Jake (6 page)

He probably felt bad about the whole thing.

The babysitter told him it was nothing, I wasn’t hurt, don’t worry about it. Something like that. I was four, but even then I could see she thought he was cute or something. It was true, I wasn’t really hurt, but I get nervous around dogs now.

This was not a dog to make you nervous. This was a dog to keep away from. Little, but mean. He was slobbering all over the window, trying to get to us. His teeth made little clicking noises on the glass.

“Better stand back,” Granddad said to us.

Mrs. Buttermark and I were already backed up.

Granddad opened the car door and snatched at the dog’s collar fast. The same way the lion tamer knows to snap the whip at the first sign of trouble. He grabbed the dog by his collar and picked him up like a little kid, holding him tight against his chest.

That dog quieted right down.

“He’s been sick lately. We had to see a lot of vets, so he’s anxious about strangers,” Granddad said. “Probably feeling worse since he’s so cold.”

I didn’t think that dog looked all that sick or even cold. Steam was coming off him. His breath showed on the air, of course. All our breaths showed on the air. But he had wispy little breaths of steam rising out of his bristly fur when he moved, I saw it.

He looked old and crabby, that’s the type of dog he was.

He even looked at us with that same dog laugh that I remembered, except it didn’t look much like,
Good game, huh?
It looked more like,
Scared ya bad, didn’t I?

I wondered where in the apartment he was going to be. Where I was going to be. Because I didn’t want to be around him at all.

Mrs. Buttermark hadn’t said anything, and neither had I. Granddad said, “He’s a good little fellow. He won’t tear anything up or chew on the furniture.”

“I think Jake and I will take our car, and you follow in yours,” Mrs. Buttermark said.

So that’s what we did.

As we got into Mrs. Buttermark’s car, I was thinking about how she sounded like that dog wasn’t even horrible. Of course, that’s Mrs. Buttermark’s specialty, making other people feel like, don’t worry, everything’s working out.

“I don’t like his dog,” I said to her.

“I don’t care for him either,” she said. “I hope it didn’t show. Did it show?”

I shook my head.

“Oh, good. Because I guess you saw what I saw,” she said. “Your grandfather just loves that dog.”

I nodded.

I’ve known Mrs. Buttermark a long time. Since I was two or three, anyway. Long enough to know that she was telling me in the very nicest way that no matter how much I didn’t like that dog, this was the last chance I had to say so.

At least until Granddad went home.

“Let’s look at him like a scientific subject, the way Suzie does,” she said. “Each day, we’ll notice something about him that’s a good reason why your grandfather
would
love him.”

I looked over at Mrs. Buttermark.

“We don’t have to love him too, or even like him,” she said. “We just have to find one reason why your grandfather does.”

“Then what?” Because I didn’t think that dog was going to be doing us the same favor.

“Then we’ll pretend we’re your aunt Ginny and reflect that to him.”

Inside, where Mrs. Buttermark couldn’t hear it, I groaned.

Aunt Ginny has this thing she does with people on the wilderness weekends. Especially the ones she doesn’t like much. She finds something in them that is, for a moment at least, a good or interesting part of them, and reflects it at them. Like the way sunlight hits a mirror, that’s the way she puts it.

She sees something she can like or admire and gives them her sunniest smile. She smiles from her heart. And by the end of the weekend, she says, she nearly always likes them. She says it’s like a miracle is worked, not on them—on her.

I looked over the seat to make sure Granddad was behind us as we turned onto the avenue. “I wonder if a dog knows the difference.”

Mrs. Buttermark said, “What difference?”

“Between giving him a sunny smile and baring our teeth at him.”

Mrs. Buttermark laughed.

Aunt Ginny is nice. And smart. I love her and all. But she has some wacky ideas.

Granddad put his
suitcase down, told his dog to sit—which the dog did—and looked around. It took me a minute to realize he wasn’t crazy about what he saw.

We don’t have the kinds of stuff I see in other kids’ houses: plaid couches, curtains to the floor, and wall-to-wall carpet.

Nope.

Our place is more, like, amber beaded curtain between the living room and kitchen. No curtains at all at the windows because of so many plants on glass shelves.

Mostly everything else is brown or straw-colored because it’s wood or leather or linen or, well, baskets. Even the rug on the floor is made of basket stuff.

Except Mom covered the couch with a bright quilt made from Indian fabrics with little mirrors sewn into
it here and there. It has places where the fabric has worn through and you can see another strong color underneath. I could see how to Granddad’s eyes, this still only looked worn out.

I was glad Mrs. Buttermark did the dishes. Our Christmas tree looked good, even though the lights were off. It even smelled like Christmas in here.

On the other side of the room, where most people would put a TV, we had the fish tank. A big saltwater aquarium. As long as the couch. Even plaid people usually forget about everything else and head straight for the fish tank. Granddad hardly noticed it.

I said, “The TV is in that cabinet.”

“Fine, fine,” he said.

“You can sleep in this room.” I started down the hall. “Mom keeps sheets on the sofa bed, in case anyone ever needs to crash.”

He followed me and the dog followed him. Mrs. Buttermark had said she’d run into her own apartment while I got Granddad settled. So I was trying to think of everything Mom said when people stayed over.

Granddad set his suitcase on the sofa bed. “Are there many crashers?”

“Aunt Ginny after she had surgery. Mrs. Buttermark last month. The guy in the apartment above hers
had a leak in his bathroom and the water came into hers.”

He unzipped his suitcase. Inside, it looked extremely neat. Everything sort of lined up, no matter that it was going to be a shirt shape or a sock shape once it was unfolded. I couldn’t imagine how he’d gotten it to do that.

“I’m going to check the fish,” I said.

I looked at our living room again. I saw some things that could bother somebody who packs in straight lines. Maybe it wasn’t the beaded curtains at all.

I stacked up the magazines on the coffee table and made them line up with the edge. I went all around the room moving things into straight lines, even the easy chairs. Even the pillows Mom calls toss pillows, which she always does,
tosses
them onto the couch and chairs.

When I finished, the room looked strange to me. I had a feeling it would look better to Granddad. Then I fed the fish.

“It’s been a long day,” I told them as they nibbled at the surface of the water. “Mom won’t be coming home again tonight.”

I heard the sound of dog toenails on the floor. Granddad said, “This a hobby of yours?”

“Suzie’s,” I said. “She keeps her fish here with us because sometimes she’s away for a couple of weeks at a time.”

“I don’t much care for keeping fish or birds,” Granddad said. He sounded like he thought it ought to be a rule for everybody. “They don’t seem suited to being pets the way cats and dogs are.”

His dog leaned against his leg as they stood there. It made me think of the way I leaned against Mom when I was little. I doubted it was the same thing at all.

“These guys have a perfect life,” I said.

“You think so?” Granddad’s eyes kind of trembled. “I think they’re missing a lot.”

“The chance to get eaten by bigger fish?” I said, mostly out of surprise. Also, because I thought these fish had it good. Then I realized I sounded rude.

“There’s nothing wrong with taking chances,” Granddad said. “It’s how we grow.”

I didn’t say anything.

“I mean, you don’t have to do anything stupid. Risk is part of living a life, a full life.”

“Mom doesn’t like for me to take chances.”

“Well, you have to do what your mother tells you,” he said, looking away from me. “I don’t mean to interfere.”

He didn’t sound sarcastic or anything when he said it. I didn’t like to think he got the idea that I was a momma’s boy. Aunt Ginny is always complimenting me and Mom that I’m really good at being a separate person.

A guy.

I didn’t like how separate we were right now. I wasn’t sure I liked Granddad either. It was good of him to come and get Mom operated on and all, but nobody needed him to criticize Suzie. She saved fish and birds from dying all the time.

Mammals too, like dolphins and whales. If it was cruel to keep these fish, she’d be the first one to set them free.

“So you were out at the supermarket when this happened,” Granddad said, changing the subject. “I suppose that means the cupboards are bare.”

“Nope.” I led the way to the kitchen. “Mom plans ahead in case of getting snowed in or something. We never run out of eggs or spaghetti.” The sound of dog toenails followed me, and so did Granddad.

“Now that surprises me,” he said. “I don’t remember her being someone who planned ahead.”

“Yeah, well, some memories don’t have anything to do with what’s real,” I said, more or less to myself.

Okay. I was saying it to him.

“That something your mother taught you?” he said, looking the kitchen over like he didn’t like it much either.

“I figured that one out for myself,” I said, looking at him the way he looked at the kitchen. I opened the pantry and reached for a jar of tomato sauce.

“Can’t eat cooked tomatoes,” he said. “Got any bacon? Milk or cream?”

“Maybe.” I looked for the milk, mainly, because that’s easy to run out of. Mom had heavy cream. She’d bought it to make whipped cream before Suzie left and then she never got around to it. I said, “It’s old.”

He checked the carton. “Expiration date is a week away. Cream lasts longer than milk.”

“No bacon,” I said, as he took the Parmesan cheese off the shelf.

“Here’s smoked ham,” he said. “Can we use that?”

“Sure.” Do what you want, that’s what I didn’t say.

He put water to boil and then went through the cabinets, checking out weird stuff like marinated
artichokes and roasted red peppers. Mom uses those now and then.

He found a jar of black olives with pits and some brown peas called capers and a can of anchovies. He kept making these little
umm
,
good
sounds, acting like all of it was buried treasure.

He sliced up a leftover piece of red onion, thin as paper, and used up the last of the lettuce, mixing it with some of the other stuff to make a salad that
he
looked happy with, anyway.

The dog came over near me and sniffed the air in my direction.

“He’s starting to remember you,” Granddad said.

“Remember me?”

“You were about a year old when I got him,” Granddad said. “You were both puppies, crawling around on the floor. You used to try to pull his tail.”

I waited to see how this made me feel. If it made me remember Granddad any better, since he did used to live in Baltimore. Mainly, it made me wonder if he was remembering some other grandson. One he might decide he liked better.

He stirred the spaghetti into the boiling water for a minute. He had me crack eggs into a big bowl while he sliced the ham into little slivers. He stirred the
spaghetti again and mixed a whole lot of stuff together with the eggs—cream and ham and cheese.

He ground a lot of pepper into it. I decided against telling him I don’t like pepper. “Did you learn to cook like this in the army?”

“Marines,” he said. “There’s a difference.”

I figured.

I’d seen a couple of movies where guys from the navy and the army, or maybe it was the marines, got into big fistfights with each other, like they weren’t all on the same team or something. I figured getting into fights with guys you could have been friends with was their idea of fun. I stopped worrying about reflecting at the dog so much. I needed to work on reflecting at Granddad.

Meanwhile, he called the hospital and found out Mom was still in surgery. That everything was going well. He had somebody’s name who was supposed to answer these questions for him, which was more than I would’ve gotten. So I reflected that at him. I felt a little better. It was a start.

Granddad drained the spaghetti and put it into the bowl with the raw eggs, tossing the whole mess like crazy.

“We’re eating raw eggs?”

“The heat of the spaghetti cooks them,” he said. “The eggs make the sauce cling instead of floating around at the bottom of the bowl.”

I hoped we had some oatmeal left, because this didn’t look like my kind of food.

The doorbell rang.

It was Mrs. Buttermark with a big plate full of sandwiches, each one in its own ziplock bag. “I thought you fellas would like to have something to eat,” she said, coming in. “Don’t you love Liz’s apartment? It’s such a welcoming pla—”

She looked at me. I didn’t say a word.

“My,” Mrs. Buttermark said, which is what she says when the jigsaw piece looked perfect but it still didn’t fit. She turned toward the kitchen. “I didn’t realize you’d cook.”

“You mean you didn’t think I could,” Granddad said. “Why don’t you sit down with us?”

Mrs. Buttermark looked flustered. “I made all these sandwiches.”

“Let’s put them in the fridge,” Granddad said. “We’ll have a hot meal before we return to the hospital. The sandwiches will tide us over later.”

I was glad she stayed. If she wasn’t planning to go to the hospital with us, I’d’ve asked her to come along.
Granddad wasn’t quite a stranger, okay. It wasn’t like we were buddies either.

The holiday phone calls were never enough to make me feel like I got to know him. It was more like he was calling me on birthdays because he was supposed to. I never felt bad about this. It wasn’t as if I called him, ever.