The Lion is In

by Delia Ephron

  They all sit in the dark at a picnic table with fireflies dancing, eating in silence for a while. Lana loses interest in her burger about halfway through. She concentrates mainly on her Pepsi, returning to the counter for more sugar, which she dumps in. “Perfectly seasoned,” she says, grinning. Rita eats methodically and neatly, taking time to play with her orange slush, swirling the straw through the icy fluff while she watches Tracee drown her patty melt in mustard and catsup and then take huge bites, washing them down with noisy slurps through the straw. Tracee moans as she eats. Her fingers get sticky. She licks them. Crumpled dirty napkins pile up. Rita pushes more napkins her way.

  “Maybe we can sell your wedding dress on eBay,” says Lana.

  “What?” says Tracee.

  “No one wears a wedding dress twice.”

  “I haven’t worn it once.”

  Lana waves a fry at her. “Technically, yes, you have worn it once, because you are wearing it.”

  “Excuse me for prying,” says Rita, “but are you a runaway bride?”

  Lana answers for Tracee. “Yes, no, not really.” She starts laughing. Tracee bursts into tears. “Tee—come on, I’m just explaining, I didn’t mean…” She throws up her hands as Tracee hiccups, trying to suppress her sobs. “Forget it. Who’s done besides me?” Lana gets up and tosses her food in the trash.

  “Would you like me to drive?” says Rita. “I’ve never been in an accident. I’ve never even had a bumper stumper.”

  Two hours later they pass a small sign by the side of the road: WELCOME TO NORTH CAROLINA. Lana and Tracee are sleeping, Lana in back and Tracee in front, slumped against the window, her hand curled into a fist under her cheek. While Rita drives, she taps her cell phone.

  Tracee wakes up. “Who are you texting?”

  She snatches the cell and throws it out the window.

  Rita reacts coolly, braking quickly and making a U-turn while Tracee goes silent, astonished at her own behavior, and Lana, sensing a reversal of direction, rouses herself to find out what happened.

  Since it’s black as tar out in spite of a starry moonlit sky, it’s a “guesstimate,” as Rita puts it, as to exactly where Tracee flung the cell. Rita pulls up on the shoulder and angles the car so that the headlights illuminate a thick tangle of lush greenery.

  While she and Lana get out and stomp around, hoping to step on the phone, which seems more likely than spotting it, Tracee shouts from the car, “I get possessed, like possessed by the devil, and I do things.”

  “The devil?” says Rita.

  “She doesn’t mean the devil,” says Lana, while Tracee shouts at the same time, “Not the devil devil. I mean something comes over me.”

  “I don’t want anything to do with the devil,” says Rita. “I’m living without the devil. That’s what I’m trying.”

  Rita and Lana disappear behind some shrubbery, and Tracee can still hear their feet crushing plants.

  “Did you find it?” she shouts.

  “You could help,” says Lana.

  “I’m in my wedding dress.”

  “I’m really sorry Tracee did that,” Lana tells Rita. “She panics.”

  “It’s all right. I was only playing Word Shake. It’s not a good thing to do while you drive.”

  “Suppose someone needs to reach you?”

  “No one knows I have a cellular phone.”

  “No one knows you have a cellular phone,” Lana repeats and considers this while she stomps some more, primarily for show, and strips the leaves off a fern to scratch a destructive itch. “I don’t think we’ll find it.”

  “I don’t either. I don’t think there’s any chance at all, but thank you for trying.”

  Lana bends back the branches, easing their path, and then walks ahead to shield Rita from the glare of the headlights.

  “Do you believe in things happening for a reason?” says Rita.

  “No. Maybe. I’m not sure. I’d have to give that serious thought.”

  “In my opinion…” Rita stops and proceeds deliberately, “That way of thinking is a way to accept shit.”

  Lana gets the impression that “shit” is a word Rita has never used before, and using it has given her a thrill.

  5

  One a.m.

  Tracee drives while Lana and Rita sleep. Lulled by a repetitious clink of something in the motor, which isn’t new but in the lonesome quiet becomes both noticeable and hypnotic, and bored by the straight dark road devoid of sights, Tracee dozes. Her foot slips off the gas.

  The car slows as it drifts soundlessly across the empty highway and crashes into a rail.

  Tracee snaps like a rubber band—thrown forward and almost as quickly pinned back, thanks to her seat belt.

  Lana, jolted, bolts upright. “What the fuck?” She cranes forward to see what happened.

  “Are you all right?” says Rita.

  “I didn’t mean to,” says Tracee.

  “What happened to the air bags?” says Lana. “Did that slug sell me a car with no air bags?”

  “Thank goodness we were all wearing seat belts,” says Rita.

  “What a ripoff. I could sue. Tracee, give it gas.”

  Tracee only sits there.

  “Tracee, put the car in reverse and give it some gas.”

  “We’d been driving forever,” says Tracee.

  “I know, Tee.” Lana pats her arm.

  “I didn’t have anyone to talk to.”

  “It’s okay. We’re all wiped. I need you to put the car into reverse and press on the gas. Can you do that? Look, I’m putting it in reverse for you. Now all you have to do is press on the gas pedal.”

  “I’m doing it,” says Tracee.

  They hear the wheels spin in the dirt.

  Beyond the car, off the highway on an even smaller road that runs parallel, a large building stands alone. Not a right angle in it. A collection of panels, some of them aluminum, some a material resembling wood but possibly not wood, some vertically placed, some nailed on horizontally. If a building were a crazy quilt, thinks Rita, that’s what this would be. She spots it first when they all get out of the car—from the passenger side, because the smashed driver’s-side door won’t open. The walls of the building rise and then tilt toward the center. The top is shaped more like a tent than a roof. There are double front doors painted a garish crimson, and a yellow neon sign over them: THE LION. The sign is more or less lit up except for a few letters. A large empty parking lot surrounds the building. It’s hard to say whether this place is still happening or whether it’s not.

  The women look both ways. No cars in sight.

  Tracee hopes her dress is undamaged. Not that it got injured in the crash but possibly after, when she had to exit. It was a trip to move herself in that huge, delicate dress over the gear and brake to the passenger side. She could easily have snagged it. She’s dying to pull some fabric from the back around to the front and take a close look, but Lana might think she’s off the point. Worse, or perhaps not worse but equally bad, if Tracee were to mention her dress now, Lana might think Tracee cares more about her dress than the Mustang, which Lana paid off only about a year and a half ago. Lana was a big mess then but a lot more fun. They’d hopped from bar to bar—she, Lana, and J.C. Lana showed her official owner’s receipt, stamped PAID IN FULL, to everyone. She kissed it so many times it was covered with gloss, and then she lost it.

  The next morning Lana said it didn’t matter. She needed the receipt only if she was going to sell the car, and she would never, ever sell her Mustang, and look at her, here she is kneeling, practically caressing her car, whose fender is wrapped around the rail, tenderly touching all the dents and tangled metal the way a blind woman might feel the face of someone she loves.

  “I’m sorry,” says Tracee. “I’m really sorry.”

  “It’s okay. It was used. Now it’s just used-used.”

  “If J.C. knew.”

  “Shut up,” screams Lana. “Sorry, I’m sorry. Just please don’t.�
�

  “You do look pretty in that wedding dress,” says Rita. “And with the moon shining, you’re like the highwayman’s lover. ‘He whistled a tune to the window, and who should be waiting there / But the landlord’s black-eyed daughter / Bess, the landlord’s daughter, / Plaiting a dark red love-knot into her long black hair.’”

  The words seem to hang in the air, a silent echo.

  “What’s that?” says Tracee.

  “Poetry.”

  “Thank you. Thank you for that.”

  “We’re nowhere,” says Rita. “I can’t tell you how happy that makes me.”

  She steps over the low rail. Lana steps over too, gives a hand to Tracee, and then strides down an embankment, leading them to The Lion.

  “Do you think this is a real place?” asks Lana as they cross the parking lot.

  “You mean, could we be imagining it?” says Tracee.

  “No. I’m asking, could it be deserted? Abandoned?”

  “I could never be imagining it, because I don’t have an imagination,” says Rita.

  “Doesn’t everyone?” says Tracee.

  “Really? Do you think so?”

  “I’d like to hope so,” says Lana.

  She checks out the front doors. They’re metal, locked with a heavy chain and padlock. Close up, the crimson paint turns out to be sloppily applied—brushstrokes evident, bubbles here and there, and some missed spots where the original gunmetal gray shows through. The two windows might more likely belong on a small house. Lana tries to lift the glass on both but can’t.

  She heads around to the back, with Tracee and Rita trailing after.

  The building is such a mishmash of materials, it’s hard for her to spot the normal bits. There’s a long folding door of several panels hinged together, which is also locked, and yet another window. Lana feels the dirt-encrusted glass along the bottom between the frame and the sill. She can wedge her fingers in.

  Lana raises the window, groaning at the effort. “We’ll put you through first,” she tells Rita.

  She laces her fingers together and Tracee does likewise, each making a stirrup for Rita’s feet. “One, two, three,” says Lana. They hoist her up. Rita pitches through and hangs there, half in and half out.

  Tracee starts giggling.

  “Are you all right?” Lana hopes that Rita can’t hear Tracee’s suppressed laughter and that she herself does not break up too.

  “I’m fine. Push me.”

  They do and hear a thunk as she hits the floor. Then her face is in the window as she raises it higher.

  “Your turn,” says Lana.

  “I’m scared to say it. You’ll get mad.”

  “What?”

  “I can’t go through the window in this dress.”

  “Take it off, then.”

  Tracee giggles. She unzips a side zipper, and her dress collapses around her. She steps out of it, bundles it neatly, and passes it into Rita’s arms.

  “My goodness, it’s heavy,” says Rita.

  “I love it.” Tracee unpins her veil and hands it to Lana. She hoists herself up, relatively agile and athletic now that she is encumbered by only a bra and a ruffled organdy underskirt, and climbs through.

  Lana passes her the veil and climbs in after.

  Helping Tracee put the dress and veil back on proves surprisingly easy in spite of the dark room, because the satin fabric, bright white, provides a helpful glow. They take a moment to debate the pros and cons—wear versus not wear—but it seems easier for Tracee to be in the dress than to carry it in the dark.

  “Where are you?” says Rita suddenly.

  “Right here,” says Lana.

  “Here,” says Tracee.

  “I’m—”

  “What?” says Lana.

  “I’m scared of the dark.” Rita is relieved that it is dark when she confesses this thing she’s embarrassed about. “I got—”

  “What? Spooked?”

  “It’s stupid.”

  “Why stupid?” says Lana. “We’re here. Wave your arms around.”

  They all locate one another and, clasping hands, move through the space, banging into furniture at first, but as their eyes adjust, they begin to discern things around them—shapes—although they cannot tell exactly what they are or in what configuration.

  There seem to be many small tables with chairs. Lana feels the surface of one. “Some crumbs. Eww. Sticky stuff.” She runs her hand over a wood surface full of gouges. She assesses the height, slightly above her waist, and, reaching out, determines its narrow width and long length. “This must be a bar. Stay here. Sit on a stool. I’m going around to the other side.”

  Lana gropes her way around the bar and then gropes behind the bar, locating various things, many of which are familiar because she’s worked in bars before—the spigots for beer, the faucet, the grate where the water drains. She feels around under the bar, pulls on a handle opening a small refrigerator. The women can finally see, thanks to a pie-shaped yellow light emanating up.

  “What’ll it be?” says Lana.

  “Lana, no,” says Tracee.

  “I can be in a bar and not have alcohol. I’m only offering.”

  “Just water for me, please,” says Rita.

  “Tracee?”

  “I’m thinking. Now, what do I want?” Tracee taps her toes.

  “Tracee!”

  “Fine, okay, whatever is in that spout. What does it say there on the handle? Pepsi.” Tracee lifts off her veil, which has a crystal-studded crown and a long gathered net with a satin trim. She lays the veil on the bar and strokes it.

  “I guess I’ll have Pepsi too,” says Rita.

  Holding a glass under a spigot, Lana pulls the lever. It seems miraculous that the soda comes out. She sets them all up and locates napkins, chips, and pretzels as well as a jar of maraschino cherries. She drops a few cherries into her Pepsi.

  “Where are you from?” Tracee asks Lana.

  “What you are talking about? You’ve lived next door to me since we were five. Are you nuts?”

  “Excuse me,” Tracee says to Rita.

  She leans across the bar to Lana and whispers, “I was making conversation because I thought we could find out about her, you know I’d ask you about you first and you’d tell us and then she’d be all relaxed and tell us, because I don’t think she wants to tell us anything.”

  “But we don’t want to tell her anything,” says Lana.

  Not wanting to intrude, leaving the young women to confer privately, Rita swivels around on her stool and stops. Far off, in the inky darkness, she sees the bright eyes of a large animal. The eyes are yellow, the pupils large circles of black. Unwavering, slightly slanted, and far enough apart that they might not even belong together, the eyes glimmer like lights in fog, diffuse and mysterious.

  Rita slips off her stool and walks slowly toward the eyes.

  Lana and Tracee turn. Tracee slaps a hand to her mouth to muffle a shriek. Lana goes silent, shocked as much by the realization that they are in the presence of something dangerous as by Rita’s pull to it.

  Rita takes slow but certain steps. Drawn inexorably. It would be easier to resist gravity.

  Lana kicks the refrigerator door. It opens wider, casting enough murky glow to illuminate the shadowy figure of a lion. In an enormous cage. Thick black bars rise like spikes nearly to the ceiling.

  The lion is standing in the cage regarding Rita.

  Rita stares back, mesmerized.

  She turns and smiles at Lana and Tracee.

  The lion roars.

  The women scream and run, crashing into things, heading for the window, which they all try to squeeze through at the same time.

  Lana yanks Tracee. “Let her go first, it’s polite.”

  Rita tumbles out. Tracee nearly gets stuck, but Lana shoves her through and then somersaults herself out in one leap.

  For a while they simply lie on the ground and breathe.

  “That was a lion,” says Lana fina
lly. “Is that legal?”

  “In these country parts,” says Rita, “it doesn’t matter.”

  “Why did you walk toward him?” says Tracee.

  “What?” says Rita.

  “You walked right toward him.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You’re scared of the dark.”

  “I know.”

  “He smelled like stale popcorn,” says Lana. “The minute we saw him, I smelled him. His head is so big. That mane.”

  “Like a wild man’s,” says Rita.

  “But why did you smile?” Tracee asks Rita. “That was so strange.”

  Rita thinks, and it comes back to her, what she sensed when she saw him. She feels it again, something stirring inside her. Barely there, yet for most people it would be unmistakable: a sense of beginning. Rita, however, is so unfamiliar with adventure or the possibility of it that she can’t tell the difference between something auspicious and a stomachache.

  “I don’t know,” she says again. She can only articulate the obvious. “He was an astonishment.”

  6

  We have to go back inside,” says Lana, and when Tracee protests, she points out how chilly it is outside and that the lion is, in fact, in a cage. “If an animal is in a cage, he can’t hurt us, right?”

  Logically yes, but at the same time, no one is sure about that. Still, within ten minutes they are back inside, flat against a wall, inching along, trying not to attract the big cat’s attention. The small refrigerator is still open, providing light. They notice that the cage contains a white plaster of paris cave, extremely amateur in look. The lion is now lounging inside it.

  “Does anyone know anything about lions?” Lana speaks in a hushed voice. This seems wise, although she is not sure why.

  “Isn’t the lion the king of the jungle?” says Tracee.

  “I mean behavior. Besides eats meat?”

  No one does.

  “Well, I think we should move quietly and whisper,” says Lana.

  “He is in a cage,” says Rita.

  “But we don’t want him rampaging around. Or getting aroused by our scent. What’s this?” Lana feels a knob poking into her back, turns, and notes a bowler hat decal on the door. “The men’s room.”