by Delia Ephron
The song wakes Marcel in his cave. He pokes his head out and, seeing Rita, rises to his feet, stretching his legs and yawning. His back legs are stiff, Rita has observed, he doesn’t move quickly. Not that he has anyplace to go, so why would he? Still, he’s agile. She didn’t realize that lions had such thin, sinewy legs. He ambles to the side of the cage nearest Rita.
“Isn’t this music simply…” Rita pauses and then uses a word she’s never used in this way before: “hot.” Swaying and snapping her fingers, she improvises what she imagines is a salsa step.
The lion roars.
Rita laughs. “Take it easy, Marcel.”
She picks up a thick rope, loops it loosely around her neck like a long strand of pearls, then takes two packages of beef patties out of her purse.
She rips off the wrappers and slips the patties between the bars. Marcel eats eight practically in one gulp.
She tries several keys on Tim’s chain before finding the right one. When Marcel has finished eating and is licking his chops, he turns his head to observe Rita turning a key, lifting off the padlock, and tentatively pushing back the cage door.
She takes a deep breath, exhales loudly, and pats her chest—preparing heart and mind to enter the lion’s den. She steps inside.
The door clangs shut behind her. She flinches, but the lion stays unperturbed and quiet.
She unwinds the rope from around her neck and moves closer. When she is near enough to reach out her hand and touch him, she lowers her head and lets him sniff her hair. She resists the desire to thrust her hands into his mane and tousle it. “Marcel,” she says, “you’ve got to see the sunshine.”
She loops the rope around his neck. Marcel allows it, remaining still while she knots it.
She pulls the rope. Marcel sits. It’s not clear he wants to leave.
She tugs. And tugs again.
Marcel rises, and Rita leads him out of the cage. They walk toward the front door, knocking into chairs now and then. Every so often Marcel’s tail swishes, dusting the tops of tables.
Rita peeks outside. No one is about.
“I’ve thought a lot about this, Marcel. If something happens to you, like if you go berserk in the outdoors and fresh air, it’s still better than spending your life in a cage.”
She tugs Marcel out.
She walks him around the parking lot. She walks him as if he were a dog, only he’s a lion. Occasionally he stops to sniff some stray grass, but mainly he keeps moving, staying right by her side. Around and around they go, and then Rita thinks, Why not? We’ve come this far. They cross the road into the field.
At the top of the rise Rita sits. The damp, sharp grass prickles her legs. Marcel settles beside her. He lies flat on his stomach, his long legs stretching out front and back.
There they rest and enjoy the dawn. The dark sky has faded to a translucent gray. Soon it pales and brightens. Rolling hills, waves of grass, and in the far distance, a border of tall firs gradually come alive with color.
Rita and the lion stay until the sun rises high enough to spill a golden glow over the trees and light up the fields dotted with lavender and yellow wildflowers.
22
Lana cruises along the highway in the patrol car. Her head nearly swivels off when she catches sight of Rita sitting on the rise with the lion. She pulls over onto the shoulder, gets out of the car, and looks back.
They are tiny figures on the horizon but they are unmistakable.
It is extraordinary to be struck by lightning twice in a minute. As soon as Lana sees Rita and Marcel, she understands that she may not have to spend her life in Fairville. She gets a plan. Perhaps it is that “eureka”—the notion that she may have a way out—that startles her into a serious look at Tucker’s car. The gold stripe across the white door with POLICE in bold black letters brings it home to her that she has committed a serious crime. She has stolen a police car.
The squawking on the walkie-talkie, a turn-on up to now, suddenly agitates her. Although there is no attempt from “headquarters” to communicate with Tucker, she is eavesdropping on a summons for another deputy to report to the elementary school because a window is broken. The situation needs investigating. This is all real, she realizes, not that she thought it wasn’t before, but in some way it actually wasn’t. It was a lark.
She has to return Tucker’s car. Before anyone notices she’s in it. She’s worried that she might not find her way back to Tucker’s house, but she does, and he is exactly where she left him, naked, dead to the world (although not dead) on his bed.
Leaving the car where she found it and the keys where she found them, she hurries to Fairville’s main street, but heads the wrong way, has to flag down a jogger to figure out where she’s going, and, breathless, finally arrives at Star Nails, whose door is locked. Is there a meeting this morning? She paces up and down, relieved when a car, and then several more, pull into the angled slots. A small crowd of AA members gathers, waiting for the one with the keys. For reasons she doesn’t understand, she resents how cheerily people at AA greet one another. Lana keeps to herself, arms crossed, head down, and aims straight for the same hideous couch she sat on before. The guy with the piercings smiles and nods. Lana returns the greeting with a cool half wave. She keeps an eye on the coffeemaker, edging around the perimeter to pour herself a styrofoam cupful, and douses it with a stream of sugar from the dispenser. There are glazed doughnuts too, and she takes one, rips it in two, and devours it in a few bites, a ravenous display worthy of Marcel. The caffeine and sugar hit is instantaneous. To add to her confusion and guilt, she is now wired.
The member who speaks today is a stooped man with a Southern accent so thick she can’t understand him. Perhaps she’s too rattled. Every so often he raises his hand, points a bony finger, and mimes a jagged line. She notices a white plastic band on his wrist, probably a hospital patient ID. Is he miming the needle on a heart monitor? Was he released to attend the meeting? It’s all confusing. On the next couch over, a heavy woman who is fanning herself taps her flip-flops while he speaks and says, “Yes,” every now and again, as if she’s at a revival meeting. It bugs Lana. In Fosberg and Baltimore, where she has attended AA meetings, no one ever provided a hallelujah chorus. This isn’t church.
Still, when the speaker is finished and the leader asks if anyone wants to share, Lana’s hand shoots up.
“I stole a cop car,” she tells them. “This guy Tucker. I don’t even know his last name. Tucker. I picked him up, had sex with him, and this morning while he was still asleep—well, more like passed out—I took his keys and took a ride. Why did I do that?” Her hands whirl around, illustrating her frazzled state, her utter confusion about her own behavior. “Why?”
To her horror and embarrassment, she has to suppress a smile. Where did that come from? Even now, even as she realizes how destructively she acted, something about the episode amuses, a fact that further distresses her and produces an additional onslaught of self-disgust. “I brought the car back, he never knew, so no harm, no foul. Still…” She considers how she could be in jail right now instead of plotting her exit from Fairville. “I guess that’s all I want to say.”
The room seems unnaturally quiet. That must be one of the worst things they’ve ever heard, she assumes.
“Is there anyone else who wants to share?’ says the leader. He acknowledges someone sitting behind Lana.
“Last time you came you stole money out of the donation hat.”
Lana, preoccupied with herself, registers this a few seconds after it’s said. “What?” She turns around. The woman is knitting and doesn’t miss a stitch.
“I was planning to pay it back. It wasn’t for me. It was for Tracee. She was starving.”
“You owe us six dollars.”
Lana digs her wallet out of her purse. All she’s got left in life is a ten. “Does anyone have change?”
Someone does.
Lana is cringing, her T-shirt sopping with sweat. She wants to walk out. Th
e distance to the door seems huge, not that she could travel it. Mortification has paralyzed her. She is trapped here with her torturers. Is someone even allowed to do that in AA, level a charge at another member? There’s a tiny hole in her jeans above her right knee, and, for the rest of the meeting, she digs her thumb into it, working it wider, pinching her skin. Finally the end, the worst, the Serenity Prayer. She has to stand up and hold hands in a circle, and that woman, her accuser, scoots in next to her. Lana is cursing Tracee for being hungry, for always acting like she’ll die if she doesn’t eat, for sucking Lana right in and playing on the goodness in Lana’s heart. It’s not my fault, fuck you all, she is thinking while everyone chants, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change; courage to change the things I can; and wisdom to know the difference.”
Lana leaves quickly, unaware that the guy with the piercings is chasing after her. He taps her shoulder. “Hey?”
She stops. Waits for more.
He offers a Nicorette. She shakes her head. He pops two and chews. “Do you know how to tell the difference between an addict and someone who isn’t?”
“No.”
“An addict will touch a hot stove, burn himself, and touch it again.”
She thinks about that. “You mean why I took the car?”
“Beware of your need for trouble.”
“Fuck you.” Lana speeds off down the street and doubles back. “I don’t know why I said that. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m trying to stop swearing. I truly am. I shouldn’t have— Is ‘fuck’ a swear word? Maybe it’s just ugly. Maybe I’m trying to give up ugly. Good luck to me.” She’s tired, it’s only nine in the morning and already it’s sticky out. “I don’t even recognize the air.”
“Strange place, I get that.”
“At least someone gets something.” Lana moves a little farther down the block to avoid any other stray AA members. “What’s it got to do with God?”
“What’s that?”
“That stupid prayer. That prayer,” she amends, taking the “stupid” out, feeling guilty even for that.
“It’s not God. It’s whatever.”
“The prayer says God.”
“It could be anything. Buddha?”
“Buddha’s god. Are you into Buddha?”
“I light candles. That’s kind of an India, Asia thing.” He tugs his earring. “I like those monks. The Tibet ones.”
“What’s it got to do with God?” I’m echoing Harry? Why in the world? From the few tidbits Rita has offered, he’s awful, got to be. In any event, surely Harry meant, If it doesn’t have to do with God, shut up about it, whereas Lana means something different. “There is no God,” she says flatly.
“Heavy.”
“Could I ask you a favor?”
Anticipating her request, he hands over his cell.
“Thank you. Thanks very much. I need privacy. If you’ll wait one minute.” She points down an alley. “I’ll just be… I won’t run off with it.” She hurries down the narrow alley between buildings to the rear of Star Nails. There is a lot of debris—several broken manicure tables and a few chairs. Lana sits at a lopsided one and dials, knowing her father isn’t home. It’s a weekday, he’s an electrician. He’s off installing someone’s kitchen fan, rewiring, flipping switches on a fuse box. She rehearses her message while she dials, deciding it will be grown-up, not begging, simple. Dad, I’m sorry for what I did. I just want you to know that I’m sober now, sober six months. Then she hears his voice. He has a wonderful voice, deep and warm. Inviting, friendly. She loves her dad’s voice. But on the machine it’s strangely blunt and cold: “I’m out, leave a message.” She hangs up. He’s erased her. She was the one on the machine. “If you want to reach me or my dad, start talking.” She’d recorded it when she was thirteen. Even when she went to college, he didn’t erase it. He didn’t erase it when she flunked out. He didn’t erase it when she spent the years since floating from one job to another. Now he has.
She returns the phone.
“Bad news?” he says.
“No, it’s fine. I was calling my father. He’s not home. He’s going to be very upset to miss my call, but, you know, c’est la vie.”
23
To put her plan into action, Lana insists that Rita needs better hair. They all crowd into the bathroom, and, with Lana supervising, Tracee trims it to shoulder length.
Now it looks like hair and not a long drape.
Rita, viewing herself in the mirror, is struck with the thought that she looks younger. She’s never even considered younger as a possibility, but she likes it. She asks for bangs. Tracee obliges.
She also needs an outfit. “Something dramatic,” says Lana, who has noticed a rack of one-dollar clothes at Goodwill.
Tim drives the women over, and on the way he tells them about loggerhead turtles. He’s been searching for something to charm Tracee and hopes this might be it.
“The babies hatch at night on the beach in sand pits. Like two hundred eggs cracking at once, round eggs shiny like pearls, and the turtle babies walk toward the moonlight to find the ocean. They’re sea turtles,” he adds, realizing that information might be helpful. “One summer I volunteered at a beach, Sunset Beach, going from place to place—stores, bars, houses—asking folks to shut off their porch lights or draw the shades to make sure the baby turtles walked in the right direction.”
“Why are they called loggerheads?” says Lana.
“Because they have big heads,” says Tim.
Tracee says nothing. All those tiny turtles needing guidance make her want to cry. Tiny turtles scurrying to the ocean and a bright white moon lighting the way. She sits quietly thinking about that. Tim doesn’t know if he’s charmed or bored her.
While they shop, he goes for a soda.
“Do you think Tim is hot?” asks Tracee as they hunt through the mash of clothes.
“I think it’s possible to have too much imagination,” says Lana, laughing. “That’s what I think.”
“But he’s so”—Tracee fishes around for the right word and comes up with it—“sensitive.”
“I agree,” says Rita.
“Last night he hung an air freshener on the ceiling. He’s a genius with that pole.”
“Island syndrome,” says Lana.
“What’s that?” says Tracee.
“Isolation creates whatever—an attraction that, if you weren’t stuck on an island, you wouldn’t have.”
“I think,” Rita says, and then proceeds deliberately, “that having too much imagination must be like having too much happiness. Impossible.” She pulls out a dress—a mint green wash-and-wear with billowy sleeves and a minimal shape, barely a nod to the female form. On Rita it will look like a potato sack. “I love this. Especially the color.”
“Rita, we’re counting on you to save our lives and get us out of here,” says Lana.
“But I don’t want to leave here.”
“We’re still counting on you.” Lana pulls out something short in leather. “What about this?”
“I prefer this.”
That night The Lion is filled with the usual sparse crowd, about fifteen people. While Clayton is wiping off the bar where he has knocked over a bag of peanuts, he hears Julio on the jukebox. That dammed “Bamboleo.” He swings around and sees Rita in the mint green dress walking toward the lion’s cage. Her hair is down. She’s wearing lipstick and a bit of makeup, which he doesn’t quite realize, only that she looks different. Her face is set with a purposefulness he hasn’t seen before.
Rita stops at the cage, face-to-face with Marcel.
An uneasy quiet settles as customers notice. The few who don’t, Lana and Tracee nudge.
Rita and the lion are communicating. No one doubts it. The communication is silent but the bond is unmistakable.
Rita slips her hand through the bars, reaches in, and places her index finger on Marcel’s nose.
Lana and Tracee forget to breathe.
R
ita pulls her hand back through the bars and returns to the kitchen.
She is up to her elbows in soap suds when Clayton storms in with Lana and Tracee in his wake.
“Are you crazy?” he screams. “Is your brain sawdust? One chomp and you’d have four fingers, no, one chomp and you’re missing a hand—are you right-handed?—yeah, one chomp and you’re missing your good hand, maybe an arm, and there’d be blood spurting all over the place. And I’m out of business and that big kitty has a bullet between his eyes.”
Rita rinses a glass and places it on the dish rack.
“I should fire you for that stunt.”
Rita turns to meet his eye. She rubs her hand against her cheek and gets some suds on it. She looks like a little kid.
“Would you do it again?” says Clayton.
“Do what?”
Clayton places a finger on his nose the way Rita touched the lion.
“Right now?”
“No. Tomorrow. Give the folks some time to phone their friends.”
Behind him Lana and Tracee silently leap and pump their fists in a cheer.
The next night The Lion is half full. “More customers at one time than I’ve seen in years,” says Clayton. And Rita’s finger is once again on the lion’s nose. She pulls her hand back through the bars, turns to the audience, and nods shyly.
Everyone applauds.
24
Lana, Tracee, and Rita fly out of The Lion, high on happiness. Lana waves the sheaf of bills they got in tips. Tracee jumps and twirls. “We made a fortune. You did it.” She throws her arms around Rita.
“How amazing. You are amazing,” says Lana.
Rita smiles. “It was really Marcel. I owe it to him.”
Tim opens the car door and bows like a footman with a coach and four as Tucker’s pickup roars into the lot. Tucker, carrying a Coors, nearly falls out of the cab, and hurls the can at Lana, barely missing her. “You stole my patrol car.”
“So what?” says Lana, while Tracee, startled, realizes that Tucker is a cop.