Jaywalking

by Rachel Ember

  From his first impression, Jay had expected Blake’s apartment to be a mess. But, instead, it was meticulously tidy and tastefully furnished, like it belonged to a real adult and not a dog walker who smelled like weed. There were paintings crowded over every available inch of wall-space—in various styles, yet somehow similar, all on unframed canvases.

  “These are cool,” he said. One in particular caught his eye, so he paused in the living room to study it. The image of a stylized industrial building in shades of blue was suspended on a cloud of smoke that poured from its foundation instead of the empty smoke stacks above.

  “Thanks,” said Blake from the kitchenette. “It was my major,” he added.

  “Oh, wow. So you painted these?”

  Even from across the room, Jay felt how Blake went still. Wrong question.

  “It’s not a big deal,” Blake said quietly, his shoulders stiff. Then, he leaned his head to one side and then the other, cracking his neck audibly, and turned with a perfectly passive expression on his face. “Here.” He held out a key ring and a folded sheet of paper. “All the dogs today are really easy. They’ll meet you at the door. What you need to know is all on the paper. Addresses, where they keep the leashes, stuff like that. You need to give each dog at least ten minutes, but when the weather’s nice, I do as much as twenty. Don’t snoop around, don’t forget to lock the door behind you—both times—and don’t lose the keys.”

  Jay felt his brows crawl toward his hairline. He took the keys, getting another whiff of pot off of Blake. But his hands looked steady and his eyes weren’t red. Maybe a dealer, not a user?

  Not that it was Jay’s business either way.

  “Is that it?” He’d kind of expected Blake to come with him and show him the route. “You’re not coming?”

  “No. Bria says you’re a Boy Scout, so I’m sure you’ll be fine.”

  Jay frowned, but he couldn’t really argue. He wasn’t going to rob any of Blake’s clients, and he was pretty sure he could manage to remember to lock up, too.

  Jay walked back the way he’d come, out onto the sidewalk, where Blake showed him a fake rock he could put the keys inside if he came by when Blake wasn’t there. Then, Jay got in his car and drove toward the first address on the route.

  It was obvious as Jay got closer to his first stop that the neighborhood was one of the nicer ones in town. Big, lovely homes lined the shady streets on generous lots. Jay couldn’t help but wonder why the discerning adults who lived in the area were willing to hand Blake a spare key and trust him with their pets. Everything about him aggressively signaled ‘IRRESPONSIBLE,’ from the tattoos and the pot smell to how, within the first two minutes of their acquaintance, he’d called Jay a ‘weird little shit.’

  The first place was a compact one-and-a-half-story bungalow with stone-clad columns on its big porch. He heard the dog on the other side of the door while he was looking for the right key. Whatever kind of dog it was, it sounded large and joyful. Its bark was deep, and a firm sound of impact suggested it had just flung itself excitedly against the door. Jay cracked open the door and was greeted with a grinning, lolling tongue and amber eyes in the face of a big chocolate lab. Her pink collar was embroidered in baby blue with the name ‘Susie.’

  He opened the door, his knee carefully braced against the doorframe in anticipation of Susie’s opening move, and, just as he’d predicted, her eager, grinning snout slammed into his thigh at the glimpse of the outdoors. She bounced back, unfazed because, true to her breed, she had no apparent nerve endings anywhere in her body, and began licking Jay’s hand enthusiastically while her tail wagged so hard it blurred. Jay grabbed her collar and pulled her backward into the house so the door could safely close behind him.

  “You’re a mess,” he told her, putting one hand on either side of her grinning muzzle. He rubbed her cheeks while she panted joyously. “You’re a big doofus mess,” Jay went on, devolving into baby talk. Whatever, no one was around to judge him. “Yes, you are.”

  There was a leash in a basket next to the door, which Jay knew to look for from Blake’s notes. He snapped it onto Susie’s collar and let her tow him outside. He was glad Blake didn’t have a business like some of the big-city dog-walking gigs Jay had seen in movies, where the dogs were walked in a pack on a fan of leashes. If Susie could have conscripted one more dog into her efforts to drag Jay into the street after every car and onto a private lawn after every squirrel, he wouldn’t have been able to hold his ground. As it was, he was sore-armed after ten minutes of staggering after her. She lost some enthusiasm when she realized they were headed back to her house, but remained in good spirits when Jay returned her to the stone-columned house and her leash to its nail, and gave her a few more goodbye pets.

  Seven-one-two Hickamore Lane, a yellow Victorian, was home to Sebastian, a fat dachshund who looked accusing when Jay made him trek more than a block. Jay wound up giving in and carrying him back to the house under his arm.

  The final place was two streets over, but it felt like an entirely different neighborhood. It bordered a steep hillside that was densely vegetated with small trees and brush. A snaking, sloping driveway led Jay to a house he couldn’t see from the street.

  As he pulled in, Jay found himself curious to see what the house was like, and he wasn’t disappointed. The place was objectively cool. It was built in an architectural style he didn’t think he’d seen before—all straight, clean lines and humongous windows looking out at the trees it was built amongst. You couldn’t see a neighbor from any corner of the property as far as Jay could tell, even though they were still just a ten-minute walk from campus. The driveway angled down to a first-story garage, but Jay parked along the edge of the grass instead because his notes said ‘use front door, over bridge.’ That hadn’t made any sense to him before he’d arrived, but now he could see the front door was up three stairs and across a wooden, railed walkway that bridged a small, rocky creek.

  The house was so quiet and still, Jay might not have thought there was a dog at home if he hadn’t been able to see a medium-sized, speckled white mutt waiting for him on the other side of the glass-paneled door. A swath of the living room was visible, as well, all of its minimalist furniture and decor scaled and understated to emphasize the view out the floor-to-ceiling windows.

  The dog watched Jay with steady brown eyes as Jay unlocked the door and stepped inside, offering a stark contrast to the first two stops where Jay had been accosted upon entry. Even fat little Sebastian had planted his paws on Jay’s calves and wiggled for pets.

  But this dog—Jay glanced at the sheet for a name… Godot—walked over to him only to pause at a polite distance, his fluffy white tail wagging slowly.

  Jay put out a hand and let Godot sniff the back of it, then clipped on a leather leash. Godot didn’t move until Jay called him to come, and then he maneuvered past Jay and out the door, standing on the other end of the leash while carefully keeping some slack in it.

  “You’re a gentleman,” Jay declared. Godot gazed at him, his pink tongue appearing briefly, as though in agreement.

  Godot was obviously an active and healthy dog, so Jay took him up the street so they could both feel the pleasant strain of the steeper grade going north, then a block east. The way Godot kept pace and never dared to take all the slack out of the leash was the perfect contrast to walking Susie.

  When the sidewalk leveled, Jay tried breaking into a jog, and laughed in delight when Godot raised his folded ears and happily loped along.

  Jay had always wanted a dog growing up. Didn’t most kids? But his experience had been limited to his friends’ dogs. Hanging out with Godot made him wish again that his life was ready for a dog, though his present living arrangements in the dorms obviously wouldn’t facilitate that old dream any better than his allergic mother had.

  One day, maybe after school, he’d like to have a dog. The thought surprised him a little; in general, Jay kept his focus either on the present or on the imaginary worlds
conjured by music, poems, and books. When his parents questioned him about his plans for the future, Jay never knew what to say. It was hard to think beyond the immediate next step—going to Walland and playing soccer. He hadn’t even declared a major, which he could tell made his mother nervous. Jay didn’t want to disappoint his parents, who’d both graduated from college and law school cum laude, but he wasn’t academically driven the way they’d been.

  Godot paused to plant his nose next to a bush and get in some deep, intense sniffing.

  Jay smiled fondly at him, imagining that Godot was his dog, and that when he took him back home, he could kick back in a lounge chair with a book next to one of those huge windows. He wondered what kind of a job he would need to live in a neighborhood like this one. Or, more specifically, a house like Godot’s. He’d never seen a place that immediately appealed to him quite so much.

  “Hey, watch it!” shouted a voice, interrupting Jay’s reverie. It had come from a cyclist who’d had to veer into the grass to avoid getting tangled up in Godot’s leash.

  Jay’s first impulse was to apologize for monopolizing the sidewalk, but then he saw that Godot’s speckled ears were pinned tightly to his head in alarm, and he got angry instead. He spun on his heel to glare at the dumbass on the bike.

  “Fuck off! You’re supposed to ride on the street.”

  A raised middle finger was the cyclist’s only reply. Jay rolled his eyes and tried to stay focused on getting Godot back home without incident.

  Despite himself, though, his imagination was persistent. In his dream home with his dream dog, there was also a dream guy… and it shouldn’t have surprised him that what his imagination immediately supplied looked a lot like Emile Mendes.

  Jay winced. “You are so fucking weird,” he told himself under his breath. Godot glanced over his shoulder, blinking in confusion like he’d missed a command. “Not you, buddy. You’re the perfect dog,” Jay assured him, reaching down to rub his back.

  They started up the driveway. Godot had not once pulled on the leash, and he hadn’t started now, but he did take the slack out of it, his ears up again as he trotted purposefully ahead of Jay. Jay was a little surprised; he’d expected Godot to be like the other dogs, a little sulky about going back to the house after a walk. Not eager. Maybe he was thirsty, though, or maybe he’d seen a rabbit or something. Jay didn’t dwell on it.

  A car door slammed. Godot hopped up and down, his tail wagging madly. Because his owner was home, traipsing up the sloped driveway from the garage with a grin for his dog. But the man was the one emblazoned in Jay’s head, and straight out of the very shameful daydream he’d been having.

  Emile.

  In his shock, Jay dropped Godot’s leash. The dog raced to Emile, leash trailing, and Emile laughed and picked the lead up with one hand as he rubbed Godot’s ribs with the other.

  Emile was wearing his usual vest and bow tie, but he’d rolled his shirtsleeves up to his elbows neatly, so the cuffs showed. The grin he’d had for his dog was still lingering on his face when he looked up and saw Jay.

  Then, of course, it disappeared.

  Jay could imagine what Emile must be thinking, how this had to look. Like Jay had engineered it.

  “I can… explain,” he stammered.

  Emile rubbed the back of his head, pasting on a smile so strained that it looked like it hurt. “I had no idea you worked with Mr. VanPelt.”

  Neither had Jay, to be honest. VanPelt? That was way too serious a last name for Blake.

  “I just started today,” Jay said, feeling like his face was on fire. “I didn’t realize this was your dog.”

  Emile’s smile softened, just a little. “I don’t know how you could have realized,” he said.

  Though he remained deeply uncomfortable, at least Jay’s fear that Emile would think Jay was stalking him faded away. Emile didn’t look suspicious or fearful, just… awkward. They looked at each other until Godot made a soft whining noise and Emile broke eye contact to look down at him, his hand falling on one of those floppy ears and rubbing a small circle like it was an old habit. Godot leaned harder against his leg, one front paw lifting off the ground, and gazed up adoringly. Jay felt a burst of camaraderie with the dog. Lucky bastard.

  “Okay, well,” Jay said, taking a few steps backward. “Um. Have a nice day!”

  He turned and started walking fast before Emile could react.

  Have a nice day? he echoed in his head, incredulous. What are you, a grocery clerk?

  “Ah, Jay?” Emile called after him.

  Jay considered pretending he hadn’t heard, hunching his shoulders and hesitating misstep.

  “It’s just,” Emile continued, sounding almost apologetic, “isn’t this your car?”

  Jay froze. You are such an idiot. He turned back, chin tucked in the vain hope that that would keep Emile from seeing how red his face was.

  “Uh, yes,” he said, clipped, and walked quickly to where he’d parked on the edge of the gravel. He couldn’t help a sidelong look at Emile, but only for long enough to see that there was a thoughtful kind of distance in his dark eyes.

  Jay’s glance took in the full picture. Emile, the vest, the dog, the house behind him. He was literally Jay’s daydream come true.

  Ugh. Just ugh. Jay resolutely looked away, waved, hopped in the driver’s seat, and drove off so fast that his tires spit gravel.

  Eight

  Emile

  October

  “I’ve got a good one for you.” Sydney had her feet on Emile’s coffee table, the paper she was grading on her knees. She looked at him over her reading glasses with a grin as she read aloud, “‘While opinions may differ, I for one defiantly agree.’”

  “Oh, first person, you hate that. And a spell-check loophole. Is that…?” He pretended to struggle with a mental tally. “Twenty-five points?”

  “Giving me a defiant lead,” Sydney confirmed. “Oh, look who’s here,” she crooned, her voice dropping an octave. “My poor, unloved puppy.” She set her essay stack aside so she could cradle Godot’s solemn face in her hands and kiss him between the eyes. “Has he been missing me?”

  Emile smiled and re-crossed his legs. The essays he was grading were from his Early American Literature survey—a small class of intense seniors, all of whom he’d had before. He’d been enjoying them very much, but he already knew he was going to break a few hearts with this first round of grading. A 600-level class came with a high standard that they hadn’t all risen to. He was being as gentle as he could be while still giving them all a firm nudge toward better efforts next time.

  “Well? Ball’s in your court,” Sydney reminded him, still cuddling his dog and getting copious amounts of white hair on her black cardigan in the process.

  “I think you have me beat,” Emile told her.

  “Oh, that’s no fun.” She frowned at him. “At least try.”

  Emile sighed and tilted his head back and forth, then reached for the essay at the back of his stack and turned to the second page. “Repeated use of ‘this’? Three times in one sentence? I wrote a small dissertation in the margin about abuse of determiners.”

  “Weak, Mendes. Very weak. Two points, and only because I pity you.”

  “What can I say? Four years of education at our fine institution has beaten the vilest habits out of my 600-level class.”

  “I’ll come back after your Lit 100 students turn in their dumpster-fire kindling, then. No essays for the neophytes until midterms, I assume?”

  “Right. I’m making them meet with me beforehand so I can dole out my plagiarism lectures one by one.”

  “Masochist,” she said fondly.

  Only a little, Emile thought wryly. But he kept the joke to himself.

  Sydney looked at her watch and sighed. “I have to go. I told Haley two hours.” She gave Godot a parting squeeze. “Try not to neglect this angelic creature. Remember, if you can’t give him the love he deserves, my door is always open.”

  Emile l
eaned his head back against his chairback to smile at her. “Good night, Syd.”

  Sydney winked, waved, and left, essays under her arm, clicking the cap of her red pen as she went.

  Emile always took Godot out for one last walk before he changed for bed, and after lingering with Sydney tonight, they were starting out later than usual. But Emile liked these later walks, when the streets were clear and the world was quiet except for the soft rhythm of Godot’s paws, the tinkling of his tags, and the slap of Emile’s soles.

  This time of year, the cicadas were busy, too, and lightning bugs drifted up out of the grass like erratic little beacons. Soon, this limbo between summer and fall would end, but it was Emile’s favorite time of year. An inter-season, he thought. That might make a poem.

  —a delightful stranding, a delay you’d have last—

  The first whisper of nonsense words crossed his mind. It was a part of daily life, these brushes with composition, but it had been a long time since such words had solidified into anything he wanted to write down. Content with his musings, Emile kept Godot out for almost an hour.

  By the time they wound back to the house, Emile’s head was full, his eyes stung with unshed tears, and his fingers itched with unwritten words. He sat at his desk by the dining room window as Godot sighed and then stretched out by his feet. Emile opened his notebook, held a pen, and looked out the window.

  An half-hour later, his mind felt clear and vibrant in a way it hadn’t for months, and he had several lines slanted over the page.

  Certainty is an inter-season, like happiness

  * * *

  Qualities that come and then pass, fleeting