The Care and Feeding of Exotic Pets (18 page)

“Oh no,” Buster grunted and erupted in her pubic hair. His whole body went rigid and then shaky and then he collapsed on top of her. She pulled her hand away just in time. His semen squished between them, sour smelling and all globby. It couldn't be over. This wasn't it, was it? He was done and she was just beginning.

He rolled off her and closed his eyes. This was it then. He had had his fun and he would drive her back to school and they hadn't even really had sex. He said “oh no” which did not sound good. She had done something wrong by grabbing him, guiding him. Lacy began to cry.

“Oh oh oh oh oh. Don't cry.”

It was just too much. Skipping school for the first time. The scary guy in the garden. Kissing Buster and now this. She wanted her mother. She wanted to be home on the couch with tomato soup and the TV, as if this were a fever from which she needed to recuperate. Buster stroked her hair and kissed her cheeks.

“You're even pretty when you cry.”

“Really?”

“Most people get all puffy and red. You should see my sister. It's gross.”

She smiled at him.

“I love your smile."

“You do?”

“Since eighth grade. Well, I was in eighth, you were in seventh and those juggling clowns came to assembly and everybody was booing and bored but you had a great big smile on your face.”

“My mom just said she wants to be a birthday party clown.”

“She'd be a good one.”

“Mortifying.”

“No, it's cool. Definitely a give back kind of thing.”

It seemed so normal to be talking to Buster. Even though they were naked and her stomach was sticky and she needed to blow her nose. Buster. Buster and Lacy. It was nice.

“Did I—” she began and stopped.

“What?”

“Did I do something wrong? Is that why you said oh no?”

“No! It's all me. I was—you were perfect. Really. And you're technically I guess still a virgin, so if you want to save that for some other, more important guy, I mean, I understand. It—this was great, for me, but—”

She started to laugh. “Why do we both think we suck so much?”

“I just want it to be right for you.”

She reached for him. “Can we try again?”

“As many times as you like. What I lack in staying power, I make up for in—”

“Please shut up.”

Oren blinked. He rubbed his eyes. Could this really be happening? He would get his iguana from the world's greatest reptile guy and he could go home alone. This would all be taken care of. Kidney had offered him the perfect solution.

“Oren!” She called to him. Her face was dirty.

“What are you going to do with her?”

Kidney looked at him and grinned. Winnie struggled under his boot.

“I like a woman who will fight,” he said. “It's more fun. For awhile.”

“And then what?” Oren wasn't sure what he wanted to hear.

Kidney gave his weird, growling laugh. “Maybe I'll take her to Paraguay with me. She's a little thing. I can put her in the suitcase like I did the snakes.”

Winnie squirmed and bucked. Her voice was squeaky as if it was hard for her to breathe. “Oren, you can't do this. What is the matter with you? I thought you needed to teach me something. What about your plan? Haven't I been good? You can't give me to him. I'll give you the rest of the money. You know I will.”

Kidney moved his boot to her head and pressed her face into the pavement. “Have to get her a muzzle. Shut her up." He took a handkerchief out of his pocket. It was obviously well used. “We can use this.” He bent to stuff the grimy handkerchief into Winnie's mouth.

“Wait,” Oren said. Then he wasn't sure what else to say. “Wait,” he said again, and, “Someone might see us.”

Not really. Not at all. The back of the restaurant was a blank wall of yellow bricks. The door to the kitchen was closed. An alley bordered the parking lot and across it was a high wooden fence. They were between the dumpster and the alley. If someone drove around the side they would see him, and maybe the top of Kidney's head, but not Winnie lying on the ground. Winnie. His girlfriend's mother. He had said it, but she didn't believe him. She didn't know he loved Lacy more than anything in the world. Even more than Cookie. He walked over to Winnie and waved Kidney away.

“Say goodbye,” Kidney chuckled as he took a step back. “My turn now.”

Oren squatted beside her. His head hurt. He was sore all over and he was so tired. Winnie's eyes were closed. Maybe she was sleeping. He wished he could sleep. He circled her wrist with his thumb and forefinger. She was tiny. The women in his family, his mother and sister, his aunt the one time he met her, were large with stomachs that jiggled and breasts that flopped and threatened to spill in every direction. Winnie was compact and all in one piece. Her hands were half the size of his. He could not give her to Kidney to be folded into a suitcase with a filthy handkerchief in her mouth. He could not let her be used and thrown away. Even if it would help him. Even if it would solve all his problems. He was so tired. He needed to get more sleep. He did not want to continue with his plan. But he had to, he had to, he had to.

Her wrist looked brown against his fingers. That olive color, so much different than his, so different than he expected. How odd that she was the mother of his beautiful, pale, long-limbed blond girl. “Huh,” he grunted aloud. Maybe she wasn't really
Lacy's mother. Maybe Lacy was adopted. Or maybe this woman, this Winnie, was a kidnapper, a Jew or a gypsy, who had stolen that golden baby. It was not his fault she was so damn difficult. She was a trickster. A thief. A witch.

Oren stood up. Let him have her. Let him take her and fuck her and throw her out the window. “Wake up,” he said.

Winnie's eyes opened immediately. “I'm not sleeping.”

“Who are you?” he asked. “Did you steal your daughter? Take her from the hospital when she was born? Are you really her mother?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Maybe you aren't who you say you are.”

She pushed herself up to sitting. There were bits of gravel on her cheek. “Of course I'm her mother. Of course I am."

She was crying, but silently. He had never known tears to fall without the woman wailing. She was such an oddball. The mother of his girlfriend.

“I want to believe you,” he said.

“We have the same nose. I have a picture in my wallet. She's blond like her father and her grandmother.”

“Liar, liar, pants on fire.”

“Believe me.”

He considered her wide mouth, her brown eyes. She blinked slowly.

“Do that again,” he said. “Blink like that.”

She did and he saw something in her face. Something familiar. He had to see it. The picture of Lacy he had downloaded. There was something in the eyebrows, or the chin. Something. The nose. Definitely the nose. Yes, Winnie was Lacy's mother. Daisy Juniper was Winnie's mother. Jonathan Parker the game show host was Winnie's ex-husband. Of course Lacy was blonde. It was just Winnie who had lost out, who was dark and
small and like a little animal. An unfortunate mouse, he thought. Possibly a Jewish mouse, but that was not important to him. It was how she was. Who she was. Not what. Poor thing. So dark and dirty looking. No wonder she was so mean to Lacy. She was jealous.

“Times a'wastin', boy,” Kidney chuckled.

He had listened to her beg for her life. He had listened to her pee. He had carried her to bed with his arms under her bare legs and been close enough to breathe in the flakes of her skin. As his fingers had tied the around her ankles, their sweat had blended. He could smell her on his fingers. There was so much more he had planned. He bent and whispered to her, “I want you to know me."

“I do know you,” she said. “The way you talk. The way you move. The way your fingers close when you're angry.”

“Not that,” he said. He wanted her to understand. “That's barely anything.”

She had not begun to see the real him, the good Oren. He liked people. All kinds of people. Anybody, any kind of person, could be his friend. He had a cheerful greeting for each and every co-worker in the morning. Everybody at Carpet Barn liked him.

She patted his shoes with her bound hands. “Oren. Don't give me away. Not to him. He'll hurt me. He'll kill me. Please. You're better than this."

She looked up at him and her eyelashes were wet and dark and her eyes were so terribly disappointed. In him. She dropped her head and he felt her reproach in his chest.

“You're better than this,” she whispered it again. “Would you let someone treat Cookie this way?”

Kidney snorted as he walked over to them. “Over and out, Oren boy. I got lots to do today.” He easily lifted Winnie off the ground and held her in both arms like a bride about to cross the
threshold. She opened her mouth to scream, but Oren shook his head no, and she didn't. Her eyes were pleading with him. Like Cookie when he was hungry. Like any creature who needed taking care of. And Oren could do that. He was good at that.

“Put her down,” Oren said.

“This means no female,” Kidney said. “I don't get one, neither do you.”

“I'm taking her with me.”

Kidney laughed. “C'mon, boy. What're you gonna do with her?”

The way he said it was insulting. “Put her down. I want my money back.”

Kidney slung Winnie over his shoulder, like some kind of big game, and started for his car. “I'll get you the best little lady iguana you ever saw.”

Winnie was fighting now. She did not want to go with him. Oren could see she was desperate not to go with him. “Oren,” she screamed. “Please.”

But Kidney was a big man. He reminded Oren of his uncle, his father, all the men he had known. He stood there, afraid to move forward. “Stop,” he said feebly.

Kidney swung around to laugh at him.

“The gun,” Winnie shouted. “Use the gun.”

Oren had forgotten his gun. He took it out and pointed it at Kidney.

Kidney's squinty little eyes opened. He stopped laughing. Then he shrugged. “Oh, right,” he said, “like you're really gonna use that.”

Oren took a step toward him. He began to smile as he saw Kidney's concern, his involuntary step back. “Put her down and give me my money.”

“Jesus Christ. Have your old housewife.”

Kidney dropped Winnie and she fell awkwardly onto her knees with a crack Oren could hear. He grimaced. More bruises. He had forgotten her ankles were tied and she couldn't catch herself on her feet.

“Now my money.”

“No iguana for you.”

“Give me back my money.”

“I drove all the way down here, sat in there drinking god awful coffee waiting for you.”

“I drove all the way down here too.”

Kidney just gave a humpf and turned to go to his car.

“Wait!” Oren shouted.

Kidney kicked Winnie as he walked past her. She had been struggling to her feet and she fell again. He should not have kicked her. Oren launched himself at Kidney, leapt onto his back and wrapped his arms around his neck. He pounded Kidney's face with the fist not holding the gun.

Kidney roared and twisted and tried to peel Oren off his back. He pulled at the hand holding the gun.

“Hey,” Kidney wheezed. “This gun ain't real!”

“What?” Winnie spoke from the ground.

“Give me back my money!”

Kidney twisted the gun out of Oren's hand as he shook him off. He threw the gun to the ground and stepped on it. It splintered into pieces. Winnie moaned.

“Don't,” Oren whined. “Don't.”

Kidney pushed Oren to the ground and kicked him once in the ribs. “You little twat.”

Oren curled into a ball. He saw Winnie getting to her knees, trying to crawl with wrists and ankles bound. “Winnie!” he called to her. She couldn't leave him now. He had protected her from Kidney. He pushed himself up, all the way up, until he
faced Kidney, who had his fists out, prepared for a fight.

“Dickwad,” Oren said.

“What did you call me?”

“Dickwad,” Oren said. It just came out of his mouth. He never called people names. He was going to apologize when he looked over and saw Winnie smile at him. A genuine smile filled with love and respect. He felt his chest expand. “I said give me my money.”

“Fuck you.” Kidney started for his car.

“I said—” Oren slipped the knife out of the pocket of his jeans and flicked it open. Once again he jumped onto Kidney's back. This time he held the knife against Kidney's throat. “Give me the envelope.”

He pressed the knife into the wiggly flesh. He pressed hard enough to draw blood, a little prick, but Kidney howled as if he'd been skewered. Oren stretched and grew. He was six feet, eight feet, ten feet tall. No one could stop him and he loved the sound of his own voice. “Right now—Dickwad. Give me my money, right now.”

A firmer touch with the knife, a little more blood.

“I was only kidding anyway.” Kidney grunted. “Get off me.”

Oren jumped down but held on to Kidney's belt buckle. Kidney took out the envelope and threw it to the ground.

“Don't ever call me again.”

“Don't worry.” Oren let him go.

Kidney ran the rest of the way to his car. Oren watched him start it up and the tires smoke as he sped out of the parking lot. He laughed as he walked back to Winnie.

“All this time, it wasn't a real gun?”

“Can't you say thank you?”

“For what?”

“I saved you,” Oren said. He could not believe the frown
on her face. “I saved you from Kidney. Did you want to go with him?”

“No.”

“I gave up the best female iguana he could find, for you.”

Winnie sat on the ground with her knees up. She put her head on her knees and whispered, “Right. Thank you.”