Gael looked at her, with her professor-like glasses and her shortish hair and her mouth that could grow twice as large when she was smiling about baby elephants, and suddenly, he didn’t mind at all how the day had turned out.
“Nah,” he said genuinely. “I’m glad we’re on the same team. Even if Samgael is a gambling drunken bastard.”
scenes from a north carolina zoo
Clip #1: Length: 0:56
“Please be quiet,” Sammy says to an unassuming couple who walks hand in hand by the marsh exhibit, where drag-onflies, et al., fly from one lily pad to another. She adjusts her glasses with absolute bravado. “I’m doing a study on the secret language of lily pads. Make a single sound and you’ll completely disturb them. There’s like a whole entire symphony going on in the water.”
The couple miraculously believes her, and the dude even tells his girlfriend to keep it down when she asks Sammy whether she’s a researcher from Duke. Gael laughs in the background as Sammy says, matter-of-factly, “They say that Mozart got many of his ideas from the vibrations of lily pads.”
Clip #2: Length: 0:33
“I am the egg man! They are the egg men! I AM THE WALRUS! COO-COO-CA-CHOO!” Gael sings while surrounded by no fewer than five moms and dads and grandpas, who are completely delighted by his song. The camera shakes as Sammy sings along while holding the iPhone. The walrus in the background seems completely nonplussed.
Clip #3: Length: 0:13
Sammy approaches a zoo employee and asks with absolute seriousness, “Excuse me, ma’am, but you can you please point me to the seven-hump wump exhibit?”
Clip #4: Length: 0:19
Gael does his best gorilla impression in front of the ape’s sprawling habitat, posturing around on all fours like he was born to walk that way.
“I look ridiculous, don’t I?” Gael asks the camera.
“No,” Sammy says. “Seriously. You just look awesome.”
Clip #5: Length: 0:28
The camera follows Sammy as she walks past grizzly bears and red wolves.
“I believe you’re supposed to be waddling like a duck right about now,” Gael says in the background.
“I think you should take this one,” she says. “I’m wearing a skirt, after all.”
“Oh, come on,” Gael says, keeping the camera on her.
Sammy places her hands under her chin and bats her eyelashes dramatically. “All right, Mr. Brennan, I’m ready for my close-up,”
Gael zooms in, and her face fills the frame.
“Hey,” she says. “Too close!”
Her hand obscures the lens. The video cuts to black.
family dinner for three
After they’d watched all the videos together, Gael and Piper said good-bye to Sammy and Cara and headed back to their dad’s apartment for one last dinner before going back to their real home for the week.
The second they got in the door, Gael’s dad started asking them stupid questions about the zoo without letting up. First, he requested a detailed description from Piper of every freaking exhibit she’d seen. Then, after learning that Piper had arranged the scavenger hunt, he showered them with boatloads of praise all around and demanded to see the videos.
And now, while they were sitting down to family dinner, while Gael was trying with all his might not to think about how mind-numbingly strange it still was to be having Sunday dinner in a shitty apartment with the fourth chair at the ugly table conspicuously empty, while all of that was rushing through his head, his dad could not stop asking about the zoo.
“You still haven’t answered, Gael. What was your favorite part?” His dad smiled his stupid fake smile and ran a hand through his stupid sandy hair and then cocked his head to the side, waiting.
Of course his dad had cheated, Gael thought. Even Gael could admit he was good-looking for an old guy, with his runner physique and his full head of hair and all that. Once, Gael had read the student reviews on one of those professor-rating sites, and no fewer than three people had complimented Professor Brennan on more than his lecture skills.
That’s why his mom was in the house and his dad was in this shithole.
That’s why what had seemed so good between his parents had suddenly just . . . imploded.
“I’m not, like, eight,” Gael spat.
“Hey,” Piper said, a bit of turkey chili dripping down her chin. “Eight’s a good age.”
“It sure is, Pipes,” his dad said, taking her chin in his hand and wiping off the mess. He looked to Gael. “And there’s no age too old to enjoy something like the zoo.”
Gael set his spoon down. “Well, then maybe you should take her next time. Maybe we should all go together, like we used to. Oh wait, we can’t.”
His dad shook his head and looked down at his bowl, but Piper just scrunched her eyebrows. “Why can’t we?” she asked genuinely.
“Because Mom and Dad aren’t together anymore,” Gael said. “When are you going to get that through your head?”
Piper’s bottom lip puffed out, and her eyes began to water.