He tells me to help myself to whatever food I want, and he’ll be back Sunday night by seven thirty. “Oh, and please give Arnold the filtered water. I don’t trust the quality of the tap water in the city.”
“I’ve got it taken care of,” I say. “Arnie and I are going to have a grand ole time.”
Still looking apprehensive, Chris turns around as he’s halfway out the door. I expect him to rattle off one last instruction, but hejust meets my eyes like he’s seeing straight through the navy of my lenses. “Thanks, Emily Jane,” he says. “This means a lot.”
I get sort of squirmy inside because I don’t like making direct eye contact when I’m sober. It’s too intimate. But there’s also a part of me that wants to hold the gaze longer.
I look away, back to Arnie. His tail is swinging back and forth like it’s swatting invisible flies or maybe fairies.
“You’re paying me,” I remind Chris. “You don’t thank your employee.”
“Sure you do,” he says, and he’s right. It boosts my view of Chris a bit more. It’s actually pretty high by now.
Arnie doesn’t react well to Chris being gone. He goes berserk, like he’s scared he’ll never see him again. I have to keep telling him that everything’s going to be okay, that we’re going to have lots of fun together and Chris will be back in just a few days.
It’s weird, but I miss Chris right away too. It’s probably just because I’m never home by myself at the Inn. Hal or Tara or Jenni is always around so I’m not used to being alone. I’m not really alone, though, because I’ve got Arnie. He’s great company once he settles down.
We curl up together on the couch and watch an action movie that’s way too predictable. The ending doesn’t surprise me at all and it doesn’t surprise Arnie either. He doesn’t bark once, sees through it all. I bet he’d like my scripts way more.
After the movie, I explore the jarringly large fridge and raid some ripe avocados and hummus. The hummus doesn’t have enough flavor, so I find some minced garlic in the spice drawer and dash it on until it’s gone. After poking around all the brass-knobbed cabinets stocked full with blenders and air fryers and bread machinesthat look completely unused, I rummage through the items on the coffee table. It’s all very predictable—Economistmagazines, Yale coasters, a book of top-ranked golf courses in the world with certain pages earmarked as if Chris has planned out every vacation from now until his eighty-third birthday.
On the shelf above the coat closet, there’s a leather-bound photo album that I flip through. It’s from Chris’s childhood. He had these huge circular glasses and an underbite. He was a cute kid and probably not part of the popular crowd, which is always a nice trait. But it seems he’s been wearing a corporate costume his whole life. There’s a photo of him in a full suit in church when he’s probably eight or nine. Looks like his first Communion.
I think back to my own first Communion, how I wouldn’t even recognize that girl anymore, how it was the first and last time I’d ever wear a puffy white dress and a veil. I’m proud of my transformation, how I’ve broken free, but it makes me sad too. I’m not sure why and I don’t want to know, so I just shove the feeling away and focus instead on all the pictures with Chris and this boy, his big brother. He looks a lot like Chris but blonder and less nerdy, standing confidently in his Little League baseball uniform like he knows he’ll be recruited by college scouts one day.
Chris’s parents don’t look as prim as I’d expected. They’ve got this warmth about them even in 2D and they do appear to be in love, but pictures lie like that. I’ve got a whole stack of happy-looking pictures of my own parents, and that doesn’t mean a damn thing.
I want to have a drink but I feel like Arnie wouldn’t like it if I evolved or devolved into my drunken state, so I stick to the lime seltzer and then draw a hot bath in the Jacuzzi-sized tub. There are some bath bombs next to the faucet. I bet Olivia has left them there. It makes me want to use all of them up, so I go a little wild dropping them into the tub, watching them explode with colored foam. They’re too saccharine in their smell, but I love the way theyfroth up around me and make the water all murky so I can’t see myself under it.
After my bath, I go into the spare bedroom. The queen bed feels big, too big, so I return to the couch and fall asleep there instead with my arm wrapped around Arnie and his paw wrapped around me.
I never cuddle humans, only dogs. Except for the Redstockings, of course. They’re the exception to every rule.
Chapter 6
My sister calls me while I’m dogsitting Arnold.
I don’t pick up. It goes to voicemail but my mailbox is full, so the line just disconnects.
We’re not close, never really have been. She’s four years younger and had it so much easier than I did growing up, though I guess I’m glad I had it harder. It forced me to push back against my parents’ ridiculous rules and evolve into my own person. Not like my sister, marrying her college sweetheart and settling down one town over from where we grew up. Let’s just say she’s not exactly following in my liberated footsteps.
A little while later my phone pings. It’s a text from my mom.
FYI the RSVP for your sister’s baby shower is overdue. Assuming I can count you in?
My mom has at least stopped calling so much since she’s realized that her voicemails don’t go through anymore, but these passive-aggressive texts are just as bad.
I have my read receipts on but don’t reply.
The fact that she just assumes I’m going to drop hundreds of dollars to travel across the country to celebrate my sister’s entrance into martyrdom—oops, I mean motherhood—says just about everything about my family dynamic and how I was raised.
I don’t need therapy; I have more than enough self-awareness and pattern recognition to connect the dots.
All of this gets me thinking more about Chris and his brother. They’re probably best friends to this day, though I can’t recall Chris ever mentioning him.
Arnie nuzzles up against me like he knows I need some love. We wrestle on the floor for a while and then go outside for a walk. I let Arnie lead rather than sticking to Chris’s directions, which gives the pup quite the thrill. By the time we return, he has a new buzz about him.
“I know, freedom is intoxicating,” I tell him. “Just don’t overdo it all at once. We have to pace ourselves sometimes, don’t we?”
