Things Shelby Tanner didn’t specialize in: relaxing. She was sitting atop the picnic table we had claimed as our own, waving a turkey drumstick like a conductor’s baton as she punctuated her own points.
“—so I said, Nicole, it’s lovely that you’re taking an interest, but do you think you could take a step away from the snow leopard enclosure? Possibly before you get your throat ripped out and make a bunch of paperwork for me to handle? There’s a good girl.”
“Nicole’s the new girl, right?” I asked, between bites of my ham-and-cheese sandwich. I was focusing less on her words and more on the way the sunlight glinted off the tiny golden hairs on the back of her knee, where I knew she was sensitive in all the best ways.
“Yeah, the really keen one.” Shelby said keen like it was a bad thing. From her perspective, it probably was. Being keen in the Australian sense—overeager, enthusiastic, and extremely hungry for praise—wasn’t what I’d call a survival trait when you’re working with large predators. “She’s been nothing but one problem after the other since the start of her assignment.”
“So did she get eaten? Because it sounds like that would solve the problem.”
Shelby laughed. “Not quite, but not for lack of trying. Mimi, our big female, was almost on her when I finally got her to move away from the bars. Poor kitty looked awfully betrayed, seeing her midmorning snack step out of range like that.”
I grinned. “I’m sure she’ll find the strength to carry on.”
“Don’t much care if she doesn’t; we’ve only got Nicole for another two weeks. Then she’s off to harass the keepers responsible for the elephants, and good riddance, too.” Shelby’s smile was fast, and showed far too many teeth to be comforting. “If she disappears after that, nobody’s going to be looking for incriminating evidence inside my kitty cats.”
“That’s fast. The transfer, I mean, not the murder plot. If we had someone that careless in the reptile house, I’d probably have fed them to the snapping turtle by now.” That was an exaggeration . . . but not by as much as many people would think.
Shelby shrugged. “What can I say? We’ve got a double crop of interns this year.” The big cats saw a much higher turnover rate than the reptile house, since working with the flashy carnivores was a plum position for trainees and interns. We could hold onto people for as much as a year before someone else wanted their slots. Shelby was lucky if she got to keep someone long enough for them to learn not to feed themselves to the lions. It wasn’t just the big cats, either. Pretty much anything mammalian was more attractive to your average aspiring zookeeper than a bunch of snakes and snapping turtles, even though I’d never personally seen the appeal.
“Earth to Alex, come in, Alex.” I turned to see Shelby leaning forward, elbows on her knees. She looked faintly annoyed. “I’ve been doing all the talking again, and you’ve been letting me. I thought we’d talked about this. I want you here when you’re here, or we shouldn’t even bother.”
“Well, you talked about it, mostly,” I said, trying to elicit a laugh.
It didn’t work. Her annoyance deepened. “If we want this to work out, Alex, we’ve both got to do our share of the heavy lifting. That means sometimes you’ve got to tell me about your day, even if you’d rather not.”
“Ah. Sorry—distracted.” It was hard to talk about my day when I had to constantly revise it to remove the feathered frogs, the supposedly mythological creatures, and the little girls who liked to cuddle cobras. Shelby was a smart girl. That was part of the problem. She could see the holes. “It was hectic at the reptile house this morning. Three back-to-back school groups, and one of the juniors didn’t show up, which meant poor Dee had to do half the feedings for me.”
Shelby blinked. “Your assistant? But she’s not even a zookeeper. Is that safe?”
“She’s been working here for a lot longer than the interns, and you hand them raw meat and put them in front of predators.”
“Yes, but they’re doing it for college credits. We pay her.”
I snorted laughter. Shelby shrugged.
“Just being pragmatic, although I’m sorry you’ve had a lousy morning. Who’s on shift now?”
“Kim and Nelson came on just as I was getting ready to start lunch. Dee’s finally doing her own job, which has got to be a relief for her. I’ll be able to work on my research during the afternoon.”
“Oh? Does that mean you might be done in time to grab a spot of dinner with me?” Shelby tried to make the question sound innocent, but I could see the pointed interest in her eyes. I did a quick mental count of the nights since our last official date, and winced.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I really can’t. But we’re still on for tomorrow, right?”
“Tomorrow,” she said. “You can’t blame a girl for trying, can you?” She didn’t sound happy about it. I could hear the inevitable future beginning to unspool in her tone. One more canceled date and she’d start having better things to do with her time when I asked if she wanted to catch a movie or go out for something to eat. Not long after that, I’d get the “This isn’t working” talk, possibly with a side order of “We should be friends, it’s better if we can stay friends.”
That was probably what was best for both of us. She had her work, her research, and eventually, her life back in Australia, where we wouldn’t have been able to meet for dinner if we’d wanted to. It wasn’t like we’d ever officially become a couple. That didn’t make the thought any easier.
“I guess I can’t.” I dropped my sandwich back onto the paper bag it had come off of and stood, trying to make it look like a natural stretching gesture. It didn’t work. I was too stiff, and too obviously unhappy. Shelby sighed.
“I’m not breaking things off with you, Alex, all right?” she said. “I’m not thrilled that we’ve had so little time lately, but you’ve got to stop thinking that every road bump is the beginning of the end. You don’t throw out the car just because you’ve run over an echidna.”
I stopped. “Please tell me that isn’t something you actually say in Australia.”
“What, you don’t like my folksy Australian sayings?” Shelby put her turkey leg down next to my sandwich, shaking her head. “It’s incredible just how many people around here are totally willing to believe that we really walk around talking like that.”
“To be fair, Australia does sound sort of fictional if you’ve never been there.”
“I get told that a lot. Doesn’t feel like a very fictional place to me.” She picked up a napkin, beginning to wipe the grease from her fingers. “I mean it, though. You need to relax. You’re too tense, and you’re taking everything far too seriously. Are you having trouble with your research?”
“Not trouble, it’s just . . . taking some turns I didn’t anticipate, that’s all.” I began to pace, trying to look like I was raptly drinking in the scenery that I’d seen a hundred times before. Anything to keep Shelby from pressing, and me from being forced to lie to her.
The tiger garden was definitely one of the zoo’s better-kept secrets, a picturesque little quirk of the landscaping that no one had yet thought of tearing out in order to install a new enclosure or walkway. It was only a matter of time before somebody looked at an aerial map of the zoo and went, “Hey, that spot is so isolated that it’s only going to get used by zookeepers and horny teenagers looking for a place to make out. Let’s level it.” (Sadly, whatever unnamed bureaucrat was eventually responsible for that decision probably wouldn’t take into account the existence of horny zookeepers who didn’t like making out right next to where they fed the lions. Such are the trials of the working world.)