Monkey Business

jamie returns to the zoo

Saturday, February 21, 7:40 p.m.

I walk up the stairs of the Zoo, feeling dazed. It’s only been a week and a half, but it feels like I’ve been gone for months. I hear laughing through the rooms, doors slamming, people walking from one room to another. I wonder if anyone even realized I was gone.

I drop my bags off in my room, and then try to snap out of it. My family will be fine. They don’t need me watching over them. I’ll be back in two weeks to make sure they’re okay.

At least I’m not behind on my assignments. I sent them all in by e-mail. Right now I have to get my life in order. I need to talk to Layla. I knock on her door. I’m not sure what I want to say to her, but I want to see her.

“One second!” she yells. I hear her laughing inside. She opens the door and hugs me. Tight. Maybe she feels the same? “Hi! You’re back! How are you?” The phone is cradled between her ear and neck. “Hon, let me call you back, okay?”

Hon? Who’s hon?

“Five minutes, I promise.” She giggles. “Me, too. Bye.” She hangs up the phone and hugs me. “Jamie, how are you?” She pulls back and puts on her somber face. “You doing all right?”

“I’m all right. Who’s hon?”

She claps her hands. “It’s him! The essay guy, Bradley Green.” She mouths the word essay so no one in the hallway will hear. Not that there’s anyone in the hallway. “Come in. I’ll bring you up to speed.”

As usual, her room looks as though she’s spent all day organizing and fluffing it. I flop on her bed and make myself comfortable. Who knows? Maybe she’ll join me.

Nope. She sits on her desk chair. “First tell me about you. How’s your family doing?”

“They’ve been better.” They were better when more of them were alive. “It was all pretty sudden.”

“Poor you. How are you?”

I don’t feel like talking about me. “I want to know about Bradley. Nu?”

“He’s wonderful,” she gushes. “I met him when I did the prospective students tour. Then I met him in the City last weekend.”

Last weekend. When I called. “That’s where you were.”

“What do you mean?”

“I called you.”

“You did?”

“Yeah.” Should have left a message. Should have told her how I felt two weeks ago, then maybe she would never have gone to meet this Bradley guy. Maybe she would have chosen me. “Never mind. So you went to visit him last weekend.”

“Yes, and he took me to a fabulous restaurant, and we had an incredible time.”

“Get some action?” I lift my eyebrows suggestively. My stomach falls simultaneously.

She smiles. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

Bradley Green. Kermit had it wrong. It is easy being green. I feel an unmanly lump in the back of my throat. Oy. “What else is going on? Russ and Kimmy still on the sly?”

“No, that’s the other big news. He broke up with Sharon. And now he and Kimmy are all over each other in class. You’ll see tomorrow. And they both got offers at O’Donnel.”

Throat lump increases exponentially. “Am I the only one without a job?” I need to figure out what I want to do.

“No, I don’t think Lauren got one yet.”

“But she’ll take any job. She swings all ways.”

Layla giggles. “We’re all going to the Monsoon Bar on Johnson Street tonight to celebrate. And it’s Nick’s birthday. You’ll come, won’t you? We missed you. We miss our comedian.”

I fake smile. “Celebrate we shall.” What’s not to celebrate?