The Art of Wag

by Susan C. Daffron

  “Me neither.” Joel closed the pantry door and sat down next to her.

  Kat leaned an elbow on the table and rested her chin on her hand. “So what do you think? Are Tracy and Rob having sex? Because I think they are. Tracy looked way more relaxed.”

  “Have you picked up Maria’s ability to determine these things?”

  “No. She is the goddess. I’m just guessing. I have no idea how she can tell with such accuracy when people have done the deed. But she’s never wrong.”

  Joel leaned back in his chair and stretched his long legs out under the table. “I’ll take your word for it.”

  Kat tapped one of his feet with her toes. “Hey, maybe we could actually go out somewhere to celebrate our lack of house guest!”

  “Okay. Where?”

  “Let’s go to the Italian place. I’ve never been there with you. It could be fun.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  Kat jumped out of the chair and ran to the bedroom closet. “I could wear girlie clothes!”

  Joel leaned in the doorway, observing while Kat rummaged through her side of the closet. He poked at a loose splinter of wood in the door frame. “Did you find out why your mother wanted those letters so badly?”

  Kat paused in her clothing quest and turned to face him. “Sort of. She wrote to Abigail for years.”

  “I know. She said that.”

  “I guess she wanted the letters because they more or less chronicle her entire life with my father.” Kat walked over to the bed and sat down. “Including the time around when he died. The day my mother arrived here was the anniversary of his death.”

  Joel walked into the room and sat on the bed next to her. “Well, that explains a lot. You don’t really talk about your father much.”

  “You’re telling me I don’t talk about something. You? Mr. Clam Up and Walk Away? Really?”

  He pushed a long lock of dark hair behind her shoulder and took one of her hands in his. “Okay, I know. Pot calling the kettle black and all that. I get it. But I have wondered what happened with him.”

  “He was always really quiet. I mean, I guess those of us who lived with my mother kind of found our own ways of coping. Mine was to go hide out and read. His was to be very quiet and kind of disappear. It helped that he worked long hours and I hardly ever saw him, except at dinner. And then like I said, at some point we stopped eating together. I think you can guess why. On the weekends, he tended to leave the house to do errands or something. I don’t know. Once he told me he went to the library to read history books, which I thought was interesting.” Kat looked up into Joel’s face. “Anyway, we weren’t particularly close, but he always seemed to be such a kind person, you know?”

  Joel nodded. “I’m thinking you learned kindness from him.”

  “Definitely not from my mother. And my grandmother on my mother’s side makes my mother seem like Snow White singing to birdies and chipmunks in a Disney film.”

  “Your mother doesn’t seem like a happy person.”

  Kat looked down at her fingers interlaced with Joel’s. “No. She’s always been like that. I thought it was just that we’re so different. Which we are. But it’s not just me. She doesn’t seem to like anybody.”

  He squeezed her hand. “Definitely not me anyway. When did your father die?”

  “Three years ago. He had a massive heart attack, and was in a coma for a little while, then my mother had to pull the plug. It was what he would have wanted.”

  Joel put his arm around her and pulled her close. “Still, that must have been hard.”

  A tear slid down Kat’s cheek. “Yeah, it was kinda rough. He was only in his late fifties too. I know now that we weren’t technically even related, but he was my father. And you’ve met my mother. Overt displays of emotion aren’t exactly her thing. She kind of made it seem like nothing had happened and returned to her cleaning.”

  “Everyone has their own ways of coping.”

  “I know. And she never said much about Abigail after I found out about my complicated background either.” Kat snuggled into his shirt. “I’ve read about people who find out they’re adopted and freak out. They have a big identity crisis, running around shrieking how they don’t know who they are anymore. For me, it just explained some things about why I was so different from my parents. But in the long run, nothing changed. My mother is still my mother and my father was my father, you know?”

  “Yes. I understand what you mean.”

  Kat looked up into his eyes. “She didn’t show me the letters, but I’m guessing that’s where she let out some of her feelings. About falling in love with my father way back when, then life with him, and finally his death. Almost like a diary.”

  “That would explain why she wanted to find them.”

  “And why she hated you so vigorously.”

  Joel cupped her chin with his hand and kissed her. “I thought she hated everyone. And particularly the guys you went out with.”

  Kat took his hand again. “That’s true, but she seemed to have an extra-special venom for you. I think because you tend to be quiet. Perhaps that reminded her too much of my father.”

  Joel raised an eyebrow, “What?”

  “Eww. Don’t give me that look. I’m not having some weird daddy issues with you. I can talk to you. Maybe you don’t talk to anyone else, but you talk to me. Well, most of the time, anyway.” She reached out and tickled his ribs. “Are you going to tell me how you broke a bone?”

  He grabbed her hands, pulled them away from his stomach, and held them out to the side. “Maybe later. It’s just us and the critters in the house again.”

  Kat considered the twinkle in his deep green eyes and flopped backward onto the bed, pulling him onto her. A familiar thrill of excitement flashed through her body as he bent to kiss her neck. “I see what you mean. The critters never tell anyone our secrets. Maybe we can go out to eat some other night.”

  He raised his head and smiled. “We’ll find some food here somewhere. Later.”

  “Yes. Later.”

  Chapter 12

  The Mood of the Room

  Rob carried the crate up the stairs to Tracy’s apartment while she carried Roxy. She put Roxy on the floor and opened the door. “We’re home, Roxy!” The dog ran into the apartment and across the floor to her food bowl. She examined the empty dish and looked up at Tracy in disgust.

  Tracy walked to the kitchen and dispensed some dog food. “Fine. Here you go.”

  Rob put down the crate, sat down on the sofa, and looked around the room. “Where do you sleep?”

  “You’re sitting on it. It’s a fold-out couch, but usually I don’t bother, since the hinges are sort of broken.”

  “Sort of? Isn’t something either broken or not?”

  “I use an old lock to latch it together. It mostly works.” Sometimes. When she could find the lock.

  He looked down at the couch. “I see why you were impressed with the beds in the H12. Do you want me to take a look at it?”

  Tracy sat down next to him. “You don’t have to. It’s been this way forever. I’m not worried about it.” She put her arms around his neck. “And you seem overdressed.”

  He pushed her back onto the couch and slid his hands under her shirt and alongside her body, pushing the fabric up. “So do you.”

  A few minutes later, they fell off the couch onto the floor with a resounding thud. Roxy barked and walked over to the complicated pile of humans to investigate. Tracy sat up and pushed Roxy’s nose away. “Go away Roxy. Ouch. That hurt. I’m glad the store is closed. Shoppers probably don’t appreciate loud upstairs neighbors. Not to mention my mom. Ugh.”

  Rob stretched out a leg and rubbed at his hip. “I hate to complain, but you have a furniture problem.”

  “I know. There isn’t any. And what’s here is decomposing. It’s trying to return to the land.” Tracy gripped his arm. “Hey, I just realized something. You owe me money. I could buy a bed! Or at least a new couch.”
/>   “I vote for the bed.”

  “Would you settle for a futon? I need a place to sit and watch TV too. There’s not enough space for both a bed and a couch in here.”

  “I noticed. Where are my pants?”

  Tracy pointed to a heap of cloth on the floor. “Over there.”

  Rob reached over and extracted a piece of paper from a pocket. “I did a spreadsheet of the hours you worked. I was going to show it to you, but I forgot.”

  “A spreadsheet? Sometimes I wonder about you.”

  “I wanted to keep track.”

  Tracy looked at the numbers. “Wow. I can so afford a futon.” She smiled. “I’m going to pick up the freebie classified newspaper on my way to work tomorrow and look at furniture ads.”

  “What if you got a new futon? One that no one else has actually slept on. Or sat on. Or done anything else on.”

  She scowled. “Maybe. I haven’t looked at anything new in a long time. I don’t know what it would cost.”

  Rob wrapped his arms around her and kissed her. “I think it would be worth it.” He looked down at the floor. “I feel like I’m sitting in a sandbox. And I think there’s a chew toy digging into my—-me.”

  She peered around his body “That’s gotta hurt.”

  Rob stood up and reached for his pants. “It’s getting late. I should probably go back to the H12 and clean up the room. We left it kind of a mess.”

  Tracy stood up and put her arms around him. “I could help.”

  “Will Roxy be okay here by herself?”

  “Sure. A lot of times, she sleeps in her crate at night anyway.” Tracy reached for her shirt. “I’ll just take her for her bedtime walk first. Then we can leave. She’ll never know the difference.”

  After walking Roxy and stowing her in the crate, Tracy and Rob went down the stairs to the street. As Tracy was locking the downstairs door, a low howl arose from upstairs. She looked at Rob. “I guess this really shows how little I get out. Roxy is in her crate, so she knows I’m leaving for the night.” The howling continued rising in pitch and was punctuated by barking and yipping as Roxy worked herself into an exceptional vocal frenzy.

  Rob looked at Tracy. “It’s hard to believe something that small can make so much noise.”

  “When it comes to changes in her routine, Roxy likes to express her opinion.”

  He cupped her face with both hands and kissed her. “I think you need to attend to Roxy. If she keeps that up, someone is going to call whatever law enforcement there is here. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

  Tracy wrapped her arms around him and hugged hard. “This has been such a—I don’t even know what kind of day. But I wish you weren’t leaving. I’ll call around for futon prices at lunch. Promise.”

  “I’ll come by the clinic at three and bring your check.”

  Tracy released him from the hug and held one of his hands. “See you.”

  He let go of her hand and began walking down the sidewalk, but Tracy didn’t move. As the traffic light flashed red, she stared at his retreating form, pondering the various intricacies of his body that she’d spent quite a lot of time exploring earlier. Halfway down the block, he turned and looked back at her. “Go deal with your dog. I can hear her from here!”

  Startled into motion, Tracy waved and turned to unlock the door. She ran up the stairs and opened the door to the apartment. Roxy stood in her crate, completely silent. Tracy walked over to the dog and crouched down in front of her. “You are really putting a damper on my social life, you know.”

  Since she was already way too awake with frustrated hormones jangling everywhere, Tracy decided to clean up a little. By midnight, almost everything was off the floor, except for big things like the paint box, which didn’t really have a place to go. Now that she could see it again, Tracy even swept and mopped the floor.

  She looked down at Roxy, who was sleeping happily in her crate. “This is all your fault. I hate cleaning.” Tracy swished the brackish water in the bucket with the mop. “Maybe it was a little dirty. But not sandbox dirty. I mean, come on. I do have a few standards.” Roxy lifted her head and stared at her sleepily. “Okay. Maybe not.”

  The next morning, the alarm rang painfully early. Tracy dragged herself out of bed and managed to get to the clinic on time. Barely. She began cleaning kennels and preparing for the day. Dr. Cassidy walked in and worked on setting up her surgery station.

  Tracy pulled some surgery packs out of the autoclave and set them aside. She walked over to the vet. “I saw on the schedule that we have some new appointments in there that weren’t there on Saturday. What happened? We’re double-booked for a couple of slots and I would really like to leave on time today. Would it be okay if I try to move some stuff around?”

  Dr. C looked up. “Yes. Call the ones getting just vaccinations and see if they can reschedule to later in the week. I came in to do an emergency surgery on a cat yesterday and he’s coming in again for a follow-up so I can take a look. And then someone else called with a basset who probably has an ear infection. The poor guy sounds really unhappy. Lots of head shaking.”

  “Okay, I’ll get on it.”

  “You look tired. How was the meeting? Did it go well?”

  Tracy shook her head. “I don’t know. It’s hard to say. I stayed up too late cleaning my apartment, so I’m sort of tired.”

  “Cleaning? Really?”

  “You don’t have to look so surprised. I clean. It’s not that unusual.” Yes it was. And it wasn’t the only reason she was tired.

  After chatting with what seemed like half of the answering machines in Alpine Grove, Tracy managed to communicate with enough people to reschedule several appointments, so when Rob came by at three, she was ready to leave. She waved to him in the lobby, unsnapped her dog-hair-covered scrub jacket, and hung it on a hook.

  He leaned on the counter. “So did you call about futons?”

  “Yes. I found a great one. And it’s on sale!”

  “I’m happy to hear that. On another note, it’s a beautiful day out there.” He held out his keys. “Here you go.”

  Tracy’s eyes widened. “Ohmigod!” She snatched the keys from his hand and ran out the door. She opened the car, crawled into the plush interior, and reached over to unlock the passenger door.

  Rob got in the car. “Be nice. This is not The Turd.”

  “I can be nice.” After putting on her seat belt and adjusting the seats and mirrors, she put the car in neutral and turned the key. The car purred to life and idled quietly. “Wow. Just wow.” She leaned over to Rob and gave him a kiss. “I’m glad to see you too.”

  “Thanks for noticing I’m here.”

  Tracy put the car in gear and drove slowly through Alpine Grove, carefully shifting gears, getting the feel for the clutch and the car’s steering. She headed out toward the long rural road that once was used by farmers taking their wares to the marketplace to be sold. The aptly named Farm to Market Road wound around through the hills with lots of fun dips and valleys. For someone who loved to drive, it was the perfect automotive playground.

  Rob was right; it was a gorgeous fall day, probably one of the last of the season. The afternoon sun streamed through the trees as Tracy cruised along the deserted pavement. The Honda was just as much fun to drive as she had anticipated. She opened the moon roof and let the air stream through the car.

  Rob pointed at a road off to the right. “I went that way earlier. There’s a pretty little park back in there. I guess it’s a memorial or something.”

  Tracy nodded. “Yes. Teenagers also go there late at night to drink beer and make out.”

  “That wasn’t in the brochure.”

  She flashed a grin at him. “It never is.”

  After an exhilarating drive through the hills, Tracy returned to Alpine Grove, deposited her check at the bank, and parked in front of the furniture store. “Let’s buy me a futon!”

  Rob got out of the car. “I get to witness a special moment here. You buying new fu
rniture.”

  “Don’t get used to it. My financial picture is rarely this good. I might even buy a new box of cereal.”

  “I think we ate all the Cap’n Crunch.”

  After spending some time sitting on the new futon to try it out, Tracy paid for it and asked the store to deliver it to her place that evening.

  They got back into the car and Rob drove to Tracy’s apartment. Tracy reclined in the passenger seat and reached out to stroke the back of his hand on the gear shift. “That was the best drive ever. Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome. I’ve never seen anyone enjoy driving a car quite so much.”

  Tracy sighed. “I would love to go on a long multi-state road trip. Maybe even all the way across the country. The farthest I’ve ever gone was to LA. In The Turd. Which is just sad.”

  Rob shifted gears and reached over to hold her hand. “Well, I can’t argue that The Turd is sad, but I’m sure you’ll take a road trip someday.”

  “With all that extra cash I have lying around? I haven’t gone anywhere in years. I haven’t had a vacation, unless you count when I was unemployed. Which I don’t, because in case you’re wondering, unemployment and vacation are definitely not the same thing.”

  “Today is the first day I have really been on vacation since—-well, I’m not sure exactly. I’ve done a lot of traveling, but traveling for work isn’t a lot of fun. Or at least for the type of work I do. Standing on top of a big-box store in North Dakota in January is not an experience I’d like to repeat.”

  Tracy released Rob’s hand so he could shift gears. “Okay, you win the ‘most likely to get frostbite’ award. What were you doing?”

  “Chain stores have to send their sales to the home office. Something in the network was broken and I fixed it.”

  She stroked the back of his hand again. “Yuck.”

  “That pretty much sums it up.”

  They arrived at her apartment and walked up to collect Roxy. The dachshund apparently had not been pleased about the delay in being let out, and most of Tracy’s pots and pans were scattered on the floor.

  Rob surveyed the array of kitchenware. “I thought you said you cleaned.” He pointed at the kitchen. “I think you missed a spot.”