by Sara Gruen
Amanda leaned forward and cupped her face in her hands. "Something happened last week."
John sat next to her, trying to contain his alarm. "What?"
She shook her head.
"Amanda, what is it?"
She sighed, and closed her eyes. It felt like ages before she spoke. "The NBC execs took Sean and me to the Ivy for lunch. It's full of celebrities. Paparazzi everywhere."
John watched, waiting.
"So I ordered quiche."
After a long silence, John said, "I don't get it."
"Apparently women in Hollywood don't order quiche. They order undressed salads, or plates of strawberries."
"I still don't get it."
"So at first nobody said anything, but it was like someone had passed gas. The atmosphere got very weird. Then the executive producer finally piped up and told me how refreshingly different I am from the average Hollywood woman."
John paused. "You are. That's a good thing."
"No. Apparently it's not. One of his eyebrows was raised. What he really meant was that I'm not enough like the average Hollywood woman."
John didn't know what to say. She started to cry and he pulled her to him.
----
The next morning Amanda went to her regular hair salon and returned with a different head. The stylist cut her hair and blew it straight before passing her along to an aesthetician, who shaped her eyebrows and gave her a lesson in the application of makeup. When Amanda came home, she had smoky eyes, cupid-bow lips, and flawless skin. She was also clutching glossy pink bags with gilt lettering and slick rope handles.
"He said he'd always wanted to blow my hair out," Amanda said sheepishly when John did a double-take. The difference was astonishing, and he felt an unexpected rush of pleasure, for which he immediately felt guilty, because it was the newness, the difference, he found exciting.
"It'll go back to the way it was, won't it?" he said, running his fingers through her hair. Its texture was completely different, like silk, or water.
She laughed. "Yes. Next time I wash it, unfortunately."
John poked through the layers of pale green tissue that puffed from the tops of the bags and discovered mysterious elixirs in boxes sealed with gold stickers.
"How much did all this cost?"
"You don't want to know," she said. She shot him a guilty glance, and added, "I needed the haircut anyway, and the eyebrows cost fifteen bucks. But now that they're done I can maintain them myself. And the makeup will last at least a year."
"Huh," John said, admiring the dexterity with which she had avoided revealing the grand total.
She ran her hand through her hair. "Since I'm having a good hair day that will only last until my next shower, do you want to take me to dinner?"
"If I do, can I have my wicked way with you later?" he said.
"Absolutely. And I promise not to mention procreation."
She apparently didn't realize that by mentioning it now, she had doomed John to thinking about it later. He had already been thinking about it--a lot, actually. He had always supposed they'd eventually have children, but given their current circumstances he was having trouble believing this was the right time.
They went to their favorite sushi restaurant. It was a splurge, but Amanda was returning to L.A. the next morning and it was very possible they might not see each other for another three weeks. Amanda wore the dress she'd bought for Ariel's wedding, along with new shoes. To John's right was the fully stocked bar, which was illuminated from behind by lights that changed color every fifteen seconds.
"You okay?" said Amanda. "You seem kind of quiet."
John realized he had been twirling his sake cup. "I'm sorry. I just can't stand the thought of you going back. I miss you." He paused, looked quickly up and back down, then added, "And I hate my job."
She looked stricken. "Oh, honey--"
"It's true. I used to love reporting. I used to feel I was making a difference. The ape series was groundbreaking on so many levels--language, comprehension, culture. Evolution, a fundamental redefinition of the way we view other animals, extremists on both sides, but reasonable people in between. I felt like I was contributing to an important discussion." He heaved a deep sigh. "Do you know what my next 'Urban Warrior' assignment is?"
She shook her head.
"I'm doing a piece on stay-at-home moms who double as hookers. They turn tricks while their kids are taking afternoon naps."
Amanda's mouth fell open.
"Yeah," said John. "I have an appointment with one on Wednesday. Candy is her name. Supposedly. She didn't believe me when I said my name was John. Said that's what they all say."
"They probably do," Amanda said.
"Anyway, she asked me to park around the block and go through her backyard so her neighbors don't see me--oh, and get this, this is the best part, she lives two blocks from my parents--and then I'm supposed to look through the window to see if the kid's still up. He watches Sesame Street and has a snack right before he goes down, so if the high chair is empty I'm supposed to just let myself in the back door."
"Oh my God. I want to cry," said Amanda, and for a moment she looked as though she might. "She doesn't know you're a reporter?" she eventually added.
"No, she thinks I'm a john."
"Do you think she'll talk to you when she finds out?"
"I hope so. Otherwise I have to find another one and start over."
Amanda swirled her miso, which had separated, and then stared at the vortex of seaweed and tofu.
He reached for her hand. "Amanda, you haven't said much about L.A. except for that asshole at the Ivy--is everything okay? How are things going?"
"Meh," she said, shrugging. "The work is okay. Except the executives keep changing the script, which is hugely annoying when you're trying to build threads."
"Have you made any friends?"
"Sometimes I go out with Sean." She registered John's alarmed look and added, "Don't worry. He's gay."
"Oh. Good."
She scooped her purse from the padded bench and got up. "I'll be back in a minute."
"Sure," said John. As soon as she passed behind him, he slugged his tiny cup of sake. What he really wanted was a Valium.
Amanda's landlord had required her to sign a six-month lease, so they were committed to paying the mortgage as well as rent on the L.A. apartment for at least that long. They had lived on ramen noodles before, and could do it again. He just wanted to feel that this move had actually made her happy, and so far that didn't seem to be the case.
"Ohhhhhhh, look at you!" a familiar voice squealed. John turned to see Li, their usual waitress, standing behind the bar. Her face was glowing, her eyes and mouth wide in an exaggerated smile. John whipped around and saw Amanda returning from the washroom.
Amanda stopped and checked over each shoulder to see if she was the one being addressed. Having apparently decided she wasn't, she continued walking.
"You look so good!" sang Li. "I didn't recognize you!"
Amanda realized Li was indeed talking to her. She paused, her face frozen into a mask of horror. After a moment she said, "Thank you," and walked stiffly back to the table. When she sat, she leaned toward John, her eyes bright with hurt. "You know, I have to believe she meant that as a compliment, but I don't think there's any good way to take it."
"It didn't come out very well," said John. "But I'm sure--"
"Oh my God!" said Li, appearing directly beside them. "I still can't believe this!" She clapped her hands in delight and slid onto the bench beside Amanda. She waggled a finger at John. "You're going to have to be very careful tonight because all the men will be looking at your beautiful wife!" She turned to Amanda. "You know, we have a saying in Chinese: there are no ugly women, only lazy women. And after seeing you, I totally believe it! Look at you! The makeup! The hair! And all dressed up!"
John looked with dismay from his wife to Li, his fractured mind trying to process why the waitress in their favorite
Japanese restaurant was quoting Chinese sayings, and how on earth he was going to glue Amanda back together at the end of it all.
Amanda stared at her chopsticks. "I got my hair cut."
"And straightened!" Li reached out and fondled it, letting it slip through her fingers. "And you're wearing makeup! You're going to have to keep this up, you know, now that he knows what you really look like ..."
"Li!" the manager barked from behind the bar. He motioned toward some customers who had just walked in.
Li called over to him. "Look at Amanda! Look how good she looks! Can you believe it?"
"Li!" yelled the manager.
"Got to go. See you!" Li leaned in for a one-shoulder hug and floated off.
For a long time, Amanda didn't look up. "Okay," she finally said. "Okay." She was nodding rapidly. She picked her napkin up from the table and smoothed it on her lap, all without looking up. "That's good to know. I'm not ugly. Just lazy."
13
Celia arrived with a backpack and duffel bag.
"Good God. Look at you," she said, pausing in front of Isabel. Then she turned and tossed her bags on the floor. She leaned over and began rummaging through them, removing shoes, wadded-up clothes, and plastic bags of toiletries, which soon littered the carpet around her. A portion of her back showed above her cargo pants, displaying a tattoo in Asian characters that ran up her spine and disappeared under her shirt. "So I thought you weren't talking to me. They turned me away at the hospital."
"That wasn't me," said Isabel. "I think it's because you'd been arrested." She watched Celia carefully, feeling the nagging seeds of doubt. Had she just invited an ELL member into her home?
"Not arrested--detained. And what kind of bullshit was that? I could have gotten killed too. Not that anyone got killed, but you know what I mean. I was there minutes before it happened. No, apparently my crime is that I'm a vegetarian and I volunteer at an animal shelter. My God--they took in people simply for belonging to the Humane Society. Hey, you're a vegetarian. Why didn't they arrest you?" She walked over to the fish tank and stared into it. She crinkled her nose and drew back. "Eww. What happened here?"
"Don't ask."
Celia went to the kitchen and returned with a tablespoon, with which she removed Stuart's body. She cupped a hand around the spoon and said, "Don't look," as she passed Isabel on the way to the bathroom. Moments later, the toilet flushed.
Isabel wanted to laugh. Celia was so transparent she didn't seem capable of hiding murderous intent, or anything else.
As the contents of Celia's bags continued to spread across the floor, Isabel realized she was taking over the living room. Isabel assumed Celia had an apartment or dorm room somewhere, but Celia was vague on the details and Isabel didn't want to press the issue because, as the days passed, she decided she wanted Celia to stay. In fact, she was so grateful for the company she didn't mind all the things Celia did that would normally drive her crazy, like leaving wet towels on the floor, or squeezing toothpaste from the center of the tube. Isabel even caught Celia using her deodorant. Isabel was about to say something, but then she noticed that a second toothbrush had appeared in the mug by the sink and decided that as long as her toothbrush was safe, she could live with sharing her deodorant.
The day after Celia moved in, Isabel called Thomas Bradshaw and begged him to tell her where the apes were.
He insisted that he did not know. Moreover, he did not want to know. He had a family to protect, a life to rebuild. He and his family had been away the weekend the ELL had broken the windows to their house and fed hoses into their living room and kitchen. Did Isabel know that he, his wife, and three children had returned to almost six inches of water, and they'd had to rip out not just the floors but also all the drywall up to ceiling level? That there were hundreds of thousands of dollars' worth of damage? He knew nothing about the bonobos or their private benefactor. He suggested that if Isabel knew what was good for her, she didn't want to know either.
Isabel spent the next few days contacting the big zoos and primate sanctuaries, but none of them had taken in any bonobos. She called the places that hawked "animal actors" and pretended to be a customer. She was offered the services of macaque monkeys, mandrills, and a two-year-old chimp, but she insisted she needed several mature great apes for her advertising campaign. One agent said she might be able to scrape up a few more chimps, although they would all be juveniles, and bemoaned the tragic loss of the entertainment industry's last two orangutans a little more than two years before. (Isabel knew that the orangutans had gone to the Great Ape Trust in Des Moines to live in a state-of-the-art complex with other orangutans, but the agent spoke as though some dreadful fate had befallen them.)
She lurked on Internet sites filled with messages posted by people willing to pay tens of thousands of dollars for a baby chimpanzee. There were even more posts by people with chimps on offer, all of them at the age of puberty, which meant they were starting to assert themselves and their owners were trying to dump them before anyone got killed. "Please take my baby," begged the typical ad, citing the owner's health problems as the reason the "baby" had to go. More likely, the chimp had started to topple the refrigerator, dismantle built-in bookshelves, and bite. But there was no sign of anyone seeking multiple great apes, and certainly not mature ones.
She called all biomedical facilities that used primates, and every one of them refused to provide any information at all. She then called a lawyer, who dedicated 7.3 hours of billable time before concluding that Isabel had no legal basis upon which to learn the whereabouts of the bonobos because they were private property. Isabel scraped together a retainer for a private investigator, who cashed her check and never called back.
She called the FBI, and an increasingly exasperated agent explained anonymous proxies and why it was possible to post something untraceable on the Internet. She didn't believe him. If they could trace the ink or imprint of a letter to a specific typewriter, how was it they could not follow an electronic trail?
Celia hovered in the background, listening to this last phone call with interest. When Isabel hung up, she said, "I've got some friends who might be able to help."
Isabel threw her an irritated glance.
"What?" said Celia.
"If the FBI is stumped, what makes you think your friends can do anything?"
"They break into business networks all the time. Once they even got into a bank."
"Oh my God! What kind of people are you hanging around with?"
"It's not like they're creating viruses," Celia said, somewhat indignantly.
Isabel and Celia locked eyes. Eventually, Isabel threw her hands in the air and turned away. "Okay. Fine. Ask them for ... help."
Joel was a lanky kid with a long nose and pasty skin that seemed like it should be blemished but wasn't. Jawad was compact, with tightly curled dark hair and eyes the color of roasted almonds. They were students in the computer science department and self-described "weekend hackers."
They parked themselves on Isabel's sofa with their laptops and began tippy-tapping away. They were apparently also instant-messaging each other, as they would occasionally snort and jab each other in the ribs for no apparent reason. Celia got fed up, hung her head out the window, and lit a cigarette. "Don't," she said sharply, sensing the look Isabel was aiming at her back. "I already have a mother."
Isabel sighed and turned away. If anyone on earth understood that one mother was enough, it was Isabel. Instead, she wandered and fidgeted. She picked up each photograph of the bonobos. She stared at their faces, their hands, the shapes of their ears, recalling specific details to keep them fresh in her memory. She picked up a picture of Bonzi and stared into her eyes.
I will find you. I will.
Where she would take them she had no idea, but she would worry about that later.
She set the picture down and aligned all of them so that their frames were at the exact same angle relative to the table's edge. She paced the living room, swing
ing her hands back and forth and letting them slap in front of her until Joel looked up in irritation. She disappeared into the kitchen and scrubbed the vegetable crisper. She made herbal tea, and when she set the cups down on the coffee table tried to peer around the edges of Joel's and Jawad's laptops to see what they were doing. They hunched forward protectively, angling the monitors down.
"These guys are badass," said Joel a half hour after all previous conversation had ceased.
"I think we know that," said Celia. She and Isabel were lying on their backs on the living room floor with a bowl of blue corn chips between them. "They bombed the lab."
"No, I mean really badass--there's this family that raised guinea pigs. Lots of guinea pigs. Anyway, the ELL started targeting them because they thought some of the guinea pigs were going for biomedical research."
"Were they?" said Celia. She popped a chip into her mouth, crunched it, then sucked the salt from each finger.
"I don't know. Maybe. That's not the point. The point is that they terrorized the family for years. When the grandmother died, the ELL actually dug up her corpse and held it hostage for three months until the family agreed to stop raising guinea pigs."
"They stole a dead body?" Isabel said around a mouthful of corn chips.
"And hung on to it for three months," reiterated Joel. "The family gave up the guinea pigs, and Grandma got dumped in a forest and retrieved. Can you imagine the shape she was in?"
Celia and Isabel looked at each other and simultaneously stopped chewing.
"Listen to this," said Jawad. "Five months ago some of their operatives broke into an animal shelter, stole all the animals, killed them, and dumped them in a bin behind a supermarket. Seventeen dogs and thirty-two cats."
"And these people call themselves pro-animal?" said Isabel.
"Why are you surprised? They bombed the bonobos," Celia said. "And you." She had apparently recovered from the image of the dead body, because she licked her finger and ran it around the bottom of the empty bowl.
"Their so-called rep said it was more humane for the animals to be dead than in a shelter," said Jawad.
"Why 'so-called'?"
"These guys operate in cells, so no one group ever really knows what any of the others is up to. It's a way of protecting themselves. Because of that they've been accused of claiming responsibility for things they didn't do. Hamas-style."