A Girl Called Sidney

by Courtney Yasmineh

  She rubbed another stone, “Seymour! What have you done?”

  Seymour said nothing from behind his newspaper.

  “You did this, didn’t you!”

  The newspaper lowered and Seymour was smiling. The trick had worked. When we weren’t around, he had taken a burned stick from the fire and rubbed charcoal on the rocks’ indentations, where earlier, there had only been the suggestion of faces. It was brilliant. Really funny. I liked Seymour.

  I sat on the rug with my guitar. The spirits’ faces on the old stone fireplace were smiling down at me. The red letters spelling out my grandmother’s slogan “Life Is Too Short To Be Little” were blazing a reminder for me. The truth was that I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. I tried to write a song about it.

  It’s fine here now when the air is cold and the snow is white and silent.

  I’m happy knowing that all I need is what I got at present.

  Cuz the winters in Chicago are a hell I can’t withstand,

  and if you looked out my window at this view you’d understand.

  I been living in the city much too long to be naïve.

  The attraction of this peacefulness has convinced me I should leave.

  I’m living life the way we started out so long ago,

  and although I like Chicago, I just can’t call it home.

  I came a’wondering whether I could take the ice and snow

  but the icicles that decorate my windows make me know

  there ain’t nothing like a winter’s night when you’re safe and warm in bed

  and it sure ain’t like Chicago where I went to sleep in dread.

  I been living in the city much too long to be naïve.

  The attraction of this peacefulness has convinced me I should leave.

  I’m living life the way we started out so long ago,

  and although I like Chicago I just can’t call it home.

  I strummed it and worked it out on paper too. I sang it with a bluegrass feel. I played it through many times. I sang it loud and it felt great. I decided to play it for Dale the next time I saw him. I went to bed feeling good about myself and my life so far just as it was.

  The holiday break was two weeks long and I still had another seven days to go before I could return to town on the school bus and be a part of civilization, so over the next few days, I read the book about cross-country skiing and went out for short excursions.

  I saw that there were two very different ways to ski. One was to be relatively safe and calm and just ski out on the lake, mostly following the snowmobile trails that gave a fairly easy and smooth path to follow, no uphill, no downhill, and really, no turns. This was the easiest.

  Much more challenging was to follow paths made by either animals or snowmobiles in the interior of the peninsula. The center of the point was uninhabited and had a deep indendation that people called a crater from a meteor hit, even though I wasn’t sure anyone could verify that. It was as deep as the tallest trees that grew up from its bottom so the sides were not manageable for me on skis. Around the periphery, there were trails with high lookouts and dark wooded knolls that crisscrossed all down to the very end of the point. In this interior area there were hairpin turns and sudden drops. The snowmobilers made the trails for me and I followed them. If the drop-off was too steep, I took off my skis and waded down through the snow rather than risk smashing into a tree like a skier in a cartoon with his legs and arms flailing and face planted squarely in the middle.

  Dale came out to see me during the week. I was on the road on my skis, returning from following a new path that some snowmobiler had made over Christmas.

  “Hey! Look at you! Skis, huh? When did this happen?”

  I laughed and was glad I could surprise him. I pulled off my leather mittens, put them between my knees and lifted the earflaps on my trapper hat so I could hear him better and wouldn’t sweat too much. Once I stopped moving on the skis, I’d always find that I was way too bundled up.

  “Yeah I got them for Christmas from my mom’s friend, Seymour. He came by on Christmas Day.”

  “I want to get some too. You want to go into town with me, pick out some skis and then get some dinner?”

  “Yeah! I’d love to. I’m starving! Seriously! All I have left at the cabin is pancakes and I’m getting so sick of them.”

  I skied down to the porch and popped off my skis.

  I stood them up on the porch and ran in to take a look at myself in the mirror and change my shoes.

  “Okay, I can go in just a second. I think I should pee first before we drive all the way back. Don’t you have to, too?”

  “Nope. I’m like a Russian racehorse.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean? Maybe I don’t want to know.”

  “Oh, you do want to know. Yes, you do.”

  “Dale. Geez.”

  “Don’t you geez me little lady. Get up in that car before I pull you back into that cabin and tear all your clothes off of you.”

  “Dale! What’s the matter with you! You’ve gone mad!”

  “One of these days you’re going to find out what madness lurks behind this mild-mannered demeanor of mine. And then you’ll be sorry.”

  He chased me up to his car. I screamed and jumped into my seat just before he grabbed me and I slammed the door. I could use the bathroom at the store once we got to town.

  We drove happily with him telling me about Christmas festivities with his family. We went to the sporting goods store in the mall and picked out skis on sale.

  It didn’t take much time at all because there was still a good selection, as though the store had been hoping everyone for fifty miles around had planned to buy all their relatives cross-country skis for Christmas. I sort of felt sorry for the guy working because the store wasn’t very busy even though it looked festive. I wasn’t sure how many people were going to buy skis now that the holiday shopping was over, but at least we did.

  On our way back out to the car Dale asked where I wanted to eat. As we ran down the usual eight or so places to pick from, I heard a little yelping noise. I stopped. We were out in the middle of the snow-covered mall parking lot. Even though it had been recently plowed, there was snow piled high in all the corners and around all the light posts. I heard the yelp again. We looked all around for an animal, maybe in one of the parked cars.

  “It would be pretty bad to leave a dog locked in your car at this temperature,” Dale said.

  The temperature was maybe ten degrees Fahrenheit at around four in the afternoon.

  “What’s that box?” I said and we headed toward a box that was half-covered with snow, backed up against a light pole in the center of the parking lot. A cardboard box with the lid folded over itself to keep it shut. No markings, just tan cardboard. We went near and heard the yelping get louder.

  “Oh my God, Dale.”

  I ran to the box.

  “Be careful Sid. You don’t know what’s in there. You don’t want to get bitten.”

  I opened it a crack and peeked in, and as I did a little black wet nose came through to greet me. I gasped and pulled the lid open a bit wider. Another nose, a brownish one this time. I pulled the cardboard back until the box opened up and there were two chubby puppies. They were pretty big, not newborns.

  Dale shouted out, “What the heck, Sid?” and started laughing. He grabbed one and lifted it up to his face and the puppy licked him all over. I picked up the other one and wrapped my coat over him as he licked my hand like crazy.

  “Guess we just got ourselves some puppies,” Dale laughed.

  I looked all around. I almost felt like someone must be watching. I couldn’t believe they’d just get abandoned like this. Dale grabbed the box and looked it over carefully.

  “No note, no markings. And they weren’t out here long ‘cause there’s no poop in the box.”

  We looked all around and there was no one to be seen, not even a car parked near ours.

  “Okay, well I’ve been
missing having a dog ever since poor Brandy died. Do you think these guys could be outdoor dogs? I wouldn’t be able to keep them inside while I’m at school. It’s too long for puppies. And my mom would probably get mad.”

  “I think they’re part husky or something. Maybe part German shepherd. This one’s got a thick coat.”

  “This one’s coat is more like a beagle or a Lab or something. They’re related, right? I mean they have to be from the same litter right? They don’t look that much alike but they’re the same exact size.”

  “Yeah, they’re both girls too huh? Yep. They’re sisters. Oh, poor little girls. Up here some people don’t like girl dogs as much. The rest of the litter probably got sold or given away and these two were left over and they were getting too old to sell. These are some pretty big puppies. And healthy-looking. They were probably eating too much too. We’d better stop and buy a big bag of dog food.”

  “Do you think they’ve had shots and everything?”

  “Knowing folks around here, probably not, Sid. That’ll run ya quite a bit to take two puppies in for all that stuff.”

  “Well, I’ll just keep them outside on my porch and they can come in when I’m home and they can sleep in the cabin with me at night.”

  “Yeah, they say if you want a dog to be an outdoor dog up here you can’t have them inside because it screws up their ability to make a thick enough coat of fur. Then their body doesn’t know what to think. If you’re going to keep them out, they have to be out all the time I think.”

  “Oh geez. I don’t know.”

  Dale paid for a huge bag of dog food. We bought two collars and two leashes. We put the collars on and they didn’t seem to mind them.

  “What are you going to name them?”

  “I was thinking, since they’re girls, we could call them Ribbon and Bow.”

  “Which one’s which?”

  I had the puppies on my lap in the car. They wouldn’t stop licking my hands and face. I held one puppy’s face and took a good look at her. She was scruffy and had a thick coat, colors like a calico cat. Her face was big and her nose was tannish brown and big like a bear’s nose. She had intelligent eyes and I knew that she was grateful and relieved. I loved her already. “This one’s Bow. She’s the leader. She’s the smart one.”

  The other one was just not as great all around. Her fur was shorter and flat like a beagle. She was mostly white with black and brown spots. Her shiny black nose was a bit pointed. Her eyes were close together and darted around to the sides, not willing to return my gaze. She seemed fretful and restless. I didn’t think she was as smart, maybe just not as empathetic with humans. “And this one is Ribbon.”

  As soon as we arrived at the cabin I got out Brandy’s old dishes and filled them with water and the new food. The pups fell in gulping and sloshing immediately. They both seemed healthy enough and pretty happy-go-lucky.

  Dale suggested we line one of the wardrobe boxes left over from when our stuff came from Chicago. We gathered supplies and got to work out on the porch. We had the kitchen and the porch lights on and the wood stove in the living room stoked to the gills so we could warm up whenever we came inside. Dale helped me use the staple gun and attach an old blanket to all four sides of the box’s interior. The thin wood stays along the corners made the blanket staple easily. We used another big old comforter and set the box under the kitchen porch roof, up against the house, with its back to the wind off the lake. We stapled some of the plastic sheeting that Seymour had given me all around the outside.

  “This thing is snug as a bug in a rug for these guys.”

  “Do you think they’ll run away?”

  “Well, if they do, then good riddance. They’d have to be awfully stupid and ungrateful to run off this time of year. They’re not going to find a sweeter deal any place else.”

  “Do you think this is a bad idea, Dale?”

  “Idea! It wasn’t your idea and it wasn’t mine. It must have been God’s idea. And if it was God’s idea, then it’s most likely got some kind of wisdom behind it. If you ask me, God knew you needed some companionship out here, and he gave it to you. No sense looking the gift horse in the mouth as they say.”

  “Oh okay, whatever that expression means.”

  “Right. Exactly.”

  Dale was smiling at me with his twinkling eyes. “Of course I’ve been offering my companionship too.”

  “Yes I get that.”

  “How’d you like a little companionship right now, Missy?”

  “Is that what you’re calling it now?”

  The puppies had eaten everything in the bowl and drank all the water. I filled both again and we went inside.

  “You think they’ll know to get in the box? How am I going to know if they’re warm enough?”

  “I think the thing is to not let them in the house ‘cause if you do, it’ll be all over and they won’t be happy out there. You’re gonna have to stick to your guns.”

  Dale and I got cozy on the rug in front of the wood stove. It gave off so much heat it made your cheeks hot. Dale was playful and romantic and tapped into everything that I found arousing, and I knew he wouldn’t push too far. I also knew he wasn’t a super cool sex machine kind of guy. On some level I wanted to meet someone like that some day. But right now what Dale offered in my life was gentle and kind and perfect.

  We made out on the rug by the fire until midnight and then he went home.

  As he was leaving, he checked the puppies and they were wrapped up together under the quilt. The dishes were empty again so they had full stomachs and I had a full heart.

  Soon school started and I fed the little rough-and-tumble sisters before leaving, when I got home, and then again before bed. They got bigger and funnier and more affectionate every day. Bow knew everything. Ribbon did what Bow did. I talked to Bow. Ribbon watched me talk to Bow. If I talked to Ribbon she’d look over at Bow to see what Bow was doing or to say, “I have no idea what you’re trying to say. Just talk to my sister.”

  I would look at Ribbon, trying to connect with her, bending down and taking one of her paws in my hand, and Bow would bust in between and stick her paw up instead. And Ribbon would happily let this happen and grab onto Bow’s tail with her mouth and growl while I talked to Bow. So, that was the arrangement.

  Bow learned tricks and commands. And she obeyed. I let Ribbon be a goof-off because whatever Bow did, she’d do anyway so I could control them easily enough. But really, I could already sense that control was an illusion when it came to the two of them or anything else in this strange foreign land.

  REAL WINTER

  I thought I was managing winter in the Great North, but in January I discovered that in fact winter was just being easy on me. In January, the seriousness of the place hit full force. Things happened like a one-two punch in a prize fight, me against Old Man Winter in the ring, losing terribly, backed into a corner by the reigning champ.

  My mom and Seymour had started up the furnace at Thanksgiving and they advised me to keep it set low, just to keep the place from freezing if by some unlucky chance I let the stove die. The furnace was fueled by an oil tank under the house. It had been filled for the winter and was to last until spring. You did have to let the wood stove die every once in a while to clean the ashes. I’d let the fire die one whole day when I was to be at school. When I got back, I was to shovel the still-warm ashes into the tin bucket by the fireplace, empty it behind the woodpile, and rebuild a fire from scratch. The furnace was employed and kept at fifty degrees all the time. The theory was that the furnace would keep the base of the house warm too so that the pipes wouldn’t freeze once the real cold set in. Even with the wood stove and the furnace and all my efforts, I was losing the battle.

  First I noticed the toilet wouldn’t flush. The night temperature had hit a dramatic new low and when I got up in the morning to use the bathroom, I saw that the toilet acted like it was plugged but I had only peed. Later that first day it did flush through. The next
morning it didn’t flush and that afternoon it still refused to empty.

  I talked to people at school and apparently the septic system was now frozen and if I flushed, the water had nowhere to go. The only thing to do was stop flushing and wait until spring. Wait until spring. To ever use the toilet again. This was mid January. I got out an old tin pan that my grandmother had used to scrub the floors and it became my chamber pot. The place behind the woodpile where Brandy used to poop became my place to poop too.

  I put a roll of toilet paper out there on a stick in the back of the woodpile and I’d just do what I had to. Everything froze solid pretty much the minute you did it. Then every few days I’d go out with the shovel and scoop the whole mess up and throw it deeper into the woods. The puppies did whatever I did so sometimes we’d all be out there together pooping. I would laugh so hard I’d almost fall over into the snow, looking at the two of them squatting because I was squatting. If they didn’t have anything else to distract them they’d come bounding over and start trying to lick my face and jump on me and I’d have to yell at them to leave me alone.

  I found out the hard way that the bathroom sink and the tub were all connected to the same septic system. One night I got out of the tub and let the hot water out and it didn’t budge. The water was still there the next morning. Same with the bathroom sink. The water just wouldn’t drain.

  I only had the kitchen sink after that. The hot-water heater still worked. I found that if I left the hot water trickling all night and left the lower cupboard doors open to get heat to the kitchen pipes, then the kitchen sink wouldn’t freeze. The one time it did, Dale showed me how to plug in a hair dryer and blow hot air on the pipes until they thawed.

  Dale helped me get a block heater installed in the old red truck and we ran a big orange extension cord out the kitchen door, chipping a wedge of wood out so the door would still shut. I could plug in the truck and keep the engine from freezing up. I didn’t drive very often at this point, mostly only to work at the resort which was down to the odd Friday or Saturday night if they had many reservations for the dining room.