Stay (35 page)

I poured two mugs of coffee and got some sugar out for Pete’s. Joe ran into the living room and a second later, Pete yelled, “Good God!” and Joe came running back to me, wagging his tail.

When I brought our coffee into the living room, Pete was sitting up, wiping his face; a piece of rice from Joe’s breakfast stuck to his forehead.

“Hey, sleepyhead,” I said, handing him a cup of coffee as he sat up. “Should I bang some pots?”

“Aspirin?”

I ran upstairs to the bathroom and brought the aspirin bottle down. I shook it like a rattle in front of Peter’s head before I handed it to him.

He squinted up his eyes. “Damnit, Van.”

“Damnit, Pete. What the hell are you getting so drunk for, anyway? This isn’t like you.”

“No, it’s like you.”

“Shut up.” I sat down next to him and shoved his shoulder.

He looked at me for a long time, like he was trying to read my face. Finally, he said, “When I left, after the party, I really thought I could just walk away, you know? I thought I could just move on without you. But I can’t. There are all these little things that happen in my day and I think, Oh, I’ve got to remember to tell Van. And then I’m miserable for the rest of the day, knowing that I can’t tell you. Everything makes me think about you and I don’t know how to not have you there.” He put his head in his hands and made a noise that was half yawn, half yelp. “I was so set on coming over here and reaming you out for all the Agnes crap, but I didn’t know what to say or how to say it. I thought I’d have a drink and then I’d come over, but the more I drank, the less any of it made sense. Any of it.” He looked me in the eyes, and I could feel the pull of it, like he was trying to make me understand that he was saying more than he was free to say. “Why can’t it just be like it was? Remember? We were always together. It was so”-he ran his hands through his hair and breathed in like it hurt- “uncomplicated.”

“I don’t think it was ever uncomplicated,” I said, rubbing his shoulder.

“I felt comfortable with you. I don’t feel comfortable with anyone anymore.”

“That’s because you’re weird,” I said, smiling. “You wear boat shoes and listen to bad music.”

“Come on, Van,” he said, “I’m trying to have a real conversation with you.”

“But see, that’s the thing. It wasn’t real. We didn’t have real conversations. We skirted the issue. We avoided the uncomfortable.” I pulled my legs up and hugged them to my chest. “I don’t think my feelings for you were ever just friendly. And you knew that, but we never talked about it.”

He rested his head on the back of the couch and closed his eyes.

“I guess I’m not who you wanted me to be either,” I said, “and I’m sorry. Maybe as much as it wasn’t fair for you to know about my feelings and pretend you didn’t, it wasn’t fair of me to have those feelings and pretend I was just being your friend.”

“So we both suck,” Peter said.

“Basically,” I said, smiling. For that little moment, we were back to normal. We sat there for a while. I didn’t want to say anything. I just wanted to sit there with him, because in that moment, he felt like my good old friend Peter. I watched him breathe through his mouth, his chest rising and collapsing under his bright white undershirt.

He turned his head toward me and opened his eyes. His eyelashes were wet. “So what do we do? Are we done?”

“Maybe we all need to take a break for a while. You have a marriage to jump-start. Those things take time.”

“You know,” he said, sniffing, “aside from everything else, you always were my best friend.” He wiped his eye with the back of his hand. The wet streak it left dripped a little before he wiped it on his shirt.

“You need to be Janie’s best friend now,” I said. My chest ached and my throat was tight. “And she needs to be yours. And I don’t know where that leaves me, but that’s the way it has to be, Pete.”

I covered my face with my hands. Peter grabbed my arms and pulled me in to his chest. I hugged him and my tears soaked his undershirt.

“At the very least, I liked it better when I could pretend it was uncomplicated,” he said, leaning his chin on my head.

“The good old days.” I sat up and wiped my face with my hand.

“Look at us, carrying on like a couple of girls,” he said, pushing me.

“Speak for yourself.” I pushed back and sniffled, trying to keep my nose from dripping. “It’s going to be okay, Pete. We just need some time to figure out what
okay
means.”

“But you promise we’re not done,” Peter said.

“We’re not done,” I said. “We will figure out how to be friends. I promise.”

“Swear?” he asked. He held up his pinkie.

I hooked mine into it. “Swear,” I said.

I
got Peter situated on the couch with a cup of coffee and a bowl of Cap’n Crunch.

���Don’t feed Joe,” I said. “No matter how cute he looks. He’s had breakfast.” I felt shy around him, like we were strangers again, getting to know each other on new terms.

He put his feet up on the coffee table and balanced the bowl between his knees. His toe was poking through a hole in his black socks.

There’s something you can’t do at home, I thought. All of it-the Cap’n Crunch, eating in the living room, feet on the furniture-would make Janie crazy. I went upstairs to take a shower, but before I even got to the landing, I could hear Joe crunching cereal.

“I know what you did,” I yelled down the stairs.

“He likes it.”

“No more!”

I grabbed clothes to change into in the bathroom, so I wouldn’t risk being seen running down the hall in a towel. It was weird showering with someone else in my house. I was careful not to sing or take too long. I cringed when the shampoo bottle let out a loud, flatulent sound as I squeezed shampoo into my hand. I forgot to turn the fan on when I got in, and when I got out, the room was filled with steam. I wiped the condensation off of the mirror and tried to put my makeup on before it clouded up again. When I was done, I gave the mirror one last swipe to get a good look. My face looked sweaty, and my mascara was thick and threatening to drip.

My jeans stuck to my thighs and took forever to pull up. My bra straps twisted and pulled at my skin. Usually, I showered with the bathroom door open, and walked around naked until I was dry. Joe was the only one around to see, and he was naked all the time.

Peter knocked on the door.

“I’ll be right out,” I yelled, trying to pull my shirt over my damp belly.

“Van? It’s Joe. He- ”

I opened the door.

Peter stood there in his undershirt. Joe wasn’t with him. There was a small streak of blood down the side of his shirt.

“What did you do to him?” I said, not thinking about what I was saying. It was highly unlikely that Peter bit Joe.

I pushed past him and ran down the stairs. My hair soaked my shirt. My bare feet thumped hard on the stairs.

“Joe! Joey!” I yelled.

Joe was lying on his side on the floor, panting. There was blood dripping out of his mouth onto the carpet. I knelt next to him and ran my hand along his side. He was shaking.

“I don’t know what happened,” Peter said. All the color had drained from his face and he was shaking too. “We were playing with that ring toy and he was fine. And then he got really slow. He wasn’t pulling back. And he gave me this look. He was just staring at me. Then his eyes rolled back in his head and he fell and he started shaking. I think he bit his tongue. That’s where the blood is coming from, I think.”

Peter wrinkled up his forehead and ran his hand through his hair. “I didn’t know what to do, so I just tried to hold him down.” He shoved his hands in his pockets and rocked back and forth on his heels. “I really hope I didn’t make it worse.”

“I have to take him to the vet,” I said. I was surprised by how calm I was. Everything felt like it was happening very slowly, like maybe it wasn’t really happening at all. It couldn’t be. Joe was my hero. He was my “jump over burning bales of hay, save me when I fall in a well” dog. This couldn’t be real.

“That guy, right?” Peter said. “The one from the other day.”

“I guess so. I don’t know anyone else.”

Joe let out a hacking, coughing sound. He licked at his teeth.

“Can you come with me?” I asked. I was sure bringing Peter wasn’t going to win me any points with Alex, but I didn’t want to be alone. I didn’t want to do any of this alone.

“Of course,” Peter said, like there was no question about it.

Peter stayed with Joe while I got ready to go. He put his head down next to Joe’s head and stroked the fur behind Joe’s ears.

I slipped on my shoes without bothering to tie them. It took me way too long to find my keys. This is why people are organized, I thought. Emergencies happen and you just have to go, and you need to know where your keys are. I felt the panic start to creep in. My throat tightened. I took a deep breath, and covered my face with my hands. I knew I didn’t have the luxury of falling to pieces.

I finally found my keys on the floor of my bedroom. They must have fallen out of the pocket of my jeans when I took them off the night before.

Peter and I tried to coax Joe into standing, but his legs wobbled. He kept making that horrible coughing sound. I tried not to let my mind wander to all the awful things that could have caused this. Peter scooped Joe up in his arms and carried him to my car, and I ran in front of them to get the door open. Peter was careful to make sure he didn’t bump Joe’s head as he set him down gently on the backseat.

Peter drove. I sat in the backseat with Joe’s head in my lap. Joe sat up as we pulled out of the garage, but then he lay back down again. His big brown eyes were glassy and he had that bewildered look he gets when he first wakes up from a nap. Usually he snapped out of it after a few minutes, but he wasn’t snapping out of this. He was in a daze. When we pulled alongside a motorcycle at a red light, he didn’t even growl.

Peter parked right in front of the clinic. We helped Joe climb out of the car, but then Peter picked him up again to carry him in.

“Oh, Joey!” Mindy yelped the second we walked in the door. “What happened?” She ran around the desk and rushed over to Joe.

“He just started shaking,” Peter said. He was straining under the weight of Joe, but he didn’t put him down. “His eyes rolled back. It was awful.” I was so thankful he was there, that he could explain what happened, and that I didn’t have to do this alone.

“Poor baby!” Mindy said, petting Joe’s head. She ushered us into an empty exam room.

Peter put Joe down on the exam table, and I crouched down so I could look him in the eyes. His ears perked up and he licked my chin and whined.

“Alex is finishing up with a patient,” Mindy said. “He’ll be done in a few minutes. I’ll tell him it’s an emergency.”

“Thanks,” I said. I felt my heart race when she said Alex’s name, but I didn’t have it in me to worry about what he might think. I just wanted him to fix my dog.

Mindy slid the door closed carefully. Peter came over and stood next to me and kept his hands out like he was making sure Joe wouldn’t fall off the table.

“I’m so glad you’re here,” I said to Peter, my voice wavering.

He put his hand on my shoulder. “That’s what friends do, right?” he said.

The door slid open and Alex walked in. Peter pulled his hand off my shoulder.

Alex’s jaw was set and he kept his eyes on Joe’s chart. “Tell me what happened,” he said, leaning against the counter. I wanted to go over and hug him and cry it out and tell him what happened and beg him to make it all better, but he was acting like he didn’t even know me.

“He was playing,” I said, “and then he just started shaking.” I thought of the way Alex held my hand and pinned it to the bed. We were so far from that now. I couldn’t even look at him anymore. I focused my attention on Joe. Joe’s brown eyes. Joe’s big black nose. Joe’s fuzzy ears. I needed Joe to be okay.

“Can you be more specific?” Alex said, writing in Joe’s chart. I wondered if he was really writing anything, or if he was just trying to avoid looking at me as much as I was trying to avoid looking at him.

“I don’t- I wasn’t there,” I said.

“I was,” Peter said. He and Alex stood there, staring at each other until Peter offered his hand and said, “Peter Clarke.”

Alex raised his eyebrows slightly. He grunted, shook Peter’s hand, and pulled away to look at Joe’s file again. “Can you tell me what happened?”

Peter explained the chain of events thoroughly, like he was being deposed, using words like
convulse
and
nonresponsive
. He even admitted to feeding Joe some Cap’n Crunch.

I held Joe’s paw in my hand, smoothing down the tufts of fur between his toes.

Alex came over and ran his hand along Joe’s side, feeling his belly. I placed Joe’s paw on the table gently and moved away to give Alex some space. He pulled the penlight out of his pocket and looked in Joe’s eyes and ears. Joe barely resisted when Alex pried his mouth open to examine.

“He keeps hacking and then licking his mouth,” I said.

Peter sat in the chair in the corner of the room. He met my eyes and gave me a reassuring smile every time I looked at him.

“He bit his tongue badly,” Alex said, pointing to the side of Joe’s mouth. “He probably has blood and extra saliva running down his throat.” He went back to the counter and wrote more notes in Joe’s chart.

“So what it sounds like,” Alex said, leaning against the counter, “is that he had a seizure.” He looked at me and then Peter. “I’d like to keep him overnight to run some tests. Sometimes dogs just get seizures. It’s just the way they’re wired. Sometimes there’s an underlying cause, and I want to make sure we rule that out. We don’t want to miss a bigger problem, if there is one.” He was using a kinder voice now. “So we’ll admit him and cover our bases,” he said. “Is that okay with you?”