The Care and Feeding of Exotic Pets

by Diana Wagman

  Her only hope was to take a long time and let someone pull up behind them and get annoyed, but it was the middle of a weekday, not many people banking.

  “C’mon, c’mon.” He looked at his watch. Tapped the gun against his thigh.

  “They have cameras,” she said. “These machines have cameras.”

  “Why do you think I’m wearing a hat?”

  It was true. The cap’s brim would hide his face from the small camera positioned at the top of the ATM. He grabbed her wallet out of her hands and dumped it in her lap. He picked out her Citibank card and stuck it in the slot.

  “What’s your number?”

  She thought briefly about giving him the wrong number. Three or four times and then the bank kept the card, but what good would that do? “1422.” She slumped back against the seat. One daughter, born April 22. Her throat was closing, she had to concentrate to swallow.

  “What’s your limit?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Five hundred? A thousand?”

  “I have no idea. Really. Why should I care?”

  “You rich bitches are all alike.”

  He punched in a thousand. The machine grumbled and a message appeared. He read aloud, “‘The amount requested exceeds available funds.’ Fuck!” He gritted his teeth as he read on, “‘Would you like to use overdraft protection?’”

  “The fee is so high,” Winnie complained without thinking. “I get paid tomorrow.” Stupid! she berated herself. As if he could wait, as if she wanted to still be here tomorrow.

  “How much money do you have?” He seemed confused.

  “I think about six hundred dollars.”

  She could tell he didn’t believe her. Behind him the machine waited for his response. Was anyone watching this transaction?

  Wouldn’t it seem odd it was taking so long?

  “I’m not lying,” she defended herself. “I don’t know why you think I’m rich. I’m not. My ex is rich. I am not.”

  “No savings account? Other banks?”

  “I have a savings account,” she said. “But it’s not connected. I’d have to go in to my bank. It’s for Lacy. My daughter.”

  She was sorry she had said her name. She didn’t want to give him any bit of her. He shook his head as if to clear it. He chewed on a fingernail. Then he sighed and pressed “yes.” The machine churned and another message came up.

  “Fuck!” he hit the steering wheel.

  “What?”

  “Transaction is too big for overdraft protection.”

  “Check the balance and take what I have. Go on. Just take it. All of it. Who cares.”

  “I’ll be short,” he sounded like a child. “I won’t have enough.”

  There was nothing she could say.

  He pressed the appropriate buttons. “I left you seven dollars.”

  “Such a gentleman.”

  The machine whirred and spit out the money. He put the cash and her card in his left pocket along with the gun. He pulled forward, but had to stop. “Oh, c’mon.”

  An old man crossed slowly in front of them. He wore brown pants and a brown sweater and he walked a short-legged fat brown dog. The wind blew and the man pulled his sweater closed. The little dog bent his head against the gust. Winnie shivered. No place was colder than right there, right that minute. Not Alaska or Siberia or the Arctic Circle. His hot house had sucked the warmth from the world. The old man turned his face out of the wind and glanced at them. Should she try the horn again? Should she scream? Roll down the window and scream? She looked at the button, took a deep breath.

  “Listen,” her kidnapper said.

  He knew what she had planned. She’d been too obvious.

  “Listen,” he said again. “If you try anything, I will go get your daughter. I know where she is. I will drive from here right to her school and I will get Lacy.”

  How did he know? “She’s not in school,” Winnie was frantic. “She lives far away with her father. She’s grown up.”

  “I hate lying. I told you I hate lying.”

  “Leave her out of this.”

  “She hates you.”

  “You keep saying that.”

  “You’re a bad mom.”

  “No, I’m not.” She wasn’t.

  In the middle of the night, Winnie had woken to Lacy crying in the bathroom.

  “Lacy? What is it? Sweetpea?”

  Lacy had opened the door in her underpants with her tank top pulled up. She had her hands cupped over her bare stomach.

  “It hurts, Mommy. It hurts so badly.”

  “What?” Appendicitis, drugs, the morning after pill all whistled through Winnie’s mind.

  Lacy moved her hands. A gold ring pierced her belly button. The incision was oozing watery pus, the skin around it swollen and red.

  “Oh, Sweetie.” Winnie could not be angry. Lacy was too miserable. “It’s infected. It looks so painful.”

  “It’s just… just… I sleep on my stomach and…” Lacy sobbed. “I thought it would be so beautiful.”

  Winnie kept her opinion to herself. She found the rubbing alcohol and the antibiotic cream. She cleaned the two red, ugly holes and the hideous tiny ring and kissed her daughter’s perfect flat stomach and together they fashioned a very strange bandage using the cap from a water bottle to keep everything and anything from touching her navel. They were laughing by the time they finished. Lacy hugged her goodnight and said, “Thank you,” and “I love you, Mom.”

  But in the morning they fought. Winnie shouted, “Why don’t you just put a bone through your nose?”

  “Maybe I will.”

  “Do you want to look like a tramp?

  “Yes!”

  Winnie knew it; she knew that Lacy thought dressing like a slut would make her popular. It broke her heart that her daughter wanted so desperately to be cool. Lacy had been friends with the kids in orchestra, but now she avoided them. She continued to practice her flute and play in the orchestra twice a week, but she would not go out for pizza after rehearsals or to the first violinist’s birthday party. As if being a nerd was contagious. So she had no one. The phone never rang. She did not go anywhere on the weekends except to her dad’s house. She talked a lot about some girl named Marissa, what she was wearing, what she said, but Marissa had never called or come over. Winnie was positive Lacy was still a virgin, but doing her best not to look like one.

  Her beautiful girl. She had fine blond hairs like down on the back of her neck and on her arms. Her daughter was a peach, firm and white and not yet ripe. Lacy needed her.

  Winnie straightened her shoulders, ignored the thump in her head as she turned to Oren. “So what is this all about? It’s not money. Do you have some stupid idea that this is going to make you famous?”

  “No!” He spoke through gritted teeth. “I’m not stupid. I’m sick of people saying that. All the time telling me I’m a dumb shit. I am not. I’m not! I have a job. A good one. I have a real house to live in. What have they done? Huh? With their dumb little lives? Huh?”

  “Who thinks you’re stupid?” she asked.

  “None of your beeswax.”

  “At work? Where is that?”

  “They like me at work. The Carpet Barn.”

  “I know that place.” A big, red barn-like building with rolls of carpets stacked out front. She had passed it many times. What other places had she driven by with kidnappers and murderers inside?

  “I’m an account rep,” he said defensively. “Not just an installer.”

  All the people we meet, Winnie marveled. Any cheerful face ringing up her purchases or bagging her groceries or telling her to have a nice day could be a psychopath. Anyone, everyone was suspect.

  “Listen,” he began. It seemed to be his favorite word. “Listen.”

  But then he said nothing. He drove the speed limit down the street, heading for the freeway entrance. Winnie stared out the window at the signs for restaurants, nail salons, and a hardware store. It was beautiful
, all of it. She held her breath at the colors in the graffiti on the white wall of the 7-11. The pigeons in flight brought tears. It was all so perfect, so defined. She had never noticed before, but now the world outside the car was crystal clear. She saw a father and young son and instantly knew everything about them. She could taste the pancakes they ate for breakfast, the maple syrup thick and sweet from the plastic pitcher. She felt the little boy’s teeth growing in his mouth and the sugar buds drilling into baby enamel. She saw the metal grill of the braces he would wear in a few years, felt the cut on the inside of his lip. She knew his pain when his wisdom teeth were removed one vacation when he was home from college. She saw the stained yellow of his adult incisors, and then the way his tongue rubbed the worn, flat edges of his front teeth as he waited in the nursing home for his own children to visit. She was the one who was going to die, but everyone else’s life was passing in front of her. Out there it was all so clear. Inside this car it was a mystery.

  She moisturized daily, but that wouldn’t help her here. She said no to that piece of chocolate cake, even though she wanted it so much and her friend said it was the best she’d ever eaten. She said no, but that wouldn’t help her here. She bought the expensive biodegradable dishwashing soap. She let the old lady go first. She gave up the parking spot. She never ever littered. She wished on first stars, eyelashes, white horses, pennies, the turned up hems of her shirts and skirts. None of it would help her here.

  “Little Lady,” her southern grandmother used to call her. “Looky there.”

  She looked down and the hem of her party dress was folded up. She started to straighten it, but her grandmother stopped her.

  “Turn around three times and make a wish.” Her voice as broad as her hips. “It’ll come true. Always does.”

  Her grandmother in heaven. Her mother in New York. Sitting on a cloud or sitting on a couch, painting the sky or reading a script. Each of them, today, right now, were easier to see than she could see herself. She had left that penny lying on the street outside the mechanic’s as she got into this car. What would she have wished for? Just four hours ago, what would her wish have been? A better job? A boyfriend?

  He was pulling onto the freeway. They were leaving the shops and people behind. Her chance for rescue was diminishing with every mile. She had to make him understand. She would give him whatever he wanted if he would let her go.

  “Listen. You listen,” Winnie said to him. “My mother is rich. She really is famous. You’ve heard of her: Daisy Juniper.” She named her mother’s most popular film, "Dawn of Delilah."

  He shrugged. “I didn’t think it was so good. I rented it.”

  That stopped her. “When?”

  “Couple days ago, three or four.”

  “By coincidence?”

  He shrugged again.

  And then, as if suddenly the truth was sitting on her chest, pressing her back into the seat, she realized: she had not been kidnapped randomly.

  “You know who I am!” She could not get her breath. She coughed. “This wasn’t by accident, was it? You were after me.”

  He turned his head and looked at her and his eyes were small and dull. They were a sour moldy green and his eyelids were heavy.

  “I was after you, Winnie Parker,” he said. “I need to teach you a lesson.”

  14.

  Jonathan stood at the sock counter of Mario’s Menswear in Santa Monica. He had called Jessica and she had reminded him that this was the place. He was surprised. Who would have guessed this hole in the fence, squeezed between a bar and a locksmith, had the best men’s socks in Southern California? How did she know these things? Only six years in LA and already she knew everything. He had grown up just over the hills in the valley and Los Angeles was still a mystery to him.

  He held two pairs of socks, a black pair and a different black pair. “Onyx,” the sales guy had called one, and the other, “Ebony.”

  “I guess I’ll take them both,” Jonathan said. He didn’t know which was better. He wore black socks very occasionally, but the pair he had had a hole in the toe. He hated socks. It was a joke at work that he was the only on-camera host in TV who wore a suit and flip-flops. Of course he didn’t wear flip-flops, but he did wear his expensive Italian loafers without socks. On the other hand, or foot, if he wore socks, these were the socks to have. That’s what Jessica said.

  “That will be $151.20.”

  Jonathan took his credit card from his wallet. He would not call Jessica and clear it with her. He could buy socks. He didn’t remember the world before credit cards, but he did remember not having enough credit to get one. He remembered his bank account slipping down to negative numbers almost every month, mooching off his friends for beer and parking meters at the beach. Now he had no idea how much money he had. His accountant paid the bills. The valet usually took his car wherever he went. It seemed he could do whatever he wanted and he always had enough money.

  “Excuse me?” There was a high lilt to the voice behind him. He turned. A pretty young face, blushing, with blue eyes under brown bangs.

  “Hi,” he said.

  “Aren’t you, I mean, I hate to bother you, but are you Jonathan Parker?”

  He smiled. He did not need to say yes. Her face was as fresh as a morning muffin. She made him think of a bowl of just picked blueberries and thick white cream, served in a bright farm kitchen under sunny skies and healthy appetites. He saw her lying on her stomach in front of her family television set watching him as he joked with his contestants and dreaming of the day she would come to Hollywood. Dreaming of him.

  “Mr. Parker,” she began.

  “You can call me Jonathan.”

  “I just wanted to say, well, my mother loves you. She watches your show—what’s it called?—every night. When she finds out I saw you—”

  Behind her now he saw her boyfriend, dark hair falling across his high Asian cheekbones, snickering as he looked at five hundred dollar sweaters.

  “If you could just sign something for her,” the girl was continuing. She dug in her purse. “This would be fine.”

  She handed him a folded over grocery list. Tampax. Toothpaste. Onions. And now, Jonathan Parker.

  “Thank you. Thank you so much. My mom is such a fan.”

  Her boyfriend couldn’t help it, he laughed out loud. “Sorry, man,” he said. “If you only knew her mother.”

  Jonathan went out and sat in his Porsche behind the tinted windows. He practiced his yoga breathing. The backs of his hands were freckled. The skin was loose and puckered over each knuckle. He had the car running and the heater on. He had come out of the store chilled and shivering in the California sunshine. A hundred and fifty dollars for socks. Long ago he had seen Marlon Brando in a restaurant in Beverly Hills. Jonathan thought him the greatest actor who ever lived. But when the 70-year-old Brando stood up and turned toward him to leave the restaurant, Jonathan had been shocked. It wasn’t the weight, or the plastic surgery; it was the dark in his face. The man he had idolized was gone. The eyes were flat; the lips pressed together like anybody’s grandmother. Where was the light? Where had he gone? Where was his hero?

  Jonathan vowed then to stay alive. To be himself always. It wasn’t hard those first few years, when he was young. Younger. Acting and surfing were all he cared about. If he had a bad audition, the ocean made him feel better. Out in the water he never fumbled his lines or missed his mark. There was no such thing as a bad day surfing.

  Then Winnie came along and so quickly there was Lacy. Watching Lacy toddle, grow, learn to speak, had been amazing. He wanted Lacy to love what he loved. He took her surfing before she could walk, put her on his shoulders and rode the smallest waves. It was cool, she wasn’t the least bit frightened, and he bought her a little board of her own, but once the game show started he was too busy to teach her. He was too busy to go himself. Winnie was not a surfer, but she had loved the beach and hung out on the shore in that funny one-piece red bathing suit she’d had for a hund
red years.

  Same old bathing suit. Same old Winnie. He had changed, but she had not. He had moved forward, breathing, working, filled with the California sunshine. She couldn’t understand that the game show was just a stepping stone; no more worries about money, no more struggling. Then he would really act. But she told him not to do it. She said she didn’t care about the money. Easy for her to say. And when he came home exhausted in those first months, tired out from being a game show host all day long, Winnie had that look on her face, disappointment. She said she was happy if he was, but the light had gone out of her and she was snuffing it out in him.

  Jessica came along just at the right time. She sent him surfing again, literally and metaphysically—phorically—whatever, to soak up the ocean’s energy qi. Winnie had stopped seeing him, who he was. Jessica saw him. She really saw him.

  “Shit,” he said out loud. Jessica had seen him the way he thought that blueberry girl saw him before she opened her mouth. Here he was, thirty years younger than Brando was that day in the restaurant and already people were laughing.

  “Call Andrew,” Jonathan told his phone.

  There was a movie possibility out there. He looked at his blue eyes in the rear view mirror. Still blue. Still there. Still him. I will stay alive, he vowed. I will stay alive.

  “Andrew,” he said. “Jonathan Parker.”

  “You were my next call.”

  Jonathan knew that was just agentspeak for sorry I’ve been out of touch.

  “What’s happening with the movie?”

  There was a pause while Andrew regrouped and tried to figure out which movie Jonathan was talking about.

  “The sci fi thing. That young director.”

  “I have it right here,” Andrew said, “Good news. They definitely want you. Definitely.”

  Jonathan smiled at his reflection. His shoulders relaxed and his stomach settled. “That’s terrific. Which part? The Captain?”

  “They want you to play yourself. You know, Jonathan Parker. You were frozen for five hundred years or whatever and then you’re thawed. See? It’s hilarious.”