Ape House

by Sara Gruen

  "Hello, Fran. What's up?"

  "What have you done to my daughter?" she demanded.

  "What are you talking about?"

  "She's not answering the phone. What did you do?"

  John was about to say something vicious about how Amanda was probably screening Fran's calls, but then he realized that he also couldn't remember the last time he'd spoken to Amanda. The past few days had been a blur, but how could he not have noticed?

  "How long since she last answered?" he asked.

  "Three days. Something's going on. I can feel it. Mother's intuition."

  What if Amanda had tried to change a ceiling lightbulb and fallen from a ladder? What if she was lying in a pool of her own blood right now, eyes glazed and hopeless, her phone on some faraway counter? What if that monstrous dog had torn her to shreds and left her with her face hanging off?

  "I'm on the plane right now," he said. "I'll call you when I get home."

  An airline attendant suddenly appeared in his face. "Sir?" she said, flashing a professional smile. "It's time to turn off your phone."

  "Yes. Of course," he said. When she turned her back to address the other recalcitrant phone users, he twisted toward the wall in an effort to hide what he was doing and called Amanda.

  "Hi, this is Amanda. Leave me a message and I'll get back to you as soon as I can."

  With a growing sense of panic, John combed through his brain trying to come up with someone to call. Other than Sean, he knew none of her acquaintances or co-workers. He knew Sean's last name, of course. But even if Sean's number was listed, there were probably hundreds--if not thousands--of S. Greens in the L.A. telephone directory. John stared at the number pad of his cell phone as it dawned on him that he knew virtually nothing of Amanda's new life, or any of its potential dangers.

  Helplessly, under the now-pointed glare of the flight attendant, John shut off his phone.

  It was the first time in his life that John had flown first-class, but he didn't so much as recline his seat, never mind take advantage of the free beverages. He spent the entire flight staring at the topmost part of the road-kill toupee in front of him, his mind filled with terrifying images.

  ----

  As the cab pulled up to the house, John noticed that the garage door was in the mostly-down position. The Jetta's wheels were visible through the crack, and there were fresh dog turds on the lawn. This last was promising.

  He unlocked the door and went in.

  "Amanda?"

  There was no answer, although her purse was on the table by the door.

  He went into the kitchen. There was no ladder and no pool of blood. There was nothing new at all, except two stainless-steel dog bowls on a large rubber mat.

  As John mounted the stairs, the dog came into view one slice at a time: the first included ears and forehead, the next an unlikely mixture of pastel pinks and blues. John reached the top of the stairs and stared in disbelief. The poor thing was lying outside the closed washroom door, wearing an argyle sweater and a morose expression. It was hard to take an argyle-sweater-wearing dog seriously, even if it was a meth-lab dog, and so John approached the washroom. From inside he could hear scraping and scouring, banging and crashing.

  "Amanda?"

  John looked down at Booger, who didn't even lift his head. His eyebrows twitched with worry.

  John opened the door. Amanda was on her knees beside the toilet wearing a paper face mask, shower cap, yellow rubber gloves up to her elbows, and garbage bags pulled over each leg and tied off at the thigh. She was brandishing a can of Lysol and spraying violently in all directions. Sponges, rolls of paper towel, and other cleaning products surrounded her.

  "Amanda?" he said.

  "Don't run the water," she said without looking at him. "I'm soaking the elbow pipes with bleach." She turned the Comet can upside down and whacked the bottom, sending volcanic bursts of powder into the air. She sat bolt upright, coughing with her rubber forearm held up in front of the mask, then grabbed a brush from a bucket and began scrubbing the floor tiles vigorously.

  "Amanda? What are you doing?"

  "Did you know," she said, still not looking at him, "that all those places brushes and mops don't reach are just teeming with pathogens? Baseboards, drains, grout--and handles, they're the worst! Crawling with staph, strep, E. coli, MRSA, leptospirosis, hepatitis A, yersiniosis. And in public restrooms--did you know that most people flush with their feet, thereby leaving disgusting sidewalk germs on the toilet handles in addition to everything else? But the sink handles are just as dirty. And so are the doorknobs, because of people who don't wash at all--they leave all their filthy, disgusting germs on the handle for the next unsuspecting idiot, even if that idiot went to the effort of washing his hands. You have to sanitize them all ..." She dropped the brush, picked up a can, and leaned into the tub. She sprayed the faucet and handles until they dripped with white froth.

  "Amanda?"

  "And don't get me started on the toxic mist of flushing. Never again will I keep a toothbrush in the same room as a toilet. It's a miracle we're not all dead."

  "Amanda, please tell me what's going on."

  She sat up on her knees, pulled down her mask, and glanced at him. After a pause, she said, "I will. After I take a shower." Then she reached over and shut the door in his face.

  John stood in the hallway, staring at it. Then he went downstairs to wait.

  A few minutes later, Amanda appeared in her robe and sank into the couch. She was pale as biscuit dough and had dark circles beneath her eyes. She had towel-dried her hair, which was already springing into coils.

  "I'll get some coffee," he said.

  He stayed in the kitchen while it brewed. He had no idea what had happened, and therefore no idea what to say. After the coffee burped and gurgled its way to an end, he poured a cup and added sugar. He thought better of the cream, as it had ripened into some sort of new, unnamed cheese product.

  He deposited the steaming mug on the table in front of Amanda and took a seat across from her. She leaned forward, wrapped both hands around the mug, let go, and sat back without taking a sip.

  "Amanda, baby, what's going on?"

  "I got a job," she said, trying so hard to sound casual it broke his heart.

  "Why? Doing what?"

  "I'm writing a brochure about cleaning public restrooms. Next week I move on to the proper boiling of institutional uniforms and linens. After that, industrial kitchens."

  John watched her closely. "Did something happen to the series?"

  "No, John," she said fiercely. "Something happened to us. And since I don't get any money until and unless NBC commits to more episodes, I need something to live on. By the way, we have an offer on the house in Philly, so at least we won't have to wait too long to divvy that up."

  Divvy it up? John stared at her, afraid to say anything. The dog crept around the corner and lay flush against the wall, eyes moving between John and Amanda.

  She sighed and gave every appearance of having restored her calm. "So I went to the store a few days ago. Doesn't matter what for," she said, waving away the unasked question with her hand, "and our credit card was declined. Impossible, I said. I just paid the bill. But no, the clerk called the credit card company, and they insisted that we were maxed out."

  John felt a sickness beyond anything he'd ever experienced. He knew what was coming.

  "So I left everything at the counter and did the walk of shame back to the car. When I got home, I got online and looked at the activity on our account. You'll never guess what I found there."

  There was a long silence. She swallowed hard and wiped her eyes. When she finally spoke, her voice was under tight control. "I have never cheated on you. Not once. So were the DNA results what you expected? Are congratulations in order? I won't even ask about the bail bond."

  "Amanda," he said quietly, "I can explain."

  "Ha!" she snorted, and then burst into gulping, sobbing tears. John moved as though to stand
up and go to her. She held a hand up to stop him. "Please don't. Let me guess--she smokes, doesn't she? She's who was in your room right before I got there, wasn't she? Is this her dog too? Because she can't have him back. She can't have him."

  Booger slithered over and sat at her feet. He licked her hands and looked reproachfully at John.

  "I hope she didn't smoke while she was pregnant," continued Amanda. "Is the baby all right?"

  John took a deep breath. "There is no baby. There never was. There was a seventeen-year-old green-haired punk whose last name was Pinegar. I bailed him out of jail."

  Amanda froze. Her hand stopped in the center of Booger's back. He turned to investigate and began nibbling an itch beneath the pastel diamonds of his sweater.

  "Yes. Pinegar. I did the math, I thought I was his father. I'm not. His mother isn't even Ginette. His parents are sending a check for the bail bond."

  "Ginette Pinegar? You thought you had a kid with Ginette Pinegar?"

  "I don't know. How many Pinegars can there be in the world?" He leaned back against the cushions, feeling like someone was driving an ice pick into his frontal lobe.

  "You never cheated on me?"

  "Never. Never, ever, ever."

  It was a few seconds before she launched herself, but launch herself she did, right over the coffee table and into his lap. Before he was really aware what was happening, she had her arms wrapped around his head and was weeping into his hair.

  ----

  Later, when they were lying in a tangled heap of bedclothes and her air-dried corkscrew hair was spread on his chest and tickling his chin, she said, "One of those agents you sent my book to left a message today. She wants to talk tomorrow."

  "That sounds promising."

  "Maybe. I'm too superstitious to believe anything at this point."

  After a moment of contemplation, John said, "Why is the dog wearing a sweater?"

  "My mother has been sending things. He has quite the wardrobe."

  "Your mother is knitting sweaters for the dog?"

  "Yup."

  John sighed. "We're going to be in so much trouble when we have a baby."

  "Yup," said Amanda.

  SIX MONTHS LATER

  There was scattered clapping as the mayor took the oversized scissors from the presentation box and cut the ribbon that ran across the open gate. The red satin ends fluttered to the ground as photographers snapped away, including the one from The Atlantic, who had accompanied John. The mayor posed with Isabel, draping an arm around her shoulders and baring his teeth in a camera-ready smile. Celia hovered on the other side of him. He glanced at her, and his lips drooped for the briefest of moments. Then he recovered and put an arm around her as well.

  John kept quiet when the other reporters began asking questions because he knew he would have a chance later. He stood off to the side with Gary Hanson, the architect who had designed the new facility, and Nathan Pinegar, whose parents had persuaded the judge in Lizard that helping to build the apes' new residence should count toward his community service. He looked happy and fit, his hair even more strikingly verdant than usual. John had a clear vision of Nathan and Celia, up late the night before, dyeing each other's hair for the occasion.

  "Dr. Duncan, is it safe to say you're satisfied with the amount of the settlement?"

  Isabel looked briefly over her shoulder, toward the thirty acres of Maui mountain property protected by a double fence. She turned back to the cameras. From the gleam in her eye and her tightly closed lips, John could tell she was trying to contain herself. She looked at the ground and cleared her throat. "The terms of the agreement prohibit my saying anything about the amount of the settlement," she said, "but the bonobos and I would like to express our eternal gratitude to the San Diego Zoo for their generous hospitality during the time it took for our new home to be built. I also want to thank Gary Hanson and his firm for donating their services to us, and for designing the most ape-friendly habitat I've ever seen outside of a jungle." She searched the crowd. For a brief moment, John thought she was seeking him. When her eyes landed on Gary, she finally allowed herself to smile, broadly and openly.

  "Can you tell us more about your plans for the Great Ape Language Project?"

  "We're in the process of vetting the best scientists in the field, and are committed to continuing our work on language acquisition and cognition in the tradition begun by the late Richard Hughes, who believed it's our duty to provide great apes with dignity, autonomy, and the quality of life they so obviously deserve."

  "The press release mentioned your collaboration with the Children's Clinical Language Center in Boston. Can you expand on that?"

  "There is strong evidence that nonverbal children benefit greatly by using alternative methods of expressing themselves, such as signing, and using lexigrams. We are sharing our data with the CCLC, and are excited about potential advances in this field."

  "What are your feelings on the pending criminal trials?"

  "I think people are innocent until proven guilty, and I have every confidence that justice will be served." Her eyes swept the crowd, smiling and making eye contact. "Thank you so much for coming." She folded her cheat sheets in half, slid them into her pocket, and motioned the inner circle--Celia, Nathan, Gary, John, and his photographer, Philippe--to follow her. The uniformed security guard shut the gate behind them, and the crowd outside began to disperse.

  Isabel led the group down a dirt road that wound between swaying tropical trees and bushes with flowers so overwhelmingly fragrant they smelled like fruit on the verge of going off.

  John fell into stride beside her. Her hair had grown enough that he could no longer see the scar. It would be years before it would swing against her back again, but her face was delicate and pretty, and the look suited her.

  "I hear you were in the Congo," she said. "At the Lola ya Bonobo sanctuary."

  "Yes. I got back last week."

  "How was it?"

  "Amazing. Almost surreal. We flew Air France from Paris. When we landed in Kinshasa, it was a completely different world. A troop of armed soldiers boarded our plane by the front, marched through, and got off at the back. There were plane carcasses all over the tarmac." John shook his head at the memory. "In the airport, chaos, and not of the organized kind. Fortunately, we had a 'protocol man' to negotiate bribes and get us through customs and immigration. If it weren't for him, I swear we'd still be there. And stripped of all our belongings."

  "And how was the sanctuary?" she asked, looping an arm through his. The gesture was unexpected, and caused a tugging in John's chest.

  "The road had potholes big enough to swallow the truck and we passed through a lot of poverty and dusty farmland, but the sanctuary itself is gorgeous. It's the old vacation home of Mobutu Sese Seko, the former dictator. There are ponds full of lilies, a river that rushes over a waterfall, and mosquitoes! They're like little stealth bombers"--he mimicked one with his free hand--"silent, painless, and deadly. Did you know there's a type of malaria that can kill you in four days flat?"

  "Yup," said Isabel. "Falciparum malaria. I assume you had your prophylaxis?"

  "And how. Hepatatis A and B, yellow fever, typhoid, tetanus, flu shots, meningitis, polio--even rabies, because of the feral dogs ..." He shook his head. "I'm forgetting something."

  "Malaria?" Isabel suggested.

  "Right. Malaria," said John. "And we heard the bonobos as soon as we got there. They were all around us. They sounded like really loud birds. They came to check us out and immediately stole Philippe's camera. It was a group effort--one of them was hugging his legs while another unlatched the strap, and then a third grabbed the camera and made off with it. They took it up a tree and I seriously thought Philippe was going to cry. We eventually traded it for green apples, but not before the bonobos took about a dozen pictures. There's one we're going to run with the piece--it's of Philippe looking straight into the lens, pleading, his face contorted in pure desperation. It's brilliant."
<
br />   Isabel threw her head back and laughed. "And completely typical of bonobos!" She sighed. "I want to go there someday."

  "I'm sure you will."

  "I'm sure I will too," she said, and she sounded so confident it made John sneak another look at her. She seemed so happy and relaxed. Even on the day they'd met, before the bombing, there had been something reserved and anxious about her. There was no sign of that now. The very way she moved her body was different. The old Isabel would never have taken his arm.

  The stand of trees ended, revealing a clearing and a large blockish structure. At one end of it was a tall tower with walls made of netting. It was strung from top to bottom with fire hoses and hammocks, and was full of climbing structures, toys, and kiddie pools.

  Isabel pulled her arm free of John's. "That's their outdoor play yard," she said, pointing to it with obvious pride. "They come and go as they please. They can also go into the forest if one of us goes with them. They love it. We plant specific treats in specific places. Like that"--she pointed to a tree--"always has a cooler beneath it with hard-boiled eggs, and that"--she pointed to another--"always has M&M's--sugar-free, of course. We're still undoing the damage from the pizza and cheeseburgers."

  Immediately inside the structure was a large observation area, separated from the apes' living quarters by a curved wall of glass. The bonobos were nowhere to be seen, though Gary went to the glass and stood expectantly. Philippe joined him, his camera poised. Celia and Nathan stood slightly behind them, also staring into the apes' quarters.

  "So, what do you think?" Isabel said, watching him expectantly.

  "It's magnificent," said John. "Where are the bonobos?"

  "They're in the group room. Probably watching reruns of Ape House. They're a bit obsessed with it."

  "Did my package arrive?" he asked.

  "I don't know," said Isabel. "Celia?"

  "Yes," said Celia, whipping her fuchsia head around. "And it looks super yummy. Thanks, Pigpen."

  John raised two fingers in a peace salute.

  "What is it?" asked Isabel.

  "A carrot cake," John said. "To celebrate the occasion."

  He saw her hesitate. "Oh, I don't know ..." she said.

  "Amanda made it," he added quickly. "Organic carrots, sweetened with apple juice, and the icing is made with fat-free cream cheese. Here's a list of ingredients." He pulled a crumpled piece of paper from his pocket and handed it to Isabel.