Just then the zoo and all the thoughts it provoked were manageable.

Dirk walked Janine to the small brick administrative building, where the slickers hung by the lockers inside.

It was dark in there and the two stifled drunk laughter as they bumped into desks, chairs, office fans.

Dirk grabbed a flashlight and two slickers. Then he fingered the blinds in Robin’s office, parting them to get a look at the grounds. The rain made it hard to see any distance and Dirk recalled whispering faces in a mist.

He turned on the flashlight and led Janine outside.

They passed the information booth, no longer under the cover of the trees, and the rain attacked their slickers.

“Okay,” Dirk said, “here’s where it starts.”

Shining his light on the aviary, Dirk headed toward it, pointing out the bird feet painted on the path. He unlocked the door and pulled the plastic aside.

“We have to be quiet,” he said. “They’ll be asleep.”

Janine stepped through. Dirk turned his flashlight off.

Moonlight shone through the glass of the domed ceiling and colored everything a midnight blue. Dirk brought Janine to the center of the sanctuary and silently pointed out small dark shapes lining the branches. Janine heard feathers lightly rustling, and some of the sleeping birds cooed.

“Are you afraid of snakes?” he whispered.

“No.”

Inside the reptile house Janine took Dirk’s arm gently. He shone the light on the cages and a hundred reptilian eyes looked back.

“I think they like you,” she whispered.

Then they were standing at the wood fences overlooking the bears. Rain pounded their hoods. Dirk shone his light in and out of the caves but the best he could show Janine was half a sleeping body.

“Do you have a favorite?” she asked him.

Dirk nodded.

“But she’s last,” he said.

He wanted to kiss her. She wanted him to. But Dirk was occupied with impressing her first. The zoo felt good to him. Simple things like the signs and arrows…the color of the garbage cans…the mural on the side of the Food Hut. The zoo felt friendly. No, the zoo was Dirk’s friend.

“Trudy’s next,” he said.

The paw prints on the concrete were hardly visible now beneath the layer of water. Their shoes sloshed as they hurried.

Dirk pulled aside the sliding wood doors and stepped inside the tiger room. The concrete floors, the dirty windows, and Trudy’s dark cage looked different in piecemeal, by the end of Dirk’s beam.

“Spooky,” Janine said.

“Trudy,” Dirk called, stepping to her cage.

She was in the shadow made by the tree trunk and the rock shelter.

“Trudy,” he said. “Come on out.”

The big cat looked back at them but did not come out.

“Looks like she wants to be alone,” Janine said.

Dirk thought about it. Then he turned off the light.

“Whoa,” Janine said. “I don’t think I’ve ever been in the dark in the same room as a tiger before.”

“Are you scared?”