“THANKS,” SAYS KENDALL AS I HAND HER A TICKET for the Central Park Zoo. “I’ll pay you back.”
“Don’t worry about it. It’s my treat.”
I earned a more-than-decent salary at my demeaning job these last four months. What else am I going to spend it on? Oh, yeah. College. But right now, this seems more important.
We go through the admission gate and hang a quick right turn toward the sea lions. Kendall picks up her pace and rushes toward the railing. There’s a sea lion swimming flips under the water.
“Hi!” Kendall says to it. She crouches so she can see the sea lion through the glass. Then she waves and it locks its huge cartoon eyes on her.
A memory comes over me. My grandmother and I watching the zookeepers throw fish at the sea lions. I’m holding her hand and she’s got my sister on her hip.
“It’s hard to feel down around sea lions,” I say. One of them zooms out of the water, onto a rock. I’m sure it does this a hundred times a day but still, it looks joyful.
“I feel down,” says Kendall softly, her eyes tracking the dark swimming shapes. “I’m sad that their enclosure is so small.”
“I think most of these animals were born in captivity. Maybe they don’t know any better. They don’t know they’re supposed to be wild.”
“That makes it even sadder!”
I look at her face and realize, she feels things pretty deeply, this girl. That can’t be fun.
“I know what you need,” I say. “Follow me.”
We move next door to the penguin house, which stinks. I mean, it actually stinks. Like bird shit and general wildness.
But that’s not a big deal because, penguins. Kendall and I press our noses to the glass right at the waterline. The penguins dive and swim inches from our faces. I can’t tell if Kendall’s still sad.
“I wonder what they think of us,” she says softly.
“Maybe they think we’re the ones living behind glass. Maybe they feel sad for us.”
Kendall’s quiet for a few seconds. “They should.”
I want to change the tone here so I say, “Hey, let’s get a selfie with the penguins.” I take out my phone. Before she has time to prepare, I pull her against the glass and crouch until I see both of our faces framed on the screen. Wait until a penguin is swimming by above our heads. Take the shot and show it to Kendall for approval. She looks confused, I look uncomfortable. Well, that perfectly captured the moment.
But she says, “Send me that,” so I do.
Someone has been pressing against the back of my legs. I look down and there’s a little girl, trying to get close to the glass. I step back to give her my excellent spot. Then I go lean against the wall on the other side of the room. I’ve been crazy tall since I was twelve years old. I’ve done that move countless times over the years. I don’t even think about it anymore. I never count it as something that matters. It’s an obligation, a responsibility I have to meet because I’m big. Actually, when I really think about it, it feels more like an apology than anything else.
After a few minutes, Kendall comes over. She leans against the wall next to me.
“Still feeling down?” I ask.
“What?”
“Did the penguins cheer you up or are you still pondering the ethical dilemmas of zoology?”
“Oh. I don’t know.” She seems surprised by this question, like she’s already forgotten we talked about it. Five minutes ago. “I was making up a story about the penguins. See that big one on the iceberg thing? He’s the penguin mafia boss.”
I laugh. I can’t help it.
“Do you write this stuff down?” I ask, nodding toward her purse and the notebook inside it.
“Sometimes, yeah. But sometimes it’s just a story that lasts a few moments in my head. Honestly, if I wrote down every weird idea that ever crossed my mind, I wouldn’t be able to function in normal life.”
I’ve met other kids who talk this way. Self-aware. Conscious of what makes them different. I respect the hell out of that.
Kendall opens the zoo map and points to the tropical rainforest building. “Let’s go there now,” she says.
So we do. The transition into this warm, humid space is jolting and terrific. I take off my coat. I’m about to offer my arm for Kendall’s. But she folds it in half and ties it around her waist, so never mind.
Another memory. Me getting lost in this building on purpose. I’m wandering around, pretending I’m a jungle explorer. Hearing my grandmother call my name, frantic. Me liking it. Knowing they’re looking for me. Knowing I’m missed.
Birds are squawking like they’ve always been squawking in here.
And somewhere, someone’s crying.
I mean, not like in a metaphorical way. Someone nearby is actually crying. Bawling.
We round a corner and come upon a woman on a bench, holding a flailing little girl. At first I think the kid is having some kind of seizure. That’s how much flailing we’re talking about. But the woman gets a slightly rough grip on her and speaks sternly.
“I’m sorry that happened but you cannot scream like this. You cannot!”
The woman’s maybe in her sixties and the girl’s about five years old. The girl’s talking, but it doesn’t sound like English. Or wait. Maybe it is. Tantrum-ese.
Kendall pulls me aside and gives me a quizzical look. She doesn’t even have to say anything at this point. Everyone else in the tropical rainforest house is walking by, pretending they don’t see or hear this Exorcist scene playing out in front of them. So of course we’re going to stop and get involved.
Kendall steps near, but not too near, the bench and asks, “Is she okay? Do you need help?”
The woman looks at Kendall and her tight, annoyed face relaxes for a millisecond. Then it cinches up again.
“We’re fine. Thank you.”
“Are you sure?” prods Kendall.
“Yes,” the woman says. “We were here this morning and she bought a stuffed leopard from the gift shop. She left it here by accident, but when we came back to get it, it was gone.”
“Someone took it!” yowls the girl.
“You checked Lost and Found?” I ask.
“Yes,” sighs the woman, and her withering expression says, Of course, you idiot.
The kid’s dressed like one of those American Girl dolls my sister used to collect. Shiny black shoes, white tights, pink wool coat.
“This is life, Charlotte,” the woman says to the girl. “You lose things, other people find them. You have a hundred other stuffed animals at home.” She glances at Kendall and me now. “Actually, more than that. Much more.”
I can’t get a read on whether this is a grandmother or a nanny. She’s so bitchy, but probably because the kid is a brat. The kid’s probably a brat because her parents are never around. We could be looking at a vicious cycle of overall nastiness here. To be honest, I’m relieved they don’t need help.
But Kendall pushes. “If you only lost it this morning, maybe you could explain to the gift shop. Maybe they’d give you another one, just to be nice.”
The woman laughs. Hard. Like she hasn’t had a good laugh like that in a while. “Oh, honey, that is a lovely idea but I don’t think so.”
“Why not?” replies Kendall. “It can’t hurt to ask. Look at all these tears.” She points to Charlotte’s pink, streaked face. The kid’s a hot mess.
“No,” says the woman. More firmly now. Even Charlotte shuts up and stares at her. “And you should mind your own business.”
Kendall backs away and holds up her hands. “Okay,” she says. “Hope your day gets better.”
She tugs on my arm and drags me around the curve of the path so we can’t see them anymore. Then she stops. Her eyes are glassy.
“That’s why,” says Kendall, dabbing a tear. “That’s why people don’t get involved.”
“Because someone might be mean and say, ‘Mind your own business’?”
“It feels shitty.”
“I agree. But sometimes you have to take the risk anyway.”
“On an intellectual level, yes. Duh. But in the moment, you just react. You stay in your bubble. It’s an anti-shittiness defense mechanism.”
She’s got a point. “So how do you break through that?” I ask. “I mean, we’ve been trying because of Erica’s dare. But what about a non-dare situation?”
Kendall stares at a lemur. It stares back at us. It looks alarmingly like Big E, with the white hair and jaded expression.
“I don’t know,” she says. “I guess that’s the point of the dare in the first place.”
The lemur leaps from one branch to another. Kendall watches it move. I watch her.
She’s deflating. I won’t let that happen. “So,” I say, pointing a thumb at the lemur-grandpa. “In the zoo mafia, who’s this guy? Consigliere?”
Her nose twitches.
“No,” she says with the hint of a smile. “He’s the best hit man they’ve got.”