Unspoken Read online

  “Show-off,” I whispered.

  Claire followed my gaze and watched Sema for a moment, then turned back to me. “It was really nice of you to let us come out here. I’m envious of the relationship you and Sema share. At the zoo, you know, we work under a hands-off policy. We watch the g’s and take care of them, but we hardly ever get to interact with them, you know?”

  I nodded, only half listening as I watched to be sure none of the other students got stupid and decided to stick a hand through the mesh. They were safe as long as Sema was performing her acrobatics, but she could drop to the ground in a heartbeat, and she had no appreciation of her own strength.

  “Well . . . thanks again, Ms. Granger. I really appreciate your time.”

  Claire’s voice snapped me back to reality. I’d seen this kind of wide-eyed enthusiasm before, but at least hers was informed enthusiasm.

  “You’re welcome. By the way”—I gave her a thin smile—“how do you like working with Brad Fielding?”

  “Brad? You know Brad?”

  I nodded. “We worked together before he left for San Diego.”

  Her smile broadened. “Isn’t he the best? Sometimes I think he knows everything about gorillas. And he loves the g’s. Really loves ’em.”

  If he loved gorillas so much, why did he get so mad at me for rescuing Sema? I swallowed the bitter words that rose to my tongue and substituted a smooth reply: “I’m sure he does.”

  I stepped toward the gate leading into the play yard, effectively ending the conversation. I waited there, biding my time, until the last student got into his vehicle.

  When our visitors had gone, I opened the gate and stepped inside. “Sema? Ready for your lunch?”

  Sema slipped through one of the holes in the rope net overhead, then crawled hand over hand as if she were crossing a set of monkey bars. When her toes dangled in front of my face, she dropped to the ground, grinning. People visit more?

  “Not today, sweetie. We’re going to have a snack and let you take a nap.”

  First play ball? She tilted her head and smiled at me, knowing full well I found that look irresistible.

  “Okay—but only for a minute.”

  I jogged across the play yard and found her rubber kick ball, then tossed it underhand. Sema caught it easily, then threw it past me. “You stinker!” I ran for it. “You’re trying to wear me out!”

  Sometimes I wondered which of us had been the trainer and which the trainee.

  When I turned to find her again, Sema was panting in her silent gorilla laugh, her pink mouth and tongue bright in the darkness of her face. You dirty stink nut , she signed. You crazy woman!

  I held the ball, pursing my lips as I beheld the creature I had molded from infancy. I never meant to teach her how to insult me, but, like a human child, Sema has picked up attitudes I never meant to impart.

  We played a quick, breathless game of dodgeball. Sema hid behind her playhouse as I sent the ball flying over her head. She retrieved it and launched it into the air. Together we watched it sail nearly to the wire-covered roof, then it arched and landed with a splash in the wading pool five feet to my right. I jumped, but too late, and Sema applauded when water splashed my jeans.

  “Sema!” I exaggerated my look of horror. “Did you mean to get me wet?”

  Sema make fun . Hurry hurry more play. Throw ball.

  “This is fun for you, maybe. Not so much fun for me, especially when it’s cold.”

  “Want me to bring you a towel?”

  The unexpected sound of a male voice sent a chill up my spine. I whirled around, expecting to find that one of the grad students had returned, but the man standing outside the enclosure was no student.

  Brad Fielding.

  For an instant my brain stuttered. Fielding, in the flesh, looking better than he had when we parted so many years ago. He wore his brown hair shorter now, complimenting the spikes of a cowlick that rose at the edge of his forehead in a disobedient spray. His trim physique had not changed much, but though I knew he stood only four inches taller than I, somehow he seemed bigger . . . and far more imposing.

  A flash of irritation heated my face. “What are you doing here?”

  “I came to see you—and the gorilla, of course.” His brown eyes shifted to Sema, who had straightened at the sound of anger in my voice. “How is she?”

  “She’s fine—and it’s time for her lunch.”

  His mouth tipped in a wry smile. “You make her wear a sweater ?”

  “I don’t force her; she likes it. Besides, I don’t want her catching cold. And now I’d appreciate it if you’d move away so I can take her inside.”

  Fielding lifted his hands in a no harm, no foul gesture, then stepped back. Not far enough, though, for Sema could still see him.

  “It’s all right,” I told her, signing as I spoke. “He is—” I hesitated. He wasn’t a friend, not at the moment. But I’d never had a reason to teach Sema the word enemy .

  “Would you please move farther back?” I spoke in a voice as cool as the January breeze. “Out of sight would be best. She may not cooperate if she’s distracted.”

  Without replying, Fielding turned on his heel and slid his hands into his pockets. He walked toward the driveway, whistling as if he hadn’t a care in the world.

  “Come, Sema.” I lifted her collar from the box by the gate and fas- tened it around her neck. “Let’s go inside. Would you like some apple juice? After you have your snack, maybe we can read a book.”

  Sema like juice . Sema like man visit.

  “Do you, now?” I grimaced a smile that probably didn’t fool her. “You are a nice gorilla, you know that? Come inside and let’s get your juice. You can drink it while I get your lunch from the fridge.”

  Sema and I crossed the short distance from the gate to the trailer, then she climbed the porch steps and bounded inside. I followed and locked the door, then slipped the padlock from the refrigerator to pull out a juice box.

  She slipped out of her sweater as I jabbed the short straw through the foil opening. “Here, sweetie.”

  While she slurped her juice, I pulled her lunch tray from the fridge and set it on the low table. The arrangement of alfalfa sprouts, carrots, oranges, and green beans sprinkled with cooked hamburger even appealed to me.

  Sema set down her juice box and picked up a peeled orange, then bit it as she would an apple.

  “Good girl. When you’re done, which book would you like to read?”

  Pumpkin Patch .

  Her signs were sloppy on account of the orange in her hand, but I understood. “Polly’s Pumpkin Patch ? Let me get it.”

  Sema ate her lunch while I riffled through our library. By the time I found the book she wanted, she had gone into her room and made herself comfortable in her nest.

  She grinned when I came through the doorway. Play tickle?

  I held up the book. “I thought we were going to read.”

  Hurry, hurry, play tickle.

  Sighing, I dropped the paperback and lifted my hands. Wriggling my fingers like some mad tickler gone amok, I whispered the sounds Dian Fossey had used to charm both human and gorilla infants: “Oouchy-gouchy-goo-zoooom!”

  On cue, Sema stiffened and lay back, bracing herself for my scrambling fingers. I scurried them over her belly and wriggled them into the wells of her underarms while she convulsed in silent laughter.

  While she caught her breath, I offered the book again. “Don’t you want me to read about the pumpkin patch?”

  Sema took the book, then dropped it into her lap. Sema look book. Glee find man .

  Not for the first time, I marveled at her stubborn memory. She hadn’t forgotten about Brad Fielding.

  I gave her a careful smile. “You don’t have to worry about him, girlie. I’ll find the man while you read your book. And I’ll be back when you wake up from your nap, okay?”

  Sema didn’t answer, but opened her book and studied the first page with an artificially bright interest.


  Steeling myself for what was bound to be an unpleasant encounter, I opened the door and stepped outside.

  4

  I found Fielding standing by his car, one hand in his jacket pocket, the other pressed against the rough bark of an oak tree. “This is a lovely specimen,” he called as I approached. “We’d love to have more mature trees like this for the primate habitat.”

  “You can’t have my oak . . . and you can’t have my gorilla.”

  His brown eyes flashed a warning. “She’s not your gorilla, Glee. Sema is the registered property of the Thousand Oaks Zoo.”

  I took a deep breath and flexed my fingers until the urge to throttle him had passed. “That remains to be seen, Fielding. I’m not sure you can actually own a thinking individual. Sema is as cognizant as any child and a great deal more self-determining than many incapacitated human adults—”

  “I didn’t come here to argue philosophy, Glee. I came out of goodwill.”

  “Goodwill?” I spat the words back at him. “Unless you’ve come to say I can keep Sema here and continue my work, I fail to see what kind of goodwill you could possibly offer.”

  He sighed heavily, then leaned against his car with his hands behind his back. “I’m not your enemy; I’d like to be your friend. After all, I think we both want what’s best for Sema.”

  “How would you know what’s best for her? You haven’t seen her in eight years. You don’t know her personality; you don’t know what she can do—”

  “I’ve read your quarterly reports—they’re impressive. You’ve done some amazing work.”

  I took no pleasure in the compliment because I have never trusted praise from an enemy.

  “Sema is mature now,” he continued, “and you and I both know mature females have strong maternal instincts. She’s going to want a baby, and there’s no way she can be a mother as long as you keep her separated from other gorillas.”

  I had no rebuttal for that argument. Sema did talk about having a baby, and lately she had begun to carry her dolls even more frequently than she carried her favorite plush bear. She played with all kinds of dolls, human and gorilla and ursine, but I’d caught her trying to nurse her gorilla dolls . . .

  “I could find a silverback,” I argued in a weak voice.

  “You know that’s a long shot. Gorillas breed best in extended family groups. You’d need at least another male and another female, and you’re not equipped to care for that many animals.”

  “I’ll find a way.” I lifted my chin and glared at him with every ounce of determination in my body. “Sema and I have overcome obstacles before; we’ll overcome them again. But you’re not taking her from me. She’s not ready to be introduced to a gorilla group, and frankly, I’m not sure how successful her habituation would be. She knows people better than gorillas.”

  He looked at me for a long moment without speaking, then straightened and took a step forward. “Listen, I know we didn’t part on the best of terms—”

  I lifted my hand, cutting him off. “Ancient history. Totally irrelevant.”

  “I want to clear the air; I don’t want the past to cause problems between us. I think this can work out for everyone. I want to respect your work and do what’s best for Sema. And I think we can accomplish both those goals by having Sema live at the zoo.”

  I shrugged. “I disagree. So I suppose I’ll see you in court.”

  “That won’t be fun for either of us.”

  “Doesn’t matter. I’m not giving up without a fight.”

  He stood there, examining my face with considerable absorption, then pulled his hands from his pockets and opened the car door. I strode toward the house, but the sound of his voice stopped me in my tracks.

  “If you change your mind, call the zoo and ask for my office, okay?”

  Maybe the remark was innocent. Maybe he didn’t intend to remind me of his exalted position as gorilla curator—he had an office!— but his words rankled nonetheless.

  After Fielding left, I hurried to the house, paced for a few minutes in the living room, then grabbed my purse and headed to my car. The interior smelled faintly of gorilla—a stack of Sema’s blankets filled the back, waiting for their spin in one of the local Laundromat’s commercial washers—but to me the scent was comforting, a reminder of someone I loved.

  I shoved the car in reverse and peeled out over the pebbled drive, heading toward Indian Rocks Beach. Sema would sleep for at least another hour, and if she woke before I returned, she’d amuse herself with the books and toys in her room.

  After twenty minutes of dodging tourist traffic on Gulf Boulevard, I pulled into the fourteen-unit motel owned by my grandmother, Irene Posey. Paint had weathered out of the fading letters of the sign advertising “Posey’s Pink Palace,” but the neon No Vacancy sign could be read from fifty yards away.

  Unabashedly old, weather-beaten, and comfortable, Posey’s Pink Palace sprawled like a drunken floozy between two high-rise condominiums clad in discreet beige stucco. The previous resident-owners (who had called the place “The Pink Shell Motel”) had added units whenever and however they pleased, so the overall effect was a haphazard jumble of architecture and shades of Pepto-Bismol.

  I parked on the wispy strip of grass that served as an overflow parking lot, then traipsed over the walkway to the ground-floor apartment where Nana lived. Herman the parrot squawked at my approach—“Hey, cutie!”

  “You flirt,” I told him, moving toward the door marked Manager . “You say that to all the girls.”

  No one stood behind the tall counter in the office, so I pressed the bell that rang in Nana’s apartment. Except for the housekeeper who came in each morning to wash linens and clean rooms, my grandmother ran this place alone, serving as manager, reservations clerk, hostess, and concierge. Rob and I often urged her to hire someone to give her a break from the place, but she insisted that as long as she could work, she wanted to work.

  I think she enjoyed feeling needed.

  A moment later Nana breezed through a swinging door, her face flushed. “Glee! What a nice surprise!”

  My mother’s mother is not the stout, gray-haired, sixtyish granny depicted in most Norman Rockwell paintings. Irene Posey probably passed sixty a few years back—she would never tell me her age—but no one could deny she had retained a full measure of beauty and grace. Blessed with a model’s slim build, she dressed like a college girl and moved with the energy of a woman half her age. She wore her white hair in a stylish layered cut and wouldn’t think of leaving her apartment without a minimum of blush and properly applied mascara.

  I’ve caught Nana scrubbing toilets in the apartments on her hands and knees, but even then she managed to look like she just stepped out of a magazine ad. During the off-season, in fact, Nana frequently worked as a catalog model for Dillard’s and Burdines. On many a Sunday morning, I have opened my newspaper to find her smiling at me from a black-and-white ad for ladies’ sportswear.

  She stepped out from behind the counter and wrapped me in a hug. “What brings you out here, child?”

  “Not much.”

  She didn’t relax her grip, but steadily focused on me, her eyes as blue as the sweater tied around her shoulders. “You think you can fool your grandmother? Something’s bothering you, I can tell.”

  My gaze drifted from her bright eyes to the ceiling. “Well . . . maybe.”

  “Is Rob all right?”

  “He’s fine, last I heard.”

  “Then it’s Sema. How is she?”

  “She’s good. But it looks like—”

  I choked on my words as the bell above the door jangled. A man came in, bringing the scent of the sea with him. He wore red swim trunks, a sleeveless white tee shirt, and leather sandals with black socks. His fair skin was already as pink as Nana’s shirt, and I knew he’d be wanting tea bags for his bath before the night was over.

  The sunburned tourist removed his bicycle cap, exposing a painfully pink pate. “Mrs. Posey,” he said, sp
eaking in a charming British accent, “the wife and I were wondering if you could recommend a lovely restaurant?”

  I suppressed a grin. European travelers gravitated to the Gulf beaches, and they seemed to prefer establishments with a personal touch. Posey’s Pink Palace was one of the few remaining owner-operated motels on Florida’s west coast.

  Nana smiled at her guest. “You can get a quiet dinner at the Hungry Fisherman. Go left out of the parking lot and drive north for about two miles. The food is great and the price reasonable.”

  “Thanks.” The man nodded at me, then shuffled away. I heard Herman call, “Hel-lo , baby!” before the door closed.

  I met Nana’s gaze. “He’s going to need tea bags.”

  “The British have trouble imagining any use for tea outside a teacup.” She winked at me. “Don’t worry, I’ve stocked their medicine cabinet with Solarcaine. And now I want you to come inside and tell me what’s on your mind. I can fix you a cup of hot chocolate, and I just pulled a pan of cookies out of the oven . . .”

  For some reason, cocoa and cookies sounded wonderful.

  “Thanks, Nana.” Like a little girl, I let her take my hand.

  In between bites of the most heavenly oatmeal raisin cookies on the planet, I sat on the sofa and told Nana about the letters I’d been receiving from Thousand Oaks. “Rob is handling things for me,” I finished, “but sometimes I think he’d rather I hand Sema over and be done with my research. He seems to feel I need a social life more than I need my doctorate.”

  “I know you don’t want to hear this, hon, but I think he might be right—for now, anyway.” Nana’s eyes narrowed. “We both worry about you taking care of Sema all by yourself.”

  I stiffened. “I don’t do all the work myself. My vet sends over an assistant if I need help.”

  Nana lifted her mug and smiled at me over the rim. “You work too hard, Glee. When is the last time you went out to a movie with friends?”

  I didn’t even attempt to remember. “I don’t miss movies. When I need to relax, I go into my room and watch old films on TV. Or Sema and I watch movies together—Disney videos, mostly.”