Dog Beach Unleashed (4 page)

“Hey, I have an idea. I could be your coach this summer!” he says. “Get you ready for tryouts.”

As soon as he says it, I realize my mistake. Bennett is an amazing swimmer. He took lessons from the time he was six months old. If he's my coach, he's going to see me in a bathing suit all the time. I mean, he would anyway, since we swim every day on Seagate. But this would be different. This would be up close and personal.

“You don't seem enthused by the idea,” he says.

“I guess I'm realizing all the time and effort it would take, and I got tired just thinking about it.” I laugh. “You know me. I don't like to exert too much energy.”

“Right. But I do want to make use of this great new pool.” He shrugs. “Well, it's just an idea. And it would be fun to hang out more.”

He wraps a yellow towel around his shoulders and goes into the house.

I stay in the pool and think about this coaching idea, and part of it seems enticing—all that alone time with Bennett. But it makes me nervous, too.

I wish I understood what I was feeling.

The next day, we hit the ground running, trying
to get the business going again. The boys put up posters on the parts of the island that we've missed, and the girls follow up with all our old clients, making sure we know what their needs are so we can give them priority in the schedule.

“We're going to be very busy this summer,” Paul, Atticus's dog-dad, tells us.

Micayla, Claire, and I are sitting with Paul and his girlfriend, Andi, on his porch. Atticus and Rascal are gnawing on rawhide chews in a corner. Atticus's triangular German shepherd ears perk up and he tries to steal Rascal's rawhide. They behave like real brothers now that they live together, always wrestling and snatching each other's treats. But Rascal stays calm. His black, velvety Newfoundland fur almost
glistens in the sun. He sits there all dignified, as if he doesn't have a care in the world.

“We are?” Andi asks Paul with stars in her eyes. They share the wicker love seat, sitting as close to each other as they possibly can.

He nods. “Yup. I have a lot of things planned.”

Maybe he knows about the shortened summer, too. Maybe he's trying to squeeze in as much as he can before the big storm. Ever since I talked to Mr. Aprone, I've been worrying about it, but I keep the worries to myself.

Right now it feels like a secret that only Mr. Aprone and I know. If I don't talk about it, maybe it won't become real.

Paul grabs Andi's hand, and I wonder if Claire and Micayla feel as awkward as I do. It seems as if we caught the grown-up couple in some intimate moment, even though they knew we were coming over.

“Which reminds me,” Paul continues. “I wanted to ask you if you ever take dogs overnight.”

The three of us look at one another.

“How on earth would they do that, Paul?” Andi yelps. “They're kids, not a kennel!”

He shrugs. “Just thought I'd ask. No need to bite my head off!”

She kisses him on the forehead. “Sorry.”

“Well, no one has ever asked us that,” I reply. I don't know exactly how we'd do it. But I hate to say no. I guess we could always beg our parents to let us keep the dogs in our houses.

“Well, keep it in mind,” Paul says. “Andi's mom could use some extra help with Rascal.”

Micayla's been pretty much silent this whole time, looking at her feet and fiddling with the strings on her hoodie. And then I realize she probably feels weird sitting on her teacher's porch, watching him hold hands with his girlfriend.

“Can you watch both dogs every morning until about two or three in the afternoon?” Andi says. “If you want to pick them up, that would be great, but we like to go for a morning stroll, so we can always drop them at Dog Beach, too.”

I write that all down and then look up. “Picking them up works.” I turn to face Micayla and Claire. “You guys cool with that?”

They nod.

“Okay, so we should be up and running by early next week, I think,” I tell them. “We just need to iron out the schedule with our other clients, and then we'll be ready to go. Anything new we should know about?”

Andi and Paul look at each other and laugh a little bit. “Nothing, really,” Andi says. “The dogs are happy as clams, and they love being together.”

“Just like us,” Paul says.

“Sounds great,” I reply, and I stand up.

“Really great,” Claire adds, as if it's something she feels she's supposed to say but not necessarily something she feels.

Micayla looks down at her feet again. “See you guys soon,” she says. “We're excited about taking care of Atticus and Rascal again.”

Claire needs to go home, so Micayla and I decide to walk to Mornings to get a snack. I'm happy to have some alone time with her. I hope she's not still feeling left out.

“That was weird, wasn't it?” I ask her. “Was it crazy to be at your teacher's place?”

“Yeah, I couldn't wait to leave. And Mr. Jennings was just being so strange. Wasn't he? What kind of plans do you think he was talking about?”

“Maybe getting married?” I shrug. “Who knows?” I pull up the hood on my windbreaker as the breeze kicks up and it starts to rain.

Finally we're at Mornings, and thankfully grumpy Beverly isn't there.

We take a table by the window and share a chocolate croissant, an apple cinnamon muffin, and two hot chocolates. It's cold and gray and rainy. Not a good way to start the summer.

I look outside, and everything seems ominous. Maybe Mr. Aprone was right and a dangerous storm is going to swamp Seagate Island this summer.

“What are we gonna do with the dogs if it rains like this all the time?” I ask Micayla. Maybe she knows something about a ferocious hurricane season and isn't telling me.

“I was just thinking the same thing,” Micayla answers. “I
don't know. We were so lucky last summer. Only a little drizzle here and there. No real rainy days.”

“Think Mr. Brookfield would let us bring all the dogs to his basement?” I ask. “There's not much down there. Just boxes of random stuff.”

“I don't think that would be great for the dogs,” Micayla says. “It's not really that big. They wouldn't be able to run around.”

I guess she's right.

“Bennett is a giant now, isn't he?” Micayla asks me, totally changing the subject.

“A giant?” I cover my mouth and giggle. I'm picturing Bennett as the Jolly Green Giant, and I can't stop laughing.

“He's taller than he was last summer!” she says defensively.

“He
is
taller,” I admit.

We sit and talk and finish our treats, and Micayla fills me in about what happens on Seagate after everyone leaves.

“So you know those grills down by the stadium that anyone can use?” she asks.

I nod.

“Last October, everyone left on the island came out with stuff to grill, and we had this giant barbecue.” She takes a sip of her hot chocolate. “It was crazy. The parents were totally living it up. They had music playing, and they were all dancing. It was really kind of weird to see the parents acting so silly, but it was kind of fun, too. They were like teenagers!
Anyway, I think that's when Daisy got into a fight with Mrs. Pursuit, and I'm pretty sure they haven't spoken since.”

“What was the fight over?” I ask.

“I don't know. Something about the placement of garbage cans on Seagate. It got really heated.” Micayla takes the last bite of muffin, and we clear our plates. “It's really sad. They've been best friends since they were our age.”

“Listen, I'm sorry I didn't tell you that Claire slept over,” I say. “It wasn't a big deal, but I should've told you. I'm sorry if you felt left out.”

She nods and finishes her last sip of hot chocolate. “Feeling left out might be the worst feeling in the world.”

“I know.” I put my arm over Micayla's shoulders. “Promise me we'll never fight over something as dumb as garbage can placement?” I ask, and we start laughing.

“Of course not.” Micayla puts her arm around my waist. “I promise.”

Our posters are up all over the island, and
business is booming.

Well, it's almost booming. We haven't actually spent time with any of the new dogs. Or even our former clients. We're just organizing the schedules for pickups and drop-offs and what hours they'll be at doggie day care. Because there's one problem: there's no place to take them. The usual sunny weather we have at Seagate has changed. Now it rains and rains and rains. I haven't even been in my pool since the day Bennett tipped over my raft, and Claire is miserable about her nonexistent tan.

“What am I going to do?” Claire asks.

Micayla, Claire, and I are at Mr. Brookfield's house, and we're watching one of his DVDs. He has the best collection of old scary movies and is the voice of a famous scream that
was used in most of them. We fast-forward until we get to his scream parts.

“It'll stop raining,” I assure her. “It never rains all summer long. It's unheard of.”

“This is the palest I've ever been,” Claire says. “Seriously. This summer is off to a bad start.”

I keep telling her over and over again that it's going to be fine, but I know I'm just trying to convince myself. I can't control the weather. I can't control her tan. And more important, I don't know where we can take the dogs if they can't go to Dog Beach.

Lately, Claire's moods seem as erratic as the weather. One minute she's whining about her tan, but the next minute she looks as if she's going to cry. I can't blame her for being worried about her parents. It seems like one day out of the blue, they just stopped wanting to be married. Her dad said he wanted to move out. And that was that.

“I just don't get it,” she says. “We were a family once. We really were.” She looks at us, almost as if she expects us to have some kind of answer.

“You're still a family,” I insist. “Really.”

But as I say it, I wonder if it's true. Everything I say lately feels like a lie. Or not the whole truth.

Micayla stays quiet. She rubs Claire's back, and my stomach clenches with worry. Claire hates it when people get sentimental, and I'm afraid she'll lash out at Micayla when she's just trying to be kind.

But Claire doesn't say anything. She doesn't lash out. She just looks down at her feet and wipes away her tears with a shirtsleeve.

My stomach twists like a wrung-out washcloth. The combination of the rain and Claire's sadness is too much. I push the worried feelings away. The sun will come out, and Claire's parents will stay together. Everything will work out.

We finish the movie, and Mr. Brookfield makes us grilled cheese sandwiches and tomato soup for lunch. I'm enjoying our girls-only lunch, but it doesn't last very long. Soon Calvin and Bennett burst through the front door, dripping wet and covered in mud.

“Hi, ladies,” Bennett says. “Mudsliding got a little crazy today.”

For the most part, Seagate Island is pretty flat. But there's one hill on the other side of the island near the lighthouse, and it's pretty much only used for one thing: mudsliding.

“What happened?” I ask between bites of grilled cheese.

He sighs. “Well, it turns out the hill is a little rockier than usual. Calvin cut his face, so Mrs. Pursuit invited us into her house to get cleaned up. Then we got stuck there for a while sampling her new cookie recipes and looking through the photos she's trying to organize for the Centennial.”

“That doesn't sound so bad,” Micayla says.

“Yeah, the photos must be awesome,” I jump in.

Bennett continues. “Well, yeah, that was okay, I guess, except for Calvin's cut face. Oh, and on the way home we ran into Lester and the Decsinis! They're back, and not just for a week this time, but the whole summer!”

“I'm going to change.” Calvin barely looks at us. He doesn't say anything else and runs right upstairs. Maybe he's really hurt.