The Hard Kind of Promise (7 page)

An hour later, they'd set everything up. Sarah and her mom stood behind Grandpa's chair, waiting while he
read the instructions one more time. Henry stood beside them, watching them all alertly, seeming to sense that he might be called on to participate in whatever was about to happen.

"Okay," Grandpa said. "Sarah, you got the blanket?"

"Got it."

Grandpa snapped his fingers so that Henry would stand in front of him.

"Henry, sit," he said.

Proud to obey, Henry lowered his haunches to the floor.

"Okay, sweetheart, put the blanket over his head. Gently, so he doesn't panic." Grandpa checked his watch. "We're going to see how long it takes him to shake it off."

Sarah put the gray flannel blanket over Henry's head.

"Don't they put blankets over birdcages so parrots will think it's nighttime?" she asked.

"Shhh," Grandpa said, not taking his eyes off his watch.

Henry stood up immediately. He shook his head, but the blanket still hung over his eyes. He fidgeted some more, dipping his head, and the blanket fell away.

"Nine seconds!" Grandpa bent forward to rub Henry's ear. "Attaboy!"

"Is that good?" Mom asked.

"Under fifteen seconds, and he gets three points. Write that down," he said.

Mom shook her head as she wrote. "I'm having trouble imagining what kind of dog takes longer than fifteen seconds to do that," she said.

Sarah laughed.

"Henry, you ready for your next test?" Grandpa asked.

The dog, leaning hard against Grandpa's hand, did not look ready to stop being scratched.

Grandpa took his hand away.

"Okay, buddy. Okay, now. Time for more work. You ready, Henry?" To Sarah he said, "Sweetheart, let him see you put a treat under one of the buckets."

Sarah held up a bone-shaped doggy cookie for Henry to see. "Now watch, Henry," she said, walking to the far end of the living room, where she'd arranged three overturned plastic sand pails. "See what I'm doing?" She slid the treat under the middle pail.

Henry watched with interest. If Grandpa hadn't been holding him by the collar, he would have padded over to the buckets to have a closer look.

Sarah went to Henry and took him by the collar.

"Turn him around. So his back is to the buckets," Grandpa said.

Sarah made him sit. When he'd stayed put for a few seconds, she said, "Okay," and he rose and went over to the pails. He sniffed at the ground in front of all three, then managed with his nose and right paw to overturn the middle pail and free the treat, which he gobbled with relish.

"Right on the first try!" Grandpa said. "Three more points, Henry!"

Mom wrote it down. "Not bad for a dog who eats empty garbage bags," she said.

"That was only that one time," Sarah said.

"Once was enough," Mom said, shaking her head. "The vet bill was over six hundred dollars."

Henry swallowed his cookie. He seemed pleased to realize he was the kind of dog someone would spend a lot of money to help.

"Okay, Sarah, we need another treat." Grandpa leaned forward and pointed. "Put it right there, under the coffee table. Where he can only reach it with his paw."

The coffee table was low to the ground. Henry cocked his head as Sarah positioned the cookie.

"If he can get the treat with just his paw, he gets another three points," Grandpa said. "No fair using his snout."

Henry paused for only a moment in front of the table. Then he extended his big, curly-haired paw
toward the treat. He did it with surprising delicacy, as though a careless move might cause the cookie to fall into a hole in the floor and disappear forever.

When he had maneuvered the cookie out from under the table, and bent to eat it, Sarah, Grandpa, and Mom all cheered at once.

Grandpa pumped a fist in the air. "Seems to me we got us an Einstein here," he said.

"Let's not get carried away," Mom said.

"Paula, I'm telling you, this dog's a gem!" Grandpa turned to Sarah. "Now let's see if he can figure out how to get a treat when it's behind all those cardboard boxes we cut up."

They had flattened a couple of boxes to create a surface about five feet long and three feet tall. Then Sarah had cut a square hole out of the center so that Henry could see through it. They had balanced the whole thing against two more boxes, creating a kind of wall. Sarah set a cookie on the opposite side of the wall, making sure that Henry—Grandpa's hand holding him firmly by the collar—was watching through the makeshift window.

"Okay, buddy," Grandpa said, releasing him. "Show your stuff."

Henry seemed momentarily confused. He moved
toward the cardboard barrier, then sniffed. Cautiously he tried to insert his nose into the cut-out hole.

"Uh-oh," Sarah whispered.

After a moment Henry withdrew his nose. He cocked his head. His tail, wagging almost incessantly, slowed to a stop.

"Come on, buddy," Grandpa said. "You can do it."

Encouraged, Henry stood still for another few seconds. Sarah could almost see him pondering, weighing his options.

Finally, sniffing the air as though it were providing him with invisible clues, he jogged around the barrier and made his way to the cookie.

"Forty-six seconds," Grandpa said, checking his watch. "Not great, but not bad. Give him two points, Paula."

"Maybe he's getting tired," Sarah said.

"Just one more test. Go get his leash. If he hears it jangling and gets excited without you saying a word, he gets another three points."

Sarah ran into the kitchen and took the leash off the counter, where she'd left it after that morning's walk. Heading into the living room, she saw Henry swallow the last of his cookie, then run to her with a hopeful look in his eyes.

"He knows," she said. "Another three points! What's his score, Mom?"

"Fourteen out of fifteen. Brilliant, according to the experts."

"What'd I tell you? Brilliant!" Grandpa smacked his thigh. Then he positioned his hands on the armrest and struggled to push himself to stand up. "Come on, girls. Let's walk ole Einstein here to the corner and get cones. My treat."

It was almost dark out when they got down to the street. Sarah felt a thrill to be getting ice cream before dinner. She peered at the lit windows on the first floor of her building, imagining the families behind the curtains boiling water, setting tables, counting out knives and forks, the air they breathed smelling cozily of frying onions or simmering spaghetti sauce or meat roasting in a hot oven. It made her feel good to think of all the different things there were to eat, all the different ways there were to be a happy family. No one way. You could eat pot roast or an omelet, use paper napkins or fancy cloth ones, drink milk or water or soda out of a can. You could get ice cream first and go back to the house for broiled salmon and buttered rice. There was no one way.

Just then she became aware of Henry pulling her over to a patch of dirt at the curb. Instead of raising his
leg to pee, he squatted slightly and the pee sprayed across the backs of his front legs.

"Henry, you slob!" Grandpa cried. "Pick up your damn leg!"

Ignoring him, but feeling the sensation of something wetting the fur of his legs, Henry bent his head down, trying to take a look. He flinched as his own pee hit him on the snout.

Sarah started to laugh. "He peed on his face!"

"Henry!" Mom said. "Oh, good Lord. Henry!"

"Damn dog!" Grandpa said.

Henry ignored them all. He continued to pee, soaking his front legs thoroughly, as though he knew he had made a fool of himself and the only way to proceed was to pretend that nothing whatsoever was amiss.

By now they were all laughing uncontrollably.

"Brilliant!" Mom said. "I think maybe a Rhodes scholar. Maybe a Nobel Prize winner."

"Damn dog," Grandpa grumbled, shaking his head, laughing in spite of himself. "Henry! Don't they teach you the right way to pee in dog school?"

"He doesn't go to school," Sarah said. She was laughing so hard her stomach hurt.

"Well, sign him up," Grandpa said. "He needs to take remedial peeing. Peeing for dummies. Something."

They laughed all the way to the ice cream shop.
They were still laughing an hour later as they lured Henry into the shower at home and rinsed him off.

"Damn dog," Grandpa muttered again, watching as Sarah ran the washcloth over the backs of Henry's legs.

Sarah smiled. It was funny to think that maybe Henry had done it all on purpose. Maybe, she thought, he could tell that he was being judged, and it had made him want to do something crazy and rebellious, something of which no one would approve. After all, why should he be judged? Why couldn't he just do what he wanted? Why did everything have to be a competition? Just thinking this made her even more gentle with his knotty legs, which now seemed strangely fragile, as though they might break if they were scrubbed too hard.

Henry, seeming to realize that he had at last been understood, did his best to remain absolutely still.

AT SCHOOL ON TUESDAY, everyone was acting different. The boys pretended not to care about Cotillion, but Sarah could tell they were just as nervous and excited as the girls.

In Spanish, before Señora Grunewald got into the room, Jesse Pike said in a loud voice that he was going to eat a raw onion before Cotillion so that his breath would smell.

"That way, no one'll pick me!" he said.

All the boys laughed, as though Jesse Pike had thought of an amazing solution to a complicated problem.

Sarah sneaked a look at Robert Whitchurch. She was pretty sure he was only pretending to laugh, that he knew it was stupid.

"Mrs. Gretch will just make some girl dance with you, then," Melinda Bookman said.

"What if he picks his nose?" Rupert Winslow asked.

"And eats it!" Carl Estes yelled.

The boys all dissolved in laughter and shouted about what a good idea this was. The girls all looked disgusted.

"Mrs. Gretch is the assistant principal, not just the special skills teacher," Melinda said. "If she sees you picking your nose and eating it, you're going to get suspended."

"So?" Jesse shrugged. "At least then I don't have to take
dance
."

All the boys seemed to think this was brilliant. They started shouting out other things they could do—farting, throwing up, wearing smelly socks—until Señora Grunewald lumbered into the room.

"
Hola,
" she said, and again, when no one paid any attention, "
HOLA!
"

The class quieted down.

"Let me guess," she said, scanning the room. "Cotillion starts tonight. Right?"

When they all said yes, she sighed and shook her head.

***

The gym seemed to light up the rainy night. From Dad's car, it looked cozy and snug, but just knowing that it was going to be full of all the kids she knew, dressed up and waiting for something embarrassing to happen to someone else, made Sarah want to turn around and go home.

"It'll be fun," Dad said. "It's one of those things you hate until you do it, and then you don't hate it anymore."

"I don't think I bought the right shoes," she said. They had looked perfect at the mall, but now, as she was about to get out of the car, she was stricken with doubt.

"They're fine," Diane said. "They're black, and they have the perfect heel. I'll bet you'll be the best-dressed girl there."

Diane always sounded perky and upbeat. Sarah had figured out a long time ago that it wasn't that different from yelling; it was just another way to get people to do what she wanted. Right now, she wanted Sarah to get out of the car so she and Dad could go home and watch basketball.

"Everyone's nervous," Dad said.

"Maybe they already know how to dance," Sarah said. Suddenly it occurred to her that she should have practiced dancing on her own, or at least watched one of Marjorie's old Fred Astaire movies.

"Of course they don't," Diane said. She half turned around so she could look at Sarah face-to-face. Sarah could see the feathery ends of her short dark hair silhouetted against the light shining from inside the gym. "Just laugh if you step on someone's toes. Make a joke out of it."

"What if someone steps on my toes?" Some of those boys were big.

"Laugh at that, too," Dad said. He leaned back and pushed open the car door. "Come on, sweetie. Take the plunge."

"And take that hoodie off when you get inside," Diane said. "It doesn't go with the rest of your outfit."

Sarah pulled the hood over her head and ducked out of the car and into the rain. She thought she might keep the hoodie on. It looked just fine.

The gym was already warm from all the nervous kid bodies. At a table set up just inside the door, a mom was taking names and asking everyone to sign in. "Have a good time!" she sang, handing Sarah a name tag, which she promptly stuffed into the pocket of her hoodie. She thought, I have been going to school with these people for seven years. They already know my name.

The girls stood on one side of the room, giggling and shrieking, pretending that there were no boys
around. The boys stood across the room, looking miserable. When they were wearing suits and their fathers' shoes, it was hard to act the way they usually did. A few moms and dads wandered around the room or stood in small groups chatting. They were the chaperones. Mostly they were there in case anyone threw up.

Immediately Sarah found Lizzie and Carly. Lizzie wore a plain black skirt, a red blouse, and black shoes with a wedge heel. Carly wore a black dress and black shoes with pointy toes. They were both wearing a lot of makeup, but it didn't make them look like adults. For some reason, all the kids in the gym looked as though they were playing dress-up.

"You can wear more eye makeup at night," Carly explained. "It says in
Seventeen.
"

"My mom would never let me wear all that mascara," Sarah said.

"Mine, neither," Lizzie said. "But Carly's mom doesn't care, so I went over there after school. After this thing is over, I'll go in the bathroom and wash everything off." She looked Sarah up and down. "You look so cute," she said.