Ape House

by Sara Gruen

  John snorted. "Better than your mom."

  She slapped his chest. "Ha! True, that."

  John checked his watch. "Well, I guess it's time."

  ----

  They grew quiet as they approached the airport, and quieter still when they parked the rental car. By the time they got into the security line, it had been minutes since either of them had said a word. They held hands, shuffling closer and closer to the point where they would have to part. Amanda suddenly swung around and pressed herself against John's chest. He cupped her face in his hands and raised it to his. He could see that she was trying not to cry.

  John wiped her eyes with his thumbs. "Are you sure you'll be okay?"

  She sniffed and nodded. "Uh-huh," she said, too brightly. "I'll be fine." She dug a tissue from her purse and blew her nose. "We're not going to see each other every weekend, are we?"

  John hesitated, and then shook his head. He would have given anything to provide a different response, but he had spent much of the previous night awake, analyzing their new financial situation. They had been barely surviving on his salary as it was. There was not a chance they wouldn't be dipping into their savings, even before taking into account any travel. "Not unless we win the lottery. But we'll talk every day, and Ariel's wedding is only two and a half weeks away."

  Amanda was now second in line.

  "It's going to be okay," John said encouragingly. "Between now and then I'll figure something out. We might be able to swing a visit every two or three weeks. That isn't too bad, as long as it's temporary."

  Amanda brought her hands to her face and ran them over her forehead and cheeks. Then she said, "Am I doing the right thing?"

  "I think so," said John. "I hope so. Anyway, we're in it together. We're a team, remember?"

  The man in front of Amanda passed through the checkpoint.

  "Boarding pass and ID," said the TSA officer.

  Amanda handed them to her and turned back to John.

  "I guess this is it," she said, kissing John. "Good-bye."

  "Bye, baby," he said, squeezing tight. "Call me the second you get there."

  "Will do."

  The TSA officer looked from Amanda's driver's license to her face, squiggled something in highlighter on her boarding pass, and handed both back to Amanda, who flashed a tight, brave smile and disappeared.

  John walked around the glass wall until he could see her again. He watched as she took off her boots, purse, and laptop and placed them in gray bins on the conveyor belt. He watched as she was reprimanded, and removed her boots and purse from the bins and laid them directly on the belt instead. He watched as she stood in her stockinged feet in front of the metal detector waiting to be waved through, and then she was truly gone.

  "Bye, baby," he said quietly.

  ----

  His cell phone rang just as he was pulling into a parking space at the Residence Inn. For a fleeting moment he dared hope Amanda's flight had been canceled, or at least delayed. Even if it just gave them a final meal together--

  "Hello?" he said.

  "Hey, it's Elizabeth."

  "Hi," he said, trying not to sound disappointed. "Did you get the amendment?"

  "Yeah. Hey, listen, I need you back in Philly. How soon can you arrange it?"

  "What? Why?"

  "I need you to cover something."

  "I'm already covering something."

  "Yeah, but that whole ape thing is becoming more like Cat's kind of thing--"

  "The hell it is!"

  "--and you two don't seem to be working too well together anyway--"

  "What did she say to you?"

  "It doesn't matter. I need you here."

  "What ... did ... she ... say ... to ... you?"

  "It doesn't matter. Frankly, I don't have the resources to keep the two of you out there anyway, and she's more than capable. And I need someone to cover another column. So get back here as soon as you can." She hung up.

  John flipped his phone shut and threw it on the passenger seat. He parked the car and sat clutching the steering wheel with both hands, grinding his teeth and staring at the dog-poo station that was just outside the hotel entrance.

  She's more than capable.

  And you, sir, are not. John felt as close to murdering someone as he ever had in his life. It was his series, his story, his idea, and Cat had extracted it from him as deftly as a prankster whipping a tablecloth from beneath a Thanksgiving spread.

  Ta-dah!

  ----

  Fran and Tim's rental car was not in the driveway, but they could have just been shopping. It wasn't until John checked the guest room that he knew for sure they had left.

  Evidence of Fran's occupation was everywhere: lace antimacassars, shelves lined with paper, drawers rearranged, towels and sheets refolded, and everything ironed. John found it droll that she'd ironed his jeans and undershirts; he found it less amusing when he discovered his boxers were also pressed.

  The table was set with good linens, so John took his Hungry-Man frozen dinner to the couch, turned on the television, and put his feet up. As he spooned the gluey potatoes into his mouth, he couldn't help thinking of Amanda's version, mashed with rivers of butter. His mind then turned to all that beautiful food she'd prepared for him that was rotting in a dumpster behind the Residence Inn at that very moment. It had felt like an act of betrayal to throw it out--the sensation was almost painful--but there was no way in hell he was going to offer it to Cat. If Cat were drowning, he wouldn't toss her a straw, and that was before he'd seen the photo. What he should have done was track down Cecil, who probably hadn't had a home-cooked meal in years, but that option didn't occur to John until he was already on the plane.

  He flicked through the channels, automatically bypassing sports stations until he remembered that Amanda wasn't home to object. God, how he wanted her home. The house felt empty and huge without her. She had commiserated with him by phone about his new assignment, but he wanted to wrap his arms around her, to draw some comfort from her physical presence.

  Elizabeth had recalled John to take over a weekly column called "Urban Warrior." The real "Urban Warrior" had just had twins, who were apparently colicky little monsters, and as a result she was severely sleep-deprived and going on leave. Very unwarriorlike, in John's opinion. Stick a kid on each boob in one of those sling-type contraptions and go out and measure your own damned potholes. This was not just sour grapes. This was the actual nature of his assignments. Profiles on the crazy guy who patented a device to measure and compare potholes around the city, the valedictorian at the most troubled high school, Philadelphia's most beloved doorman. Counting the number of abandoned cars on the expressway, and scoping out the city's most trash-laden street. This week, he was supposed to conceive of and conduct a sting operation on dog owners who didn't pick up after their pooches in Fairmount Park and Rittenhouse Square.

  And then there was the photo. John had gone to the Inky's Web site to look up previous versions of "Urban Warrior" and had found Cat's initial report from Kansas under a photograph of a catastrophically injured Isabel Duncan. He felt physically ill. He hadn't even recognized Isabel--it wasn't until he read the caption that he realized who he was looking at. He studied the picture closely, but the resolution was poor and there were too many bandages for him to get a real sense of what had happened to her. There was absolutely no way she had given permission for that photograph to be taken.

  He didn't know when and he didn't know how, but someday karma was going to catch up with Cat.

  11

  "Ready?" Peter kissed Isabel's forehead and handed her a pile of clothes.

  She nodded and stared at the motley assortment. An unfamiliar ski toque sat on top, the price sticker still attached. She peeled it off, rolled it into a neat cylinder, and set it on the edge of the bedside table.

  "For your head," said Peter. Under different circumstances she might have found his remark amusing, but Isabel thought she might never laugh again. Six
teen days before, Peter had walked into her hospital room and told her the bonobos were gone--sold, like toasters or snowblowers, like so many items at a garage sale. She had fallen completely apart, to the point that they'd sedated her again, and she suspected that the sedation had continued for several days. She was furious--with Peter, who had promised to look after the apes; with the university, for betraying them instantly and apparently without a second thought; with the world, for considering these creatures nothing more than property. Peter withstood her rage, comforting her when she'd let him, and swearing he'd find out what he could. So far the trail had ended abruptly against a wall of bureaucracy. One of the contract conditions was that the buyer remain anonymous, and, out of concern for campus security (and no doubt, contract violation), the university's in-house counsel was hell-bent on honoring it.

  "We'll get some pretty scarves," Peter said, as Isabel continued to finger the hat. "It didn't occur to me until I was almost here that you'd need something now, to wear home. So I stopped at the first place and this is what they had."

  Isabel felt perfectly capable of walking, but Beulah was having none of it and so Isabel was wheeled from her room and past the empty chair in the hall, which until an hour before had been occupied by a policeman. He had been assigned to Isabel after the incident with Cat Douglas, although as far as Isabel knew, Celia was the only other person who had tried to see her, and she had been turned away on Peter's orders.

  She sat silently at the curb while Peter pulled the car around, aware that people were staring. She couldn't blame them. She was painfully thin, deeply bruised, and sporting an improbable plaster cast on her nose. She had the toque pulled low, but it merely accentuated the fact that there was no hair to cover.

  It was a typical winter day in Kansas, with a bright sky and gray earth, and the air cold enough to sting the insides of her nostrils. The rhinoplasty had been the worst of the surgeries, not because of the pain, but because the relief of finally having her jaw unwired had been instantly displaced by having nostrils packed with gauze. The surgeon had taken some liberties and was clearly pleased with the outcome: the slight bump on her bridge was gone, and the tip refined, almost angular. It was a nose worthy of Hollywood, he'd said with obvious pride. Isabel would have preferred that he hadn't done anything but repair her septum, but there didn't seem much point in complaining after the fact.

  Peter pulled up to the curb, left the car idling, and came around to the passenger side. Beulah leaned over and snapped the feet of the wheelchair upright.

  "I bet you'll be glad to be home," she said.

  "You have no idea." Isabel grasped the arms of the chair and stood up.

  "Oh, I think I do. Now go on. I don't want to see you around here anymore." Beulah waved her off with mock severity.

  Isabel tried to muster a laugh.

  Beulah leaned in and hugged her. "Take good care of yourself," she said. As she pulled away she wagged a finger at Peter. "And you take good care of her too."

  "You'd better believe it," he said. He took Isabel's elbow, steadying her as she lowered herself onto the seat of his Volvo. Beulah handed him the clear plastic bag that contained her belongings. There was not much: her purse, some magazines, and The River Wars, a novel she'd picked up in the waiting area of the radiology department. She'd meant to set it free for some other patient to find, but somehow hadn't gotten around to it. Other than hospital socks, there were no clothes in the bag--everything she'd been wearing when she arrived had been cut off and taken away to be examined for traces of explosives.

  "Anything special you want to do?" Peter asked as they pulled away from the curb. "If you're up to it, we could go ring shopping."

  Isabel shook her head.

  "Movie on demand? We can order in--soft food, of course. Lentil curry? Saag paneer? Gulab jamun? We can have a picnic on the bed ..."

  "It doesn't matter," she said. "I just want to get home."

  Peter glanced over and laid a hand on her thigh. Isabel turned to stare out the window.

  As they rode the elevator Peter held her hand, but when the door opened she pulled away so she could walk the hallway as she always did--treading the center line, feet hitting the same piece of pattern each time--hoping this familiar ritual would bring comfort. Everything about the building looked and smelled the same, yet it was all different. It was as though the whole world had shifted by a few degrees.

  She stood off to the side as Peter opened the door, pushed it inward, and let her pass.

  Her eyes swept the room. Her plants were shriveled wisps, collapsed and clinging to the outsides of their pots as though, in the throes of death, they'd tried to crawl to safety. A pizza box, uncharacteristically left out by Isabel on the morning of the explosion, was untouched, as was the crumb-covered paper towel from which she'd eaten. A teacup sat beside it, contents evaporated but for a desiccated milky scum that resembled the edge of a pudding skin. Stuart, her Siamese fighting fish, was a fuzzy and colorless lump sucked up against the intake of the water filter, which sputtered valiantly in an attempt to keep operating.

  Peter disappeared into her bedroom with the plastic bag. When he returned, Isabel was sitting on the couch.

  "Can I get you anything?" he asked, perching on the edge of the coffee table so they were eye to eye. "A glass of water?"

  "No," she said, turning her head.

  "Are you okay?"

  She was so tired, so empty, that she didn't feel like talking. Then she looked again at the remains of Stuart, and turned back with a flash of anger. "No. I'm not okay. I really liked that fish, Peter. I know you think that's stupid, but I really liked him. I had him for two years. He interacted with me. He came to the front of the tank to see what was going on whenever I ..." She began to cry.

  Peter looked quickly at the fish, and his eyes widened.

  "Oh, please," she said, nearly hysterical. "You didn't notice that he's dead?"

  "I fed him. I swear I did."

  "You fed a corpse. For three weeks."

  "It wasn't three weeks. He was alive just ..." He threw the tiny body another glance. "Recently."

  "You have no idea when he died, do you? And my plants. You know what? I liked them too. You owe me an oxalis. And a Norfolk pine. And a whatever the hell that was," she said, sweeping a hand toward a magnificently dead plant.

  "Sure. Of course. Whatever you want." He tried to put a hand on her shoulder. She whacked it away.

  "You really don't get it, do you?" she said.

  Peter didn't answer. He stared into her eyes. She could well imagine the mental acrobatics he was using to let himself off the hook. Good to know all those degrees in psychology weren't going to waste.

  "Stop looking at me," she said.

  "You're distraught. It's understandable. You've been through hell."

  "Oh, shut up."

  "Isabel ..."

  "You promised me, Peter. You promised!"

  "I'm sorry about the fish--"

  "The apes, Peter. The apes. You swore you'd look after them."

  He took her hands and lowered his voice. "Listen. It's a terrible shock. I know it is. Everything we worked for, everything we achieved, down the drain. But we can start over."

  "What?" Isabel said after a stunned pause.

  His voice took on a desperate tone. "Together. We'll get new apes. We'll find funding. I'm not happy about it. It won't be easy. I'm not pretending it will be. I'm forty-eight years old--I'll be ancient by the time we get back to where we were a month ago, and God knows where we'll get infant bonobos, but you--it's different for you. You're young. You can be the star. Carry the torch."

  Isabel stared at him. "You can't be serious."

  "I am. There's no reason we can't do this. We'll share the credit. Hell, your name can come first on papers."

  "We can't just replace the bonobos."

  "Why not?"

  "Because they're not hamsters! We're talking about Lola, Sam, Mbongo, Bonzi ... Peter, they're family! I've
known them for eight years. Don't you feel anything? Makena is pregnant--pregnant!--and they're probably at a biomedical lab right now, having God knows what done to them."

  "Of course I feel something. I'm devastated. But we have to accept that they're gone. You know we will come to love the new ones. How could we not?"

  She rose abruptly and headed for the kitchen.

  "Where are you going?" Peter said.

  "To get a fucking drink," she called back. "Unless you somehow managed to kill my vodka."

  He stood in the doorway and watched as she pulled the vodka from the cupboard and poured two fingers' worth in a glass.

  "Are you sure you want to do that?" he asked.

  "Sweet Jesus, Peter. You're going to judge me now?"

  He leaned against the door frame, watching.

  She fingered the glass, but left it on the counter. "How could you do it, Peter? How could you let them be taken away?"

  "I didn't," he said quietly. "I had nothing to do with it."

  "But you didn't stop it, did you?"

  She picked up the glass. Her hands were shaking.

  "Isabel?" he said. He was gazing at her with such concern it made her want to beat him with her cast-iron skillet, which was frighteningly close to hand.

  "Get out," she said.

  "You're tired. Let me help you to bed."

  "No, I want you to get out. And I want you to leave my key."

  "Your key is in your--"

  "Your key. Your key to my place. I want you to leave your key."

  "Isabel--"

  "I mean it, Peter. Leave your key and get out."

  He stared at her for a while before finally turning away. The second he rounded the corner, she poured the vodka down the sink. At the very same moment she slammed the glass back on the counter, she heard the key hit and skid across a surface in the other room. She waited to hear the door, but didn't.

  "I mean it!" she screamed.

  After what seemed like forever, the door shut with a precise little click. She immediately ran to it, bolted it, and put the chain across.

  ----

  She'd been too hard on him. Even in her distressed state, that was clear to her. She knew she should call immediately and ask him to come back. It wasn't as though he hadn't also been through hell--he had stood by her bedside during those first few days wondering if she was even going to live, and then, while helping her recover, he had learned about the sale of the bonobos. It was his bad luck that he had to be the one to tell her. When it came right down to it, Peter had as many reasons to feel traumatized as she did, perhaps more--after all, he was conscious during the time she had been blissfully out of it. And while it was true that she cared about the fish, she didn't really care about the plants. Her frustration and grief had been mounting from the moment she'd found out the bonobos were gone, and when she'd finally erupted, Peter had happened to be the closest target. She looked across the room at the phone; in her mind, her fingers were already punching in his number. But she didn't do it. Even if her anger was misplaced, it was real.