Last Chance (13 page)

“I'm getting sprung for the weekend,” Nick said, his voice buoyant now. “Actually, that's the other thing I was wondering about.”

“More wondering,” Kathy said with a laugh.

“I got permission to spend the weekend with my aunt. Sort of time off for good behavior,” he said. “I was wondering about a little time off for Orion too. I was thinking maybe my aunt and I could take him home for the weekend so she could get acquainted with him. What do you think? She already said it was okay with her if it's okay with you. And she's got a nice place, her own house. It's about a block from a park where they have an off-leash area for dogs.” He told Kathy where his aunt lived. I knew the neighborhood. It was in the east end of the city.

“Nick, believe me, if I could say yes, I would. But I can't. You know that. As long as an animal is in our care, it has to stay at the shelter.”

“But my aunt has already said she might be willing to adopt him.”

“First,” Kathy said, “Orion has to succeed in the program—which isn't over yet.”

“He
will
succeed,” Nick said. “I know he will. He's a good dog.”

I pictured Orion—massive, powerful, and fierce. But good? Then I pictured him sitting at Nick's command and extending a paw for a little girl to shake.

“Still,” Kathy said, “it wouldn't be fair to expose him to a whole new environment before he's ready. And it wouldn't be fair to your aunt, either. What if Orion forgot himself? What if he reverted to his old behavior?”

“He wouldn't do that,” Nick said.

“But if he did, it would leave the shelter open to a lot of problems. It could even jeopardize the RAD program, and I don't think you want that to happen, do you, Nick?”

Silence.

“I'm sorry, Nick, but I'm going to have to say no. And to be honest, I'm not even sure about your aunt adopting him. I'm not sure that fits with the policy.”

“You said the policy is that kids in the program can't adopt the dogs. My aunt isn't in the program. I don't even live with her.”

“But you're going to,” Kathy said. “Isn't that the plan? After you get out of the group home, you're going to live with your aunt.”

No answer. Then, “She's coming to pick me up,” he said. “I told her I'd introduce her to Orion.”

“I think that would be okay,” Kathy said. “I'm sure she'd be proud to see how much work you've done with him. Now if you'll excuse me, Nick, I have to get back to work.”

I retreated quickly before either of them could see me.

 

. . .

At the end of the day, as I started across the lawn toward the parking lot, I saw my father with Nick and a woman

I didn't recognize. I guessed she was Nick's aunt. My father was bent over slightly, shaking Orion's paw. Then he spotted me.

“Hey, Robbie,” he called. “Come here. You've got to see this.”

But by the time I reached them, my father was deep into a story that I wished he'd stop telling.

“Dad,”
I said. If he'd paid the slightest attention, he would have read the warning in my voice. But my father never pays attention when he's regaling an audience. He would have made a great actor, according to my mother. “He certainly has the ego for it,” she'd said.

“Small, puppyish teeth,” he was saying, “not at all like the teeth on this fine animal here.” He patted Orion on the head and didn't even pause, let alone jump (like I did) when Orion sprang to his feet and barked.

“Sit,” Nick said firmly.

Orion sat.

“Nipped Robbie's little bottom,” my father went on. “The man who owned the dog said that the animal was just being playful—puppies are like babies, they sometimes do the wrong thing, but they're not being malicious—”

“Dad,”
I said again. Even to my ears, I sounded a lot like my mother. Maybe that's why my father did what he always did when
she
tried to caution him. He kept right on talking.

“Anyway, Robbie screamed. She was just a child,” he said. “And this puppy, the poor thing got scared and it held on for dear life. Left a little scar back there, if I'm not mistaken.” Nick and the woman with him gave me a sympathetic look.

“It was
not
a puppy!” I said. Nothing that big could possibly have been a puppy. “And you weren't even there.”

“It must have been traumatic,” the woman said.

“Still,” my father said, “no harm done, other than a deep-seated fear of dogs. Which is why it's both ironic and, well, maybe even therapeutic that Robbie's little scrape with the law resulted in—”

“Dad,”
I said. I grabbed him by the arm. “We should go.”

“In a minute,” he said. He turned to the woman.“This is my daughter, Robyn,” he said. “Robbie, I guess you've already met Nick. This is his aunt, Beverly Thrasher.”

“Call me Bev,” Nick's aunt said to my father. He'd charmed another one.

Nick nodded curtly at me.

“Robbie may be the only animal rights advocate in the world who's afraid of the animals she's defending,” my father said with a chuckle. “But I give her a lot of credit. She stands up for what she believes in. A few weeks ago, she and her friends were at a protest march . . . ”

I sighed. Here we go again. I could try to stop him. While I was at it, I could also stop the sun from setting and Earth from rotating on its axis. I went to lean against his car instead.

At first, Nick stayed to listen to my father's story. But after a few minutes, he led Orion over to where I was standing. I took a step back and avoided meeting the dog's eyes. Now what, I wondered.

“You didn't rat on Antoine,” he said.

I didn't say anything.

Nick glanced back at my father.“Your dad seems okay,” he said. “You know, for a rich guy. He's pretty funny too.”

“He's not all that funny,” I said. “Sometimes he's a real pain.”

“He likes to tell stories about you, huh?”

What an understatement. “It's like a hobby to him.”

“Well, now I get why you're always so nervous.”

“Nervous?”

“Around
him.”
He nodded to Orion. “Like that first day you were here.” He reached down and scratched the animal affectionately behind the ear. The big dog pressed up against Nick's leg, his whole body quivering with pleasure. Nick laughed. “He looks like a dog, but believe me, half the time he acts like a pussy cat.”

He grinned at me, and his whole face changed. Most of the time when I saw him, he was deadly serious, like he was thinking about something unpleasant or remembering something bad. And when he was serious, he looked almost dangerous, partly because of the scar that cut like a ribbon across his right cheek. I wondered how long he had had it and how he had got it. But when he smiled, the scar seemed to vanish. Instead of looking like a guy who was ready to pound on someone out in the school yard, he looked like a kid who had just earned a gold star from the teacher.

“He's doing great in the program,” he said with pride.

“That's nice,” I said. I knew that Mr. Schuster saw something promising in the big dog. And Nick sure seemed taken with him. But you couldn't have paid me enough to adopt a beast like that.

A hand fell on my shoulder. My father's hand.

“Come on, Robbie. You'd better get a move on, or we'll get stuck in rush-hour traffic,” he said, as if the delay were my fault.

“We'd better get going too,” Nick's aunt said. “Glen will be waiting.”

“Glen?” Nick said.

“I told you about Glen,” Nick's aunt said. “He's coming over tonight. I thought it was time the two of you finally met.”

Nick's face clouded. I wondered who Glen was.

“Well, nice meeting you, Nick,” my father said, thrusting out a hand. Nick seemed a little stunned by the gesture, but he shook my father's hand.

 

. . .

When we got back to the loft, my father started to prepare supper. He has a huge kitchen, with a massive gas stove, a stainless steel state-of-the-art refrigerator, every kitchen gadget on the market, and racks of pots and pans. The kitchen, like the rest of the place, had been planned and stocked by the interior designer my father hired when he took over the building. I guess the designer was under the impression that my father's kitchen skills extended beyond making coffee and pouring milk over dry cereal, which at the time they didn't. But in the four years that he'd been living on his own, he had actually learned to cook. I perched on a stool at the counter, watching him throw together black bean quesadillas, which he served with his own special green chili.

“So,” he said, not trusting himself to look at me, “I guess your poor mother is holed up all alone in a hotel somewhere by now.”

“Very subtle, Dad.”

He flashed me the smile that he claimed had won my mother's heart all those years ago. “You think so?”

“No. And I'm not going to talk about her. She hates it when I talk about her.”

“Really?” he said, as if this was news to him, which it most certainly was not. “Why? Does she have something to hide?”

“Yes,” I said.

My father looked at me again, one eyebrow raised a few millimeters higher than the other.

“She's hiding her private life,” I said. “From you. She doesn't think her personal affairs are anyone else's business. And, Dad? I feel the same way.”

My father grinned again. “But it's a funny story, Robbie.”

“I don't like you telling complete strangers stories about me. Especially when they involve my butt.”

He raised his right hand, like a witness swearing an oath. “You have my word, Robbie,” he said. “I'll cut my tongue out of my head before I ever tell that story again.”

It would have been touching if he hadn't already made that promise—about a hundred times. He dropped some chopped onions into a hot skillet.

“So what's the story with that boy?” he said.

“What boy?”

“The one at the shelter. The kid with the big dog.”

“What do you mean, what's the story?”

“He seems like a nice kid. He sure knows dogs.”

“Yeah, I guess.”

“How did he get that scar?”

“How would I know?”

“You were talking to him. It looked like it wasn't the first time. I thought maybe you two worked together.”

“We don't,” I said. “I've seen him around, but I don't know him, if you know what I mean.”

“Ah,” my father said, nodding.

“Ah?' What does that mean?”

“Not a thing.”

“Dad—”

“It doesn't mean anything, Robbie. I just saw the way he was looking at you and the way you were looking back, and I wondered if maybe you and he were, you know. . .”

“What?”
My father prided himself on his powers of observation. It sounded to me like he needed glasses, because he was definitely misreading the situation. “You thought
I
was interested in
Nick D'Angelo?”

My father looked surprised by my reaction.

“I guess not, huh?” he said.

“No!”

“Is it because he has that big dog?”

“It's not his dog. It's a shelter dog. And I don't want to talk about it, Dad.”

He studied me for a moment.

“Okay,” he said.

“Okay.”

He went back to cooking. I went back to watching. But I couldn't help it. I had to ask.

“What do you mean, you saw the way he was looking at me?”

My father added some strips of red pepper to the skillet.

“I thought you didn't want to talk about it,” he said.

I glared at him.

“Okay,” my father said. “I got the impression he was interested in you.”

“Interested?”

“You know, like he might want to get to know you better.”

“You think
Nick D'Angelo
looked interested in me?”

“Is that so improbable?”

It was. After everything that had happened, I was the last person that Nick would ever be interested in. And vice versa.

“You should get your eyes checked, Dad,” I said.

He shrugged and turned back to the stove.

We were halfway through our meal when my father's buzzer sounded. He got up and pressed the intercom button next to the door.

“It's me,” a voice said. I recognized it immediately. It was Vern Deloitte, my father's partner in the security business. Like my father, Vern is a former police officer. He's more serious than my father. He's also older. He always complains that now that my father is making money on this old building, he should install an elevator. My father just laughs.

My father pressed another button. This one opened the security door on the main floor. A few moments later, we heard slow, heavy footsteps climbing the concrete factory-like stairs to my father's place.

Vern was breathing hard by the time my father opened the door to let him in. But he smiled broadly when he saw me.

“Hi, Robyn,” he said.

“Hi, Vern. Have you had supper yet?”

He had. But he sniffed the air and said, “That sure smells good, though.” So I got him a plate and some cutlery and served him some quesadillas.

“What's up, Vern?” my father said. He had finished eating and shoved his plate aside.

Vern glanced at me before turning to my father. “Robyn here for the weekend?” he said.

My father studied Vern. So did I. Vern kept his eyes on his food. I had a pretty good idea what that meant.

“Patti's out of town,” my father said.

Vern shoveled some quesadillas into his mouth and chewed and swallowed before he said, “I just got a call from that guy I told you about.”

He didn't say what guy. He didn't have to. My father knew. He leaned across the table toward Vern.