“I didn’t know there was a clouded leopard,” Benji said. “Peter, there’s a clouded leopard?”
“We’ll see the big cat facility if there’s time,” I said.
“There’s time,” Bill said. “I built in time.”
“You built in time for the big cats but not for the elephant bloodwork discussion?” I asked.
“The elephant bloodwork is your payment for the backstage pass, not part of the date. I have boundaries.” Bill turned to Benji. “Has he told you about the giraffesurgery?”
“There was a giraffe surgery?” Benji asked.
“Kito. Juvenile female with a fractured tibia. Peter drove here on a Sunday morning and spent fourteen hours in our surgical suite. Most consulting vets do their piece and leave, but Peter stayed the whole recovery. He actually slept in the chair beside her enclosure.”
“I was monitoring post-operative stability,” I said.
“You were sleeping in a chair beside a baby giraffe because you needed to know she was okay,” Bill said. He looked at Benji. “That’s who you’re dealing with.”
“I’m aware,” Benji said, and the way he said it made Bill smile and made me look at the floor.
Bill walked us through the hospital wing. It was larger and better equipped than my clinic, designed for animals ranging from hummingbirds to elephants. The imaging suite alone was worth the visit, a dual-modality room with digital radiography and ultrasound capabilities that could accommodate a standing sedated rhino, which Marcus demonstrated by pulling up images from a recent case that led to a twenty-minute discussion about comparative bone density across species that Benji later described as “the nerdiest foreplay I’ve ever witnessed.”
“It wasn’t foreplay,” I told him. “It was a professional discussion about radiographic interpretationin megafauna.”
“You and Bill were finishing each other’s sentences about bone density. That’s foreplay in your language. I know your language now. It only scares me a little.”
The nutrition kitchen was Bill’s pride and joy, a spotless, industrial-scale facility where the zoo’s dietary staff prepared meals for over a thousand animals. Each diet was individually calibrated for species, age, health status, and behavioral needs.
I stopped at the posted diet chart for the zoo’s aging elephant and studied it with an attention that I recognized was excessive for a date but couldn’t moderate because the caloric calculations for a twelve-thousand-pound mammal with early-stage arthritis were exactly the kind of problem I found intellectually satisfying.
“The potassium supplementation is elegant,” I said.
“You just called an elephant’s dinner elegant,” Benji said.
“Look at the integration with the anti-inflammatory protocol. They’re using the food itself as a delivery mechanism. The elephant doesn’t know she’s being medicated. That’s excellent veterinary design.”
“Peter. We’re on a date. You’re rhapsodizing aboutpotassium.”
“Potassium is important.”
“Yes, potassium is important. The fact that you think potassium is a romantic topic is one of the most endearing things about you. I need you to never change.”
Bill, who had been watching from a professional distance, caught my eye and gave me a look that said, clearly and without ambiguity, “This one’s good. Don’t mess it up.”
The manatee rehabilitation center was where I lost the ability to pretend I wasn’t having my best morning in two years. Bill’s access didn’t put us behind the glass with the public. It put usinthe water room, the working space where the rehab team conducted their morning assessments. This was a tiled area at pool level where the manatees floated within arm’s reach, and the staff moved between animals with the practiced calm of people whose daily commute involved wading.
Sarah, the lead rehab tech, handed us each a pair of rubber boots and a brief overview of the protocol: no sudden movements, no loud sounds, let the animals approach on their terms.
“That last one won’t be a problem,” I said, looking at Benji, who was standing at the pool’s edge with his boots on and his face doing something I’d onlyseen twice before—once on the floor of my bedroom with Hiro, and once in the kitchen when I’d kissed him.
It was the complete cessation of performance, the dropping of every layer.
A manatee named Biscuit (not to be confused with the pit bull—think British biscuit, as in cookie, not scone) drifted toward the edge with the unhurried calm of a creature who had accepted that the world would move at his pace and who had learned that the people in boots meant food. He was recovering from a boat strike. A long scar was visible along his back.
“Can I touch him?” Benji whispered.
Sarah nodded. “Flat hand, slow approach. Let him come to you.”
Benji lowered his hand to the water’s surface.
