Zera and the Green Man Page 9

  “You look amazing,” Langston said.

  Tiffany’s giggle returned as Langston complimented her on her new outfit, a hot pink, strapless, sequined gown with matching shoes and bag. Theodore, standing beside her in the tuxedo that had been waiting for him in his room, had never felt more dressed up. Round, gold-framed eyeglasses and a matching gold watch were his stylish, though quirky, Tiffany-chosen accessories. Langston, also in a tux, looked like the leading man in an old Hollywood musical. Theodore half-expected him to break out in song or dance as he introduced his group to the “guests of honor” at the celebration dinner: his stunning, blonde date, Crystal, a Monica’s Secret underwear model; Troy Sylvan, the head of Void’s Research and Development department, described by Langston as “my right-hand man”; and Troy’s gorgeous, red-haired date, Zirconia, whom Theodore was sure he’d seen on television, though he couldn’t remember quite where. Out of the four of them, only Troy, a short, few-pounds-overweight man with sharp facial features, a black goatee, and longish blond hair pulled into a ponytail, stood out as a non-beautiful person.

  “That’s a fabulous dress, Tiffany,” Crystal said.

  Tiffany smiled winningly. “Thank you.”

  Always a little uncomfortable in social situations, Theodore was glad the initial attention was mostly on Tiffany and not him. It’s a good thing she came along, he thought. I may have the job, but I sure don’t want to get started off on the wrong foot.

  The headwaiter appeared. “Your table is ready,” he announced. He seated them all at a marble-topped, candlelit table near a window overlooking the lights of the Hollywood Hills. “Your waiter will be here shortly.”

  “Looks like the best seat in the house,” Theodore said.

  “It is.” Langston carefully took his napkin and unfolded it, placing it on his lap. “I hope you don’t mind that I’ve taken the liberty of ordering for us all. We’ll be having the Star Gala, a dinner The Posh prepares only for its most special guests, all in celebration of our new president of VCCs Biotechnology Division.”

  “Wow,” said Theodore.

  “It sounds wonderful,” Tiffany said. Under the table, she reached for one of Theodore’s hands and gave it a little squeeze, her code for, “You could have said something a little better than ‘Wow.’” The hand-squeeze made Theodore think about how he’d had his warts burned off again just two weeks ago and was already getting bumps.

  The waiter came out with three kinds of caviar and creamed turtle eggs on crunchy toast to accompany plates of oysters and shrimp. He clapped his hands three times, and a fountain in the form of a two-foot-high mermaid rose from the center of the table. Applause broke out as champagne streamed from her conch shell and the waiter filled glasses for them all.

  “To Theodore,” said Troy.

  They all clinked classes in a toast.

  “I think these turtles just might be on the endangered species list,” Langston stage-whispered, before popping a piece of egg and toast into his mouth with gusto. Everyone chuckled.

  Troy, a bit of egg lodged on his black goatee, laughed the loudest; a merry, high-pitched laugh that, along with the goatee, made Theodore think of that goatish Greek god, Pan. “You’re too much,” Troy said to Void.

  The cream o’ truffle soup was followed by lobster tails in puddles of sherry cream sauce sprinkled with herbs and thin broiled slices of rabbit and ostrich. The main course featured thinly sliced, rare veal surrounded by steamed vegetables of green and orange carved into the shapes of huge gemstones. Star-shaped potatoes had the restaurant’s name written on them in letters of melted butter.

  “My, I think we’ve tasted about five types of animals!” said Crystal.

  “Six,” said Langston.

  For the next course, Bradley brought a tray of imported cheeses and then rolled out a silver cart carrying a miniature tree, covered with dark cherry-red fruits the size and shape of small pears.

  “Oh my,” said Tiffany. “Is this Theodore’s tree?”

  “Sure is,” Langston said. “It’s a pherry tree.”

  A thrill went through Theodore.

  “Mmm, pherries. My favorite!” exclaimed Crystal. “I buy them all the time at the market.”

  Behind his gold-framed glasses, Theodore eyed the tree. “Wow,” he said, regretting the word as soon as he said it. “I mean, I remember doing the work for this cross-breeding during grad school. The patent sale paid for a new car. That was almost a decade ago. I knew pherries were available in California, but they’re not in Colorado yet.”

  “They’ve been in L.A. for six months,” said Crystal. “They have a hard time keeping them in stock; they’re always sold out!”

  “Such an interesting name,” said Troy. “Pherries. Like the little flying fairies.” His thin lips curved upward. “Did the fairies help you out on this one, Theodore?”

  “Not that I know of,” said Theodore, grinning. “I’m a man of science.”

  “I’ll drink to that.” Langston raised his glass. “To science.”

  “To science!” The crystal rang musically as the group clinked their glasses once more.

  They hand-picked their pherries and declared them perfect.

  For dessert, a flaming rum dish, Chocolate Revelry, was prepared at the table. Everyone agreed the luscious combination of chocolate, cake, whipped cream, and two kinds of rum, was divine. Finally they shared a rare blend of coffee, grown on a special mountaintop in Hawaii and fertilized by only the guano of rare, endangered, tropical birds.

  Tiffany oohed and ahhed at each presentation, while Theodore felt like a fish out of water. He had never had this much attention, ever. He used his best table manners, just as Tiffany had coached him, making only one false step, when he accidentally splashed champagne from his glass during a toast. Langston had thought it funny and splashed a little out of his, too. Troy followed, roaring with laughter. The women raised their eyebrows over the childishness, but laughed too.

  On the subject of biotechnology, Theodore found both men hanging on his every word. Langston said, several times, “Theodore, we’ve been looking for someone like you for a long time,” and Troy nodded in agreement. While the swirl of the women’s conversation — on shopping, restaurants, and celebrity gossip — played in the background, Langston and Troy sat enthralled, listening to Theodore’s theories on the future of gene-splicing.

  “You will not believe it Friday, when you visit the laboratory,” Troy said to Theodore over coffee. “We are working on projects that are going to make what’s been done in the biotech arena look like child’s play.”

  His date, Zirconia, who had stopped talking to Tiffany about shopping long enough to pay attention, nodded, and her long red curls bounced like Slinkies. “But I heard it’s top secret, so you can’t talk about it here,” she said, placing a crimson-tipped finger to her crimson lips.

  Looks like she’s had a little too much champagne, thought Theodore. “I can’t wait to see it,” he told Troy.

  Troy dabbed his goatee with a napkin. “Langston, now that Theodore is president of VCC’s Biotech Division, we’ll let him in on all the secrets.”

  “If we’re going to the lab Friday, I guess tomorrow I’ll get set up in my office?” Theodore asked.

  “Oh no,” Langston said. “No reason to rush. We’re going to have a little fun first.”

  “Excellent!” exclaimed Tiffany, who was obviously feeling the effects of the champagne as well.

  Void gave Tiffany a green-eyed wink. “It’s enough to make even me giddy at times.”

  * * *

  Back at the hotel, Tiffany told Theodore about a conversation she’d had with Crystal during a trip to “the little girl’s room.”

  “She was really nice, Theodore. She asked how long we’d known each other, and she said we’d all get to be great friends!” Tiffany kicked off her shoes, went over to the sofa. “They really like you.”

  The way she said “they really like you” grated on Theodore’s nerves.
He was happy the night was a success, but Tiffany always had this surprised attitude when things went well for him.

  “And guess what I found out?” Tiffany asked. “It’s quite the shocker.”

  “Hmm?” Theodore, taking off his tuxedo jacket and hanging it over a chair, went to get a glass of water at the bar.

  “I made a comment about Langston, how I had a lot of experience in cosmetics and studying facial structures, and that I’d noticed that Langston was just so incredibly attractive.”

  Pouring a glass of water, Theodore yawned. Doesn’t sound like a shocker to me.

  “I told her that Langston reminded me of an actor, but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it and she said, now Theodore, get this: ‘A little Nicky Wayne, the nose and the chin, and a little Robert Ransom, the eyes and the lips.’ Theodore, he’s had a lot of plastic surgery!”

  The information didn’t compute with Theodore. “Was he in some kind of accident or something?”

  Tiffany laughed. “No, silly. Crystal said before the surgery he was all money and brains, no looks at all! Well, he had an okay body, but his face was just . . . yuck. Crystal worked at VCC before she became a model and said that his dad used to make fun of him all the time, when Langston worked as a scientist. So after he died, Langston had all this surgery.”

  Theodore felt a little ill. Sure, plastic surgery was something every celebrity out there was doing, not to mention scads of wealthy and even not-so-wealthy people, but Langston, changing most of his facial features? Beyond strange. He felt like he’d spent several hours with someone who was partially a . . . a hoax. “That’s really weird.”

  “Oh, Theodore, you’re just helplessly old-fashioned.”

  “Maybe. But I just wasn’t raised to be comfortable with those kinds of things. You said Crystal worked at Void Corporation?”

  “For a while. She was Langston’s dad’s secretary. But after he died, she got into modeling and then started dating Langston. That was a couple of years ago.”

  Theodore shook his head. “I can’t get over it. Plastic surgery.”

  “He’s just trying to improve himself. Crystal said he had a pretty tough life. That his parents split up when he was a baby and he never saw his mother again. His father was pretty mean. Crystal said she’s also had work done, and so has Zirconia.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me.”

  “Everyone does it here. I wouldn’t mind doing something about, you know, this double chin.”

  “Tiffany, your chin is fine. Please don’t get sucked into that mentality. And not everyone does it here. Troy Sylvan doesn’t.”

  “Crystal said he’s the odd man out. That she’s always fixing him up with models, but he never seems to date any of them for long.”

  “Hmm.” The term La-La Land entered Theodore’s mind, and not for not the first time that day. “That doesn’t mean a lot. One thing’s for sure, we’re not in Kansas, I mean Colorado, anymore, Tiff.”

  “That’s for sure. It’s so much better here.” Tiffany picked up her shoes and took them to the closet. “I’m beat, and I feel a little sick from all that food. I’m going to have to spend a few hours down in the hotel gym tomorrow.”

  “We’d better get up early, then. Langston says he has a big day planned.

  Chapter Twelve

  Tuesday, June 3

  “UR UR UR UR Urrrrrr!”

  “URRR Ur Ur Urrrrrr!”

  First one bantam rooster crowed, then the other, as if they were challenging each other in a raspy barnyard duel. The racket came in through the open window.

  What the heck . . . Zera turned over in her bed, pulled the quilt up to her chin. Crowing? She opened her eyes and for a moment couldn’t remember where she was. Then a sensation, bittersweet, swept over her. Bitter because of the lost time, sweet because for the first time in what seemed like forever she didn’t feel disappointed upon waking up and realizing where she was.

  The room glowed with the dawn. A chilly breeze pushed through the open window and tousled the curtains. Zera got out of bed, pulling the quilt off and wrapping it around her as she made her way over to the window to close it.

  She stopped at the view. The lower mountains surrounding Ute Springs glowed dark purple, blue, and green. Several miles in the distance, Pikes Peak loomed, its snow-white top shining. All this in an Easter egg sky of pink and turquoise . . .

  Her gaze traveled to the box of plants sitting on top of her suitcase. Something about them . . . another dream. She couldn’t remember what the dream was about, but she recalled a soothing voice, the comfort of feeling looked after and safe. She was glad they were there with her. I need to find perfect places for all of you today.

  Zera dressed and hurried downstairs. In the living room, Cato and Alice wagged their tails in greeting from their sleeping spots on the furniture.

  Through the large pocket doors leading into the kitchen, Zera saw Nonny.

  “Good mornin’, Sunshine. You’re up with the dawn, just like I knew you’d be.”

  Zera grinned back as a ritual, nearly forgotten, came back to her in perfect clarity. “Mornin’, Grandma Moon,” she answered. For as long as she could remember, they had greeted each other by those names in the morning — Sunshine and Grandma Moon.

  Nonny nodded toward the dogs. “Still spoiled rotten, as you can see.”

  “As they should be,” Zera said.

  Nonny took a sip from her coffee mug. “I told Hattie we’d come by and see her today. She called yesterday evening while you were outside and invited us to lunch. Is that all right with you?”

  “Sounds great, Nonny.”

  * * *

  After a morning of chores, tending to the animals, and unpacking her clothes, Zera moved her plants.

  Nonny suggested “giving them a summer vacation too,” so Zera brought all but Sunny to the porch. Knowing that they, like people, could be sunburned, she chose a lightly-shaded spot until they got used to being outdoors. The Venus flytrap, whose natural home was in a bog or swamp, stayed upstairs in her room near the window on the table.

  Nonny insisted they walk to Hattie’s.

  “Are you sure?” Zera said uneasily, thinking about the steepness of the streets and her grandmother’s handicap. “Uncle Theodore said you had a special-equipped car.”

  “I do, and the car works fine. So do I. My dear, if people can run the Boston Marathon on one leg, I sure as heck can handle a few blocks.”

  Through no fault of Nonny’s, it took them over an hour to get to the bottom of the hill. A half-dozen neighbors spotted them during the seven-block descent, and they all wanted to welcome Zera back and chat for a few minutes.

  It seemed to Zera as if the early June morning was beautiful just for her; the temperature pleasantly warm, the sky dotted with white clouds suspended like fat cotton cushions. Zera delighted in them, so close overhead. Her heart, for a change, felt as free and buoyant as they looked. Never had the sky seemed this bright in Piker.

  As they walked down Ute Boulevard, the door of Nell’s Coffee House opened. It’s Cosmic Dan! Dan was lanky but moved elegantly. He always wore jeans, usually with a cotton, button-up shirt and cowboy boots. He wore his hair naturally, in a medium-sized Afro, and his exotic features, combined with the fact that he was a virtuoso electric guitarist, reminded not only Zera, but everyone who met him, of the rock legend Jimi Hendrix.

  Everyone in town knew Dan’s story. He happened through Ute Springs long ago, on his way to college in California, but he fell in love with the town and stayed. Dan abided by a personal philosophy of “love, live, and learn as much as you can.” He’d sampled twenty professions so far in his life, a new one almost every year, and he’d done it all for fun. He’d been everything from bank teller to ice cream truck driver to city councilperson. Cosmic Dan had also been one of Zera’s father’s closest friends.

  “Well hello!” said Nonny. “Look who I have here.”

  Cosmic Dan appeared uneasy as he took in Zera. “I
knew you were in town, you know how word travels.” His voice sounded strange. He cleared his throat, rubbed the back of his neck above his aqua cowboy shirt. “My goodness, girl, if you don’t look just like your mother.”

  Zera beamed. Her grandmother had said exactly the same thing at least three times yesterday. It gave her more pleasure than sadness; she’d always thought her mom was so pretty, and she rarely thought of herself in that way. She went over to Dan and gave him a hug. “Nonny told me about all your help. Thanks.”

  Dan looked a little embarrassed. He rubbed his chin. “It was nothing, and I mean nothing.”

  The two smiled at each other in silence and Zera couldn’t help but notice, with a little sadness, that Dan’s afro now had some gray hairs.

  “How’s your Uncle Theodore doing?” Dan asked.

  “Fine. He’s in Los Angeles, at a job interview.”

  “I see. Where’re you two headed?”

  “To Hattie’s.”

  Dan laughed. “Oh yeah, Hattie mentioned that last night. I saw her at the grocery store. Ben was with her and she teased him about all the questions he’d been asking about you.”

  “Like what?”

  “Not sure, exactly. If I know Ben, he was probably nosing around, seeing if you have a boyfriend.”

  “Oh.” Zera didn’t know what to say. Or what to feel, either.

  Thankfully, Nonny interrupted. “I hate to rush off, but I told Hattie we’d be there for lunch, and we’re already late, over a half-hour.”

  “You’d better get to Hat’s then,” said Dan. “She’s probably about to come looking for you.”

  * * *

  At the end of Ute Avenue they made a right turn up Pawnee Road and began to climb a steep sidewalk riddled with cracks. Nonny Green moved more slowly now, and Zera saw that she was tiring. Zera tried not to worry but had to ask, “Are you all right?”

  “It’s only another block,” said Nonny, working her silver cane. “Don’t worry, I’m a tough old bird.”