Our first date had happened three months before, and it had almost certainly been a dare. She’d marched up to me after a staff meeting, looked me up and down, and informed me I was taking her out for a drink that coming Friday night. I said no. She laughed and said this might be fun after all, and somewhere in the discussion that followed, my no turned into a yes, and one date turned into two, then three, and then four.
All we really had in common was our work with animals, although I was more on the pure research side, while Shelby was a trainer—as she was showing off even now in the green space beneath me, putting a Bengal tiger through his paces by throwing a medicine ball for him to chase. She was a big cat specialist, and had come to Ohio for the opportunity to study them in North America, where there were more specimens available than in her own cat-free homeland. (Big cats turn out to be surprisingly popular in Australian zoos, maybe for the same reason that kangaroos and koalas are so popular in North America: they’re so weird they’re unbelievable, if you didn’t grow up with them.)
The Siberian tiger reared up behind Shelby, putting its paws on her shoulders. The audience gasped. Shelby reached back and calmly scratched the tiger under the jaw, saying, “These big fellas aren’t domesticated, but as you can see, they’ve got a lot in common with the cats you may have at home, or the ones you love to watch on the Internet.” Nervous laughter answered her. “They deserve our respect, and they deserve to be protected, because our world would be a lot poorer without them. Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s time we got back to work. These beauties will be back in their enclosures and ready for their adoring public in about fifteen minutes! Thank you all!”
Thunderous applause greeted her announcement. I stood and hopped over the bench I’d been sitting on, heading for the nearest exit before I could get swept up in the crowd. They’d be thronging to the tiger enclosures, trying to get a good spot to gawk at the performers up close. I was doing something similar. I just had a different performer in mind.
The amphitheater was a stand-alone structure, but the green space where the tigers were displayed backed up on the main cat house, allowing the staff to discreetly move the animals back into their individual runs, and then on to their proper places. While the crowds formed around the outdoor enclosures, I slipped into the main building and made my way to the door marked “Staff Only.”
The hall on the other side combined industrial tile floors with glossy white walls. It shared certain traits with hospital halls, like the fact that it had obviously been designed to be cleaned with a power hose. There were even drains in the floor. A few interns passed me as I walked toward Shelby’s office. They waved. I nodded. We all went about our business.
The door to Shelby’s office was standing slightly ajar. I stopped outside, rapping my knuckles against the wood under her nameplate. “Can I come in?”
“That depends,” replied Shelby, yanking the door open and glaring at me. Her hair was out of its ponytail, falling to frame her face in disheveled waves. “Are you going to demand I talk like Crocodile Dundee to amuse the tourists?” Now that she was no longer on stage, her accent had faded, becoming more common and less cliché.
“I wasn’t planning to,” I said. “I just wanted to let you know I actually made it to the show today.”
“Really?” Shelby stepped back, making room for me to come into her office. It was the same size as mine, but contained what seemed like ten times as much stuff. I was constantly afraid of an avalanche when I came to visit. “Do you want a medal?”
“Not particularly.” I moved into the office. “I was doing the copperhead survey this morning in the swamp.”
“Mud and venomous snakes. Sounds like the ideal date.” There was a sharp edge to her words, and she still wasn’t smiling. I managed not to wince. Shelby was one of those people who looked miserable, almost funereal, when she wasn’t smiling. When she did, it seemed like she could outshine the sun.
She hadn’t been smiling much at me recently.
“I’m sorry I didn’t invite you,” I said. “I knew you had a show this afternoon.”
“I suppose that’s fair,” she said, after a pause that left me squirming. Finally, the corners of her mouth tipped upward, and she asked, “How’d you like it?”
I grinned. “I thought it was fantastic.”
“Good, because I thought we had some pacing issues during the conservation section,” she said, and began chattering rapidly about the structure of the tiger show, leaving me free to listen and enjoy being back in her good graces.
Shelby was possibly the most dangerous opponent I’d ever faced: brilliant, beautiful, and a biologist who knew how to wrestle a mountain lion without hurting either herself or the animal. She hit all my buttons at once. And she didn’t even know my real name, or anything else about my real life. That was part of why she was annoyed at me—I kept pulling away every time she got too close, and I was pretty sure she was getting tired of my crap.
Her talk about the tiger show was winding down. I watched her carefully, trying to decide what the appropriate next move would be. Shelby answered the question for me by crossing the room, leaning forward, and kissing me. I reacted without thinking, sliding my arms around her waist and kissing her back, pulling her against me until I could smell the faint wild traces of tiger on her skin.
When she pulled away, her smile had become something sweeter and darker, like cherry cola syrup. “Come on, Alex, what do you say? Take a girl to dinner after work?”
“I’d love to,” I said, allowing my honest regret to come through in my voice, “but I can’t. I have two school groups coming tomorrow, and I have a lot of work to do on the samples that I collected today. I’m really sorry.”
Shelby’s smile faded, replaced by a look of profound sorrow. The first few times I disappointed her, I thought I’d broken her heart. It took weeks before I realized that she was just one of those people who looked like the world was ending every time she was a little unhappy. “You and science have the best relationship. I’m not sure there’s really room in it for me.”
“Shelby—”
“You’ve canceled six dates on me, Alex, and that’s in the last month. I know we’re not official or anything, but a girl likes to know that the man she’s seeing actually wants to see her once in a while.”
“He does! I mean, I do! I’ve just been busy lately, that’s all.” My words sounded hollow even to my own ears. Maybe Shelby had a point. Maybe it wasn’t fair to either one of us for me to keep stringing her along like this. If I was just willing to admit that it was never going to work, I could save us both a lot of pain in the long run. (In the short run, however, I would be dealing with an angry Australian woman who had access to a large number of predatory cats for the rest of my tenure in Ohio.)
And I couldn’t do it. I liked Shelby. I liked feeling like there was someone in the world who didn’t give a damn about my family or our mission, and who just liked me for me. It would all fall apart eventually, but for now . . .
For now, I just wanted to enjoy it.
Shelby frowned. “You’re really sure you can’t come out with me tonight? There might be ice cream in it for you . . .”
“You have no idea how much I wish I could,” I said, shaking my head. “Can I maybe get a rain check?”
There was a brittle edge to her laughter as she said, “At this rate, we’d need a monsoon for you to pay back all the rain checks that you owe. Come on, Alex. Give me a date. I’m begging you here. Have mercy, and tell me when I’ll need my rain gear.”