by Sandy Lowe
Jenkins scooped up the puppy and put him in her arms. “Have you had a Jack Russell before?”
“No.” Nor any other breed.
“They have strong personalities. You’ll love them. Just keep anything you don’t want chewed to bits out of his reach.” Jenkins laughed. “Sophia tore up all the linoleum out of our laundry room last weekend.”
Lydia managed a weak smile, but it didn’t last long. The puppy gave a low growl, and she sighed. “I suppose I should get him home,” she said. She had taken one of the dogs as a way to improve her earning potential with the company to keep paying for her house. Now the same dog was about to destroy the rooms she’d carefully decorated. Not exactly an O. Henry story, but close enough.
*
The next morning, Lydia was out the door at her usual time—at D.W.’s usual time—but with the puppy in tow, wearing the new harness and leash she’d bought at the pet store yesterday. She had also bought feed bowls, bags of food, and any toy that looked like it might deter him from chewing on her furniture. He had spent the night next to her on her pillow instead of in his new dog bed, but he still regarded her with a skeptical look, as if he wasn’t convinced she had the proper credentials for dog ownership. She was certain she didn’t.
“Mind if we join you?” she asked, coming out from the shrub and into the midst of chaos as six dogs converged on her puppy with eager sniffs and tail wags.
“Of course,” D.W. said, reining in her charges and dropping to one knee to greet the newcomer. “Did you just get him? What a sweet puppy! Who’s a cutie pie? What’s your name, little guy?”
Lydia hadn’t mastered the art of baby talk, but D.W. had it down. One word from her, and the dog was smiling with his full set of lower teeth showing. His expression when he looked at Lydia was closer to a disdainful sneer, especially when she had spent fifteen minutes trying to untangle his harness and fit him into it. Who could possibly resist her? Lydia was ready to roll on her back for a tummy rub, too.
“His name is Jack,” Lydia said. She didn’t want to admit she’d been thinking of him as the Jack Russell in a generic sort of way, although he was obviously too much of a character to be generic.
“Jack the Jack Russell,” D.W. said, standing up again. “Should be easy to remember. I’m Alex, by the way.”
“Lydia.” They shook hands, and Lydia didn’t want to let go. She thought she had been electrified by her brief morning chats with Alex, but they were mere sparks compared to her touch. She sighed as they started walking in the center of the pack of dogs. She had wanted to keep D.W. as her fantasy, talking to her enough to keep her voice and looks fresh in her mind, but she needed some help with her new puppy. Now she knew her real name, and soon they’d have to talk about something deeper than renovation projects or the likelihood of sun breaks over the weekend. Her image of Alex would change, and she’d wake up from the pleasant dreams she’d had about D.W., the virtual stranger.
Although she definitely preferred the name Alex to D.W.
She kept their conversation neutral at first, asking question after question about puppy care and training. She wouldn’t remember half of what she was hearing, but she hoped she’d retain enough to get through the days ahead. Jack strutted along in front of her, unintimidated by the big dogs on either side of him.
She was planning to keep to impersonal topics, but her curiosity won out. “What do you do?” she asked as they went through a gate and into a dog park. “I mean, besides dog walking. Not that you’d need to do something else, because I’m sure it’s a rewarding career.”
Alex laughed. “I only do this part-time, mostly to help out some of our neighbors. Two of the dogs are mine, and as long as I’m walking them I might as well take the others. I write magazine articles for a living.”
“Really? What kind?” Lydia wondered if Alex had ever used her photos in an article. The thought gave her a surprising sort of thrill. She always liked seeing her pictures in an ad or magazine, but having them illustrate words Alex had written was somehow intimate and exciting.
“Mostly travel, gardening, and home décor. I also do a column answering questions from dog owners.”
“Do you have a hotline? I’ll be calling it at all hours.”
“I’ll give you my private number. You can use it any time.” Alex gave her a wink and knelt down to unsnap the leashes from her dogs’ collars. Lydia felt her stomach twist at the suggestive tone in Alex’s voice. Maybe she hadn’t been the only one who daydreamed about those short meetings in front of her house.
She let Jack off his leash, and he trotted after his new friends. Alex tossed a ball, and the whole swarm of dogs chased it. Lydia set her bag on a nearby bench and took out her camera, her eyes never leaving Alex and the dogs. She started snapping shots. She started with the dogs, capturing them as they played and ran, but soon she was following Alex and shooting her from different angles.
When they had talked about their houses or the weather, Lydia had focused on their disparate looks. She was urban, Alex appeared earthier. She was neutrals and clean, clear lines, while Alex was a rainbow of colors meshed together. Somehow, though, looking at her through the lens of the camera gave Lydia a whole new perspective, letting her see beyond the surface to the people they were. She took a picture of Alex’s profile and imagined her sitting in front of her computer writing articles to inform people, to share her passions with readers. Like Lydia did with her photos. She took another of Alex from behind, her arm in mid-throw and her weight on her toes. She had been worried about learning Alex’s personal story because she had thought it might spoil her fantasy, but she had been wrong. Hearing how she helped her neighbors, loved her old house, and cared enough to answer every question Lydia asked about her dog only made her more beautiful than she had been before—something Lydia hadn’t thought possible.
The walk back to their street was slower after the dogs had spent their energy playing in the park. Lydia carried Jack for the last quarter mile.
“Do you want to come see my kitchen?” Alex asked when they reached her house.
“Absolutely.” Lydia didn’t even hesitate. She had kept Alex at a distance for too long, and for the wrong reasons. An unexpected puppy had finally forced her to get over her doubt and allow the attraction she had been feeling all along to shift to a deeper level.
She followed Alex through the hallway and into her kitchen. Warm rusts, golds, and mauves blended subtly through the room, from the walls to the cabinets to the enamel cookware on the stove. The color of sunsets, quiet dinners eaten together, nights spent holding hands and sitting close. Lydia had created a certain modern look with her décor. Alex had made a home, a place to be shared.
“It’s perfect,” she said.
“Now it is.” Alex walked over to her and lifted her hand, twisting a strand of Lydia’s hair around her finger. Lydia felt a trembling, but she wasn’t sure if it was her or Alex. Or both, together.
“I have a confession,” Alex continued. “I pictured you in here when I was designing it. The gold in your hair, the bronze in your eyes. You’re the finishing touch I was hoping for.”
Lydia opened her mouth to speak, but she couldn’t find words. In her mind, she saw the two of them in a photo, looking at each other and really seeing each other for the first time. Standing close, leaning forward.
She let go of the mental image as soon as Alex’s lips touched hers, and she focused instead on the sensations rippling through her. A soft explosion of tongues and warmth and pent-up passion rocked her, and she slid her hands under Alex’s jacket and around her waist, pulling them closer. She dimly felt Jack near her ankle, chewing on her jeans, but pressure from Alex’s hips against hers drove all her cares away. He could shred the damned things if he wanted—because of him she was here, in Alex’s arms, so he had free rein to chew on anything, anytime.
Alex pulled away and smiled at her with a look of wonder in her expressive, lovely eyes. “I’ve wanted to be with you for so l
ong. I can’t believe you’re finally here.”
Lydia kissed her gently on the mouth. “I thought you were only a dream,” she said. “I didn’t realize until now, you’re my dream come true.”
Bat Girl
Laney Webber
Rae passed me the hose and went inside the greenhouse to wait on two women who were balancing about a dozen small potted red geraniums between them. It was my second summer at MacAuliffe’s Nursery. I worked weekends with Rae, who told me Jerry MacAuliffe hired her “right out of high school, back at the beginning of time.” She laughed when she said it, and the lines around her eyes and mouth punctuated her laughter. Rae has a great laugh.
My first day at the greenhouse, she wiped her hand on a rag hanging from the belt loop of her cargo jeans and held it out to me. She told me her name was Rae, she was gay, she loved being gay and didn’t want me to walk around wondering if she was gay. Then she asked me if I was gay.
I told her I identified as lesbian.
“Good to know.” Then she showed me around.
My first summer, she taught me how to pinch back petunias and deadhead the dozens of ivy geraniums hanging in the greenhouse. We took turns waiting on customers and taking care of the plants. She told me about her marketing job, the diner she used to own in Florida, and moving back to Massachusetts after she caught her ex cheating on her.
I told her about growing up the youngest of six kids, how I used to pretend to be a librarian long before I ever was one and how I needed to be around living things after my mother died three years ago.
We found that we both loved Scrabble, root beer, and old pickup trucks.
Today we were taking down some tired-looking fuchsias and moving them to a shadier location. It was hot, and the forecast called for at least two more days in the mid-nineties.
“Can you carry four at a time?”
Rae had two in each hand, and a line of sweat ran down her neck onto the wet blue bandana she used to try to keep cool.
“They’re pretty heavy. One at a time for me,” I called over to her.
“So how’s that new girl you’ve been seeing? Darcy? Marcy? There are so many I just can’t keep them straight.” Rae laughed as she passed by me on another trip to the greenhouse.
“It was Darcy, but not anymore. Things weren’t working out.” I reached up and hooked the planters on the rack in the shady barn behind the greenhouse. I wiped my sweaty forehead with the back of my forearm.
“You go through them like water, don’t you, kiddo? You okay?”
We walked back to the greenhouse together.
“Yeah, I’m okay. I just get tired sometimes, putting myself out there. Damn, it’s freakin’ hot.”
“How about after we lug the rest of these suckers out back I go down the street to the Creamery and get us a couple of root beer floats?”
“Oh, that sounds like heaven.” I let out a small groan and licked my lips.
Rae looked at me for a second like she was going to say something.
“What?” I said.
“Nothing.”
“No, really, what?”
“If you must know, you’re a bit of a sight. You’ve got dirt all up and down your arms and on your face. Let’s get the rest of these done, then you wash up and keep a lookout for customers and I’ll go to the Creamery.”
“Got it, boss!” I joked.
“Not boss.” Rae went past me with four more fuchsias.
Three more hot and heavy trips with the fuchsias and we were done. The heat kept the customers away, and we were able to sit and relax for a while with our root beer floats.
Last summer I asked Rae if she was seeing anyone, and she looked away for a minute, then told me that her heart “was pretty particular,” and I got the impression she didn’t like to talk about her personal life.
A hint of a sea breeze brushed over us during the afternoon, and we tended to small jobs around the greenhouse. I watched Rae fix a broken latch on the door while I watered the flats of yellow and orange marigolds out front for the third time that day. I liked to watch her hands when she worked. They were strong, capable hands. She looked over and smiled.
“I think that’s it for today.”
Rae said this at the end of each Saturday and Sunday. It was my signal to bring in the flag and go hook the chain across the driveway and flip the sign to “Closed.” She took care of the money and locked up the greenhouse and the barn.
“See you tomorrow, Jess.”
“Iced coffee?” I asked.
“Oh yeah.”
The driveway chain was my baby, so I unhooked it to let us drive our cars out, then hooked it back up. Rae stuck her hand out her window and gave me a thumbs-up as she took a right at the end of the street.
A wall of heat hit me in the face as I climbed the third and final flight of stairs to my apartment. I fell in love with this little studio apartment in one of the historic sea captains’ houses that line Newburyport’s High Street. But I didn’t know that during a heat wave, the building turned into a four-thousand-square-foot pizza oven.
I took a cool shower, ate some pasta salad, and read my new Ellen Hart mystery novel while the air conditioner cooled down my tiny space. My eyeballs started twirling after page thirty, and I turned off the light and went to sleep.
I woke to a ruffle of air across my face and the sound of something banging into the blinds above the air conditioner. I turned on the light, picked up my alarm clock as my weapon of choice, and crept over to the window. A triangular-shaped handkerchief-looking thing was draped over the top of the curtain rod. Otherwise, everything looked normal. I climbed on my desk chair and peered under the valance. The handkerchief chirped. I rocked back on the chair.
“It’s a freakin’ bat! No! No! No!” I jumped off the chair and staggered backward. My heart was jumping around in my chest. Bats and I do not get along. I had a bad bat experience when I was seven, and when I was fourteen a bat clonked me in the head while I was walking through a field. My best friend at the time said I must have had mosquitoes near my hair. Right.
There was no one there but me. Time to be brave, Jess. The bat was trying to get a better hold on the curtain rod. My head felt woozy and my heart banged in my chest. I backed up four steps into the kitchen area and grabbed an oven mitt. If I thought about it, I would chicken out.
I unlocked and opened my apartment door and the fire escape door in the hallway that led to a rotten deck and stairway. I wanted no impediments in my way when I had the bat. The desk chair didn’t seem sturdy enough, so I walked three steps into the living room area and pushed the big orange recliner over to the desk, climbed on it, reached out and grabbed the bat with one hand, and wound the curtain round and round my hand. I took the entire assembly off the window—curtains, bat, and all—and ran like hell out the back door. The bat was chirping blue murder. I dropped my bat package on the deck, spun around, and closed and locked the door.
I shut my apartment door and slid down the inside of the door until my ass hit the floor. My tank top and shorts were soaked with sweat. I stayed there until my heart rate returned to normal, then took a cool shower and went back to bed. Then I got up and walked around listening for chirping sounds. I opened The Lost Women of Lost Lake and started reading again. I tried to list all the things I know about bats, but it didn’t help. That’s the thing with irrational fears. They’re irrational.
I turned off the light. I heard something. I turned the light back on. Nothing. I turned off the light again. I thought I saw a shadow. I turned the light on again. Another bat!
“Shit! Shit, shit, shit!”
This one was flying around the apartment. I jumped out of bed, crouched low, grabbed my phone, and went out in the hall. My eyes never left the bat. I didn’t want it to hide in there somewhere. It stopped flying and was resting on the other curtain rod. I couldn’t do it again. My hands were shaking as I scrolled through my phone. Rae told me once if I couldn’t sleep to check and see if she wa
s on Facebook and she’d play a game of Scrabble with me. I sent her a text.
Hey, are you up?
I kept my eyes on the bat. My phone vibrated a few seconds later.
Yup, you ok?
Got a bat flying around my apt. Hate bats
Be right over. Street number?
106 High St Apt 6 up on 3rd flr
Hang tight kiddo, be there in 15
I’m sure it was only fifteen minutes, but it seemed like an hour had passed when I heard Rae climbing the steps. The bat was swooping around the apartment again.
“Where’s the bugger?” Rae whispered.
I heard her take the last step and let out a big sigh.
“That’s some haul.”
“Thanks for coming. I don’t want to lose him, her, whatever. It’s on the curtain rod at the far end of the room,” I said.
Rae stepped into the apartment. She was wearing a big floppy straw hat and a pair of bright yellow rubber boots. She put a tennis racket and a cardboard box on the kitchen table, pulled a pair of leather gardening gloves from the box, and put them on. My eyes seesawed between Rae and the bat. I put a hand over my mouth to hold in the laughter climbing up my throat.
“You look adorable.” Her outfit distracted me from my fear for a minute.
“Stop it. You stay out in the hall, and I’ll catch the bugger. The boots? Are you laughing at the boots? I have a thing about my feet. Don’t ask. Does that door in the hall lead outside? I don’t want to bring it down all those stairs.”
“Roger that.” I saluted Rae and smiled. “I’ll open the door and stay in the hall.” I felt so much better now that she was here.
Rae looked me up and down and smiled back. “You look pretty adorable yourself, kid. Here goes nothing.”
I backed farther into the hallway and felt my face grow warm. It was at that moment that I realized I was standing in the hall in a tank top and underpants. My face grew hot.
Rae pointed to the orange recliner.