The Lion is In

by Delia Ephron

  “The ladies’ must be nearby,” says Tracee.

  “I don’t think we have to observe that little propriety,” says Lana, walking in.

  She locates a light switch where it would logically be, on the wall just inside, and a couple of lightbulbs dangling from the ceiling switch on. There are two metal lockers next to the sink, and she begins rattling their doors as Tracee and Rita use the stalls.

  When they come out, they find that she has managed to open one locker and is going through the contents. She holds up a shirt and examines it—coarse cotton, red with short sleeves, a man’s shirt, and on the pocket stitched in orange script, The Lion. She tosses it to Tracee. She then removes a small paperback and a condom, a Trojan in its plastic packet.

  “Is that Sudoku?” says Rita. “I love Sudoku.”

  Lana hands her the book. “Do one.”

  “But it belongs to someone. Do you think I should?” She thumbs through. Some of the puzzles have been completed.

  “What would Harry say?” says Lana.

  Rita pauses and then inquires as if she could care less one way or another, “Do you know Harry?”

  “No. You mentioned him. I was making a joke.”

  Rita spends a moment thinking. “One little puzzle. It can’t really do any harm. It’s only one page out of”—she flips to the end—“ninety-eight puzzles. Who would begrudge that to someone?”

  Tracee holds her purse up to her chest, opens it wide enough for a private peer inside, digs around, and comes up with a pretty pencil, silver metal with a pink eraser at the top. “Here. You can erase.”

  Lana pockets the condom.

  7

  Morning light through the small dirty window wakes Rita. Her body aches, her limbs are stiff from sleeping on the linoleum floor (on a pallet of paper towels pulled from the dispenser). She sits up, wiggling and rolling her shoulders, stretching her arms, careful not to rustle the paper towels and wake the girls. They sleep so quietly. Lana, her head cocked sideways, sits up against the wall, her long legs sticking straight out in front of her. She’s wearing her sandals. Sleeping in shoes—there’s something sad about that, thinks Rita. Tracee, curled up on the floor, has her legs tucked up and her head in Lana’s lap. She’s wearing the red shirt and her organdy slip.

  Rita watches them for a minute, the slight rise and fall of their bodies as they breathe, how comfortable they obviously are together. She appreciates their innocence—Lana’s face without anger, Tracee’s worry-free. Especially Rita appreciates the quiet, no Harry snoring, his leg thrown over her, pinning her down.

  She rubs her eyes, picks up her book, and continues with Sudoku. She had planned to stop last night after one puzzle, told herself she should, but is now in the middle of her third. As she fills in the squares, the lead in the pencil breaks.

  Tracee’s purse is just sitting there. Hoping for another pencil, Rita peeks inside at the mess—wadded-up tissues, a jumble of lipsticks and glosses (all sorts of fancy brands), mascara wands, quite a few. Something glitters. She looks closer and pinches out a necklace. She cradles it in her palm. It’s short, more a choker, really. Rita knows instantly that it’s valuable, because she has never held anything valuable before. Her own wedding ring, which she left behind, could have been mistaken for a curtain ring and cost barely more than that. It was a badge of deprivation. This fragile, pretty thing has a bit of heft; the gold is tarnished in the ways of antiques, jewelry she has admired in shop windows. The gems, tiny half-moons set in a single row, catch the light. Simply because she cannot tear her eyes away, she knows these diamonds are real.

  She stands up. Looking into the cracked mirror above the sink, she fastens the choker around her neck.

  It fits nicely. The small stones suit her. The chain is not tight but rests on her collarbones. The diamonds are amazing. Even in this dusty light they sparkle, brightening and animating her solemn face.

  Rita arches her neck, imagining for a second she is someone elegant. Someone regal. Someone.

  She lays her hand against the choker, feeling the cool links against her skin. I don’t have to be who I am. For the first time in her life that thought wanders into her consciousness and then out again. She summons it back, what a daring thought—Who I am is not a life sentence. Her heart beats a tiny bit faster and that feeling is so shockingly unfamiliar, a quickening of her heart from excitement, that she unfastens the necklace and returns it to Tracee’s purse.

  Rummaging in the purse some more, she finds only a pen, debates whether to use it but decides no. She sits back down and waits for Lana and Tracee to wake up, which Lana does with a suddenness, announcing, “I have to go to a meeting,” as though she has decided in her sleep. She shakes Tracee awake and repeats, “I have to go to a meeting.”

  They all throw water on their faces and pat themselves dry with paper towels, and, with soap from the dispenser, rub their teeth, which makes Tracee gag. Lana monopolizes the mirror, although no one else wants it. She yanks her hair this way and that, the best technique for dealing with hair that is all different lengths and appears to have been cut in the dark, which it was, on a dare. She arranges her T-shirt to hide a goldfish tattoo below her collarbone, a reminder of the stupid things she did when she was wasted. Her three other tattoos, including the one she is most embarrassed about—a guy’s name, Trent (someone she hooked up with for a week)—are visible only when she’s naked. Lana is high-waisted with hourglass curves. After years of parading her cleavage in tight, low tops through a slew of bars, she now keeps her endowments hidden. Her T-shirt, a muddy green, is large and hangs loosely. She has a coppery complexion nearly the same color as her hair, and widely set dark brown eyes, serious and probing when they are not suspicious. Her smiles, uncommon, are usually reserved for moments of irony or glee. This morning, as always, she views her reflection with dissatisfaction. A lifetime of compliments from men has not made up for a lack of appreciation from a mother.

  While Lana scowls into the mirror, daring herself to like what she sees, Tracee clips her masses of soft black curls up and out of the way. In spite of the many glosses in her purse, she borrows Lana’s, dabbing on a bit and smoothing it with her finger. She wears no other makeup, never does. Her lack of artifice, her gawkiness, and her simple beauty—porcelain skin and large gray eyes that take up a little too much space on her thin, delicate face—all tell the tale: The child she was is still very much present.

  Tracee tugs her wedding dress down from over the stall where it is draped. “I’m going to carry my dress and keep on wearing this shirt and slip instead.” Her voice rises as it often does, converting statements into questions, determination into doubt—a prompt for Lana.

  “Good idea,” says Lana. She opens the door and walks out.

  They start to follow when she pivots, pushes them back inside, and pulls the door shut.

  “What?” say Tracee and Rita.

  Lana waves her arms. She doesn’t know what to say.

  “What?” says Tracee.

  Still no answer.

  “What?” they both repeat.

  Lana opens the door a crack and they all peek out.

  The lion is standing in the cage with Tracee’s wedding veil on his head.

  “My veil.” Tracee starts crying.

  “That’s not the point,” says Lana.

  “That’s not the point? The lion is wearing my veil and it’s not the point?”

  “The point,” says Lana, “is how did it happen?”

  They all consider.

  “Toughie,” says Rita.

  “Toughie for sure.”

  “Could it be a miracle?” says Tracee.

  “There are no miracles,” says Rita. “In my opinion…” She stops and after a moment continues deliberately. “Miracles are simply misunderstandings. Or worse, cons.”

  “Whoa, dark.” Lana gives Rita’s pronouncement the respect it deserves, a brief silence, before continuing to analyze the mystery. “Either the lion left the cage,
which means he can leave the cage at will, walked over to the bar where you left the veil, put the veil on, which means he is capable of putting a veil on his head, and returned to his cage, or—”

  “Someone put it on him,” says Rita, “and we slept through it.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Or a miracle,” says Tracee. “And it means something, something wonderful that we know nothing about that has to do with me. It shall be revealed.”

  “So,” says Lana, ignoring Tracee’s comment, “someone else is either here or was here.”

  They put their heads out the door. They listen. They peek about.

  The lion is strolling around the cage. The crystal-studded, tiara-like crown sits slightly off center, nestled in his mane, and the fluffy gathered netting poufs out. A bit of the veil appears to be in his mouth.

  “We have to get it back,” says Tracee.

  “Do you want to be eaten by a lion?” says Lana. “Do you want to end your life being ripped to death by a lion’s jaws?”

  “He seems nice.”

  “He’s a lion.”

  They quickly head to the exit window, checking out the place as they go.

  “Say good-bye to the veil,” says Lana. “Go on. Get it out of your system.”

  “It’s sad. Don’t you think it’s sad?”

  “Some things are sadder,” says Lana.

  “Bye, veil,” says Tracee with a little wave.

  They boost Rita up to the sill. As she is about to climb out, she gives the lion, who is chewing the veil, a lingering look.

  It’s a cool morning, overcast. Rita is the only one with a jacket. Lana rubs her bare arms for warmth, and Tracee jumps a bit. In daylight the building’s patchwork of woods and metals seems even more freakish and colorful. The parking lot, they notice, is in terrible condition, the concrete cracked, uneven, with weeds poking through. There is a dumpster packed with bulging garbage bags. Beyond the lot is a field of wild tall grass. Directly behind The Lion, the field lies flat, but to the left it builds to a rise.

  The women walk around to the front.

  On the highway where there is now light traffic, they see the Mustang with a tow truck and patrol car parked next to it. A cop is talking to the tow-truck driver.

  Squeaking with anxiety, Tracee spins back behind The Lion.

  “He’s only there because of the car,” says Lana.

  “What do I do?”

  “Stay here. In back. Hang out.”

  “Doing what?”

  “Whatever. I don’t know.”

  “‘A, my name is Alice.’ You could recite that,” says Rita. “‘A, my name is Alice, and my husband’s name is Al. We come from Alaska and we sell apples. B, my name is Betty, and my husband’s name is Ben.…’ It really makes the time pass when you’re bored witless. I always do it in church. Sometimes I try to make all the words basically the same, like ‘F, my name is Frances, and my husband’s name is Francis. We come from France and we sell…’” Her voice trails off. “Well, that’s three out of four. I never have done four out of four.”

  Lana and Tracee are silenced by that blast of helpfulness. “But I’m hungry,” Tracee says finally.

  “Don’t be an idiot. You can’t come with us. We’ll bring you food.”

  Lana corrects herself, realizing her presumptuousness (that Rita will come along with her), realizing also that she has started to worry about Rita the way she does about Tracee. “Well, actually, you’re free to go,” she tells Rita. “That sounds weird, but what I mean is, don’t worry about us.”

  “I’ll stay with you,” Rita tells Tracee.

  “Can we hitch in another direction?” asks Tracee.

  “I have to go to a meeting,” says Lana. “Plus my car.”

  “I’m hungry.”

  “We can climb back inside and get more chips and maraschino cherries,” says Rita.

  “I need protein,” says Tracee in a small voice.

  Lana sticks her head around the side of the building. The cop has left, her car is now hitched to the truck, and the tow-truck driver is backing up, disengaging her car from the rail.

  Lana runs toward the highway, waving and shouting, “Hey, hello, that’s mine. My car.”

  “She doesn’t have any money,” says Tracee.

  “Does she have a credit card?” says Rita.

  “Maxed. Way maxed. Me too.”

  “If I used a credit card, I could be found, couldn’t I?”

  “Don’t want that,” says Tracee, thinking about herself.

  Rita snaps open her purse and from a side pocket extracts a MasterCard. She bends it in half, back and forth again and again until she can rip the plastic. She drops the pieces on the ground, grinds them with her heel, picks them up, and tosses them into the dumpster.

  8

  You’re lucky,” says Bill. “You could be dead.”

  “I know,” says Lana. She is riding into town in his tow truck, unsure of what town they are riding into and not inclined to reveal her cluelessness. She notices that the speedometer hovers around twenty-five.

  “I drive slow,” he says.

  “That’s okay with me.”

  “When you do what I do, you realize how it could all be over in a second. It’s made me careful.”

  Lana guesses he’s around forty. He’s got a paunch, a round face, and neatly pressed clothes. His khaki pants have a crease. Probably he’s been fattened up and cared for by a doting wife. A photo of a smiling little girl hangs in a straw frame from the rearview mirror.

  “What’s her name?” asks Lana, assuming it’s his daughter. “She’s so pretty.”

  “Anna Sue,” he says.

  “Are you careful about everything or just driving?”

  “I see corners everywhere.”

  “Corners?”

  “What’s around them. No one knows.”

  “That’s true. I never thought of that.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “If you could drop me…” She decides to come out with it. “I’m looking for AA.”

  “That’s me, but you’re not a member.”

  “What? Oh, no, you’re AAA, three A’s, triple A. I’m looking for Alcoholics Anonymous. A meeting.”

  “I get you. Ask Cynthia at the café. She’s one. Are you a college student?”

  “Not anymore. I was. Do I look that young? I feel really old.”

  “How old are you, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “Twenty-six.”

  “So you’re passing through or what?”

  “What,” says Lana.

  They both laugh.

  She takes out her cell. Presses some buttons. “Dead. I need a charger. Do you by any chance have a charger for a Samsung?”

  “Sam. Sung,” says Bill. For some reason that amuses him and he chuckles. “Nope.”

  “Bill, I don’t have the money right now to pay for the repair or even the towing. Could you please hold the car and I’ll let you know as soon as I can afford it?”

  “Sure. If you hadn’t turned up, I would have kept it until the police decided what to do. And that could take an age.”

  The tow truck, moving slowly, passes a big white sign with gold lettering: FAIRVILLE.

  9

  Fairville is pristine, a jewel of a village, its streets lined with one- and two-story historic buildings, either white clapboard or red brick, each pretty enough to be on a postcard. A closer look reveals cracks beneath the surface, stores that have closed, their displays intact. Dishes & Stuff still has a tea set in the window. When Pete’s Gardening Supplies didn’t open one Monday or ever again, Pete didn’t bother to remove the coils of garden hose and pyramid of bug sprays. A handful of businesses went bust in this manner—as if someone thought of a good idea for a shop, opened it one week, and walked away the next. The buildings aren’t yet decaying—no peeling paint or warped timbers—simply empty. It’s common to try to walk into a shop before realizing that the place isn’t actually
there.

  Every fifty feet or so the sidewalks are dotted with wrought-iron benches, a consideration for anyone who might want to give his feet a rest. Most of the stores and conveniences are located around a main square.

  Cynthia at the café directs Lana to Star Nails at the end of the block. Star Nails is another bust, and its premises have been appropriated by AA and a few other local organizations, like the American Legion. When Lana cautiously opens the front door, setting off a little bell (a remnant from the salon), the meeting has already begun.

  “Welcome,” says the leader, a man in a baseball cap, a starched white short-sleeved shirt, and madras pants.

  “Hi,” says Lana, feeling self-conscious. She must look as if she’s wearing yesterday’s clothes, which she is. Everyone here is neat and tidy, even the one dark soul, a young guy all in black with several piercings, nose and lip.

  Her jeans are ripped too. Ripped clothes mean something, she thinks, something negative, something telling, but maybe she’s wrong about that. Nevertheless it adds to her self-consciousness.

  “Why don’t you sit down?”

  Lana hesitates. There are about twenty people scattered on miserable old couches. She decides to sit alone, on a huge beige one with dark brown stripes and what looks like coffee stains. The zipper on the bottom cushion is twisted around to the front, and as it sags under her light weight and she feels the springs, she inhales the pungent aroma of nicotine, years of it.

  “Would you like some coffee?” The leader points a flyswatter in the direction of a manicure table, where there is an electric coffeepot and some styrofoam cups.

  “No, thank you,” says Lana, realizing that several people at the meeting have flyswatters. Pink plastic ones. “Have you already done the part where you ask if anyone’s counting the days?”

  “Yes, but go ahead.”

  “I’m Lana and I’m an alcoholic and I’ve been sober five months and three days.”

  Everyone claps.

  “Oh, and also…” Lana raises her hand.

  “Yes,” says the leader.