The Story of Us

by Deb Caletti

  “She,” I said.

  “He’s got the cutest ears,” Amy said.

  “It’s free-zing out here,” Hailey said.

  “Well, they’re doing okay so far,” Dan Jax said, gazing at the dogs. Cruiser was sniffing Jupiter’s butt, and she was handling it with a great deal of dignity.

  “She’s not really used to other dogs,” Mom said. She was hovering a little, standing close enough to rescue Jupiter if she needed it. Cruiser was only three years old, and Jupiter was ready for retirement. He looked like he could snap her up in one rambunctious bite. Now he wanted to play. He got down on his front paws, barked loudly. But she was playing it cool. Or else, that beach walk tired her out.

  “You guys want to walk them around a little together?” Dan said.

  Ben took the leashes from Dan. “If they kill each other, it’s not my fault,” he said.

  “They’ll do fine,” Dan said. He kissed the back of Mom’s neck. He was likely right—Cruiser was now busy investigating an old cigarette butt, and Jupiter didn’t look capable of killing anyone, with her graying muzzle and that friendly white spot on her back.

  “Come on,” Ben said to me.

  We headed away from the group. The dogs ignored each other, doing their own thing at the end of their own leashes. I wouldn’t exactly call it bonding. Jupiter sat down, watched that big dog out of the corner of her eye, just in case. Cruiser kept his distance, but lifted his leg on every blade of grass. We were on the far slope of the lawn. The view up there was great. “It’s beautiful here,” I said. “Oh, wow. Hey, look—that house has a helicopter on the roof.”

  Ben saw it too. “Cool,” he said.

  “Well? What do you think?”

  “I wouldn’t want a helicopter pad on my roof.”

  I socked him. He knew what I meant. “High maintenance,” Ben said.

  “We’ve got to give them a chance.”

  “Yeah, we do. We will. Still, it is what it is,” he said. And it was true. You knew more often than you didn’t right away about people. One butt sniff, like Cruiser and Jupiter, and you understood pretty much what you needed to. Sometimes dogs didn’t even need a butt sniff to form an opinion. A certain guy could walk down our road, and Jupiter would bark her head off. Not everyone got that reaction. She just distrusted certain people for her own reasons, same as us.

  “We can’t expect to love some strangers we’re thrown together with,” I said. “Gavin and Oscar irritate the hell out of me, and I actually chose them.”

  “I know. What can you expect? It’s like going into Starbucks and coming out with two new relatives.”

  “Dan, though,” I said.

  “Good guy.” There was efficiency to male language. Those two words were what guys said about other guys that they really respected. Guys they could count on, that were solid, whose word you trusted, who your mother better marry or you’d really question her sanity. The language for the other kind of men—even more efficient. Cut down to a single word they deserved. Asshole.

  “Janssen?”

  Ben looked at me like my sanity was in question. “Janssen is family.”

  chapter

  four

  Gram and Aunt Bailey had arrived, and so there were ten of us having dinner in the dining room of Bluff House. Cruiser lay under the table near Dan, and Jupiter sat by my mother’s chair, staring at her with love eyes. Ted Rose had come home too. He was a large man, with gray curly hair and a gray beard, and with stories from their college days that were making Dan Jax slide his finger across his throat in a Cut! motion.

  “Tell us the sordid details,” Gram said. She was twirling spaghetti around her fork. Some exuberant sauce had already speckled her blouse.

  “We love sordid,” Aunt Bailey said. She was Gram’s younger sister. The two of them and a twenty-dollar bill could cause enough trouble to shut down a Target. They got kicked out of one once, trying on bathing suits.

  “Nothing I’m proud of now,” Dan Jax said.

  “Those twins …” Ted Rose chuckled.

  “Daddy!” Hailey gasped.

  “I thought you met Mom when you were eighteen,” Amy said.

  “Who were those twins we knew?” Aunt Bailey elbowed Gram.

  “Oh, baby,” Gram said. “Jerry was one.”

  Aunt Bailey chuckled. “I remember Jerry. He had that belt buckle….”

  “Those twins were hot, hot, hot!” Ted Rose sang, snapping his fingers, and Rebecca swatted him with a pot holder. I liked Ted Rose. He spoke with a large, warm voice, the way a bear would talk, if bears could talk. I noticed the friendly wrinkles around Rebecca’s eyes now too. Or maybe it was just that candlelight softened things.

  “There’s one I haven’t heard,” Mom said. She was smiling.

  Hailey sat on the other side of her father. She put her hand over Dan’s. “There’s probably a lot you don’t know about Daddy. You can ask us if you want to know.”

  Gram kicked me under the table. Ben nudged my side. Mom’s smile got stuck there in position, same as the Bermuda Honda in second gear. I could tell what she was thinking, and I knew Ben could too, and he could tell what I was thinking, and Gram could tell what we all were thinking. All our thoughts were having their own conversation.

  “Thank you,” my mother said through her frozen smile. “I may have to take you up on that.” She slipped Jupiter a bit of carrot under the table, and Jupiter rolled it around her mouth and then spit it out on the rug. Apparently it wasn’t to her liking.

  “So tell us. How’d you two meet?” Ted Rose asked.

  Dan and Mom laughed. Looked at each other. “A horse …,” Mom said.

  “Cricket’s boyfriend, Janssen …,” Dan said.

  “You have a boyfriend?” Hailey asked. I nodded, and she raised her eyebrows in interest, but Mom and Dan Jax were on a roll. They loved their story of how they met.

  “They live up the road,” Mom said.

  “They needed new stables. A pregnant horse.”

  “It was a big, complicated job. He had to keep coming back.”

  “Not as complicated as I made it once I saw her out there mowing this huge lawn.”

  “Ben usually cut it, but he was away at school.”

  “Every time I passed, another piece of it was finished, like a damn quilt.”

  They were laughing. Everyone was, because they looked so happy, and because candles were flickering in the large glass windows that faced out to the sea, and because there was good food and garlic bread and the sweet, warm smells of melting wax, and probably a wedding.

  “All I want to know—” Rebecca Rose said.

  “Is what happened to the horse!” Ted Rose shouted and everyone laughed more as Rebecca Rose refilled the wine-glasses.

  “We love that horse!” Gram said. “We should send that goddamn horse a present.” Gram felt the same as I did. She loved Dan. She wanted this to go right.

  “Never look a gift horse in the mouth,” Dan said.

  “Ha,” Mom said, and ruffled his hair.

  Amy pushed back her chair. She got up, whispered something to Dan. Her chin was down, eyes up. His eyebrows lowered in concern. He pushed back his own chair. Put his hand on Amy’s cheek.

  “You’re not warm,” he said.

  “Da-deee,” she whined.

  “Not feeling well,” Dan told the group, and there were mumbles of concern.

  “Attention deficit?” Gram whispered to me. I gave her leg a pinch under the table.

  “We’re just going to go upstairs,” Dan said. His eyes met Mom’s. Now they both had a silent conversation that I’m sure we all heard. Her eyes said, What’s this? His seemed to say, I know, but what am I supposed to do? He took Amy’s arm. Ben looked at me, rolled his eyes.

  Hailey got up next. “I’d better go too.”

  One thing about Cruiser—if something was happening, he wanted to be a part of it. Sometimes maybe his manners weren’t so great, but his enthusiasm was 100 percent. He didn’t w
ant to be a bad dog; he was just wholehearted. People were getting up; he got up. People were moving; he was moving. He raced over to Gram, put his huge paws on her lap, knocking her knife off the table.

  “Whoa. Big boy,” she said. His head was suddenly even with hers. For a second they looked like odd dinner companions.

  “Cruiser, down!” Dan Jax said.

  But Cruiser was sniffing Gram’s neck, and his tail was thwacking Aunt Bailey’s chair. “He likes my Jean Naté,” Gram said as she tried to put her hand to his chest and shove. Aunt Bailey grabbed his collar and yanked, and now Jupiter was up and barking and heading his way. Cruiser was back on four legs, but Jupiter’s hair had risen up along her back in an alarming ridge, like some angry dog Mohawk. She growled. Then she snapped at Cruiser and nipped him sharply on his huge butt.

  Cruiser yelped, and so did Mom. “Oh, my God!”

  “Jupiter!” I said. I’d never seen her do anything like that before. I told you, Jupiter was sweet down to her bones. But she seemed to mean business now, boy. Cruiser was backing off. He was actually, literally, walking backward from the crazy old lady who just bit him.

  “Poor thing!” Amy said. “Dad, did you see that? Cruiser, come here, baby.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Mom said. “She’s never …” She was up now. She was dragging Jupiter over to her side of the table. Jupiter’s toenails were sliding on the floor, but her expression was calm. We took care of that nonsense, she seemed to say.

  “It’s okay. They’re working it out,” Dan said. “That’s what dogs do.” He didn’t look so sure, though.

  “Let’s go,” Amy said.

  “I’ll be right back,” Dan said.

  The three and a half of them left. Mom sat down again. “What a terrible idea, bringing the dogs.” She looked like she might cry. The table had gotten quiet. You could hear the ice clink against Aunt Bailey’s water glass when she dared to take a sip. Ted Rose cleared his throat.

  “Too much excitement, maybe,” Aunt Bailey said.

  “They’ll get used to living together,” Gram said.

  The possibility of a great lie, a huge lie, settled over us all. The awkwardness in the room snuck into my body and sat cruelly in the pit of my stomach. Ben tore off bits of his white paper napkin and made a napkin snow pile. I studied the wine bottle near my plate. Lockwood Vineyard, 2007 Monterey Merlot. Our location in warm southern Monterey County is ideal for producing rich and flavorful merlot with remarkable balance …

  Finally Rebecca Rose clapped her hands. “Dessert!” She disappeared into the kitchen. A few seconds later a drift of burning weed snuck into the dining room.

  “I smell pot,” Gram said loudly.

  Rebecca Rose came back a while later, with homemade pie and a container of ice cream. She talked to Ben about his design classes, and Aunt Bailey showed me murky pictures on her cell phone, from her trip to the Oregon Caves with her reading group. Ted asked Mom questions about her books. We were pretending the bad moment had passed, but I could see Mom looking toward the doorway hoping for Dan Jax’s return, and I could see Rebecca Rose watching her. Even Rebecca Rose understood she should be worried about what might happen here, and she likely didn’t even know about Jon Jakes getting ditched at Sea-Tac, or Vic Dennis, fiancé number two, that rich loudmouth that Mom left standing by the baggage claim, waiting for her to pick him up after his business trip to Chicago. I always wondered how long he stood there, how long it took for him to realize she was never coming, the baggage carousel going round and round with only one lost bag, maybe, or some stupid set of golf clubs that should have been in Florida.

  Now it looked like Dan Jax was the one not coming back. We ate our dessert, and Aunt Bailey had another glass of wine and started laughing too loud. There was a pounding on the front door then. A rush of activity brought in Grandpa Shine, overloaded with bags. A young Japanese man stood at his side, smiling shyly.

  “Look who the cat dragged in,” Gram said.

  Suitcases were dropped, and introductions made. The young guy was Keiji Takagi, Goes by George! Grandpa Shine’s golf caddy, or something. I didn’t get the full story. Grandpa Shine wore his white cowboy hat and his red golf shirt. He pointed both fingers at me, gun-style. “You!” he said. “Goddamn it, Munchkin, look at you!” You had to love Grandpa Shine. We hugged, and then the hugs started all around. Ted Rose brought more chairs in.

  “That boy is better than another bimbo,” Gram said, and sniffed.

  “Rise above it, Marian,” Aunt Bailey said.

  “You planning on playing golf while you’re here?” Gram said. It was said in the same tone as one might say, You planning on watching pornography while you’re here? Or, You plan on visiting a handful of prostitutes while you’re here? Then again, twenty-five years ago Grandpa Shine ran off with the petite blond golf pro who’d been giving him lessons. Lurid sex and golf would likely be forever linked in Gram’s mind.

  “Whenever I can, whenever I can.”

  “You look great, Dad,” Mom said.

  “Damn it, I feel great,” he said. He slapped one hand on the table and made the silverware jump. “And look at this.” He gestured around the table. “Look at this. All my favorite people in one place. Here to celebrate the future.”

  Were his eyes actually getting misty? He’d been in the insurance business for years, now retired. He’d grown up on a ranch, and he could lift a chair with one hand. Grandpa Arthur Shine was not the type to cry, and definitely not the type to get poetic about life. Gram opened her mouth and shut it again. She narrowed her eyes.

  “It’s a beautiful thing,” Grandpa Shine said.

  “Indeed,” Ted Rose said.

  “Bet you anything he’s getting some,” Gram whispered.

  I could hear Dan Jax and Mom murmuring in the next room. Not an argument exactly—they never argued, far as I knew. Intensity. Urgency. Mom’s words felt fast, insistent.

  There was a knock at my door.

  “Cricket!”

  Ben. His own voice was urgent. I scrambled out of bed. Jupiter was exhausted after all of the day’s events; she didn’t move from her little comma-curled self on her bed. Her chin was tucked in snug, and her snoring sounded the way our vacuum did before it finally burned out.

  “I think they’re fighting,” I told him. “Not fighting, but sort of fighting.”

  “You’ll never believe what I saw.”

  “What?”

  “He was hugging him.”

  “Who was hugging who?”

  We were standing there in the hall. Everyone’s door was closed. I could hear Mom and Dan’s murmuring even better from out there. If Ben would shut up, I might be able to hear their actual words.

  “Grandpa Shine.”

  “What?” I was having trouble taking it all in. Ben’s hair was all crazy, and he was in his boxers and a T-shirt. He looked like he’d just fled from a burning building.

  “I got up to pee. I saw them going up the stairs to their rooms. Grandpa Shine was hugging that guy…. It was weird. Really, really weird.”

  “Big deal. Grandpa Shine hugs a lot of people. So what,” I said.

  “It was a different kind of hug.”

  “A different kind of hug?” I snickered.

  “Yeah. It was meaningful. Stop laughing! I know what I saw.”

  “Jeez, Ben. Meaningful? It was nothing.”

  “It didn’t seem like nothing. It seemed like something.”

  We heard footsteps on the stairs. That’s when I first saw him. A guy, appearing on the landing. A guy Ben’s age, I’d guess. It had to be Ash, Ted and Rebecca’s son. Somehow I hadn’t pictured this. Black hair buzzed short, full mouth, and dark, dark eyes. He was wearing jeans and a white T-shirt with the sleeves cut off, a vest. These arms—large, built muscles. Some ad for jeans—that kind of sexy.

  Ash paused. He looked straight at me.

  “Well,” he said.

  That was all. Just, Well. I might have said something. I thou
ght … Yeah. I don’t know if I said it out loud. He kept walking up to the next floor. I watched the back of him. Oh, man. God. I think my heart must have escaped my chest. At least, it felt like it was pounding madly enough to leap out, rebelling, becoming the sort of heart it had never been before, a sorority girl heart, say, set loose in Daytona Beach during spring break. Not my heart, not the devoted and steady one I knew.

  “Cricket,” Ben said. He was watching me. “I can’t believe you.”

  “What?”

  “Jesus.”

  I could hear my mother’s voice from behind the shut door. It sounded almost as if she were pleading. And then two clear words from Dan Jax—Daisy, wait.

  Ben looked from me to my mother’s door to the stairs.

  He shook his head, exasperated. A hint of disgust too. “You guys are all losing it,” he said.

  chapter

  five

  Janssen—

  I like this game. Famous Dogs—ha. Your list was great. But you forgot Scooby-Doo! We love him! Okay. Now my turn.

  Five Amazing Dog Facts:

  1. One in three Americans lives with dogs. Best guess is that there are fifty-five million dogs in our country. We have more dogs than babies.

  2. 81 percent of people give birthday or holiday presents to their dogs.

  3. 33 percent talk to their dogs on the phone or on the answering machine when they are away.

  4. 70 percent sign their dog’s name on greeting cards.

  5. 33 percent have confided a deep secret to a dog.

  Aren’t you glad I brought my laptop, so that I could find out these things for you? Think about it. Fifty-five million dogs. Less people than that live in Spain, and just a few more live in Italy. (I looked that up too.) Dogs could have their own country. Instead of all those little separate selves we used to like to watch at Green Lake—the Cocos and Sophies and Butches and Mollies and Bos; the short, narrow dogs; the tall, thin ones; the dogs with tiny legs trotting so fast to keep up with some woman in a jogging suit—they could all be together with their own kind, ruling their own land. I think I love that idea. They could have a monarchy. Pedigrees and all that—plus, monarchies have the wacky hats-with-feathers vibe that would mesh well with goofy dog personalities. If they ruled themselves, poodles wouldn’t have to get those haircuts.