The Unexpected Everything (7 page)

“What?” I whispered, my hand gripping the phone so tightly my knuckles were turning white. “I don't understand. I mean, this must be . . . There has to be something else I can do.”

“I'm afraid there isn't. Your spot has already been reassigned. And I'm sorry for the late notice, but Dr. Rizzoli didn't send us the e-mail until last night,” she said. I could hear the relief in her voice, like she'd gotten the hard part over with. She could see the finish line and just wanted to be off this call with me. “Your deposit and your tuition will of course be refunded.”

“Wait,” I said, not even having anything to follow this but somehow needing to keep her on the phone, to try to figure out some way around this. Because this
couldn't
really be happening. It couldn't.

“Again, our apologies,” she said, and I could tell how much
she wanted to wrap this up. “You will be more than welcome to apply for next year's program, of course.”

“But—” I said, willing myself to think faster. “I . . .”

“Have a nice day.” A second later the call was disconnected and I was staring down at my phone. The whole conversation, completely wrecking my summer plans and possibly jeopardizing my future as a doctor, had taken two minutes and thirty-three seconds.

My heart was still beating hard, and I had a desperate, panicky feeling flooding through my body. I needed to do something. I needed to fix this. Somehow, I had to make this okay again. These things had to be reversible. This couldn't be
over
.

I looked across my room, the early-morning light slanting through my blinds, and saw my suitcase, the one that I'd packed last night, after having practically memorized the “What to Bring” section of my informational documents. Somehow, seeing it there was enough to steel my resolve. I had
packed
. I had made plans and built my whole summer around this. Some woman named Caroline was not going to stop all of that with a two-minute phone call.

I pulled up my contacts and scrolled through them. I didn't have a number for Dr. Rizzoli, only an address from when I'd sent him his thank-you note. This whole thing had to be because of yesterday's press conference. There was no other explanation for why he would suddenly be trying to distance himself from anything to do with my father—in this case, me.

But if he'd sent an e-mail undoing this, he could send another one putting things back into place. There was still some
time, after all—the program didn't start until tomorrow. This could all still be okay. I just had to convince him that this had nothing to do with my dad and that he needed to contact the program and tell them the e-mail had been a mistake, sent accidentally from the drafts folder, in an Ambien haze, whatever—I didn't care what he told Johns Hopkins. But he had to reverse this. He
had
to.

And I had a feeling he'd have a lot harder time telling me he couldn't if I was standing in front of him.

I pushed myself out of bed and ran toward my closet.

•  •  •

Twenty minutes later I sat in my car, across the street from the house of Dr. Daniel Rizzoli. He lived on Sound Beach, over by the water. The closer you got to the water, the nicer the houses got—gorgeous and huge and intimidatingly fancy, and Dr. Rizzoli's was no exception. The last time I'd been there, it had been for a fund-raiser for my dad. The house's gates had been flung wide, there had been candles in lanterns lining the driveway, and valets in white coats running around parking cars.

My phone buzzed in the cupholder, and I looked down at it—it was a text from Palmer. She and Tom were going for breakfast at the diner in case anyone wanted to join them. I didn't know why they were up this early, but I also didn't want to get distracted by a text exchange. I had to focus. I put my phone facedown on the passenger seat, then flipped open the visor mirror of my car and gave myself a last look. I'd wanted to look like I was competent and deserving of a recommendation, but not too dressed up, considering it wasn't even eight yet. I'd gone with dark jeans and a button-down, and since I didn't
want to waste time doing something with my hair, I'd pulled it into a knot on top of my head. I slicked on a tiny bit more lip gloss, then dropped it in my bag and flipped the visor up.

“Okay,” I said, taking in a breath, holding it for seven seconds, then letting it out for ten. It was actually the only thing I'd taken away from Camp Stepping Stone—a way of making your heart rate slow and calming yourself down. I used it whenever I was preparing to do something stressful. But while this was not the most pleasant thing I could imagine doing today, at least I was prepared. I'd turned the radio off and practiced my speech the whole way over. I had answers lined up for all the arguments I could imagine Dr. Rizzoli making. I could do this. I took a breath, opened the door, and stepped out into the sunshine. “Hello, Dr. Rizzoli,” I murmured under my breath, practicing. “Good morning, Dr. Rizzoli. Sorry to bother you . . .” I nodded. That was the one. I straightened my shoulders and headed for the house.

I was halfway across the street when I heard the dog.

There was the sound of loud, joyful barking, and I turned around and felt my eyes widen. A large white fluffy dog was galloping down the road, tongue flying sideways out of its mouth, limbs landing in a haphazard pattern that seemed to send it listing to the side and then scrambling for balance every few steps. There was a leash dragging on the ground behind it, the plastic handle scraping along the asphalt with a dull
hiss
, occasionally bumping over rocks, but the dog was alone—there was no indication that there had been a human on the other end at some point. I looked around, starting to get concerned as the dog zigzagged back and forth across the road. This wasn't a busy
street, but I still didn't think it was a good idea for this dog to be running loose.

“Here, um, you,” I called, gesturing toward myself and feeling incredibly self-conscious about it. “Come here.” The dog stopped and looked at me, then sat down right in the middle of the street, which I didn't think was an improvement. “Come on,” I said again, gesturing to myself again as I took a small step closer to it. The dog leaped up and ran a few steps away, then sat down again, and I could see his long tail thumping on the ground. Clearly, he thought we were playing a game, and he seemed thrilled about it. “Okay, just stay,” I said as I started to move toward him slowly. I was only a few feet away from the leash that was lying on the ground. If I could get ahold of it, I could at least try to figure out what should happen next.

I had very little experience with dogs. We'd never had one when I was growing up, and none of my friends had dogs either. Palmer's family had cats that were semi-feral and came and went as they pleased, and Bri had Miss Cupcakes, evil feline. Nathan Trenton, who I'd dated sophomore year, had a really awesome mutt that I'd loved. Nathan used to complain that I was more excited to see his dog than to see him, and when I'd realized that was true, I'd broken up with him.

I moved carefully toward the dog, whose tail was still thumping on the ground. It was looking right at me, mouth open and tongue hanging out, and I could have sworn that it was smiling at me. I reached out slowly, keeping eye contact as I inched my way closer.

“Birdie!” This was yelled out in a loud, panicky voice, and I turned around to see a guy running up the street, looking
around frantically. When he saw the dog, I could see his shoulders slump with relief, even from a distance. He started running faster, and I turned back to the dog, which was when I noticed two things at almost exactly the same time.

One, the dog was getting ready to run again, apparently convinced that his favorite game had taken on a new and exciting layer. And two, there was a car heading down the street toward us, going much faster than it should have been.

I moved without even realizing I was going to. Going on instinct and panic, I ran toward the dog and grabbed its leash in my hand, then pulled him across the road. I felt the dog resist at first, but then it must have thought this was a fun idea, because it started running, first next to me, then past me, pulling me off my feet. I hit the ground just as I heard a screech of brakes and a guy yelling, “Hey!” I saw the car swerve, then head off down the street again, still going too fast.

The dog started covering my face in slobbery kisses, and I pushed it off as I sat up, still holding on to the leash in case he—because I could see now that it was a he—made another run for it. He was big—he had to be at least a hundred pounds, maybe more—with fluffy white hair and a nose that was probably black at one point but was now mostly pink. He had a tail that curled up over his back, black eyes, and stubby white eyelashes. He had not stopped moving for a moment, jumping to his feet, then sitting down and trying to kiss me again, like he was thrilled with the way everything had turned out, his smile still in place.

“Calm down,” I said as I released my grip on the leash slightly. I wiped the dirt and gravel off on my jeans, then reached
out and patted the dog's head, even though he probably didn't deserve it. His tail started thumping on the ground more rapidly, and he tilted his head to the side, like he was showing me that I should really be petting him by his ears.

“Birdie!” The guy who had yelled before was running up to us, sounding half out of breath. “I'm so sorry—are you—okay? Is he?” He stopped and bent halfway over, his hands on his knees, taking deep breaths.

“I'm fine,” I said as I pushed myself up to standing. I was okay—like, I might have a bruise on my hip tomorrow, but otherwise fine. The dog looked up at me with his head cocked to the side, and I had to admit, he was pretty cute. For a moment I felt sorry that he had been saddled with such a stupid name. I mean, Birdie? For a dog? I brushed off my hands and then rubbed the dog's ears once more. His hair was soft and silky, and there was so
much
of it—like if this dog got wet, he'd only be about half this size. I noticed a tag hanging from his green leather collar, a round gold disk with
BERTIE
in engraved capitals. So that at least made a little more sense than
Birdie
. But not by much. “Here,” I said, holding out the leash to the guy, who was still trying to get his breath back. I wasn't going to be rude—that had been drilled out of me years ago, first by my parents and then by Peter—but that didn't mean I needed to be overly polite to a guy who couldn't even keep hold of his pet. Also, I had something I had to do.

The guy straightened up and smiled at me. “Thanks,” he said.

I took an involuntary step backward. For some reason, seeing him from a distance, I'd assumed he was older than me—in his twenties, maybe. But this guy looked around my age. He was
only an inch or two taller than me, which meant he was probably around five ten, and thin, but with broad shoulders. He had dark brown hair that was cut short and neatly combed and dark brown eyes. He was wearing a black shirt that read
THE DROID YOU'RE LOOKING FOR
in yellow capital letters, which rang a vague bell, but nothing I could place. I could see that he had two deep dimples, like parentheses around his smile. They were incredibly distracting, and I made myself look away immediately. He was wearing glasses with frames that were straighter on top and then became rounded, and his smile widened when I met his eyes.

“Sure,” I said as I took another step away.

“I—um, I really am sorry,” he said, looking down at the dog. It seemed like he'd gotten his breath back now. “I'm not sure what happened, but the leash got away from me.” He shrugged and went to put his hands in his pockets, and it wasn't until Bertie's head got yanked up that he seemed to remember he had a leash in one of them. I saw that his cheeks, and the tips of his ears, were starting to turn red. “Um.” He cleared his throat, his voice getting softer with every word. “I'm not great with dogs.”

I was about to say something to this—like, what kind of excuse was that? He clearly owned a dog—when I decided to let it go. “It's fine,” I said, giving him a quick smile before I turned back to Dr. Rizzoli's house. I had taken a few steps toward it when I realized that all the dog drama had taken place in pretty clear view of the front windows. Had Dr. Rizzoli seen what had happened?

The dog lunged toward me, and I heard the guy say, “Bert!” as he pulled him back, and then the soft sound of disappointed dog whimpering. But I was only half paying attention to this.
My eyes were scanning the front of Dr. Rizzoli's house, my hopes starting to nose-dive. All the curtains were drawn. There were no lights on that I could see, no cars in the driveway, and most telling of all, there was a layer of green summer leaves covering the front steps. Either Dr. Rizzoli was out of town, or he hadn't left the house in a while. Why had I just assumed that he would be here, waiting for me, willing to correct the mistake and let me go to my program after all?

I stared at the house, telling myself that I could still do this, that this wasn't over yet. I could get his number and call him and get him to change his mind . . . but even as I was forming this plan, I knew it wasn't going to work. All the adrenaline and righteous anger that had gotten me here was fading, and I was left with the reality of the situation: Dr. Rizzoli had e-mailed Johns Hopkins and gotten me pulled from the program. He'd meant to do that, and he wasn't about to undo it because I asked him nicely.

Feeling like I was about to cry—something I very rarely did, usually only at movies—I turned around and started walking across the street, back to my car, crossing my arms over my chest.

“Uh—so, see you around?” the guy called after me, and I could hear the nervous, hopeful note in his voice. Under other circumstances, I probably would have responded to this. He was really cute, after all, even if he had no idea how to walk a dog. But not today. Not with everything that had been my life currently in pieces at my feet.