What I’m about to do is in the spirit of self-preservation. I haven’t started filling my two-lie quota for the summer season, so it is okay that I am going to bear down and start hatching one.
When I get home, I call Mom at the clinic. Carver answers the phone. What could’ve happened between yesterday and today that got him promoted from cleaning crew to receptionist, I’m not sure. I pause after he answers as I consider saying something to him like “Please, don’t talk about me to Laney Benning, you insensitive jerk,” but instead I muffle my voice and ask for Dr. Kaplan, hoping he doesn’t recognize me. I don’t think he does.
Mom comes to the phone and I give birth to my lie. I tell her I came directly home from school because I feel sick. Mom wants details and I give them (“I ate a carton of expired yogurt”), but I don’t get immunity from having to go to work until I use the magic word: diarrhea. Once I say it, she tells me to rest and drink plenty of water. Phew.
I climb into bed with my U.S. History textbook. Pip, Southpaw, and Otto join me. My dark blue comforter is due for a wash; it looks like the pelt of a wild animal from all the shedded dog hair. But I refuse to do laundry today. A day off is in order, even if I have to crouch behind a lie about having loose stools.
Grandma takes too many trips up the stairs to check on me and insists that I drink chamomile tea. She also gives me my mail: a new issue of The Bark magazine, with William Wegman’s signature silver Weimaraners on the cover, and a postcard from Dad, who’s in England.
On one side of the postcard is Tower Bridge, which I assume is the bridge that is falling down, or did fall down. I’m not sure. The bridge in the picture looks structurally sound, so they must have fixed it. On the other side of the card is Dad’s rushed scrawl.
Dear Natalie,
Spent the week with the Siberian Husky Club of Great Britain. Getting ready for Germany. I’ll e-mail you my itinerary in the next few days. I look forward to seeing you in August when I’m home in L.A. I’ll call soon.
Love and, as they say here, cheers!
Dad
Dad has always held an adoration for the wolflike Siberian husky. Huskies are a breed with exceptional stamina, but they also have an innate urge to roam. And here I am in my bed with my fake diarrhea, wondering if everything I’ve ever learned about lying came from Dad’s love for a breed of dog that has a natural tendency to stray.
I place his postcard in the shoe box under my bed, one of many containing letters, cards, and printed e-mails from Dad. Though I hardly see him, there’s a paper trail of him under my bed. Better than nothing.
For the next few hours, I nap, read The Bark cover to cover, and start listening with my headphones to Dad’s Stevie Wonder albums in chronological order, from Talking Book to Songs in the Key of Life. I wish I could be in the room above the garage. There is more sunlight up there, more space than in my elfin bedroom.
Carver’s already abused the area by inviting Laney inside. I bet the room will suffer more punishment from his poor judgment. He’s probably got a fish tank up there already. And maybe even a cat.
By the time I get to Innervisions, the second Stevie Wonder album in Dad’s collection, I have decided, for the integrity of the room above the garage, that it is my obligation to see how Carver is choosing to inhabit it. He is like a new puppy, and if left unattended, puppies will chew on furniture and piddle on the floor.
I lurch out of bed, stub my toe on Fu-Fu—youch!— and pull the needle from the record. The dogs stay bunked on the mattress as if they, too, are feigning the runs. I give each of them a well-deserved rub on the tummy.
Carver is at work. Grandma checked in about five minutes ago and is downstairs making chicken soup. I tiptoe down the stairway, out the front door, and up the steps leading to the room above the garage.
A dog’s hyperactivity is a symptom, not a character trait.
—Michael Kaplan, The Manifesto of Dog
I’ve determined that if the door to the room above the garage is unlocked, I have every right to go inside. That would show that Carver is careless about his possessions and has little regard for privacy. But if the door is locked, I will take this as a sign from the universe that I shouldn’t go inside, and I will return to the Stevie Wonder marathon in my room.
The doorknob gives when I twist it. Once inside, I shut the door behind me. I am so familiar with the room that it takes no more than a few seconds to notice what’s different about it.
Carver has mounted a disco ball on the ceiling.
Bold move.
I would have had to fill out extensive paperwork with my mom to plug in a dinky night-light up here. Did he get her permission? Probably not. I’m instantly envious of his bravery, and if I weren’t trying so hard to dislike him, I might put his courage into the same category as the remarkably enduring Eskimo dog’s.
The room looks tidy: the futon is in a couch position, a comforter on top tucked neatly into a puffy square. An open laptop computer lies on the futon, a generic Microsoft screen saver bouncing across the monitor. There’s a small pile of clothes in one corner. The rest are folded in Carver’s duffel bags.
There are no signs of Laney, no pair of pink underwear on the ground, no snapshot of Carver and Laney holding hands on the beach at sunset.
I’ve seen only one other boy-room in my life: Kirby’s. His is plastered with Beatles posters and carpeted with unwashed clothes, and it stinks like dirty socks. The Carver-inhabited room smells different. It’s a good smell, a savory smell, like one of Grandma’s basil plants in her herb garden. He’s left the windows open, and the salty coastal afternoon breeze has made its way inside.
I walk over to the futon and look at the pictures that Carver has taped to the wall next to it.
The first set of 4×6 photographs are of koi, some orange, some white mottled with black. They are scaly, whiskered, and aerodynamic-looking, but I’m just not impressed.
Next picture on the wall: a close-up of a huge dragonfly perched on the trumpet of a bright pink flower bloom. I stare at the intricate circuit of veins splayed on each of its four transparent wings. Definitely more impressive than the fish, that’s for sure.
The only picture with people in it is what looks like a recent photo of Carver and his mom at graduation. He wears a black cap and gown. A white tassel dangling from his mortarboard almost covers one of his green eyes. His arm is gently wrapped around his mom’s shoulders. They look happy with each other, their smiles sincere.
There’s a picture missing from the wall. I can tell because there’s tape where it should be. I glance down at my feet and spot the photo on the floor. When I pick it up to take a look, a crop of goose bumps perks up along my arms.
The picture is of a wet black Labrador retriever standing on the borderline between sand and ocean. It’s a side view of the dog looking out at the sea. He is a gorgeous dog, robust and broad-headed. He wears a red bandanna around his neck and holds a piece of driftwood in his mouth. This may be the dog Carver lost recently. A pang of guilt stabs at me for not having asked him about the details. The thought of Laney being up here wipes it away.
However, I do line up the corners of the picture with the tape on the wall, pressing it until it sticks. I sit down on the futon to take another look and accidentally land on the keyboard of Carver’s laptop. Turning around, I see I’ve knocked it out of sleep mode. And there’s an open e-mail on the screen.
I read it, even though it’s none of my business. It’s there, and I can’t seem to help myself. The subject: MISS YOU.
There’s a girlfriend in the mix?
Eyes scan down to the sender: his mom.
Relief.
The e-mail:
Hi Carv,
Sorry I missed your call earlier today. Glad to hear you are settling in.
Miss you. Miss our morning talks.
Love you to the moon and back, chum.
Mom
My mouth curls into a smile. The pixie in my stomach sighs when I reread t
he words “miss our morning talks” and “chum.”
Then footsteps, more than one set, clomp up the stairs.
Carver is supposed to be at work! He can’t walk in and see me here!
I dash to the closet, because I would rather be a missing person living in darkness and subsisting on a diet of spiders and mothballs than have anyone find me poking around the room like some freak-o stalker.
Knocking. “Carver? Are you home?” Laney.
“Carvey?” Maryann now. Carvey? Ick.
Waiting. Leave. Please leave. Waiting.
Clomp. Clomp. Clomp. They are leaving.
After counting to one hundred, I crawl out of the closet and over to the window. Slowly, I raise my head until one eye can periscope onto Laney’s porch, where she is now walking up the steps with Maryann. They disappear into her house. I sprint to the door and retreat into my own.
Later in the afternoon, Grandma brings a tray with a bowl of chicken broth up to my room, which means I don’t have to face Carver at the dinner table.
Mom checks on me when she gets home, feels my forehead, rubs my back. And my stomach starts to hurt for real because I am exploiting the affection of my own mother. But it feels good to have her here. The attention is nice, soothing, and, unfortunately, fleeting.
The next day at school, the prospect of cooperative group is harrowing, but I live through it by focusing on George Washington’s farewell speech of 1796 instead of dealing with Laney Benning’s demonic stare of the twenty-first century.
After school, Nina, Kirby, and I walk into town together. We agree to meet at Miguel’s at six p.m. for our weekly soup night. Half-price soup. Mom only recently began allowing me this pleasure, because walking with friends into town is acceptable at sixteen, no sooner. I think she’s okay with soup night because it is a controlled environment, and she can always “pop in” should she see fit. She’ll call me at some point in the evening anyway. The woman needs a Valium, I swear.
Nina and Kirby break off at the wishbone on Highway 101 that leads to Rescued Threads, while I walk toward work with apprehension at my heels.
When I walk into the reception area, there is a very sick saluki hound shivering under her creamy coat. She doesn’t bother to lift her long narrow muzzle from the ground.
“Hi,” I say to her owner, a pretty forty-something woman whose sharp eyebrows are sloped in concern. “Can I get you something?”
“No, thanks,” she replies.
“Not feeling well, huh?” I bend down to the dog. “What’s her name?” I ask.
“Emira.”
I reach out my hand for Emira to sniff. She doesn’t move, but she lets me stroke her long silky ear. “We’ll get you all better, girl.”
I walk over to the reception desk. My body jolts slightly when I notice Carver sitting behind it.
It was wise of me to stay home yesterday. I didn’t have to wrestle the fairy dust out of Pixie’s hand in order to keep it together. I am out of control! Why do my insides go into spasms when I see this guy?
Logically, I should be miffed at Carver. He and Laney Benning talked about me behind my back. (But I did sneak up to his room and learn that his mother calls him chum.)
Carver gets out of the chair. The caramel-colored hairs on his forearms gleam in the terrible fluorescent light.
“Your mom had me man the desk this morning. Here,” he says, motioning to the chair. “Have a seat. I think you do this much better than I do. I had to press about twenty buttons on the phone before I found the right one to make an outgoing phone call.” Phone call? Outgoing? Work-related? Laney-related? Mom discourages phone calls that are not work-related.
I set my backpack down on the floor underneath the desk and take a seat in the chair. It’s still warm from Carver.
He goes to the back, reappears with a plastic cup filled with water, and hands it to Emira’s owner. Then he reaches inside the storage room, fetches the broom, and sweeps. Mom hasn’t given him free roam of the kennel run yet. The clinic floor has never been so clean.
“Are you feeling better?” Carver asks me as he sweeps the corner nearest the reception desk.
I’m hit with a crippling thought: I’m almost positive that Carver ate dinner with Mom and Grandma last night. Inevitably, the conversation must have spent some time hovering around my well-being, in which case Grandma probably gave Mom an update. I have no doubt Grandma used the word “diarrhea.” In a German accent, no less. Grandmas do these sorts of things. Just last night, she asked me point-blank if I’d had a hard “bowel movement” yet. Gross.
The idea of Carver looking at me with the D word levitating over his head is embarrassing enough to make a constellation of sweat beads form on my upper lip.
“Um, yeah.” I nod. “Feeling better.”
“Good.” Carver shuffles to another corner. The muscles in his arms expand and contract as he shifts the broom back and forth.
After Emira is in the exam room, I escape to the kennel run to commune with the dogs.
Later in the afternoon, when Mom has a cancellation, she’s catching up on paperwork in her office. I knock on her open door.
She looks over her glasses and waves me in.
“Tonight is soup night. Just wanted to make sure it’s okay if I go.”
“How’s your stomach?” Mom asks again, for the fourth time in an hour.
“Better.”
“I don’t think it’s a good idea. Yesterday at this time, you were curled up in your bed with a stomachache.” She must not have spying hardware hooked up in my room yet, because I wasn’t exactly curled up in my bed all afternoon.
“Really, I’m feeling a lot better,” I say.
Mom looks at me and bites her lip. “Make sure you stick with something bland tonight. Stay away from the salsa.” Wait, is she actually starting to trust me? She knows how much I love salsa.
Mom scratches her nose. I get up to leave. “Be home by nine. Do you have your phone?” she asks.
I pull my phone from my pocket. Mom is big on proof.
“Love you,” she says.
But I feel cheated, because it’s not to the moon and back.
Dogs are influenced by stimuli, not morality.
—Michael Kaplan, The Manifesto of Dog
On Friday, during an overview of the 1791 Bill of Rights, Allison Meyer informs our cooperative group that Spud Garcia is having a party tonight. There will be a keg. His parents are “out of town.”
I’m right on top of the “out of town” thing. I decided a long time ago that “out of town” is a tropical resort where parents from all over the world congregate so that the kids who have been left behind can do things like throw parties in the parents’ absence. Wherever this “out of town” place may be, my mom has yet to go there, and I doubt she ever will.
It is quite puzzling that Allison would bother to tell us about Spud’s party. The entire week she has done nothing but scowl at us.
Allison gives us the details, then Laney looks at me. “Are you going?” Her voice holds the tone typically used with the question “Did you fart?” I shrug.
Although I am unable to respond verbally to Laney’s question, my newfound aspiration in life is to attend Spud’s party. I have been to a few parties in high school, including Maryann’s nightmare slumber party, but they were small-scale, more like get-togethers involving Cranium and twelve-packs of beer (or bottled wine). But this is a “kegger,” which translates as “big epic party.”
This is my opportunity for personal growth.
While Nina uses the rest room after class, Kirby and I wait nearby on a bench and eat CornNuts.
“We’re going to Spud Garcia’s party tonight,” I tell Kirby.
News of a party travels at lightning speed, because Kirby already knows about it. “Do you think…” He clears his throat. “Do you think they’ll be doing what they did at Maryann’s slumber party?”
I pause, my tongue absorbing the salt from a CornNut. “Who doing what?
” I ask.
“You know.” Kirby widens his brown eyes. His glasses shift upward. He wiggles his chest.
“That’s why you want to go? You think girls are going to be showing their boobs?”
Kirby shifts a bit. “Course not.” He looks at his feet with a thin smile.
“Pig.”
“I’m kidding. C’mon.” He elbows me in the side and pours more CornNuts into the cup of his hand. “Is Cramer going tonight?”
“Carver.”
“Yeah, whatever.”
“Why do you care?”
“It’s been a week, Natalie. We haven’t met him yet. I think you made him up. He’s your new imaginary friend, isn’t he?”
I hold up my hands in surrender. “Got me!”
“So you think your mom is going to let you go tonight?” Kirby asks.
“No, but I’m pretty sure she’ll let me hang out at Nina’s house,” I say with a wink.
Mom assumes that I’ll be at Nina’s house and that Kirby will take me home after I call her to tell her we’re on our way.
The real plan is to meet at the corner around eight p.m., after I return from taking Grandma to rummy. Nina, Kirby, and I are going to walk to Spud’s together; that way if any one of us decides to get blitzed (highly unlikely), we won’t have to drive. I won’t be staying long, since I have a curfew of ten p.m., but at least I get an extra hour, because I told Mom we were watching a movie at Nina’s. If I had to be home at nine, I wouldn’t be able to see the entire movie. Mom herself always says I should finish what I start.
I have spent my two summer lies in the first week of summer, a sort of lying spree. The severity of my imminent wrongdoing is lessened in my mind as I remind myself that I have been a model child. I deserve to go to this party. I’ve earned it. And I am merely protecting Mom from having to worry about me.
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