Spud Garcia has been a varsity linebacker since our freshman year. He is built like a potato but has the brains of a mathematician. Spud’s smarts justify the football players’ need to wear helmets. I’ve been in classes with him. We know each other, but I don’t think we’ve ever had a conversation.
When we arrive at the party, Nina rings the doorbell. “I heard that Spud’s mom collects doll heads,” she says. “Later we gotta find where she keeps them.”
“Oh, so that’s why you’re here,” says Kirby. “I thought it was for the beer, but you’re really after doll heads.”
“Of course.” Nina smirks. “You don’t think I’m that shallow, do you? Doll heads over beer any day, my friend.”
Spud answers the door with a plastic cup domed in froth. “Hey, come on in,” he says. One would think he’s curling a heavy dumbbell instead of a beer the way his bicep bulges from his T-shirt sleeve. It looks like a miniature head of a rottweiler.
Inside the house, it’s nothing like the keggers I’ve seen in movies. No one is hooting or hollering. There are no bras or boxer shorts dangling from the chandelier in the entryway. No one has driven a car or a motorcycle through the large front window facing the street. But we are early. I guess there’s still time.
Ushered through French doors, we congregate by the keg in the backyard. Jake Chapman is serving the guests with the keg nozzle and hands Nina a full cup of beer. He must think I’m waiting for one, too, because he squirts beer into an empty cup and passes it to me. I take it. Kirby gives me a look and accepts the next one Jake offers. Neither one of us slurps a sip, regardless of Nina’s swallowing hers with effortless gulps.
Nina is comfortable in any element. She’s probably not thinking of the possibility of the party being broken up by the cops or the fact that Spud’s parents are out of town and he’s throwing this party without their permission.
There’re about twenty people here so far. People are talking and sipping, but who’s to say anyone, besides Nina and the handful of people chugging around the keg, is actually drinking? I could be one of many who merely hold their cups, hoping to blend into the party.
Just as I resolve to take a small sip of the beer in my hand, my phone starts barking. I place my beer on the barbecue lid, run inside to the nearest room, and shut the door behind me. “Hello?” I’m in what looks like a guest room.
“Natalie?” Mom. “Did you give Southpaw her diethylstilbestrol?”
“Yes,” I answer, hoping that Mom is calling out of a genuine concern for Southpaw’s incontinence and not in an attempt to keep tabs on me.
“Okay, then. Are you having a good time?”
“Yeah, we’re just watching the movie.”
“What movie?” Is she kidding?
“Shaun of the Dead.” It was the last movie I saw, still fresh in my mind should Mom ask about plot points.
“Well, have fun,” she says. “I’ll see you at ten, no later. Call before you leave.”
“Bye, Mom.” We hang up. I think of my beer sitting out on the barbecue. I thought I’d take some sips, but now I don’t think it’s worth it. Any hint of beer on my breath would have Mom on the phone finding a rehab facility for me.
I try to resist it, but I feel kind of sorry for Mom. It’s Friday night and she’s worried about the dog not getting her incontinence medicine. That’s just not right.
Forty-five minutes later, about fifty more people have arrived at Spud’s. I’ve yet to see Allison Meyer, and I’m getting worried that at some point Spud’s neighbors will call the cops because of the noise.
Kirby and I sit in the kitchen, our beers untouched but still gripped in our hands. Nina is mostly out back socializing but checks in with us from time to time. It’s nice of her, but I’d rather have her full attention.
Kirby and I have just witnessed two guys eat a dozen raw eggs. I watch yolk trickle down the chin of egg eater number one. “Well, I’m ready to go.”
I set my cup on the granite countertop, but I reconsider and pick it back up. I’ve been trained not to leave a mess.
“Let’s go, then,” Kirby says before raising his cup, licking his lips, dipping his head down, and pretending to take a huge slurp.
“Ooh, that was a good one!” I say. “You win.” We’ve been fake drinking for the duration of the party. His performance has been quite theatrical, peppered with burps and glugging sound effects.
“I’m gonna use the rest room first.” Kirby walks away, cup in hand. Good timing, because the two egg guys reopen the refrigerator and pull out a bottle of Tabasco sauce.
I head toward the backyard to say good-bye to Nina, but Laney and Maryann have arrived. They create a force field around Nina with their matching flowy short-short pink skirts and tight cleavage-revealing tank tops. From their cups they swig beer and it looks as though they are really drinking, because the three of them are leaning on each other lazily.
I don’t have the strength to face Laney right now, so I give a hearty good-bye wave to Nina from afar. She makes a phone-to-ear gesture.
I trace my footsteps back into the house and walk down one of two hallways. Hallway one is where Kirby stands at the end of a long line for the bathroom. On the other side is hallway two, empty as a wind tunnel.
Next to me, at the front end of the hallway, is an ivy plant, its vines climbing from a large terra-cotta planter. Making sure I don’t have anyone’s attention, I pour my beer into the dark soil of the planter. I hope alcohol is not lethal to ivy.
Then I remember something. Instead of going to hallway one and standing in line with Kirby, I search down hallway two for the magic door that might lead to the mystic heads of dolls.
I go to the door farthest down the hallway. It is the only one that is shut. I press my ear to the door and knock lightly. No one answers; no one is grunting. It’s safe.
An entire wall of doll heads, neatly encased in a huge glass shelving unit, watch me as I walk into the room. Recessed lighting inside the case illuminates the collection. There are rows and rows of them, some porcelain, some plastic, some as small as grapes, others as big and smooth as honeydew melons. Not one has a neck.
“That has got to be the freakiest thing I’ve ever seen.” I turn around. Carver stands about five feet away from me.
Pixie breaks out and starts doing cancan kicks in my stomach. She does this so quickly, I don’t even have time to stop her.
Potty training should be executed with diligence and discipline.
—Michael Kaplan, The Manifesto of Dog
If you rent a hotel room for a newlywed poodle and Labrador retriever and let them consummate their marriage, a couple of months later you’ll have yourself a litter of labradoodles. Do the same with a cocker spaniel and a poodle: the result is an adorable brood of cockapoos.
Carver and I are alone in this room (among ogling doll heads), but honestly, I’m not sure what the result is going to be. All I know is that I feel like a mutt, a mixed breed of fear and excitement.
Carver says, “I thought you were at your friend’s house tonight.” Did he ask Mom about my Friday-night plans?
“Yeah, well, I don’t know about your mom, but I couldn’t tell mine I was going to a kegger.” I’m squeezing my cup to the point of strangling it.
“On my honor,” he says, lifting up his hand, “I will not tell your mom I saw you here.”
He looks so good. He’s wearing a dark green T-shirt under a plaid flannel button-up shirt. The earthy colors lure the green from his eyes. His jeans hang on him just right, sagging not so much that his boxer shorts are showing, but enough that if I were to pull up his T-shirt, I’d spy a belly button. A pair of Birkenstock sandals expose his bubbly toes; the big one on his right foot is wrapped in a turban of gauze.
Carver notices me staring at his foot. “Mammoth splinter. Piece of wood jutting out from the stairs on the side of the garage.” I shift my focus back to the doll heads. Carver walks over to stand next to me. “Your grandma took it out.”<
br />
I can’t believe this, but I giggle. “Did she use her dagger?”
Carver laughs. “She had me prop my foot up on the couch and came back from the kitchen with this huge knife. I swear I thought she was going to cut off my toe.”
“Sounds about right. She’s a big believer in the knife versus the tweezers. Claims there’s less infection.”
“I didn’t know such a controversy existed,” says Carver. He takes a sip of his beer and points to a tangerine-sized doll head. It is the color of an eggshell, with pink cheeks, pale blue eyes, and a huge crack down its center. “How old do you think that is?”
I remember something important: no doubt Carver came here with Laney. “I’d better go,” I say, and start to walk toward the door.
“Hold up a minute,” Carver says. I stop in my tracks. “Is something wrong? I mean, have I said anything in the past week to offend you, something that put you off?”
I squeak out a no.
“Are you mad about me feeding your dog chocolate? In my defense, I was only nine and had no idea chocolate could kill a dog. I’m really sorry about that.”
I turn toward him. “He got really sick, you know.”
“But he was okay, right?” Carver asks. “Boys do stupid things sometimes. I was only trying to impress you.”
“By giving my dog chocolate?”
Carver takes a step closer to me. “You seemed to really like that dog. I thought if he liked me, you’d like me, too. So I kept feeding him stuff.”
“That’s why he followed you everywhere.”
“Yeah, but when I gave him the chocolate, my plan kind of backfired.”
Carver was trying to impress me.
I am beginning to feel heat pressing against my entire body. My head is competing with my heart for airtime. I take a deep breath. “I gotta go. I have to be home by ten tonight.”
“I’ll walk with you,” he offers. “I’m not much for parties. Laney said you weren’t that into the social scene, either.” He looks straight at me when he says this.
I can go from zero to one hundred with this guy.
Here it comes. I’m going to say it. “I should explain, since you haven’t noticed, that Laney and I aren’t close.” I’m using the same voice Dad uses with dogs during training sessions, low and firm. “Although I am not used to being around her kind of people, I am quite comfortable being around normal people.” The doll heads look as surprised as I am; I’ve just told Carver what I think. “It’d be nice if you two didn’t talk about me behind my back.”
“Sorry about that. Laney mentioned you without me asking. All I’m trying to say is that I’ve been here at this party for about”—he looks at his watch—“ten minutes, and I’m ready to leave. I could walk home with you. We are going to the same place.” He casually steps past me and heads out the door of doll-head room.
“Didn’t you come here with Laney?” I ask. Now he stops in his tracks, turns, and comes back into the room. “Shouldn’t you leave with her?” Why would Carver ditch Laney and her cantaloupes to walk home with me?
“Yes, I came here with Laney. No, I don’t need to leave with her. She’s cool, but we’re just friends.”
That wasn’t what I meant, yet it’s nice to have the extra information.
Kirby will be annoyed if Carver walks home with us, I’m sure of it. I know him too well. He doesn’t like a change in plans. And what if Kirby sees through me and notices my perspiring profusely from the Carver-induced rise of my body heat?
“It’s okay. I’ll just see you tomorrow.” Pixie elbows me right in the ribs, probably because she thinks I’m crazy to leave here without him.
“All right, I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says. “I’m just going to keep looking at the heads. Maybe if I look at them long enough, they’ll come to life.” He makes a poof! gesture with his free hand and moves closer to the hundred pairs of lucky doll-head eyes.
I meet Kirby in the hallway. “What did you do?” he asks.
“What do you mean?”
He leans over and points into my empty cup. He lowers his voice. “You pounded your beer, didn’t you?”
I point to the ivy plant. I whisper, “I poured it in there when no one was looking.”
Kirby smirks. “I poured all of mine in the toilet. But the planter… That’s brilliant.”
Yeah, brilliant. I want to be back in the doll-head room with Carver, feeling the ping and drip of feverish giddiness warming my insides. Carver, who apologized for feeding Troy chocolate. Carver, who tried to impress me. Carver, who doesn’t like parties, either. Carver, who’d rather walk home with me than stay at a party with a keg and Laney Benning.
Biting is a cry for help from a spiritually wounded dog.
—Michael Kaplan, The Manifesto of Dog
In the reception area at work the next morning, Vernon passes out our Saturday warm beverages.
Mom sips her Earl Grey tea. “Carver, you’ve been here over a week. You’re ready to meet the dogs.” She says it like a proclamation, as if Carver is graduating from doggie boot camp. Mom is right about one thing: meeting the dogs is a privilege.
I assume that Mom or Vernon will lead Carver through Dog Kennel for Beginners, but before I can get to the reception desk to squelch Pixie, Mom says, “Natalie, take Carver on back. I’ll join you in a few minutes, after I return this phone call.” Mom waves a pink message slip and heads toward her office.
“Let’s head on back,” says Carver, echoing Mom. He’s eager. And I don’t blame him. Poor guy has been working with fish.
Deep breath. It was worth telling Carver how I felt last night because today I feel more at ease with him. “Follow me.”
When we get to the mouth of the kennel, the dogs begin their barking ceremony. The earsplitting yelps and deep woofs rebound off the cement floor, up to the high ceiling, and into a blur of echoes. “Hold on a sec,” I say loudly.
“Sure,” Carver says over the noise. I step away, hoping Carver isn’t looking at my butt right now, and walk the corridor of the kennel run, motioning with a flat hand so that the dogs know to bring it down. Dad taught me this trick.
From behind the chain-link gates of the individual kennels, I make eye contact with each dog, from fur-balled to shorthaired. The procession of barks thins as I reach the end.
I walk back to Carver, whose eyebrows arch at me.
“How did you do that?” he asks.
“What?” I hold my arms behind my back like I’m in some sort of restraint harness.
“They’re quiet.”
“Oh, well, they just wanted to know who was here. You should see my dad. I swear, one look from him and a dog just knows to stop barking.” Each time I let my eyes hover on Carver for more than a second, Pixie does a one-handed cartwheel.
Get back to business. “So,” I say, clapping my hands one time, kindergarten-teacher style.
“Are all the dogs here sick?” Carver asks.
“No, some just board here.” We walk over to the first kennel, where Zenobia, an overfed keeshond with a magnificent coat of gray fur, is staying. Carver bends down in front of her kennel while she stretches her paw underneath her gate to him. “Wow,” he says over a straggling bark at the end of the run, “what a beautiful dog.”
Poetry doesn’t have to rhyme. Sometimes it’s hearing something you rarely say but often think. Carver sees beauty. In a dog. I might have had a hunch about this after seeing the picture of the black Lab up in his room, but it’s now confirmed.
“Zenobia’s owner is out of town a couple of times each month.” I’m very aware of my breathing. Exhale. Inhale. “She’s here on leisure. Go on in.”
Carver gently unhooks her kennel gate. Zenobia huddles down playfully and keeps her ears back, a sign that Carver is welcome.
“I can see why you like it here,” he says with a big smile. At first I’m not sure if he’s talking to Zenobia or me. “There’re no head games with dogs, you know? They either like you or they don’t
.” Zenobia rolls onto her back, allowing Carver to rub her belly.
By the time we approach the last kennel of the run, I am more convinced that Carver may be able to rid himself of a life of fish and cross over to dogdom. There has been no mention of cats and he has had something special to say about each dog: docile, affectionate, energetic, hyper, intelligent, outgoing, confident. He never used the same word twice.
I think he is forgiven for taking away my room. I really do.
Simon, a Doberman mix, stays curled in the corner of his space in the last kennel. His right paw is bandaged and is limply elevated over his left. Discharge goos in the inner corners of his eyes. “Simon here, he’s a stray,” I say. “I found him in the handball courts at school. I called Vernon to come and help me get him. Poor thing was shivering with fear. We had to coax him into the car with food.”
Before I can stop him, Carver compassionately places a finger in the cage, and Simon lurches forward and nips Carver.
“Yow!” he screams, pulling his finger from the gate and tucking it into his other hand.
“Oh my God!” I shout. Simon folds back into his corner and the barking rises from the other dogs in their kennels. “Are you okay?”
Carver cups his bit finger in his hand as if he is holding a wounded mouse. “Yeah,” he answers. “It’s bleeding. And throbbing.”
“We have to get you to a sink!” I grab his arm and lead him to the bathroom. As I run ahead of him, he staggers behind.
When we get to the sink, I immediately squirt about a dozen small blobs of soap into my palm and motion Carver to bring his hand forward. His finger looks like it’s been smeared with ketchup.
“Natalie?” Carver’s voice is quivering a little.
“ Uh-huh? Uh-huh?” I run the warm water over his finger and gently clean out his wound.
“Not to be mean or anything, but why are you so, uh, freaked out?”
My heart is pounding like an urgent fist on a door.
Stray Page 7