Lila Blue

by Annie Katz

  "Yes," she said. "I know this is the perfect dog, and Curtis will take us, so come. I need you."

  I sighed. "Let me check with Lila," I said, hoping Lila would say no, but of course she said whatever I wanted to do would be fine.

  "Okay," I told Molly. "Give me a few minutes to prepare myself." I took a big wad of tissues and stuffed them in the front pocket of my backpack. I knew I'd need them no matter how this adventure turned out.

  When I arrived at Sunshine Books, Molly was practically hopping up and down waiting for me. She had found the car keys for Curtis and rousted him out of his chair. I nodded hello to Marge, who shrugged and rolled her eyes at me as Molly dragged us out to the car. We all squeezed in the front seat, Molly in the middle. She'd brought a towel for the dog to sit on and a pink ribbon for a leash.

  The coast highway wound along beaches and over cliffs above the sea. The sun was shining on the clear blue ocean, and the ride was glorious. It was warm enough to have the windows down, so the cool ocean mist from the waves coated our faces.

  Molly said, "The dog's name is Juliet. She's an Australian silky, which is a special kind of dog perfect for Kitty Lynn. When I called, the lady at the shelter said Juliet must have a quiet home with lots of affection. When they rescued her, she had a terrible nervous condition from being left alone in a house with two big dogs, five kids, and a parrot."

  "Living with a parrot would give anyone a nervous condition," I said, thinking of Buster at the hardware store. "Does she have an ugly rash or something?"

  "No, she's all healed or they wouldn't let her be adopted. She will love the yarn shop. Everyone who goes in there is quiet and nice."

  "I hope she's not allergic to wool," I said.

  Suddenly Curtis laughed so loud Molly and I both stared at him. I was afraid he'd lose control of the car and we'd plunge over the cliff into the ocean.

  I was used to Curtis being in the background. His explosive laughter was as unexpected as a tree screaming and running across the street. It shocked me.

  He laughed long and hard and then kept chuckling every few minutes while we watched him to see if he was okay. Tears ran down his face, and he wiped them away with the back of his hand. He finally calmed down and kept his eyes on the road, so we let him fade into the background again.

  Juliet was better than even Molly had imagined. She looked scared, sweet, and grateful all at the same time. She had the prettiest face with big perky ears and syrupy eyes. Her hair was blonde and it was trimmed short, so she was soft to pet. She licked Molly's hand and looked up at her with that sweet face.

  Curtis said, "Uh oh."

  I knew what he meant. I was afraid Molly would be getting a new dog, not Kitty Lynn. GrumpaLump were Molly's pets, but they were about as entertaining as an old coat, so I could see where Molly would be seduced by such adoration.

  Curtis stood by Molly as she filled out all the paperwork and paid the lady at the shelter. It was amazing how handy Curtis was. Imagine how hard it would have been for Molly and me to get Juliet out of there without Curtis. We'd have to steal her. From a place where they try to find good homes for dogs.

  In the car, Molly and Juliet and I rode in the back seat. Molly situated Juliet on the towel between us, and Juliet went along with whatever Molly wanted. Molly tied a pink ribbon around her neck and made a fancy bow, like a birthday present package. Juliet had a collar with an ID tag, and Molly tied another length of pink ribbon onto that to serve as a leash.

  After Curtis parked the car in their regular space behind the bookstore, Curtis said to Molly, "What now, chief?"

  "If we all go over to Kitty's shop, she'll suspect something," she said.

  "And she'd be correct," I said.

  Molly ignored me.

  "So Cassandra and I will walk Juliet over for a visit."

  "Pretending Juliet is your new dog?" I asked.

  "That wouldn't work," Molly said, "because Kitty would be too kind to take my dog, even if she loved it."

  "You're right," I said. "Why don't we tell her the truth?" I was thinking of Lila's impeccably honest rule. It worked every time I'd tried it, even when it was hard.

  Molly frowned. I think she was trying to come up with something better than the truth.

  "Okay," she said finally. "Cassandra, you’ll help, won’t you?"

  "Sure," I said. "I know you'll say exactly the right thing."

  We decided to walk from the car around the back of the building, across the crosswalk, and directly to the yarn shop rather than going through the bookstore. Juliet stayed beside Molly and kept looking up at her. She didn't pull on the ribbon leash or seem upset. She was too busy adoring Molly.

  There wasn't much traffic, and we got across the highway just fine. By the time we got to the door of Kitty Lynn's, which was open, Kitty had spotted us. She came around the counter as Molly, Juliet, and I entered, and she said, "Who's this little friend?"

  "Her name is Juliet," Molly said. "I checked her out from the shelter to see if you like her."

  Kitty bent down to meet Juliet, who licked her hand and looked up with those scared, sweet eyes and those perky big ears. "Oh, what a charmer you are," Kitty said to the dog.

  "She needs a home," Molly said, "and I already have GrumpaLump, so I thought if you adopt her, I can come every day and help you take care of her. I'll be her big sister."

  "Molly, I know you mean well, but I'm not ready for another dog."

  Molly didn't answer, she just sighed and sat on the floor and hugged Juliet, who climbed up in her lap and leaned against her chest.

  "I don't think it would be wise to get one before I'm really ready," Kitty Lynn went on, but I could tell she was getting more ready by the second, watching how cute and nice Juliet was.

  Molly wouldn't look at Kitty Lynn. She kept petting Juliet and telling her what a sweet good dog she was.

  I felt I should do my part, so I said, "Molly found out Juliet got sick at her last home, because there were five kids and two dogs and a parrot, and she couldn't take it anymore and broke out in hives or something."

  Kitty looked outraged. "The poor baby!" she said. "How could anyone do such a thing to this sweet little angel?"

  "I don't know," I said. "I can't understand why anyone would want a parrot, much less five kids."

  Kitty Lynn got down on the floor then, which wasn't too easy for her to do, because she was a big lady, and Juliet climbed into her lap and gave her the lovey dovey treatment she'd been giving Molly.

  I was pretty sure by this time how it was going to go, so I got out my tissues from my backpack and started crying before we even got to the happy ending.

  Molly stood up and said, "Cassandra, what's wrong?"

  "It breaks my heart when somebody really needs a good home."

  "Well, you can stop crying," Kitty Lynn said, "because Molly's plan worked this time. I couldn't send this precious doll away, not after all she's been through. She's home."

  That really set me off and I cried and cried, using up all the tissues I had in my backpack and scrounging around behind Kitty's sales counter for some more. Molly stood back and looked at me as though I'd lost my mind, which I guess I had, because apparently my brain was flooded with maudlin hormones.

  When I ran dry and pulled myself back together, Molly shook her head at me and said, "Weird."

  She was right about that.

  We had to help Kitty Lynn get up off the floor, and then we helped her make a place behind the counter for Juliet to sleep near Kitty.

  Then she sent us on a mission to the hardware store for dog food, a pet bed, a nice leash, food and water dishes, chew toys, and a doggy hairbrush. By the time we rounded up all the stuff for Kitty Lynn and Juliet and recounted the whole story to Marge and Curtis, it was five o'clock, only an hour from closing time.

  I hadn't thought at all about the gun essay until I walked into Lila's shop. She and Herbert were both working on clients, so I played with the building blocks and read the storyboo
ks on the kid table. One book was about a caterpillar who was a bully until all his friends made him stop. Another was about an ogre who was kind but no one gave him a chance to prove it, because they were prejudiced against ogres. I wished real life were as clear and simple as children's picture books.

  Lila was toward the end of her customer's haircut. He was a man I'd seen before in the village, but I didn't know anything about him. He said, "I liked your essay."

  "Thanks," said Lila.

  "My wife wondered if some people would get upset, but I told her not to worry. The guys at the hardware store would give it maybe fifteen minutes and the guys at the corner pub couldn't keep a train of thought going if they had to."

  "I don’t think anyone needs to worry," Lila said. "Shining the light on something is never a bad idea."

  He laughed. "The last time I shined a light on a can of worms, they crawled off in all directions."

  "I'm sure there's a lesson in that," Lila said, laughing. "But I'm not sure what it is."

  He laughed. After he'd paid Lila and was ready to leave the shop, he said, "See you Tuesday night."

  Lila smiled and bowed Namaste to him. After he left, she cleaned up her worktable while I swept up the hair from around her chair and from Herbert's area, what I could reach without getting in his way.

  Herbert's clients always seemed to talk nonstop, which worked out great, because he never had to say anything. The guy in his chair was complaining about his wife's relatives coming to stay for a vacation and then neglecting to move out.

  "My wife said it would be two weeks at the most, and it's been two months. Her sister has even registered their kids in school here. Last week they pitched a tent in our backyard and invited more relatives to come to live with us. I told my wife either they had to leave or I would. She said as long as I kept up the mortgage payments, it didn't matter that much to her either way.

  "I decided to stay and drive her relatives away. I found out her sister hates cigar smoke, so I took up smoking cigars first thing in the morning at the breakfast table. I'd blow the smoke right in her face. It was going okay until the cigars made me so sick I couldn't eat for three days, so now I'm back to square one.”

  "Some of the kids are okay, though,” he said. “The youngest one wants to play chess with me day and night. He's only nine, but I have to work to keep up with him. He beat me in three minutes last night. I didn't even have a good strategy figured out. Next thing I know, he says checkmate, and sure enough, he had me."

  Herbert finished the man's cut and took his money. He bowed thank you to him but didn't say a word. The man probably thought Herbert was a good listener, but I was pretty sure Herbert listening to clients was like him listening to birds or monkeys. He heard the familiar chatter, but there was no curiosity about the nature or meaning of the noises.

  After I swept the whole floor, I tidied up the waiting area while Lila washed combs and Herbert put a load of towels in the washer in the back room. When he came back in, Lila said, "If it's okay with you, I'll go on home with Cassandra now." Herbert smiled and nodded, so we left through the front door, both of us touching the base of the barber pole to bless the shop on the way out.

  As soon as we got home and greeted Chloe and Zoe, the phone rang. I took my backpack into my room to put my stuff away, and when I came back out, Lila was saying, "Sure. Come on over. We just got home. Hold on."

  Lila said to me, "Marta is bringing Chinese takeout. What do you like?"

  I told her fried rice and ginger chicken, so she relayed the message to Marta.

  By the time Marta arrived, Lila had showered and I'd set the table. I predicted a gorgeous sunset, because a thin line of clouds floated way off on the horizon in an otherwise clear sky. That cloud line on the horizon often made the sun huge and orange, and it would melt all over the place, making pyramids and spaceships and diamonds before it finally disappeared.

  Marta was Lila's age, but she had the energy of a kid, an overactive one at that. She bounced around getting chopsticks and soy sauce from Lila's kitchen as if it were hers. I could tell they'd shared lots of meals together.

  "Hank is pleased with how it all came together," she said. Marta and Hank, the client who'd asked Lila to write about guns, were friends. Lila told me they had tried living together, but that only lasted three weeks, so they went back to what worked. Hank was a building contractor and the head of the community council, and Marta was influential in local politics too. Lila preferred watching from the sidelines.

  "Hank seems to have strong feelings about this," Lila said, as we took turns scooping steamy food from the white paper cartons onto Lila's good china.

  "He thinks we can lead the nation," Marta said. "He imagines our community going down in history books, like Rosa Parks. One small victory that gets the ball rolling for progress."

  I thought about the Emperor's New Clothes again. I didn't want to go down in any history books.

  "All I heard at the barber shop was positive," Lila said. "But then I guess the ones who were not happy with us wouldn't want a haircut today, huh?"

  "Probably not," I said, laughing. "They're probably spending the weekend shaggy, and they'll all be in on Monday."

  "And Herbert will be busy, which he loves, and I won't have to work with them, which is fine with me."

  She smiled and patted my hand. "Maybe we can take a drive on my days off," she said. "To Obsidian Springs or Haystack Rock. Or we might go spend the night at Crater Lake."

  I smiled and nodded, willing to go anywhere with Lila.

  Marta said, "Running off when things get interesting, huh?"

  We all laughed and helped ourselves to more food.

  After dinner, the three of us went for a walk on the beach. It was glorious. The tide was low, so it was a long walk from the bottom of the stairs to the surf line. The setting sun sparkled just right on the clear stones exposed at the water’s edge, and we found nice agates to admire and collect for the porch basket.

  It seemed years instead of months since I had destroyed Lila's collection basket. Now the new basket was half full. Maybe that's how healing happens, one small stone at a time.

  I still hurt when I thought about David, and I knew there was a deep well of anger and sadness I'd barely glimpsed, but I was doing fine with having brothers now and learning to accept a less than perfect mother and give her space to grow. My healing seemed connected with this beach, this shoreline, and this sun setting beyond the horizon every night. I felt as lucky and grateful as Juliet. I was home.

  Shattered Glass

  After our walk, Marta left and Lila and I went right to bed. I was so happy and relaxed that I went to sleep smiling and thinking life was perfect.

  I was deep in a dream when I heard the phone ringing. In the dream I was on a big sailboat, and the sound of the real life phone changed into a foghorn in the dream, and I knew everyone had to be careful. By the time I pulled myself awake, I could hear Lila talking on the phone with someone, so I got up to see what was happening.

  "I'll be right there," she said, and she hung up the phone.

  "Who is it, Grandma," I asked, my mind running through all the people I cared about.

  "Everyone's fine," she said, responding to the fear on my face. "It's only vandalism. The police want to meet me at the shop. Get dressed and come with me."

  While I was pulling on my jeans, I saw it was two forty-five in the morning. It must have been more than a few dirty words on the wall for the police to wake Lila up.

  It was. When we got there, two police cars were at the scene with their lights flashing, which made a strange strobe effect on the shattered glass from the barbershop windows. Paul and Donny from the bakery were talking to two police officers by one of the cars. Their shop didn't seem damaged. All the lights were on in the bakery, and it looked okay.

  Lila parked across the highway from the police cars. While we walked across the road to the scene, my mind was split into a thinker and a watcher. Part of
my mind was watching the other part jump around trying to explain how the windows got broken. At the same time I was acutely aware of the chill of the night air and other sensory details. The red and blue flashing police lights turned ordinary things into extraordinary fantasy objects that blinked in and out of existence. Mainly I was worried about Lila, hoping that whoever did this was not planning to hurt her next.

  The police chief, Randall, came over and shook Lila's hand. "Sorry to wake you in the middle of the night," he said to us.

  Lila smiled and said, "As long as you don't make it a habit."

  "We've arrested a suspect, Fred Wattles. Donny and Paul were working in the bakery kitchen when they heard the shots. Donny saw Fred drive away and chased him to get the license number. Paul called the station, and we picked Fred up five minutes later as he was pulling into his driveway. He confessed, gave us the gun, and then threw up in his front yard.”

  "Apparently,” Randall continued, “he'd been at the pub all night getting worked up about people taking away his guns. It's good we got a confession, because I doubt he'll remember anything when he wakes up."

  "Fred," Lila said. "Poor Veronica. She's had the patience of a saint, but this might be too much."

  Randall laughed. "When we woke her up to say we had to take him in, she said don't bother bringing him back."

  "Let's see it then," Lila said, and I realized Randall had been avoiding showing us the damage to the shop.

  "He used his old deer rifle, that thirty ought six he carried in his pickup. Shot out both windows, a hole in the door." He stepped out of her way to let her go ahead, pointing a big flashlight to the ground. "Watch the glass."

  When he shined the light on the front door, Lila stopped. The barber pole was shattered. She stood very still, the way she prayed on the beach some mornings, for several seconds. Then she sighed and reached out to touch the pole's base before she opened the door with her key, stepped inside, and turned on all the lights. I followed her inside, and Randall came in behind me.