The Lion is In

by Delia Ephron

  Marcel shoots out of his white cave. Rita has never seen him move so quickly. He paces frenetically, and as soon as she gets close, he rears up at the bars.

  “I’m back,” she says again and again as she scratches his chest. He twists his head this way and that so she can get at his ears, trying to rub against her, and all the time she hears, like a fine-tuned engine idling, the soft rumble of Marcel’s purring.

  “Well, now,” says Clayton, coming in from the kitchen, hearing the rumpus. “I knew you couldn’t leave an old cat.”

  47

  You know how you’re an object to some people,” says Lana. “No offense, but you’re a curiosity. They don’t see you the way Rita does or the way I do now. I think that’s what I did to my dad. I didn’t consider what it all must have meant to him. Mom bolting. Raising me. He never really dated, at least, I didn’t know about it if he did. I was so full of my own stuff. Barreling along. What about him? What was it all like for him?

  “If he ever wants to be my father again, I’ll ask him.

  “The other day I put on a necklace, and when I looked in the mirror I was a different person. Not someone scraping by, but someone with a life. Ever since then I’ve been thinking. I’m smart. I had a scholarship to the University of Maryland. I don’t have to have a job that I need to wash off at night. Suppose I went to work in an office? Got a job with benefits, where I could get promoted. Earned enough to buy myself a diamond necklace. Why not? Why couldn’t that be me? Before I screwed up I was prelaw. I know a lawyer isn’t worthy like a doctor or brave like a lion tamer, but I’d be good at it. I love to argue. I always have. Lots of presidents have been lawyers. Not that I want to be president. I’d probably start a war with every country, I’m so obstreperous, but I bet I’d be great in court. I know that’s a pipe dream, but if I take extension courses at night and get back into college, it won’t only be good for me but maybe my dad will understand. I’m not who I was. He didn’t waste his life on me—”

  Lana breaks down.

  She crashes onto the tabletop, burying her head in her arms. You have no right, she tries to stop herself. You have no right. But she’s gone, giving in to years of pent-up guilt, despair, and regret. Rita, wondering at the noise, at the thundering misery, walks in and tiptoes back out, knowing Lana would never want to be seen this way. In pieces.

  Marcel listens the way he does, accepting without judgment.

  When her torment finally ebbs, Lana, tearstained and wrung dry, drives back to the Tulip Tree and sleeps for twelve hours straight. She sleeps dreamlessly right through her shift at The Lion, and when she wakes up she feels good.

  48

  The giant metal spool tips sideways, falling into a rut. Rita, red-faced, blowing upward at her bangs, pulls it upright while Lana and Tracee push from the other side. “Clayton said I should wait for his help before I hassled with this thing, but I’m anxious to get going.” She takes a second to retie the laces on her new boots, double-knotting them, and then reties the red kerchief around her head that keeps her hair off her face. Seizing the metal handle with both hands, she tugs. The wheels pop out of the rut and spin. The spool bounces over rocks, leaving a trail of red string as Rita clomps through the grass, marking the perimeter of Marcel’s garden.

  “Clayton said I can make it as big as I want, well, as much as he owns. I figure an acre at least.”

  “We’re leaving Saturday,” says Lana.

  Rita halts. “Oh, my goodness. I wasn’t thinking it was coming so soon, but of course it is.”

  “Classes start next week.”

  “What am I going to do?” says Tracee. “What’s my plan?”

  “You’ll find something, Tee. We both need jobs.”

  Across the field, the backside of a truck edges onto the grass. Clayton unhooks the doors, throws them open, and he and the driver climb in, getting ready to unload rolls of wire that will be Marcel’s fence. He waves at Rita. She waves back.

  “Did you call your sons?” asks Lana.

  “I called Lucas. He’s always been the most sensible. He’s my middle one. He’s coming for a weekend in October, for Melanie’s birthday. She’s turning four. I apologized. I didn’t say a proper good-bye to them, to any of them. I wasn’t thinking clearly.” She yanks the spool and continues her trek. “Next week I’ll call Andrew and Peter. Give them time to cool down, that’s what Luke suggested.”

  “Tracee hasn’t broken up with Tim yet.” Even though Tracee is there, Lana says this as if she isn’t.

  “I don’t want to,” says Tracee.

  “It’s my fault,” says Rita, keeping an eye on the spool to make sure it’s unraveling properly. “If only you still had the necklace, you could return it.”

  “Returning stolen goods doesn’t make you not guilty. It’s evidence. It proves you did it,” says Lana.

  “I suppose I knew that,” says Rita. “Wishful thinking.”

  “Maybe it’s even better that you flushed it. Not having it makes it harder to prove Tracee’s guilt.”

  “I am guilty,” says Tracee.

  “The law’s not that simple.”

  “If I’m guilty, how could I be not guilty?”

  “It happens every day.”

  Tracee suddenly sinks to the ground.

  “Whoa,” says Lana.

  “What’s the matter?” says Rita.

  “Are you having a sugar attack?” says Lana.

  “No.” Tracee pries a mini-box of raisins out of her pants pocket, opens it, plucks out a few raisins, and eats them. “But if I was, I’d have these. The P ’n S got a truckful delivered and no one’s buying them. Buzzard told Tim, ‘Take a hundred.’ Tim stored them under the bed. We’ve got enough for the winter.”

  Lana doesn’t say they won’t be here. Tracee is now splayed backward on the wet grass. She hasn’t been eating much. Her face is thinner; her large round eyes seem larger, pitifully so. She’s been a terrible waitress for the past week too. Forgetting everyone’s order. Needing to kiss Tim every five seconds. One night Lana found her in the kitchen, staring vacantly, like she’d been towed in and abandoned or her battery had died.

  “That’s a very wet place to lie,” says Rita. “And it’s in the sun. Let’s sit over here.” She points to a small fir that provides a circle of shade. “It’s time to take a break anyway. It’s always a good time for a break.”

  Lana offers Tracee a hand, pulls her up, and steers her over. “Sit here, lean back against the tree. That’s good. Good for you. Wait, let me brush the grass off the back of your shirt.”

  Tracee settles down again, stretching her long skinny legs in front of her. Her knees are rosy. “Why are my knees red?”

  “Knees sometimes get that way,” says Rita. “I don’t know why, but they do. Then it goes away.”

  “The garden’s going to be great,” says Lana.

  “Do you think so?” Rita unfolds a square of paper, presses it flat on her lap, and reads, “‘Jackalberry tree, gum tree eucalyptus, elephant grass, candelabra tree.’ Don’t they have romantic names? They’re all plants from the African savanna. ‘Jarrah tree, kangaroo paw.’ Clayton says we’ll find someone at a botanical garden to advise us, there’s a couple in the state, and we’ll find out what plants available here come the closest. I’ll move Marcel’s tree in too. He won’t be happy without it. Whenever he rubs it he purrs. Well, of course he doesn’t really. Lions can’t purr, according to the experts. But he makes a wonderful rumbling noise, and if you ask me, he’s purring.”

  “Marcel’s lucky,” says Tracee. “What more could he want?”

  “The wild,” says Lana.

  “What’s so great about that? Why is everyone always acting like the wild is so great?” says Tracee.

  “Who?” says Lana.

  “I don’t know. Just maybe it’s not so great. Eat or get eaten.”

  “Lions don’t get eaten.”

  “Unfortunately, they do,” says Rita. “By crocodiles. If they have to
cross a river.”

  “See,” says Tracee, whose misery is making her less compliant. “Marcel has love. A safe place.”

  “You have that,” says Rita.

  “Not if I leave Tim. I have to leave Tim.” She recites this like a mantra, hoping it will take. “Last night we were…” Tracee loses her train of thought. It feels as if her brain is unraveling. “Last night Tim and me were with his mom and Gil and we went to the amusement park, the weekend one they set up in the parking lot at the intersection of 3 and something. Gil was knocking down everything and so was Tim. At the booth where you throw a baseball and the pins fall down. I didn’t know Tim could throw like that. He won me a teddy bear. A big one. It takes up the whole chair, you know, in our room. His mom wants to teach me to cook. She said, ‘I’m going to teach this girl to cook.’ When we walked, she linked her arm in mine like we were related.”

  “Are you in love with Tim or his mom?” says Lana.

  “Both.”

  “You barely know him.”

  “That’s not true.”

  “Seven weeks, that’s all you’ve been together.”

  “I’ve known him forever, that’s how it feels.”

  “Maybe it will all work out,” says Rita.

  “How could it all work out?” says Tracee.

  “I don’t know,” says Rita. “I just wish your problem would vanish.”

  “How?”

  “Perhaps Marcel could help,” says Rita.

  “You are certifiable,” says Lana.

  “Sometimes he gets the ball rolling. Remember how he ate Tracee’s veil?”

  “What ball did that get rolling?”

  “I can’t say for sure. I just have a feeling about it.”

  “What am I going to say to Tim?” says Tracee. “I don’t want him to know anything about the necklace. It’s not fair. He could end up like you two—an accessory.”

  “An accessory?” says Rita.

  “After the fact,” says Lana.

  “It’s my mess, not his.” Tracee pulls in her legs and wraps her arms around them. This is such a pretty view. She’s never been such a far distance behind The Lion looking back at it. All those planks and metal bits going every which way. There are so many angles that no matter how many times she sees the building, she never gets bored. Sometimes it seems like it belongs in a circus; other times she thinks a witch might live there. Other times it’s startling, even beautiful. Other times it seems like what it is: one big junk heap with doors.

  “We’re going back to Maryland,” says Lana gently. “And you have to break up with Tim because it’s the only decent and fair thing to do.”

  “You know what Tim said. He said the thing to do about my stealing was just to tell everyone in Fairville that I’m a klepto-maniac. It’s not a big town. Everyone knows everyone, and they’re friendly. Then if I take something people will just say, ‘No big deal, Tracee the kleptomaniac took it.’ And I can give it back.”

  “That’s actually smart,” says Lana.

  “He tried it on Clayton. Clayton was cool about it.”

  “Clayton knows you’re a kleptomaniac?”

  “Yes. And you know what he said? He said, ‘Well, she’s a damn good waitress.’ You underestimate Tim,” says Tracee.

  “You’re right, I do, and I apologize for that. And probably that solution might work for the wedding dress. Confess and pay. We’ve got the money now. But that won’t work for the diamond necklace. You’re over your eyeballs in that one. Break up in a public place, Tracee, and then it won’t get out of hand. Tell him it’s a summer romance. He caught you on the rebound.”

  “But Tim knows my feelings. He knows they’re deep.” Tracee blinks. She blinks and blinks, squeezing her whole face each time she does it.

  “Stop it, Tee. You haven’t done that since we were kids.”

  “I still sometimes do it.”

  “Don’t, please.” Lana scoots closer and puts her arm around her best friend.

  Tracee burrows into Lana’s shoulder. “He’s my one.”

  49

  Tim lopes along Fairville’s main drag. He’s a little late and hoping Tracee will be in front. Waiting. She always throws herself at him as if they haven’t seen each other in months. He likes to pick her up and swing her around, she’s so light. But he doesn’t see her.

  He bursts into the Drop In—that’s the way he arrives everywhere now that he’s with Tracee. Full of enthusiasm. Flying high. He spots her mop of curly black hair. She’s in the far-back booth, facing away, unusual, since there’s a slew of booths in the front where it’s sunny and you can look out the window, which Tracee loves to do. She likes to sit at the counter too sometimes because of the pictures hanging behind it. Cindy tacks up snapshots of her customers’ tobacco plants and there’s always a new one. It makes Tracee giggle to see tobacco plants in people’s front yards mixed in with all the black-eyed Susans, coneflowers, and whatnot. (“Everyone grows their own,” Tim explained.) Dimly all this registers, weird her sitting back there in the gloom, but he doesn’t assign it any significance until later, when he obsessively relives his trauma again and again. He greets Cindy as well as Rich McPherson, whose son, Dwight, Tim taught to drive. Tim never, ever thought Dwight would get the knack of it—he had an unusual depth-perception problem, sometimes nearly bumping other cars when he braked, other times leaving space for an entire county between him and the vehicle in front.

  Tim slides in next to Tracee and puts his arms around her. Tracee wiggles back against the wall. “Sit over there.” She points across the table.

  “How come?” He still steals a kiss.

  “Tim, please.”

  He takes the seat opposite and then notices a pile of shredded napkins and Tracee’s serious face. He’s never seen her like this. Stern, tight-lipped. “What?’ says Tim. “You’re not breaking up with me?”

  Tracee flinches.

  “Holy cow, you can’t be. Tell me you’re not.”

  She says it straight out and fairly loudly. “I can’t be with you because—”

  “Stop. Don’t finish that sentence.”

  “I can’t finish. I don’t know how…” She falters and then summons her determination again. “Lana’s going back to Baltimore tomorrow.”

  “Don’t say you’re going. You’re not going.”

  “I’m going.”

  “You mean it?”

  She nods.

  “You can’t mean it.”

  Tracee looks down. She can’t bear Tim’s pleading eyes.

  “If I had every girl in the world to pick from, you’re who I’d pick. You over everyone.”

  “You’d want me more than anyone, anyone in the world?” says Tracee, her heart bouncing.

  “Hell, yes. Is it the other guy?”

  “Huh?”

  “That guy before.”

  Who is he talking about? Then she remembers J.C., and it’s like recalling a stranger she once passed on the street. She shakes her head.

  “We’re making plans. What about Disney World? I thought we could get a place together—do you want to get married first, is that it? I’ll do whatever you want. The Lion’s packing them in. I signed up three more driving students. Doesn’t matter, does it?” He slams back against the booth and digs his hands into his hair like he wants to pull his head off. “Why?”

  Tracee feels as if she’s underwater. Tim’s a blur, a puddle of a person, and she can’t breathe.

  “Why?” He smacks the table. The shakers topple. He swipes them off, shocking them both.

  “I have to go with Lana. She needs me.” This is her only line of defense, but at least it’s true. Lana does need her. Lana has always needed her as much as she needs Lana.

  “She doesn’t need you.”

  “Yes, she does.”

  “No.”

  Tracee finds herself shouting, “Is it impossible that someone should need me? Like I’m no help to anyone?”

  “I need you,” says Tim
quietly.

  “Leave,” she wails, covering her face with her hands, and when she looks again, to her horror, he has.

  When Tim shows up for work at the Pick ’n Save, he’s so discombobulated he can’t figure out how to get in the door and keeps pushing it instead of pulling it. Tami, despite her preoccupation with the tabloids, notices that, for the first time ever, Tim doesn’t inquire after everyone, asking her and the other employees how they are and how their day went. He breaks the price stamper. He walks into a display of supersize V8 juice cans, crashing it. For an hour he sits dumbly in front of a computer screen, barely aware of why he’s there—he’s supposed to assign and post the next month’s shift schedule. On his break he tries to eat a snack of Ritz Bits, but chewing and swallowing is more than he can manage. After that he spends a while in the stockroom punching and kicking a cardboard box, bruising his knuckles. He’s got a headache. It seems like the fluorescent lights are drilling holes in his eyes. Every so often he moans, seemingly for no reason. Still, when Ronald phones with a bogus tale about how he can’t make his shift because his refrigerator broke, Tim, who could find a sub, decides to stay.

  He finally leaves the P ’n S at three a.m., every miserable second of his breakup with Tracee still running on a continuous loop in his brain. It’s a fantastically beautiful night, stars by the bushel, a full moon taunting him. Tim can’t bear it. He stands at his car, lacking the will to get in and drive back to the motel where Tracee used to be waiting, snuggled in bed, her legs kicked out over the sheets, her arms wrapped around both pillows. Hearing the door close, she’d open her eyes and smile, and Tim would jump on the bed, tearing off his clothes, and they’d make love. He can’t imagine a tomorrow without Tracee.

  He intends to drive to the Tulip Tree but finds himself heading instead to The Lion, his old late-night refuge. He parks, drags himself to the door, and unlocks it. The metal doors clanking open don’t disturb Marcel, who is sleeping.

  Tim goes to the bar and draws himself a beer from the tap.

  He sits down at a table, the rickety chair squeaking as the seat shifts on its uneven legs. Still the lion sleeps. He’s got a life now. Whoever thought Mr. M would have a better life than him? Not that Tim begrudges it. He just never expected the lion to find happiness while he found the opposite. You never know what’s in the cards, thinks Tim.