Notes from the Dog (3 page)

She laughed. “It was just a suggestion.”

“I’m more a burger and fries or deep-dish pizza kind of guy.”

“The Holy Trifecta of Grease, Carbs and Meat … I should have guessed. How about the burrito place around the corner?”

I nodded and we headed out and picked up Dylan. We’d tied his leash to the shaded bike rack behind the library.

Johanna ordered a grilled veggie burrito and I asked for a beef and pork burrito with extra cheese, sour cream, double guacamole and gut-busting-hot salsa. We ate at the outdoor table where we’d left Dylan. He scooted close to her chair, sensing a soft touch for scraps.

I’d inhaled most of my food before I realized that Dylan was getting most of Johanna’s. Whoa. Beans. Beans + Dylan = Killer Farts. I’d have to open my bedroom window that night.

“Kinda sucky, huh?” I slurped my soda.

Johanna turned from giving Dylan another bite. “What’s sucky?”

“Brown rice, whole-wheat tortilla, no cheese. I don’t know how you ever thought you’d be able to eat something like that in the first place.”

“A girl’s got to watch her figure.”

If she didn’t have what my grandpa calls a good square meal pretty quick, her figure would disappear. I know from Jamie that girls think skinny is the way to be. But most guys like girls who aren’t so bony and hyper about what they look like.

I worry about being fat, so I know how it feels, but I’ve never once skipped a meal, eaten a salad as a meal or weighed myself between doctor appointments, and I don’t whine about my fat to anyone but Dylan and Matthew.

I dropped my plate next to Dylan so he could snuffle up the leftover bits. He cleaned the plate and hiccupped.

“Let’s take a walk,” Johanna said. “Dylan could use the exercise after his big meal and it’s a shame to waste such a beautiful day.”

I was just so glad she hadn’t suggested going back to the library that I’d have done pretty much anything she said. We wandered down to the river that cuts through downtown and set out on the path along the water.

“So why did you move in next door?” I don’t normally ask personal questions but Johanna was like Matthew somehow and I didn’t feel too self-conscious talking to her.

“I’m twenty-four years old and I’ve been living in cinder-block dorm rooms and ratty apartments with weird roommates since I was eighteen. I didn’t want to
move back home with my folks because I’ve never had a place all to myself and I wanted my own space for a little while. Plus, it’s close to school and free.”

“Do you have family nearby?”

“You can’t swing a dead cat in this town without hitting someone I’m related to by blood or marriage or friendships that go back forever. How about you?”

“Just my dad. Dylan, of course. And my grandpa lives nearby.”

“That’s all?”

“Grandpa says we’re a family of men.”

“Hmmm.” She nodded. “My grandfather says we’re a family of stark raving lunatics.”

Just then I saw Karla Tracey.

She was sitting on a bench and glancing at her watch, waiting for someone. I couldn’t help myself. I stopped walking. And talking. And breathing. I didn’t, however, dive off the path and into the bushes to keep from being seen, which is what I would have done if I’d been by myself.

“Yoo-hoo. You in there?” Johanna had been trying to get my attention.

“Yes.” I pulled my gaze away from Karla and looked at Johanna. “What did you say?”

“I asked if you knew that girl. From your reaction, that was a pointless question. What I should have asked was: How long have you liked that girl and why haven’t you asked her out yet?”

“Like her …
Her?
… No, of course I don’t like her, I mean, she’s … well,
look at her
. She’s perfect, and then … I mean, I’m … and she … I could never, not ever, not in a million bazillion quintillion years, ask her out, because—”

“Why not? She looks nice. Pretty hair, cute figure, she’s not dragging around dead house pets and, since we’re downwind of her, I can tell she doesn’t reek of sewer gas and rotting flesh.”

“No, she smells like cookies.”

“Cookies! I’ve never met anyone who smelled like cookies. That must be wonderful.”

“It is.”

“Then why haven’t you asked her out?”

I looked down at the ground. Embarrassed that Johanna didn’t understand why a girl like Karla Marina Tracey would never go out with a guy like Finn Howard Duffy and wanting, more than anything, not to have to try to explain it to her.

I looked up at Johanna. She was frowning, eyebrows scrunched, as she studied my face.

“I could never ask Karla Tracey out. That would be …” I couldn’t even
think
of how wrong that would be, much less put it into words.

“I think it’s a waste
not
to ask her out,” Johanna said. “And I hate waste.”

“I’m … well, you know, I’m not good at talking to girls.”

“We’ve been talking all day. You’re doing just fine.”

“Oh. I guess so, but normally, I mean sometimes, well, most of the time, when other people talk, I’m so worried that what I’m going to say is going to come out wrong that I can’t focus on what they’re saying and then I lose track of what we were talking about in the first place.” I could see she didn’t get it. I knew it: I really
am
the only person in the world who freaks out about something as simple as a conversation with another human being.

“Johanna, can we drop this subject? No offense.”

“Sure. We have to get to the garden store to buy equipment anyway.” We turned and walked back the way we’d come, avoiding Karla, but I saw Johanna glance back over her shoulder.

The sun was baking my skin. Bugs were feasting on the back of my neck. My lips cracked. Sweat poured down my forehead, stinging my eyes. I could see blisters beginning to form on my palms. Dirt was caked under my fingernails. My shoulders were on fire from carrying equipment. My legs ached from kneeling on the ground. I was lightheaded. Dizzy. Weak from exertion. I was starting to stink. I cursed my fate.

I’d been working in the yard for seventeen minutes.

It was eight-thirty in the morning and Dylan, no fool, was napping in the shade of the old sugar maple. I had never envied that dog more.

I looked around me and groaned: Our small yard had taken on epic proportions.

An hour earlier I’d been awakened by my dad
pounding on my bedroom door. I staggered out of bed, groggy because I’d stayed up most of the night reading. I was also surprised because Dad didn’t usually wake me up in the mornings, not since I was little anyway.

“You have company.” He grinned at me as I opened my door. Dylan streaked out of the room, skidded down the hallway and galloped downstairs to the kitchen. “It’s the girl next door. She brought muffins. You’d better pull on some clothes and get downstairs before I eat them all.”

Other than Matthew and my grandpa, I couldn’t remember the last time we’d had someone over.

I grabbed a pair of shorts and a T-shirt off the floor, tugged them on and ran my fingers through my bed-head hair. I took a deep breath and hurried downstairs.

Johanna was sitting at our kitchen table talking with my dad like it was the most normal thing in the world. They were drinking coffee and Dylan had his head in her lap. The second I got to the table, she handed me a three-ring binder and a chocolate muffin, still warm and gooey from the oven.

“I made both of these for you,” she announced. “One is the fruits of my labor at the library yesterday and the other is a bribe.”

I took a big bite out of the muffin and set it down, licking the crumbs off my fingers as I paged through the color-coded sections of the binder. “Prep Work—Understanding & Improving Your Soil;” “Annuals &
Perennials;” “Trees, Shrubs & Vines (Hardy Greenery for Definition & Balance);” “Lawns & Ground Cover—The Utilitarian Way to Achieve a Uniform Look;” “Watering, Feeding & Composting;” “Pruning & Propagating;” “Pests, Weeds & Diseases;” and “Year-round Tasks for Upkeep and Maintenance.”

All in waterproof page protectors.

I took a smaller bite of the muffin, trying to make it last longer. Say a year. A perpetual muffin, I thought. That’s what I need. My dad and Johanna were watching me chew.

“How”—I finally swallowed and spoke—“did you do this so fast?”

“I’m a supernerd about research and organization stuff. It’s fun for me, relaxing, like a hobby.”

I took a deep breath and flipped through the pages again.

She smiled and hopped out the door, waving goodbye to my dad and saying to me, “See you in the yard in a bit.”

I looked at my dad. My dad looked at me.

He shrugged, gulped the last swallow of coffee and ruffled my hair. “I like her.” He grabbed his car keys and headed out the door. “And I like the idea of a garden. I’d never have thought of it, so I’m curious to see how this project unfolds. Wake up Matthew before you start work, will you?”

So now I was crouching on the ground, the binder
in front of me, glaring at the stuff Johanna had bought yesterday after our walk by the river—hoses, trowels, rakes, a hoe, pruners, plastic trash bags, buckets, a shovel. Work gloves. And a red piece of machinery that looked like a lawn mower with teeth.

“You’re such a wuss.”

Matthew walked toward me, tool belt slung over his shoulder, beat-up work boots on his feet. We’d scuffed and scraped them with rocks the evening before because Matthew wanted to look like he fit in at the construction site. His dad had gotten him a part-time, unpaid summer internship, thanks to a pal in the business, and Matthew was getting on my nerves about it.

“
My
work will be backbreaking. Tough.” He nodded. “Dangerous.”

Right. I saw a long summer of running and fetching ahead of him.

“So,” I asked, “you’re off to grunt and sweat while holding sharp objects at tall heights?”

“Jealous, girly-man? I’ll be running with the big dogs while you’re planting petunias.”

“Uh-huh. Five bucks says you’ll be asking ‘Do you take cream and sugar?’ ten minutes after you get there.”

“I might have to prove myself,” Matthew allowed. “For a few days. You know, until the guys get to know me.”

“Dream on. You’re going to be the site scutpuppy and you know it.”

Dylan had found a ratty old tennis ball, flung it at Matthew’s feet and backed away. He dropped his head and shoulders, rump in the air, eyes fixed on the ball, waiting for Matthew to throw it for him.

Matthew heaved it straight at Johanna’s house. Dylan went bounding after the ball, barking.

“Hey!” We heard Johanna laugh as she emerged from behind the bushes, Dylan at her side. Matthew’s face lit up and he patted his tool belt as he stood. He’d told me once he’d read that when people flirt, they absentmindedly touch parts of themselves they want to call attention to. I looked down and kicked a clump of grass in disgust. I hadn’t touched anything.

Johanna handed me her key chain. “I made you lunch and it’s in the fridge—roast beef sandwiches, potato salad, watermelon and lemonade. There are fresh cookies in the jar on the counter.”

Matthew frowned. I couldn’t hide the smirk on my face. Score one for Finn.

“Won’t you need your car keys today?” Matthew asked.

“No, I’m getting a lift.”

“Work or school?” I’d told him about Johanna’s classes and job.

“Playing hooky.” She started walking away backward, still talking to us, as a small car pulled up in front of her house. “That’s me; gotta motor. Finn, if you follow the daily checklists, you should be in good shape.
Matthew, good luck at your new job. Finn tells me you’re in construction. Very sexy.”

I glared at him. He flipped me the bird. We watched Johanna jump into the car and drive away.

“Real mature, Matthew, giving me the finger like that.”

“Enjoy your cookies, Sally Mae.”

“The cookies that Johanna made
for me
?”

He flipped me off again. Then we heard his dad’s car honk out front; he was taking Matthew to work. Matthew waved and ran around the house.

The next eight hours were grim and sweaty. The gloves were too big to be any use and the Band-Aids kept slipping off. I wound strips of gauze around my palms and secured them with duct tape. “There’s not a thing in this world, my boy,” Grandpa always says, “that can’t be fixed with duct tape.”

Maybe I could duct-tape roses to the side of the house instead of planting the bushes.

The first day’s first task was rocks. Or, as the binder read, “removing rocks to aid in prepping the soil.” Easy-peasy, I thought, it’s a yard, not a gravel road. I’ll take a long lunch and get some reading done.

The tiller (that was what the red machine was) roared to life and I spent the rest of the morning shoving it in wobbly rows according to Johanna’s sketches.

She’d wanted me to start with a patch that ran the width of the backyard because “southern exposure is the optimum for vegetables.”

After the tiller had turned over the grass, I was supposed to crawl along with a bucket and remove the rocks.

At first I just tossed them into the bucket, but when it filled up, faster than I would have thought, I dumped them behind the garage in the alley. Our yard contained a trillion rocks.