Dawn creeps in through my curtains and spreads across my walls. I glance at the clock. 6:17 a.m. I haven’t slept.
I’m lying on my mattress, my T-shirt sticking to my sweaty skin. I sit up and peel off the damp cotton. My fingers tremble as I pick up my Rubik’s Cube and twist it around.
I keep replaying the details of last night in my head. The memory of Stanley is a constant itch under my skin. Particles of him are swimming through my blood, my brain. Whenever I close my eyes he is there, in the darkness behind my eyelids.
I didn’t even have sex with him, but somehow he got inside me anyway.
Stupid. So very, very stupid for me to think I could meet him and not suffer any repercussions. I broke every rule of my personal code, and now I’m paying the price.
I push the thoughts away, drag myself to my feet, and shuffle into the bathroom to splash some cold water on my face. I need to get ready for work.
“Hey!”
I turn, squinting. I’ve just finished mucking out the gibbons’ cage. Toby is leaning on his broom and dustpan, his jaws working a bright purple wad.
“You aren’t supposed to chew gum during work hours,” I tell him.
He smirks. “What, you gonna report me?”
Maybe in his mind, he’s being cool. Perhaps this is even his backward way of trying to flirt, like a little boy pulling a girl’s pigtails. I’m not amused. “Spit it out,” I tell him.
He spits the gum into his palm and sticks it on the underside of a drinking fountain.
Briefly I consider dumping the bucket of gibbons’ feces and rotten fruit rinds over his head. I’d be fired, of course, but it would almost be worth it. “Is there something you wanted to say to me,” I ask.
He tips up the brim of his khaki-colored cap and flashes a chipmunk-toothed smile. “Ms. Nell wants to see you.”
When Ms. Nell wants to see me, it usually isn’t good. Of course, it’s always possible that she wants to promote me. Possible, but not likely.
I arrive in her office and sit down. She squints at me. “Are you sick? You look like a dog’s dinner.”
I shift in my chair. She’s used this expression before. It means I look bad, though I’m not sure what that has to do with dog food. “I didn’t sleep well. That’s all.”
She taps one oval-shaped, Pepto-Bismol-pink nail on the desk, then shifts to a familiar, lecturing tone that signals I’m going to be here awhile. “You know, I’m trying to run a respectable business here. People all told me I was crazy to believe that I could turn a profit with this rinky-dink zoo. ‘No one makes money on zoos anymore,’ they said. But I proved ’em wrong. I bought this place when it was about to close down for good, gave it a fresh coat of paint and some new animals, put out some ads, poured in a few buckets of good old-fashioned elbow grease, and now Hickory Park is turning a profit for the first time in years. Decades. Do you know how I did it?”
She just told me in detail how she did it, but I recognize this game by now. “How,” I ask.
“One word: reputation. Reputation is everything. You think people come here to see animals?”
“Yes. I mean, no.”
“If people want to see animals, they can do it at home, in billion-pixel high-def, just by turning on a damn nature show. And on TV, the animals are doing interesting things. Here, they just sit around picking fleas off their furry balls. You think anyone wants to look at that?”
I consider pointing out that most of the animals here don’t have the opposable thumbs necessary for that particular activity, then decide to let it slide.
She continues: “Our guests come here for the experience. The whole package. We’re competing with movie theaters, with sporting events, with any other damn thing people can do on a Saturday, and that means we’ve got to deliver. If guests come in and see you looking like a bucket of crap, the experience suffers.”
Exhaustion creeps over me, making my body heavy. She keeps talking, but the words slide through my mind without leaving a mark. My vision wavers, and the world swims.
After a moment, I realize Ms. Nell is saying my name over and over. Her voice seems to slow, as if someone’s playing a recording at half speed—Alviiiiie . . . Aaaalviiiie. I can see the words floating through the air, shining faintly, like they’re traced in silver paint. My gaze follows them with detached interest.
“Hey!” She snaps her fingers.
My vision jolts into focus. “What.”
She frowns, but her eyebrows are tilted down at the outside corners. That usually means someone is worried, not angry. “You sure you’re not sick?”
I shake my head. “Just tired.” And preoccupied.
Duke the parrot lets out a sudden squawk from his cage, and I give a start, almost jumping from my chair.
Ms. Nell’s frown deepens. “Maybe you ought to go home early. Get some rest.”
I open my mouth to protest—I feel calmer here than I do in my apartment—but I recognize the futility of argument. So I close my mouth, nod, and push myself to my feet.
At home, I sit on the couch, fiddling with my Rubik’s Cube. I close my eyes and focus on the smooth, cool plastic under my fingers. This is just another puzzle. If I can find a way to stop thinking about Stanley, my problems will be solved.
I open my laptop and type stopping obsessive thoughts into the search engine. I scroll down through the results and start clicking on links. I do more searches. The rapid-fire click of keys echoes through the silence; a comforting sound. My gaze latches on to a name.
Bupropion. It’s an antidepressant, but it’s also used to treat addictions. And attraction, after all, is just another form of addiction. It activates the same centers of the brain as cocaine.
The thought stops me. Am I attracted to him? I remember being disappointed when he wouldn’t let me take off his clothes. I enjoyed touching him. Maybe I am capable of attraction, after all—and now I’m trying to put an end to it. Ironic.
I’ve always avoided prescription medications, but I’m not against taking pills so much as seeing doctors. There are ways to buy prescription drugs online, but most of them aren’t strictly legal, and I’d rather not take the risk.
Again, I consider the idea of calling Dr. Bernhardt and asking for his help. I don’t like it, but at this point, I’m desperate enough to try almost anything.
I flip open my cell phone and scroll through my list of contacts, which includes him, Ms. Nell, Stanley—my gaze lingers on his name—and an old employer whose number I never bothered to delete. I select Dr. Bernhardt’s name and call.
He picks up in the middle of the second ring. “Alvie?” He sounds utterly baffled. I’ve never actually called his cell phone before.
In the background, a man’s voice says, “Who’s that, Len?”
“Hang on,” he mumbles. I hear footsteps, then he asks, “Is everything okay?”
“I have a favor to ask you.”
“Uh . . . of course. Go ahead.”
“I need some bupropion.”
There’s a pause. “You realize I’m not a psychiatrist, don’t you? I have a doctorate in sociology.”
“I know that.” Already, this is starting to seem like a bad idea. “I just thought . . . maybe you knew someone who had some samples, or . . .”
“In the past, you’ve been very adamant about not going back on medication, or seeking any kind of help, for that matter. Why now? Why bupropion?”
I grit my teeth. If I want his help, I’ll have to give him some sort of explanation. That much is clear. “It’s sometimes prescribed to people who want to quit smoking or who can’t stop playing video games.”
“So have you taken up smoking, or are you addicted to video games?”
“Neither.” I guess I could have just lied about that and said yes to one or the other, but I’m no good at lying, and I hate doing it, anyway. “I’m addicted to something else.”
“What?”
I shift my weight on the couch. “It’s nothing illegal. So why does it matter.”
“Because even if I could write you a prescription myself, which I can’t, it would be irresponsible of me to hand out pills like candy without even knowing why you want them. So what are you addicted to?”
“It’s a person,” I mumble.
“A person,” he repeats.
“There’s a person I can’t stop thinking about. Someone I met recently.”
After a few heartbeats, he replies, “Was it a bad experience?”
“No. It went better than I expected, actually.”
“So why do you want to stop thinking about it?”
“Because I’m showing clear signs of obsession. I got no sleep last night. My reflexes are shot. I almost got into an accident driving to work this morning. If this continues, I’m going to lose my job, and I don’t want to lose my job. I like being around the animals. I—”
“Alvie, it’s all right. It’s all right. Calm down.”
Only then do I realize my voice has escalated to a shout. I exhale a shuddering breath and slump on the couch, limp, like a broken puppet. “Sorry.” This is bad. I’m slipping, losing control. “I should go.”
“Wait. I can help you schedule an appointment with someone, if that’s what you want.”
“I’d prefer not to.”
“Then I’m afraid there’s nothing I can do.” Another pause. “Is this the same person you mentioned to me before? The one you were talking to online?”
“It doesn’t matter.” My throat tightens. “Sorry to disturb you.” I hang up.
I shouldn’t have called. Why did I do that? If Dr. Bernhardt thinks I’m unstable, he might tell the judge that I’m not ready for emancipation. I could lose my chance.
For a while, I try unsuccessfully to nap. After an hour or so, I roll out of bed and throw on my hoodie.
It’s almost six o’clock. Stanley said he would be waiting for me in the park.
I could, of course, just not show up. I could stop going online, ignore his emails, return to my safe, isolated little life. That would probably be smarter.
But I can’t do that to him. After the kindness he’s shown me, I at least owe him some kind of explanation.
I pull up my hood and walk down the sidewalk with my hands shoved into my pockets and my breath pluming in the air. The days are getting shorter and chillier, and the horizon glows red with sunset. I breathe in deep, feeling the prickle of cold air in my lungs, and release it through my nose.
When I arrive at the park, he’s already there, sitting on the bench, wearing a gray fleece jacket. My heart lurches. Even from this distance, I can see him shivering. I duck behind a tree, press my back to the rough bark. Take a deep breath. I am going to tell him now, tonight, that this has to end. What he wants is something more than I’m capable of giving.
I need a minute to get myself under control before I face him, so I turn away and force my legs to move. My steps are stiff and jerky, mechanical, as my feet take me away from him and across the street. I slump against a wall and close my eyes, more sweat beading on my forehead. My hand slips into my pocket and grips the Rubik’s Cube. I turn it over and over, focusing on the cool smoothness.
A shadow falls over me, and I tense. When I look up, I see man in a police uniform. He’s enormous, with broad, round shoulders and a bushy walrus mustache. “Everything all right, ma’am?” he asks, thumbs hooked into the loops on his belt. I thought policemen only did that on TV shows.
I step away from him and start to rock back and forth on the balls of my feet, my hand still in my pocket. Men in uniforms make me nervous. If a regular person is bothering me or asking questions I don’t know how to answer, I can just walk away. But walking away from a policeman can result in being arrested. “I’m fine,” I mutter, and take another step backward.
His thick eyebrows bunch together, and he frowns. “Mind telling me what you’re doing here?” His tone has changed, hardened. He’s suspicious.
“I’m standing.”
“Yes, I can see that. I’ll ask you again. What are you doing?”
I lower my head, breathing rapidly. I know I’m making it worse—acting nervous, avoiding eye contact, like I’m up to no good. But I can’t help it. “Nothing.” I keep fiddling with the Rubik’s Cube, without taking it from my pocket.
“It sure looks like you’re doing something.”
I try to think of an answer, but my head is full of static. My legs itch with the urge to bolt, but if I do, he’ll chase me. “I don’t know why you’re asking me these questions.” My voice shakes. “I don’t know why people won’t just leave me alone.”
He takes another step toward me, and I take another step back. “What’s that you’ve got in your pocket?” He holds out one meaty hand. “Let’s see it.”
I don’t want him taking my Rubik’s Cube. I don’t like anyone touching my things. My skin crawls at the thought of him turning the cube over in his hands, getting his fingerprints all over it, violating it. He might decide not to give it back. I hunch my shoulders. “Go away.”
He speaks slowly and evenly: “Place your hands against the wall.”
I feel sick.
“Place your hands against the wall,” he says again.
When I don’t obey, he grabs my wrists and shoves my hands against the wall. My whole body goes rigid. The touch sends a sharp jolt through me, like a hot poker raking down my spine. His fingers are burning my skin. “Let me go.”
“Keep your hands there, where I can see them—”
I can’t stop myself; I start to struggle. I kick. When he pushes me against the wall, I scream.
“Get your hands off her!”
For a second or two, I don’t recognize Stanley’s voice. I’ve never heard him speak so loudly or forcefully.
The policeman looks up, blinking. “Excuse me?”
“I said let her go!” Stanley shoves himself between me and the policeman, shielding me with his body. His face is flushed and shiny with perspiration as he holds up his cell phone. “I’ve already dialed 911. All I have to do is hit send.”
The policeman glances at his crutch and scowls. “This isn’t what you think it is,” he says. “Step aside.”
“I’m not going to just stand back and let you assault her!”
“I’m not assaulting her, for God’s sake, I’m trying to do my job.” The man draws himself up, looming over Stanley. He’s nearly six inches taller and probably a hundred pounds heavier. “Now for the last time, put your phone away and step aside. Or this is going to get ugly.” The color drains from Stanley’s face, but still, he stands his ground. The man reaches for something at his belt.
“Wait!” I blurt out, and plunge my hand into my pocket. The man tenses and starts to pull out his gun. In the same instant, I pull out the Rubik’s Cube.
He freezes and blinks at it. His expression goes blank. Then he shoves the gun back into its holster. “Let me see that.”
I hesitate. Resisting will just make things worse—for Stanley as well as me—so I hand him the cube. He turns it over in his hands, poking at it like it’s some mysterious alien artifact, then hands it back to me. His expression is rigid, but his cheeks redden slightly. He clears his throat. “Well, apparently there’s been a misunderstanding.” He crosses his arms. “Why didn’t you just take it out when I told you to?”
I don’t answer. I don’t know what to say.
He frowns. “Is she re . . . mentally challenged, or something?”
“No,” Stanley says.
“Well, then what’s her problem?”
“You’re scaring her.”
The man glares at Stanley, then at me. He breathes a heavy sigh. “Fine. Whatever.” He shakes his head, muttering under his breath as he turns his back to us, then gets into his car and drives away. I clutch the Rubik’s Cube against my chest.
Stanley starts to reach out, then stops. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.” I’m still feeling shaky and weak and a little nauseous, but it will pass. It could’ve been worse. Would’ve been, if he hadn’t shown up. “What about you.”
He smiles, though his face is still pale. “Fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
“I have a thing about large, intimidating men yelling at me.” He wipes his brow with one sleeve and sags against the nearby wall. “I’ll be okay in a minute.”
This is my fault. A dull heat spreads across my brow and seeps down into my ears and cheeks.
He takes a deep breath, closes his eyes, and lets it out slowly. “Do you want to sit down?”
I hesitate—then nod.
We walk over to the bench in the park and sit, side by side, not quite touching.
“That was nuts,” Stanley says. “I mean, you weren’t doing anything. You were just standing there.”
I shrug. “I look suspicious. That’s just how it is. Lots of people have to deal with this kind of thing.”
“That doesn’t make it okay.”
I look at him from the corner of my eye. He stood up for me. He took a risk for my sake. Not many people have done that. “Thank you,” I say, the words awkward and unfamiliar in my mouth.
“You’re welcome.”
For a few minutes, neither one of us says anything. I can’t read Stanley’s expression. His fingers are clenched tight on his crutch, the knuckles almost white. I avert my gaze, my throat suddenly, painfully tight.
“Look at me,” he whispers. “Please?”
His eyes are bright in the dimness, almost luminous. They seem to soak up the faint light and reflect it back, like a cat’s; the bluish-gray whites are opalescent. “I understand, you know,” he says. “Why you’re scared. This whole human-interaction thing isn’t exactly easy for me, either.”
He thinks he understands, but he doesn’t. There’s so much more to it. So much I can’t even begin to tell him.
I’m still twisting the Rubik’s Cube, spinning the rows of color, but my mind won’t focus; I’m undoing the progress I’ve made, scattering the rows into tiny squares, jumbling it into a mass of incoherent color.
“I was never any good at those,” he says, distracting me. “Rubik’s Cubes, I mean. I had one as a kid, but I wasn’t able to solve it.”
“They aren’t really that hard. You just have to be patient.”
“May I try?”
I hesitate, then hand it to him. He starts to twist it. His slender, long-fingered hands are fascinating to watch, almost hypnotic.
“Start by solving the white side,” I advise.
It takes him a while, but eventually, he manages to complete one section. He hands it back to me, leaning a little closer in the process. His eyelashes are very long and dark, in contrast to mine, which are short and almost invisible because they’re the same pale red as my hair. I lower my gaze and clutch the Rubik’s Cube against my chest.
“You like puzzles,” he remarks. There’s no inflection at the end, so it’s probably intended more as an observation than a question.
I reply anyway. “I find them calming.”
He smiles a little. “Sometimes, when I’m stressed out, I distract myself by solving riddles. I guess that’s kind of the same. Like a puzzle in your head. There’s one from Alice in Wonderland . . . ‘Why is a raven like a writing desk?’ I thought about that for a long time before I learned that it was supposed to be unanswerable.”
“I never liked riddles much. They’re too ambiguous. A puzzle only has one solution, even if there are many different ways to get there.” I lock a row of colors into place on my Rubik’s Cube. “A raven and a writing desk are similar in any number of ways. They’re both made of matter, for one thing. They’re both heavier than a blade of grass.”
“Sure, but a good riddle has only one right solution, and it seems self-evident once you know it. There’s that moment where things kind of snap into focus.”
I hesitate. “All right. Tell me one.”
“Here’s an easy one. What has hands but can’t clap?”
“A corpse.”
He winces. “A clock. Jeez.”
“Well, my answer fits, too.”
“Yeah, but . . .” He lets out a little sigh. “Okay, here’s a better one. There’s a house with four walls facing south. A bear is circling the house. What color is the bear?”
I twist the cube harder. “How is anyone supposed to answer that. Those two things aren’t even remotely connected. Anyway, there’s no way a house could have four walls all facing south. That’s impossible.”
“Is it?”
“Obviously. Unless—” I frown, thinking. “Unless it’s at the North Pole. Which means . . . it’s probably a polar bear.” Realization clicks into place. “The bear is white.”
“There you go.”
I make a noncommittal sound in my throat. “All right. I see what you mean. But that one was more of a logic problem than a riddle.”
He chuckles quietly. “Maybe.”
It’s strange, how easily we slip back into conversation after everything that’s happened. I’ve missed it.
An image floats up behind my retinas: Stanley sitting on the bench alone, crying. “Stanley . . . do you remember the day you threw your phone into the pond.”
His smile fades. “Yeah. I remember.”
“Why did you do that.” I asked before, once, and he just said he was being stupid and that it didn’t matter. But there must be a reason.
He folds his hands together. “My mom had cancer,” he says. “She had it for a long time. After a while, it spread to her brain. And they couldn’t operate. They—they said that if they took out the tumor, she would probably be a vegetable. No awareness. She didn’t want that.”
There’s a small sharp pain somewhere between my heart and throat, like a fishhook has caught inside me.
“She knew she wouldn’t be around much longer. So she went to Elkland Meadows, and they made her comfortable. That’s what they do there.” The moonlight makes the bruise-colored circles under his eyes darker, the hollows in his cheeks more prominent. “One day, the pain was really bad, and they asked her if she wanted to stay awake or just sleep for whatever time was left. She said she wanted to sleep. So we said good-bye. I threw away my phone because there seemed to be no point in keeping it. I mean, who was I going to call?”
A faint trace of daylight lingers in the sky, but the moon is already out. It slips behind a cloud, then emerges, wreathed in a silvery-white halo. Black-and-pearl-colored dusk shadows stretch across the grass.
“I’m sorry,” I say. They’re the only words I have.
“It’s okay,” he replies.
But it’s not. Words aren’t enough.
I start to reach out. Stop. Then I close the gap between us and take his hand. His fingers twitch, then curl around mine. His hand feels bird-fragile, the bones long and thin, the skin fever-hot. He squeezes my hand lightly.
“You never told me.” The words fall from my numb lips, into the cold air. “Why.”
“It didn’t seem fair to unload all that on you. And I didn’t want to scare you away. I mean . . . you’re kind of my only friend.”
That word again. Feelings stir beneath my skin: uncomfortable feelings, like there are thin wires running into the center of my rib cage and something is tugging at those wires, sending vibrations into my core.
“I guess that’s a weird thing to admit out of the blue, isn’t it? But yeah. I’m kind of a loner. Which is a slightly cooler-sounding way of saying ‘nerd with no social life.’”
I can’t process this. “You talk to other people at your school. Don’t you.”
“Sometimes. But it’s not the same. We talk about what TV shows we like or what music we listen to. We don’t talk like this.”
I don’t respond; I’m struggling to control my breathing.
“I guess I just unloaded. Exactly the way I didn’t want to. God. Sorry.”
He’s always apologizing.
“I’m not even nice to you,” I say.
“Sure you are. More than once, you stayed up with me until four o’clock in the morning because I couldn’t sleep. Remember?”
“It’s not like I had anything better to do.”
“Every time you show me a kindness, you downplay it like this. Why are you so worried about being seen as a nice person?”
“I’m not a nice person.”
“We’ll just have to disagree on that.”
I let his hand slip from mine. My fingers are suddenly cold. “I don’t know how to do this,” I murmur.
“Do what?”
“This. Everything.”
He gives me a tiny smile. “I guess we can just play it by ear.” He bites his lower lip. “Do you . . . do you want to get lunch tomorrow?”
“I have work.”
He lowers his gaze.
“We could have dinner instead, maybe.”
His breath hitches. “Really? I mean, great. That sounds great.”
“Do you want to go to Buster’s again. Or someplace else.”
“Actually I was wondering . . . would you like to come to my place?”
I blink and turn toward him. For a few seconds, I’m too surprised to respond.
“I’m actually a pretty good cook,” he adds.
What does it mean, that he’s inviting me? What would it imply, if I accepted? “We’re just going to eat dinner,” I say. “We’re not going to have sex.”
Color rushes to his cheeks. “Well, yeah. I mean, no. Of course.”
“Which is it,” I ask.
“That was a question?”
“Yes.”
“Sorry. So . . . you’re asking me if I . . .”
“I like having clearly defined boundaries,” I say. “I’ve never been in this situation before, so I need to know what your expectations are.”
His face is bright red now. “I just want to cook dinner for you. Honest. I wasn’t planning on making any moves. After last night, I thought we should take things slow.”
I pick at a loose thread of my sleeve. “Just be friends, you mean.”
“If that’s what you want.”
Is that what I want?
Things are so much simpler with animals. With human beings, everything is so complicated and ambiguous. There are people who remain friends without ever having sex. Then there are friends with benefits, people who have sex but don’t bother with the other aspects of a relationship. And then, of course, there’s romance, which is something I don’t understand at all.
This feels dangerous. I should say no; I should retreat, regroup, try to figure out what all this means.
“Yes.”
A wide smile breaks across his face, and suddenly—despite my misgivings—I’m glad I agreed. “Great. I’ll email you the directions.”
I nod.
We look at each other, and I find myself preoccupied, once again, with those uncanny eyes. Blue within blue. I’ve never seen anything like them. I want to ask, but the words stick in my throat.
“You know,” he says, “I just figured it out.”
“What?”
“Why is a raven like a writing desk?”
I furrow my brow. “Why.”
“Neither is made of cheese.”
I blink a few times. “Well, now you’re just being silly.”
“But I made you smile.” His voice softens. “You’ve got a nice smile, you know.”
I touch my lips, surprised. I hadn’t realized I was smiling.
Later, sitting on my couch, I open up my laptop. Blue sclerae. I plug the words into the search engine, and a list of medical sites pops up. I click on a link and start reading.
Blue sclerae can result from loss of water content, which causes a thinning of the tissue, allowing the underlying dark choroids to be seen.
I scroll down to causes. There are forty-seven possible medical causes listed. Among them are skeletal disorders, chromosome and ocular disorders, and high urine excretion. I think about calling Stanley to ask if he urinates a lot, then quickly reject the idea and go back to scrutinizing the possible causes listed on the website. Sometimes, it says, there is no specific cause. It might mean nothing.
I close the browser window. Probably I’m overthinking it.