Last Chance (14 page)

“Did he have anything useful?”

Vern nodded as he raised his fork to his mouth again. “Could be something's going to happen pretty soon.”

My father nodded. “What's Henri up to this weekend?”

Henri is Henrietta Saint-Onge, Vern's girlfriend. She's a painter. She lives in a 150-year-old house that stands on a piece of land that, according to Vern, is worth millions of dollars. It's located smack in the middle of the financial district. Its neighbors on either side are massive office towers. Even with skylights, Henri has to turn on the lights at noon. Henri subs as a sort of babysitter—a term that at the age of fifteen, I don't appreciate—if my father gets called away when it's his turn to take me for the weekend. The thing my father likes most about Henri is that she's discreet. She never lets on to my mother that she has ever taken responsibility for me. My mother would be furious if she knew. My mother's view is that she's spent a lifetime scheduling her life around my needs and that if my father is at all serious about fatherhood, he should be able to do the same every other weekend or so—never mind that I was perfectly capable of looking after myself.

“She's around,” Vernon said. He was careful not to look at me. Vern isn't just my father's partner. He's also his best friend. I couldn't think of anything Vern wouldn't do for my father, except maybe run interference with my mother. I can't prove it, but I think Vern is afraid of her.

I sighed. “Do you want me to go and pack?” I said. I wasn't angry. What was the point? It wouldn't have done any good. Besides, spending the weekend with Henri pretty much guaranteed that I wouldn't be bored. Henri is always working on something interesting, and she always takes the time to try to explain it to me because I usually don't understand. Henri's art is really abstract. When she isn't working, she likes to hang out at cafés. She especially likes cafés that hold poetry readings. It's taken me almost three years, but I'm beginning to see why. Spending the weekend with Henri definitely wouldn't be the end of the world.

My father glanced at Vern, who shrugged. I got up and repacked everything I had unpacked before dinner.

“I'm sorry, Robbie,” my father said. “It's probably just for tonight.” Vern coughed. “Well, maybe tomorrow too. But I'll be back on Sunday.” A glance at Vern told me that he likely wouldn't be.

“Mom said she'd pick me up here Sunday night,” I said.

“You have your keys?” he said. I produced them from my pocket. “Good,” my father said. “You know, just in case.”

Just in case he was tied up with work all weekend. Just in case Henri had to drop me off at my father's place before my mother showed up. My mother never came upstairs to get me. She always called on her cell phone from her car to tell me she was waiting. She would never know that my father wasn't there.

 

. . .

I spent the rest of Friday night with Henri. On Saturday we took the streetcar to the market. It's a dozen blocks of narrow streets and small, colorful shops that sell every type of food you can think of—Chinese vegetables, Indian spices, cheeses of the world, breads and rolls and sweet buns, fish, meat, nuts, fruit.We stocked up on good things to eat before hitting our favorite street, which was no wider than an alley and lined on both sides with old houses whose ground floors had been converted into shops that sell vintage clothing—fifties bowling shirts, sixties miniskirts, and seventies bell-bottoms. Henri assembled her wardrobe exclusively from these stores and from charity thrift shops. She bought a pair of vintage jeans and some cat's eye sunglasses. I tried on dozens of cocktail dresses, but the only thing I bought was a ring.

On Saturday night we went to the Cinématheque to see some Egyptian movies. I had never seen a movie made in Egypt before.That's the neat thing about Henri. She's always getting me to do things I've never done before. On Sunday morning we slept in. Morgan called me on my cell phone right after we'd finished brunch: granola pancakes served with homemade maple-syrup yogurt—recipes that Henri had invented.

“I'm going crazy up here,” she said. “I'm starting to feel like Tom Hanks in that movie. You know, the one where he gets stuck on a desert island and has no one to talk to except a basketball?”

“It was a volleyball, Morgan.”

“Whatever,” Morgan said. “It's dead up here.”

Morgan's family's cottage was on an island in the middle of a lake in a) the middle of the most beautiful and peaceful part of cottage country or b) the middle of nowhere—depending on whether Morgan was trying to convince me to go to the cottage with her or whether she was feeling sorry for herself for being there all by her lonesome, which is to say, with no one to talk to except her parents.

“I wish I were back home with you,” she said.

“You say that now,” I said. “But tomorrow morning while you're sleeping in, I'll be dragging myself up to the animal shelter. And while you're sunning yourself on the dock or cooling off in the lake, I'll be sitting in front of a computer developing a repetitive stress injury from typing in the names and addresses of complete strangers. Then tomorrow evening while you're sitting on the veranda watching the sun set, I'll be thinking about the fact that I have to get up early again the next morning and go back to the animal shelter and sit in front of that computer for another whole day.”

“You're the best friend ever,” Morgan said, sounding much brighter now. “You always make me feel better.”

“Glad to be of service,” I said. Just before I hung up, I heard a loon call on the other end of the line. I pictured Morgan against a backdrop of green pine and blue water. Poor thing—all alone in paradise.

 

. . .

Henri drove me to my father's place a little after seven.At exactly eight o'clock my phone rang. It was my mother. I grabbed my overnight bag and ran down to meet her.

“How was your weekend?” she asked.

I shrugged. “You know Dad. How was yours?”

Her smile was radiant, but all she said was “Fine.”

“O
h,” my mother said when she saw the police car in the parking lot of the animal shelter the next morning. A uniformed officer was talking to Kathy near the door to the animal wing. A second officer was talking to one of the shelter's maintenance people. Several of the other shelter staff members were standing around.

“I wonder what's going on,” I said, reaching for the door handle.

“Robyn, wait,” my mother said. She looked uncertainly at the police car. She was probably wondering if the police presence had anything to do with vicious dogs.

“There are animal control people who work here,” I told her. “So if there was a problem with any of the animals here, they wouldn't call the police. They could handle it themselves.”

My mother relaxed her grip on the steering wheel.

“You're probably right,” she said. She looked at the two police officers again. “Be careful,” she said.

I promised I would and got out of the car. After she left, I spotted Janet. I walked over to her.

“What happened?”

“There was a break-in.”

“A break-in? What was taken? Was it the money from the mall displays?”

The question seemed to surprise her.

“That money has been in the bank for ages,” she said. “And anyway, the break-in was in the animal wing, not the administrative wing. It happened on Saturday night.”

“And the police only showed up
now?”
I said.

“The weekend staff discovered the broken lock on Sunday morning,” Janet said. “They called Kathy. As far as anyone could tell, nothing was stolen. But you never know. So Kathy called the police. Since it was low priority and Kathy was up at her cottage, they said they'd send someone over first thing Monday morning to take the report.”

“What do you mean, you never know?”

“Well, just because no one noticed anything missing, that doesn't mean that nothing was taken. This is a big shelter. Whoever broke in may have stolen something that no one has noticed yet. Kathy filed a report just in case. The insurance company will insist on it if she ever has to make a claim.”

“Why would someone break in and not take anything?” I said. That didn't make sense.

Janet shrugged. “Maybe it was an animal rights activist trying to liberate some of the animals. They've staged a couple of protests here in the past when we've had to put an animal down.”

“Were any animals released?”

Janet shook her head. “Maybe whoever broke in heard one of the weekend staff coming and got scared off before they could do anything. Or it could have been kids, just fooling around. Who knows?”

Finally, the police officer who had been talking to Kathy closed his notebook. He handed her something—a business card, I think—before walking back to his car. The other police officer joined him, and they drove away. Kathy waved at all of us to go inside.

I was outside later, eating lunch, when Kathy came out of the door to the animal wing and started back across the grass to the office. Ed Jarvis appeared around the side of the animal wing. He was leading the RAD group out onto the lawn with their dogs so that the dogs could run for a few minutes before they started their training session. I noticed that Nick and Orion weren't with them. I watched to see if they would appear from behind the building, but they didn't. Maybe Mr. Jarvis had given Nick something else to do.

Ed Jarvis spotted Kathy and called to her. She turned and waited for him to catch up to her.

“Can I talk to you for a minute?” he said. “It's about Nick.”

They continued walking across the lawn. Suddenly Kathy stopped. Mr. Jarvis was doing most of the talking. Kathy listened. She started to shake her head. She looked so disappointed. But why?

Mr. Jarvis headed back to the RAD group and Kathy swung around and started walking back to the office. Behind her, I saw Antoine talking to Mr. Jarvis, gesturing with both hands. He broke away from the group and jogged after Kathy, trailing his dog behind him on a leash. He caught up with her not far from the picnic table where I was sitting.

“What about Nick's dog?” he said.

“What about him?” Kathy said.

“If you want me to, I can bring him out. You know, since Nick isn't here.”

Kathy shook her head.

“Aw, come on,” Antoine said. “The dog didn't do anything wrong.”

Kathy shook her head again. “Orion isn't feeling well today.”

Antoine frowned.

“What do you mean? Is he sick?”

“That's what I've been told.”

“Really sick or just sort of sick?”

Even I wanted to hear the answer to that. But all Kathy said was, “He's sick, Antoine. And you have work to do.” She nodded across the lawn to where all the RAD guys were lining up with their dogs. “You'd better get going.” She turned and walked briskly back inside. Antoine watched her for a moment. Then he led his dog back to where the others were waiting.

 

. . .

It was Janet who finally told me what Kathy had been shaking her head about.

“One of the RAD kids got arrested,” she said.

“Nick?” I said. It had to be. He was the only one who was missing today. Janet nodded. “For breaking into the animal wing?”

Janet shook her head.

“I didn't get all the details,” she said. “But it has something to do with a stolen car.”

No wonder Kathy had looked so disappointed.

“Does that mean he won't be coming back?”

“I don't know,” Janet said.

 

. . .

By mid-afternoon, my eyes were watering from staring at the computer screen. So I was glad when a flustered Janet poked her head into my office and asked if I could take someone over to the animal building.

“We're hiring for two animal care positions,” she said. “Herb Leonard is doing the interviews. You know where his office is, right?”

I did. It was right near the dog kennels. After I had guided the way and introduced the candidate to Mr. Leonard, I turned to retrace my steps. But instead of going right back to my office, I paused outside the kennels. Kathy had said that Orion was sick. I'm not sure why—maybe it was the picture I had of him leaning against Nick's thigh, quivering like jelly when Nick scratched behind his ear—but I wanted to see how he was.

The kennel area consisted of three wide aisles with dog kennels on each side. I walked down the first one, looking for Orion. He wasn't in there. When I turned the corner to go up the middle aisle, I passed a workman who was replacing a lock on the door that led out into the yard. He cursed loudly as he fiddled with it and then apologized when he noticed me.

I walked up the middle aisle, peeking into each kennel until I found the big black dog, flopped down on his blanket. It looked like he was sleeping, but he opened his eyes and raised his head a few millimeters when he heard me approach. Then he dropped his head back down again. His big, sad eyes fixed on me—I think he was disappointed to see me instead of Nick—and he
rowfed.
He didn't sound fierce at all.