“No. I mean, yeah, that’s weird too. But us, I mean, sitting here together. Talking. I never expected this.”
“I never expected it either.” Another swallow. “But I always hoped.”
“Hoped what?” I asked, defensiveness creeping in. “That I’d change?”
“Yes, all right, I hoped you’d change. At first anyway. So sue me. It came as such a blow. You always seemed so normal, then—”
“I am normal.” Well, more or less. I took a deep breath and another swig of wine to calm myself.
“Yes, yes, okay. You know what I mean. You played football. A linebacker, for heaven’s sake. And you dated that cheerleader, what was her name? The Jewish girl?”
“Jenny Stiglitz.” I hadn’t thought of Jenny in forever, but the name came back instantly. What had happened to her, I wondered. A house in Long Island, probably, with a nice, straight, Jewish husband and two and a half kids.
“That’s right. She was sweet.”
“You didn’t approve of her at the time,” I reminded her.
“Well, no. But in retrospect, a Jewish girl seems like small potatoes compared to catching you and Ryan Jenkins in the back seat of your father’s BMW.” The memory must have disturbed her, because she took two pills in one swallow. “You can hardly blame us for being blindsided by that. And so we…we overreacted.”
“There’s an understatement.” Turning toward her, I saw that her eyelids were starting to droop.
“I kept trying to figure out what I’d done wrong,” she said. “That’s what they used to say, it’s the mother’s fault. Coddling, spoiling. But I never coddled you.”
“No, you certainly didn’t. If you coddled anyone, it was Philip, and he’s much too boring to be anything but one hundred percent hetero.”
“Be nice.” She was going through the pills like salted peanuts. “Now they say that you’re born that way, and I wonder, sometimes. You know, I still smoked when I was pregnant with you. I quit before Philip and Lisa. Who knows?”
“I think you can let yourself off the hook, Mom. It’s not your fault. It’s not a fault at all. It just is.”
“Later, I just wished you’d come back, whatever you were. But you never did.” Her words were starting to slur. How fast was this going to happen? “Stubborn Irish.”
“Look who’s talking. You could have come looking for me.”
She swallowed another one. “I’m here now.”
She had me there. Did that make her the better person? I’d need a lot more wine to get my head around that. I refilled both of our glasses and went to the kitchen for another bottle.
“Your father would have taken you back if I’d let him,” she said when I came back. “He never forgave me, you know. Do you remember Bettina, from his office?”
“I think so. Kind of vulgar? Peroxide blonde with long red fingernails?” I remember wondering how she typed with those things.
“That’s the one. He had an affair with her. Right after you left. Sorry,” she waved her hand, warding off any objection I might offer, “after I threw you out. His way of punishing me.” She closed her eyes.
The thought of Dad boffing his secretary to avenge me was strangely heartwarming. Didn’t know he had it in him. “I’m glad you told me.”
It suddenly dawned on me that I was glad. I was enjoying this conversation, and it was going to be the last I’d ever have with her. Everything was happening so fast. “Mom,” I shouted. “Mom!”
Her eyes snapped open. “What?”
“Are you sure about this? Absolutely sure? If I call an ambulance right now—”
“No, Stephen.” She seemed to struggle to focus on me. “You’re supposed to be the strong one here, remember? To keep me from backing out. Be brave.”
I took another sip of wine to wash down the boulder-sized lump in my throat.
“Come here, beside me.” Her hand flapped listlessly against the sofa cushion.
I knelt beside her and took her hand. It felt cold and bony and small in mine.
“You’re a good boy, Stephen. I’m proud of you.”
“Jesus, Mom.” I’d waited twenty-two years to hear those words. Now it seemed there was nothing else we needed to say.
“No, no. Don’t cry.” With her other hand she reached out and stroked my hair. “My pills, Stephen.”
“What?”
“My pills. Not finished yet. Got to do it right. Got to finish. You need to let me go.”
I picked up the last two tablets from the coffee table. Mom opened her mouth and, after a moment’s hesitation, I placed them on her tongue, like a priest administering communion.
“That’s my big, strong boy.” She clutched my hand tight as she swallowed. “That’s my boy. Now, Stephen.”
“Yes, Mom?”
“My funeral. You’ll be there, won’t you?”
“Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
“Closed…closed coffin. Promise me. Don’t want…don’t want…”
“We don’t want those nosy biddies from the country club coming to gawk and gossip about how bad you look.”
“That’s right. That’s right.”
“I’ll nail the lid shut myself if I have to.”
“White…white roses only. Not red or…or yellow. Just white.”
“Of course. White roses. Red would be tacky.”
“’Zactly. I knew you’d unnerstand. Tell Lisa…”
“Don’t worry, Mom. I’ll see to everything.”
“Good boy. Now, music. Music…”
“How about we start with a rousing chorus of ‘Ding, Dong, the Witch is Dead’?”
A faint smile played on her lips. “Nice.…That’d be nice.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Timothy Bentler-Jungr has been, at various times, a dishwasher, a bartender, a croupier, an actor/model, an English teacher, an editor, a writer, a diplomatic spouse, and a stay-at-home parent (to name but a few) while living in five countries on three continents.
A single dad, Tim is often found texting story ideas to himself while attending soccer games and school concerts, shopping for groceries, or doing laundry. This is his first published crime short story.
CHRISTMAS
HOPPY HOLIDAYS, by Linda Lombardi
“So how did you get stuck working tomorrow, Hannah?” Margo asked.
I looked up from the miniature snowman I was making out of ice with pieces of fruit frozen inside. Margo stood in front of the bulletin board consulting the weekly schedule.
“I don’t mind working holidays,” I said. “Especially Christmas.”
No need to explain why, not to Margo. I’d been looking forward to my first Christmas at the zoo, because it’s the only day we’re closed to the public. Yeah, I know that my amazing job only exists because people want to see the animals. Still, a break from the screaming children—and their parents making up information about the animals instead of reading the signs—was the best present I could imagine.
I set a piece of apple peel on top of the fruit-filled snowperson, trying to decide if it looked remotely like a Santa hat. “I don’t have any family in the area anyway, so I’m not missing anything.”
“I’m only missing the traditional Jewish Chinese food and a movie,” Margo said. “And my favorite thing about this job is the excuses it gives me to skip family events.”
I nodded. If I had relatives in town, I’d find our work schedule handy that way too. Animals eat every day—at least ours at Small Mammals do, if not those of our lucky friends at Reptiles. And they poop every day. So through rain or storm, dark of night, and weekends, someone has to be here every day, even ones the postman has off. Like Sundays. And Christmas.
“You could bring Chinese to tomorrow’s potluck,” I said. “Best of both worlds.”
Margo smiled and took her dirty food pans to the sink. Shelly walked into the kitchen and took her place in front of the bulletin board.
“You guys, too? I can’t believe I have to work Chr
istmas again! Every year I ask for it off, and I never get it. Michael is out to get me. Oh and look—he’s the duty curator that day, surprise, surprise. Great way to spend the holiday, with the guy who always ruins it for me.”
Margo raised her eyebrows at me, unnoticed by Shelly as she stomped out of the kitchen and up the stairs. “Stomped” in a relative sense. I don’t mean it as an insult to say that Shelly is mousy. We small mammal keepers are fans of small rodents. But you’d have to know her well to realize that those footsteps were actually less timid than usual, and how much anger was behind them.
“Is that true?” I asked Margo after the door slammed shut at the top of the stairs.
Margo sighed dramatically. “Indeed. Every year for the last five years we’ve had to eat the horrible Christmas cookies she makes for the potluck. Whole-wheat, runny frosting that’s so sweet your teeth want to jump right out of your mouth, made with some nasty vegetarian shortening, and always burnt on the bottom. And worst of all, they’re decorated like little presents with someone’s name on each one, so she’ll know if you don’t eat yours.”
“Ugh,” I said. “I thought the potluck lunch is supposed to make us feel better about working the holiday, not worse.”
“That’s why we suck it up and eat them. She obviously puts so much effort into them.”
“What can you do? Damn holiday spirit.”
“Good will toward incompetent bakers,” Margo called after me as I started up the stairs with my little Santa balanced carefully on a pan.
When I got to my keeper area, I climbed into a tamarin exhibit and set the snowman on a ledge, then went out into the hallway to watch the little monkeys run down from the trees and start poking at it. They didn’t care that it was holiday-themed, as long as it had mealworms in the crevices. And I didn’t care that no one else would see the results of my efforts. The building was peaceful and empty of patrons on a drizzly winter day. Almost like Christmas already, I thought—a moment too soon, because just then a woman and a small boy came down the hall and stopped to stand beside me.
The child pointed into the adjacent exhibit. “What’s that?”
“Why don’t you ask the nice zookeeper, honey?”
The boy turned and stared at me. I decided to count that as asking, because I was so pleased his mother hadn’t just made up an answer.
“It’s a tamandua,” I said. “It’s a kind of anteater.”
“Does it bite?” he asked.
Little boys always want to know that. And other people too, especially when they are asking some completely foolish question like whether a golden lion tamarin makes a good pet. The answer is usually that anything with teeth can bite, said in a tone that discourages any ridiculous ideas of having an endangered monkey hanging from their curtains and pooping all over the house. But the tamandua case was a little different.
“Well, an anteater doesn’t have teeth,” I said, “but see those claws? They’re very strong, so she can hang her whole body on them and climb through the trees. She could hurt someone with those claws.”
He nodded with satisfaction. Little boys usually prefer if an animal is somewhat perilous. The mother and child moved off and left me happily alone again, gazing dreamily at the tamandua. I thought it was the cutest, most amazing creature I’d ever seen, with its silky, almost shimmery yellow fur and tiny ears and eyes. Watching its incredibly thin, unbelievably fast ant-eating tongue lick gruel off my finger was almost worth cleaning up the horrific and smelly end result. Almost. I had to admit that it seemed to be one of the stupidest animals I’d ever worked with. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised, since it only had room in its skinny little head for a brain the size of a peanut. A shelled peanut, no less. But hey, brains aren’t everything, right?
Speaking of which, Michael, our curator, was walking toward me, exactly on time for our appointment. I wasn’t standing there to stare at the animals. I don’t have time for that sort of thing. There are bales to be hauled and fruit to be chopped and poop to be scooped, a solid eight hours a day. The only reason I was doing nothing for a moment was that I was waiting for Michael, hoping to convince him to let me take the tamandua off exhibit for a while and work on using it for an education animal. It was hand-raised, so it was used to people, and it seemed a waste not to take advantage of that.
Obvious, sure, but maybe not to Michael, who despite being our boss knows nothing about mammals. He’s a fish expert, or at least, he used to work with fish, and I assume he must have been an expert in something to be promoted to curator. I mean, I’m sure there is a lot you need to know to work with fish. Water quality. Filtration. Um…water quality? But not behavior or training or most of the things that are second nature to the people he supervises now. And this can be a problem, especially because he loves to climb into exhibits on his own, whether he knows anything about the animals or not. Which he usually doesn’t.
“Hannah,” Michael said as he strode up to me, sounding a whole lot more cheerful about the encounter than I was.
“Hi.” I hopped aside a bit, trying to make it look natural, so I could avoid the trajectory of his breath. A person who goes around all day with poop on her clothes shouldn’t throw stones, but Michael has the worst personal hygiene I’ve ever seen. His breath smells as if he never brushes his teeth—when he smiles you can even see how corroded his gums are. And his uniform shirts are all stained under the armpits, and that’s on a good day when he’s wearing one that doesn’t have holes there.
“Let’s go see what this anteater can do,” he said.
My smile was sincere, partly because I was relieved that he was cutting to the chase with no long, smelly conversation first.
“Yeah,” I said, and we went around back to climb into the exhibit.
* * * *
“Did you talk to him about its diet?”
My fellow keeper Greg was helping me set up a holding area for the tamandua, after yesterday’s successful meeting with Michael.
“No, what about its diet?” I said, peering at the branch I was wiring to the mesh of the cage.
“It eats insects, but we feed it gruel. Why not a more natural diet?”
“I hadn’t thought of it, but now that you mention it, if one of my dogs pooped like that I’d definitely be looking for a different food.” I stepped back to decide where the next branch should go. “But I should go direct to the nutritionist, given how little Michael knows about mammals. Last weekend Margo copied him when she emailed the commissary to say that our food order was missing the kibble for the fennec fox, and he called and asked, ‘What’s this kibble? Is that a brand name?’” I sighed. “I’m not making that up. I guess he never even had a dog.”
Greg smirked. “Still, I prefer his ignorant mode to his inquisitive one.”
“Like when he decided to poke around in the South American exhibit and let the saki out,” I said. “That was fun.”
That had been a couple weeks ago. It had taken an hour out of everyone’s day, chasing around the building till we finally netted the stupid primate, who was as freaked out by the experience as everyone else. The problem with being a fish expert is that it doesn’t give a guy much practice at getting out of an enclosure without letting any animals run out the door.
“Well, I’d be happy to do some research about the diet,” Greg said. “Maybe there’s something we could culture ourselves. It would be cheaper that way.”
“I’d have thought you took this job to get away from that sort of thing. Not that I’m trying to get rid of you, but if you miss growing fruit flies for frogs, why didn’t you apply for that open position in Reptiles?”
There was a silence. “Who says I didn’t?” he said after a moment, as if he were trying to make a joke out of it.
“Ah. Well you don’t always get what you want around here I guess.” Ugh. Obviously he had applied but hadn’t gotten it. He was concentrating intently, or pretending to, on the branch he was working on, and I was glad he didn’t see how I
was blushing.
* * * *
An hour later, as I nibbled on a stuffed mushroom, I considered how weird it was that Reptiles always runs this Christmas Day potluck lunch. They’re not usually so sociable with their fellow warm-blooded creatures. Or maybe that’s exactly it—they figure this sacrifice takes care of their obligations for the whole year?
It’s not just the Reptiles people who are like that, of course. People don’t go into working with animals because they get along well with members of their own species. Greg had been totally rude to the new reptile keeper who’d approached him by the lasagna tray a few minutes before, and Shelly had spent the whole party obviously avoiding Michael. So I was relieved when my friend Ray came over and tapped my elbow. Ray will claim he’s no more a people person than anyone else at Reptiles, but it was just like him to notice I’d had enough of my fellow humans myself.
“Come see my new dart frogs,” he said.
“Sure.” I stepped back as Shelly nearly tripped over a chair leg trying to avoid Michael, who was walking by with the half-empty tray of lasagna. “I didn’t think you were that interested in frogs.”
“Yeah, but I know you’re a fan of yellow frogs,” he said. “And besides, these are special.”
He led me into the back area of the amphibian section, where he proudly pointed to a tank of fat yellow frogs. I peered at them, confused.
“This must be one of those situations where you can only tell them apart by their calls or something?” I said. “They look exactly like the kind you already have.” I pointed at the seemingly identical frogs in the adjacent tank.
“Good ID, little mammal person. They are the same species. But note the label on the tank.”
“USE GLOVES. Um, exciting. What disease are they carrying?”
“Not a disease. Poison.”
“But dart frogs aren’t poisonous in captivity. I’ve heard you tell people that a thousand times. They get the toxins from the insects they eat in the wild, and concentrate it in their skin, and we don’t feed them the same insects, blah blah blah.”
“Ah, but there’s the rub. These are wild caught.”
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