Free Still Life with Elephant by Judy Reene Singer Page B

an old sweater and heavy construction boots. He looked to be just a little taller than me, with longish, neatly trimmed white hair, and an open, intelligent face saved from being preternaturally handsome by a jagged scar down one cheek. His presence was mesmerizing, the way he took instant command of the room, radiating energy, charging the air around him like an electron accelerator. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. Don’t stare, I scolded myself, but I couldn’t help it. He was that compelling. He’s used to being gawked at, I defended myself, but did try to be more discreet, forcing myself into occasional glances at the half-eaten cupcake on my napkin, as if it provided worthy competition for my attention.
    Richie jumped up to shake his hand. Mrs. Wycliff bustled over to give him a quick peck on his cheek and hand him a mug of tea,which he took, and a cupcake, which he turned down and I instantly coveted. Richie introduced him to us simply as Tom. He greeted us with a quick smile, then strode across the room and, in one motion, grabbed a folding chair, gracefully swinging it around so it faced backward, and sat down. He braced his arms across the back of it and leaned into the room, a contained volcano, anxious to get started, anxious not to waste a minute, ready to erupt with commands and action. Our eyes caught for a moment, and I felt my heart stutter and the color rise in my cheeks. Then he shifted his gaze toward the rest of the group.
    â€œWe leave for Zimbabwe in exactly one week,” he said in an accent that was a fusion of American and European. “Richie will hand out a list of shots that you need. We will be splitting into teams. One team will come with me northwest to Makuti, and one will work here to ready things for when we get back.” He glanced around. “Where’s the vet?”
    â€œIn surgery,” said Richie. “But his wife can give him all the information.” He pointed me out. Thomas Pennington looked at me again. I didn’t want to meet his eyes this time. I didn’t want to see the shutting-down look that men get when they find out you are married, even if I was doing this whole thing to get Matt back and shouldn’t have cared.
    â€œHe needs to come and work with our vet in Africa, and learn everything he can. Elephants can be tricky to treat,” he said. I looked up at him and nodded. He gave me a quick smile and then addressed the rest of the room. “Okay, first I have to start off with a few warnings about the dangers involved.”
    When Richie mentioned “dangerous” to me, I assumed that the danger would come from getting squashed by an excited elephant, and that I would just stay vigilant and jump out of its way, should things come to that. Like a horse, I figured. If you stand at a horse’s shoulder, you are pretty much out of range of flying hooves and in a good position to pivot away from spooks or rears. I would just make sure I stood to the side of the elephant. It seemed intuitively simple.Or I would just run very fast. I was on a sugar high now and was actually picturing myself outrunning a rampaging elephant.
    But Thomas Pennington went on to list dangers I hadn’t even heard of. Trypanosomiasis, rickettsial infection, dengue fever, filaria-sis, not to mention a very hostile political climate, with renegade soldiers running loose, and armed poachers roaming the bush. Then he enumerated the vaccines we needed so that we wouldn’t contract additional diseases. Typhoid, hepatitis, polio booster. Getting squashed under an elephant was never mentioned.
    I tried to give Richie my best “you’ve got to be kidding” look by raising my eyebrows up and down a few times, but he was busy nodding in agreement with Thomas Pennington’s suicide list.
    Then Thomas reached over, swooped up his briefcase, and opened it. “Everything’s been printed out, so make sure you take a packet of