Remarkably Bright Creatures(21)

“This is it, love?”

Tova’s face is stone. “Yes, it seems so.”

Ethan cuts the ignition and gives her a puzzled look. “You’ve never been here before?”

“I have not.”

He resists the urge to unleash another low whistle. Tova had said Lars lived here for a decade. Had she really not visited even once?

She gathers her purse, tucking the newspaper inside. “Shall we?”

“Aye.” Ethan scrambles out and hurries around the truck, hoping to reach the passenger side in time to open her door for her, but by the time he gets there, she’s already striding toward the stately building.

For the first half hour, Ethan waits in the reception area, and the minutes drag. The leather chairs are remarkably plush, but the reading material is absolute shit. National Geographic, AARP The Magazine, and a handful of dry Wall Street rags. Couldn’t they spring for something halfway interesting, like Rolling Stone, or even People? Celebrity gossip has always been Ethan’s guilty pleasure. His honeybee hands come back, drumming impatiently on the low coffee table. He rises and inspects the refreshment table in the corner of the lobby, which, inexplicably, offers coffee, but not tea. All of this leather and ivy, and they can’t even furnish a spot of Earl Grey? What rubbish!

He plucks a disposable cup from the stack and pours a cup of decaf anyway, because it’s free. He doesn’t particularly enjoy coffee. When Ethan was nineteen, he worked for a stint at the kiddie zoo down in Glasgow, shoveling the elephant pen. Once, as a joke, two of the other blokes that worked there collected feces and ran it through a juice press. What came out looked remarkably like . . . coffee. Never been the same since, coffee hasn’t.

When Tova had whisked off toward the inside of the facility, he insisted she take her time going through her brother’s things, but now he realizes he has no context for how long such an activity might take. Will he be waiting here all day? He should have brought a book.

From the front desk, there’s a gaggle of voices. Some folks assembling for a tour of the facility, looks like.

The woman leading the group, wearing a gray suit and a sleek amber ponytail, addresses the small cluster in a clear, confident voice. “Welcome to Charter Village, where happy endings are our specialty.”

Ethan nearly spits out his coffee. Happy endings? Who came up with that one?

Gray Suit frowns at him. “Sir?”

“Aye?” Ethan wipes dribbled coffee from his chin with his sleeve.

“Are you joining us?”

“Me?” He looks over his shoulder, as if there might be another “sir” behind him. Then he shrugs. “Sure, why not?” Something to pass the time, anyway.

“This way, then.” With a polite smile, she motions him toward the group.

ETHAN MUST ADMIT: the residents do seem happy. Maybe that ridiculous slogan isn’t off base.

There’s a billiard room, a cafeteria with a mile-long buffet, even a pool and Jacuzzi. Residents can get room service, and the beds are made up daily with six-hundred-thread-count sheets. By the time the tour starts to wrap up, Ethan finds himself half-convinced to move in. As if he could afford it. His union pension wouldn’t go far in a place like this.

WHEN TOVA SURFACES an hour later clutching a box, Ethan springs from the plush reception leather chair.

“All right, then, love?”

“Certainly.” Tova looks so little in her purple cardigan, and the box makes her frame seem even more slight.

This time, he beats her to the car door. Chivalrously, he opens it and steps aside for her to enter, for which she thanks him politely. Then he takes the box and finds a space for it behind the passenger seat. But there’s something else, too. A glossy page with an image of the community center and tennis courts. Some bloke with a full head of silver hair and white shorts swinging a racket.

As Tova is fiddling with her seat belt, he steals a longer peek.

It’s not just a slick brochure. It’s a whole packet. A sleek Charter Village folder with that terrible motto: “We Specialize in Happy Endings!”

There’s one page not neatly aligned in the folder.

An application.





Day 1,309 of My Captivity


YOU HUMANS LOVE COOKIES. I ASSUME YOU KNOW WHICH food I mean?

Circular, about the size of a common clamshell. Some are flecked with dark bits, others are painted or dusted with powder. Cookies can be soft and quiet, moving soundlessly on their journey through human jaws. Cookies can be loud and messy, bits breaking off at the bite, crumbs tumbling down a chin, adding to the flotsam on the floor that the elderly female called Tova must sweep. I have observed many cookies during my captivity here. They are sold in the packaged food machine near the front entrance.

Imagine my confusion, then, at the remark made by Dr. Santiago earlier this evening.

“What can I say, Terry?” Dr. Santiago raised her shoulders and held her hands up. “I’ve seen a lot of octopuses, but you’ve got a smart cookie here.”

They were discussing the so-called puzzle: hinged box made of clear plastic with a latch on the lid. There was a crab inside. Terry lowered it into my tank. He and Dr. Santiago leaned down to peer through the glass. Without delay, I seized the box, opened the latch, lifted the lid, and ate the crab.

It was a red rock crab, one that was molting. Soft and juicy. I consumed it in a single bite.