Must Love Dogs: New Leash on Life (5 page)

Even without a name, I somehow knew she was talking about Billy Jr. I vowed to be nicer to him from now on, even if he didn
't want me to.

"He
'll be A-okay before we know it, hon," my father said. "Just give it time."

And then Billy Jr.
's high school English teacher talked him into trying out for a play. Before we knew it, the whole Hurlihy clan was stretched across an entire row in the high school auditorium. While a couple of lines in
Arsenic and Old Lace
might not have morphed him into Mr. Popularity, it was a turning point. When Billy took his bow, we gave him a standing ovation. All these years later, I could still picture my father wiping tears from his eyes with his handkerchief as the rest of us whistled and yelled his namesake's name.

Chapter

Seven

It would be an understatement to say that the company I
'd be consulting for had a colorful history. Back in the day, a funeral home had expanded to include senior housing. This may have sounded like a good idea on paper, but in the end it turned out to be too much like one-stop shopping for anyone to actually want to live there. So it promptly went six feet under.

Around the same time, an electronic gaming start-up was in the process of merging with an Internet technology company. They bought the funeral home-slash-senior housing building at auction and renamed the new company
Necrogamiac. The visitation rooms, and probably some of the other rooms I didn't want to think about, were turned into conference rooms. The rest of the building was renovated into office space as the company expanded, fueled by state tax incentives and worldwide video game addiction.

John took his arm back and we maintained a professional di
stance as we rode the elevator up to the fourth floor. The elevator walls were paneled in dark mahogany and tufted satin that made the elevator feel like a cross between a suite in a five-star hotel and a comfy casket. Shiny lengths of old brass crisscrossed like an accordion to make the elevator door. A wooden bench, topped with a heavy brocade cushion, stretched across the back of the elevator. I had to admit I'd always had a little bit of a fantasy about making mad passionate love on an elevator stopped between two floors, so I may have allowed the thought to drift briefly by.

I took another careful sip of my coffee. Our eyes met. I blushed.
"Nice elevator, huh? Like some kind of den of iniquity throwback."

John glanced over his shoulder.
"I've never really noticed."

"You're kidding. I would have thought everybody who sets foot in here has the same fantasy. Somebody could make a fortune renting pillows and blankets by the hour."

He took a long drink of coffee.

Clearly this was not pre-work conversation, but I couldn't seem to shut myself up. Maybe it was new job jitters. "Ooh, and they could put a coin-operated champagne station on one wall."

He shrugged.
"I guess I'm just one of those turn around and look straight ahead elevator riders."

"
Never mind," I said as the elevator rumbled to a stop and the see-through brass doors opened.

"
Break a leg," John said when he finished walking me to the conference room. He opened the door for me and then disappeared down the hallway as I pulled the door closed behind me. A purple foam dart from a Nerf gun sailed by, barely missing my head. I raised one hand to shield my face from a yellow foam dart coming from the other direction. The good news was that I was fully awake now.

I stopped in my tracks, hoping against hope that John
's boss would materialize at this very moment. That way he could play bad cop and do crowd control, and I could hang back and be the good cop until my students got to know me a little better. First impressions were important.

I scanned the long rectangular room, which looked a
lot like what might happen if the Addams Family and Ikea got together and had a baby. Three rectangular frosted glass conference tables with square chrome legs abutted each other end-to-end, their opaque tops scribbled with notes and graffiti in a rainbow of fluorescent marker. Posters took up most of the available wall space: Morticia, Cousin Itt, Wednesday, Gomez. An Uncle Fester lamp stood next to a massive funereal urn-turned-ice bucket that held an assortment of bottled water and over-caffeinated drinks. The ceiling was painted black and dotted with the kind of stick-on yellow plastic stars that glowed in the dark. Fake spider webs draped down like Spanish moss. Maybe it was more like John Anderson's Addams Family pinball machine had come to life.

Clearly, I wasn
't at Bayberry Preschool anymore.

See-through Lucite chairs, each one occupied, surrounded the table. A sleek iMac sat on the tabletop across from each seat. I didn
't realize John's boss was already in the room until he put his Nerf crossbow down on the conference table and stood up. "There she is," he said. "Sarah, meet the Gamiacs. Everybody, meet Sarah."

"
I'm delighted to meet you all," I said. I stood tall, shoulders back, making direct eye contact with every eye I could catch, an engaging smile on my face. An orange and black foam basketball whizzed by my left ear.

John
's boss had picked up his crossbow again and was already headed for the door. "Sarah is here to . . . well, I'll let her tell you."

I started to ask him to wait, but then I wondered if this might be a test. Sink or swim.
Trial by fire. Maybe even fight or flight. I had to admit right now flight was winning by a mile—every instinct I had was telling me to run back to my safe little preschool while I still could.

I took advantage of what appeared to be a temporary cease-fire and walked over to stand behind the Lucite chair John
's boss had vacated. I stole another moment to assess the students before me. About half seemed to be deeply immersed in computer games. One was scratching his scalp. Another was picking his nose. I reached into my bag and handed him a tissue. This strategy worked remarkably well with preschool students. If you wordlessly handed them a tissue every time they reached an index finger up their noses, by the tenth or twelfth time they would automatically reach for their own tissue instead.

"
So." I cleared my throat. "Let me cut to the chase. Your boss has hired me to ramp up your social skills."

Two of the students, one male and one female I was fairly sure, looked up with mild interest.

Another student leaned back, his clear Lucite chair bending with him. "Wait. This isn't computer camp? Whoa, radical bait and switch, dude."

"
Seriously?" somebody else said.

"What do you do at computer camp?" I asked. I prided myself on being a responsive teacher. Maybe I could come up with an integrated lesson on the spot, combining something they liked with something they needed, the way preschool students sang their ABCs or counted cookies before they ate them.

A boy sitting diagonally across from me, who would have been adorable if he brushed his teeth occasionally, put his hand up. I nodded.

"Well," he said, "one thing we do is as soon as anybody gets up to, like, go get some more Red Bull or go to the bathroom or anything, we change the background on their computer."

"
Yeah," another student said. He was wearing a flannel shirt, possibly since flannel shirt season. "Once, somebody put a picture of Donatello on mine. So not funny. He was totally like my least favorite Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle."

"
Ha, that was me," the student next to him said. "I so got you, dude."

So much for computer camp integration.
I decided I'd go back to my original plan and start with a quick baseline assessment of their social skills and then we could set some group goals. And if that didn't hold their attention, we could always finger paint on the frosted glass tabletops.

"
Okay," I said. "Let's start with a show of hands. Who's a member of a social or professional group that gets together on a regular basis? Maybe Toastmasters or a meet-up group or even a book club."

The ones who weren
't ignoring me looked at me blankly.

Somebody farted. There was a moment of silence, then ever
yone pointed to someone at the table, in what I could only assume was an attempt to guess the perpetrator. After giving them all sufficient time to register their votes, the farter stood up and bowed. Everybody clapped.

The simple elegance of teaching is that a good teacher meets her students where they are and escorts them to the next level. I chose to see this ritual as a sign of at least rudimentary social inte
racting potential.

"
I'll take that as a resounding and aromatic no," I said. Nobody laughed. Most of them had resumed eye contact with their iMacs. The nose picker reached for his nose. I handed him another tissue.

I cleared my throat.
"Next question: How many of you currently have a girlfriend or a boyfriend?"

A couple of them actually glanced my way.

"My last girlfriend," one of them said, "had the worst fucking taste in manga."

"
Hey," somebody else said. "Guess what I found out? If you stick toothpicks in two Peeps and put them in the microwave facing each other, when you turn on the microwave, it looks like they're jousting."

"Die," the flannel shirt student yelled as he hunched over his computer. "Die you bastards, die."

A purple foam dart hit me right between my breasts. Finally, everybody looked at me.

I looked down. Under the bright light of the overhead LED bulbs, pomegranate martini spots dotted my purple wrap dress like a constellation. I moved my necklace back to center.

"
Whoa, dude, direct hit. Hey, did I draw blood? Tactical error fully acknowledged."

There comes a point in every school year or summer camp se
ssion when the honeymoon's over and you have to let them know who's boss. Nine minutes in was early, but the signs were indisputable.

"
Unhand your weapons," I said.

They ignored me.

I clapped my hands.

They ignored me some more.

I put two fingers in my mouth to whistle the way my father had taught us when we were kids, sitting out on the back deck on a sticky summer's night, the air thick with the smell of low tide, waiting for the coals to get hot enough to blister the hotdogs and hamburgers within an inch of their lives. All six of us would be gathered around him as if he were the Pied Piper while my mother finished assembling the coleslaw and potato salad inside.

"
'Tis top secret, the family whistle," he'd begin, "so you've got to swear on your sainted ancestors' souls that you'll never let it leave this circle."

"
I swear, Dad," we'd all say.

"
How many times have I told you kids not to swear," he'd bellow.

We
'd laugh and laugh, like this was the first time we'd heard it instead of the hundredth.

"The trick," he'd continue, "is to wet your whistle first." He'd reach for his beer and take another drink, then he'd look over his shoulder to make sure our mother was still in the kitchen. If the coast was clear, he'd pass the can around. We'd each take a sip and use our fleeting moment in the spotlight to follow it up with something dramatic—a blissful swoon, a throat-searing gag, or a Shakespeare-worthy death spiral to the splintery wood deck.

When we
'd all finished, he'd nod his head in approval and take his beer back. "God bless you and keep you. Chips off the old block, every last blessed one of you."  He'd pause here for his own sip. "Next, you've got to leave enough space between your fingers for the whistle to get airborne, but not so much that it gets distracted and forgets where it's going."

We
'd put our fingers, still tasting of cold aluminum, in place. My father would walk around the circle, inspecting us one by one, nodding solemnly or adjusting a finger. 

"
And then you say a quick prayer to Al O'Whistles, the patron saint of whistlers."

We
'd bob our heads, hanging on his every word.

"
On your knees," he'd roar.

"
Da-ad," the older kids would say, but we'd all get on our knees anyway, fake a quick prayer, cross ourselves.

"
And then you simply let her rip." And he would—a shrill, piercing, ear-clamping whistle that I used to imagine the angels could hear all the way up in heaven.

We
'd join in for a group whistle, our imperfect family harmony filling the air.

Then our father would drain the last of his beer.
"Boyohboy," he'd say, "Irish I had a Schlitz." And we'd all race to the kitchen to get him one.