Halfway up the driveway, I hear Bark bark. The dog sounds pissed as hell, either at the weather or at me for being late with his dinner and to let him out to pee. Poor Bark. His bladder must be ready to burst, and the thunder must be driving him crazy.
I try to speed it up, but I slip and fall on my ass. My relaxing weekend is off to a rousing start. The dog doesn’t stop barking. I push myself up, getting completely coated in mud. As I get closer to the house, Bark gets louder. He doesn’t exactly bark; it’s more like yapping. Bark is a stereotypical small, yappy dog. He’s brown and white and about the size of a loaf of bread.
“I’m coming,” I call, reaching Ruby’s back door. Like most of the houses on Summer Island, the door is unlocked. As soon as I turn the knob and open the door a few inches, Bark runs out like a bullet fired from a gun. As he heads for a tree, he shoots me an accusing look. “I’m sorry,” I whine. He doesn’t care. As far as Bark’s concerned, I’m dead to him, a commercial with Sarah McLachlan singing in the background. When he gets to a tall eucalyptus, he lifts his leg and relieves himself, still looking at me like I’m Pol Pot.
“I got here as fast as I could,” I call out to him. “I had to work late, and the walk was a pain.” Bark doesn’t care about my excuses. He looks away at something in the rain, and he bolts, running extremely fast for a creature with such short legs. He runs deep into a grove of trees, out of sight. Lightning flashes through the sky, as thunder explodes, making me jump.
Even though it’s summer, the change in weather has brought a cold front with it. I’m soaked through and the wind hits me, making me shiver. Damn it. I’m going to catch pneumonia.
“Bark! Bark!” I call. There’s no sign of him. Not even a bark or a yap. “I’m not going to chase after you!”
I want nothing less than to run after a dog in the rain and mud, but Ruby’s going to kill me if I lose her dog in the storm of the century. Damn it. I put my bag down on the porch, and I gather my courage for the misery of running after a dog in the storm. Just as I’m about to go after him, however, he appears, heading toward me.
Without giving me a second glance, he runs past me, through the door and into the house. I follow him inside, where it’s like a war has erupted. There’s a trail of muddy water where Bark has run into the house and a little further are signs of his wrath for being abandoned. I see chewed up cushions and a suspicious yellow puddle on the kitchen floor.
“You little bastard. I was going to give you contraband snacks, but now it’s Purina all the way, baby!” I yell, although I don’t know if Bark hears because he’s hiding from me. Smart little fiend. Faced with dog pee and mud-covered baseboards, I would love to wreak a little vengeance on him, but he’s wisely giving me time to cool off. It’s takes me a good hour, but I strip out of my wet clothes, clean up the mess, and mop the floor before padding naked to the bathroom to take a hot shower.
Ruby’s house is a Victorian, built up instead of out with four stories of tiny rooms and meandering, narrow hallways. It’s a little like the Winchester House but a fraction of the size. Naked and smelling like Pine Sol, I follow the zigzag hallway to the small staircase up to the third floor where Ruby’s bedroom and bathroom are.
Ruby’s bathroom is just the right size for me. It’s tiny. The shower head hangs over an antique, claw-footed tub with a circular shower curtain. I barely fit inside it when it’s closed. The hot water feels wonderful, and I stand under it until the heat worms its way into my icy bones. I scrub my body with Ruby’s homemade lavender soap and honey milk shampoo and conditioner. When the water starts to cool, I turn it off and dry myself. Since I’ve left my bag of my sopping wet clothes downstairs, I riffle through Ruby’s drawers for something to wear. I find black sweatpants with Juicy written on the butt and a white, over-sized hand-knitted cotton sweater. I decide not to comb my hair. I also decide to go commando and braless. After all, nobody is going to see me until Monday, and I deserve some comfortable sloth and laziness.
Outside, the storm is raging, and the afternoon is settling into the evening. Despite the chaos outside, inside the house is cozy, and I’m reasonably sure that since the house has been around this long, a storm isn’t going to cause it any harm. Finally, I can relax and eat.
Downstairs, the kitchen is lit brightly, and it’s warm and inviting. I search Ruby’s fridge and come out with a beer and a half of a sausage and red pepper pizza. When I close the refrigerator, Bark appears at my feet and barks at me and the pizza box.
“I see how this works,” I tell him. “You love me when there’s something in it for you. Just like every male. I’m so glad I’ve wished away all my desires for Stone. Now it’s just you and me and leftover pizza. I’m Gloria Steinem. I’m Margaret Sanger! Votes for Women! I am woman; hear me roar…” Bark barks furiously, interrupting my soliloquy. “Fine, I get it. Just like a man. You don’t let me voice my heart. Hungry, are you? Okey dokey.” I pour dog food into his bowl and give him fresh water, but he continues to stare at my pizza and bark. “Sheesh. Everyone’s a critic. Fine. You can have some, but if you get diarrhea, I’m going to kill you.”
Five minutes later, Bark and I are sitting on Ruby’s small couch in her den on the ground floor, eating pizza together. I search the television stations for a good series to binge watch, but Ruby doesn’t believe in cable, so it’s slim pickings.
“What have we found?” I ask Bark, settling on a movie with an old movie star. “I wish Ruby had Cheez-Its,” I tell the dog. His ears perk up. “Maybe she has them hidden?” I ask him, as if he’s going to answer me. He wags his tail and barks, and I throw him another small piece of pizza crust. After the pizza is finished, he lies on my lap and watches the movie with me.
“I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to stay in the cabin by yourself. There’s no phone. What if you need help?” The movie star tells a pretty ingénue in the movie. She flips her long blonde hair back, totally unconcerned by the lack of a phone. I swig back more beer.
“I love being here alone. It’s just the rest I needed.” Later, the ingénue is talking to herself, lathering up her hair in the shower, revealing a whole lot of silicone boob while she shampoos.
“She should get her head checked talking to herself like that,” I tell Bark. I take another slice of pizza and give him some sausage.
“What’s that noise?” the ingénue wonders aloud while she dries her mostly naked body. She doesn’t have an ounce of cellulite anywhere on her. Her ass is perfectly round and firm. You could play racquetball on it.
“CGI green screen,” I tell Bark. “Nobody’s ass looks like that. She’s got a mutant ass. She’s probably an alien. An ass alien.”
Bark doesn’t reply. He probably thinks all asses look like that. Traitor.
“Maybe it’s the kindly caretaker checking up on me,” the ingénue says, slipping on a negligee. “I’ll go down and check.”
“Stupid ass alien,” I tell Bark. “Talking to herself and going downstairs. I’ll bet you a year’s supply of rawhide that the kindly caretaker isn’t downstairs. And why is she dressed like that to greet the eighty-year-old caretaker? Blech. Paternalistic entertainment. This is so not realistic. No woman acts this way.”
I toss Bark some more sausage and I eat the last slice of pizza.
“Hello? Hello? Mr. Caretaker?”
“Mr. Caretaker? That’s rich,” I tell Bark. Then the television flashes an image of a badly dressed man in a scary mask. He’s holding a chainsaw. “This took a bad turn,” I tell Bark, thankful for his company on the couch. I adjust my position, tucking my legs underneath me.
The ingénue finds the chainsaw man and now she’s screaming. I don’t blame her. He chases after her, and she grabs a pot from the kitchen. “Get some balls!” I yell at the screen. “He’s got a chainsaw! What’s a pot going to do?”
She doesn’t listen to me. She throws the pot at him and misses. This seems to make the chainsaw man angrier, and he continues to chase her. Just as she makes it to the front door, she trips on an invisible place on the carpet and goes down.
“Oh my God,” I moan. The maniacal killer captures the ass alien while he revs his chainsaw in a threatening way. I grab Bark toward me, giving him a squeeze, but he pulls out of my embrace and jumps off. “Where are you going?” I demand, but he ignores me. The jingle of his dog tags recedes into the distance, as he walks down the hallway toward the kitchen. “You leave me now? There’s a chainsaw killer! Fine. Fine. I don’t need you!” I call after him. “I’m not scared!”
