The problem with faking appendicitis to get out of a public performance is that the very act of faking it requires a public performance. I’m about as talented at acting as I am at sweet-talking zoo donors, so by the time the primates team gathers at the outdoor bonobo exhibit, I’ve abandoned my pretend medical crisis plan. Instead, I position myself as far from the Wild Side crew as possible, hoping that Kai and Phil and God Herself will forget I exist.
Fanny the bonobo, a twenty-year-old female with a propensity to start a ruckus in the group by running around and smacking other bonobos on their heads, spots me hiding in the corner and knuckle-walks toward me.
“Hi, Fan,” I whisper. “Behaving yourself?”
She probably can’t hear me over the booming voice of one Kai Bridges, who’s sporting a ridiculous safari hat and delighting Jack, Lottie, and the gang with the harrowing story of how he once broke his leg in a remote Rwandan forest.
“My team carried me on their backs through six miles of steep terrain, and when we got to the hospital, the doctors weren’t sure if they could save the leg,” Kai says, as if he was a courageous James Franco in 127 Hours. “Moral of the story: Watch your step, and always pack a flask.”
I squint at Kai’s assistant, a pint-sized twenty-something whose name tag reads LARS and who looks like he couldn’t carry a sack of flour for six hours, let alone his six-foot-two, probably two-hundred-something-pound boss. I hope Kai gave him a nice Christmas bonus.
“Wow,” Lottie says, breathless at the dramatic tale. “You must have been so brave.”
I snort so loudly that it startles Fanny, who lets out an annoyed waah sound and runs off to smack her little brother over the head.
“Lucy, there you are,” Phil says, waving me toward the group. “Come on over.”
“Dammit, Fanny,” I mutter, but I force myself to join the cluster of people gathered around Kai.
“Let’s get started,” Kai says, grinning at the group. “For those of you I haven’t met yet, I’m Kai Bridges, producer and host of On the Wild Side.”
Jack raises his hands toward the roof like we’re at a high school pep rally, and Lottie lets out a soul-piercing shriek of excitement. She’s sporting a pink Columbus Zoo and Aquarium hat, and she leans closer when she notices me looking at it.
“Baby powder is not the same as dry shampoo,” she whispers, tugging the hat tighter over her hair. “Take it from me.”
“Our show has won Emmys, a Peabody, and even Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Awards,” Kai continues. “Prince William called it ‘a masterpiece,’ and Michelle Obama made a guest appearance last season. But the best prize we’ve earned is the trust of viewers around the globe. When people want to laugh and cry and learn a bit about the world around them, they tune in to Wild Side. And I’m thrilled for you all to be part of our team.”
Kai’s braggy name-dropping habit prickles my ears, but I can’t tear my eyes away from him because he’s magnetic when he speaks. It’s not just that the afternoon sun shines on him like a spotlight, lending him the ethereal dazzle of one of those dumb vampires from Twilight. And it’s not that his stupid hat, which has strings that he’s tied underneath his chin like an overgrown toddler on beach day, somehow doesn’t look half bad. It’s the way he shifts his gaze to make eye contact with everyone around him: not just Phil or Shira Woodrow or the stunning woman next to him, a lithe thirty-something in cornrows and a lilac summer smock.
Kai makes sure he speaks to all of us, even security guard Norm and the summer interns. Even me.
He’d make an excellent skinny tea salesman.
“I know some of you might be thinking, what’s this bloke doing at our zoo?” Kai says, rolling up the sleeves of his button-down to reveal a muscled set of forearms. “What’s he know about our animals and our lives? He’s just an overhyped, overpaid, egotistical moron who was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple.”
His gaze settles on me, and I wonder if anyone else picks up on the tension.
“We would never,” Lottie whispers, clutching her chest as if Kai said, Some of you might be thinking, let’s go kick some baby ducklings.
“But if you’re not sold yet, hang tight,” Kai says, grinning at Lottie. “I’m not everybody’s cup of tea, but I’m focused, I work hard, and I know how to make great TV.”
“You’re my cup of tea!” Katie the summer intern hollers, and I’m surprised when she doesn’t take off her bra and launch it at Kai’s head.
“This season is going to be different,” he says, zooming right past Katie’s flattery. “You guys are the experts here, not me. And I want to step away from the camera so you can take my place.”
Lottie raises her hand like we’re in third grade. “Wait, do you mean you’re not going to be on camera at all? You’re the face of the whole show!”
She makes a great point, and I don’t think that just because I’d rather eat my own fingernails than watch myself on Animal Planet. When people tune in, they’ll expect an hour of entertainment from Kai, his tight-fitting T-shirts, and the plight of whatever adorable animal he’s featuring that week. I imagine people like Trudy settling in for a new episode and realizing they’re in for a season of close-ups of Scotty the intern, who has a penchant for wearing Rick and Morty tees and the sleepy-eyed look of someone who just smoked an extremely potent blunt.
I don’t think the wine-sipping moms at Picnic for Paws will go for that.
“Don’t worry, I won’t be disappearing from the show,” Kai says, sending a wave of relief through the group. “But I do plan to be behind the camera more than in front of it.”
He grins at the woman in the lilac smock, who looks like a longer-haired Lupita Nyong’o, and introduces her as his co-producer Freya Framingham. “This season, while I focus on big-picture stuff like which plotlines to follow, Freya will assist with the day-to-day parts of shooting.”
Kai’s use of plotlines sends a shockwave of annoyance down my spine. Ozzie and Zuri aren’t characters he can manipulate to garner high ratings or win another Peabody Award; they’re complex creatures whose numbers in the wild are shrinking every day. And my task of connecting Keeva to a surrogate mother isn’t a plotline, either. It’s a crucial step in restoring a young gorilla’s chances for an enriching life.
“If you have questions about anything, big or small, ask me first,” Freya says in a butter-smooth voice, politely warning us not to bother King Kai. “I’m here to help, whether by arranging call times or teaching you guys how to wear a microphone without dropping it in the toilet—which happens more often than you’d think.”
She glances at Kai, and they share a knowing look.
“Long story involving a latrine in Thailand,” he says, his quarterback-sculpted shoulders shaking with laughter. “Don’t ask.”
“And this is our crew,” Freya says, motioning toward the group of people clad in matching blue Wild Side T-shirts. She introduces Kai’s personal assistant, a boom operator, and a production assistant. When she points to four camera operators, including a grown man with blue hair who legitimately introduces himself as Skippy, the sweat that’s been dripping off me since my meeting with Phil turns into a downpour. As Skippy hoists his camera up and waves at us, an airy lightness swirls through my limbs. I try not to pass out as I envision Kai barking orders at me in the Ape House nursery while Phil cries into a handkerchief, cursing the day he hired me.
“Lucy, he’s calling on you,” Lottie whispers, nudging me with her elbow.
I blink myself back into reality to see Kai motioning for me to step away from the bonobo exhibit, where I’ve practically plastered myself to the Plexiglass. “Earth to Lucy,” he says. “C’mon, practice time. You’re up first to bat.”
Fear fills up the hollow spaces of my body, and anger quickly follows. After I explicitly told him about my discomfort with cameras during the meeting, his decision to make me go first is downright cruel. Like he can read my thoughts, Kai cocks an eyebrow at me as if to say, I’m in charge, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
“It might, um, be better for someone else to start,” I say, my voice cracking on every other word. “I don’t feel very well.”
He only glances at his smartwatch. “I didn’t ask someone else. I asked you. C’mon, let’s get on with it.”
I can’t help but glare at him, because he didn’t do any asking at all. He’s ordering me around like I’m Lars the assistant and I messed up his ridiculously overcomplicated Starbucks order. But before I can remind Kai that I’m a zookeeper, not his personal bitch, I spot Phil in the background and force myself to take a calming breath. If showing my boss that I have the chops to be in charge means doing what Kai says, then I have no choice but to do it.
I’ll make a voodoo doll of him later.
I peel myself off the glass and walk toward Kai with Jell-O legs and a racing heart. But halfway there, I trip over Scotty the intern’s skateboard, and I barely catch my footing in time to stop my face from smacking the cement.
Freya gasps, and I mentally roll my eyes at her as I regain my balance. She ain’t seen nothing yet.
“Let’s get your mic set up,” Kai says, not bothering to ask if I’m all right.
He grabs a slim black wire from a bag at his feet and steps toward me, so close that I’m hit with a gentle, infuriatingly pleasing wave of campfire-and-aftershave scent.
“Did you roll around on the floor of a Bath and Body Works today?” I ask, not able to hold back my frustration.
Ignoring me, Kai attaches the wire to the collar of my polo. I hold my breath so as not to inhale another drop of his scent, and he fiddles with my collar like we’re awkward prom dates and he’s having a hell of a time adjusting my corsage.
“There,” he says after a moment. “That’s a LAV, also known as a body mic.”
And he’s a raging asshole, also known as a narcissist.
“My goal today is to get everyone comfortable with the mic and the camera,” he says. “None of the footage we shoot here will make it past the cutting room floor, so there’s no reason to be nervous. Okay?”
“Okay!” the group echoes back at him.
Kai leans toward me. “Okay, Lucy?” he asks, quietly enough that only I can hear.
I wish I could impress Phil and reply with bubbly enthusiasm, but I can barely breathe. The mic on my collar is small and light, but I imagine the wire coiling itself around my neck like a reticulated python, squeezing and constricting until I can’t get any oxygen.
“I, um, actually,” I whisper, desperate for Kai to have mercy on me and let me slink back to my spot in the corner, “I’m, um, no. I’m not.”
“Hey,” he says, all the scowl and smirk gone from his face. “You’re good. You’ve got this.” His expression is firm, certain, like he really believes I’m going to nail this. Like he’s not purposely setting me up for failure.
But I don’t believe it for a second. He stole my copy of Majesty on the Mountain, and now he’s going to steal my chance at winning a promotion—the slow, tortuous, enjoyable way. He could have done it in an instant by telling Phil about my tirade, but then his fun would have been over too quickly.
After Kai rattles on about the mechanics of the equipment, he motions for me to step in front of Skippy’s camera. “For practice, I’ll ask you a few simple questions. Remember, this is about establishing your comfort with the camera.”
He might as well say, This is about establishing your comfort with this highly poisonous box jellyfish, and I shudder and wrap my arms around myself. It’s the protective pose I adopted during dodgeball games in middle school gym, and Skippy gives me the same wary glance as my PE teacher Mrs. Edmunds.
“Relax, Lucy,” Kai instructs. “Like this.” He demonstrates how I should roll my shoulders and shake the stiffness away, and I try to imitate him. But he looks like he’s warming up for another sexy dance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, and I feel like a floppy inflatable advertising noodle stationed outside a car dealership.
“Now look at the camera and state your name and job title,” he instructs.
Blinking, I try to look at the camera, but it’s like staring into the open jaws of a great white shark.
“I . . . I . . .” I stammer, letting out an alarming wheeze.
“Take a deep breath,” Kai says. “What’s your name?”
“It’s, um, Lucy,” I mumble. “Lucy Rourke.” The words come out high-pitched and breathless.
“Good. Now say that again, along with your job title, but try to make it sound natural,” Kai instructs. “Conversational. Like it’s just you and me having a chat.”
The only thing that would feel natural right now would be curling up in the fetal position and dying, but I won’t go down without a fight. I have to try to impress Phil.
“Lucy Rourke,” I say, eking out the words like a movie character trying to impart a critical message from her deathbed. “Junior keeper.”
“Huh,” Kai says after an uncomfortable pause. He casts a brief sideways glance toward Skippy, who’s watching me go down in flames in open-mouthed awe. It’s amazing, really, that swimming with stingrays and chatting with Oprah can’t rattle Kai, but two minutes of trying to coach me on camera is enough to throw him off his game.
I really am that hopeless.
“Remember, it’s a camera, not a crocodile. I promise it won’t bite,” Kai says.
Scotty the intern and some of my colleagues snicker, but Kai doesn’t look away from me. His tone is sincere, placating, and I realize that at least in this moment, he’s not making fun of me. He’s trying to help—or at least make sure that I don’t single-handedly tank six seasons’ worth of killer Nielsen ratings.
“Tell me a fun animal fact,” he instructs, adjusting the position of Skippy’s camera a few inches. “Remember, it’s just you and me. The camera’s not even here.”
I snort. Sure it isn’t—and Kai wasn’t blessed with butt cheeks that I could bounce a quarter off. Please. The fuzzy sensation in my head grows stronger, like an army of cobwebs creeping over my brain, and I can’t remember what year it is, let alone pull a fun animal fact out of my ass.
“Hyenas,” I say finally, the word mush in my mouth. “A fun fact is that, um . . .” Mia watched a marathon of The Lion King movies at Nona’s last week, and she knocked on my bedroom door afterward to pester me with questions about the species.
“Female hyenas have a pseudopenis,” I say, trying so hard to speak above a whisper that I practically shout. As soon as the words leave my mouth, I wish I could reach into the air and snatch them back. But it’s too late; I yelled “pseudo” and I yelled “penis,” and the damage is done. I should have shared a cute, G-rated fact like, Guess what, kids? Honeybees communicate through dance, but it’s too late.
“It’s nearly indistinguishable from the male penis,” I continue, blinking into the camera. “They, um, urinate through it. And give birth through it. And, um, when female hyenas fight, the loser gets an erection to show that she’s, like, submitting.”
I wipe sweat off my cheek, and my skin is so warm to the touch that I won’t be surprised if it melts off. Then nothing will be left of me but a skeleton, and Lottie and Jack can bury my remains in the zoo topiary garden with a headstone that reads, HERE LIES LUCY, WHO RAMBLED ABOUT HYENA ERECTIONS TO THE MAN DIANE SAWYER CALLED “A NATIONAL TREASURE.”
Kai watches me for a long moment, like he doesn’t know what to say, and I wonder if that inscription is too much for the Ape House budget. HERE LIES LUCY, WHO COULDN’T SHUT THE FUCK UP would be cheaper.
“Okay,” he says finally. “Good start. Who’s next?”
It was an abominable start, and Jack gives me a sad, sympathetic smile as I stagger back toward the group.
“I’ll go,” Lottie says. After Freya fixes her with a mic, she beams and puts her hands on her hips with a cheerleader’s bouncy confidence.
“I’m Lottie Devins, junior keeper,” she says proudly, and even her baby powder–coated hair can’t dim her exuberance. “My favorite fun animal fact is that a single elephant tooth can weigh as much as nine pounds.”
She nods at the camera, and I almost expect her to launch into a backflip and thrust her arms into the air. She’s good at this—she’s great, actually—and her ease makes my pathetic ineptitude more glaring.
“Great work, Lottie. You’re a natural,” Kai says as the sinkhole in my stomach opens wider.
Jack goes next, and his wide smile and deep, narrator-perfect voice give Lottie a run for her money. After two senior keepers take their turns, Scotty the intern follows, and even he—a twenty-two-year-old who eats Cool Ranch Doritos for breakfast and has thrice locked himself inside the Ape House refrigeration unit—does a better job than me.
I thought staring into the camera was unbearable, but watching my colleagues do it with minimal discomfort, and many of them with obvious enjoyment, is even worse. I can’t do this. I can’t spend an entire summer hyperventilating while a squad of baby-faced interns outpaces me in the race for the senior keeper job. I can’t blink into a camera while I’m caring for baby Keeva, trying to claw back at the panic blazing through my heart.
I just can’t.
“That’s a wrap for today,” Kai says as Freya disassembles a trifold lighting system. “Great work, everybody!”
What he means is, Great work, everybody but Lucy, and the simmering nausea that’s bubbled in my stomach since this morning boils over.
“Excuse me,” I whisper, jostling past Lottie. Once I’m away from the group, I sprint the rest of the way to Ape House and scurry into the employee bathroom, slamming the door shut behind me.
The vomit comes hard and fast, and so do the tears. Because even if I were a Humboldt squid or an Arctic tern or the fastest cheetah on earth, I couldn’t escape the harsh truth in front of me, the one I learned from Karina as a kid and Phil’s going to realize this summer:
No matter how hard I try, I’ll never be enough.