Last Chance (11 page)

“I know you're going to take a kitten home with you,” Nick said to her. “And I think that's great. But dogs are pretty cool too. They're loyal. They like to be around people. They're smart. You can teach them all kinds of things. Who knows? Maybe one day you'll decide to get a dog, too.” He stood up again. “It's been nice meeting you, Laura. Good luck with your kitten.”

Laura reached out, slowly but confidently, and patted Orion again. She and her mother headed back toward the adoption center. Nick smiled and scratched Orion behind one ear, but when he looked over at me, his expression changed. I opened the door and went inside.

 

. . .

My father's car was in the parking lot when I finished work. He leaned against it, talking to Mr. Jarvis. He grinned when he saw me. My father is a serious grinner. My mother says he does it to look charming. She says once you get to know him, you realize that charm is more than just an expression on a person's face. Personally, I like his grin. It makes him look like a big, goofy kid.

“How's it going, Robbie?” he said. “Have you met Ed Jarvis?” Before I could answer, he said to Mr. Jarvis, “This is my daughter, Ed. She just narrowly escaped falling into your clutches.”

“Oh?” Mr. Jarvis said. He regarded me with new interest. He was probably reevaluating me.

“If her mother hadn't intervened, Robbie could have wound up with a record,” my father said.

Oh, great. He was going to tell Mr. Jarvis the so-called ironic story of how I had ended up volunteering at the animal shelter.

“Dad,” I said, hoping to hurry him along to the car before he could get started.

“If an ex-police officer and a lawyer can't raise a law-abiding citizen, what hope is there?” my father said, oblivious to my tugs on his arm.

“Dad, we should go.”

But it was too late. My father launched into his story. I turned around to head for the car and found myself face-to-face with Nick. Like Mr. Jarvis, he was looking at me with new interest. His eyes moved from me to my father's ebony Porsche and back to me.

“Nick,” Mr. Jarvis said. “My car is over there. I'll be with you in a minute.” He tossed Nick a set of keys.

Nick caught the keys easily, even though his eyes were fixed on me. What was that expression on his face? A smirk? A sneer? I circled my father's car, yanked open the passenger-side door, got inside, and slammed the door as hard as I could. That got my father's attention. He hates it when people slam the doors of his precious car. He shot me a look—no charm visible now—said good-bye to Mr. Jarvis.

“Someone's in a bad mood,” he said.

“Someone
doesn't appreciate her father discussing her personal life with a complete stranger,” I said.

“Ed isn't a stranger. I've known him for years. He works with probation cases.”

I gave him a look that I had learned from my mother—narrowed eyes, taut mouth, head tilted slightly to one side. It was a look that said, Who do you think you're kidding?

“He's a stranger to
me
,” I said.

“Okay,” my father said. “I'm sorry. Tell you what? How about if I make it up to you by taking you out for dinner?”

I glanced at the bouquet of flowers on the back seat, their stems carefully wrapped in a layer of damp newspaper surrounded by a protective sheet of plastic.

“It looks like you have other plans,” I said.

“The only plan I have,” he said, “is to spend some quality time with my daughter.”

Hmmm. August. Flowers in the back seat. A declared interest in quality time with me. And the fact that my mother wouldn't be pulling into her driveway until around seven—about the same time my father would be dropping me off if he took me out to dinner first.

“Forget it, Dad,” I said.

He turned the key in the ignition. “Forget what?” His face was pure innocence—if you overlooked the mischievous twinkle in his eyes.

“Forget that it's the anniversary of when you met Mom or the anniversary of your first actual date with her or whatever.” I could never remember exactly which it was. “If you show up at the house with flowers, she's only going to get angry.”

Most people would take divorce as the final rejection. Not my father. He still acted as if my mother were playing hard to get. He gazed out the Porsche's tinted windshield as if he were peering into a happier past.

“That first night we had dinner together, I knew she was the one for me,” he said. “She still is.”

“She divorced you, Dad.”

“Temporary setback,” he said.

See what I mean?

“Four years of not living together doesn't sound temporary to me, Dad.”

“You're young,” he said as he backed up the Porsche. “Four years is nothing. Things have been going really well for me, Robbie. Your mother was right. Quitting the police force was a smart thing to do.”

Too bad he had done it only after my mother had kicked him out of the house. I think that had made her even angrier. When my father was a police officer, he was never home. When my mother went back to school to get her law degree, she complained that she might as well be a single parent. She wanted him to be there for her the way she had been there for him. They fought all the time.

“She asked me if you could stay with me this weekend instead of next weekend,” he said, oh-so-casually. “You have any idea why?”

“I think she's going on a business trip,” I said. Actually, I knew she was. I also knew it was a business trip of Ted's, but I didn't tell him that.

He glanced at me and smiled, but he didn't fool me. He was wondering if he could push a little more. He decided to give it a shot.

“What kind of business trip?”

“Lawyer stuff, I guess,” I said. “To be honest, Dad,” which, to be honest, I wasn't being, “I sort of tune out when she starts talking about work.”

I looked directly at him when I said that. Ex-cops are the same as cops—they think they can read you by reading your eyes. And maybe they can, if they're not your father and they don't blatantly dote on you and they can't imagine that you would ever be less than truthful with them. My father stopped quizzing me, we went out for dinner, and then he drove me home. Of course he pulled right into the driveway and followed me up to the front door. Of course he didn't stay on the porch like he should have, given that he wasn't supposed to enter unless my mother invited him. And of course, when he heard dishes rattling in the kitchen, he pushed past me and strode in, bouquet first.

“Is that you, Robyn?” my mother said, except that her voice didn't come from the kitchen. It came from the door to her study. I took a deep breath and told her the last thing she wanted to hear.

“Dad's here.”

I couldn't have made her smile disappear any faster if it had been chalk and my words were an eraser. She glanced around, trying to figure out exactly where he was. I nodded toward the kitchen. She marched down the hall and through the kitchen door. I followed her.

My father was standing face-to-face with Ted Gold. Well, actually, it was more like face to chest—Ted's face to my father's chest. My father is taller than average. Ted is more on the height-challenged side. My father was giving him the famous Mac Hunter once-over. What started as a look of disapproving surprise changed to one of frank amusement as he inventoried Ted's attributes: short, slightly paunchy (Ted loves to cook—and eat), thinning hair, apron around his waist, shirtsleeves pushed up, pot scrubber in his hand. Ted was the diametric opposite of my father.

“Mac,” my mother said sternly.

My father tore his eyes away from Ted. When he swung around to face my mother, he was grinning confidently.

“Patti,” he said, his voice full of affection. “How are you?”

“Patricia,” My mother corrected—again.

“These are for you,” my father said, thrusting the bouquet of flowers at her.

My mother's hands remained at her sides. Her face was decidedly lacking in affection. “You're not supposed to be here, Mac,” she said.

If my father caught the chill in her voice, he gave no sign of it. If anything, his grin broadened. He reached up into the cupboard above the fridge and grabbed a vase, which he carried to the sink and filled with water. Ted, of course, stepped aside for him, which earned him a blast of my mother's frigid expression. That was my father for you. My mother used to say that when he was young, he was one of those kids who got everyone else in trouble while he sailed through the world on a sea of innocent charm.

My father plunked the flowers into the vase and set it on the table.

“Memories, Patti,” he said. “What would we be without them?”

“Happy,” my mother said.

My father had the ability to overlook or ignore anything that didn't fit into his plans. He acted as if he hadn't heard her.

“I was just getting acquainted with Ted,” he said.

“Good-bye, Mac,” my mother said.

“Did Patti ever tell you how we met?” my father said to Ted.

“Good-bye,
Mac,” my mother said again. She moved toward the kitchen door, signaling him that he should do likewise.

My father glanced at me. I shrugged.

“Well,” my father said. He was still smiling. “I guess I'd better run along.”

My mother waited in stony silence for him to do just that. My father dropped a kiss onto the top of my head before he left the room. My mother stared at me. Together we heard the front door open and close again, then a car door open and close, and an engine turn over. I know exactly what my mother was thinking:
How could you, Robyn?
As if I had any more control over my father than she did.

“So that's the infamous Mackenzie Hunter,”Ted said. “He seems like a charming fellow.” He sounded sincere. I figured this was a good time to make myself scarce.

 

. . .

My father's unexpected visit put my mother in a bad mood. Two days later she was still railing against him. Who did he think he was, she said as she drove me to the shelter, barging into her house like that (even though he hadn't actually barged—it had been more like a saunter)? Who did he think he was, interrogating her like that (even though he hadn't really interrogated—the only thing he had asked was how she was, and he had done that while offering her a bouquet of flowers)? Who did he think he was, intimidating Ted like that (even though Ted had seemed more charmed than intimidated)?

“Relax, Mom,” I said. “You're going away this afternoon, remember?” She was looking forward to her weekend with Ted. “Have you packed?”

She nodded. “You are
not
to tell your father about this, Robyn. Understand?”

“But he's already met Ted,” I said. In fact, if I knew my father, he'd probably done a thorough background check on Ted. He probably knew more about Ted than Ted's own mother did.

“Robyn.” She drew out the two syllables of my name so that it was a plea and a warning all in one. I raised my left hand and laid my right hand over my heart.

“I swear I won't say a thing, Mom.”

Later, while I checked and entered names, I thought about the weekend. Billy had already told me he was busy—the activist camp counselors were all going to an activist conference. Morgan was still up in cottage country. Which left . . .well, I wasn't sure what it left. Probably another dull weekend. I was feeling sorry for myself when Kathy appeared with a thick envelope.

“Can you do me a favor, Robyn?” she said. “I'm just going into a meeting and Janet's off today. Ed—Mr. Jarvis—was supposed to have signed these grant applications, but I guess he forgot. He should be out behind the animal wing, getting ready for the group. Can you find him and get his signature? Then seal the envelope and call a courier. If these applications aren't sent out right away, we're going to miss the deadline. Okay?”

“No problem,” I said.

Mr. Jarvis was exactly where Kathy had said he would be. He pulled the sheaf of papers out the envelope, signed all the documents where Kathy had indicated with yellow sticky notes, shoved everything back into the envelope and handed it to me. I started back to the office. As I was rounding the side of the building, I heard a yelp. I turned the corner to see Antoine holding a leash and kicking the dog at the other end of it. The dog yelped again and strained on the leash, trying to get away from Antoine.

“Hey!” I said. “Stop that!”

The dog, which had been cringing, sprang to attention when it saw me. It continued to pull on its leash, except that now it was pulling toward me, snarling. Antoine seemed to enjoy that.

“Looks like the dog and me agree on one thing,” he said. “We agree that you should get lost.”

“You're supposed to be training that dog so that it can get adopted,” I said, seething. “You're
not
supposed to be kicking it, as I'm sure Kathy and Mr. Jarvis would agree.”

While I was talking, Antoine was gathering in the dog's leash until, finally, he had the dog by its collar.

“You threatening me?” he said. “You gonna get me into trouble?”

The dog that I had taken pity on was growling now and pulling even harder to get free of Antoine. The only thing that kept it from hurtling at me was Antoine's hand, and Antoine was slowly but surely loosening his grip. I watched as one finger came away from the collar and then another. My legs started to shake. I tried to hide what I was feeling, but I must not have been doing a very good job because Antoine smiled.

“You know how the RAD dogs ended up here, right?” he said. “Same way the RAD guys did. They hurt people. And you know what they told us when we started with this program? That not all these dogs were gonna make it. They said they were giving the dogs a second chance but that sometimes a second chance isn't enough.” He removed another finger from the dog's collar so that now there was only one finger and one thumb restraining the animal. “This dog here, maybe he's not going to make it. Maybe this is his big chance, right now, to prove himself. And maybe he's going to fail.”