by Matt Dunn
I snort accordingly, just as the doorbell rings again, and this time I smell Tom.
“Nice hat!” Tom says as Priya lets him in, and I go appropriately mental, doing my best to show Julie how much I like Tom despite the torture he’s just put me through at Barkrun. I even run off and fetch my favorite soft toy to show him—something I’ve never done with Luke—and Tom then embarks on a tug-of-war with me over the toy, an endeavor he’s never going to win. Julie’s dad and Tom greet each other warmly—obviously there are no hard feelings after Dot’s barbecue the other day, or over the obvious fact that Julie’s dad’s been shagging Tom’s mum (Julie’s words to Priya, and that no one else hears except me). Then Tom hands Julie a bottle of something for me that makes Julie’s dad frown.
“Dog beer?” he says.
Tom nods. “Well, seeing as it’s Doug’s birthday. He is over eighteen, after all.”
Julie laughs. “Almost double!”
“Great!” Tom grins, then lowers his voice. “It’s not actual beer. In that there’s no alcohol in it.”
“Bit like that stuff Julie made me drink when I had that health scare last year,” says Julie’s dad, and everyone laughs, though at the time it wasn’t funny at all. Ambulances are frighteningly noisy, and I’d never seen Julie that worried before.
“It’s actually more of a health drink. Packed with vitamins. But we can pretend.”
“Maybe I ought to drink it,” says Julie’s dad, and everyone laughs again.
“Speaking of drinking, would anyone care for a birthday beverage?” says Priya, putting a strange, posh voice on for those last two words. She’s holding a bottle of Cava that she’s just retrieved from the fridge, and that’s apparently “Champagne for people who aren’t label snobs,” according to Julie’s dad.
“Sounds good,” says Tom, though Julie’s dad makes a face, which makes me wonder if he is a label snob until, with an “I’ll stick with my usual,” he helps himself to a can of actual beer from the fridge.
To a chorus of oohs Priya launches the Cava cork out of the bottle with her thumbs, and I dutifully run and fetch it from where it’s landed in the corner of the kitchen. She fills up four glasses, hands one to everyone who isn’t Julie’s dad, then she pops the top off my dog “beer” and empties it into my drinking bowl. To be honest, it’s not as tasty as water, but I fake a few enthusiastic laps at it to try to convince Julie that Tom’s done another good thing.
“Doug!” says Priya. “You might have waited for the toast!”
I stop drinking and look at her expectantly as she holds her glass up.
“To Doug!” she says.
“To Doug!” choruses everyone else.
“Happy birthday!” Tom says to me, making a special “cheers” effort to clink his glass against my bowl, something that seems to make an impression on Julie. Judging by the smile she does her best to hide, it’s a positive one.
With a wag of my tail, I tuck cheerfully into my “beer.” After all, if today goes as planned, this birthday might just be my happiest yet.
* * *
It soon becomes clear to me that Julie is hopeless at flirting. Maybe it’s simply because she’s out of practice, but it’s a bit like my color-blindness, except where I can’t tell the difference between, say, “blue” and “green,” she can’t tell whether Tom’s teasing her or insulting her.
For example, as she hands him a cupcake, he says “so, what do you do?” and she says, “I’m an event organizer.” Tom nods, then says, “which means?” To which Julie replies, “I organize events.” Tom jokingly says, “Like this one?” and Julie just stares at him, deciding not to dignify his comment with an answer. I wouldn’t blame him if he got up and left, except he’s not that rude, so he just smiles again and sips his Cava, then he says, “So...” and she says, “So?” too. And while I’ve been all over Tom in an attempt to show Julie just how much I like him, and by deduction, how much she should like him, Julie doesn’t seem to be anywhere nearer to asking him to her work party than she was when he first arrived.
I can’t help but shake my head in dismay. But when Tom looks at me strangely, I disguise my response as an attempt to get this stupid hat off my head, though all I succeed in doing is getting the elastic stuck around my ears.
Tom looks down at me, and says, “Hah!”
Julie frowns. She’s doing it a lot, and I’m worried it’s not a good sign. “What’s ‘hah’?”
“Doug,” says Tom, picking his phone up from the table, and quickly snapping my photo. “He’s got both of his ears turned inside out!”
Tom reaches down to sort them out, then he shows Julie—though he shows me first, something I love him even more for—the photo he’s just taken. Even if I say so myself, the combination of the inside-out-ears action and the silly hat at a jaunty angle means I’m way up there on the cuteness scale.
“We should send that pic to We Rate Dogs.”
Julie bristles a bit, perhaps at Tom’s presumptuous use of we.
“What’s ‘We Rate Dogs’?”
Tom looks at her as if it’s her first day on planet earth. “It’s this Twitter thing. People send in photos of their dogs, and they, you know...” He nods at her, but she doesn’t complete the sentence. “Rate them.”
“What for?”
“Well, for cuteness, mainly.”
“No, I mean what do people want their dogs rated for?”
“Because it’s a laugh?”
Tom’s suggested that as if it’s something Julie could do with a little more of, and she evidently gets the inference, because she sighs loudly.
“Right.”
“It is!” He presses a couple of buttons on his phone, hands it to her, and indicates she should swipe through the pictures. “See?”
“Yes, very cute. And?”
Tom does that “patient sigh” thing through his nose. “Take another look.”
“At what?”
“The ratings.”
“Hang on.” She frowns—again—this time at a photo of a Labrador puppy with a flower behind its ear and wearing a soppy expression that would melt the hardest of hearts. “This one has a rating of thirteen out of ten.”
Tom glances at the photo. “Yeah,” he laughs.
“Thirteen. Out of ten?”
“Yup.”
Julie peers at the screen again, scrolls further down, then lets out a scornful laugh. “And this one. The sausage dog.”
“The Dachshund, you mean.”
Julie gives him a look. “No, the sausage dog,” she says in a tone that makes Tom suddenly aware of his place. “In the ‘hot dog bun’ outfit. Twelve.”
“Uh-huh.” Tom looks at the photo, grins, then shows it to me and sniggers, though it’s not the kind of thing I want to show a positive reaction to in case Julie gets any ideas about dressing me up.
“Out of ten.”
“Yup.”
“That’s just stupid.”
“Why is it stupid?”
“Because you can’t have more than ten out of ten.”
“Why not?”
“You just can’t,” says Julie, exasperatedly. “It’s like when those athletes interviewed after a race say, ‘I gave it a hundred and ten percent.’ It’s impossible. That’s, like, more than... Well...” Julie frowns again, aware she’s tying herself in knots. “Everything.”
“It’s a figure of speech, isn’t it?”
“Well, it shouldn’t be.”
Tom looks at the photo again. “So, you don’t think poor old...” He pinches and expands the screen, zooming in on the Dachshund’s face. “Edgar here deserves that kind of score?”
“It’s not about deserving. It’s whether it’s possible. And it isn’t. Otherwise you might as well give them all stupid more-than-perfect scores.”
“They do. Th
at’s kind of the point.”
“To rate every dog greater than ten out of ten?”
“Yeah.”
“Where’s the sense in that?”
“Because they’re dogs.”
“And?”
“And...” Tom looks like he’s wondering whether he can be bothered to attempt an explanation. “Because it’s fun.”
“Fun,” says Julie, with the attitude of someone who’s forgotten what the word means.
“Yup. And if you’re a dog, it’s kind of an honor to be selected. I imagine. At least for the owner, that is.”
“Right,” says Julie. “And this is popular?”
Tom nods. “Nine million followers can’t be wrong.”
“Nine million...?” Julie’s expression suggests that yes, in fact, they can.
“Anyway.” Tom takes his phone back, jabs at the screen a few more times, then places it screen-down on the table, in the manner of someone referring to something that’s not up for discussion. “That’s done.”
“You sent it?”
Tom grins, then nods. “Doug’ll be famous.”
“They rate everyone?”
“Every dog, you mean?” he says, and Julie gives him a look. “No. I imagine they must get quite a few sent in.” He reaches down and carefully takes the hat off me, and I perform a grateful full-body shake in response. “But very few looking as cool as Doug.”
“I suppose.”
Julie leans down to pet me at the precise moment Tom decides he will too, and their hands touch, though Julie snatches hers away as if she’s just received an electric shock.
“Anyway,” Tom says after an awkward cough. “You make sure you follow them.”
“What for?”
“To see if Doug makes it.”
“Even though he probably won’t.”
“But he might,” says Tom, then he rolls his eyes, as if to suggest the difference between his and Julie’s attitudes to life has just been neatly summed up in that last exchange.
He stares at the coffee table, or more specifically, the spot on the coffee table where Julie’s left her phone, then he picks it up and hands it to her. With a sigh, Julie unlocks her screen, navigates to Twitter, makes a show of finding We Rate Dogs, and presses Follow.
“Happy?” she says, turning the screen round to show him what she’s done.
“Ecstatic.”
Tom doesn’t exactly sound like he is, though at least it’s another reason the two of them have to stay in contact, so I let out a satisfied grunt. Then Tom looks at his watch.
“Well, I suppose...”
There’s a loud throat-clearing from Priya from the other side of the room. Julie catches Priya’s eye, then her less-than-subtle nod, then even-less-subtly mouthed “Do it,” so she takes a deep breath.
“So. Tom. Before you go. There’s this...thing.”
Tom stands up and slips his phone into his back pocket. “Thing?”
“Like a party.”
“A thing like a party.” Tom furrows his brow, then scratches his head for extra effect. “Nope. Can’t guess.”
“A work thing.”
“A work thing, but like a party? Sounds... No, I don’t know what it sounds like.”
“Well, it’s not really work. It’s a thing, organized by my office... Well, for my office... An event. That I’ve, you know, organized.”
“What with you being an events organizer, and all that?”
“Tomorrow. After work.”
“Like a party.”
“That’s right. But outside. More of a fun-fair theme, really. With games and things. And it’s, um...” Julie stands up too, just as Tom decides to sit back down, and almost headbutts him on the nose. “A plus-one.”
“A plus-one?”
“Yes, you know, as in I can invite someone...” She moves to sit back down, just as Tom stands up again, so she has to quickly reverse her movement, and nearly overbalances in the process. “Sorry. Obviously you know what a plus-one is.”
“So, who are you taking? Doug?”
“Oh. Well, yes, obviously, but I thought that maybe you might... You know, so I could say thank you for saving Doug the other day, and...” Julie stops midsentence.
Tom’s angling his head, a bit like I often do.
“No, silly of me. Of course not. What was I thinking?” Her cheeks darken, and she suddenly seems fascinated by a freckle on the back of her hand.
“I’d love to,” says Tom, beaming at her. “Let me just check my...” He pulls his phone out of his pocket and navigates through to his calendar app. “When did you say it was?”
“Tomorrow. Six o’clock. In the evening.”
“As opposed to six o’clock in the morning?” He grins as he taps the screen. “Fine by me. In fact, I have no plans at all tomorrow night. All night.” His cheeks darken too. “Just in case it goes on a bit, I mean.”
“Like you’re doing now?”
As Julie mimes a yawn, I watch the two of them with interest, enjoying their verbal sparring, realizing to my relief that Julie is just out of practice. Gradually, finally, she seems to have remembered how to flirt.
“So, what’s the deal?” Tom asks, slipping his phone back into his pocket.
“Deal?”
“Yeah, you know.” He leans across and elbows Julie gently in the side. “I assume Luke is going to be there. Given that it’s a work thing. And how he’s your boss.”
“Um...” Julie’s cheeks have gone even darker than they did during this morning’s Barkrun sprints. “Yeah, but...”
“With his wife?”
“I don’t know. I suppose so,” says Julie glumly. “Seeing as it’s couples, and everything.”
“Couples?”
“Sorry. Plus-one.”
Julie smiles coyly at being caught, and Tom grins. “So, like I said, what’s the deal? Do you want me to pretend to be your boyfriend? Act like I’m crazy about you?”
“What? No!” Julie folds her arms and regards him sternly. “Like I said, it’s because I wanted to thank you for...”
“Because I could. Pretend. For Luke’s benefit. Make him jealous. If that’s what you want? Get a bit of the old R-E-V-E-N-G-E...” Tom shakes his head. “Sorry. Don’t know why I felt the need to spell that out there.”
“It’s actually more because...” Julie stops talking abruptly, as if deciding that admitting to Tom that she’d told Luke she’d met someone might give him the wrong idea.
“At the very least, it might keep him off your back.”
I look at the two of them, wondering what on earth’s going on, and why on earth Tom is pushing so hard for this, then it hits me like a thunderbolt. Tom wants to be Julie’s boyfriend, and this will be the perfect opportunity for him to audition. He’ll get to show Julie just how good he’d be at it—like on an actual date, but without any pressure. And maybe, just maybe, if she can get over her loathing for Luke, Julie might realize that too.
“You’d do that for me?” says Julie.
“Pretend to be crazy about you?” says Tom, then he shrugs. “I could give it a go.”
Which is funny, because I suspect he won’t be pretending at all.
27
Tom arrives early, wearing a suit with an open-necked shirt, shoes so shiny I can see my face in them, and with a jaunty dotted handkerchief poking out of his jacket pocket. It’s probably the way I’d dress if I had to wear clothes, so I can’t help but approve. He smells good too. Or at least, a lot more subtly than Luke.
“Wow!” he says, the moment Julie opens the door. Priya’s helped her pick this outfit out via Facetime earlier; a summer dress that flatters (rather than flattens) her figure, heels that could do me a serious injury, and a big, floppy sunhat. “You look...” Tom doesn’t finish the sentence, but ins
tead, removes the hand he’s been hiding behind his back, and produces a single carnation.
“Is that for me?”
“No, for Doug. I thought he might appreciate a healthy snack.” He thrusts it toward her. “Of course it’s for you.”
“Right. Sorry. Tom, I...” Julie stares at the flower suspiciously, as if she’s being handed a subpoena, then she shakes her head quickly as if to clear it. “Ah. I see what you’re doing. In character. For this boyfriend thing.”
Tom looks at her for a moment, then he bursts out laughing, though it doesn’t sound very sincere. “You got me!”
“Right.”
“Start as we mean to go on. Method acting, and all that. After all, you never know who’s watching! And speaking of which, do we need to get our stories straight?”
“Huh?”
“If anyone asks. You know, when did we meet, where did we meet, how did we meet? That sort of thing.”
Julie slips the carnation into the band of her hat. “How about we tell them the truth?”
“That we met at a barbecue and hated each other on sight?”
“That’s not exactly...”
Tom silences her with a grin. “Just kidding! Or, we could say what happened the second time—how Doug was being attacked by a vicious, out-of-control Alsatian, and I bravely ran across to save him. That’s a bit more, you know...”
“Romantic?”
Tom nods. “Plus it makes me look like a hero!”
“To any other small dogs, perhaps.”
Tom sticks his tongue out at her. “Even so.”
“Fine!” Julie sounds exasperated at him, but I can tell she’s trying to keep a smile from her face. The two of them stand there awkwardly until he glances at his watch.
“Shall we?” says Tom, nodding toward his car.
“Why not?” says Julie. “Though we’re a little early.”
Tom shrugs. “It’s a nice evening. I thought we might take the scenic route. Go for a bit of a ride.”
As Julie shrugs in agreement, I peer through Tom’s legs at the car parked in front of the house. It’s the Mercedes convertible Dot mentioned, and even though Julie pretends not to be impressed when Tom lowers the roof with a press of a button on his key fob, I sense the opposite is true.