After that, Kai and I aren’t mortal enemies anymore. It’s hard to view someone as a smarmy asshole when you’ve seen him drive a midrange minivan, and even though he’s still the jerk who stole my book, he’s a jerk who knows a lot of freaky animal facts and may or may not have some lingering PTSD—two qualities I can relate to.
Plus, our little game of Who Knows More Deranged Facts About Animals? is kind of fun.
“Male koalas have two penises,” I tell him when we pass each other in the Ape House hallway.
“A pig’s orgasm lasts thirty minutes,” he whispers as he helps me adjust my mic.
Maybe we’re not friends, exactly, but I no longer wish him death by way of Rosha the tiger. One thing’s for sure: I am not growing a crush on Kai Bridges. When I spend fifteen minutes crafting a “messy” bun and putting on mascara, it’s not because I know I’ll run into him. It’s because I want to look nice for baby Keeva’s arrival. And when I spend my bike ride to work thinking of more bizarre animal facts, it’s not because I want to keep our game going. It’s just a helpful way to interrupt a stress response, like counting to ten.
Regardless, I don’t have time to give in to Bad Lucy’s desire to scroll through Kai’s shirtless Instagram pics. Because the day after my car breaks down, four-month-old baby Keeva arrives at the zoo.
She’s a nine-pound bundle of fluffy fur and gangly limbs, and as soon as Miami’s Alexandra St. John carries her from a zoo transport van to the nursery, I know I’ve died and gone to heaven.
“Hi, Keeva,” I say as the infant peeks out at me from where she’s curled up in Alexandra’s arms.
She opens her mouth and yawns, letting out an adorable squeak, and Lottie almost passes out from the cuteness. Between her wrinkled face and the generous floof of black fur on top of her head, Keeva looks like a pint-sized mad scientist, and I fall instantly in love with her.
During her first few hours in the nursery, Keeva clings to Alexandra, daring to approach me only when she realizes that yanking my bun is an incredibly fun game. By the end of my first shift, I’ve lost a good chunk of hair, but it’s worth it when Keeva lets me feed her a bottle. She doesn’t crawl into my lap like she does Alexandra’s, but I don’t blame her one bit: building a bond with a gorilla takes way longer than a day, and if I lost my whole family and got shuffled to two new homes within a month, I’d be reluctant around strangers, too.
By the end of Keeva’s third day, though, she’s comfortable enough with our keeper team that she doesn’t scurry behind Alexandra’s back when we enter the nursery, and she’s found a best friend in a red rubber ball that she enjoys launching at Jack’s head. I’ve gotten accustomed to wearing the heavy, hairlike vest that mimics the texture of a mother gorilla’s fur and gives Keeva’s agile fingers material to grab on to, and I’m decent enough at imitating soothing gorilla belch vocalizations that Keeva doesn’t look at me like I’m speaking Mandarin at her.
When it’s time for Alexandra to return to Miami, leaving her charge in my care, she clutches Keeva to her chest and makes soft grunt vocalizations, stroking the unruly fur on the infant’s head.
“You’re my brave girl, and you can do this,” she whispers. “You can do anything.” Then, wiping tears from where they’ve escaped her surgical mask, she passes Keeva to me.
When Keeva crawls off in pursuit of her ball, Alexandra takes her leave, but not before turning back to look at me.
“I’ve worked with my share of gorillas over the years,” she says, “but never one I’m rooting for this much. Take care of her.”
“I will,” I promise, and I mean it with every fiber of my being. I know that Keeva is to Alexandra what Zuri is to me, and I’ll do everything in my power to honor that bond.
And by everything, I mean everything. Day and night, I rotate through the nursery, trading off shifts with Jack and Lottie. I feed Keeva, burp her, change her diaper, and let her climb on me like I’m a jungle gym that feels no pain. I crawl around in the hay for hours, Keeva riding on my back like young gorillas ride on their mothers’. I sleep on a leaky air mattress that I park outside the nursery and subsist on microwaved lasagna, and even though I wake up every morning with a stiff neck and a craving for a homemade dinner, I’m having the time of my life.
Because while introducing a new gorilla into a troop, particularly a gorilla as vulnerable as a baby, is a risky, exhausting process, if Ozzie’s troop accepts Keeva, it’ll be a miracle—the story of an orphaned infant who survived a deadly infection and found a new, fulfilling family.
And I’ll get to be a part of it.
Even though Keeva is cuter than all the world’s puppies combined, life isn’t all sunshine and roses. There’s still the little matter of the cameras, and the only way I can cope is to ignore them completely. When Kai and his crew show up to shoot, I pretend that I’m wearing an invisibility cloak, and while it’s probably not the most promising tactic to ensure good TV, I haven’t yet fainted or embarrassed myself and everyone in my vicinity by rambling about bonobo sex habits.
Besides, Kai wasn’t entirely wrong. I’m about as likely to get comfortable with the cameras as the kids from It are to get comfortable with Pennywise the dancing clown, but it is easier to be less cognizant of their presence when I’m focused on my work. When he says, “Camera two, ready!” and motions for Skippy to line up his shot, I still get a heart-pounding, fluttery-bones sensation that makes me dizzy. But if I look at Keeva and focus on the feel of her soft fur and the breathy snoring noises she makes when she sleeps, I can ward off a panic attack.
A week after Keeva’s arrival, Phil gives me the okay to move the female gorillas from Ozzie’s troop—Zuri, Tria, and Inkesha—into the “bedroom” next to Keeva’s nursery. The mesh barrier separating the spaces will let the girls smell, see, and hear Keeva and even reach through it to touch her without getting close enough to cause injury.
Hopefully.
“Okay, ladies,” I say, marching back and forth in front of Tria, Zuri, and Inkesha with a bucket of protein biscuits. “If we give you these treats, you have to promise that you’ll be nice to Keeva. And I mean all of you.”
I side-eye Inkesha, who’s the orneriest of the bunch. “Especially you.”
“Keeva is a tiny baby,” Lottie explains as the gorillas stare at us blankly. “She needs your help. She needs a mommy.”
Tria, ignoring her daughter Piper’s attempts to grab a fistful of lettuce from her hand, grunts as if to say I don’t give a fuck who needs a mommy; I need those biscuits. Inkesha crosses her arms over her chest and scratches her armpits. Zuri grabs a handful of hay and places it on top of her head like a sun hat.
“God help us,” Lottie whispers.
Jack and Phil wait with Keeva in the nursery as Lottie and I prepare to open the gate to allow the girls into the bedroom. My heart pounds so loudly that I swear I can hear it over the sound of Keeva smacking her ball against Jack’s head. What if none of the gorillas show interest in her? Worse, what if they feel threatened and try to reach through the mesh and rip her to shreds? What if I fail in my mission to usher her into the troop, and she moves from zoo to zoo forever, unloved and alone?
“It’s go time,” Phil says over the walkie-talkie system, and I push away my doubts and wait for Lottie’s signal.
“And three, two, one, open!” she calls. Uttering a silent prayer to Jane Goodall, Charlotte Kimber, and the spirit of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, I lift a metal lever to open the gate. Lottie and I littered the area with the girls’ favorite goodies—lettuce, watermelon, and enough popcorn to feed an entire movie theater—and they grunt with excitement as they scurry into their new space.
My pulse races as Keeva, first hearing and then seeing the commotion, lets out a cry of confusion and flings herself into Jack’s arms. Tria scoops up an armful of lettuce and approaches the mesh but growls when she sees Keeva’s tiny face peeking out at her. Zuri, startled by Tria’s reaction, runs to the mesh and smacks it, hard, sending a terrified Keeva sprint-crawling to cower on the other side of the nursery.
“Yikes,” Lottie says as Tria grabs a squirmy Piper by the ankle and rushes her away while Inkesha, disconcerted by the chaos and always happy to make trouble, runs bipedally along the mesh, letting out an aggressive hiccup bark. She dashes off after Tria and Piper while Zuri gathers up as much popcorn as she can carry and climbs to the highest platform in the bedroom, as far from Keeva as she can get.
“Be patient, guys,” Phil instructs as Jack comforts a terrified Keeva and Lottie shoots me a look that says, This is worse than the time Kyra the bonobo bit Scotty on the ear.
I know Phil’s right; just like you can’t throw a random group of humans together and expect them to be besties, gorillas are no different. But I’d hoped for at least some positive interaction, and right now, the only connection that’s forming is the one between Zuri and her mountain of popcorn.
By the end of the second day, when the girls still haven’t shown more than a passing interest in the baby, I’m panicking. None of the tricks we’ve used, like stacking treat cups and peanut-butter-filled toys along the mesh, have enticed them to approach her. Even busting out their favorite enrichment items doesn’t work. Zuri takes one look at the paint and butcher paper I assemble for her and makes a pig grunt sound before scampering off.
By the fourth night, when the girls are still staying as far from the mesh as possible, I can tell Phil’s starting to worry, too. We can’t force anyone to adopt Keeva as a surrogate, and putting her in the same quarters as a hesitant adult gorilla could have dangerous, if not deadly, consequences. So when Phil calls the senior keepers into a meeting and rumors swirl about the possibility of sending Keeva to the Pittsburgh Zoo, I offer to take an extra overnight shift. I need to think, and there’s no better place to do it than sprawled out on some hay with a baby gorilla.
“See you in the morning, Lucy,” Lottie says, yawning as she exits the nursery around midnight.
“See you.” Keeva bounces on my right leg, hopping up and down on my knee while she clutches my hands.
“What are we gonna do with you, sweetheart?” I ask, my voice cracking with worry.
Keeva only grabs a handful of my hair and tugs, letting out an amused chuckle. She has no idea that I’m failing her, or that we’re in a desperate race against time.