“Peter, in four years, you’ve called me about animals—exclusively about animals. Now you’re asking for private time on a Saturday morning. That’s a date.”
“Will you help me or not?”
His warm chuckle drifted through the phone line. “Are you kidding? I’ll do you one better. I’ll give you the full backstage pass to the hospital wing and the nutrition kitchen. I’ll even have Sarah open the giraffe platform early. Makena’s been hand-feeding well this week, and the manatee rehab team does their morning check at 10:30. I can get you in for that instead of the public feeding demo. You’ll be in the water room with the animals, not behind glass.”
“That would be excellent.”
“I have one condition.”
“What?”
“You bring this person by my office so I can meethim, because whoever convinced Peter Loupier to call me for something other than a leopard’s spine has to be worth meeting.”
“That’s unnecessary.”
“It’s my condition. Take it or leave it.”
“Fine.”
“What time do you want to start?”
“9:30. I need us out by 1:15. He works at four.”
“9:30,” Marcus repeated. I could hear the smile in his voice, not teasing but warm, the smile of a man who had watched me operate for fourteen hours on a giraffe’s leg while my partner was dying, and who was, I suspected, genuinely glad to hear that something in my life had changed.
“9:30, right,” I said. “Thank you, Marcus.”
“Send me those elephant panels before Saturday and we’ll call it even.”
I hung up and sat in the break room and made a list on a Post-it note:
9:30 — Meet Marcus, backstage access
9:45 — Hospital wing and nutrition prep
10:30 — Manatee rehab (in the water room, not public)
11:15 — Giraffe platform (private, before public hours)
11:45 — Africa section, general grounds
12:15 — Lunch (check menu, he doesn’t eat beef on Saturdays—unclear why, possibly superstition, don’t ask)
12:45 — Gift shop (budget: reasonable)
1:15 — Depart (buffer for traffic, needs to be at bar by 4)
I reviewed the list.
I considered, briefly, that this was insane, that a normal person would make dinner reservations and buy flowers and conduct the early stages of a romance through the established channels of candlelight and wine and effortless spontaneity.
Then I considered that Benji had fallen for a man who communicated through refrigerator stationery and owned Milk Duds tongs. The effortless spontaneity ship had sailed approximately two months ago when I’d handed him a laminated kitten-feeding binder. I knew, deep in my bones, that the most honest thing I could offer another person was not a performance of normalcy, but the actual shape of who I was: organized, precise, and deeply invested in the veterinary infrastructure of regional zoological facilities.
I folded the list and put it in my wallet.
I told Benji Friday night around 2:45 a.m. A new foster had arrived, a nervous orange tabby namedClementine, and Princess Consuela had identified Benji’s closed door as a personal affront requiring immediate investigation.
“Tomorrow morning,” I said. “I’m taking you somewhere.”
