“Seriously, Mal.”
There’s so much more to this, but I’m distracted by his mockery. When it is lighthearted, as his is now, it is fun. We know each other so well that it works.
“Will you consider it at least?” he asks.
“When?” I ask in frustration, because thereisso much more to it that I need to think. Our staying with Jack goes beyond who sleeps in what room. It makes a statement not only to Joy, but to Margo and Anne. I have to weigh the pros and cons. “Margo needs an answer.”
“No sweat,” says Jack. “You have three minutes.”
We arrive back at the house looking unsuspiciously messed thanks to the breeze that sweeps us up the minute we leave the Tahoe. Given that there are no strange cars in the drive, meaning mourners who might be inside, my first thought is to change out of this godawful funeral dress and into beach clothes. Actually, that’s my second thought. My first is seeing what Joy is up to. On the beach? With her cousins and… someone else?
Crossing to the edge of the drive, I take off my shoes at the spot where grass begins, continue barefoot to the top of the beach stairs, and start down. Joy and her cousins are on towels closer to Jack’s house than ours. I’m puzzled by that until I see who she’s with.
“Fuck,”I hear as Jack sees the same thing. Passing me on thestairs, he trots the rest of the way down and takes the sand in long strides.
Joy and the boys, all wearing sunglasses, are sprawled on beach towels in states of careless relaxation. When my daughter spots us, she scrambles to her feet. To her credit, a coil of leash is thick around her wrist, and her hand is on Guy’s sandy head, letting him know he is safe.
Now she wants Jack to know. Smiling proudly, she holds up her wrist.
He slows, which actually makes me more nervous. The fact that he doesn’t want his pit bull alarmed by evenhimspeaks to the danger of the beast. Not that wilted-ear, wrinkle-skinned, woe-eyed Guy looks terribly dangerous. He actually looks comfortable with Joy and content in the afternoon sun.
“How did he get here?” Jack asks. His anger is muted, but it is anger.
Joy loses the smile. “I brought him. He was whining. He had to pee.”
“He’s trained to hold it in.”
“But he’s been stuck inside since, what, nine o’clock this morning?”
“So you let him out?Joy.”
“Well, the back door was unlocked,” she argues and holds up her free hand in a what-do-you-expect gesture. “I thought for sure it’d be locked and figured you’d have a key hidden somewhere, only I couldn’t find it. Guy knew I was there and started to bark, so I tried the door just in case, and, just like that, it opened.”
“Just like that,” Jack repeats.
I say nothing. He is trying to figure how to handle her. I want to see how it plays out.
“Should I not have?” Joy asks. Her eyes are hidden by the sunglasses, but her voice is innocence personified. “Should I have left him alone and uncomfortable?”
“He didn’t have to pee.”
“He peed the instant I let him out. Has he never had an accident while you’ve been away? Never?Ever?”
Jack scowls.
“So why should he suffer?” Joy goes on. “He knows me. He knows I won’t hurt him. He wanted to be down here with me, and with Teddy and Jeff, and I know how to introduce him to new people.”
“She was careful,” Jeff says. At sixteen, he has the voice and body of a man.
“We took it slow,” says his fourteen-year-old brother, not quite as mannish but almost.
Joy preens under their praise. But she quickly turns back to Jack. “Don’t be angry,” she pleads. “I understand that you don’t want him to attack a stranger, though I honestly don’t think Teddy and Jeff would sue you, since we’re all friends. But, like, I wouldn’t have let Guy attack them. I put the leash on him before I let him out, and it hasn’t come off once, and anyway, I didn’t need to worry at all, because you have donethebest job training him. If my cousinseverhad a doubt about owning a pit bull, they don’t anymore.” Her head tips toward Jeff. “Am I right?”
“Totally,” says Jeff.
“Teddy?”
“Mom might not agree, but I do.”
