‘Oh, shit, hold on,’ he said. He turned to the front door and called back over his shoulder. ‘Do you like dogs?’
‘Of course. I’m not a monster.’
He opened the front door to barking, and two massive beasts lunged onto the front porch. Gabe started to talk in baby-dog-talk as one jumped up on him and licked his face.
They were two Saint Bernards, and I couldn’t figure out how Gabe was able to stay upright while the two – had to be almost two-hundred-pound – creatures jumped up on him.
But I was about to find out, because one saw me out of the corner of its eye, let out a ‘Bork!’ and ran to me. I put my hands down for it to sniff me, but it jumped up, pushing its massive paws against my chest and knocking the wind out of me.
‘Gertie! Down!’ Gabe yelled. ‘She’s nice, I promise!’ The other Saint Bernard stayed back. Gabe finally gripped Gertie’s collar and pulled her down. He told her to sit, and she did, her tail sweeping the driveway. ‘She’s still a puppy.’ He turned and pointed to the other dog, whose tail slowly wagged back. ‘This is Arnold. He’s old and a lot calmer around new people. Go say hi, Arnold.’
Arnold looked up at Gabe, then took two tentative steps toward me, sniffed my hand and gave me a lick. All the while, Gertie whined and groaned for attention.
‘Okay, yes, I give you love, too,’ I said, turning to her. Arnold seemed happy to go back to hiding behind Gabe, and I patted Gertie’s head. Her butt wiggled on the driveway, and her massive pink tongue hung from her mouth like a slobbery snake.
‘See? Notallmy friends are assholes,’ Gabe said.
‘Dogs don’t count.’ I changed to my dog-talking voice. ‘’Cause doggies are never assholes, isn’t that right, Gertie?’
She tried her hardest to lick my face while still staying seated.
‘All right, go potty, guys!’ Gabe waved them off and they ran out into the field to do their business. I looked up at the old house again; it was massive. Gabe followed my look and nodded. ‘It’s more work than it’s worth. My parents have to sink another few thousand dollars into it every month or so.’
A fewthousand? Amonth? Our hot water heater broke in April, and my mom was still paying off the new one.
‘Why are you working at Sunset Estates if you live in a house like this?’ I asked. It wasn’t until after I asked that I realized that sounded rude.
‘Because it’s my parents’ house, not mine.’ The tone of his voice made it clear that, yes, it was a rude question.
‘Sorry. I meant it a different way, and even now I don’t know how to phrase it more politely.’
‘It’s okay.’ He kicked a rock into the grass and lowered his voice. ‘My dad’s a lawyer; my mom works for a regional bank. They do make a lot of money, but they wantmeto make a lot of money, too.’
‘So they made you get a job at an old folks’ home?’
‘No. They wanted me to focus more on school. The job thing is still a sore subject. They want me to go to Penn or Georgetown like they did and get a JD or master’s in finance like they did and they want me to marry a nice girl and have two-point-five babies, and I want to do none of that.’
Noneof that?
‘You want to go to film school,’ I said.
‘And they won’t pay for it, so I’ve got to save up and take out loans and the whole shebang.’
I narrowed my eyes. ‘I feel like your rich brain doesn’t realize exactly how much film school is going to cost you.’
‘USC is going to cost eighty-five grand a year. NYU is seventy-seven.’
I whistled. My Tommy-and-Gabe-in-the-same-city college fantasy returned. La Mère cost the same no matter which campus I went to. Though I had always kind of imagined going to the New York campus of La Mère because it was close to my mom – and it was the one my dad had gone to. But maybe I shouldn’t have entirely written off the LA campus.
Would I be able to leave home and go that far?
‘Like I said,’ Gabe said, bringing me back from my thoughts. ‘Loans and whatever else I can save up. My grandmother left me some money, but I can’t touch it without my parents’ permission until I’m twenty-one.’
‘No permission without law school admission?’
He laughed. ‘Exactly.’
‘Sorry, that sucks.’ I wondered if it was the grandmother I had met. She had seemed so nice when she was picking Gabe up from summer camp. I bet she’d be angry at his parents for not letting him follow his dream.
