Mister Monkey

by Francine Prose

  She finishes off her wine and lifts her glass. She is going to drink it, and then she is going to think about whether this new information about Greg’s job changes her situation. Or not.

  Greg stands and twitches his head and one shoulder toward what must be the men’s room. He seems embarrassed, like a kid, which Sonya finds endearing.

  “Please,” she says. “Go ahead.” Is she giving him permission?

  His departure takes her anxiety with it and turns the roar of voices into the sound of a beneficent machine humming softly behind a thick velvet curtain. But she’s not too woozy to know that she can never go out with Greg again. Never. Not that he’s going to ask her. The distance between them is too great: the size of a mouse as big as her pinky. Though maybe she’s being too negative, too knee-jerk liberal. Is it always right to choose the life of the mouse over the welfare of human beings? There’s another side to this story that, at the moment, she can’t recall. Greg’s an interesting guy. And doesn’t love conquer all? You hear about those couples, Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy, different politics, different ideas about this and that, they fall in love, and it works. Maybe Sonya could change Greg. He’ll do a complete one-eighty and work on the side of the angels, saving the miniature mice.

  Just when Sonya has begun to notice that Greg has been gone for a very long time, she sees Enzo guiding a couple to the table beside hers. Enzo’s hand rests on the arm of a dark-skinned middle-aged man, Latin or maybe Sicilian, with black 1950s nerd glasses. He is wearing a pale straw fedora and a beautifully tailored caramel-colored jacket, unbuttoned to reveal a crisp white shirt, no tie.

  With him is a much younger woman, tall, angular, and proper, wearing high heels and a simple lemon-colored dress, a rich woman’s dress. She’s the kind of woman who looks as if she’s been drawn in a single continuous line, without the artist’s hand leaving the page. Beside her Sonya feels like a figure sketched in a moving car.

  Enzo squeezes the man’s arm and hands them on to the waiter, who knows the man in the fedora and is way friendlier to them than he’s been to Sonya and Greg. The waiter starts to pull out the woman’s chair, but the man rushes to do it himself, tenderly cupping the woman’s shoulder in his palm as she slides into her seat. Are they married? The woman is Sonya’s age.

  Sonya tries not to make eye contact, but it’s already too late. The older gentleman says, “Good evening.”

  “Good evening,” says Sonya, turning her head from the man to the woman without looking at either. She hopes that, when Greg returns, he won’t notice the woman’s beauty, which will only make him more aware of what Sonya lacks.

  By why should Sonya care, especially when she isn’t sure that she even likes eco-criminal Greg? Did he lie in their e-mails? Or intentionally mislead her? She’d automatically assumed—foolishly, she sees now—that a good-looking guy who seemed decent enough had the same politics she does. How does one weigh the welfare of families against the life of a mouse? It’s not as if humans are in danger of becoming extinct. Not unless you take the long view. Dinosaurs, Sonya thinks. Edward has stolen into her thoughts again. No more monkeys jumping on the bed!

  The older man looks over at her. He looks worried about her, which is nice but not very flattering, and Sonya gives him a wan smile meant to signal that she’s fine. Really, she’s fine.

  The waiter reappears with their wine, and the older gentleman makes a show of giving the waiter an envelope, from which he produces two tickets.

  “Enjoy the show, Mario.”

  “Thanks, Mr. Ortiz,” the waiter says.

  “Ray,” the man corrects him.

  Sonya can’t stop thinking about her students, school, Guadalupe, evolution. She’s so obsessed and distracted by the events of her day that when the couple beside her clink glasses in a toast, Sonya distinctly hears them say, or thinks she hears them say, “To Mister Monkey.”

  That is not even possible! Of course they can’t have said that! And she certainly can’t ask them. Excuse me, I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but did you just say, “To Mister Monkey”? They’d think she’d gone insane. But if they didn’t say that, what did they say? Sonya shouldn’t drink. She is going insane. She takes another sip.

  More time passes—how much Sonya couldn’t say—until Greg finally returns. The man at the next table says “Good evening,” and the young woman smiles at Greg. After all, it’s Enzo’s. They are the chosen ones, the special ones. Family. They’re practically related.

  Greg beams at the young woman. Of all the tables in the room, why did Enzo have to sit them here? Sonya doesn’t want Greg, yet she’s sick with anguish at having lost him to this woman who could have him if she wanted, which she doesn’t.

  When the waiter appears, the man repeats, quite loudly, “Enjoy the show, Mario.” He doesn’t seem to remember that he already said this, and that the waiter already thanked him.

  “I will,” the waiter says. “Thank you.”

  Greg leans across the table toward Sonya and whispers, “What show?”

  “Theater, I think,” says Sonya. Why does she think that? Edward was talking about a play. That’s how all the trouble started with her students—

  Greg asks, “So what do the kids call you?” Excessive drinking often makes her think that people can read her mind.

  “Miss Sonya.”

  “Miss Sonya,” says Greg. “That’s sweet.”

  “That’s me,” says Sonya. “Miss Sweet.” She splays her fingers over her chest, like Greg did before, except that, in her case, her breasts get in the way.

  Enzo hunkers down beside Greg. He looks at Sonya, but he is talking to Greg as he recites the choices. Clams casino, clams oreganata, baked clams, fried clams . . .

  Sonya wants every kind of clam they have! At lunch she’d lost her appetite because her job might be at risk and because no one would sit with Edward. Now Edward is home, eating dinner with his mom and dad, or with beautiful Sophie. He’s not thinking about Miss Sonya.

  Enzo smiles as he lists more food than two accomplished eating-competition contestants could possibly consume. His hands open prayerfully to encircle each temptation in a glutton’s paradise of fried eggplant, eggplant Parmesan, lasagna, penne alla vodka, veal, swordfish, greens in garlic and oil. Greg will order some of it, or all of it, or any of it. Sonya’s glad she doesn’t like him. Liking him might make her self-conscious, which would make it harder for her to enjoy her food. What would she be having at home? A bucket of General Tsao’s chicken, followed by a goopy dessert of guilt. If music be the food of love, if food be the music of love . . .

  Now the wine is affecting her in a good way. She’s not ready to leave this shimmering moment when everything seems promising, vaguely intriguing, and marginally funny. Greg chooses the dishes she would have picked. It’s as if he possesses some sort of menu ESP. Maybe the guy’s more sensitive, caring—more telepathic—than he appears. If he’s not going to be a boyfriend, then maybe they could be friends. Is it pretentious and pious to let a teensy rodent stand in the way of a genuine human connection? Does it matter that it’s not one little mouse but an entire mouse species? Is it even a species?

  Species, she thinks. Darwin. Evolution. Edward. My job.

  “What’s the matter?” says Greg.

  “I don’t know.” Sonya forces a smile of gratitude for his having registered her anxiety.

  “Okay, then.” Greg holds up the empty wine bottle until the waiter is forced to see him, and to bring another bottle and uncork it, sneering. A fleeting tic pulls his Frankenstein features sideways. Is it a wink at Sonya, or has he flinched when the cork popped? Wasn’t Enzo’s where The Godfather was filmed? The scene in which Michael Corleone finds the gun hidden for him behind the toilet tank. Sonya can’t ask the waiter. He might think she was anti-Italian. They aren’t all Mafioisi. Well, of course! Sonya knows that.

  Greg and Sonya toast once more. “To clams à la An-so,” Greg says.

  “To clams alla Enzo,” says So
nya. She studied Italian in college and spent a semester in Florence. What’s the Italian word for clam? Herbivore, she thinks.

  Greg says, “Don’t worry. I’m not driving. I’m Uber-ing it all the way.”

  This should reassure Sonya. This is not a guy who pounds down two bottles of wine, then takes his Beemer out for a spin on the BQE. She’s watched too many episodes of Law & Order in which the sleazy restaurant-owner covers up for his friend’s son, the spoiled rich date-rapist, reckless driver, and serial killer. She watches too much television. No wonder she can’t sleep.

  “What other cases are you working on?”

  It’s not what Greg wants to talk about. “What can I tell you? Not one, not one fucking case where I like what way it’s going.”

  Is his English deteriorating? He’s drunk even more wine than she has.

  So maybe he doesn’t mean what she thinks he means when he says, “Sick kid. Chemical plant. The company has already gotten an A, a fucking A-plus for cleanup. Impeccable. Trust me. And the so-called science, the kids’ lawyers’ science, it isn’t all that good. I wouldn’t take the case otherwise. I like to sleep at night. Right?”

  “Right,” mumbles Sonya. Are the signs of her insomnia visible on her face?

  “It’s a kid. The parents. Christ.” Greg shrugs. “There is just no evidence that it’s the company’s fault.” He does mean what she thinks he means. There is nothing else he could mean.

  “People always assume the company’s to blame. But it isn’t. Not always. And the factory employs five hundred people. Who’s supposed to feed their kids? Like I said in my profile: saving the planet for human beings, one case at a time.”

  Sonya thinks, This is sickening. This guy is the godfather’s consigliere, only worse. He’s the evil lawyer representing the wicked corporation. Sonya will get through this. She’ll enjoy the food and spend an evening with a guy who will defend a company responsible for the sufferings of a child. She is not morally compelled to stand and denounce him as an agent of the devil and stalk out of Enzo’s, ruining everyone’s meal. She will do what she has to. She’ll be a whore for the food and find some graceful way to end the date. Greg won’t object. He wouldn’t mind if it ended right now.

  The waiter brings the baked clams in shells the size of a baby’s fist, little boats with their delectable cargo of bivalves, bread crumbs, parsley, garlic, and oil: the exact recipe of the long-ago cook who made the baked clams that Sonya’s parents bought in boxes from the neighborhood Italian place and served at the parties at which everyone seemed so happy. This is comfort food. Really. Not comfort in the sense of, Oh, you have a sore throat, here’s some chicken soup. Or, Oh, you’ve had a bad day. Order a carton of General Tsao’s chicken and eat it all by yourself. It’s the kind of comfort that takes you back to your last known place of comfort. Clams oreganata. Oilier, more garlicky and delicious than a madeleine! The baked clams do that for Sonya, and Greg has brought her here.

  But it’s tricky to chew and swallow with Greg watching. She can tell that he doesn’t like the way she eats. Too much appetite, maybe. Too much pleasure. And it hurts her feelings. Even if she doesn’t care about his opinion. Even if she cares a little. He’s drinking and not eating. There’s no olive oil on his lips. His napkin stays in his lap.

  “You go, girl!” says Greg. “One thing I hate about American girls is how they never eat. Are they going to live on kale salad for the rest of their lives? Nothing but beer and lemons in the refrigerator. Maybe a rotten avocado. Are their children supposed to survive on Smartwater and low-cal gluten-free rice thins?”

  Is he saying Sonya’s a fat pig? She sinks back against her chair, away from the food.

  She says, “Can I ask you something?”

  “Anything,” says Greg. “My life is open book. Almost open. We just met. Be gentle with me. Okay?”

  “Obviously,” says Sonya. The word gentle is an obstacle, a roadblock that she will have to get past. Because the way he says gentle has sex in it; it’s not just her imagination. The last thing she wants is to be melted by a two-syllable word. Herbivorous, now that’s a word.

  “You’re going to think it’s a strange question.”

  “Try me,” says Greg.

  “Okay. What do you think about evolution? Charles Darwin. Whatever.”

  Greg raises his eyebrows and opens his eyes as wide as they’ll go. It’s not especially attractive, but it is a sign of interest. “Why are you asking me this?”

  “I don’t know. Something happened in school.”

  “Fucking Darwin! Are you fucking with me? Messing with my head? Was this on my profile? Did you Google the inside of my brain? I am obsessed with Darwin, since I was a boy in Tbilisi. Did I say that on the phone?”

  “I don’t think so,” says Sonya. “I had no idea. I just asked because—this is crazy.”

  “Crazy,” Greg agrees. “Could be a coincidence.”

  “Could be,” Sonia says. Is it coincidental? What is a coincidence, anyway? Or is Greg just pretending to be interested in Darwin because he thinks it will make her want to have sex with him? Does he want to have sex with her? How does anyone know that another person wants that? It’s been so long since she’s had sex with anyone she can’t remember how it begins. Does she want to have sex with him? She doesn’t know that, either.

  Even as Sonya is trying to process this coincidence, if that’s what it is, together with all its possible implications, she is again acutely aware of the couple beside her. Their food has arrived. They are having a wonderful time, passing their plates back and forth, tasting each other’s dishes, laughing. As wrapped up as they are in each other, they can tell that she and Greg are on a first date, and they can’t help being curious about how things will turn out.

  “So why do you ask?” Greg looks at Sonya as if he can’t decide whether she has witchy powers or not, and if it’s sexy or alarming. “About Darwin.”

  “I told you. Something happened in school. Some of my students got into an argument about evolution.”

  “You got kindergarteners fighting about Darwin? That’s quite a class, Miss Sonya. Well, you’ve come to the right person. I just read two new books about it.”

  Even if it’s true, even if Greg is obsessed with Darwin, she’s sorry she mentioned it, because now she is going to have to listen to a right-wing rant that will justify the extinction of helpless mice and defend the rights of a company to kill a child unlucky enough to live where they dump their toxic crap. Natural selection. Survival of the fittest. A new mutation will give birth to a new race that will thrive on PVCs. Everyone has his own way of interpreting Darwin.

  Greg says, “The voyage of the Beagle. You know this story, right?”

  “Don’t insult me,” says Sonya.

  “Sorry,” says Greg. “The ship’s captain, FitzRoy, he’s twenty-three, brave and crazy, later he kills himself. Bipolar, sudden rages, but a serious Christian. So while Darwin is stuffing and sending thousands of dead animals and birds and insects and plants to England, he and FitzRoy are sharing a cabin and having long philosophical conversations. More wine?”

  “Please,” says Sonya.

  “FitzRoy hires Darwin, he sort of likes him, though in his opinion the guy thinks too much and is all the time seasick. They share a cabin, eat together for five years, Darwin is starting to think that the history of the natural world might not be so exactly like the Bible says. So right after Darwin finds dinosaur skeletons, the big humongous fuckers, he asks FitzRoy, all innocence, maybe not all innocence, he asks the dude how a creature so big could have fit on Noah’s ark. FitzRoy says all the creatures didn’t make it onto the ark, some of them drowned in the flood, and Darwin says the dinosaurs didn’t drown. Two highly educated men, a scientist and a cartographer, and they’re arguing about whether a brontosaurus couple can fit on Noah’s ark! And you want to tell me nothing has changed? Some things have changed. Believe me.”

  Sonya says, “I believe you.” How does Greg know a
ll that? She’s already forgotten what she just told him she believed. “So why did the dinosaurs disappear?”

  Into the tar pits, she thinks. But maybe she’s only thinking that because molten lava seems to have pooled in her chest, where it’s burbling, sticky and noxious.

  Greg says, “I’ve been trying to figure that one out since I was your students’ age.”

  Your students! Her students! Greg not only remembers, he knows and cares what Sonya does. Part of her is delighted, while another part—the sensible part, or maybe the paranoid part—wishes he hadn’t mentioned the children. She sees her students lined up: Edward, Terence, Chloe, Jade, their beautiful eyes welling with tears. Tears for her. Miss Sonya isn’t coming back. Miss Sonya has been fired. She shouldn’t have said that humans are descended from Mister Monkey. This is your new teacher, Miss Sonya’s Replacement. Say hello to Miss Sonya’s Replacement, class.

  The waiter removes her bowl of empty clam shells and slams down a plate of pasta with cheese and pepper, butter and oil. Is it wrong to feel happy because she is being served good food at the invitation of someone on the wrong side of every argument?

  Her stomach heaves with nausea. Or something. How much Xanax is still thumping sluggishly through her bloodstream? She puts her hand over her glass. Too late. That train has left the station.

  “And what about the monkeys?” she says. “I mean the monkey component.”

  “The monkey component?” says Greg.

  The heat inside her thickens. It’s nausea, all right. How embarrassing. She takes a bite of pasta, an extremely bad idea. The sauce is thick and white, grainy and cloyingly sweet. She needs some air, maybe water, some room in which to breathe.

  She grabs her purse and excuses herself, nearly tripping over the black leather backpack which the young woman beside them has left under her table, practically in the aisle. Bitch! Someone could get killed!