A Gift to Remember

by Melissa Hill

In his mid-twenties, Ricardo was six feet tall and stocky in his wheat-coloured cords and green and red Luigi’s shirt beneath his stained apron. The newest addition to the staff at the restaurant, for some reason he had latched onto Darcy.

  Maybe he had a thing for (older) bookish types, that whole hair up, reading glasses on and open shirt collar thing that some guys went for, though she felt almost old enough to be his mother, and had told him so on several occasions. Almost instinctively she tightened her tousled ponytail and checked her neckline to ensure there was nothing for him to get in any way excited about. Though it was unlikely. The look Darcy was currently sporting – a combination of flushed cheeks from the freezing cold, frizzy hair and damp dirty clothes covered in greyish dog fluff – was unlikely to be a turn-on for any guy.

  ‘You ordered pizza, Darcy?’ he queried, reaching the top of the stairs. ‘How come you’re not at work today . . . and hey, who’s the big guy?’

  The waiter spotted Bailey inside circling Darcy’s Christmas tree and slipped into the apartment uninvited, as if he’d been there a dozen times.

  Uh oh.

  ‘Hey Ricardo,’ she sighed as he slid the pizza box on her kitchen counter. She was exhausted, her feet ached, her limbs were sore, and right then all she wanted to do was slump onto her cosy sofa and eat. The smell of warm tomato and basil, rising dough and freshly bubbling cheese assaulted her senses and her stomach rumbled.

  ‘Come here boy,’ the waiter commanded, dropping to his knees as Bailey barked excitedly, circling him with a harmless growl before leaping into his lap. Ricardo sat back on his haunches, tickling him behind the ears and clearly earning a friend for life.

  Darcy winced at the noise, hoping the neighbours wouldn’t hear and complain to the landlord. ‘You’re pretty good with him,’ she remarked to Ricardo, turning on a couple of low-level lamps and flicking a switch. Her little Christmas tree (the smallest the street vendor could find) and the homemade ornaments decorating it immediately came to life; fairy lights illuminating her tiny living room and its packed-in furniture, and overloaded shelves all weighed down even more by the plethora of tinsel and festive garlands.

  ‘My brother-in-law has two Huskies, each one crazier than the next. You got lucky; yours seems pretty calm.’

  ‘He – he’s not mine,’ Darcy improvised quickly. She washed her hands and reached for a slice of thin-crust margherita, hoping she wouldn’t have to explain. But Ricardo was patient, waiting for her to finish chewing as he stared at her with questioning dark eyes. ‘I’m . . . I’m watching him for a friend from work. Just for a couple of hours.’ She hoped he wouldn’t mention the dog’s presence to his boss who was also Darcy’s landlord.

  ‘Cool.’ He looked at the Christmas tree. ‘What are those, key-chains?’

  She smiled. ‘No, they’re books. Well, actually, they’re matchboxes covered in coloured paper, but each one represents a different book.’ She picked up one at random, turning it over to read the title. ‘See, this one’s Moby Dick. And that one’s Northanger Abbey. And that one’s The Great Gatsby . . .’

  ‘I get it, I get it; you don’t have to read the whole tree to me. It’s no secret you have a thing for books.’ He looked around and she tried to see the room through his eyes: the bookshelves filled to brimming, tottering piles of read and tobe-read titles positioned in various places around the living area – beside the sofa, beneath the TV-stand, blocking out the weak winter light on the windowsill. She smiled, proud of her collection, and only sorry that she didn’t have room for even more.

  Having polished off her first slice of pizza Darcy quickly reached for another, and hesitantly offered one to Bailey, not sure if such stodge was healthy for dogs, but by the way he scoffed it down in one go, she figured it didn’t really matter. She then offered a slice to Ricardo, trying to be polite, but he made a disgusted face. ‘Pizza without meat is like spaghetti without sauce,’ he lectured.

  ‘Spoken like a true Italian,’ she joked, going to the fridge. There wasn’t much in there, but she knew she had some beer left from when she’d had Ashley and Joshua over for a pot luck Thanksgiving.

  Darcy paid Ricardo for the pizza and waited until she heard his sneakers pounding down the stairs to turn back to her doorway, only to find Mrs Henley poking her head out into the hallway. ‘What’s all the racket?’ she asked, her face pinched with annoyance.

  ‘Just getting a pizza delivered,’ Darcy smiled, forgetting her door was wide open. ‘Sorry about the ruckus.’

  ‘Was that a dog I just saw in there?’ Too late, Darcy realised her error and slid the door closer to her back. Mrs Henley pointed a bony finger towards the apartment.

  ‘A stuffed one?’ Darcy tried to joke.

  ‘Hmm . . . stuffed dogs don’t breathe, or poke their heads out between your legs.’

  Suddenly, Bailey was there at her ankles, sniffing the hallway, looking up at Mrs Henley and giving her one of his by now trademark yowls. Darcy took a deep breath, expecting fireworks, a lecture on building codes and no pet policies, but instead, the older woman was suddenly smiling, waggling her long fingers as if flirting with her schoolyard crush.

  ‘What a gorgeous pooch,’ she said, catching Darcy completely offguard. ‘I had a dog, many years ago back in Queens before my husband dragged me to the city. We had no yard, and one day he just let the dog run free. I thought it would come back, but . . .’

  Darcy stood there, her mouth agape. It was the most her neighbour had ever said to her in the three years she’d lived here, by about a hundred words! Bailey’s big paws padded along the hardwood floor of the hallway as he sniffed at Mrs Henley’s housecoat.

  The older woman knelt slowly, reaching a wrinkled hand out to pat the Husky’s silky grey crown. ‘What a good boy,’ she said, her voice gentle, as if speaking to a child. ‘What a good, good boy.’ Bailey edged into her hand, sneezing twice before turning around and skittering back across the hall into the apartment.

  ‘Thank you,’ Darcy said, accepting the compliment as if Bailey really was her dog.

  The two women stood there awkwardly, nothing to say any more without Bailey slinking between them. ‘Well, goodnight,’ Mrs Henley said then, abruptly shutting her door but, Darcy noted, not slamming it.

  Going back inside, she was surprised to find Bailey lying contentedly on the rug beneath the bookshelf, curled into himself like a mink stole and looking for all the world like he belonged there.

  ‘Maybe slumming it isn’t so bad after all, eh, buddy?’ Darcy whispered, reaching down to caress his silky head before grabbing another slice of pizza.

  Bailey woke her early the next morning; impossibly early, it was still dark out.

  She nuzzled beneath the covers, simultaneously moaning and marvelling at his energy, bounding and leaping about as if it was the best game in the world.

  ‘Go away,’ she murmured, trying to pull the covers over her head, but again, the dog just thought it was another game.

  Darcy rose, the Husky circling her legs like a cyclone so that she had to take short steps for fear of tumbling over. It was only as she was using the bathroom, Bailey staring at her resentfully from the doorway, that she realised the poor guy hadn’t gone all night.

  Dressing quickly, she grabbed her ski jacket and the dog’s red leather leash. Then, remembering the reason he was here in the first place, she took out her phone to see if Bailey’s owners had called looking for him yet, but there were no missed calls at all.

  She guessed that Aidan Harris’s family probably had enough to deal with after the accident, but she did think at the very least a courtesy call would be in order, checking to see if Bailey was OK. But perhaps the message with her number hadn’t got through to them yet? She made a mental note to keep her cell phone close by at work today.

  Work! What on earth was she going to do with Bailey while she went to work? She couldn’t very well leave him alone in the apartment all day. For one thing, he was much too large and it wouldn’t be fair t
o keep him cooped up, and for another, what kind of chaos would she be facing when she came back? In the few hours she’d had him, he’d already shed a massive amount of his grey fur, and she couldn’t even begin to imagine the level of damage those sharp claws (or indeed teeth) would do if he was alone and bored in the apartment all day. But she couldn’t very well take him to work with her either. Could she?

  But at that moment, the only place Bailey was focused on going was outside.

  Leash on, he practically dragged Darcy through the door, whining the whole way downstairs, through the front entrance and out into the street. Then at the first fire hydrant he saw, the big guy lifted a leg and let out a steady stream. Darcy was amazed; dogs really did that.

  ‘Who’s your friend?’ asked a familiar voice from the doorway of the restaurant.

  Damn. Darcy winced and her heart pounded with nerves as she turned to face Luigi. In his late fifties, her landlord was wiry and thin, with close-cropped grey hair under a battered red and green chequered cap.

  Bailey, now finished with his business, rushed to sniff around Luigi’s legs.

  Already dressed in his apron and cook’s whites for the long day ahead, Luigi immediately had the Husky jumping up and down at something in his right hand.

  ‘I’m . . . I’m dog-sitting for a friend,’ Darcy mumbled, aware that her landlord would likely give her an earful for harbouring a temporarily orphaned dog. ‘Is that OK?’ she added tentatively.

  Much to her relief, he chuckled. ‘Would I be offering him a piece of pepperoni if it wasn’t?’

  So that was what Bailey was practically leaping to the height of the second floor for. Luigi doled out a few fragrant slices of the rich, red meat one at a time, backing toward the front stoop and sitting down until the dog was resting against his leg, happy and full.

  ‘Is that good for him?’ Darcy asked, reminding herself to head straight to the Pet Care section at work that morning to get a better sense on what to expect from Bailey’s type. She didn’t want Aidan Harris’s pure-bred canine to have clogged arteries by the time he got him back.

  Her landlord shrugged, his salt and pepper moustache twitching. ‘It’s been my breakfast since I was about knee-high, and look at me now.’

  ‘Thank you,’ she said distractedly, remembering she didn’t have anything even remotely resembling dog food in her kitchen. Another thing she had to worry about.

  Darcy hadn’t even had her first cup of tea and already she was exhausted.

  They both walked inside, Luigi to the pizzeria and Darcy back up the stairs; Bailey full of pepperoni and straining at the leash, again eager to get wherever he was going as fast as possible.

  A shadow filled the second-floor landing, and Darcy was surprised to see Mrs Henley standing at the window in her pink slippers and fluffy housecoat.

  ‘Morning,’ she said, looking down at Bailey. ‘I see your friend’s already done his business.’

  Darcy blushed, unsure of the rule on letting a dog pee all over a fire hydrant. ‘Boys will be boys,’ she chuckled nervously.

  Mrs Henley nodded, her grey hair curled tightly against her head. ‘Aren’t you working today?’

  ‘Yes,’ Darcy sighed, looking down at Bailey as he nosed around the door of Mrs Henley’s apartment. It was open just a hair’s breadth and the sniffing inched it open wider. Darcy noticed that unlike her stuffed-to-the-gills living room, the inside of her neighbour’s was as sparse and spare as a hospital room.

  Mrs Henley stood back, her mouth a thin slit but her eyes definitely warmer than usual. ‘If you’re leaving him here, I could keep an eye on him if you like.’

  Darcy was floored. ‘Thank you, but I couldn’t possibly . . .’ But still she had mixed emotions about Mrs Henley’s offer. On the one hand, it would make her day, not to mention her life, a whole lot easier, and her apartment potentially a whole lot safer, but on the other she was responsible for Bailey for now, whether she liked it or not.

  ‘Nonsense, dear,’ said the old woman, colour rising in her cheeks. ‘It’s been years since I cared for anyone, let alone a dog. I rather welcome the challenge. And like I said before, I know a little thing or two about taking care of dogs. He’ll be in good hands with me.’

  Before she could think about it for too much longer, Darcy handed over the leash. ‘Well, if you really don’t mind, thank you – it would save my life, I can’t exactly take him to work – and I’ll pick him up directly after my shift, I promise,’ she continued, babbling. She looked again at her neighbour, taken aback by the complete change in temperament Bailey seemed to have brought about. ‘I really appreciate it, Mrs Henley.’

  ‘It’s not a problem, and please,’ insisted the old woman, struggling to keep Bailey from dragging her back into her apartment. ‘Call me Grace.’

  ‘Grace . . .’ Darcy repeated, thinking to herself that it had taken her three years to learn her neighbour’s first name.

  With a final whine, Bailey stuck his snout back out again, looked up at Darcy and happily wagged his tail before disappearing quickly inside.

  So much for loyalty, Darcy thought, faintly chagrined that the dog was happy to go off with anyone. Here was she, thinking they’d struck up some kind of special bond.

  She showered and dressed quickly, and having wrapped up warm and fastened her safety helmet, tentatively got back up on the bike, the first time she’d done so since the accident yesterday. She was pleased to find that there was little damage to it, save for a few missing spokes and a faint clicking with each rotation of the wheels. And once her initial nerves had subsided, she soon got back into her stride. It was just like riding a bike, she laughed to herself.

  The morning streets were blustery and colourful, and as she passed by Bouchon’s Bakery, she could smell the croissants rising, buttery and flaky, and inhaled the scent of fruity infusions from Limoncello’s tea rooms. With less than a week to go till Christmas, every store she passed that morning on her way uptown had a blinking sign or festive lighting, making the street glitter in the early-morning light. Customers walked through doors to the sound of Christmas music, sometimes fun and funky, other times jangly and traditional, but always cheery.

  ‘Thank God!’ Joshua gushed, as just under half an hour later she came through the door of Chaucer’s, having locked her bike out back. ‘How are you feeling? Does your head hurt? You could have taken today off too, you know, although I’m glad you’re here all the same. It was kinda busy yesterday with the holidays just around the corner, and Ashley not available because of exams, so I’m a little bit behind.’ Today he was dressed in fashionably ripped grey jeans and a bright red sweater, which hugged his narrow torso like a second skin. On his head, a matching red Santa cap with a bright white fur dot on the end trembled every time he moved.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said, smiling at the sight of a friendly face. ‘Thanks for being so helpful yesterday, though. It was a weird morning.’

  ‘So what happened?’ he asked as Darcy pulled her striped Chaucer’s apron over her head and got ready to face her day. ‘Tell me everything, right from the beginning.’

  ‘Well, as you know, I hit someone on my bike. His name is Aidan Harris.’

  Joshua looked at her. ‘The guy was nice enough to tell you his name after you hit him?’

  Darcy told him the whole sorry tale, starting with how Aidan Harris and his dog had stepped out in front of her at the intersection, followed by her visit to the hospital and then her impromptu trek along the Upper West Side.

  ‘Ooh, a rich guy – was he cute?’

  Darcy thought about it. She remembered his silky dark hair and pronounced jawline. ‘More than cute. He was very handsome, actually.’

  ‘Good, because if you’re going to sweep somebody off their feet like that, I think they at least need to be cute.’

  Joshua really was irrepressible. ‘Are you absolutely sure you’re straight?’ Darcy teased. ‘And I didn’t sweep him off his feet, Joshua, I knocked him off his feet.
Plus now I still have the dog. The hospital wouldn’t take him, and I’m not sure what to do until I hear from the family.’

  Joshua’s high-pitched laughter was almost loud enough to drown out Bing Crosby’s ‘White Christmas’ currently playing on the in-store speakers. ‘You? Taking care of a dog? Where is it now – in Lost and Found at Luigi’s?’

  ‘Close. Actually my neighbour is watching him for me.’

  ‘Your crazy neighbour? That scary old lady who only wears pink?’

  ‘Grace,’ she said, almost defensively. ‘And she’s not crazy actually – just a woman of few words.’ Darcy had come to this conclusion on her way to work. Thinking about it, Mrs Henley had never really done anything other than resist Darcy’s attempts at neighbourly friendship. Which was reasonable enough in this town where you could just as easily be living beside a grade-school teacher or a serial killer. ‘And she seems to really like dogs.’

  ‘And pink,’ he reminded her.

  ‘Oh God,’ Darcy groaned, her stomach now fluttering afresh at his words. Had she been too hasty in passing off Bailey to a complete stranger like that? Too eager to overcome the work-related dilemma his presence presented? ‘Do you think she really is crazy?’ she asked him. ‘What if I’ve left Aidan’s dog with a lunatic? What if she’s selling him on eBay as we speak?’

  Joshua put a hand on her shoulder. ‘Relax. Ninety-nine per cent of the people in this town are crazy, and they still manage to care for their pets. I’m sure the mutt will be fine.’

  Suppressing her worries about Bailey’s welfare for the moment, Darcy once again checked her phone.

  But much to her frustration there was still nothing from the Harris family, no missed calls, no messages. Well, adorable or not, she couldn’t keep looking after their dog for much longer, she thought resolutely. If she hadn’t heard anything from them by midday, she’d just have to phone the hospital again and demand to speak to Aidan Harris himself.

  The hours passed quickly in Chaucer’s and Darcy was kept on her toes by customers seeking out books with obscure-sounding titles – ‘Something about tequila and a bird?’ which Joshua eventually deduced was To Kill a Mockingbird and ‘a teenager who goes nuts on prom night’ (Stephen King’s Carrie) as well as looking for recommendations, the part of the job Darcy enjoyed the most. There was simply no better feeling in the world than a customer returning to the store full of praise for a book she’d suggested for them and trusting her again to choose another.