She looked sharply at Stanley and considered his offer with a wry grin. “Okay!” she shouted

02/08/2015

The zoo closed at 8 PM during the week in summer. Stanley walked past the penguin tank just as Shirley was walking out from behind a door labeled “Employees Only.”

“Hi Shirley! Did you remember to tuck them in and kiss them goodnight?”

“You bet I did, all twenty-two of them, haha! How are you Stanley?” She turned around and pushed on the door, making sure it wouldn’t open from this side. She was younger than Stanley, and married to one of the zoo’s advertising managers. They had two kids in elementary school named Theodore and Laurel. Laurel was only five and shared her name with one of the penguins. She was too young for her mother to explain why, but the penguin had been named first. Still, whenever the little girl visited, the two Laurels would stare at each other – one from the hot outdoor pavement with her hands on the glass, and the other from inside an air conditioned room with freezing water and stucco painted to look like the Antarctic.

Stanley took his baby blue security officer’s cap off and wiped the evening sweat from his forehead. “Good, good I suppose. Say, I was thinking of staying a little late tonight. Just until it gets dark. Maybe watch the lionesses come out for some cool air. Would you be interested in joining me?”
Shirley let out a short, embarrassing laugh and smiled. “What do you mean? Everyone’s gone home!”

“Not everyone. Pete stays up here all night watching the cams. I’ve done it before. He don’t mind.”

Shirley’s face twisted and her short cropped hair stuck with sweat to the sides of her face. She looked sharply at Stanley and considered his offer with a wry grin. “Okay!” she shouted, startling him into nearly dropping his hat. “Let’s go! But only for a little. Ted is watching the kids tonight. I’ll text him and let him know I’m here with you so he knows I’m safe.”

“Good idea,” Stanley said, and they both started off toward the back of the park. He and Shirley got along great. They used to see each other more often but Stanley was semi-retired now. He had known her since before the kids were born, when she first met Ted. Ted wasn’t often outside in the park but when he first got promoted to manager, he was surveying a series of promotional banners when he spotted Shirley feeding the otters. They became close friends, soon started dating (although it was officially against policy) then pregnant, and then married. A sweeter couple truly could not be imagined. The few times Stanley had met Ted, he could tell he really loved her and was a real gentleman and dedicated to his family. Laurel was born in the winter and the following November, Theodore arrived just before Thanksgiving. When they came to the zoo, Stanley would buy them ice creams shaped like sharks or rock candy and usually either mom or dad would say “Hey! Don’t feed the animals!” Working never felt like work to Stanley, he made sure of it.

They walked through the meandering, winding paths – out of the Australian outback where fake Aboriginal huts sold lemonade slushies, through the jungles of the Amazon past teenagers in matching floral shirts putting away stuffed monkeys and parrots. Finally they reached the Serengeti exhibit. Out on the plains, four lionesses lay in the open grass, flipping their tails like kittens. Each one of them with powerful muscles, showing clearly through their short fur in the waning daylight of late summer. One yawned and bared all of her teeth, licking the air and letting her pink tongue smack the roof of her jaws. Two of them got up and started pawing each other, gently pushing each other’s faces in some unknown cat game. A smaller male lion in the nearby shade of a tree stood up and shook his mane. Every hair around his thick neck could be seen in orange silhouette. He cast a penetrating gaze at the all-female gang of enormous cats, his mouth opening and curling into a downward smile, and then laid back down.

“Oh my god, I can’t believe I’ve never seen them out like this.” Shirley held her hands to her chest. She watched open mouthed as not only the lionesses, but all the animals were now moving about. She could see further away that the giraffes were walking in two’s, their long necks swaying and stretching. Gazelles and antelope all moved along the grass in small roving bands, like passengers waiting for a bus. None of the animals were hiding in the darkest parts of their pens like they do all day. And none of them were so sedentary, exhausted from the summer heat, that they barely moved to swat flies from their face. Shirley couldn’t help but be reminded of the story of Noah’s ark and realized that she could hardly believe what she was seeing in front of her own eyes either.

“It’s something huh?” Stanley said. He straightened his hat and then took it off. “Funny how people buy tickets every day and will never get to see them like this.”