Ruby Gryphon

by Ruby Ryan

  I stood in the doorway for several seconds, then knocked gently. "Mrs. Allen?"

  "You're early," she said without looking up. She waved me forward. "Go ahead and take a seat, and I'll be with you in a moment."

  I entered the office on meek feet, overwhelmed by the dark wood bookshelves flanking her desk. I sat down in the chair across the desk and put my hands in my lap.

  She still never looked up at me. Her entire focus was on whatever she was reading.

  The tension grew as I waited. Even though she paid me no mind, the uncomfortableness of the situation paralyzed me. Of course I was 15 minutes early; I should have waited outside until the exact time. I hadn't been thinking. I'd just barged on in here. What were you thinking, Harriet?

  It was stupid, I knew deep down. Dr. Allen probably didn't care that I was early, and didn't think about it beyond the single sentence she'd said to me. But I was a worrier, an over-analyzer, and so I sat there and spent the next five minutes thinking about all the things I should have done.

  Finally, she picked up her stack of papers and stapled them together, dropping them onto another pile with a sigh. Her hawkish eyes swung toward me.

  "Mrs... Reckmeyer?" she asked, squinting as she dredged her memory.

  "That's right. Harriet Reckmeyer." I rose enough to lean forward and shake her hand.

  "Right, right," she said, shifting from reading-mode to social-mode like a pants-suited robot. "How are you doing today?"

  "I'm fine." I didn't have the energy for small talk.

  "Sorry for bringing you in on a Sunday," she said. "I only got back into town last night, and I told my secretary to schedule something ASAP." A wry smile crossed her face. "I didn't think she'd take that so literally."

  I grabbed onto the line of thought like a drowning woman reaching for a life preserver. "We can meet tomorrow if that's better for you..."

  But Dr. Allen quickly shook her head. "No, no, now's perfect. I wanted to talk about your thesis."

  Here it was. The moment I'd been dreading all week, building up in my head like my academic apocalypse. Rip the band-aid off quickly, I told her with my pained smile. Get it over with.

  "Yes?"

  "Utilizing bee hive cultivation for elephant migratory containment is... creative," she said. I could practically feel the disapproval in her voice. Any confidence I'd managed to muster up that morning fell away like a runaway elevator.

  "I'm sorry," I said in a rush. "I know it's not what you expected. I've been trying to think of a replacement all week, but nothing has come to mind, and I really don't even know where to begin..."

  Dr. Allen gave me a strange look. "Replacement topic?"

  "Yes..."

  She shook her head. "I must admit, I was skeptical as to the efficacy of this topic when I first read of it. Yet I took it to one of my acquaintances at Harvard, do you know Dr. Bernard Cardiff? Well, I showed Bernard and he was absolutely enthralled with it. Loved the idea. Wished he'd thought of it himself. He's pushing 70, and I don't think I've ever seen so much enthusiasm in his voice."

  "I'm familiar with Bernard Cardiff's work," I said in a daze. His work with the Save The Elephants project is one of the reasons I got into animal conservation in the first place! I swelled with pride at the idea of him even reading my proposal, let alone being impressed by it! But I had no idea what this had to do with me. Why call me in for an in-person meeting just to tell me a colleague liked my thesis? Unless he wanted to take it for himself...

  My pride disappeared, and all the negative thoughts rushed back in. She was going to ask that I change my thesis so Bernard Cardiff could take my idea and give it to some Harvard grad students.

  I thought about Jon out in the hall, and his insistence that I fight for my idea. But I didn't have that in me. It wasn't who I was. I was going to nod, and tell Dr. Allen that it was fine that they take my topic, and then walk out of the office like the tiny mouse girl that I was.

  "Well," she said, "I took a look at your other coursework this semester. I'm good friends with the two professors of your other classes, and spoke to them about this. They've offered to let you finish their classes early, or delay your papers until the summer. Tell me. Have you ever been to Africa?"

  "I was in Kenya three years ago," I said, then shook my head. "Delay? I don't understand..."

  Dr. Allen closed her eyes and smiled. "I'm sorry. I'm still jet-lagged, and skipped all the important parts. Bernard is leading a research team to Mozambique to study elephant migrations and containment strategies. They have a big list of their own ideas, but Bernard would be honored if you joined them. Our own Earth Sciences department will provide you with a research grant, of course, along with a stipend for living expenses..."

  I think my brain short-circuited then. I just sort of stared at Dr. Allen, replaying her words in my head. I think my jaw moved, but no words came out.

  "It's a lot to process," she smiled knowingly. "If you need to take the day to consider going..."

  "Of course I'll go!" I blurted. "Working with Bernard Cardiff would be the experience of a lifetime!"

  "Let me assure you, he's not as exciting as you think," she laughed. "He collects stamps, and it's all he talks about. But yes, being invited on his research expedition is quite an honor."

  I blinked rapidly. My mouth was dry. "I thought you were going to make me change my thesis topic!"

  "Why on earth would I do that?" She waved it off. "As I was saying, your other two professors will allow you to submit your final papers early, if you're able to get them done in the next few days. I know that's overwhelming, so if you need to send them late, after you return from Africa, that's fine too."

  "The next few days," I repeated. "When does the research team leave?"

  "Next Sunday, exactly a week from today," she said with a smile. "Congratulations, Miss Reckmeyer. You're going to Africa."

  I waited until Jon and I were outside the Earth Sciences building before I started screaming with excitement.

  12

  ROLAND

  It was probably the worst week of my life.

  Somehow, I pulled myself out of the boxing ring and made it back to the lockers. My opponent, the dragon douche, was gone; Boris said he hot-tailed it out of there shortly after beating me, even though he'd been offered free drinks. Which was good, since I just wanted to sit alone for ten minutes and try to put the pieces of my aching head back together.

  While clutching the gryphon, of course.

  Because as terrible as my wounds from the fight were, aching ribs and a jaw that was on fire, it wasn't as bad as the sensation of being away from it. Back in the locker room with it in my hands, the pressure left my ears and I could finally hear my own thoughts again. I sat there with the gryphon held between my legs and rubbed its surface like a good luck charm.

  But the relief was only momentary. By the time I got home and showered all the sweat and blood off my body, I wanted to call Harriet and apologize. I couldn't believe how I'd acted at the restaurant, and I could see it with the perfect clarity of hindsight. I needed to make things right.

  And then I saw the text message from her, which she'd sent while I was fighting.

  I deserved it. All of it. Even though she was wrong about my intentions, I could see why she had that impression. That I was just some asshole who was nice to women only up until the moment I slept with them, and then could reveal my true colors. It was wrong, but in my humiliated state I couldn't protest. Couldn't insist that she was wrong, because even if I did she wouldn't believe me. She wouldn't give me another chance even if I begged her.

  So I told her I was sorry, and left her in peace.

  Yet as bad as all of that was after getting the shit kicked out of me by some cheeky weirdo with a dragon tattoo, it wasn't what made this the worst week of my life.

  I woke up the next morning deathly sick. Feverish chills, and drenched in so much sweat that I thought I'd pissed the bed in my sleep. All of my joints ached, and far wo
rse than the normal day-after-a-fight pain. I thought I had the bloody flu.

  I tried to ignore it, shivering in my bed and getting my roommate to make me chicken soup, but by the second day I finally gave up and went to the hospital.

  The flu test came back negative. The doctors ran some other scans, and when I told them I'd been in Belize last week they got all worked up into a froth. Three dozen blood tests later they were still no closer to discovering what was wrong. They kept me overnight, and I clutched the gryphon tightly in my sleep.

  An old news story popped into my head during the night. Or maybe it was something I saw on a medical TV show. In any case, a kid was deathly sick. Slowly wasting away, and no matter how many tests the doctors ran, they couldn't figure out what was ailing him. It turned out that the kid's father worked in a junk yard and made a special keychain from a piece of metal he'd found. It turned out to be something radioactive. The kid had radiation poisoning.

  And so, with great reluctance, I pulled the object out of my pocket and showed the doctor the next day. He looked skeptical, but at my insistence (which was a polite way of saying I called him a stubborn cunt) he ran some tests on it. All came back negative: nothing radioactive.

  They discharged me with a broad-spectrum of antibiotics, even though they claimed it wasn't bacterial, and then I was standing in the waiting room with a handful of papers.

  "No insurance," I told the woman who gave me the total cost, my teeth chattering even though I wore three layers. I never even heard the total, nor did it matter. Not to me. "Cash."

  "Okay..." the woman at the front desk said. "We offer a variety of payment plans for--"

  "I fucken said cash." I pulled out my debit card and tossed it on the table. She didn't say another word to me after that.

  Carter did his best to take care of me when he was home, but he worked two jobs in addition to boxing at night, so all that really amounted to was heating up chicken noodle soup from a can three times a day. I cloistered myself in my room under three blankets, and when those weren't warm enough I piled my clothes on top. Carter complained about me keeping the heat cranked up to 80, but I promised to cover the extra heating bill, and whether it was that or the awful condition I was in he didn't complain any more.

  Sometimes I looked at my phone to gauge the time and date, because otherwise time held no meaning in the sick containment of my room. I had a bunch of missed calls from Ethan, and a text message that said, "Dude, Roland? Do I have the right number? Pick up!" which made me faintly worried. Why would he call me after we'd just seen each other? I hadn't talked to him in practically a decade before that. But I didn't have any energy to devote to him right then. I didn't have the energy to do much of anything.

  By the fourth day I was ready to die.

  That's not an exaggeration. I literally thought I was going to die. I barely had enough strength to walk 20 feet to the shower, and although the scalding water rejuvenated me marginally, it never lasted more than a few minutes. It felt like a million needles were stabbing me simultaneously, moving deeper one millimeter at a time. I struggled to think. I was driven only by primal need: huddled in a ball to suffer the agony, then slurping down soup to feel hot liquid in my body, and drinking only enough water to get the ibuprofen down my throat.

  Carter offered me drugs on day five. Prescription opioids, or weed, or something harder, he promised he could get me whatever I needed. I don't know how I resisted the initial offer. Maybe all those DARE programs forced the immediate rejection onto my lips. But then he went to work, and while I was alone I began to daydream about the sweet release that only hard drugs could offer. I'd never done anything beyond smoking weed back in college, so my fantasies were a cartoonish impression of what I assumed real drugs were. Relaxation. Soothing relief, even if it was only for a few hours. That sounded like heaven. Several times I tried to reach for my phone to call him and change my mind, but I could never get the phone to my ears.

  And then I was too weak to even fantasize about a relief to the pain. There was no conscious thought in those final hours, when all I knew was the pain. It pulsed so strongly in my head that it left no room for anything else. To conjure up a single thought would have required monumental effort. I lay in bed, under my mountain of blankets in clothes, and I prepared myself for the end.

  The knock on the door was the only thing that saved me.

  13

  HARRIET

  It was probably the craziest week of my life.

  The craziest, most exciting, most incredible week of my life!

  My two professors were wonderfully accommodating to my sudden Africa trip; they insisted I could complete my work at my leisure, and that focusing on the expedition with Bernard Cardiff--Bernard frigging Cardiff!--should take precedent. But as gracious as they were, I hated the idea of putting two classes on pause while I was gone. I knew myself: the looming work would drive me nuts in Mozambique, a constant distraction from what I should have been focusing on.

  So I bought a coffee maker for my apartment, one that made entire pots rather than single-servings, and crammed two months of work into one week.

  I tackled my Ruminant Nutrition class first. It had a final exam rather than a term paper, so I spent Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday pouring over textbooks and research analysis. I took the exam Tuesday night and walked out with the calm relief of someone who knew they'd nailed it.

  Physiology of Growth and Stress in Pachyderms was much harder. That class required a 20,000 page paper rather than an exam, and writing wasn't my best strength. For the next four days I was a machine that turned pots of coffee into scientific prose. With limited time, I didn't have the luxury of reading all the material before sitting down to write, so I wrote my paper along the way. That required tons of adjustments, constantly going back to tweak things I'd already written, but it was the only way. Metabolism regulation? I knew it like the freckles on my face by 1:30pm on Wednesday. Anabolic agents were memorized by 4:45pm. Immunoneutralization among transgenic pachyderms to increase resistance to fungal-based diseases? That junk was easy as pie by the time the sun rose Thursday morning.

  I typed, and read, and guzzled coffee like a sorority pledge in a drinking game, and every now and then I caught a few minutes of sleep.

  Somehow, I finished the paper by Saturday morning. By then the words didn't make any sense to my eyes, but I was done, and I crashed right there on my couch once the accumulated exhaustion buried me like an avalanche.

  I woke up that afternoon, gave it a final read-through (the first 10 pages, at least), and then emailed it away. The sound of the mouse-click sending the email felt like the grand finale of every firework show I'd ever seen.

  Like a zombie, I wandered around my tiny apartment after that. I began packing, which was something I hadn't thought about until that exact moment. It was summer in the southern hemisphere. Did I have enough shorts? I needed a wide hat to keep the sun off my face and shoulders. I hoped they had sunscreen there. Girls of my complexion didn't do well in the sun all day.

  But they were only passing concerns. My dream was coming true. I was going to Africa to study elephants!

  I microwaved an instant-burrito, and while watching it spin behind the glass my thoughts turned to Roland.

  It had been easy keeping him out of my head all week. My work had left barely enough room in my mind for basic necessities like eating and sleeping, let alone him. But now that the work was done, images of his face and rippling body came flooding into the vacuum.

  My hand moved on its own and pulled out my cell phone. His single "I'm sorry" text was the last thing either of us had said. The inadequacy of his apology angered me anew. Who did he think he was? I was Harriet Reckmeyer, soon-to-be elephant field researcher. He had no right to treat me that way. It wasn't fair.

  I knew I should brush it off, but I couldn't. The memory of his body wrapped around mine was woven into my nerves, refusing to let go.

  And then an illogical thought came to mi
nd: what if he thought I was running from him? He bangs me, blows me off, and then I suddenly go to Africa? He'd think he hurt me so bad that I had to leave the frigging continent. Obviously it wasn't true, and he'd probably never talk to me again regardless, but I didn't want him to have that power over me. Even the illusion of it.

  Before I knew it, I'd sent a text to him: hey, can we talk?

  Once it was sent I began to panic. He ant hill had been kicked, and at any minute the ants would come marching out in a frenzy, and something I didn't have to worry about previously would now be an ordeal. I sat at my table and picked at my molten burrito and waited.

  But he didn't respond.

  Not only did he not respond, but I never got the "Message delivered" notification. So he wasn't looking at his phone. Maybe he was at a fight.

  Or maybe he'd changed his settings to not automatically send those notifications to me.

  I did some laundry, and tried to ignore him, but I couldn't shake this feeling in my chest. Finally broke down and dialed his number. It rang four times and went to voicemail, and I panicked and hung up without leaving one.

  But by then I was like a dog chasing a tennis ball.

  I called the bar, but the dude with the Russian accent--who was surprised and frustrated to hear from me again--said Roland hadn't fought in almost a week, and wasn't answering his phone.

  I wasn't the kind of woman who had one-night stands and brushed them off. It wasn't in me; I needed closure. Loose threads ate away at my brain like cancer. If I didn't find out what was going on with Roland, and at the very least tell him I was going to Africa for three months, I wouldn't be able to focus on my research. That would be worse than any embarrassment of confronting him here.

  Besides, I needed to swing by the pharmacy and get travel-sized toiletries. I would be near his apartment anyways.

  I made the walk to Cambridge on feet that were numb with exhaustion. Now that the craziness of the week was over, my body needed to catch up on sleep. Crashing on the couch this afternoon hadn't come close to chipping away at that sleep deficit.