by Allie Larkin
“Speak for yourself.” I pushed back and sniffled, trying to keep my nose from dripping. “It’s going to be okay, Pete. We just need some time to figure out what okay means.”
“But you promise we’re not done,” Peter said.
“We’re not done,” I said. “We will figure out how to be friends. I promise.”
“Swear?” he asked. He held up his pinkie.
I hooked mine into it. “Swear,” I said.
Chapter Thirty-seven
I got Peter situated on the couch with a cup of coffee and a bowl of Cap’n Crunch.
���Don’t feed Joe,” I said. “No matter how cute he looks. He’s had breakfast.” I felt shy around him, like we were strangers again, getting to know each other on new terms.
He put his feet up on the coffee table and balanced the bowl between his knees. His toe was poking through a hole in his black socks.
There’s something you can’t do at home, I thought. All of it-the Cap’n Crunch, eating in the living room, feet on the furniture-would make Janie crazy. I went upstairs to take a shower, but before I even got to the landing, I could hear Joe crunching cereal.
“I know what you did,” I yelled down the stairs.
“He likes it.”
“No more!”
I grabbed clothes to change into in the bathroom, so I wouldn’t risk being seen running down the hall in a towel. It was weird showering with someone else in my house. I was careful not to sing or take too long. I cringed when the shampoo bottle let out a loud, flatulent sound as I squeezed shampoo into my hand. I forgot to turn the fan on when I got in, and when I got out, the room was filled with steam. I wiped the condensation off of the mirror and tried to put my makeup on before it clouded up again. When I was done, I gave the mirror one last swipe to get a good look. My face looked sweaty, and my mascara was thick and threatening to drip.
My jeans stuck to my thighs and took forever to pull up. My bra straps twisted and pulled at my skin. Usually, I showered with the bathroom door open, and walked around naked until I was dry. Joe was the only one around to see, and he was naked all the time.
Peter knocked on the door.
“I’ll be right out,” I yelled, trying to pull my shirt over my damp belly.
“Van? It’s Joe. He- ”
I opened the door.
Peter stood there in his undershirt. Joe wasn’t with him. There was a small streak of blood down the side of his shirt.
“What did you do to him?” I said, not thinking about what I was saying. It was highly unlikely that Peter bit Joe.
I pushed past him and ran down the stairs. My hair soaked my shirt. My bare feet thumped hard on the stairs.
“Joe! Joey!” I yelled.
Joe was lying on his side on the floor, panting. There was blood dripping out of his mouth onto the carpet. I knelt next to him and ran my hand along his side. He was shaking.
“I don’t know what happened,” Peter said. All the color had drained from his face and he was shaking too. “We were playing with that ring toy and he was fine. And then he got really slow. He wasn’t pulling back. And he gave me this look. He was just staring at me. Then his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell and he started shaking. I think he bit his tongue. That’s where the blood is coming from, I think.”
Peter wrinkled up his forehead and ran his hand through his hair. “I didn’t know what to do, so I just tried to hold him down.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back and forth on his heels. “I really hope I didn’t make it worse.”
“I have to take him to the vet,” I said. I was surprised by how calm I was. Everything felt like it was happening very slowly, like maybe it wasn’t really happening at all. It couldn’t be. Joe was my hero. He was my “jump over burning bales of hay, save me when I fall in a well” dog. This couldn’t be real.
“That guy, right?” Peter said. “The one from the other day.”
“I guess so. I don’t know anyone else.”
Joe let out a hacking, coughing sound. He licked at his teeth.
“Can you come with me?” I asked. I was sure bringing Peter wasn’t going to win me any points with Alex, but I didn’t want to be alone. I didn’t want to do any of this alone.
“Of course,” Peter said, like there was no question about it.
Peter stayed with Joe while I got ready to go. He put his head down next to Joe’s head and stroked the fur behind Joe’s ears.
I slipped on my shoes without bothering to tie them. It took me way too long to find my keys. This is why people are organized, I thought. Emergencies happen and you just have to go, and you need to know where your keys are. I felt the panic start to creep in. My throat tightened. I took a deep breath, and covered my face with my hands. I knew I didn’t have the luxury of falling to pieces.
I finally found my keys on the floor of my bedroom. They must have fallen out of the pocket of my jeans when I took them off the night before.
Peter and I tried to coax Joe into standing, but his legs wobbled. He kept making that horrible coughing sound. I tried not to let my mind wander to all the awful things that could have caused this. Peter scooped Joe up in his arms and carried him to my car, and I ran in front of them to get the door open. Peter was careful to make sure he didn’t bump Joe’s head as he set him down gently on the backseat.
Peter drove. I sat in the backseat with Joe’s head in my lap. Joe sat up as we pulled out of the garage, but then he lay back down again. His big brown eyes were glassy and he had that bewildered look he gets when he first wakes up from a nap. Usually he snapped out of it after a few minutes, but he wasn’t snapping out of this. He was in a daze. When we pulled alongside a motorcycle at a red light, he didn’t even growl.
Peter parked right in front of the clinic. We helped Joe climb out of the car, but then Peter picked him up again to carry him in.
“Oh, Joey!” Mindy yelped the second we walked in the door. “What happened?” She ran around the desk and rushed over to Joe.
“He just started shaking,” Peter said. He was straining under the weight of Joe, but he didn’t put him down. “His eyes rolled back. It was awful.” I was so thankful he was there, that he could explain what happened, and that I didn’t have to do this alone.
“Poor baby!” Mindy said, petting Joe’s head. She ushered us into an empty exam room.
Peter put Joe down on the exam table, and I crouched down so I could look him in the eyes. His ears perked up and he licked my chin and whined.
“Alex is finishing up with a patient,” Mindy said. “He’ll be done in a few minutes. I’ll tell him it’s an emergency.”
“Thanks,” I said. I felt my heart race when she said Alex’s name, but I didn’t have it in me to worry about what he might think. I just wanted him to fix my dog.
Mindy slid the door closed carefully. Peter came over and stood next to me and kept his hands out like he was making sure Joe wouldn’t fall off the table.
“I’m so glad you’re here,” I said to Peter, my voice wavering.
He put his hand on my shoulder. “That’s what friends do, right?” he said.
The door slid open and Alex walked in. Peter pulled his hand off my shoulder.
Alex’s jaw was set and he kept his eyes on Joe’s chart. “Tell me what happened,” he said, leaning against the counter. I wanted to go over and hug him and cry it out and tell him what happened and beg him to make it all better, but he was acting like he didn’t even know me.
“He was playing,” I said, “and then he just started shaking.” I thought of the way Alex held my hand and pinned it to the bed. We were so far from that now. I couldn’t even look at him anymore. I focused my attention on Joe. Joe’s brown eyes. Joe’s big black nose. Joe’s fuzzy ears. I needed Joe to be okay.
“Can you be more specific?” Alex said, writing in Joe’s chart. I wondered if he was really writing anything, or if he was just trying to avoid looking at me as much as I was trying to avoid looking at
him.
“I don’t- I wasn’t there,” I said.
“I was,” Peter said. He and Alex stood there, staring at each other until Peter offered his hand and said, “Peter Clarke.”
Alex raised his eyebrows slightly. He grunted, shook Peter’s hand, and pulled away to look at Joe’s file again. “Can you tell me what happened?”
Peter explained the chain of events thoroughly, like he was being deposed, using words like convulse and nonresponsive. He even admitted to feeding Joe some Cap’n Crunch.
I held Joe’s paw in my hand, smoothing down the tufts of fur between his toes.
Alex came over and ran his hand along Joe’s side, feeling his belly. I placed Joe’s paw on the table gently and moved away to give Alex some space. He pulled the penlight out of his pocket and looked in Joe’s eyes and ears. Joe barely resisted when Alex pried his mouth open to examine.
“He keeps hacking and then licking his mouth,” I said.
Peter sat in the chair in the corner of the room. He met my eyes and gave me a reassuring smile every time I looked at him.
“He bit his tongue badly,” Alex said, pointing to the side of Joe’s mouth. “He probably has blood and extra saliva running down his throat.” He went back to the counter and wrote more notes in Joe’s chart.
“So what it sounds like,” Alex said, leaning against the counter, “is that he had a seizure.” He looked at me and then Peter. “I’d like to keep him overnight to run some tests. Sometimes dogs just get seizures. It’s just the way they’re wired. Sometimes there’s an underlying cause, and I want to make sure we rule that out. We don’t want to miss a bigger problem, if there is one.” He was using a kinder voice now. “So we’ll admit him and cover our bases,” he said. “Is that okay with you?”
“Of course,” I said.
“I’ll get Mindy to take him back and prep him for testing. We’ll call you if anything changes,” Alex said.
If anything changes, like if he dies or he has a brain tumor, I thought. Alex must have seen the look of horror on my face because he looked me right in the eyes and said, “We’ll take good care of him, Van. I promise.” He grabbed Joe’s chart and left the room.
I held Joe’s face on either side and pressed my forehead in to his. “You be okay,” I said. “You just have to be, Joe.”
Mindy came in and she and Peter helped Joe off the table. He was standing better. His legs were more stable. “Do you think you can walk for me, Joey?” she said.
“I can carry him,” Peter said. He lifted Joe up, knees buckling under his weight.
I kissed Joe on the nose. “Bye, buddy,” I said, praying it was not the last time I was going to see him.
Peter followed Mindy into the back room. I went out to the car, sat in the passenger seat, and cried. A few minutes later, Peter got in the car. He leaned over and wrapped his arms around me. “He’s going to be okay,” he said.
“What am I going to do if he isn’t?” I said. “I’m buying a house for him! My whole day is about when he needs to eat and when I need to walk him. He’s always happy to see me. He’s always there when I need him. He’s my family. What am I going to do without him?”
“He’s going to be fine.” Peter brushed my hair out of my face and wiped the tears off my cheeks. “Buck up, soldier,” he said, imitating his father.
Peter dropped me off at home and then ran to Wegmans and the video store. The condo was quiet. Before Joe, it was just me and I’d been used to it, but now it was so much worse. I got myself a glass of water and turned around expecting to see Joe right behind me. I walked into the living room and turned on the television, but he wasn’t there to jump up on the couch next to me. So even though I felt kind of weird about hanging out with Peter, I was relieved when he came back with a quart of mint chocolate chip for me, a quart of French vanilla for him, and a stack of old Jackie Chan movies.
“Jackie Chan. Really?” I said.
“Jackie Chan is the kung fu master,” Peter said, gravely. “Trust me, it’ll take your mind off things.”
So we sat on the couch and watched Jackie Chan kick the crap out of bad guys, and we played cards and talked smack, and it did take my mind off of things.
Two movies in, we heard the Mission: Impossible theme song coming from his phone. Peter picked up. “Hey, sweets,” he said, walking out to the garage to take the call.
I paused the movie for him. But then I kept trying to make sense of Peter’s muffled words, even though I knew I shouldn’t listen in. I couldn’t stand just sitting there, trying to figure out if he was talking about me, holding my cards, with Jackie Chan in midkick. I turned the movie on again and collected the cards to shuffle so we could start over. He came back about ten minutes later.
“Oh, this scene kicks so much ass,” he said, pointing to the television as he walked into the living room. “What did I tell you? The kung fu master!” He sat next to me on the couch and put his feet on the coffee table.
I wanted to know if he’d told Janie he was with me, but he didn’t say anything about the phone call, so I didn’t ask. I just dealt the next round of cards.
I think Peter could see it on my face whenever I started to think about Joe, and he did the best he could to distract me with stupid jokes or more food. We ate ice cream, and ordered pizza and wings and stayed up late, and it wasn’t awkward the way I worried it might be. We’d been friends all these years and it just fell back into place. Only, it was better, because I wasn’t pining over him. I wasn’t worried about how I looked or if I said something stupid. He was just my friend Pete and he was kind of a dork, but he was there when I needed him.
Chapter Thirty-eight
The phone woke me up. I was on the couch, covered in the blanket from my bed. I didn’t remember falling asleep on the couch. Peter must have gotten the blanket for me. He was asleep on the floor next to me, wrapped in the blanket he’d slept in the night before. I jumped over him and ran to the phone.
“Savannah?” It was Mindy. I recognized her voice.
“How is he?”
“He’s doing much better. He’s a little groggy, but he’s such a sweetheart. He’s been giving kisses to anyone who comes close enough,” Mindy said. “We can have you come pick him up at ten this morning, if that works for you.”
“Do you have the results?”
“Well, I’ll have to let Alex go over them with you. I’m sorry.”
I told her I’d be there at ten. Peter was sitting up rubbing his eyes. “Is he okay?” he asked.
“I don’t know. He’s feeling better, but I don’t know about the test results.”
“Can we pick him up today?”
“Ten o’clock. But don’t feel like you have to come. You have work and Janie, and I don’t want to-” I started to panic at the idea of sitting in that exam room by myself waiting for Alex, waiting for the results, but I didn’t want to overstep my bounds.
“Van, we’re going to be friends, right? This is what friends do. I’m off work until Monday, and Janie is at Diane’s until Diane decides to release her again. So, I’m here. We’ll go get Joe.”
He was really coming through. He was putting all our other stuff aside and he was being the person I needed him to be. I was proud of him. And if he could do that for me now, I hoped he could do that for Janie for the rest of their lives, the way he promised in his vows. I made my own vow to hold him to it.
We made coffee and Peter had cereal, but I couldn’t eat. I was way too worried about the test results. I poured milk in my coffee and studied the blooms of white that came up from the bottom of the cup, while Peter crunched away happily. I wondered how Janie felt about having to listen to someone eat cereal that loud for the rest of her life.
Chapter Thirty-nine
Mindy was on the phone when we got to the office. She waved to us when we walked in the door.
Peter and I sat on a bench in the corner and waited. I felt like I was going to be sick. What if Joe had cancer? What if he had onl
y a few weeks to live? I could not stand to think of losing him. I knew he wasn’t going to live forever, but he was supposed to live a long, healthy life full of long walks and treats and naps on the floor. I wasn’t supposed to lose him now. He was still a puppy.
Peter nudged me and pointed to a picture of a humiliated Dalmatian in a Christmas sweater on the wall across from us. He raised his eyebrows.
Mindy hung up the phone. “Hi, Van,” she said. “Why don’t you go on back and wait in room two. Alex will be with you in a sec.”
There was only one chair in the exam room.
“Go ahead,” Peter said.
I sat down. He leaned against the wall in the corner of the room looking at a model of a cat’s urinary tract. He poked at a clear plastic orb that was supposed to be the bladder, and the whole model fell apart. He was scrambling to put it back together when Alex walked in the room.
“I’ll go get Joe for you in a minute,” Alex said, eying Peter, who was trying desperately to reconnect the plastic urethra to the bladder.
“What’s Joe’s typical diet like?” Alex asked. He looked softer today. The crease between his eyebrows wasn’t as sharp as it had been yesterday. His jaw wasn’t as tight. I worried maybe it meant he had bad news for me. Maybe he felt too bad about what he had to tell me to stay mad.
Peter dropped the plastic cat bladder. He picked it up and put it on the counter with the other fake cat parts and pushed them to the back of the counter. He slid his hands in his pockets. “Sorry,” he said.
“I feed Joe chicken, rice, and carrots, mostly,” I said. “I cook for him. He came with a recipe. I think that’s what he’s been eating all along. Sometimes he eats other stuff, like pancakes and eggs. But I never give him chocolate or onions or grapes. Nothing on the ASPCA list.” I was trying to stay calm, but my hands were shaking and I had a lump in my throat that hurt like hell. “Is he okay? He doesn’t have a brain tumor, does he?”
Alex smiled. “No, he doesn’t have a brain tumor. And I think he’s going to be just fine.”