few seconds.
Eleven hundred dollars?
Eventually he took his laptop to bed to dig up everything he could find on the apes. So far, nobody had succeeded in getting an interview with Ken Faulks, any of the university’s board members, or any of the scientists involved in the project. Peter Benton was actively eluding the media, smugly invoking the usual clichés as though he were some kind of celebrity: “No comment,” he’d say from behind dark glasses, or lifting his hand to block the camera’s lens. As for Isabel Duncan, she appeared to have fallen off the face of the earth. She had never granted an interview, and had never returned to the university. He remembered her cryptic comment about family and hoped that wherever she was, she was okay.
——
Amanda was home three hours later, a dark shadow slipping into the bedroom.
“Party over already?” John said. He was half asleep, his glazed eyes fixed on the late show. He’d watched Ape House until the bonobos were asleep.
“No!” she spat, hurling her purse against the wall and sending its contents—a lipstick, compact, credit card, and driver’s license—flying.
John jumped out of bed. “Whoa. What happened? Are you all right?”
“No, I’m not all right.” She threw her shoes overhand into the corner, one after the other.
Bang.
Bang.
The tiny black point of one stiletto left a dent in the drywall.
“Baby?” John said, approaching as though she were a crazed horse. He tentatively reached for her arm. When she didn’t strike out, he began to stroke her. “Amanda? Baby? Talk to me. Tell me what happened.”
“First of all, we waited an hour in line behind velvet ropes while they let other people past. More important people, I gather. Then it started to rain, and my hair curled until I looked like Medusa and my feet were killing me. Have you ever tried to walk in five-inch heels? Those shoes cost seven hundred and sixty dollars and now they’re ruined because I had to stand there in a greasy puddle. And my feet are ruined too.”
“Did you say seven hundred and sixty dollars?”
“And then, when we did get in, the place was swarming with goddamned celebutantes like Kim Kardashian and Paris Hilton! Oh, Paris was swanning around like she was born in five-inch heels! What have any of them ever done? Seriously? What contributions have any of them made to culture or life or even entertainment, except maybe racking up DUIs and doing token jail time? At least Kim and Paris have sex tapes to their credit.” Amanda shifted into an imitation of Paris Hilton, thrusting her hips forward and shoulders back, arms akimbo, and tilting her head so her hair fell over one eye. “Hello, Mirror! I’m hot!”
John sank down to the edge of the bed. “You saw Paris Hilton’s sex tape? When did you see Paris Hilton’s sex tape?”
“And then we caught up with our group, and everyone was checking out my face because I guess it’s no secret that I got it done this morning, and some bug-eyed balding ass in shoe lifts said, ‘You know, I’ve got just the guy for your nose.’”
John’s back straightened instantly. “What?”
“Yes. It sparked a conversation. Apparently my nostrils are ‘protrudey.’ Someone actually used that word. Everyone thought it was very funny, ha ha ha.”
“Oh, shit.”
She shook her head violently and dropped onto the bed beside him. Her eyes were wild. “I’m not going to do it, John. I won’t do it. I will not be turned into a Hollywood bot.”
She inhaled deeply and closed her eyes. John could sense there was more to come.
“And then they told me that they may change the age of the actors on our show so that they’re just under twenty rather than in their midforties, which basically means we’ll be ripping off Gossip Girl instead of Sex and the City. And I will have to start over with the scripts. Which will still have to include Vitaminwater in every scene, only now I have to fit in a mention of Macy’s too. At least that’s only once per episode. Apparently there has to be a clear shot of their shopping bag as well, but that’s the scene director’s problem.” She opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling. John lay next to her, propped on an elbow, watching her.
“I hate this place,” she said. “I hate this job. I even hate myself. I can’t believe I did this to us. I’ve completely ruined our lives.”
She got up and went into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her.
John lay on the bed listening carefully, wondering if he should be worried—he hadn’t seen her this upset since Fran had forever ruined sex toys for them.
He got up and put his ear against the door of the bathroom. He heard the sound of running water. “You okay?”
“Yes,” she said. “Just soaking my stupid feet. Can you check and see if the shoes are ruined?”
John retrieved the shoes from the corner. There was a nick halfway up the crimson inside of one heel, a tiny ripple in the leather. John smoothed it out with his thumb.
“Well, they’re not exactly returnable, but they’re not destroyed.”
“Good. I’m going to sell them on eBay. Along with the dress.”
“Do you want me to get you a glass of wine or something?”
“No.”
“Do you want a foot rub?”
“No, but thank you. I think I’m just going to soak for a while.”
He was dozing when she finally came to bed, but that didn’t last. She flopped from side to side and rearranged her pillows every time John began to fall asleep.
“You’re rattling and hemming,” she said.
“Sorry.” He rearranged himself obligingly, moving from his back to his side. Seconds later, she added, “No, actually it’s more of a snorking and whistling.”
“Mmm.”
She fell mercifully silent, and once again John felt himself drifting.
“Now you’re grumbling and rumbling, with more of a mumble on the exhale—”
John’s eyes popped open. “Amanda.”
“Yes?”
“Only a writer could describe snoring the way you do.”
“I’m sorry. I’ll stop.”
He got up.
“You don’t have to leave,” she said, rolling onto his side of the bed and burying her face in his pillows.
He watched her inert form.
“Amanda?”
“Mm-hmm?”
“I don’t know if it registered earlier when I told you on the phone, but I’m going to New Mexico.”
Amanda shifted onto her elbows and looked stricken. She stared at him for several seconds. “Oh my God. I really am a horrible human being.” And then after another pause, “I can’t believe I haven’t even asked you about that yet. I’m the most self-absorbed person on the planet. I’m already becoming one of them.”
“You were distracted. With good reason.”
“Do you want to talk about it now? Open the champagne?”
“I think it’s a little late for that,” he said, glancing at the clock. “I may be leaving as early as tomorrow. Will you be okay on your own?”
She sank back onto the pillow. “I’ll be fine,” she said in a tiny voice.
“Because I’m a little worried about you right now …”
“I’ll pull myself together. I really will. This is just … Nothing here is what I expected. It’s all plastic and Botox and nose jobs and people sizing you up all the time for things that have nothing to do with your job. Please come back to bed. I promise I’ll let you sleep.”
He gazed down on her for a moment. “No. You sleep,” he said, leaning over to kiss her forehead.
John went downstairs, poured a glass of wine from an open bottle, booted Amanda’s computer, and downloaded a copy of Recipe for Disaster onto a thumbnail drive. He found a spreadsheet in the same folder that listed agents, presumably in order of preference, as they were graded with numbers of stars. The file recorded when she had queried them and what their response had been. About a third had not bothered to reply at all. He put a copy of that file on the thumbnail drive as well.
At just past two he slipped back upstairs. She was still on his side of the bed, snoring softly. The sight caused a stab of tenderness so exquisite it brought a lump to his throat.
20
Because lists and order helped Isabel make sense of the world, she dissected the problem into three main obstacles. The first was getting Faulks to surrender the apes, and to this end she had enlisted the help of Francesca De Rossi and Eleanor Mansfield, world-renowned primatologists and founding members of the group People Against the Exploitation of Great Apes. PAEGA had been instrumental in securing basic human rights for great apes in Spain the year before, and they continued to lobby on behalf of apes trapped in the entertainment industry and biomedical facilities. They were on their way to Lizard at this very moment.
The second obstacle was finding temporary housing for the apes once Faulks did surrender them, and while Isabel was making some progress on this front (she was in discussions with the San Diego Zoo), it led directly to the third—and most worrisome—obstacle: acquiring a permanent home for them. Building a suitable facility would cost millions of dollars, and even if Isabel could find a university willing to fund the project, she would never again allow the bonobos to be in a position to be sold, even if that meant owning them herself, a concept she found abhorrent.
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