My Boyfriends' Dogs

by Dandi Daley Mackall

  “We’re in teams, and we’ll produce a film and have a showing at the end of the summer.”

  “That’s so cool!” I said. “Can anybody come see your film? Could I, for example?” On your arm? As your girlfriend?

  It took him forever to answer. “I don’t think you’d appreciate the film I’ve been producing in film class.”

  Now I was getting a little offended. Maybe I smiled too much. “You don’t know me well enough to say that,” I replied, smile-free.

  He shrugged. “That’s true. One more proof that the world is heavy with judgment and prejudgment. I apologize for succumbing to the prevailing worldview.”

  I was pretty sure that was an apology. Sort of. “That’s okay,” I muttered.

  He stood up. “I should go.”

  No you shouldn’t. “Are you positive that you have the right dog, that this is really Eve and not some other spotted canine? ” I hugged the sweet Dalmatian, who was snoring at my feet. How could I be so attached to this dog already?

  “Come on, Eve,” he called.

  Eve got to her feet. She glanced back at me, then dropped her head and followed Mitch to the door.

  “Sorry about kidnapping Eve,” I said.

  At the doorway, Mitch surprised me by turning around and almost smiling directly at me. His gaze sank deep into my soul as he said, “Don’t be sorry, Bailey. It was fate.”

  He and Eve walked off down the hall.

  I couldn’t stand it. I called after them, “Mitch! When will fate strike again?”

  “Ah, that’s the question,” Mitch hollered without looking back.

  “Wait!” Barefoot, I raced down the hall after them. Ginny, one of our floor-mates, stuck out her head and yelled, “Dog on the floor!” like we sometimes yelled to warn “man on the floor,” in case somebody happened to be streaking from the showers.

  I slid past Mitch and knelt in front of Eve, blocking all forward progress. The big dog sat down and put her paw on my shoulder. She licked my cheek. I gazed up at Mitch. “I want visitation rights.”

  4

  “Can you believe it?” I asked Amber. We were elbow to elbow at the bathroom mirror, getting ready for real dates. Eve sat in the doorway, watching us. I’d been babysitting her off and on for Mitch. He spent so much time in his film workshop, and I couldn’t stand to think of his dog staying home alone. “Here we are at a university, getting ready for our big dates. And we both have boyfriends at the same time.”

  My boyfriend plan had worked, more or less. I’d gone to the right place and gotten the right kind of boyfriend. True, I owed it all to Eve and Dotty. I knew I’d gotten the magnificent Mitch simply because of a case of mistaken identity. But in the end, I had a boyfriend.

  “Steve and I aren’t exclusive, Bailey,” Amber replied. “I keep telling you that.”

  “And Steve, no doubt.”

  She faced me. In two minutes at the mirror, that girl had put on her makeup, and it looked perfect. I had at least thirty more minutes to go.

  She zipped up her little cosmetic bag. “I’m really glad you and Mitch are doing something fun tonight. If you ask me, that boy could use a little fun.”

  “Mitch is fun,” I said defensively. “He just thinks about things more deeply than other people. That’s all. If we all thought as profoundly as Mitch does about life, we’d have trouble being fun all the time, too.”

  “Then I’m glad I’m shallow,” Amber muttered. “And I hope your play is as good as our movie is going to be. Sure you can’t talk Mitch into doubling with Steve and me to the movies? It’s that romantic comedy with the guy you used to have a crush on.”

  “I know. I want to see it. But Mitch is so excited about seeing this play with me. Lubinski is his favorite playwright. He wants to share him with me.”

  Mitch was passionate about filmmaking. I’d finally gotten a boyfriend who was passionate about something besides sex. He never flirted with other girls. And when I’d given him my little gecko talk and told him I’d only mate when I could mate for life, Mitch hadn’t tried to change my mind. He’d just gazed into my eyes and said, “Deep.”

  “Well, hurry up. I want to see what you’re going to wear to this play. I’ve got a couple of ideas for you.”

  We tried on every item of clothing in both of our closets, mixing and matching, and laughing until we collapsed onto my bed. Eve got into the act and jumped on the bed. I had to hold her down so she wouldn’t lick off all my makeup.

  In the end, we settled on a slinky, sleeveless black dress for me, short and tight. Amber wore black silky pants and a sleeveless, electric blue turtleneck that made her eyes look like jewels.

  “Can I wear your black shawl?” I asked, pulling on the three-inch spike heels Mom had bought in a garage sale and mailed to me. This would be the first time I’d worn them.

  “You’re welcome to the shawl, Bailey, but the temperature is supposed to drop tonight. Supposed to break a record or something. I’m taking a heavy sweater.”

  “It can’t get that cold. Besides, no way I’m hiding this,” I declared, pointing to my fancy, sophisticated self.

  The phone rang, and Amber answered it. “Sweet. Right there.” She hung up and grinned. “They’re both downstairs waiting for us.”

  We rode the elevator down. Better to make an entrance from an elevator than a stairwell. As soon as the doors opened, I heard a wolf whistle. We turned toward it, and there were our guys. Steve, looking like he’d won the Vegas jackpot, whistled again. He was wearing an oxford shirt and dress pants. “You ladies look fantastic!” Steve exclaimed, his gaze locked on Amber.

  Mitch, not having given in to societal pressures, was dressed pretty much like he always dressed. Hawaiian snow boots—socks with sandals. Expensive jeans that looked worn out on purpose. And he’d added a tie to his T-shirt, which he did from time to time as “a statement.” I never asked what he was stating with the tie because I didn’t want to sound shallow. But I knew it was loaded with meaning.

  “Ready to go?” Mitch asked.

  We joined our men. I slipped the shawl around my shoulders, and Steve helped Amber with her sweater.

  “Are you two sure you don’t want to come to the movies with us?” Steve asked.

  Mitch shook his head. “I’m boycotting the silver screen and those feeble attempts of bourgeois movies manufactured for commercial consumption.”

  “I’ll take that as a no?” Amber said sweetly.

  “But thanks for asking,” I added. “Maybe next week?” I doubted it, though. I’d practically had to promise Wanda my firstborn to get her to give me a Saturday night off from Grady’s.

  I knew Amber and Steve and Wanda didn’t like Mitch, but that was just because they didn’t understand him. Mitch was almost universally misunderstood. And yet I understood him. I loved him. Sometimes I felt that nobody knew the real Mitch except me.

  Steve offered to give us a ride to the Fine Arts Theater downtown, but Mitch stoically refused. So we walked the twenty-three blocks, much of it in silence because Mitch needed to get into the right mood to appreciate Lubinski.

  Amber the Journalist had turned out to be a reliable weatherperson as well. By the time we made it to the theater, my teeth were chattering, and my blisters had blisters.

  We were the first ones in line, where we had to wait for thirty minutes before the box office opened up. Only a handful of other people trickled in after us.

  It was a classic theater, dingy with age. But you could still see the glory of the past in it. Thick, burgundy velvet curtains folded across a grand stage. A chandelier dangled above our heads. We took our plush velvet seats front and center. Mine kept going back too far, but I loved the wooden armrests. “What a great theater,” I said. The room smelled musty with a hint of grease, but you got used to it.

  Mitch reached over and took my hand. His fingers were long and smooth, an artist’s hand. He whispered in my ear. “I’ve never shared Lubinski with a woman.”

  His brea
th, his voice, and this revelation made me feel closer to him than ever. I tilted my head and kissed him. He kissed me back. He was a great kisser.

  Then he lost himself in the playbill we were handed on the way in.

  I picked up my playbill and tried to read it in the theater’s soft lighting. There wasn’t much information about the play. A drawing at the top pictured a mouth, wide-open, uvula in motion, like somebody belting out a song, maybe. I would have loved to see a musical. I turned to ask Mitch if there’d be singing in the play, but his eyes were closed, and I was afraid to disturb him. He was probably meditating on the play’s theme.

  The only writing on the playbill listed Life as the title and Lubinski as the playwright. I already knew that.

  Finally, the lights dimmed. I glanced around the theater, and the audience wasn’t much bigger than it had been, no more than a dozen of us altogether. I thought about telling Mitch they needed to advertise more, but he was morally and ethically opposed to ads.

  Instead, I reached over for his hand. His fingers interlocked with mine in this tight, intense way he always had, as if he wanted to share his desperation with me. I leaned in closer to him while the theater grew completely black. There wasn’t even an exit light left on.

  With no musical introduction of any kind, no warning to turn off cell phones and beepers, the curtain began to rise.

  A scream rang out from the stage, and I jumped. The scream kept going, getting louder and louder as the curtain rose on a dark stage filled with trash. No actors were in view, but the scream kept going and going.

  As the light onstage got brighter, more trash and garbage came into view. The scream shifted to the background, and a new sound flooded the theater like a rush of wind, a deep inhaling as the lights grew brighter and brighter.

  Then the sound changed to a blowing rush of air, an exhale. Lights dimmed softer and softer as air was exhaled and the curtain lowered until, all out of air, the scream rang out again. Curtain closed. Scream stopped.

  The end.

  The whole thing took less than a minute.

  “That was fantastic!” Mitch exclaimed. “What an experience!” He stood up, threw his arms in the air. “Genius!” He wheeled on me. “Lubinski is the next Brecht, I’m telling you.”

  “Yeah.” What else could I say?

  On the long walk back, Mitch rattled on and on about the lighting, the sound, the genius of production, how he’d give anything to be part of something that big.

  My feet were beyond sore. I couldn’t even feel them anymore. My arms and legs were numb. And my head hurt. I could have screamed and made my own play.

  And then Mitch surprised me again, just like he always seemed to do at the right time, the times when I started wondering if we were too different after all. He stopped and turned to me, and he smiled. “Bailey, there’s no one else in this miserable world I’d want to share that moment with except you.” Then he kissed me and kissed me. They could have run two dozen Lubinski plays while we kissed under the stars in a shiver of moonlight that warmed me to my bones. At last, he said, “I love you, Bailey.”

  5

  My musical career at Grady’s Gas and Snack was giving me a bit of fame around campus. Almost every day somebody would walk up to me and ask, “Aren’t you the singing Grady girl?” Sometimes they’d high-five me, or say nice things about my voice or style. Once somebody asked for my autograph. Wanda said business had picked up because of me.

  Mitch never told me I had a great voice. But he stopped by Grady’s sometimes. He taught me a few songs that came in handy for the late-night crowds, like “Eve of Destruction,” and “In the Midnight Hour.” Once he had his guitar with him, and we did “Where Have All the Flowers Gone?” for a guy frantically buying up pink carnations for his wife because he’d forgotten their anniversary.

  Mom still e-mailed and texted, or called, every day, but her new job kept her busy on the weekends. Her boss didn’t want her leaving town and missing a big real estate deal, and she didn’t have any vacation days saved up. So, of course, she quit.

  “Isn’t that great news?” Mom said. “You and Amber won’t come home to visit, so now I can pay you guys a visit!”

  Summer school was almost over, but I knew how much this visit meant to Mom. I’d missed her, too. And Adam. “You have to bring Adam!” I said, getting into the spirit of the thing. “And you can finally meet Mitch.”

  “Exactly,” Mom said.

  Then I got an idea. “Mom, if you can make it this weekend, you can see Mitch’s production!” Mitch’s film workshop had finished their big project, an actual film, and they were showing it on campus. “Saturday is opening night.”

  “I’ll be there,” Mom promised.

  “And don’t forget Adam. I want him to meet Eve.”

  Friday afternoon Amber, Eve, and I waited outside on the dorm steps. Mom was late, as always. I knew she couldn’t help stopping at garage sales on the way.

  Soon as we saw her van, we ran out and flagged her into the visitors’ parking lot. I think I was as excited about seeing Adam as I was about seeing my mother. The second she pulled into the parking space, I opened the van door. There were a chest of drawers, an old broom, and a box of stuff wrapped in newspapers—but no dog.

  “Where’s Adam?” I demanded.

  “I’m sorry, honey.” She stuffed her phone and wallet into her purse and climbed out of the van. “I just couldn’t bring Adam.”

  I was so disappointed that tears blocked my throat. I had to swallow before I could talk. “But you promised.”

  “I didn’t promise. I said I’d try.”

  Then I got a horrible thought. “Adam’s sick, isn’t he! Or . . . he’s . . . he isn’t . . . ? ” I couldn’t even say the words.

  “No, honey. Adam’s fine.”

  “Then why isn’t he here?” I knew I sounded like a five-year-old, but I missed my dog.

  Amber walked up and hugged my mom. “Hey, Big D. Great to see you.”

  “Thanks, Amber. You too.” Mom turned to me. “Bailey, your dog has been eating us out of house and home.”

  “So?”

  “So he’s become king of the gas. Believe me, you don’t want that little chubs in your dorm room. I drove him to the vet yesterday, and it almost killed me when he—”

  “The vet?” I interrupted.

  “Just to see why Adam’s been gaining so much weight. The vet gave your dog a clean bill of health and put him on a special diet. With a special food at a special price, I might add. Sarah Jean’s watching him for us. Besides, what if you get caught with a dog in your room?”

  I hadn’t exactly told Mom that I’d been babysitting Mitch’s dog in my room. Eve, fed up with being out of the loop, nosed her way through to Mom.

  “And you must be Eve.” Mom stroked the dog’s head. “She’s so pretty. And big. Pleased to meet you, Eve.” She glanced around. “Where’s Mitch?”

  “He couldn’t come.” Mitch hadn’t said why. He wasn’t into giving excuses or reasons for his actions. Mitch believed people should just “be,” and other people should accept. I was pretty sure my mother wouldn’t go for that explanation, though. “We’re meeting him at this great pizza place.”

  “Okey-doke,” Mom said. “You’re the boss, Bailey. This is your world, and I’m just a visitor.” She sounded like she’d rehearsed those lines on the drive up, but it was a nice thing to say anyway.

  I leaned down and hugged her. “Thanks for coming, Mom. I can’t wait for you to meet Mitch. He’s a little nervous about his film debuting tomorrow. It means a lot to both of us that you’ll be there.”

  “Are you kidding? Who would have thought I’d be going to a movie debut?” Mom locked the van, and we started for the dorm. “Are his parents coming? I’ll bet it’s going to be a really big night for Mitch.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t think he invited them. And it’s not exactly Mitch’s movie.” I glanced back at Mom. “It was a team effort with his whole class. Mi
tch thinks it would have been better if he could have directed the whole thing himself. I think he might be waiting to invite his parents to something he directs.”

  Mitch had let me view the film in editing with a couple of the guys in his film class. The movie was still pretty rough. I knew Amber and Mom wouldn’t like it, but it wasn’t totally weird, like Lubinski, or a gross-out or anything. I was reasonably confident that my mom and my best friend could fake enthusiasm for my sake.

  “Wait a minute,” Amber said as we skirted the sidewalk to the dorm’s rear entrance, since we had Eve with us. “All week you’ve been telling everybody this was Mitch’s show, that he was the director, right? That’s what you said when you strong-armed our whole dorm, plus all your Grady’s Gas and Snack fans, to go see it.”

  “I know. I sort of misunderstood that part,” I admitted. I’d really thought Mitch was directing until I watched the editing session, not that it really mattered. “The film was more of a team project. Officially, Mitch was a grip.”

  “A what?” Mom asked.

  “A grip. Like a movie grip? They always list the grips at the end of movies in the film credits. It’s a real job, Mom.”

  “I’m sure it is, honey. And I’m looking forward to seeing the film. What’s it called again?”

  “Earth.”

  We showed Mom what we’d done with our dorm room. Then we walked around campus until it was time to meet Mitch at Shakespeare’s Pizza. Mom filled us in on Millet gossip and the new job she’d be starting next week as church secretary and part-time hospice worker. “It doesn’t pay as well as real estate. I even made more at my old dentist’s office job, but the people I work with at the church are so much nicer than people with toothaches and root canals.”

  Shakespeare’s Pizza was Friday-night busy. We waited twenty minutes for a booth, and Mitch still hadn’t shown.

  “Should you call him?” Mom asked after we’d ordered Cokes.

  “Nah,” Amber answered, handing Mom a menu. “Mitch is always late.”

  “He’s not always late,” I snapped. “He probably got held up.”