Initially she had been hurt, and she had felt betrayed as she had ridden the bus across town with her mom. She had wandered into the school like a sleepwalker, and it was only after she had said good-bye to Catherine and arrived at her homeroom did the pain become transformed into resentment. Then irritation. Then, finally, disgust. She was well aware of the cyclical nature of her relationship with her father-or, to be precise, of her father's relationship with her. She knew that he would go through phases in which he would be absent: Sometimes he would be literally gone, traveling to whatever dolphins or bunnies or baby elephants needed him that month, and sometimes he would be home in body but his spirit would be with those creatures great and small, all of whom, it seemed, were more interesting to him than his family. And then, almost as if he had suddenly discovered that he had a daughter (or a wife), for an all too brief period he would spoil her with whatever she wanted and do with her whatever she liked. She had grown accustomed to the pattern, savoring the waves when she could and accepting the barrenness of low tide when he was preoccupied with animals other than the mammals with whom he lived.

Including his cats. For an animal lover, he didn't spend a heck of a lot of time with the family's own cats, an irony that she discovered wasn't lost on her father when she brought it up to him one time when she was in the sixth grade.

"They don't need me," he'd said simply, shrugging, when she confronted him. "They're anything but mistreated. Besides, they have you and your mom."

And when she'd gone through that phase when she wanted a dog desperately, a big and gentle golden retriever like Grandmother's, her father had adamantly refused to subject a dog to the confines of their city apartment.

"Grandmother's dog is happy, and Grandmother lives in an apartment," she'd argued.

"No, your grandmother lives in a private Park Avenue wing of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We just call that ma.s.sive sprawl an apartment to be polite," he'd responded, smiling. But he hadn't budged.

Now in algebra, her last cla.s.s of the day, she was still unable to push the image of her father and Molly and the banana-touting Maurice from her mind. Her ire was so great that she thought she might cry, and she vowed that before going home-after school and the information meeting for the kids trying out for The Secret Garden The Secret Garden-she would stop by the bookstore near their apartment and buy a copy of Maurice and the Magic Banana. Maurice and the Magic Banana. When her father came home from FERAL (and she had no delusions that he would leave work early this afternoon, not on the day of his triumphant return), she would paw at the air like a gorilla, and she would grunt, screech, and ululate like the monkeys she had seen on TV. ( When her father came home from FERAL (and she had no delusions that he would leave work early this afternoon, not on the day of his triumphant return), she would paw at the air like a gorilla, and she would grunt, screech, and ululate like the monkeys she had seen on TV. (Of course she had never seen a monkey at a zoo like a normal child, a source of periodic bitterness for her-including this very moment.) Then she would toss the book into his lap and demand that he treat her as well as he had a big, hairy gorilla he'd probably met one time in his life. she had never seen a monkey at a zoo like a normal child, a source of periodic bitterness for her-including this very moment.) Then she would toss the book into his lap and demand that he treat her as well as he had a big, hairy gorilla he'd probably met one time in his life.

PAIGE SUTHERLAND would never tell Dominique Germaine or Keenan Barrett what she thought of the FERAL offices, because she valued their business and people were ent.i.tled to their tastes-however misguided. Still, whenever she dropped by for a meeting it was always disarming to see so many framed images of rabbits intentionally blinded by cosmetic companies and chickens trapped in what looked like hatbox-sized cages and monkeys with wires up their...well, in every orifice on their bodies, it seemed. Dominique's office didn't have those sorts of photos, of course, because she had those ma.s.sive paintings instead of birds whose plumage looked more than a little to Paige like human v.a.g.i.n.as. She thought they would have been great in a New Age gynecologist's office. would never tell Dominique Germaine or Keenan Barrett what she thought of the FERAL offices, because she valued their business and people were ent.i.tled to their tastes-however misguided. Still, whenever she dropped by for a meeting it was always disarming to see so many framed images of rabbits intentionally blinded by cosmetic companies and chickens trapped in what looked like hatbox-sized cages and monkeys with wires up their...well, in every orifice on their bodies, it seemed. Dominique's office didn't have those sorts of photos, of course, because she had those ma.s.sive paintings instead of birds whose plumage looked more than a little to Paige like human v.a.g.i.n.as. She thought they would have been great in a New Age gynecologist's office.

There was also a ma.s.sive, framed presentation of the Ovid poem that FERAL used parts of almost everywhere, the lettering in this case a pretentious cross between wedding invitation calligraphy and the ninth-century script of the monk of Saint Gall: He who can slit his calf's throat, hear its criesUnmoved, who has the heart to kill his kidThat screams like a small child, or eat the birdHis hand has reared and fed! How far does thisFall short of murder? Where else does it lead?Away with traps and snares and lures and wiles!Never again lime twigs to cheat the birds,Nor feather ropes to drive the frightened deer,Nor hide the hook with dainties that deceive!Destroy what harms; destroy, but never eat;Choose wholesome fare and never feast on meat!

Moreover, because so much of what FERAL did revolved around publicity, many of the employees' cubicle or office walls were covered with posters of the organization's recent campaigns against leather and ice cream and the running of the bulls in Pamplona. Most of these were pretty unpleasant, though she did notice an exception this morning: On a wall in the reception area hung a nice new poster of fashion models posing nude to protest fur. It was taken in one of the Greek statue galleries at the Metropolitan, and she couldn't imagine how Dominique or Spencer (or one of his minions) had convinced the museum to let them do a photo shoot there. She was mightily impressed. She thought the group would be a lot more successful if they did more with nudity and less with Ovid.

Nevertheless, Paige, too, was a vegetarian, though she still had her share of leather in her wardrobe and accessories. Oh, she'd been a bit of a phony when she'd first agreed to help FERAL with a complaint to the Federal Trade Commission about New York State's "Lucky Cow" campaign: a series of television commercials the state's dairy board had produced that suggested Empire State dairy cows were the luckiest bovines on the planet. In Dominique and Keenan and Spencer's opinion, the ads took the notion of permissible puffery to an altogether new pinnacle of deceptiveness, since they suggested a dairy cow led a long and bucolic life, and stood around grazing and nursing her young in green fields with small coppices of shade trees most days. This was complete malarkey-but, alas, not everyone knew it.

What pushed her over the line firmly into FERAL's camp occurred the following year, during an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Europe. She watched on the television news a pyre made from the carca.s.ses of three-hundred-plus sheep on a farm near Inverness, a tiny fraction of the ten million cows and pigs and sheep being shot and burned and buried all across Great Britain and the continent across the channel-most of whom weren't even sick. Suddenly she was sobbing uncontrollably, since she knew from her work with FERAL that foot-and-mouth disease wasn't lethal either to people or animals and was actually treatable with appropriate veterinary care. Instead of trying to heal the animals, however, humans were obliterating them, and all because their value as food was in jeopardy and the slaughter was viewed as a reasonable way to restore confidence in meat.

Bottom line? Paige considered most of the individuals who worked for FERAL a tad fanatic and their behavior more times than not a bit extreme. But she was glad they were out there fighting the good fight, and she was happy to help-especially given the serious pile of money this particular case was likely to be worth. An injury this terrible? Her share of the contingent fee alone might well approach seven figures, given her firm's policy that you "eat what you kill." (Now, there, she thought, was an expression she was unlikely ever to share with Keenan or Dominique.) She guessed altogether that somewhere between twenty-five or thirty people were employed in FERAL's New York office and another ten or twelve in Washington, D.C. Somewhere in central Connecticut the organization also rented s.p.a.ce in a warehouse, where they stored the FERAL shirts and mugs and canvas totes, the Pleather cat suits and skirts, and the myriad trinkets people could buy to show their support for the group. Most of the New York employees seemed to be involved in what FERAL called its "campaigns"-education and publicity, which included everything from sending a "humane instruction trainer" into one of the few public schools on the planet that would actually allow a FERAL staffer onto the premises, to getting Spencer or Dominique on Good Morning, America Good Morning, America-while most of the employees in Washington a.s.sisted with the legislative lobbying efforts. FERAL had five full-time attorneys, but Keenan and his young a.s.sistant were the only two based in New York.

This morning Paige expected to meet with Dominique and Keenan and Spencer, and she was neither surprised nor flattered that on Spencer's very first day back in the office she was on his agenda. She knew that what she did was important.

Consequently, when the receptionist, that strange young woman with the twin piercings in both eyebrows (four thin rings altogether) and the metal stud in her tongue told her (the stud occasionally clicking against her teeth as she spoke) that Spencer wasn't coming in after all, she began to wonder exactly what had happened to the poor man. She wasn't worried, because in the long run it could only make her life easier if he was physically falling apart. But in the short run it might complicate certain tasks. After all, they were planning to have a press conference the week after next, and one of the things she wanted to discuss today-and Spencer was critical to this part of the plan, both because he was the victim and because he was in charge of FERAL's communications programs-was the timing of their various announcements.

Still, it was clear that she and Dominique and Keenan would meet anyway, and the receptionist made it sound as if one of Spencer's a.s.sistants would join them as well. She guessed it would be that sweet Randy Mitch.e.l.l, a young woman who had wanted originally to be a model but was just not quite beautiful enough: She was a tad too short, her face a bit too round, and even in long sweaters and those blouses of hers that were meant to remain untucked it was evident that she was little too wide in the hips. But she was certainly pretty enough to pose in many of FERAL's promotional pieces, and in the course of three and a half years she had gone from being one of the FERAL Granola Girls-the young women who wore little but strategically draped garlands of granola while handing out vegan granola bars for free outside of Taco Bell, McDonald's, and Kentucky Fried Chicken-to being Spencer's princ.i.p.al a.s.sistant. She was, Paige knew, on a first-name basis with the producers of all the morning news programs and afternoon talk shows, and Paige had a pretty good sense that Randy was capable of getting the attention of the lifestyle and science reporters at most of the nation's premier newspapers.

She emerged now from the gla.s.s doors behind the receptionist's half-moon of a desk, wearing a peasant dress that fell almost to her ankles and black sandals that looked like they were made from old tires. She was smiling, however, and Paige had to admit that the woman had a beam that was downright telegenic.

"I hear Spencer isn't returning to work today," she said to Randy as they wandered down the corridor to Dominique's office. "Has something happened?"

"He wasn't feeling well."

"He hasn't been feeling well since the accident."

"He got sick in the cab."

"Vomit sick?"

Randy nodded sympathetically.

"The flu?" she asked.

"I didn't talk to him. Dominique did. But it didn't sound like the flu. It sounded to Dominique like Spencer was trying to do too much too soon, and his body was rebelling. He didn't offer to do this meeting by speakerphone, and Dominique didn't even suggest it."

She saw that Keenan and Dominique were already sitting at the circular table in Dominique's office, and she guessed they'd been meeting for a few minutes already because both of their paper cups-it looked as if his had held coffee and hers had held herbal tea-were nearly empty. Dominique was curled inside a clingy black sweater dress most women Dominique's age (even women who jogged as religiously as Dominique and worked out as strenuously with a personal trainer) would never even pull off a rack, but it seemed to work on the FERAL executive: Even at forty-something, she moved with the confidence and grace of a tiger. Keenan, she saw, was wearing the sort of pinstriped suit that the lawyers in her own office wore. If, in fact, he hadn't been wearing those hideous plastic wing tips, he could have pa.s.sed for an attorney in her own tony firm.

She took the seat beside Keenan as a lawyer-to-lawyer courtesy, and Randy sat between her and Dominique. Once they had dispensed with the pleasantries and Dominique had made it clear that she had told Spencer not even to try returning to work for the rest of the week after what he had endured that morning in the cab, Paige started pulling her notes from her briefcase (the ballistic nylon one she reserved for her meetings with FERAL, not the leather one she still preferred to use with the rest of her clients). She began by pa.s.sing stapled stacks of paper a quarter inch thick to the three other people, keeping the copy well marked with her notes for herself.

"Here, essentially, is where we are on the lawsuit," she began. "I'm still expecting we'll be able to file in two weeks and announce the action with a press conference at my firm. I've also attached some very rough thoughts on the sorts of things I'll be asking Adirondack for in the interrogatories later this fall. Obviously, I'll want all the materials and doc.u.ments that refer to the bolt and the extractor on John Seton's model, as well as any prototypes. I'm also going to ask for gross sales, gross profit, net profit, managers' salaries and bonuses, the contributions they make to hunting organizations and the NRA, and their expenditures for safety engineering and research. Don't worry: If that last figure isn't in reality paltry, we can certainly portray it that way-especially if we compare it to, say, their gross advertising expenditures."

"Will they have to answer all that?" Randy asked.

"Oh, if a judge says so, they will," Keenan said in his soft, slow voice. "And they'll have to answer it all under oath."

"Will it come to that?" the young a.s.sistant continued.

As much as she liked Keenan, Paige wanted complete control of this meeting (the truth was, she wanted complete control of all meetings), and so she quickly jumped in: "Their lawyers will object to the financial questions. And, I have to admit, some of the information is irrelevant and some will only become important if we request punitive damages. But, yes, depending upon the judge, we'll be able to get most of it."

"You plan on deposing Morton Knapp?" Keenan asked, referring to the Adirondack CEO, carefully uncapping a fountain pen as he spoke.

She hadn't decided yet, but she guessed it couldn't hurt. The CEO probably wouldn't know much about the mechanics of the extractor on any one rifle, much less about obscure design specifications, but all those "I don't knows" and "I wasn't involveds" would make him look arrogant and removed, and that could only help. Besides, these days most people loathed any executive who had the letters CEO or CFO attached to his name. "Yes, definitely," Paige heard herself saying now, as if she'd planned on deposing Knapp all along.

"I've also decided that Spencer must see a psychiatrist," she went on, "and I've picked out two we can consider, both of whom would be very...sympathetic. We already have plenty of experts who can talk to the physical disability, but I want it clear that there is profound psychological trauma as well."

"How about for the little girl?" This was Keenan again, and she nodded-nodded sincerely, this time.

"You may know this already, but the girl's aunt is a therapist. Seton's wife. And so she was all over that. The kid is going to see a doctor in Manhattan named Warwick. A woman. She sounded very nice."

"You've spoken to her?" Randy asked. She sounded incredulous.

"Yes. I wanted to make sure we could work with her."

Keenan smiled. "And?"

"If we can't, we'll simply have the girl see someone else. My sense is we don't have a lot to worry about: The child sounds pretty disturbed by this little disaster."

"Does all this have to happen before the press conference?" Randy wondered, flipping abstractedly through the papers Paige had handed her. It was clear she thought the task was impossible-which, if they needed it all when they filed the lawsuit and held the press conference, it was. Fortunately, they didn't need most of it anytime soon. So far there had been very little media coverage of the accident outside of some brief stories in small newspapers in New Hampshire and Vermont. Nothing had been picked up by the majors on the wires, however, because none of the short articles from northern New England had mentioned what Spencer did for a living. Keenan's initial fears that Leno and Letterman would make FERAL out to be either a group of morons or a group of hypocrites (or both) before the organization could put its spin on the story had so far proven unfounded. As a result, Paige was confident they still had the upper hand and were in control of how they disseminated the information.

Now she patted Randy's wrist (Paige wasn't precisely sure why she liked this gesture so much, but she told herself it was compa.s.sionate and theatric at once) and rea.s.sured her, "No, it doesn't have to happen in the next two weeks. We can embarra.s.s Adirondack quite badly with what we have already. The basic facts of this story."

"What about the deer?" Dominique asked, and the woman ran the fingers of one hand gently over the lobe of her ear, skirting the tiny silver dolphin that dangled nearby. Her nails were long, and today they were painted a deep cardinal red. "I want to be sure we get to the deer at the press conference. Let us not forget that Spencer's lawsuit is merely our means to the animals."

Randy reached for a manila folder of her own. "We'll have all sorts of surprises."

"Such as?" Dominique said. It was obvious to Paige that this was the part that really interested the director.

"Well, for starters, hunting actually may cause wildlife overpopulation, because those buck-only laws leave six to ten does per male. If hunters were honestly concerned about keeping the herd the right size for the environment, they'd be shooting does instead of bucks. But that just doesn't seem very macho-or sporting sporting-does it? Human predators are also less likely than natural predators to kill the weakest deer-hunters want that really big rack-which over time diminishes the strength of the species. And, of course, hunting inflicts enormous stress on deer, and that limits the animals' ability to eat and digest properly, so they don't have the fat they need to get through a tough northern winter."

"And the numbers? The media love a good statistic," Dominique said.

"I do, too. Spencer taught me that. First of all, it's clear that hunters kill a lot more deer than the records claim. For every animal that's slaughtered, easily another one or two are only wounded and die agonizing deaths in the woods from infection, starvation or blood loss. We can also present the numbers of cows and horses and dogs and people-yes, people-killed by hunting: 191 last year. One fellow in Maine took a stray bullet in the head while watching a football game on a Sunday afternoon in his living room. Ironically, he was a hunter, too, but he stayed home that day because he's a real Patriots fan."

"Will we have pictures?" Dominique asked.

"Of deer or people?"

"Deer. I really don't care about a couple hundred dead hunters."

"Yes, we'll have pictures of deer. We'll have them after they've been shot and disemboweled, and some that were left to die in the woods and were found by people who happened to live nearby. We'll even have a few of motherless fawns that starved to death in the snow."

"Good. Well, not good. But helpful."

"You bet. And I came across one more study that's really surprising. A report by the Erie Insurance Company showed that insurance claims for car accidents involving deer are five times more common during hunting season in Pennsylvania than in the rest of the year."

"Meaning?"

"Well, hunters claim that by thinning the herd, they're doing drivers a favor: fewer deer, fewer car accidents. But this study says they're actually chasing panicked animals onto highways and streets, thereby causing more accidents." She smiled with satisfaction at the link she had found, and Dominique nodded appreciatively.

"Do we need to address the understory?" This was Keenan, and Paige instantly felt a small chill descend on the table. The understory was going to be the weak link when FERAL defended deer, because it would make the animals appear to be predators themselves. In areas where there wasn't any hunting, especially places like Westchester and Fairfield County, the ever-increasing size of the herd was transforming the very ecosystems in which the animals lived as they devoured the plants that grew beneath the forest canopy and on which a sizable ark of smaller creatures depended. It was not uncommon for biologists to find foot-high cedars that were actually twelve and thirteen years old. Among the ramifications were fewer places for birds to nest or stop over in their migrations, as well as great ensuing swings in the numbers of insects.

Dominique, however, simply waved off Keenan's concern. "No, we don't. This is about hunting."

"There are scientists who contend that the only way to keep some ecosystems from falling into complete chaos is hunting-"

"And there are scientists who turn flamethrowers on pigs so they can look at burns on live tissue. If you really believe we need to be prepared for a discussion of ecosystems, we'll just trot out the birth control studies."

She watched both Keenan and Randy nod patiently. They both knew that birth control only worked in places like Fire Island, worlds so small that individual deer could be tracked annually and darted with contraception. Still, this was about racket, not reality, and Dominique probably was right. And so Paige sat forward in her chair, a palpably physical need driving her to be back in the center of the conversation. "Now," she began, "even though the point of the press conference is to announce the lawsuit-"

"And call attention to the moral horrors of hunting," Dominique said.

"Yes, of course. But from the perspective of the lawsuit, I want to be sure that we do not reveal too much about our case or our plans. I don't want any of Spencer's doctors or his physical therapist talking, I don't want a psychiatrist there if one happens to evaluate him in the next week or two, and I don't want any ballistics experts present. The only people on the dais with me should be Dominique and Spencer. Are you okay with that, Keenan? I just don't want three people from FERAL up there, because technically FERAL isn't even a party to this suit."

"Oh, I've spent enough time in front of cameras in my life. And I know I speak too slowly for the younger folks in broadcast. Give me a judge and a jury anytime," Keenan said. Then: "When is the last time you heard from Adirondack?"

"Thursday of last week. They want to start talking, but I'm not interested in negotiating since we're not interested in settling. At least not yet."

"At least not until we know more about the gun, right?" Randy asked.

"And John Seton only got the gun back from the New Hampshire authorities on-" she glanced at a note on her pad-"the eleventh of August. And by the time we got it back from him and down to the lab, it was the fourteenth."

"The state's attorney made our public defender friend sweat for ten days before deciding not to press charges? Isn't that something? That alone must have taught him a lesson," Keenan said.

"And with people taking their summer vacations and Labor Day and the laboratory's own backlog of work," she continued, "they haven't gotten to our gun. Nevertheless, they should have something for us any day now. And that's one of the very last gaps we need to fill in before we file the suit: the concrete specifics of our theory of liability. But the fact is, even if the people in Maryland can't find anything wrong with the extractor, there is still the issue that when you unload the magazine, a bullet remains in the chamber. It would be more difficult to win with that in front of a jury, but we could certainly threaten to make enough noise that Adirondack might say uncle. Now, I haven't spoken to Spencer today, but you have, Dominique. I presume he still wants us to drag this out as long as possible before settling."

Dominique took a deep breath and then said-her voice a human purr-"Spencer is ailing. I don't honestly know for sure when he'll be back. But I believe I can speak for him when I tell you that, yes, he wants to drag this out for as long as the media is interested." She looked at Keenan. "You agree?"

"I do. And I also believe that he'll stay mad at his brother-in-law for as long as needs be, and his shoulder will continue to torment him until this is behind him. And he'll bear it all, because he is, like each of us, a true believer. I think ol' Spencer would be more than willing to-pardon the pun-take a bullet on behalf of the deer of the great northern forest."

AT LUNCH THAT DAY in the teachers' lounge, Catherine finally asked Eric Miller exactly how old he was. It was a spontaneous question, triggered, she guessed, because she had just spoken to Spencer on the phone and heard that he'd thrown up in the cab and had to return home. She felt her husband's setback acutely, experiencing not merely the disappointment he was enduring at their apartment across town but also the harrowing sense that her own life's opportunities were continuing to dwindle. To herself (and only to herself) she could admit the truth: She, too, was trapped by her husband's disability. Yes, she was back at school, and in the days immediately after the shooting she had seriously doubted such a thing would be possible. But there was a far bigger issue in her mind: She certainly had not admitted to Spencer that had he not been crippled by a bullet and nearly died, she would have told him she was dissatisfied with their marriage-with in the teachers' lounge, Catherine finally asked Eric Miller exactly how old he was. It was a spontaneous question, triggered, she guessed, because she had just spoken to Spencer on the phone and heard that he'd thrown up in the cab and had to return home. She felt her husband's setback acutely, experiencing not merely the disappointment he was enduring at their apartment across town but also the harrowing sense that her own life's opportunities were continuing to dwindle. To herself (and only to herself) she could admit the truth: She, too, was trapped by her husband's disability. Yes, she was back at school, and in the days immediately after the shooting she had seriously doubted such a thing would be possible. But there was a far bigger issue in her mind: She certainly had not admitted to Spencer that had he not been crippled by a bullet and nearly died, she would have told him she was dissatisfied with their marriage-with him, him, to be honest. to be honest.

"Twenty-nine," Eric said, after taking a sip from his bottled iced tea.

She nodded.

"Why?" he asked her, and even his eyes seemed to be laughing. He was sitting below the window, and the sun was pouring in on the back of his head and his hair seemed to shine like a freshly buffed pumpkin pine floor. Sometimes she thought his hair was only blond. Today she decided it had splashes of a red-not unlike her own hair-especially in his sideburns and the long, unruly swath of bang he had to keep pushing back off his forehead. This afternoon he looked more like a surfer than an English teacher. He had spent much of the summer on Nantucket, and his skin was the sort of deep tan she herself hadn't had since she was a child and her mother was still oblivious to sunblock.

"I was just wondering," she answered. "I didn't think you'd hit thirty."

He smiled. "Is that a good thing or a bad thing?"

"Sometimes it's nice to see a man who still has a little puppylike awkwardness. That hubris that's really just optimism. Innocence. On the other hand, sometimes it's also nice to see a man who's a little more calm. Not wizened-but chastened, perhaps."

"You didn't answer my question. Is it good or bad that I haven't reached thirty?"

"It isn't either. It was just that I didn't know."

"Are you suggesting I'm puppylike?"

"Hah!"

"And if I were to ask you your age?"

"I'd tell you."

"Okay: How old are you?"

"Thirty-eight."

"No. Really?"

"Don't try to flatter me. I know how old I look. And we both know that I have a daughter who turned thirteen last month."

"You don't look thirty-eight. Honest to G.o.d, if I met you in, say, a bar, and didn't know Charlotte was your daughter, I would peg you for my age."

"I doubt that."

"I'm being completely sincere."

"Any man who even tries to peg peg a woman's age in a bar is completely incapable of sincerity." a woman's age in a bar is completely incapable of sincerity."

"Hey, you were the one who just admitted you were wondering about my age!"

"Because you're a good teacher and I know you're younger than I am. I was curious."

"People get curious in bars, Catherine."