My First Day with Avery

On my first day at the Cascadia Reptile Research Institute, Ben handed me a lanyard, a ring of keys, and responsibility for a black python who had made the last keeper cry.

“From fear?” I asked.

“Frustration. Mostly.”

It was the mostly that stayed with me.

The institute sat at the foot of the Cascades, where even a sunny morning smelled as if it had recently been rained on. I’d driven six hours the day before with everything I owned in the back of my hatchback. Now I was following a man with a coffee stain on his uniform into a greenhouse large enough to have its own weather.

“Avery,” Ben called.

Nothing happened.

“He’s up there.” Ben pointed through the glass. “On the branch.”

I’d taken the dark thing draped over the branch for part of the tree. As I came closer, it lifted its head. Sunlight caught along its scales, bringing out a blue sheen so dark I almost missed it. Then I saw the eyes.

Gold. Unblinking. Fixed on me.

Something happened in my head that I have spent a great deal of time trying to explain and no time at all trying to admit to Ben.

I pictured a man.

He had black hair falling across his forehead and those same gold eyes. In my imagination he was standing behind me, leaning half his weight into my back, his chin settling on my shoulder like he’d done it a hundred times and had every intention of doing it a hundred more.

I could almost feel the little adjustment he made to get comfortable.

I shook my head so hard my brand-new badge slapped me in the chest.

“You okay?” Ben said.

“Just checking the feeding schedule.”

“You’re holding the map upside down.”

I turned it around. It was still a map.

Avery kept watching me.

“He does that,” Ben said.

“Does what?”

“Waits for you to embarrass yourself. He usually has to wait longer.”

I liked Ben immediately, which was inconvenient because I needed somebody to blame for the rest of the morning.

He showed me where we kept supplies and how he liked the logs filled out. Then he left me to meet the rest of my charges. A small brown snake came out from under a hide to investigate the commotion. I greeted her. Avery raised his head so fast that Ben, halfway down the hall, turned to check on us.

“Did you want me to say hello to you first?” I asked Avery.

His head came down again. I decided this was a coincidence. I had a whole degree in explaining why animals did things, and none of the explanations I’d been taught started with *he wanted you to say hello first*.

By late afternoon I’d recorded three temperatures, found a misplaced stapler inside the glove box, and learned that Avery would turn away from anything I offered him at exactly the moment I began to hope he’d take it. The third time he did this, he managed to look bored.

“You know,” I told him, “I drove all the way here because I thought it would be nice to work with animals who couldn’t talk back.”

He blinked. Or I imagined he blinked. It had been a long day.

I wrote *refused food* in his log. Then I stood there with the pen in my hand, tempted to add *made it personal*. The logs had space for one additional observation. I saved it for something I could defend in a meeting.

When I came back for my keys, Avery was still on the high branch. His head was pointed toward the spot where I’d been standing. I found myself wondering if he’d ever had a favorite keeper and what that keeper had done to earn it.

“Fine,” I said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

I made it to the door before I heard the branch creak.

Avery was already moving across the ground. By the time I put my hand on the latch, he’d reached the other side of the threshold and lifted his head.

“Oh, I see. You want to make sure I actually leave.”

I stepped back to pick up a glove I’d dropped. He turned with me. I put my hand on the latch again, and he came right back.

We did this twice more.

I could have left at any point. I had a key to my own room and a whole car full of things to unpack. Instead, I stood in the doorway long enough for Ben to come looking for me.

“Why are you still here?” he asked.

Avery and I both looked at him. For once, I had the distinct impression we agreed on something.

I wished he’d mind his own business.