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The lobby of Peaceful Odyssey Rehabilitation Center was certainly living up to its name today - the room was quiet except for the soft, calming music, which, to be honest, Luisa had had more than enough of in the last twenty-eight days. She just wanted to go home. This was going to be hard enough without her brother being late picking her up and leaving her with nothing to think about except having a drink.
“Miss Alver, your ride is here,” the receptionist called with a smile.
“Finally,” she muttered, smiling quickly at the receptionist before pushing out the front door. She headed down the front path, scanning for Rafael’s car, only to stop dead in her tracks.
“No, no, no, no,” she started chanting as she stomped toward the blue car idling by the curb, flinging open the passenger door and yelling one final, “No!”
Rose looked remorseful, and put her hands out pacifyingly. “Luisa-“
“No!” Luisa cut her off. “This is the exact opposite of helping my sobriety!”
“I know, I’m sorry, I hadn’t planned to be here,” Rose said.
“Where is my brother?” Luisa demanded.
Rose flicked her eyes away. “He, uh, he had a last minute emergency.”
Luisa’s shoulders sagged. “An emergency. Right. I’m assuming my father also had an ‘emergency’?” She put the last word in air quotes.
Rose looked up, her eyes soft and apologetic, but didn’t answer.
Luisa crossed her arms, looking out across the parking lot and weighing her options.
“Lu, please-“
Luisa cut her off, sharply, “Don't call me that.”
Rose bit her lip. “Please just let me take you home.”
The brunette sighed. “Fine,” she bit out before dropping into the passenger seat with a huff. She pulled the door shut and slid herself as far away from Rose as she could while still being inside the car.
“Luisa, please,” Rose said pleadingly.
“Just drive, Rose,” Luisa said coldly, staring out the window. She could feel Rose’s eyes on her and knew she was fighting the urge to say something else, but she just sighed before turning the key in ignition and driving out of the parking lot.
Half an hour later Rose pulled up in front of Luisa’s building and turned the car off. Neither of them had spoken during the drive. Luisa stared up at her apartment, her whole body filling with dread.
“Luisa?” Rose ventured hesitantly.
“I don’t want to go in there,” Luisa said quietly.
“Why?” Rose asked.
“I’m just going to sit in there by myself and think about everything that has gone wrong, and the walls are going to start closing in and before I know it it’s next week and I’m facedown on the kitchen floor wondering how I got the cut on my face,” Luisa said in a rush, running her fingers through her hair anxiously.
Rose looked at her for a second, her forehead crinkled, before resolutely turning the car back on and pulling away from the curb.
“What are you doing?” Luisa asked in surprise.
“I’m taking you somewhere where you won’t want to drink,” Rose said firmly.
“Okay but if you’re going to be there with me that’s not possible,” the brunette said bitterly.
Rose gave an almost imperceptible flinch. “Maybe, but it’s better than the alternative,” she said quietly.
Luisa couldn’t argue with that so she rolled her head back to the side and watched the buildings roll by idly, not really caring or noticing where they were going.
Rose pulled the car to a gentle stop and Luisa jerked awake, having dozed off lightly as they drove.
She looked around curiously, but all she saw was a large parking lot filled with an alarming number of minivans.
“Where are we?” she asked.
Rose smiled and got out of the car, “You’ll see.”
Luisa opened the door and shielded her eyes from the sun, looking toward the top of the tall light posts littered throughout the parking lot.
“Wait. The zoo?!” she asked in shock.
Rose looked over at her and asked, “Better idea?”
“I…I don’t,” Luisa gestured aimlessly in disbelief, before dropping her arms to her sides resignedly. “Okay, I guess let’s…go to zoo.”
They walked through the parking lot toward the entrance, where Rose purchased their tickets and they moved quickly through the turnstiles. A little boy wearing a gorilla hat and dragging a huge giraffe stuffed animal nearly ran into Luisa on his way to the ice cream vendor. She turned and watched as a tram drove through the area, the employee giving tour information over the loudspeaker. Luisa looked around, still in a state of slight disbelief that this is where she had ended up today.
Rose walked up behind her, pulling her from her musings. She had a zoo map unfolded in front of her, her brow furrowed, and asked, “Okay, so what do you want to see first? I’m going to put a blanket no on the elephants because I don’t need anyone trying to free Dumbo’s mom today, but the monkeys are that way, and the lions are down that hill over there.”
Luisa smiled faintly at the passing reference to the story from Luisa’s childhood, feeling a fleeting pang at Rose having remembered it in the first place.
“I don’t know, you pick,” she told the redhead.
“Oh I don’t think so. I refuse to spend the rest of the day hearing about how I wouldn’t let you see the lions or how I kept you from the monkeys against your will. Pick,” Rose said firmly.
Luisa rolled her eyes, but didn’t argue. “All right I guess let’s do the lions first.”
“Lions it is, let’s go,” the redhead said moved off to the right, Luisa trailing behind her.
Rose kept her distance as they made their way down the hill and Luisa was sure it was as much to honor Luisa’s boundaries as to protect herself. They didn’t talk, but it was no longer the hostile silence that had filled the car. It had softened slightly, and while it wasn’t by any stretch of the imagination comfortable, it wasn’t uncomfortable either.
As they moved through the lion exhibit Luisa found herself mildly enthusiastic about seeing the big cats. The childish joy around her was slowly seeping into her, relaxing her shoulders and lightening her mind. A group of little girls was repeatedly hitting the buttons on the roar demonstration making it sound vaguely like a lion having a stroke, and Luisa laughed. Rose turned her head and smiled at her, and Luisa tried to school her features back to the neutral, almost pouting expression she’d maintained since Rose had picked her up. Rose just looked at her, her eyes sparkling knowingly, but said nothing as they continued to walk.
The animals were nowhere to be seen, and the two women paused in front of the highest window of the enclosure to scan the area.
“I don’t really blame them. Miami in July isn’t exactly a paradise,” Luisa said.
“Plus they’re cats. Cats are only really happy to be up at three o’clock in the morning,” Rose responded.
Luisa scoffed, “And how would you know that? When have you ever had a cat?”
“I had a cat!” Rose said defensively. “I had a cat when I was little girl.”
Luisa looked at her skeptically. “You had a cat? You were a little girl?”
Rose rolled her eyes. “Yes, I had a cat. She was black and her name was Emily.”
The brunette laughed. “Of course it was. You would never name your cat Mr. Whiskers or Fluffy. It had to be something elegant.”
“She was incredibly elegant, thank you,“ the redhead responded haughtily, but Luisa could see the slight twinkle in her eye.
They lapsed back into silence for a moment before Rose exclaimed, “Oh there’s one up there!”
Luisa looked towhere Rose had pointed but couldn’t see anything. “Where?”
“Up there, asleep beneath that tree,” Rose told her. Luisa craned her neck, trying desperately to see what Rose was seeing.
“This isn’t fair, why do you have to be nine feet tall?” Luisa said under her breath and Rose rolled her eyes. “I’m not even sure I believe that you saw one.”
“I don’t need you to believe me, I’m the one who got to see it,” Rose said. Luisa glared at her and moved to exit the exhibit, muttering something unflattering about Rose’s height and basketball players.
“Excuse you, I played field hockey,” Rose said, following her back onto the path, and Luisa bit back a retort about field hockey and lesbians.
They followed the path as it curved and Luisa breathed in the fresh air, enjoying the sun on her face. She hated to admit it, but Rose was right. Well, mostly. She still wanted a drink - she doubted it was really possible for that to go away entirely - but being here was making her feel better, even if she was enjoying it with the woman whose behavior had driven her back to rehab in the first place.
Rose moved ahead of her slightly as they walked past the panthers and leopards toward the bear enclosures, and Luisa took the opportunity to look her up and down, letting herself enjoy the view, just for a moment. But as she scanned the woman in front of her, she burst out laughing. Rose turned, confused.
“What?” she asked, but Luisa was still laughing and couldn’t answer. Once she had allowed herself to really look at the redhead Luisa had realized that she was wearing a short, form-fitting floral dress with matching four-inch heels, with her hair curled neatly across one shoulder. She couldn't look more out of place if she tried. Rose was standing in front of her, her face a mixture of concern and confusion.
Finally, Luisa was able to get her laughter under control and said, “That’s just so exactly the outfit you should wear to the zoo.”
Rose rolled her eyes. “Well I wasn’t exactly planning on taking a child to the zoo today.”
“Hey!” Luisa exclaimed. “That’s rude.”
Rose just raised an eyebrow and started walking again, and Luisa couldn’t tell if she was imagining the added strut in Rose’s walk or not. She shook herself out of her appreciation of the redhead in front of her and hurried to catch up.
They spent the next couple of hours moving casually through the enclosures, Rose steering her sternly away from the elephants as Luisa tried to nonchalantly head for the private zookeeper’s entrance, and Luisa adamantly refusing to attend the bird show because as she put it “You brought me here so I wouldn’t be driven to drink.”
Eventually they had almost made a full circle of the park and entered the monkey habitats.
“You know what monkeys like to fling?” Luisa said innocently.
“I’m not even dignifying that with a response,” Rose said, pointedly not looking at Luisa.
As they walked through the exhibits filled with different types of monkeys, Luisa let out a squeal and ran off to one enclosure in particular. Rose followed her, mildly amused.
“Look! It’s a sloth. Hi, buddy,” Luisa said sweetly to the animal.
“You’re a sloth person?” Rose asked. “How did I not know this?”
“I don’t know, but you probably should have guessed. We have a lot in common. Don’t we, my man?” Luisa said to the sloth, and Rose hid a smile.
“So not only do you have a kinship with sloths you are one?” Rose asked.
“I’ve always been a sloth. Especially when I stop drinking. I can’t really do much. I have so much more energy, but my body can’t seem to do anything with it. So I move around like this dude over here, very slowly and really on edge,” Luisa said simply.
Luisa could tell that was Rose was scanning her face, looking for any sign of discomfort or unhappiness, but it didn’t upset Luisa to tell her this. It was just a fact she was sharing.
“I’ve never known a sloth before,” Rose said. “I can cross it off my list.”
“Yes, I am quite something,” Luisa said with a grin. Rose bit her lip, and Luisa could tell it was to keep from saying something she knew she shouldn’t. Luisa looked at her feet and tried not to let the moment bring her down. She’d had a good day, which she hadn't expected when she'd gotten up that morning.
Luisa bumped her shoulder against Rose’s. “Let’s go.”
Rose met her eyes, nodding slowly, and the two moved toward the exit. Luisa excused herself to go to the bathroom as they made their way back out of the zoo, and when she came back Rose was holding something behind her back.
Luisa walked up to her warily. “What are you hiding?”
Rose smiled at her - a genuine, soft, Rose smile - and pulled out a huge sloth stuffed animal. “For you. Even sloths need friends, and I…I can’t be there, so…” she trailed off awkwardly.
Luisa fought back tears as she grasped the soft toy in her hands. She couldn’t decide if this made her happy or sad, and realized that both would have to do.
“Thank you,” she said softly, and she meant it, holding the stuffed animal to her chest tightly. Rose nodded briefly, trying not to meet her eye, and the two women walked back out to the car.
The next morning, Luisa opened her eyes and grumbled as the sun poured into her bedroom. She had managed to fall asleep surprisingly quickly the night before, but she chalked it up to her four hour walk that afternoon. She groaned as she moved to sit up, her body filled with energy but seemingly unable to decide what to do with it. The brunette took a moment to breathe in and out slowly, fighting the urge to immediately find a bottle of vodka with which to become really good friends.
As she slowly and carefully threw her legs over the edge of the bed and moved to stand, her hand brushed something soft. She looked down and saw her new sloth friend sprawled across her pillow, and smiled, some of the tension in her chest releasing.
She didn’t have much at the moment, she didn’t even have Rose, but she had a sloth friend to be a sloth with, and somehow that made it just a little bit more okay.
She grabbed the toy, hugging it to her chest, and said, “All right, buddy, let’s see if we can make it to the kitchen. Coffee and eggs aren’t a dirty martini with three olives, but they’re going to have to do.”
And with that she stood and walked resolutely toward the door.