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“You have to buy me a drink to find out.” Jem beckoned for the comb, and taking it, he turned Tean around. This was an old routine for them now, and he had Tean’s hair subdued in a matter of minutes. He took longer with his own hard side part, and after a few rounds of “Just a minute,” Tean started jingling the car keys.
“You’re definitely not wearing underwear,” Tean said as Jem drove them out of the Santaland parking lot. “I can see your penis.”
“Aww, shucks, Doc.”
And, of course, for some reason Tean was the one who started blushing.
Mid-Missouri Big Cat Sanctuary—Rod’s cat sanctuary—was hosting that evening’s cocktail hour, which would be followed by a tour of the facilities, followed by (inevitably) more drinking. It was located north of the Santaland resort, on a bend in the reservoir’s shoreline. Tean had done some research on the sanctuary during a particularly boring session that day; Rod owned hundreds of acres, and as Jem and Tean drove closer, it became clear that Rod was intent on marking his property. A chicken-wire fence ran along the boundary, with signs every hundred feet that said MID-MISSOURI BIG CAT SANCTUARY and PRIVATE PROPERTY and NO TRESPASSING and DANGER! BIG CATS!
“Doesn’t want people on his land,” Jem said. “Kind of strange when you rely on paying visitors.”
Tean nodded, but he said, “Well, I’m sure he doesn’t want lawsuits. And he’s probably tired of dealing with people sneaking into the sanctuary. Local kids, people who don’t want to pay the admission fee, activists.”
Jem raised his eyebrows.
“Don’t get me started,” Tean said with a laugh.
Jem didn’t say anything, but he wrapped a hand around Tean’s knee, and they drove on in silence.
Their drive onto the property gave Tean a chance to assess the sanctuary. It was close to what he expected: a gravel drive that led to a central parking lot, dirt service roads with deep ruts, dust from daily traffic coating everything in a reddish-brown drift. The buildings had plywood siding painted what Tean thought of as conservation department brown, with three-tab shingles that looked like they should have been replaced ten years ago. In the distance, the cat enclosures were visible: black-rust skeletons of cattle panels and sheet metal, and farther, the ruddy glimmer of water. A lake, Tean guessed, where the enclosures converged. An ideal—and common—layout.
Several hotel shuttles were parked in front of what was clearly the central building. Unlike the other structures, this one had board-and-batten siding with barn-red paint, a patchwork steel roof, and small, serviceable windows that suggested economy and function—probably the former first, then the latter. Conference-goers mingled on a neatly sheared swath of lawn, and while many of the attendees wore semiformal outfits—jackets and ties, or summer dresses—equally as many wore everyday clothes. A woman in olive-colored bib overalls and a Duluth Trading Company t-shirt passed a glass of white wine to a woman in a t-shirt, jeans, and enviably sturdy-looking hiking boots. Her trucker hat saidLive, Love, Rescuein what Tean thought of as Etsy font. A man in a sand-colored work shirt and khakis was trying—struggling might have been a better word—to find something in the pocket of a utility vest. Another man, heedless of the heat in a long-sleeve Carhartt shirt and shiny nylon field pants, fanned himself with a fishing hat.
“That is a godawful amount of brown,” Jem said to himself as he parked the Jetta. “What is happening right now? Have these people never been to a cocktail party?”
“They’re comfortable.”
Jem paused with his hand on the gear shift. “I hope I’m not hearing a tone.”
“I’m comfortable too,” Tean hurried to say.
Jem’s blue eyes could look quite stormy sometimes.
“Very comfortable,” Tean added.
“This is a professional event.”
“Yes, and—”
“And it’s important to me that my husband, who is extremely handsome, look his absolute best.”
“I appreciate that, but—”
“Which means not wearing khaki, and not wearing his Utah DWR polo, and not wearing his twenty-year-old Keens.”
“I understand, and what I meant to say earlier was—”
“Or brown, Tean. No brown! Look at all that brown! I mean, hell, they’re all vets, aren’t they? Have they ever heard of a peacock?”
Tean had to stop at that one. A chuckle slipped out, and then Jem was laughing too, both of them laughing a soft, awkward laugh after the tension of the quasi-argument. It slowly eased and opened up until it felt real, and then everything was ok again.
When they’d both quieted, Tean said, “Thank you for picking out nice clothes for me.”
Jem accepted a kiss on the cheek, but he said, “No more brown.”
“You realize lots of animals use colors to find mates.”
With a grunt, Jem fixed Tean with a look. “You’re already taken.”
