Crush (3 page)

“Language, sweetheart,” they said in unison.

“You two met at seventeen and had Joy when you were still seventeen and you’re still together, doesn’t that count for something?”

They gazed lovingly at each other for a second and then returned their attentions to me. “Seventeen is a vulnerable and empowering time in one’s life...” Dad said.

“...you struggle between the freedom of some independence and the restraints of the
expectations and concerns of the people who love you very much,” my mom finished for them both.

And so here I am in Prospect Park, watching the kites overhead, instead of working the farm with the Woofers, with bonfires and drumming after dark, skinny-dipping in the river, and sweet, hot, high afternoons picking blueberries.

My parents are such hypocrites. They smoke pot all the time. And they always did, too, even when I was little. My mother even dared to say, but only once, that it’s because she smoked pot while she was pregnant that we turned out so mellow. She said that before Joy disappeared for two years and returned with a drug problem. Mom swears she never said it now. Now she’s all about the Stay Away From Drugs speeches, while all the while I know she’s got a stash in her purse at any given time, unless we’re crossing the border.

Daisy comes romping back on her short little legs, followed by a big yellow mutt with a studded collar.

“Hey, dogs.” The yellow dog flops onto his back for some loving. Daisy clambers all over him, nipping at him playfully. I look around for whoever might be with the yellow dog. “Go on, get out of here.” The dog rolls over and sits up. He finds a stick and drops it in my lap. I stand, pick up the stick and try to figure out who in the hundreds of people might belong to him. I can’t decide, so I throw the stick in the direction of the thickest swell of people. “Go find your human. And don’t come back!”

He fetches the stick, races back to me and drops it at my feet.

“Who do you belong to?” His tag has a phone number and a name. “Clocker?”

He barks and wags his tail.

“Well, go on, Clocker.” I wander toward the crowd, dogs in tow. “Find your human.”

Clocker trots happily at my side and shows no interest in anyone else.

“Great.” I look around for a Lost & Found tent or somewhere I can leave him. The kite festival people tell me that they won’t take him because of the risk to kids. “Whatever
you say.” As we speak, Clocker is on his back, wriggling with delight, getting his belly rubbed by a hoard of rambunctious children.

I find a park employee, but he suggests the pound, and I don’t like that idea.

“You phoned the number yet?” the park guy asks.

“I don’t have a quarter.”

“Cell phone?”

I shake my head. He gives me a quarter and wishes me luck. I find a pay phone and dial the number. It’s a Brooklyn number, and after a couple of rings it goes to voice mail. A girl’s voice, and without a New Yorker accent.

“You’ve reached Nat. Leave me a message here or not, but if you’ve found Clocker, please, please, please don’t take him to the pound. I can’t afford to keep bailing him out of there. Leave your cell number and I’ll hook up with you right away. Thanks, and rock on, crouton.”

It beeps. “Uh, yeah, hi,” I say. “I’ve got Clocker, but I don’t have a cell, and I can’t remember my sister’s cell and I don’t know
where I am in the park, so...” Clocker barks, as if on cue. “So I guess I’ll head up to the gardens and wait there for a while.” I hang up. “So, dogs,” Clocker and Daisy wag their tails. “Guess we’re stuck with each other for a while.”

I wait at the gardens for almost two hours, until I think even Joy will start to worry, which isn’t something that comes naturally to her. I’ve been gone half the day by now. Both dogs have finally tired each other out with all of their you’re-my-new-best-friend romping and are now collapsed in panting heaps at my feet. I’m getting hungry. This whole broke thing is not going to work for me. Not only do I not have any money to get anything to eat, I don’t even have a quarter to call Clocker’s exceptionally irresponsible human again.

I’ll have to take Clocker back to Joy’s place. That won’t go over well. She’s got the urban hipster thing going on—minimalist and very clean, with select, expensive, breakable items at Clocker’s tail-wagging height. And Joy hates dogs. We had such a battle over
Daisy coming. I might have been less than impressed when Orion presented her to me as an apology for lying, but now I love her to neurons, and I’d never leave her for that long.

The elevator is on the fritz, so we hike up six flights of stairs at what has got to be the hottest time of the day. Daisy conks out at the third floor, so I carry her the rest of the way. And then, the minute we get in the door, and before I can dog-proof the place, Clocker waggles across the living room and sends a blown-glass sphere smashing onto the floor. The noise summons Bruce and Joy from the bedroom, each wrapped in a sheet and bleary-eyed from sleep or who knows what else.

Joy kneels and gingerly picks up a shard. “You know how much this cost?”

“Add it to my bill.” I hold the dogs back.

“Can you clean it up?” The last thing I need is another vet bill for sliced-up paws.

“Not a chance, Hopeless.” She drops the piece. “And what the hell is that dog doing here?”

While Bruce sweeps up the glass, I tell her.

“You’re here, what, like a few hours?” she asks. “How can you even get up to this much shit?” She disappears into the bedroom, still talking. “You keep it up at this rate and I’m so sending you home.”

“And you would so be The Unforgiven,” I call back.

“Get rid of the dog,” she says as she reemerges, dressed in a strapless sundress and high heels. “By the time we get back.”

“Where are you going?”

“Bruce has an audition in Manhattan.”

“You’re coming with me?” Bruce beams.

“That’s so sweet, honey.”

“I’m meeting Cecily for lunch, Bruce.” Joy doctors her lipstick at the mirror by the door. “I told you that.”

“Yeah, you did.” Poor Bruce. He actually slumps. Why does he stay with her? Even if it’s for sex, is it really worth it? “We’ll hook up after?” he asks.

“It’s a girl thing, Bruce,” Joy says.

“We can get together later, Bruce,” I offer.

“If you want.” It’s not like hanging out with Bruce is at the top of my To Do list, but I feel sorry for him, after all. Us hippie kids are supposed to end up with more than our fair share of compassion, but apparently Joy left hers at Larchberry.

“Yeah?” He beams again. He’s more like a puppy than Daisy, really. He tries so hard. “You want to get dinner somewhere? We can get ice cream at Uncle Louie G’s after. Butter pecan, remember that?”

“Yeah, the best—”

“God,” Joy cuts me off as she slings her purse over her shoulder.

“What?” Bruce says, wounded.

“You’re going to hang out with my baby sister on a Saturday night?”

“It’s her first night here. Why not?

” “Your social doom, baby.” She kisses him on the cheek. “Call me?”

“Are you going to meet us later?”

“We’ll see what everyone’s up to.” With that she flounces out of the apartment, high heels clicking toward the elevator.

I smile. “Elevator’s dead.”

Even Bruce, ever the doormat, smiles as a faint “Shit!” resounds down the hall before the door to the stairwell slams shut.

Chapter Four

People in New York City don’t have real phones. Bruce and Joy each have a cell, which they take with them when they leave, which leaves me with no phone. So I have to scrounge for a quarter because I didn’t think to call Clocker’s exceptionally irresponsible owner while there were two cell phones in the house. I take the dogs and the stairs to the street and find a pay phone and update Nat’s voice mail with Joy’s address.

About an hour later, the buzzer rings. I lift the receiver and see her in the intercom camera. The black-and-white grainy image makes her look like some kind of hoodlum.

“You’re Clocker’s human?” I ask.

“Yeah, hi.” She puts her hands, prayer like, to her chin. “Thank you, thank you, thank you!”

“It’s about time.”

“Sorry.” She puts her face right up to the camera so she’s all lip ring and wide eyes. “You’re my hero?”

“I’ll bring him down,” I say.

“Wait! I really, really have to pee.” She does a little jig. “Can I come up?”

“You expect me to let a perfect stranger in? This is New York!”

“My dog’s great, isn’t he?” She eyeballs the camera again. “I named him Clocker because his tail wags in a perfect circle, did you notice? Isn’t he the best? They say pets take after their owners. What do you say? I look harmless, right? Come on, I’m dying down here.”

I can appreciate the need for a decent place
to pee in Brooklyn. I’ve been there myself. “Just for a minute.” I buzz her in. Let’s hope she’s not a serial killer cleverly disguised as some blond-dreadlocked skater girl.

I open the door and Clocker barges down the hall to greet her as she emerges from the stairs, not at all out of breath.

“There’s my boy!” Nat drops to her knees and hugs him. He’s wagging his tail so hard he practically shimmies across the tile.

“Where you been, Mister Bad?” Clocker hurtles himself gleefully onto his back and she scratches his belly. “You went to the park without me? Did you see all your buddies?”

“And where were you?” I say, hands on my hips. I feel suddenly parental, which I don’t like, so I drop my hands.

“Work.” She stands up. “Thanks for looking after him.”

She’s taller than me, lankier too, with skinny hips and long tanned legs. Her dreads poke out from under a blue bandana. She’s got an eyebrow ring too, I can see now, and a tattoo of what looks like a bike chain and a series of gears climbing up her arm. She
might be my age, maybe a little older. She’d fit right in as a Woofer. Her hands are just as dirty, and she’s as tanned and as freaky looking as any of them.

“Grease.” She holds her hands up. “Bicycles. Clocker comes to work with me. He usually stays put, but every once in a while he takes off to the park without me. It’s okay, though.” She hugs him again. “You always find your way back to me, don’t you, Mister Bad?”

“With a little help,” I say.

“Hell, that’s what humans are for, aren’t they? Helping each other?” She touches her hand to her heart and bows slightly. I can’t tell if she’s being sarcastic or sincere. Being raised by hippies makes me a little gullible at times. “And I thank you. I really, truly thank you. Now, can I use your can?”

I step aside and she beelines for the bathroom. As she comes out, she does up her fly and checks out the living room. “Nice place.”

“It’s my sister’s.”

“Yeah?” She picks up a hunk of metal
Joy calls art. “Let me guess. Late twenties, wishes she was living in Manhattan. Probably a little...” She puts a finger to her nose and sniffs.

“Bang on.”

“Can spot ’em a mile away.” She sets the sculpture down. “I’m Nat, by the way.”

“Hope.”

“I cleaned my hands. Or they’re a little better anyway. See?” She holds them up for inspection before we shake. “Well, thanks again, Hope.”

Her grip is firm and warm and she holds onto my hand for almost as long as Maira did on the plane. Maybe it’s a Brooklyn thing. She’s kind of gazing at me, in a weird way. Another weird thing—a really weird thing—is that I don’t want her to let go.

“So, Hope.” She lets go. “See you around?”

I nod, not sure what to say. She whistles for Clocker, who’s curled up on Joy’s very expensive chaise lounge, and they leave. I shake my head at Daisy, who’s whining at the door, already missing her new buddy.

“What was that?” I ask, completely bewildered. Daisy lies down, nose touching the door, and whines. “Just exactly what was
that
?”

Chapter Five

Today is day six of my job at the vet’s, and I haven’t seen Nat since. I’ve been walking the dogs first thing each morning, and then again in the evenings, and keeping an eye out for her the whole time, although I’m not sure why. Thomas, the vet, is really easy to work for, thank the Universe for that. He’s mellow and reminds me of Dad a little, except he has
opera blaring all day, and Dad would play folk music, or jazz, but definitely not opera. This is also day six of Joy’s slavery schedule of housework and errands I have to do to pay off the broken glass thingy. I’m in the middle of alphabetizing her bookshelf when Maira calls.

“I need you!” She says, frantic. “My nanny just quit! Come for supper tomorrow night?”

She offers me a nannying job, which is fantastic, but even if she hadn’t, I’ve been so lonely I’d go just for the company. She needs me for four days a week, she explains, while she goes to her job as an editor at a publisher in Manhattan. So tomorrow I’ll get to meet the guy she’d been so upset about on the plane.

Maira’s address is a brownstone on Garfield, just below the park and the trendy shops. There’s a tiny, neat, lush garden out front, and flowers spilling out of pots lining the steps, leading to a red front door and an antique doorbell. From what I can see from the skinny window beside the door, Maira
is rich, rich, rich. There’s just no other word for it. Or her husband is. Or they both are. Classy furniture, walls of books, tasteful art and just a glimpse of a kitchen that looks like it sprang fully formed from the loins of the
How Cool People Live Guidebook
.

Maira comes to the door, a twin on each hip. She manages to unlock and open the door in a way only a mother of infant twins could.

“Am I ever glad to see you.” She offers me one. “Felix,” she says, just as I was going to guess he was Avery. “Come on in, I’ll give you a tour.”

It takes less than a minute before I decide that when I have a home of my own, I want it to be just like hers. Never mind the higgledy-piggledy, homemade, wood-smoke, comforting jumble of Larchberry Farm. I vote for this—smart and artful and eclectic and interesting and tidy, but still really lived-in and human and warm. She shows me the kitchen last. We park ourselves there, and Maira starts concocting a marinade for the three lamb chops sitting raw and ugly on a white platter.