The Beginning Of After Part 12

My choice. I wasn't sure I believed that, but I knew I should run while I had the chance.

I still had the car keys in my hand, and tracing my finger over the grooves in the ignition key flashed me onto that one okay-moment.

Without saying good-bye, I did a U-turn back out the door, closing it before Masher could follow me out.

I drove for more than an hour, taking a random route up and down the roads of our town. Some were familiar to the point of knowing who lived in each house. Some I knew only from a memory. This is the way we used to go to the Birchwood Shopping Center. This is the good trick-or-treating street. I'd get to an intersection not knowing whether to go left or right, then turn the wheel at the last second in whichever direction popped into my mind.

Eventually I went past the junior high and then down the long road that dead-ended into my old elementary school. It was a square, sprawling building, all brick and gla.s.s, and I spotted the windows of what had been my third-grade cla.s.sroom.

I sat parked for a while in the parent pickup lot, watching a bunch of little kids run relays up and down the field. To be nine years old. To have life be simply about family and friends and who was mad at who and which games you wanted to play at recess, and getting gold stars on spelling tests, and feeling that first crush.

Laurel, you had everything back then, and you didn't even know it.

Rather than risk someone calling the cops on this weird girl crying in her car, I eventually started driving again.

According to the clock in the car, I'd been gone an hour and a half. I decided to do a stealth drive-by past the house and see if David was gone yet. Eventually I would have to see him, but not today. I'd just started feeling like my days were worth getting out of bed for.

But when I turned onto Meg's street, there they were.

David and Masher, ambling along the side of the road. I had to slow down to avoid them, and there was no way he wouldn't see me. I could have kept driving. We could have ignored each other.

But then he waved, and like an idiot I instinctively waved back. So I really had no choice but to stop the car.

"Hi, Laurel," he said into the open window, tossing a cigarette to the ground and stepping on it.

He looked even more tired, more haggard than he had just a week earlier at the prom. Dark circles visible under the edge of his sungla.s.ses, his hair like he hadn't combed it in days. His jeans, covered in patches, sagged on his hips, and I realized that he must have lost weight too.

I was stuck for words so I glanced at Masher, who was beaming with an incongruous but understandable look of pure joy.

"He's doing okay," I said finally, not looking at David.

"Yeah. Thanks to you." His voice was light and almost pleasant.

"Uh . . . he almost died, thanks to me." I was staring at a tree now. Really examining it like there was a reason to.

"Hey, Laurel, don't do that to yourself."

Now I turned to David, a little surprised by the kindness in his tone. I turned off the car but didn't get out. I liked having this barrier of the door between us.

David touched the frame of his sungla.s.ses, and for a moment I thought he'd take them off, but he didn't. I guess he liked his barrier too.

"I can't really give you a hard time about caring for him, can I?" said David. "I'm the one who bailed on him in the first place."

Now he did take his sungla.s.ses off. His eyes, usually so large and bright, looked thin and dull.

"Plus, I heard you had kind of a freak-out after I left that after-prom party. That was thanks to me, right?"

I didn't answer or even move.

"I'm sure I ruined things with your boyfriend," he said.

"He wasn't my boyfriend," I countered quickly, then added, "but yes, things got kind of ruined."

"Not to offer excuses or anything, but I was wasted and totally sleep-deprived."

The word excuses sounded trivial and stupid, hanging in the air between us. It didn't seem to fit in either of our lives anymore.

Now I got out of the car, leaning against the side for support. I didn't think I expected or even wanted a full apology from David about the prom. But as long as he was offering, it did make a difference.

If I can't change something, I don't waste energy on it, Nana had said.

Being angry at David for the prom, for what his father might or might not have done, took more energy than I had in the first place.

"So we're both sorry," I said. "Can we leave it at that?"

"Absolutely. I'm excellent at leaving things." His mouth turned up a bit with the pun, then he looked at Masher again. "So what's the deal? Your grandmother said he needs medication?"

"Vitamin K supplements. Twice a day for at least a month."

David was quiet, processing that.

"I'd like to take him back with me. My cousins said it was all right."

Then he looked at me, as if now I needed to say it was all right too. Maybe forgetting that this was actually his dog and not mine.

I thought of not having Masher around anymore, and it instantly made me ache. Another absence. I'd gotten used to the noises and the following and the watching. But I was going to be busy with my new job, and Nana would love not having "the dog" around, and I couldn't risk another accident.

Plus, the way David watched his dog sniffing at the weeds along the road, his body hunched and needy, I knew Masher might be required somewhere else.

"He'd love it," I finally said. "One thing, though. He has a follow-up appointment at Ashland Animal Hospital in two weeks."

"Oh yeah, I heard you're going to be working there?"

"It'll get me out of the house." I shrugged.

"Getting out of the house is good. I recommend it," said David, and he shot an ironic glance up the hill toward his home. "I'll bring him back for his appointment, no problem. Just send me the info. Let me give you my email."

While David dug some kind of receipt out of his pocket, I reached into the Volvo toward the compartment between the two front seats, where my mom always kept pens and small change. I pulled out a blue pen and gave it to David. He wrote something on the paper, then handed both back to me.

He didn't ask for my email address in return.

"You're going home-," he said flatly, not committing to it as a question.

We had done this. Seeing him again would somehow make it less clean. Plus, I couldn't stand a long good-bye with Masher.

"I'm running errands, so I have to get going. Just tell Nana you need the medication. It's all written on the label."

"Okay," he just said, then put his sungla.s.ses back on and wrapped Masher's leash in a loop around his wrist. "Mash, say good-bye to Laurel."

Masher looked at me with surprise, and I squatted down with my arms out until he scrambled over to me. I hugged him, he licked my face. I didn't need to say anything. Not with David there, watching.

Finally I got up and Masher went back to David.

"Come on, buddy, let's go find that cat you love to hate," he said.

They walked away and I got back in the car. After I was sure David couldn't see me, I unfolded the receipt to stare at his email address, then flipped it over.

WELCOME TO ARI'S FUNZONE ARCADE, it said. thank you for playing.

The first thing Eve gave me when I showed up for my new job on Monday was a stack of folders a foot high.

"Filing," she said. "It's the backbone of our whole operation." There was not an ounce of kidding in her voice.

"That's what I'm here for," I said, trying to sound enthusiastic. My only other job had been as an intern at my dad's advertising agency the previous summer, and that had just been for a month. I was supposed to be working as an apprentice to the art director, but all I did was make photocopies and get sandwiches and answer the phone. I didn't mind; I was making more money than Meg was earning at Old Navy, and I got to ride into Manhattan on the train with my father, and sometimes he'd take me to lunch. When he couldn't, I'd sit outside in a nearby park, sketching the skyline.

I loved seeing Dad at his job as an account executive, but sometimes it felt like he was avoiding me. When I did catch glimpses of him in the office, he'd be on the phone with someone who was angry, or he was busy trying to fix a problem someone else caused. He'd look stressed and unhappy until he saw me, and then put on an instant professional smile.

"Do you ever feel sad about not being a reporter anymore?" I asked him once at lunch when he seemed especially anxious.

My question had taken him by surprise, and he put down the hamburger he was about to bite into.

"Well, I miss the work itself. It wasn't easy, but it was challenging and fun. I don't miss the instability of it. Not knowing when I'd get an a.s.signment, or if an editor would go for my pitch."

"Maybe you could go back to it someday," I offered. I loved looking at our old newspapers and magazines with his articles, running my finger over his byline on the page.

He snorted a bit. "With college tuition just around the corner? No, I don't think so. I made a choice to do something that better supported our family and where I wouldn't be traveling so much, and I'm good with that."

But he'd looked out the window wistfully, and I'd made a vow to myself not to stay in any job I hated.

"We'll need to get you some scrubs," said Eve now, scanning my khaki pants and V-neck top, the most office-worthy thing I could find. "Dr. B is pretty strict about that; he wants us to look professional even if we're not officially vet techs. There are a couple of hand-me-downs in the back; see what you can find for now. I'll give you the names of some websites that have cute ones."

Eve tugged on her s.h.i.+rt to indicate the inherent cuteness of the dog and cat fairies she was covered with, then the phone rang and she spun away from me to answer it.

Despite her age, Eve clearly ruled the front desk realm. Tamara, Dr. B's sister, was the office manager and technically our boss, but she holed up in a small room off the front desk and concentrated on billing. I peeked into her office, and she looked up from something to wave at me, and I waved back.

I set to work on filing the charts into the wall of cabinets behind the front desk, and listened as Eve handled the phones, taking mental notes because that was going to be part of my job too. I'd arranged to show up at three p.m. every day-after school, as far as they were concerned, because n.o.body knew that I wasn't actually going to school-and help out in the front until seven p.m., when the hospital closed. Then I'd be expected to walk the dogs, some of which were boarding, some recovering from surgery or treatment like Masher had been.

I filed for twenty minutes before Eve came over to check my progress. She didn't look happy with how big the pile still was, and watched me slide a chart into the stacks.

"No, uh-uh," she said. "After you put one back, you have to use your right hand to flip through the next few tabs to make sure it's in the right place, alphabetically. In the past, charts got filed a little wrong and n.o.body bothered to fix it. So now we always check."

A quick flash of Toby and me working on shelving his DVD collection, him lighting up with pride when he figured out that "McQueen" came before "Master." It was a trick I'd thought of to help him with reading.

I got the sense that Eve's manner, all businesslike and bossy, wasn't something to take personally. She acted that way with everyone in the office, except the clients, for whom she adopted a more supportive persona, and the pets, for whom she became a sweet, silly, cooing thing. Besides, Eve didn't know she was supposed to treat me any differently. Being with her, always sensing her critical eye on me, actually felt good.

I'm just like anyone else.

I finished the charts and she asked Robert, one of the techs, to cover the phones while she walked me back to the kennels.

"We have just three dogs at the moment," she said as we stepped into the room. It had a high ceiling and open skylights, and reminded me of a public restroom where instead of toilet stalls, there were cages. The barking started the instant we opened the door, as if we'd tripped a wire.

"These two guys are boarding for the week," said Eve, crouching down to eye level with a pair of c.o.c.ker spaniels sharing one kennel. "They're a little hyper. When you walk them, they're capable of pulling you over. I'll show you how to keep them in line."

Eve let the dogs lick her face as she murmured, "Hi, babies . . . yes . . . yes . . . you're beautiful . . . I love your kisses . . ." and I actually had to look away.

I turned to the third dog, alone in a kennel across the aisle. It wasn't any recognizable breed, just a medium-sized mutt with short, silky brown fur.

"That's Ophelia," said Eve.

Ophelia stared sadly at the two c.o.c.kers, and it seemed a little cruel that she had this view, like the lonely girl forced to share a lunch table with a pair of BFFs. Then she noticed me watching her and thumped her tail.

Eve came over and crouched down again to gently grab Ophelia's muzzle through the chain-link door. "We're hoping to find a home for her, if you know anyone."

"What do you mean?"

"About a month ago, one of our clients found her lying by the side of the road. She'd been hit by a car. No collar, no tags. Totally skinny and practically starving. She had a broken leg. Look at her, she's the biggest sweetheart."

"Dr. B just fixed her up for free?"

"Yes. He does that occasionally. There are too many animals like Ophelia out there. People just suck sometimes." She spat that last part out, as if wanting to erase the bad taste of it, then added, "Dr. B is amazing that way. He knows I do everything I can to adopt them out. We've had pretty good luck."

A wistfulness came over Eve, who was clearly crus.h.i.+ng pretty hard on our employer. After a moment she said, "Wanna see the kitties? I have two angels I'm trying to place."

On the bottom row of the "cat room," as it was called, was a large cage occupied by tabby twins. They weren't kittens, but they weren't quite full-grown cats. As soon as they saw our legs step into view, one reached out its paw through the bars and the other pressed itself against the metal so its fur pushed through in little squares.

"Dumped on our doorstep in a sealed box. With duct tape."

"That is horrible," I said sincerely.

"Like I said, people can suck."

"Why didn't they just take them to the shelter?" I asked as Eve opened the cage and handed a cat to me. It started purring the second we made contact.

"I'm glad they didn't. The county shelter's a h.e.l.lhole," she said. "They're overcrowded this time of year and putting down animals after just a few days." Eve looked at the cat, ecstatic in my arms. "That's Denali," she said. "You sure you don't want one?"

I thought of Elliot and Selina. We'd gotten them by pure chance. Elliot was part of a litter born to one of Toby's friend's pets, and Selina came crying on our doorstep one rainy night with an open wound in the scruff of her neck. It was like how people find other people to be in love with, all random and accidental and lucky.

"I have two already who would kill me," I said. "But I'll spread the word."

"That would be great. Dr. B is very patient but he gives me limits; only one cage at a time in each room for the rescues."

She sighed, like this was something she had to work on.

"Come on, let me show you the phones."