Lila and Hadley

by Kody Keplinger

  “Oh.”

  “I almost came over and asked if I could pet her at the picnic tables,” Shelby explains. “But then you left. So … can I say hi to her now? What’s her name? Is she friendly?”

  It takes a second for her words to set in, but then it all clicks. She’s not making comments about my cane because that wasn’t why she’d been staring at me to begin with. She was just interested in Lila. Maybe I ought to be a little hurt that this girl is more interested in getting to know a dog than me, but I prefer that to what I’d been imagining—that she thought I was weird or was gonna make fun of me for being blind. But Shelby don’t say a word about any of that.

  “This is Lila,” I say, gesturing to the pit bull that’s still watching us from behind the bench. “But she’s not real friendly.”

  “Oh.”

  “She’s not mean or anything,” I add, feeling the need to defend Lila. “She’s just a little shy. It’s one reason we’re here. I’m fostering her for a dog rescue, so I’m trying to get her socialized. Make her friendlier and stuff. You can try to say hi if you want. She might just ignore you, though.”

  Shelby lets go of Pilot’s collar, and I take a better look at him. He’s tall, with these long, skinny legs and big, pointed ears that seem two sizes too big for his head. He’s calmed down a bit now, and his long nose is pressed to the ground, like he’s caught some kinda scent he’s eager to follow.

  Shelby walks over to the side of the bench and crouches down, one arm outstretched, palm up, toward Lila. “Hey, Lila,” she says. “Hi, puppy. Wanna let me pet you?”

  I watch Lila’s reaction. She looks at me first, then at Shelby. She takes a small step toward Shelby, just close enough so she can lower her head and sniff the hand Shelby has offered. But then, in true Lila fashion, she takes a step back, turns around, and lies down, facing away from Shelby.

  Shelby don’t seem too disappointed, though.

  “That’s all right,” she tells Lila, voice confident. “I’ll win you over eventually.” She stands up and walks around the bench, plopping down on the seat I’d been occupying a few seconds ago, before her dog startled me. “She’s real cute.”

  “She’s all right,” I say with a shrug.

  Pilot lifts his head then, something across the dog park catching his attention, and takes off toward another group of dogs who are playing a game of chase.

  “So you said you’re training Lila?” Shelby asks.

  I nod.

  “That’s great. I’m training Pilot, too. Well, kinda. He’s got his basic training—sit and stay and all that. But sometimes he’s not real good at listening, especially when he’s real excited, so we’re working on that. My dad’s been helping me. But I actually think I’m better with dogs than he is. How’s training been going with Lila?”

  “It’s been going okay,” I say, slowly moving to sit down on the bench, a couple feet from Shelby. “She’s real smart. Just stubborn. But she’s gotten a lot better. My sister is a dog trainer so she’s been showing me what to do.”

  “A dog trainer? That’s so cool!” Shelby says. “I’d love to be a dog trainer one day. Hey! You live near here, right? Maybe we could work on training Pilot and Lila together—since you want to get her more comfortable with people and dogs.”

  “Um … maybe,” I say.

  And honestly—surprisingly—that doesn’t sound like too bad an idea. I still ain’t sure about this girl. I’m still wondering what she’ll think of my cane or of me being blind when it comes up. And she’s so upbeat it makes me kinda nervous. But if I’m gonna be stuck here for a while, maybe it’d be nice to make a new friend.

  And one good thing about Shelby talking so much is that it means I don’t have to. Unlike Beth, Shelby doesn’t push me to say much. She’s more than happy to just talk about Pilot and the other dogs she’s met in the neighborhood. And I’m all right with just listening.

  And eventually, I realize we’ve been at the dog park for more than an hour.

  “Oh no,” I say, getting to my feet and grabbing Lila’s leash. “Sorry. I gotta go. My sister will be home soon.”

  “That’s okay,” Shelby says. “I should go, too. Let me round up Pilot, and then we can walk out together.”

  Shelby hops up and goes to get Pilot, and I pick up Lila’s leash. She’s under the bench now, lying on her stomach, and looks to be fast asleep. I shake her awake. She opens one eyelid to look at me.

  “Come on,” I tell her. “Time to go. Glad you used this trip to the dog park to get a nap in.”

  Lila wiggles out from under the bench, sits up, and yawns while I hook her leash onto her collar.

  Feeling a bit nervous, I grab my cane and start walking toward the gate. Shelby’s waiting for me there, and I see her look down at my cane as I get close. I hold my breath, waiting. Knowing she’s about to bring it up. Sure she’s either gonna tease me or, worse, act like she feels bad for me.

  But after hardly a second has passed, she looks up at me, smiling, and just says, “Ready to go?”

  “Uh, sure.”

  Once we’re out of the dog park and crossing the street, Shelby says, “I gotta go this way.” She gestures in the opposite direction of Beth’s house. “But it was real nice meeting you and Lila. Finally. Let’s meet up again soon, okay? Do you have a cell phone?”

  I hand her my phone, and she puts her number in before handing it back to me.

  Glancing down, I see that—to my surprise—Lila is sniffing at Pilot, who’s wagging his tail, clearly loving the attention.

  “Come on, Pilot. We’ll see our new friends again soon,” Shelby says, tugging at the dog’s leash. “See you two around!”

  I watch her walk away, then look down at Lila. She’s watching them, too.

  I don’t say anything to Lila as we start walking back toward Beth’s house. I don’t think I need to. I get the feeling we’re both feeling the same thing. Nervous, unsure. But, maybe, a tiny bit hopeful, too.

  Later that night, I get Lila up on the bed with me and try to take a selfie of us both. It takes a few tries. I ain’t real good with selfies since it’s hard to see my phone when it’s too far from my face. But eventually I get one that’s all right. Even if Lila refuses to look right at the camera.

  I text the picture to both Joey and Maya.

  They stopped texting me about two weeks ago, after a lot of messages I didn’t reply to. But I ain’t gonna do like Beth. I ain’t gonna let so much time pass that I feel too embarrassed or guilty to reach out to them again.

  Sorry I’ve been so hard to get a hold of lately. I miss y’all.

  For a minute, I’m worried they won’t respond, that I’ve been too bad of a friend and now they’re mad at me. But both of them send replies within a couple minutes of each other.

  We miss you, too! What’s Kentucky like?

  Whose cute dog is that???? Oh, and yeah—miss you, too!

  I smile, first at my phone, then at Lila, before typing out a long overdue message to my friends.

  “So is Shelby your new best friend now?” Joey asks.

  It’s a couple days later and he, Maya, and I are all on a three-way video call. It’s the first time I’ve heard their voices since I left Tennessee, and I don’t think I realized how much I missed them.

  “Y’all are still my best friends,” I say. “I only just met Shelby. She’s nice, though.”

  “And you said she has a pool,” Maya chimes in. “No offense, Joey, but I’d be her best friend, too. Ugh. It’s so hot. I wish I had a pool.”

  “Yeah. In fact, I gotta go in a few minutes. I told her I’d meet her at one o’clock so we can go swimming.”

  “Just promise you ain’t gonna start liking her more than us and go ages without talking to us again,” Joey says.

  Maya goes quiet.

  Slowly, I sit down on my bed, holding my phone in front of my face so they can see me. The sadness in Joey’s face when he says this twists my gut. I’d explained over text the other day
the truth about Mama and apologized for lying about it to them. I’d told them I’d only been avoiding them because I didn’t wanna talk about it and had felt embarrassed and that I’d been sad not to be there with them. They’d been real understanding. They barely even commented on Mama’s actions at all, just asked how I was doing with it all. Which was a relief. But now I can see that I’d hurt their feelings a lot, too. Even Maya, though she ain’t saying anything, looks away from the camera.

  “Y’all,” I say quietly, “I promise I ain’t gonna do that again. I’m … I’m sorry I did that to begin with.”

  “We thought you’d found people you liked more than us or something. That you didn’t like us as much anymore,” Joey says. “That you didn’t wanna bother talking to us now that you’d moved.”

  “It wasn’t that at all. It wasn’t about either of you. It wasn’t that I liked anyone better or y’all any less. I just … Things have been hard.”

  “We know,” Maya says. “But, Hadley, we’re your best friends. We wanna be there to help when things are hard.”

  I decide I ain’t gonna tell them there’s nothing they could’ve done. That won’t make them feel any better right now. So instead I just say, “Thank you. I’ll … I’ll remember that for next time.”

  “Well, hopefully there won’t have to be a next time,” Joey says. “It sounds like between your dog and the friend with the pool, Kentucky ain’t half bad.”

  “She ain’t my dog,” I say. “But she’s all right.” I look over at Lila, who’s lying by my bedroom door, next to the bag I’ve packed for my pool day at Shelby’s house. I think she knows I’m going somewhere and is making it real clear I ain’t leaving without her. “I ain’t really a dog person, but she’s a good one.”

  “We’re just glad to have you back,” Maya says. “We missed you. It’s gonna be weird starting school without you.”

  “Yeah …” I’ve been trying not to think too hard about that. About what it’ll be like going to school without them, in a place where I don’t know anyone but Shelby. And, on top of that, with my new cane.

  I ain’t ready to deal with it yet.

  Right then, there’s a knock at my bedroom door. “Hadley,” Mrs. McGraw calls. “One of those house flipping shows is on. Do you wanna come watch it with me?”

  “I can’t,” I call through the door. “I gotta go meet Shelby at one. We’re gonna go swimming at her house.”

  “Oooh. I know Shelby. She’s a nice girl. Real nice.” This ain’t surprising. Everybody knows everybody in small towns like these. “But you’d better get going then. It’s nearly one o’clock now.”

  “I know, I know.”

  “Is that your babysitter?” Maya asks.

  I sigh. “Kinda. I guess. I don’t need a babysitter, but Beth won’t listen. Mrs. McGraw’s okay, though. Sometimes.”

  “Have fun with Shelby,” Joey says. “I know I sounded kinda jealous before, but … I do hope you make friends.”

  “Thanks, Joey.”

  I say goodbye to them both and promise I’ll call them again soon. Maya suggests we make a schedule where I gotta talk to them for an hour at least once a week and then text the rest of the time. She likes organizing stuff like that. She even has a calendar on her fridge at home with a list of all her after-school activities and the times of all of them. Joey likes to say she schedules in her fun. Maya says that ain’t a bad thing.

  I miss them both.

  Once I hang up, I grab my bag, my cane, and Lila’s leash—she’s getting her wish—and the two of us head out of the house and toward the dog park, where Shelby said she’d meet us. I ain’t seen her since we exchanged numbers a couple days ago. But she’s called and texted a few times and yesterday she said we ought to go swimming at her house.

  I feel a bit nervous about it—going to her house when I don’t know her real well—but Beth says she knows Shelby’s parents and that it’s okay. And who am I to turn down the chance to swim in this heat?

  Besides, Shelby does seem nice. Maybe it won’t hurt to have one friend in this town.

  “Hadley!” she calls out when Lila and I round the corner near the dog park. “Over here!”

  At her side, Pilot lets out a friendly bark. Like he’s greeting us, too.

  “I’m so glad you’re coming over,” Shelby says once Lila and I reach her. “It’ll be nice to have some company. Plus, it’s so hot. Ugh. I hate it. So does Pilot. He’s got too much fur for this weather.”

  Pilot don’t seem too bothered by it right now, though. He’s tugging on his leash, hopping all over Lila and me, excited to see us. Lila just sorta lets him. She don’t seem quite as happy to see him and Shelby, but she doesn’t whine or hide behind me either, so that’s something.

  “Thanks for inviting me,” I say. “It was real nice of you.”

  “Of course!” Shelby says. “And I’m so happy you could bring Lila. She and Pilot can play in the yard while we swim. We’ve got a fence around the backyard, so they’ll be all right. And my brothers have summer school, so they won’t be around to bother us.”

  Shelby’s house is just a block from the dog park in the opposite direction of Beth’s. She opens the gate and leads us all inside.

  “Take off your shoes if you don’t mind,” she says, slipping off her own sandals. “And you can take Lila’s leash off. Does she like toys? Pilot has a lot of toys. She can play with them if she wants.”

  Sure enough, Lila’s leash ain’t off for five seconds before she’s found Pilot’s tug rope, and the two of them start a game of tug-of-war in Shelby’s living room. It’s the friendliest I’ve seen her be with anyone but me so far. I guess her shyness is overcome by the promise of a good game.

  Shelby points me in the direction of her bathroom so I can change into my bathing suit. And when I’m done changing and putting on the sunblock I grabbed from Beth’s bathroom, I make my way back to her living room, using my cane to be careful not to run into anything. She’s waiting for me there, wearing a bright yellow swimsuit and sunglasses.

  “Ready to go out to the pool?” she asks. But she opens the back door before I can even answer and calls out, “Daddy! Hadley and Lila are here.”

  I follow her outside. Pilot and Lila are close behind me, and Lila’s still got the tug rope hanging from her mouth. A man—Shelby’s dad I guess—is sitting on the pool deck in a lawn chair. When I get closer, I can see that he’s wearing a ball cap and he’s got a laptop on his knees.

  “You must be Hadley,” he says. “Nice to meet you. I’m Shelby’s dad. Beth’s your sister, right?”

  I nod.

  “She’s a good one. We love having her in the neighborhood. She’s trained several people’s dogs around here. Been thinking of contacting her for some help with Pilot.”

  “I can train Pilot, Daddy,” Shelby protests.

  “I’m sure you can,” he replies. “The question is, can you do it before Pilot digs up the rest of your mama’s garden?”

  Shelby lets out an indignant huff. “We’re gonna go swimming, okay?”

  “That’s fine,” her dad says. “I’ll be right here if you need me. Just working on lesson plans.”

  “Daddy’s a teacher at the high school,” Shelby explains as we walk to the edge of the pool. “So he’s got the summer off like we do.”

  “Oh,” I say.

  And then …

  “Cannonball!”

  Before I can blink, Shelby has taken about three steps back and then sprinted to the edge of the pool, leaping in. Water sprays up onto the deck, splashing me real good in the process. A second later, Shelby surfaces with a laugh.

  “Oh man, it’s cold,” she says. “Should’ve got in more slowly.”

  My first instinct is to be irritated about being splashed, but I manage to shake it off. Shelby’s been nothing but nice to me so far, and I’m gonna get wet anyway. I don’t gotta be upset all the time.

  I do climb down the ladder slowly, though, because the water is pretty
cold.

  Once Shelby’s gotten used to the water, she starts swimming in circles around me, diving and doing flips beneath the water. She’s kinda a show-off, I realize. Me, on the other hand, I mostly just hang out in the middle of the pool, happy enough to float for a bit.

  Shelby asks me a ton of questions, but not the ones I expect her to. Nothing about my cane or why I live with Beth. Instead, she wants to know about my old school, about Tennessee, about my friends back home. I tell her about Joey and Maya, and how jealous they are that she has a pool.

  Then I figure it’s my turn to ask some questions.

  “What about your friends?” I ask.

  “My friends? Oh, let’s see. Well, my two best friends are Cate and Cassie. They’re twins. But they spend summers with their grandparents in Georgia, so I ain’t seen them in a bit. In person, at least. We’ll get on a video call sometimes, but mostly we just text and send each other funny videos we find online.”

  “So … you ain’t seen them all summer?”

  “Nope,” Shelby says, and for the first time, I hear a touch of sadness in her voice. “And I miss them a lot. But that’s one reason I was so excited to finally get to talk to you the other day! I was … kinda hoping to make a new friend. Summers around here get awful lonely, you know?”

  “Well … um … I guess I’m glad we got to meet, then,” I say. It sounds awkward coming out of my mouth, but Shelby don’t seem to notice.

  “Me, too,” she says. “And when school starts, you’ll get to meet Cate and Cassie! Maybe you can join the middle school book club with us. I promise you’ll like them. They don’t have any dogs. Their mom’s allergic. They’ll be so jealous of you getting to have Lila.”

  “Aren’t they jealous of Pilot, then, too?” I ask.