“We should free them. Free all the animals.”
“Ha. Just to be real for a moment, we should definitely not do that. That’s about the worst possible idea, because all the animals would wind up dead.”
“Huh. Is that more misinformation?”
“No. That there is real information. Don’t ever free animals from the zoo. It would get real, fast.”
At the bald eagle habitat, I explain that I don’t think it is really fair for ZooMontana to claim it “has” birds. I mean, unless it’s an enclosed dome — which it does not appear to be — it can’t very well claim ownership of anything that happens to fly above it. “ZooMontana is a home to birds in much the same way that the backyard of my dad’s house is a bird sanctuary.”
She grins. “I’m giving you my number,” she says. “We need to do this again.”
Score. “Well, maybe not this exactly.”
“No. Exactly this,” she says.
I feel like I’ve won the lottery. How do you just happen across an awesome girl on your first day in Billings? What are the odds? Is everyone here like Aisha? I’ve only seen a handful of people so far, but I doubt it. “I wanna meet your friends,” I say, and then I feel a little embarrassed that I’ve been too forward.
“Me too,” she says, rolling her eyes.
We walk on. I wonder if that’s true. If, somehow, Aisha is friendless. It makes sense, in a way. I worry sometimes that our world actually values a lack of intelligence. Like we are considered normal if we spend our time thinking about what one of the Kardashians wears to a party, and we are considered strange if we wonder whether a bee’s parents grieve if said bee dives into the Central Park Reservoir and never makes it back to the hive. One of these lines of thought makes me want to carve my eyes out, and I can assure you it has nothing to do with bees.
“So can you be trusted?” Aisha asks me out of the blue as we pass through a particularly densely wooded area.
“Why do I need to be trusted?” I say, and her shoulders rise slightly toward her ears. “I mean, yeah. Sure.”
She looks me over, then clasps my hand and leads me off the path to the right. Her grip is strong, but her fingers are slightly clammy and cold. She walks me through a path of trees, and then, as she passes a particularly thick elm, she turns toward it and we stop. A red knapsack leans against a rolled-up blue sleeping bag at the foot of the tree. Both are hidden from view unless you venture down this particular row of trees.
I look at Aisha and she smiles and bites her lower lip. “I sometimes sleep here,” she says.
“What?”
“Sometimes.”
“Why?”
She looks into my eyes, and I look back, and in the slight crease of her forehead I see pain. Fear. It shocks me, and she sees me see it, and then a veil goes up. The whites of her eyes go cold.
“Never mind,” she says. “I shouldn’t have said anything. Forget I said it. Please.”
“Tell me,” I say, because now I’m worried. But she is already walking back toward the path. I’m thinking, If I told her about my dad and why I’m here, would she tell me her thing?
“My dad,” I say, and she turns around and waits for me to say something else.
My head spins. I am not so good at serious talks.
“Is an alien,” I say.
The joke floats up and around us like a bad smell. It’s strange. It’s not funny. And I can’t take it back.
“Sorry, I’m weird. Tell me why you sleep here,” I say.
She pauses, and for a moment I think perhaps my weirdness was enough to get her to talk. Then she says, “Another time. Long story.”
“I like long stories,” I say.
“Did I tell you about the mainland sika deer?” she asks.
I want to press, but I am afraid if I do, I’ll freak her out. “Tell me,” I say as we start walking, and she proceeds to explain how these particular deer are known for never obeying the DEER CROSSING signs and just crossing roads wherever the hell they want to.
“Tragic,” I say. “So can I have your number?”
She stops walking and tilts her head to the side. She thinks about this for longer than I’m comfortable.
“Give me yours,” she finally says. “I’ll call you.”
Defeated, deflated, and aware that I will never hear from her again, I recite my number and she seemingly enters it into her phone. Probably just faking it. And it especially sucks because in an hour I’ve fallen a little in love with Aisha Stinson, mysterious zoo sleeper. I need to hear more of her weird thoughts. I have to make her laugh.
We keep walking until we have completed the circle. When I see the gift shop, my heart sinks. What started so magically has ended so poorly, and I’m not sure why.
We stand in front of a large, empty field. She turns to face me and sticks her arms out like a legitimate tour guide might. “And this, my friend, is the end of our tour. Behold, the” — and she turns around to glance at a sign behind her — “Optimist Club’s Children’s Play Area.”
I laugh, though my heart is not in it anymore. “Yeah, the Optimist Club,” I say. “They probably see the zoo as half-full.”
Her smile gives me just the faintest bit of hope that I might hear from her. Just maybe. But probably not.
ON THE DRIVE back to my dad’s place, my mom tells me that he doesn’t look well, that the house is a bit of a mess, and that she could use my help cleaning all of it up. I nod and nod, mostly still thinking about Aisha.
She pulls off a main road and up a steep gravel driveway, and she drops me off once again. This time it’s because she needs to get groceries.
“The back door is open,” she says. “Your dad mostly sticks to his room, so don’t be surprised if he doesn’t come out to greet you. It’s not — personal.”
I shrug and undo my seat belt. “Okay.”
“He means well.”
“Fine.”
“Also, don’t be shocked if the place looks a bit underappreciated.”
“Does that mean it’s more than a bit of a mess?”
She shakes her head for a full five seconds and sucks in her cheeks. “It means your father …” she says. She runs her hand through her auburn hair. “My suggestion is to get yourself settled and locate yourself a bit. Pay him a visit in his room.”
My mom is all about self-locating. It’s one of the infuriating things she always says. “Sure,” I say, totally unsure.
I get out of the car, and she pulls away. I pause at the back door and take a look around. I know we are only three minutes or so from what passes as downtown, but it feels rural here. The house has a big backyard full of weeds and a separate garage, outside of which sits an old blue pickup truck. Looming huge behind the garage is a massive rock formation that my mom called the Rim. I walk around to the front yard. The house is dark green, a single story, dwarfed by the yellow two-story house next door and a huge pine tree that pretty much hides the house from the street. A rusty rocking chair sits alone on a dilapidated front porch covered in pine needles.
I walk around back and go in the back door, which opens into a mudroom. There are stairs down to the basement, or, if you turn left, you enter a white-walled kitchen, which looks like something you’d see on Nick at Nite. Yellow window curtains with green stalks of corn on them. A squat white refrigerator with a metal latch that opens it and a yellow Frigidaire logo front and center. Faded blue Formica countertops.
I know I’ve been here before, back when I was three and Grandma lived here. But I don’t remember it at all. My dad moved in to his family’s home when my grandma Phyllis got sick seven years ago. After she died, he stayed, and he’s been here ever since. The place does look a bit “underappreciated,” to use my mom’s word.