Page 46 of Darling Beasts

“Fuck. Shit.” A few more f-bombs besides. “Can you watch the dog for me?” she said, tying its leash to his chair.

Ozzie yanked the sunglasses off his face. “You’ve got to bekidding.” He’d been in San Diego all of thirty seconds and Gabby was already bailing and leaving him with a random-ass dog.

“His name is Frosty. Please, can you watch him for me? I’ll explain later, but I have to deal with somethingright now, and I don’t know how long it will take.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Gabby

“You’re welcome to go see him,” the woman at the front desk said—probably. I’d already bolted down the hall before the first word was out of her mouth.

I found dos Santos two doors from the end. He was instantly recognizable from his photo on the website—close-cropped, bristly black hair, unstylish glasses, a lime-green polo shirt with the zoo’s logo embroidered on the chest.

“Hello,” I said, knocking on the doorframe. “Gabby Gunn.”

“Miss Gunn,” he said, cautiously rising to his feet. On the wall behind him were photographs of a younger, tanner, less bookish dos Santos as he tended to a variety of tigers and black-footed cats. The man had done some cool things, and I wondered why he bothered with a bunch of sad-sack PBSers. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

“Likewise.” I shut the door behind me and plopped down into a chair. “Sorry for busting in on you like this, but I’m currently mid-flare. My brother showed up out of nowhere, which is a problem I can’t get into right now.” I stopped to aggressively rub my forearm on my jeans. “I had nowhere else to go. I figured, this is a zoo, right? And I was symptomatic the last time I came here, and it stopped. Have you ever seen that before? Symptoms start and just go away?”

“I have, yes, as part of the Brazilian study.”

“Excellent.” I dug my nails into my scalp. “How were they able to stave it off? I know you love to be all mysterious about your results, but—”

“I prefer to think of it as careful,” he said, and smiled like a son of a bitch.

“Okay. Yes. Ha. So careful. But this isn’t an academic exercise for me, okay? I am flaring. An animal could materialize at any time, and I have family and friends and a freakingdogto worry about.”

My stomach turned over. I’d never forgive myself if some animal mauled Frosty, or my sister, or Ozzie, or even Ivan or Mindy. This was why I shouldn’t have pets or a love interest or anything precious in my life. A wolverine could show up and ruin everything.

“Please. Dr. dos Santos. I need your help,” I begged. Tears were building, forming a knot in my throat. “I’m desperate.”

“I have a few thoughts I can share.” He leaned back in his cracked leather rolling chair and mulled things over before continuing. “You’re no doubt aware of the leading theory, that atmospheric disturbances trigger PBS. A storm in Florida sends an alligator to someone’s bathtub. But the question I’ve been grappling with is, why this alligator? Why that bathtub?”

“Are you doing philosophy or...?” I said, scratching my scalp again.

“With the Brazilian study, I’ve spent five years documenting the Campos sisters’ flares to discern a pattern. The climate piece is undeniable, but internal disturbances also seem to come into play. The intersection of stress on the planet and stress in one’s personal life creates a flare. It makes sense if you think about it. Humans and animals canbothbe affected by the weather.”

“Are you implying I’m, like, histrionic or something?” I said. “That I’m overly affected by theweatherand basically throw a fit and manifest a bunch of animals?”

“No, no, that’s not—”

“For the record, I’mfamouslylaid-back and go-with-the-flow. It’s, like, my calling card. I’m the family peacekeeper.”

“Or are you the family secret keeper?” he asked, wryly.

“Um. What the hell? PS, I don’t love the implication this is some kind of mental disorder.”

“I’m not implying it’s a mental disorder,” dos Santos said, but then hedged. “Although the mental and physical do go hand in hand.”

“These all seem like excuses to me.” Suddenly the lone PBS expert on the planet sounded like my family. Seeing one thing but calling it another. They’d done it with Mom. Or maybe not, based on my conversation with Talia, though some part of me remained skeptical, because these were the same people who chalked up PBS to migration. The people who insisted Mom was so excited when I was born, or that she tolerated children at all.

“I’m sorry,” dos Santos said, rubbing his eyes. “I’m not getting my point across. As you may have gleaned, my conversational skills are... subpar. The cause of most problems in my life. Or so I’ve been told. You can see why I’ve chosen to work with animals and not humans.”

Dos Santos laughed without any humor, and my anger evaporated. I imagined some wife or partner haranguing him about his awkward personality, and my heart went out to the guy. “I’m the one who’s sorry,” I said. “Talking about PBS gets me heated, and not knowing when the symptoms will appear or what animal will show up is hard. And, like, I care about the animals? So it’s not a matter of simply getting rid of them.”

He exhaled. “I want to solve this. For you, and for everyone else dealing with it. I understand how dramatically it can affect a person’s life. Let me ask, haveyounoticed any patterns in the presentation of your symptoms?”

“Yes. Definitely. I flare before something bad happens. Like today. As I mentioned, my brother is in town, which may soundinnocuous, but trust me, it’s not. I could go through each of my flares and point to a very specific disaster occurring shortly thereafter. My skill is foretelling doom, which is not as cool as it sounds.”

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