The Care and Feeding of Exotic Pets (22 page)

He frowned. “You're divorced. Older women need—”

She did not want to hear what he thought she needed. “You can take me home,” she said. “Or you can stay and see your movie. I'll take a cab.”

“I don't want to take you home.”

“Then I'll take a cab.”

They had come to the bottom of the garage. There was one space left. He pulled in. Winnie undid her seatbelt and started to get out of the car, but he put his hand on her arm. It was not a friendly or apologetic grip.

“Ha, ha,” she said, looking down at his hand. “You forget I know karate.”

One fluorescent light sputtered and hissed, blinked off and stammered on. The cinderblock wall looked wet in the harsh light.

“I have to go.” Winnie spoke as if talking on the phone, or to a friend she had met on the street. “I'll see you in class.”

He leaned toward her and nuzzled her shoulder, still gripping her arm. “I thought you would be fun,” he said. “I thought I could count on you.”

A young couple, laughing and holding hands, got off the elevator in the corner. The guy wore a sweater very much like Stone's. The girl wore tight jeans and a tiny tank top. She was talking animatedly and he was smiling as they searched for their car. Stone sat back and put both hands on the wheel.

“We'll miss the movie,” he said.

Winnie jumped out of the car.

“What the hell?”

She ran up the ramp toward the upper levels. On the next parking level up there were cars arriving, more people around. She merged in with a cluster of people and went with them into the elevator. As the doors closed, she saw Stone drive past, tires squealing on the slick garage floor.

The elevator opened into the lobby of the movie theater. A long line snaked away from the ticket window. She took out her cell phone. There was no one else to call.

“Where are you?” Jonathan said. Not hello, not anything else.

“I'm at the big movie theater in Burbank.”

“Where's your date?”

She began to cry.

“Are you all right? Winnie. Answer me.”

“I'm scared. He scared me.” She knew she sounded like a child, but Jonathan's voice was deep and parental.

“I'll come get you.”

“Really?”

“Are you in a safe place?”

“I'm in the lobby.”

“Stay there until you see me pull up out front. Don't go anywhere, not even the bathroom, alone.”

“Don't tell Lacy.”

“What do you think I am? Nuts?”

Winnie almost laughed. “Hurry,” she whispered.

“It will take me thirty minutes. But you know what? We can keep talking. Keep talking to me. What movie were you going to see?”

“James Bond.”

“You're kidding.”

She heard his keys jingling. A door open and close. He kept talking to her, about Bond, about movies, about the time he met Sean Connery at a party. His voice was so well modulated and professional, even as he was starting his car and driving with one hand. Even as he was coming to rescue her.

When she and Jonathan were first sleeping together, he could make her cry with laughter by talking like a radio announcer in bed.

“Yes, that's right. Only $19.95 buys you all the cunnilingus a woman could want.”

“Hurry,” she said again. “Please.”

Twenty-seven minutes later, Jonathan pulled up in his stupid Porsche and Winnie leapt into the passenger seat. He grinned at her, then frowned. “I meant to tell you earlier, you look really good.”

She told him what happened and he laughed.

“Bad date,” he said. “That's all it was. Good cocktail party story. Especially that visit to AIDS Alley.”

“Is that what they call it?” Winnie stuck out her tongue. “Gross.”

He patted her thigh and left his hand there, right where she remembered it. “I'm glad I was home.”

“You're my knight in shining armor.”

“Still?”

“Still.” She put her hand on top of his.

At her house, their house, the house where they had lived together, he offered to come in, check around and make sure Stone wasn't lurking under the bed. Winnie accepted. She wanted him inside, back in their house. Once she got him there, as comfortable as an old pair of jeans, she was sure he would stay. He would have to. In the kitchen, she poured him his favorite vodka on the rocks and one for herself and looked into his eyes. This is it, she thought. My life resumes tonight.

“You know what?” he said. “I've got a guy who would be perfect for you.”

“Oh really?” She knew he was kidding her, talking about himself. She kept her voice low so he had to lean in. “Do I know this guy?”

“Maybe. You might have met him a while ago.”

“He was gone and now he's back?”

“No. I think he's always been in LA. But he was in a relationship, and now he's divorced.”

Winnie frowned.

“You know Don Miller, right? Not very tall, but a handsome guy.”

“You're kidding.”

“I could call him. Give him your number. Or better yet, you call him.”

He could have punched her; it would have been less painful. Jonathan setting her up on a date. Jonathan acting as her pimp.
She had been waiting for his kiss. He was looking in his cell phone for the number. The vodka bubbled in her stomach.

She should have known then, known for sure it was over. Instead, later, alone in bed, it was his look she kept thinking about, the way his eyes took her in. It was Jonathan driving up to rescue her. His laugh and his hand on her thigh. He still loved her. He did.

Winnie leaned against the wall in Oren's hot little house and wondered what Jonathan would do when he found out she was missing. She imagined his anguish when the police found her body. Through the door she heard Oren pacing. Then she heard his phone ring—a different ring—the same awful song that Lacy used on her phone with offensive lyrics, loud, strident, discordant, designed to be annoying. Oh Lacy. Lacy. She heard him answer, “Where have you been?”

He walked away from the door so she couldn't hear anything else. Oh, she thought, why did he use that terrible music? It made her sad, so, so sad to hear it. She slid down the wall and curled up on the carpet. She wanted to go home. Not to the home she had left that morning, but back in time to when Lacy was little and Jonathan still loved her. She wanted them both. She wanted Jonathan. Her Jonathan. The dry carpet odor filled her nostrils and scratched the back of her throat. The fibers dug into her cheek. Five years after their separation, three years after his marriage, in a room full of pickled freaks, she could admit she was still waiting for Jonathan to return. All this time, she had expected a late night phone call, the receiver filled with his tears and apologies. One day she knew he would knock on her door with his hands open at his sides and the familiar contrite hunch to his shoulders.

That would never happen now. He could not save her this
time. This heat, this white carpet, this collection of carnival freaks, the smell of rotting vegetables and lizard piss were it for her. Her life would end with this unhappy, insane boy. They would find his skin under her fingernails, his red hair on this white T-shirt. No trace left on her of the man she loved or the daughter she adored.

Lacy didn't want to get out of the car. She did not want to leave Buster, ever.

“As promised, my lady,” he said, “in time for orchestra.” They were across the street from school. End of the day. To Lacy, the white stucco building, the flagpole, even the kids spilling out the doors onto the sidewalk, looked picturesque and old fashioned. Simple, ordinary children leaving school for the afternoon to play and do homework and drink milk at dinner. She had moved so far beyond them now.

She looked at Buster. He looked in the rearview mirror. She looked down at her hands. He looked out the window. But when she looked at him again, he was looking at her.

“When are you done?” he asked.

His brown hair fell in his eyes. His lips were parted. Those lips and all the places they had been. Did he think she was a slut?

“What?”

“When are you done with orchestra?”

“Five-thirty.”

“I'll pick you up.”

“Really?” Her chest swelled, her arms felt as if they would float to the ceiling. “You don't have to do that.”

He bit his lip—those lips—and frowned.

“No, no,” Lacy continued in a rush. “I want you to, but, I mean—my mom can come.”

“Call her. Tell her you're being borne home on the wings of love.” Then he blushed. The “L” word—even in passing—was too much for either of them.

Lacy giggled and sighed at the same time and then had to cough. There was an excess of air in her lungs.

Buster leaned toward her, she leaned in, they bumped and then they kissed, a little goodbye kiss. She sniffed the smoky, slightly unwashed smell of him. She sucked it in, to keep it until five-thirty when she saw him again.

She floated down the corridor to her locker. She pulled her cell phone out of her back pocket and turned it on, wishing she had a girlfriend to call. Maybe she would see Marissa. Maybe Marissa had seen her with Buster. Instead, she ran into her history teacher.

“Feeling better?” Mrs. Lee asked. “We missed you in class today.”

“Oh. Yes. Much better.”

“Good. See you in class tomorrow. Better call someone for the homework.”

Even Mrs. Lee could not deflate her. Homework. What a quaint idea. She grabbed her flute from her locker. Her phone vibrated. Four messages. The first was from her father. She deleted it without listening. The next message was from Oren, her online man. He sounded squeaky, bad, nervous about something. The next was from him as well. And the next. In the last message he was actually screaming at her. Who the hell did he think he was? Then she had a little pang that somehow he knew what she had been doing. She thought about Buster's bedroom and she flushed. He couldn't know. He couldn't know that she had fallen in love—that was it, wasn't it?—with Buster. Buster.

She called her mom first. Winnie's cell phone rang and rang but she didn't answer. It was obviously turned on. Lacy had told
her a zillion times to get a ring she could actually hear. Poor thing, so out of it. Lacy felt benevolent and magnanimous and left dear old Mom a sweet message on the cell and then at home. Then she dialed Oren. Perhaps she could help him. She could do something nice for him before she told him not to call her anymore.

“Hey,” she said into the phone. “What's the matter?”

“Where have you been?” The words were tight and small, each one said with an exhalation of breath.

“At school.”

“You usually check your phone at lunch.”

“I… I was busy.”

“You don't sound right.”

“Listen, I—”

“No!” He shouted into her ear. “Not now! Now is not the time!”

“What's going on?” Lacy asked. “Are you okay?”

His voice held no attraction for her anymore. He was twenty-five. He probably had wrinkles and a scratchy man face like her father's. Just that morning she had craved his phone calls. She trembled, her skin crawling like ripples on a horse's flank.

“I have to go to orchestra,” she said.

“It's three-thirty,” he said. “Time for you to be done.”

“You know I have orchestra.”

“I don't care.” He was angry and she did not know why.

“What is going on?”

“Tell me again how much you hate your mother. Tell me again how badly she treats you. Tell me.”

But Lacy did not want to hate anybody anymore. “Oh, c'mon, you know? I guess she's not so bad.”

“WHAT?”

A kid walking past heard him screaming through the phone.
Lacy was mortified.

“I have to go,” she said. “I'll send you an email.”

“I thought you hated your mother.”

He was panting—his breaths short and loud like the woman in the birth film in health class.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“You lied to me.”

His words came out in little explosions. It gave Lacy the creeps.

“I have your mother.”

“What?”

“I took your mother today. I have her.”

“My mother?” It didn't make sense. He took a picture of her? He knew her?

“I'm going to teach her a lesson. Teach her to take better care of you.”

“Wait. Oren. What? Where is she? What are you talking about?”

Lacy was frozen in the hallway. She was in school and some guy she had never even met had taken her mother. But taken her where? What did he mean? Lacy had to lean against the wall. Her legs were shaking. She heard him taking deep breaths, breathing in and exhaling slowly.

“I did it for you,” he said to her. He was almost whispering now. “I thought she was hurting you. I wanted to help you.”

“Where are you? Where is she?” Maybe they were sitting at a coffee place somewhere. Maybe he had her in his car right outside the school. Maybe he was so angry because he had seen her with Buster.

“I'm at home. She's here with me. I called in sick. And now I'm not sure what to do. She's so mad at me. And I really wanted her to like me. She needs to realize I have your best interests at
heart. I am just trying to take care of you.”

“Mom is supposed to pick me up at school.”

“She won't do that now.”

“Is she okay?”

I'm sorry I'm bothering you. Go to orchestra. We'll talk afterwards. I can wait that long.”

“No, Oren, please.”

“Go on. Don't worry. When you're done, we can all talk about this together. I think you haven't been exactly honest with me. Actually, I know you're a lying bitch—you all are.” He sighed. “If you call the police, I'll kill her.” And he hung up.

Lacy remained where she was, with her phone at her ear, her locker door open, her flute in the other hand.