Since Mama and Gloria never apologized for any of the mean things they said to me on purpose, it was hard to know how to say I was sorry, especially when I did something wrong completely by accident. Apologies with them also turned into ambushes, a chance for Mama and Gloria to bombard me even more from atop their self-righteous high hills. When you get that beat up, any sane person avoids stepping into the same situation.
But I’d just managed to insult this totally sweet guy. I glanced over at him nervously. Marcus reached down to shift gears, his carpe diem flexing as he pulled back the stick. Right. Just seize the moment. “I’m really sorry, Marcus. All I meant was that I was grateful for how gentlemanly”—oh God, that probably wasn’t the right word either—“I mean . . . I mean . . . how thoughtful you were being. To me. I . . . I really appreciate it.”
Now Marcus looked over at me, with a small frown on his open, honest face. “It’s okay, Ariel.” He picked up speed. “I better hurry if I am going to get you to the post office and me to work on time.”
He made several turns on the road before he spoke again. “Look, Ariel, my dad was a total tool until he was saved. Now he’s always preaching scriptures at me. A lot of it goes right past me, but his faith has done a lot for him and I never forget one lesson: treat others the way you’d like them to treat you. That’s really what manners are about, aren’t they?”
He added, “Besides, Mom is forever reading my fortune. She says my palm tells her that I’m going to be a famous world leader. She named me after the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius, after all. If I’m going to live up to all that, I suspect I need to have some diplomatic niceties.”
Marcus drove without saying anything else for a bit. “I don’t know about being some big-shot world leader. But I am going to start taking classes at the community college with Gloria in the fall. If I do good enough . . . I mean well enough . . . , I can transfer to Lynchburg or Liberty or Longwood. Or if I really get my act together, maybe JMU. From there, who knows, maybe even . . .” He paused and said quietly, “Maybe even law school.”
Oh, Marcus. I could see what he was thinking. He was banking on the belief that, if he became a lawyer, Mama would have to accept him. Daddy would, but it was going to be a lot harder for Mama. She seemed so all-fired determined to put serious distance between herself and the trailer-park world she came from that I couldn’t see her ever allowing Gloria to settle down with such a reminder of her past. I’d heard Mama say as much when she’d deleted Marcus’s text.
But all I said to him was, “That’s great, Marcus. You’d be a great lawyer.” And he would, too.
He smiled over at me. “Why live if you don’t have dreams, right? I’ve almost got the first year’s tuition saved up. Makes digging out rain-rot and shoveling dog poop at the shelter and humiliating myself in a pizza outfit seem worthwhile.”
Mulling over Marcus’s hopes sure put into perspective my stupid tendency to doubt myself. He was right. Everyone should have dreams—even if they seemed small ones. After all, if this country boy, whose father was a reformed alcoholic and his mother a fortune-teller, could hope to go to law school . . . if a blind man like Stevie Wonder could teach himself to play piano and sing to thousands of people in an audience he couldn’t see . . . if a dog could have the guts to sniff out bombs and jump out of a helicopter for the love of his handler . . . and if my brother could worry about giving toys to children while he tried to survive a war zone . . . then surely I could manage my simple little goal of dancing with a dog in a small-town parade.
Reenergized, I rolled down my window and breathed in—deep. It was one of those gorgeous spring days in Virginia that gives you all sorts of hope in this world. Soft cushions of clouds decorated the deep blue sky. Redbuds, those spindly little trees that have to stretch and contort to catch drops of sunlight under the wide shade of tall trees, were erupting in strings of purple star-blooms. Wild lilies were just beginning to bloom orange along dark-ivy embankments. A breeze carried the perfume of opening lilacs as kindly as a good Southern hostess might offer a refreshing glass of sweet tea.
“Beautiful morning,” Marcus murmured as he gazed at the horizon. Rather than tuning into the radio, he decided to slide a CD into his car stereo. A crisp bluegrass guitar filled the car and a raspy male voice sang, “Never woulda hitchhiked to Birmingham if it hadn’t been for love. . . .”
Marcus started tapping the beat on his steering wheel.
“Hey! I know this.” I brightened. “It’s an Adele song!”
“Well, she covered it. It’s Chris Stapleton’s song.”
“Really?” Gazing out the window, I listened. When the singer belted the refrain with the same kind of to-the-bone melancholy Adele did, I thought aloud, “Wow! He gets the ache as good as she does. That’s surprising.”
Marcus laughed. “Shoot, girl. Think women have the monopoly on hurt feelings?”
I turned and looked at him, startled. “What?”
He glanced my way and then, refocusing on the road, said in a low voice, “Think guys don’t cry?”
I was so blowing this ride. I didn’t know what to say in answer to that. Anything I said had the distinct chance of being W-R-O-N-G.
Marcus smiled. “Tell you what, Ariel. Look up Chris Stapleton singing ‘Sometimes I Cry.’ Deal?”
“Okay,” I answered.
He nodded. “Okay, then!” He started singing along with his CD, reaching over to nudge my shoulder. “Come on, now!”
I joined in. Shout-singing in the ain’t-it-the-truth drama that a real heartache song offers, we turned up a gravel road. It narrowed and climbed as Marcus’s car crunched along its gray stones and black hulls shed by the walnut trees sheltering it. Right as the song ended we pulled in front of a whitewashed clapboard cottage with a faded green tin roof. A very old woman was sitting in a wicker rocker on the shade porch.
“I’ll just be a second,” Marcus said. He reached into the back of the car to grab the toaster. As he got out of the car, he called, “Hey, Beautiful. How’s my best girl?”
Oh my, how that lady lit up. “Marcus? That you, sugar?”
I have to be honest. She wasn’t exactly what I’d call beautiful. Her face was as furrowed with wrinkles as the bark of an old oak tree. Her scraggly white hair was held up with a mass of rainbow-colored butterfly clippies that sort of made her look like a porcupine. And dang, the woman had a pretty noticeable mustache—even from where I was sitting I could see it. But the smile she gave Marcus as he leaned over and kissed her cheek was drop-dead gorgeous.
“You feeling okay today, Miss Dottie?” He handed her the toaster.
“Oh, lookee, lookee.” She hugged the box to her big broad bosom. “You got it!”
“Yes, ma’am. Didn’t I say I would?”
“Best way to start the day—with the Lord’s face beaming up at me from my toast. Thank you.” She took Marcus’s hand and swung it back and forth like a child might in the playground. “Come break bread with me soon. Promise?”
“How about when I bring your groceries this week?” He knelt so he was eye level with her. Only then did I realize she was having a hard time seeing much beyond her arm’s length because of the way she brightened when he came into her clear view. “But you have to promise me a spoonful of your fair-winning honey with my toast. Got any left?”
“For you?” She smiled and patted his face. “You know it, sugar.”
“How’re your bees doing? Started coming out yet?”
“I heard them yesterday,” she pointed to a dogwood starting to bloom by her porch.
“Good. I’ll check the hives for you when I come back.”
“And I’ll have that box of donations ready for you then, too.”
Marcus stood. “Gotta get to the pound. Want me to set up the toaster before I go?”
“No, angel, I can do that myself. You go on now.” She blew him a kiss and waved as he got in the car.
“Who’s that?” I asked as we drove away.
> “Maybe my best friend in the world.” He hesitated a moment. “I don’t know how much you know about him, but my daddy got hurt on the job. Hauling trash in Winchester.” Marcus’s expression tightened. “Did you know trash-collecting is the fifth deadliest job in the United States?”
“No,” I murmured. I was ashamed to admit I’d never much thought about trash collectors before.
“Well, it is. And there wasn’t any workers’ comp when it happened to him. I’m told that Daddy had always been a work-hard, play-hard kind of guy. So it’s not as if he wasn’t acquainted with the bottle before. But he hit it hard after he got hurt, to cut the pain. He could get . . .” Marcus stopped. “Let’s just say Miss Dottie found me hiding in her woodshed more than once. And she must have taken me in and stood between me and trouble—serious trouble—a hundred times.”
He drove on, and I felt squirmy uncomfortable, not knowing if I should say I was sorry for what he was telling me. Some people don’t like feeling pitied. I’d already been clumsy about his sense of pride that day, so I was afraid to screw up again. But I sure did feel sorry, even if I didn’t say it.
He stayed silent. So I changed the topic. “What donations is she talking about?”
“Clothes for the apple-pickers. You know they come mostly from the Caribbean, so they don’t always have warm enough clothes when they head north, following the crops. Daddy’s been chasing out demons for people ever since he was born again. He was called in to their migrant camp once to help a poor old guy who was sure some ghost was after him in the orchards. Ever since, Daddy’s been organizing drives for them.
“These days, so many of our friends are so mad about every last thing and blaming immigrants for our troubles that Daddy’s having a hard time getting much of anything for the pickers. But Miss Dottie? She always comes through. I’ve never known her to turn away any stray soul or dog.”
He kind of shook himself. “Speaking of which!” Marcus grinned at me. “Ready to do some dog beautifying?”
I wanted to tell Marcus that, if he’d wait for me to grow up, I would love him to the day I dropped. But instead I covered up my gaping at him and his kindness with asking, “Got any Springsteen?”
Marcus grinned. “Does a ladybug got spots?”
“My brother loves Springsteen. Especially his band’s saxophonist.”
“The Big Man.”
“Who?”
“Clarence Clemons. The E Street Band’s saxophonist,” explained Marcus. “Springsteen called him the Big Man. Those two were like brothers. They played together for almost forty years. Isn’t that something? So tragic that Clarence died.”
“Oh no! I wonder if George knows. It’ll make him so sad,” I worried aloud. I felt my soul shudder—like a cloud of bad luck had passed over me—hearing that the saxophonist George so loved had passed away.
“I’m sure George knows, honey. Clarence died, gosh, almost a decade ago now.” Marcus glanced over me. “You and your brother are close?”
A lump grew suddenly in my throat at the question. All I could do was nod.
“You look like you miss him.”
I nodded again, pressing my lips together to stop their quiver.
Marcus thought a moment. “You ever heard Clarence’s ‘You’re a Friend of Mine’?”
I shook my head.
Marcus pulled over and flipped through a box of CDs, saying, “The Big Man lives on in his music, Ariel. That’s the magic of it.” He popped a CD into his stereo and a good-time-easy rock ‘n’ roll melody bounced out of his speakers: “Well, count me in. I’m gonna stand right by your side through thick or thin.”
“This can be our theme song!” Marcus shouted to me as Clarence’s saxophone thundered in exuberant rips, and we roared over the hills, first to the post office and then on to gussy up a pack of lonely-heart dogs.
Eleven
THE CRAZY-GOOD THING ABOUT DOGS IS if you’re nice enough to them, most every single one will get happy—even if it’s locked up behind bars. As soon as Marcus put the key into the back-door lock, I could hear them get excited. He walked in and twenty dogs were up, yip-yapping, jumping on the cage doors, their tails wagging, wagging, wagging. He walked down the line of inmates, saying hello, calling each by name: Ace, Butch, Rowdy, Rocky. They were mostly mutts, genetic mishmashes of country dogs used for all types of hunting—foxhounds, Jack Russells, setters, springer spaniels, beagles—and the occasional pit bull or corgi. With such strange mixtures of physical features, none would win a dog show beauty contest. But they sure got adorable with the littlest bit of attention.
“Will these dogs get adopted, Marcus?” I asked.
“That’s what we’re here to remedy,” he answered. “Some of them have been here for weeks, and it’s beginning to show in their eyes. Like this one.”
He stopped in front of a Labrador retriever, who sat waiting for him, whimper-whining, gazing through the wire mesh with solemn, sad eyes. She was truly pretty. But she had a beard of white around her muzzle, and—there’s no other way of saying it—she was downright obese.
“Here’s Midnight, the one I was hoping you could take home,” he said. “She’s the sweetest thing, but nobody wants her because she’s old and needs to lose a bunch of weight to ease the strain on her legs. She’s had a passel of puppies. I bet she was a good mother; she’s so gentle. She was turned in by one of those thousand-dollar-a-puppy pedigree breeders. He said times were bad, and he just couldn’t afford her anymore. I’m thinking the jerk didn’t want to pay for her old age.”
He reached through the bars to scratch her ears. She licked his hand.
“Why don’t you take her, Marcus?”
“I wish I could. But we already have my dad’s pointer he takes hunting and two dogs I brought home when they’d been here for weeks and weeks with no takers. According to Mom’s tarot cards, another stray would make our trailer explode.” He winked at me. “Her way of saying she doesn’t want another dog.”
I laughed.
“All righty, then.” He clapped his hands together. “Let’s get cracking.”
Balancing an armload of brushes, I followed Marcus outside to set up a dog beautician corner. Because our county shelter also rescues mistreated horses, it has several fenced paddocks where the dogs can have a real romp. We let four out at a time to run and tumble all over one another before taking them aside for their beautifying.
For a while, I raced around with them as Marcus tended to his chores. They jumped all over me to get some petting. I even convinced a couple to do dance circles around me. Without bacon! I guess dogs that desperate to please just catch on fast.
Marcus came out to check on me right as I got one of the oddest-looking dogs—sorry, there’s just no other word for a mutt that’s part bloodhound and part corgi—to twirl following my hand. “Hey, that’s pretty cool, Ariel. You should be a dog trainer.”
“Thanks!” I grinned and started to tell him about Duke. After all, I’d promised Sergeant Josie I’d ask Marcus about bringing Duke in to check for a chip. So far, there hadn’t been any answers to the Found Dog posts we’d made on local community websites. But Josie said the shelter would have a wand that could detect a microchip if Duke had one. I wished I didn’t always keep my promises. What if he did have a chip and I had to give him up? I made myself start to ask Marcus about it—feeling like I was trying to cough up a bowling ball as I did—but was saved by a phone ringing inside.
As Marcus darted to answer, a packet of nicotine chewing gum fell out of his pocket. He must be trying to quit, I thought, with a little spasm of wow-someone-listened-to-me sense of pride! I bent to retrieve it, but a class-clown dog named Spike grabbed the package and dashed around, waving it in front of the other dogs to tease them. They chased him. I chased them. Finally I nabbed Spike to pry the gum out of his teeth. He spat that packet out at me with a full-barrel sneeze. I swear that mutt looked like he was guffawing as I wiped his slobber and snot off my legs.
Gettin
g to work, I brushed their coats to a shine. Those dogs sure loved the attention. They pinwheeled to follow the currycomb on their butts. Others got all greedy and rolled over to get their bellies rubbed, too. The funniest thing was when their back paws started scratching the air in rhythm with the brushstrokes.
The only one who sat absolutely calm was Midnight. I spent extra time getting her sleek coat to glisten. Marcus came out again just as I finished. She’d lain down and crossed one front paw over the other in a ladylike little V.
“I swear that dog is regal as a queen,” he said. “Midnight should ride on a float for the parade!”
The Parade.
I looked up at Marcus with that surprise you get when someone says something totally by accident that sets your imagination flying. Suddenly I saw Midnight sitting atop a flowery float following along behind Duke and me dancing, the crowd clapping and cheering. “Hey, Marcus . . . ,” I started.
But two cars rolled into the parking lot. “Customers!” Marcus held up crossed fingers before calling all the dogs in to their kennels and going to unlock the front door.
I stayed outside, feeling the need to wander and have a good think on the BIG IDEA that was now rumbling around in my head. The shelter was atop a hill, giving me a long view to the rolling Blue Ridge Mountains painted in that soft spring green of trees budding up in velvety, baby leaves. Splashed here and there were touches of pearl white from dogwoods.
I closed my eyes and listened. A catbird was singing its heart out, mimicking the call of a titmouse, then a cardinal, then a blue jay, then a string of riffs I couldn’t identify. He clearly was convinced spring was on its way and was establishing his nesting territory with music. Verse after show-off verse. I felt his song passing over me and opened my eyes to see that bird backlit by the sun, free-form composing and flying at the same time.
Walking down the hill from the paddocks to a creek branch that wiggled its way through the fields and trees, I was met by a sea of one of my favorite things: spring beauties, tiny pinkish wildflowers. I plopped myself down in them and almost rolled like a horse in clover. Honestly, if you have trouble feeling awe, a sense of higher whatever, look into the dime-sized face of a spring beauty. Each white petal is streaked with delicate pink lines that my science teacher would say are meant to lure in pollinating insects. But those pen-and-ink fine stripes don’t need to be so heart-achingly gorgeous. The fact they are says something astounding, don’t you think, about the creativity of life?
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