by Cassie Cole
“We can’t let this drag on,” I explained. “We need to be able to focus on our jobs, and we can’t do that while looking over our shoulders or keeping an eye on Mary Beth all day. We should confront her. See what she says.”
“If she’s lying, she’ll crack,” Jake said darkly. “That girl won’t be able to handle the pressure.”
David nodded. “I hope you’re right. Let’s go.”
It was a short walk over to the employee trailers. Brandon was sitting in a beach chair outside of his, smoking a joint. As soon as he saw us he scrambled to put it out on the ground and then covered it with his shoe.
“Hey, uh, I mean, nice evening,” he said awkwardly. His eyes were already bloodshot. “I was just sitting here, man, enjoying the weather…”
He relaxed as we kept walking. We went past Mary Beth’s beat up Volkswagen Beetle and up to the door of her trailer. She answered after the first knock.
“Can we come inside?” David said. “We want to discuss something with you.”
Her first reaction was alarm. Pure panic. But she quickly covered it up and put on her perky smile. “Sure! Come on in.”
The ease with which she changed expressions made me certain. She was hiding something. We followed her inside and closed the door behind her.
“Welcome to my humble abode!” she said, turning in a circle. “I haven’t done much to the place, as you can see. But I have ideas. I want to get some red curtains! I know the job’s temporary, but that doesn’t mean I can’t spruce up the place, right?” She punctuated the act with a giggle.
Jake made no effort to hide his suspicion. He walked into the kitchen part of the trailer and began opening cabinets and drawers noisily.
“Can I get you something?” Mary Beth asked nervously. “I think I have some wine left, if you’re a Chardonnay guy! I don’t think you are, but it’s all I have unless you want Diet Pepsi…”
“Mary Beth, we have some questions we would like to ask you,” David said formally. He leaned against the trailer door and crossed his arms.
She sat in a beach chair, which was the only furniture in the living room section of the trailer. “Um. Okay.”
“What do you think of the zoo?”
She frowned with confusion. “What do I think of the zoo?”
“Yep.”
“Kind of a vague question! I’ll be honest. I thought this place was kind of a dump when I first got here. All the YouTube videos and stuff made it seem run-down. But now that I’m here and have seen what you guys have done to the place, I really like it! And I love working here. I really do. I’m learning so much from all of you, especially you, Rachel…”
She looked to me as if I would help her. I stared back blandly. Meanwhile, Jake was making noise in the bedroom area.
“Do you think the animals are treated well?” David asked.
“Sure, I guess? I mean, you guys seem to really care about them. I had heard rumors about Crazy Carl, who I guess was your dad. I don’t want to speak ill of him…”
“Go right ahead,” David replied. “You won’t offend us.”
“I mean, he seemed like he didn’t put the well-being of the animals first. He cared about making money, even if it meant treating the animals like crap. I don’t know if that’s true of course, I’m just telling you what it looked like from the videos I watched. But you guys are different! Totally different. The animals are treated so good here.” She swallowed the lump in her throat. “So good.”
In the bedroom, Jake cursed. He passed in front of the doorway and started rummaging through the bedside table.
“Any thoughts on the quality of the food?” David asked.
“I… no. Not really.”
David raised an eyebrow. “No thoughts at all?”
She shrugged and smiled that perky smile of hers. “I don’t know much about that. Just what Rachel told me. I guess I trust whatever she says.”
I glanced at David. Mary Beth seemed nervous—which was understandable—but she didn’t seem guilty. If she was hiding the truth, she was doing a good job of it.
Jake came storming back into the living room. He put his face directly in front of Mary Beth’s and growled, “Do you work for them?”
Her eyes widened. “I… Work for who?”
“The Animal Freedom Front. The ones who posted the video.”
She gasped. “What! Of course not!”
“Don’t fucking lie to us,” Jake snarled. “You used your phone to record our meeting yesterday.”
“I’m not! I didn’t! I don’t know what you’re talking about!”
Anthony stepped up to play good-cop. “Hey, let’s all settle down. Mary Beth, how about you show us your cell phone and laptop? If this is all a big misunderstanding then that would clear your name real fast. Make it easier on everyone. How about it?”
She looked at him, then at David, then at me. Her eyes lingered on me the longest, and for a split second I saw the guilt within. The look of someone who had gotten caught.
“I don’t think you have the right to search my cell phone,” she said in a confident voice. “Or my laptop. Unless you have any evidence against me?”
It was too much. I pushed Jake aside and jabbed a finger at her face. “Do you know how hard we’ve worked trying to do the right thing for these animals? Giving them good lives here while trying to move them to permanent homes? David and Anthony have spent a ton of their own money to make that happen. And then someone like you walks in here and records us without our knowledge and posts it online, out of context, to make us look bad! Even though we are the good guys! Well, I can’t deal with any more bullshit, Mary Beth. We know it was you. So how about you just admit to everything so we can all move on?”
Her eyes widened and shimmered with tears. “I didn’t do anything,” she said in a tiny voice.
“Admit it!” I shouted in her face. “Admit it you fucking bitch!”
Mary Beth jumped up from the chair and backed up until she was in the corner of the living room. She wrapped her arms around herself and started shaking and sobbing.
“I… didn’t… do… anything… I just… want to… work here… with the animals…”
David closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the door. “God damnit.”
Anthony stared at me like he was seeing me for the first time. That look dumped cold water on my anger until I felt only embarrassment. Even though I still thought Mary Beth was guilty, it was tough to feel good about myself while she sobbed in the corner like a scared animal.
“I’m sorry for yelling,” I muttered. Then, to David, I said, “Let’s go.”
Tears and snot ran down Mary Beth’s face. “Am… I… fired?” she managed to get out.
“No, you’re not fired,” David said.
Mary Beth’s wails drifted after us as we left the trailer.
31
Rachel
Brandon was still sitting in his beach chair in front of his trailer. His eyes were as round as saucers as he watched us walk by.
“Do you, uh, do you want to question me too?” he asked in a shaky voice. He held up his phone. “I mean, I guess I’ll let you look at my phone too, just please don’t yell at me, Miss Rachel.”
Miss Rachel? Holy shit, I must have really been shouting at Mary Beth to put that kind of fear into Brandon.
“You’re fine,” David told him as we walked by. “Everything’s fine.”
As soon as we were out of earshot, I rounded on David. “You’re not firing her?”
“Not yet.”
“Why not!”
“We don’t have enough evidence,” he explained calmly. “We’ve signed her to a two-month contract. We can’t break that unless we have cause. We would be forced to pay her for the full two months. I dealt with that at one of my gyms last month and it was a huge pain in the ass.”
“Then let’s pay her out,” I insisted. “That’s better than allowing her to stay here and do more damage.”
&nbs
p; “We can’t afford to give someone two months of pay for zero work in return.” David glanced at me. “And after that interrogation, I’m not sure she did it.”
“Really? Because she started crying?” I laughed, but there was no mirth in it. “Is that really all it takes to make you lose your nerve?”
“Do not lecture me about what just happened in there,” David snapped. Fire shone in his blue eyes. “Regardless of what we suspect, that was totally inappropriate. You crossed a line. She could sue us for verbal harassment.”
“Yeah, right,” I said. “I’d like to see her try.”
We reached the house and David opened the door. “Rachel, you’re incredibly smart, so I want you to stop and think about it for a minute. If Mary Beth is trying to hurt us from the inside, then she would love to sue us. Conscious effort to wound or harm another person with words and actions. That’s the legal definition of verbal harassment. She would certainly have a case, and at the least it would bog us down with legal expenses and hurt our reputation. Something we desperately need if we’re going to work with other zoos to move these animals.
“And if she’s not working with the AFF?” he added. “Then you just screamed at an innocent girl and called her a fucking bitch. That’s not okay. That’s the kind of abuse dad would throw at us and the other employees constantly.”
I laughed nervously and looked at the other two. Anthony was wincing at me, afraid to disagree. Jake nodded solemnly.
And if he was agreeing with David, then I knew it was the truth.
“We all need to cool down,” David said. “We’ll talk about this in the morning.”
He stormed upstairs. Anthony gave me another sorry look and followed.
“I still think she fucking did it,” Jake told me before leaving too.
I felt guilty the rest of the night. Once the heat of the moment was over, I recognized that I had crossed a line. I made one of the employees cry! An employee that had been shadowing me for the last two days and asking me lots of questions about the animals. Like I was her mentor.
I made myself a TV dinner and holed up in my bedroom.
The frustrating thing was that deep down, I was still certain she took the recording of us. I saw the guilt in her eyes! She had been on her phone a lot, and quickly put it away whenever I confronted her about it. And the peppy cheerleader attitude was definitely all an act. All signs pointed to her hiding something.
But that didn’t stop me from feeling like the world’s biggest asshole.
I watched more episodes of Tiger King in bed. None of the guys came to knock on my door and check on me. I wasn’t sure if that made me feel better, or worse.
I struggled to sleep, and eventually gave up and took a shower at an ungodly hour of the morning. But that meant I was downstairs and waiting when David woke up. He grunted and said good morning, but nothing else.
We walked into the zoo together in silence. When it was too much for me to stand I finally let out an exasperated sigh.
“I’m sorry, okay?” I said. “You were right. I crossed a line with Mary Beth, and I’ve felt awful about it all night. I fucked up.”
He nodded, but didn’t look over. “It’s alright. I can’t blame you.”
“Well, you did blame me last night. You said I was acting like your father. And for that I’m sorry.”
“I just mean, I understand where you’re coming from,” he explained. “I was just as angry as you and Jake.”
“It didn’t seem like it.”
“I’m better at holding it in. I’ve had practice dealing with idiots at my two gyms. Have you ever seen someone hurl a barbell toward the ceiling because they thought that’s what a hammer throw exercise was? Because I have, and I called them things much worse than a fucking bitch.”
I laughed at the image. “I promise to keep my cool from now on. But what do we do now?”
“We have spare locks in the utility shed. I’m going to change the locks on all the employee buildings, and make sure that the only people with keys are you, me, and my brothers. That will limit the damage she can do. Aside from that?” He shrugged. “We keep an eye on her. Look for anything suspicious.”
“I still think the easiest thing would be to fire her.”
He laughed and started to make a joke, but then we reached the cross-road that led back to the parking lot. Jake was standing in the road, waving a flashlight for a big box truck that was backing up with a beeping noise.
“The hell’s going on here?” David asked.
“About time you two woke up,” Jake called over his shoulder. “Thought I’d have to do all this myself.”
“All of what?” David demanded.
Jake waved his flashlight and the truck stopped. “The food.”
David groaned. “No, no, no! The food isn’t supposed to be delivered until tomorrow! I talked to him about this, we wouldn’t have the cash until then…”
“Relax,” Jake said. “I’ve got it taken care of.”
David marched up to him angrily. “I’m sick of you taking care of things, Jake. Especially without telling everyone. Since he raised the price, this food costs twice as much as our previous deliveries. It’s cash-on-delivery, and I won’t have enough until tomorrow!”
“Fuck you,” Jake spat.
I put a hand on David’s arm. “This is a different delivery. Tell him, Jake.”
“Fuck him,” Jake said. “He wants to give me the finger? He can unload this shit himself.”
“Different delivery?” David asked, confused.
Bobby John hopped out of the truck and waved. “There’s the asshole brother I remember. Wish I could say it was good to see ya again, but that’d be a lie. Don’t like lying much. Makes the baby Jesus cry, y’know.”
David looked dazed as he shook his hand. “Bobby John? What…”
“I’m your new food supplier! Now go on and get the forklift. I ain’t got all day.”
“I’ll get it,” Jake said, and went jogging off. Bobby John climbed up to the back of the truck and opened the door, releasing a puff of cold mist. Inside were huge slabs of beef hanging from meat hooks.
“You knew about this?” David asked me.
I smiled weakly. “I forgot to mention it because of everything else that had happened. Jake cut a deal with him the other night.”
Jake returned with the forklift. We spent the next half hour loading the meat into containers on pallets, then transporting it back to the food preparation building. There were slabs of beef, tubs full of offal, and more containers filled with various chicken parts. David shook his head with wonder as we moved everything into the industrial freezers.
“This is quality meat. Much better than our other supplier. Bobby John, I don’t think we can afford this…”
“Jake and I set the price. Hope it’s alright. If not, we can negotiate.” He handed David a printed piece of paper. David’s eyes bulged.
“This… This is definitely alright! This is fantastic!”
Bobby John nodded and said, “Don’t worry about payin’ me just yet. Whenever you get a chance is fine. No big deal. I know you’re good for it!”
“Thanks again,” Jake said. “You’re the best.”
“Shit, just helpin’ out a buddy who did the same for me.”
After he left, David and Jake looked at each other warily. Like two cats who weren’t sure what to think of each other.
“Jake,” he said softly. “This is incredible. I had no idea you had done this.”
“Yeah, well, maybe you shouldn’t assume the worst of me.”
“Maybe you should keep me informed about your decisions.”
I thought another argument was going to break out, but then the two of them embraced heartily. They held each other for a long time, rocking back and forth and patting each other on the back.
“You’ve saved us,” David whispered. “Thanks to this, we might actually survive.”
The sight of them making up almost brought a tear t
o my eye.
We went through our morning routine after that. Jake announced that it was too fucking early for him, and went back to the house to sleep. While preparing the food, David kept commenting on how high the quality of meat was. He still seemed shocked by the whole thing.
Mary Beth showed up for work shortly before the zoo opened. She looked embarrassed, and wouldn’t meet my gaze. But when the zoo opened the visitors began filing in, she gathered the first group by the visitor’s center and gave her tour like it was any other day.
“Do you think she’s telling the truth?” I asked Anthony later that morning. We were sitting on a bench near Caesar’s enclosure, watching her from a distance.
Anthony shrugged. “It’s suspicious that she wouldn’t let us look at her phone or laptop. She doesn’t have to show us. Legally, I mean. But it would have cleared everything up.”
“It would have.” I sighed unhappily. “I still think she’s guilty. All signs point to her, and I’m positive she’s hiding something. But she was very convincing in her denials last night.”
“Are you supposed to give a tour soon?” Anthony suddenly asked.
“No. Why?”
He nodded. “Those two people have been staring at you awfully hard. Like they’re waiting for you to begin a tour.”
It was a middle-aged couple over by the visitor’s center. A balding man with a beer belly and a stick-thin woman with red hair that ran down her back in waves. For a moment, the sight of them didn’t make any sense. Not here.
Then they smiled and started walking over.
“Oh my God. Mom and dad?”
32
Rachel
My parents walked over and hugged me excitedly. “Rachel! We’ve missed you so much!”
“Mom! Dad! I’m so surprised to see you.”
“It’s good to see you, honey,” dad said with a big grin.
“I’ve been trying to call you,” mom said. “But you haven’t picked up. You know, back when you were an undergrad you always picked up for mom. But now it’s like pulling teeth to get you to answer the phone!”