An Inconvenient Elephant (23 page)

MRS. WYCLIFF WAS QUICKLY CREMATED AND PLACED
in a lovely silver-and-maroon urn, which was presented to Diamond for safekeeping.

She moved the ashes from room to room, never quite comfortable with their ultimate placement. She felt the kitchen was too warm—although it was nice for breakfast—the living room too drafty, Mrs. W.'s old bedroom too isolated. It wasn't unusual to see Diamond taking Mrs. W. along on truck rides while she completed her farm chores or accompanied by her as she ran errands into town, Mrs. W. safely ensconced in the front seat, her urn wrapped in the seat belt.

“I feel so responsible for her,” Diamond said to me. “At first, I thought it would bother me, but I find her presence comforting. She took me in and gave me a home, and I want to do what's best for her.”

“I'm sure she'd be happy just sitting next to her red wellies on the mantelpiece,” I replied. “That's kind of traditional, isn't it?”

“But she wasn't a traditional woman,” Diamond worried. “Plus, I think getting her outdoors cheers her up. She can't stay cooped up all day in the house.”

“I think she needs her rest,” I pointed out. “You know,
eternal rest
? She can't be bouncing all over town like this at her age.”

But Diamond was insistent. Mrs. W. shared the table for breakfast, lunch, and dinner; sat on the hood of the truck when we worked the horses; and in general, spent more time actively outdoors than she had in the last twenty years of her previous life.

Mrs. W. apparently was sharing Diamond's special moments with Rocco, the construction manager, too. By the time I would arrive at the farm every morning, Diamond was already aboard one of the heavy machines, shrieking with delight as she practiced driving the caterpillar or operating the large claw of the backhoe, lifting beams and huge metal gates, her red hair blowing carefree across her face, with Rocco, always next to her, laughing, his preternaturally white teeth providing a vivid contrast to his florid skin. It would seem they made a perfect pair, each decked out in dark pants, thick boots, yellow helmets, and significant amounts of dust.

“Maybe he is the one,” Diamond confided breathlessly to me one morning after hopping down from the cab of the backhoe.

“Honestly,” I said as we walked back to the house, “you
had the perfect man in Jungle Johnny. You dress alike. He's handsome. What is
wrong
with you?”

“He isn't local.” She shrugged. “I know those types. I lived with one. The jungle is always their first love. I want to be first, just this once.”

“Rocco doesn't mind Mrs. W.?” I asked, pointing to the urn she was carrying back with her.

“I told him it was a new kind of thermos,” she replied. “He thinks it's very cute.”

 

Diamond planned for Rocco to come for dinner and stay the night.

“Do you think Mrs. W. would mind if I just left her in the mudroom overnight right next to her wellies?” she asked me. “I don't want to spook Rocco.”

“I don't think she'd mind at all,” I replied. “I think she needs to take a breather.”

And so Mrs. W. spent the night sitting on her wellies in the mudroom, her pith helmet parked jauntily atop her urn, allowing Diamond and Rocco a private and romantic evening.

I supposed it was a rousing success because the next day, a blushing Diamond confided that she was ready to give Rocco the ultimate test. If he passed, he would be considered a serious candidate for her heart. She felt that because he had generously taken her for rides in the heavy construction machinery used for the new barn, she would reciprocate. She would open her heart and show him what was dearest to her. Which meant the afternoon on the back of a horse for a thorough tour of the farm.

Rocco opted out.

The horse traumatized him since it couldn't be influenced by levers or pedals or steering posts. It wasn't mechanical at all. He hated that it was fully autonomous, sometimes cantankerous, and completely independent of its operator. Diamond persisted. Having had years of teaching clients to ride well enough to go on weeklong safaris, she held a strong conviction she could instill enough skill in Rocco for a mere ride around a few hundred acres. Then he would fall in love with riding and horses and Diamond, and it would all be perfect. Plus he couldn't be more local, since he was working in her backyard.

It didn't take.

Rocco mounted the short but sturdy yellow-brown quarter horse and proceeded to freeze into a garden post. Turning a deaf ear to Diamond's remonstrations that he at least breathe, he tipped one way, then the other, before rolling off onto his side and landing next to the horse with a ground-shaking thud.

He stood up and gave the horse an angry slap on its rump for embarrassing him. The horse responded the way horses do when they are suddenly slapped on the derriere by unappreciative riders—with a swift kick out, denting Rocco's rib cage and triggering a giggling fit by Diamond. Rocco stormed off and out of the relationship.

Diamond was heartbroken but philosophical. “Grapes grow on every vine,” she said. “There's always another fish in the pond.”

“A bit of a mixed bag of metaphors, but you're perfectly right,” I said to her.

“Wildflowers fill the hillsides,” she went on. “Peanuts grow in every garden.”

“That has a nice horticultural ring to it,” I admired.

“Yep, I will find love.” She patted me on the arm. “One whose seeds have not sprouted yet does not give up planting.”

 

In the meantime, my own garden was getting a rough patch. My phone rang one morning, about a week or so after the funeral, just as I was getting dressed to leave for the farm. It was Mrs. Pennington, Tom's mother, and she had some news to report.

“Tom has broken up with Victoria.” she announced. “He told her that his life was taking him in a new direction, but this isn't the end of it, as far as I'm concerned. I hope you're happy now.”

My heart jumped at her words. I was the new direction! My buds were blooming! “Actually, I am happy,” I replied. I wanted to explain how it was karma and that sometimes karma actually works for you, although it apparently hadn't worked for her, but that was for Mrs. Pennington to delve into her own past to figure out why her buds got nipped.

“Well, Victoria and I have discussed things at some length,” she said airily, “and there's no hurry. Make your little plans. We can be very patient because we know who really belongs at his side.”

I didn't have little plans, I had big ones, but I still didn't want her to be my enemy. She was Tom's mother and under any other circumstance, really a gracious and good person. I decided to take a different tack to clear the air.

“Have I offended you somehow?” I asked her. “Because if I did, I truly, truly am sorry.”

My words must have taken her by surprise. “I'm not offended at all,” she replied coolly. “You are probably a…
decent…person in your own right, but you were not meant for my son. Surely you agree. Even Victoria immediately saw that. There's a world of difference between you and my son.”

The famous Victoria. Slated by the rigid confines of social snobbery to be Tom's wife, she had probably been writing “Victoria Cremwell Pennington” all over her schoolbooks ever since high school. Maybe even preschool.
Private
preschool. In fact, she probably pooed that name in her diapers.

“But it's up to Tom,” I said. “Don't you think? He loves me.”

Mrs. Pennington snorted. Not as polite as a horse snort, hers had more indignation and fury behind it, and maybe a tad less mucus. “You know,
any
woman can turn a man's head. You just have to make yourself available in the, er, carnal manner, and they can't think straight.”

I was trying not to feel offended, although she was actually insulting her own son by accusing him of thinking with his dick.

“Couldn't Victoria have done that as well?” I asked. “Um, get to, um, know Tom in the biblical sense? I mean, he's sort of open game.” This was not where I wanted the conversation to go at all. My romantic life with Tom was special, beautiful, and I didn't want it filleted and dissected and discussed by, of all people, his mother.

“Victoria is a
lady,
” she replied. “She won't bring herself down to that level.”

“You mean sinking to the level of sleeping with your son?”

She coughed. I had her. And I was irritated enough to make her squirm. “What's wrong with sleeping with your
son? Tell Victoria that he's a
very
good lover. She's really missing out.”

Now Mrs. Pennington coughed and snorted all at the same time, which sounded impressive over the phone. “That's quite enough,” she managed, sparing me the obligation of having to go into descriptions of heaving bosoms and thrusting members.

There was a momentary pause while she regrouped. “You leave me no choice,” she finally said, then took a deep breath to deliver her coup de grâce. “I am prepared to make you a very wealthy woman. How much do you want?”

Her words were so ludicrous, so preposterous, so insulting that I was startled by their rancor.

“Mrs. Pennington,” I said, then spoke slowly, so she would have the full effect of my answer. “I'll just wait, thank you. When I marry Tom, I plan to become a very wealthy woman in my own right.”

 

Tom was traveling, and I never told him of the words I had with his mother. I was hoping that at some point she would have a change of heart and learn to like me. I didn't want to put Tom in the middle of a girlfriend-and-mother war. His business was requiring him to travel all over the world. It was romantic to get phone calls every night from a different country, and I wasn't going to ruin things with a domestic squabble. His words were always sweet and loving, and he even began sending gifts—CDs from Incan musicians he admired on a street corner in Texas, a knitted shawl from Ireland, a deep pink blown-glass flower from Hungary. I admired them and packed them away. It wasn't trinkets I
wanted. I was restless and ached to accomplish something. My house was closing in on me, the sky was closing in on me. And I fretted that each day the money sat in the ELLI account was another animal somewhere that was dying.

Oh, we rescued a few more horses, and two black-and-white female lambs that had been found outside a city apartment house, hogtied and being used for footballs, a few more alpacas, a sad and tiny donkey that had been tied to a tree and left to die behind an abandoned house. We found a perfect match for Samantha, a local artist who was stone-deaf. The woman's creative eye granted her an appreciation of the bird's beautiful plumage, but she was totally unable to hear the salty vocabulary.

“Maybe we need to get back to Africa,” I grumbled to Diamond one morning as we drove the truck down to supervise the sale of another horse. “We raised enough money—what are we waiting for?”

“We'll be faced with the same problems,” she said, balancing Mrs. W. on her lap as the truck hit a few potholes. Mrs. W.'s new residence had a few dings in it by now, courtesy of falling off the front seat a few times and rolling into the road. “Tom has the planes, we need planes, we can't afford planes, back to square one.”

It was frustrating.

All the while, Tom continued to send gifts. Tea from Japan that opened into tiny pastel-colored lotus buds when you added water, a beautiful silk robe from Thailand with small embroidered elephants, a box of chocolates from Belgium that were silkenly delicious. I packed it all away, except of course, for the latter, which Diamond and I downed in one sitting, along with two bottles of wine.

It was very late one night when Tom called me. I was already in bed and beginning to think that maybe Victoria Cremwell might have a future. Mine was a life in limbo, and I was not going to live it like that anymore. It was time to tell him. If it meant it was over between us, then that was my karma. But I needed to strike out on my own.

“Pack a bag,” he said into my ear. “I'm taking you on a special little trip.”

“Really?” I asked. “Where?”

“Athens.”

“
Opa!
” I said, now thinking of sunny little fishing villages and baklava and the Acropolis.

“Texas,” he finished. “Athens, Texas. Diamond's invited, too.”

I sat upright. “Why on earth are we all going to Texas?”

“I'm asking you to get married,” he replied, and I was puzzled. I hadn't really thought about marrying in Texas, but the Lone Star State suddenly sounded appealing.

“Really, Tom?”

“Really,” he replied. “I mean, well, sort of.”

“What does ‘well, sort of' mean?” I asked suspiciously, wondering if he had been speaking to his mother and somehow found some weird way to make us both happy.

“I'm asking you to get married,” he replied, “but I'm asking you to marry Grisha.”

I LAUGHED FOR TEN WHOLE MINUTES.

Tom laughed, too. “You'll see,” he finally said. “It's all part of a plan.”

“To ruin my life?”

“To rescue an elephant.”

 

He wouldn't tell me anything else, just sent tickets, and within two days Diamond, Mrs. W., and I were on the next plane to Tyler Pounds Regional Airport, close to Athens.

Texas.

“Did you really have to bring Mrs. W.?” I asked Diamond as we settled into our seats on the plane. She had wrapped Mrs. W., urn and all, in newspaper and tucked her into her ubiquitous rucksack, which was then tucked
inside a suitcase. I was traveling light. I had packed a suitcase, but the clothes I brought with me were decidedly un-bridal. Tom had mentioned that I would be buying all the appropriate clothes in Texas. I made a face at Diamond. “I mean, what happens if they go through your luggage and find her?”

“There is no law against a girl traveling with her mum,” she replied.

I cast a baleful eye on her. “There probably is if your mum is in a jar.”

“Besides,” said Diamond, “it wouldn't be right for all of us to be at your wedding while she stays at home.”

 

Tom and Grisha were waiting for us at the airport. Grisha bowed low, put one cigarette-bearing hand behind his back, and took my hand to kiss my knuckles in a wet, nicotine-smelling smack. He actually blushed.

“Plain-Neelie,” he said, “it is honorment to make marriage with you.”

“Thank you,” I said, then turned to Tom. “But you'd better have a reasonable explanation for playing matchmaker with people who don't want to be matched up.”

“I'll tell you all about it while we drive to the hotel,” he said. “And it won't be forever. You'll only be married for a few days.”

 

We were going first class. For Athens, at least. Tom had made the reservations at the Holiday Inn Express, a wide, pseudo-elegant tan building dressed up with a porte cochere with pretentious Grecian columns at each corner.

“Dr. and Mrs. Grisha Trotsky,” Tom announced grandly to the clerk, pointing to Grisha and me.

 

“Trotsky?” I shrieked after we were all led up to the room, or rather, suite of rooms.

“Yep,” Tom agreed. “We wanted a name that sounded vaguely famous. The people we'll be dealing with are sleazy and clever but not smart.”

“Well, Trotsky,” I mused. “It does have a nice horsey ring to it.”

There was a table in the corner of the room, and the four of us sat ourselves around it. Five, since Mrs. W.'s urn was placed in the middle as if to preside over the meeting.

Tom slid some papers across the table. “Grisha is going to pose as a multimillionaire from Russia. You are his adoring wife. And you are going on a canned hunt.”

“Like Campbell soup cans?”

He gave an ironic laugh and said, “I wish,” and handed me a sheaf of papers. It was a glossy brochure for a sportsmen's ranch just outside of Athens. Photos of lions and tigers, a bear, a rhino—exotic animals for your hunting pleasure.

“Bollocks!” Diamond exclaimed. “This looks like Kenya.”

“Except the animals don't have a chance,” Tom said grimly. “It's all fenced in. You ride around in jeeps, they turn on the floodlights, the animals are chased into a narrow chute, right into your gun sight.”

I felt my stomach heave. “What's the purpose?” I gasped.

Tom shrugged. “Damned if I know,” he said. “There's no sport in it. It's all vanity. They take the head home and hang it up somewhere.”

“That's so disgusting,” I said, “but you said something about an elephant?”

Tom threw a photo in front of me. It was blurry and taken from a distance, and the angle was funky. But my heart stopped. I pulled the picture close to my face and squinted at it. Could it be? One tusk curling inward, the massive head and body. I wanted to crawl into the picture with him.

“Tusker?” I choked. “He's
here
?”

Grisha took the photo from me and studied it. “
Da
. We have follow elephants out of Zimbabwe. We have obtain the information they make arrivement in Texas. We think it is same elephant that we make lurement with oranges.”

I turned to Tom. “Why didn't you tell me?”

“I didn't know for sure. Grisha wasn't certain of his information. I didn't want to get you hopeful and then have to give you bad news again. You don't do well with bad news. And besides, this had to be totally confidential.”

“What do you mean?” I felt insulted. “I'm good at keeping secrets.”

“You know, there's an old proverb,” Diamond interjected. “Three can keep a secret when two are dead.”

I gave her the squint-eye, then turned back to Tom. “So, what kind of secrets are we talking about?”

“Please to understand, Mr. Thomas is not blameful,” Grisha apologized. “Many enamels ship from Zimbabwe. They go all over world. Big funtime for sheiks in Middle East to hunt trapped enamels.”

“You think they're going to hunt Tusker?” I gasped. “Here? In Texas?”

“Texas is the biggest canned hunt location in the world—it's wide open here,” Tom said.

“
Da
.” Grisha nodded. “Is should be illegalment.” He made a face. “In Russia, we do not have illegalments.
Politsiya
everywhere!” He lit another Stolichnye Light from the stub of his last one and breathed in deeply before holding it up to his face to admire. “Grisha is glad of Russian cigarette. American cigarette like smoking empty paper.”

“Yes,” I said, standing up and walking over to the window to look for a way to open it and let out the quickly accumulating cloud of blue smoke. “Lucky I'm not really your wife, or I'd have you quit smoking those things.”

“Grisha never quits!” Then he threw his head back and laughed. “Look at Plain-Neelie! Wife for five minutes and already we fight!”

 

We had lunch sent to the room—Diamond-Rose; Mrs. W., who was put on the desk and given the job of temporary paperweight; Tom and me and Grisha. Two waiters rolled in a steam table across the floor and lifted the lids to reveal Texas-size steaks, mountains of mashed potatoes that matched Kilimanjaro for altitude, garlic toast, and a salad that could feed an army of vegetarians. And several bottles of good wine.

“I may want to move to Texas,” Diamond said, wiping the last dot of au jus from her lips. “That was delicious.”

Grisha looked up from his plate. “American steak not as good as Russian steak.”

“Yeah,” Tom dryly agreed. “One bite of Russian steak is enough to keep you chewing through the entire winter season.”

“
Da
!” agreed Grisha. “This is so!” And cut another hearty piece for himself.

Tom checked his watch. “I'm expecting someone to arrive any minute now. He's going to help coordinate things,” he said. “He's done rescues and is quite a good animal handler. You met him at the funeral.”

Dessert was brought up next, huge slabs of sweet potato pie covered with mounds of whipped cream, and a bottle of Frangelico, courtesy of the hotel. Diamond-Rose dug ferociously into hers, when there was a knock at the door. Tom jumped to his feet and opened it to reveal a familiar figure. Jungle Johnny. He was wearing tan safari shorts, a tan shirt topped with a red bolo, gray socks, heavy boots. Diamond's doppelganger.

Tom made the introductions. “You all remember John Galloway? Jungle Johnny?” We shook hands all around.

“Call me JJ,” he said. “Takes less time.”

He eased himself into a chair and helped himself to a huge piece of pie. “Love working with you, Tom. You spare no expense,” he said.

“We don't normally eat like this,” Tom replied, “but Grisha has to look every inch the Russian mafioso, and they like big, heavy meals. I like my details perfect.” He turned to JJ. “And I want you in civilian clothes tomorrow.”

JJ poured himself a glass of Frangelico, took a sip, and sighed loudly. “Ahhh! The devil is in the details.” Then he leaned conspiratorially forward. “Now, let's get to work. Talk about details, we've got to get everything just right.” He sat back and gave us a solemn look. “Ladies and gentlemen, I hope you're up to it because tomorrow we're turning into Russians!”