Page 24 of Flirtasaurus
I feel like I’ve been waiting for this moment my whole life.
She presses the button, and the curtain slowly starts to gather itself, making soft clicking sounds as it moves around the track. I’m leaning to my right to catch the first glimpse. I can’t wait even another second. First, I see the tip of a bony tail, then a foot, then a leg, then a…
“Holy fuckin’ shit.” I breathe.
I realize too late that I said that out loud.
“I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to. I just—”
“Not a problem,” Dr. Knowles says. “Thisisa holy fuckin’ shit kind of moment, after all.”
All five of us stand in reverent silence.
Even Bruce.
An absolutely gorgeous thirty-six-foot-long Tyrannosaurus Rex skeleton stands in front of me. Next to her is a smaller—but no less impressive—Edmontosarus. The T-Rex’s body is twisting elegantly to the right, her gigantic jaw wide open and about to clamp down onto the thickest part of the hadrosaur’s tail. He looks back at her as if to say, “Yes. Shall we?” My head knows that they are arranged to look like they’re fighting, but somehow, all I see is dancing.
“Hi, Trix. Hi, Monty.”
I actually lift my hand to wave to them, but it just hangs in the air, a soft-palmed salute. I feel my jaw relax and lower. My shoulders do the same.
This must be what it feels like to fall in love for the first time.
I instantly want to get closer to them. To know everything about them. What were their lives like? Did they have families? Partners? Brothers? Sisters? Children? Did they know how magnificent they were while they were alive? How powerful and fearsome and fascinating? Did they know that one day little children—and grown-ups like me—would delight in reading about them, wondering about them, making up stories about them? That scientists would be lining up to study them, yearning to unlock all the mysteries they took with them when that asteroid hit? Were they prepared for the end when it happened? Were they scared?
“Hey FitzGerald. Are you… crying?” Bruce slaps a meaty hand on my shoulder, which I’m guessing was intended as a comfort, but it feels more like a fleshy paperweight pinned on my shoulder.
He’s right, though.
I am crying.
A single tear rolls down my right cheek and splashes on my collarbone.
When I realize this is happening, I whip my head toward Dr. Knowles, sure that this is yet another moment of weakness and incompetence for which I should be apologizing, but she isn’t paying an ounce of attention to me. She continues to stare straight ahead at the two beautiful behemoths in front of us. I could be wrong, but her eyes look like they have grown a bit misty too.
A jaunty knock on the door breaks the silence.
Dr. Knowles takes a quick swipe at her left eye, and says, “Lionel. Would you mind getting that? It’s Otto.”
Lionel presses the long silver bar on the door, and when he pushes it forward, who comes through but that creepy ass Christopher Lloyd-looking guy who was staring at me during Dino Diggers!
“Hello, Otto,” Dr. Knowles greets him warmly.
“Hey, boss.” His eyes catch on Trix and Monty then, and his whole face lights up in wonder. He suddenly looks six-years-old and not the sixty or seventy years old his birth certificate likely shows him to be.
“Wow. Wow, will you just look at them,” he says wistfully.
“Pull up your stool. Take your time,” Dr. Knowles says. “We’re actually heading to a meeting upstairs, so you can let yourself out when you’ve had your fill.”
“Thanks, boss.” With that, Otto unfolds a tiny camping stool he apparently had hanging from his belt, then takes an impressive squat on the low seat, opens a notebook, smiles up at Trix and Monty and… starts sketching.
“Damon?” Dr. Knowles says. “You’ll have some plaque options to run by me for the hadrosaurid skull display tomorrow, yes?”
“I will indeed.”
“Wonderful. Lionel? Bruce? My office please.” She turns to me, likely sees my confused face, and explains, “Final consult on the Cretaceous set dressing.” She turns to leave, and the two men move to follow her. What must it be like to have that kind of command? And hey, why wasn’t I included in this meeting?
“Dr. Knowles! I would really love to join you all in your office for this. I’m fascinated by the terrain of the—”
