What the Dog Ate (11 page)

Maggie grabbed Kona’s leash and
yelled, “Kona, come on, we’re going to the park.” Although he appeared torn for
one moment (steaks or park?), he opted for the park since it was rare to be
offered two walks in one day.

Although they sometimes drove the
two miles to the park, tonight she needed to walk. Walk and think. The things
she’d heard today struggled to add up in her head as they strode down the
block. The sun sank in the west, but Maggie was in no mood for Mother Nature
showing off her pinks and purples. She looked down at the sidewalk as if the
concrete replayed a movie strip of the last few weeks and all the hoops Kevin
had had her jumping through.

She guessed now that he’d made up
the Tuesday poker date so she’d go alone to yoga. And Russell was his best
friend; he must have known she’d like him, but scrambled for a reason to get
her out of the house that day so he’d said she’d have to be his excuse to leave
early. Even his needing a place to crash made no sense now that she thought
about it; he’d been making good money and could afford his own place. She
realized he’d manipulated her from the day he showed up on her doorstep.

Like one of
those cheap marionettes you buy in
Tijuana
. “Dance, Maggie.”

When they reached the park, she
still pulled Kona along at a clipped pace. She wouldn’t let him stop and sniff
for picnic remnants, in his usual the-world-is-my-smorgasbord way. At one point
he tried to lift his leg on a tree, but she yanked his leash and stormed down
the path.

How dare he?
Does he think I’m so pathetic I can’t take care of myself? I don’t need my baby
brother holding my hand. I can’t believe he lied. Why couldn’t he just be
straight with me?

After forty minutes of marching,
she dropped onto a bench. Kona leaned against her legs, panting. With the cool
early evening air tempering the fever of her anger, she sat and thought.

She had sort of lost it when Dave
left. She’d shut herself up in the house; moped around for days, weeks, in her PJs;
done tequila shots when she couldn’t sleep. She’d become like Dave’s sock she’d
found in the laundry room, the sock she’d envied; tried to hide from it all. If
Kevin had been “straight with her,” telling her point blank she needed to get
on with her life, she’d have told him to get lost. No, instead he’d pulled her
out of her dark hiding place and pushed her out into the world, back into
circulation. And he’d done it in his own way.

If Shannon had come out, they’d
have had long talks, late each night, psychoanalyzing every move she and Dave
had made for the last several months before the marriage ended. But that wasn’t
Kevin’s style. Of course he wasn’t going to show up on her doorstep with hugs
and tearful sympathy. But he’d been there for her. She wondered now if he’d
gotten up early on purpose those first few mornings, urged by Shannon to make
sure Maggie didn’t pay any five a.m. visits to the liquor cabinet. And all the
lies he’d told, well, she was still angry at the thought of them, but she could
see how that was his way of getting her out her slump.

Now she realized how much he’d done
to help her and how much she had needed him.

How is it that
poor Kev always ends up taking care of the ladies in this family? First Mom,
now me. Reluctant nurse-maid to the broken hearted. I’m sure that’s a role he’d
rather not play. Wait a minute... Am
I
part of the
reason he told Annie he couldn’t move to
Boston
“right now”? I’m going to have to grill him about that
.

She asked Kona, “What shall we do,
Buddy? Go home and make up? Eat cake? Good idea, let’s go.” They started to
walk back under the yellow street lights, after a short detour to check out the
picnic area.

~~~

By the time they got home, Maggie
could hear the whistle and pop of fireworks in the distance. She poked her head
through the front door, a bit embarrassed about her own earlier fireworks
display, and ruining Russell’s birthday.
Shoot. I owe that
man a birthday dinner
.

Kevin lay on the sofa watching
ESPN.

“Russell gone?”

He shut off the TV. “Yeah, he left
a while ago. Look, if you’ll just let me explain—”

“Oh yeah, you’ve definitely got
some explaining to do. I finally clued in to what’s going on around here, and I
don’t appreciate being lied to. But, what you did, it was sweet... mostly
sweet, anyway.”

Kevin opened his mouth, then closed
it again with a short exhalation through his nose. Maggie moved toward him with
her arms open, determined to wrangle a rare hug out of him.

“I really am sorry, Mags.” He
sounded contrite as he squeezed her.

Maggie thought she might cry, but
instead laughed as Kona wedged himself between their legs. Kona, a big fan of
open displays of affection, demanded a piece of the action.

“Don’t worry; we’ve got hugs for
you too, Buddy,” Maggie said, wrapping her arms around her broad, faithful
friend. She looked up at Kevin, “You’re not off the hook with me yet, though.
We are going to have a long talk right now. And then, first thing tomorrow—”

“I know. You want me to start
looking for my own place.”

“No,” she said, “I want you to call
Annie.”

The next morning, Kevin sat at the
bar while Maggie made buttermilk waffles. Kona stood at her knee, watching her
every move. Kevin held his cell phone.

“You’re sure it’s not too early to
call?” he asked.

He looked like he hadn’t slept.
They’d stayed up late the night before, eating carrot cake, sipping Gentleman
Jack and talking. Maggie had told him about running into Annie and insisted
Kevin tell his version of their break up. He relayed a story similar to
Annie’s: he’d told Annie he couldn’t move to Boston right then, and they’d
gotten into a “brutal” fight. She’d started sobbing and he “couldn’t deal” and
headed to Russell’s. The next day, he’d moved to Maggie’s. He hadn’t talked to
Annie since.

“You can’t recover from a fight
like that,” Kevin had said, shaking his head.

“Yes, you can. You just don’t know
because you’ve never tried.” Maggie’d let Kona lick the remains of the cream
cheese frosting off her plate. “I could tell Annie regretted that fight. I’m
sure if you put a bit of effort into this, you can work it out. Think about it,
OK?” She’d known better then to try to finagle another hug out of him. She’d
settled for patting his shoulder as she’d said goodnight and headed to bed.

Now, this morning, Maggie turned to
look at him for the third time. “Call her already.” She’d never seen Kevin
stressed like this.
I’m the chicken around here; the one
that’s got to weigh every option, the waffler
. She smiled at her pun and
gave the batter a final stir. Then she cupped Kona’s chin in her left hand and
with her right moved his floppy upper lip. “Call her,” she said in a gruff
voice. “See, even Kona says so.”

As Kevin got up and started to walk
into the other room, Maggie asked, “Wait, don’t I get to listen to your side of
the conversation?”

He muttered something she didn’t
catch as he walked away, head bent over his phone.

“I want to know everything you guys
say,” she called after him as she put a steaming waffle in the oven to keep
warm. Kona followed its trajectory intently.

As she scraped the last of the
batter into the maker, she heard Kevin return and pull out the barstool. She
turned to see him put his head in his hands.

“
That
went well. Great idea. Call early, wake her up. She’s not a morning person, did
I mention that?”

She ran around the bar and put her
hand on his shoulder. “Oh no. What happened?”

He grinned at her. “I’m totally
messing with you. It really did go well.”

She swatted him with her kitchen
towel. “Alright, weasel, tell me every single word.”

“We’re meeting for lunch.”

“Details. I need details,” Maggie
pleaded. “What did she say? What did
you
say?”

“I didn’t say much. I told her I
was stupid.”

“Well, she had to have agreed with
that.”

“Shockingly, she did. And I told
her why I didn’t want to move when she first asked me.”

“Yeah, you kinda glossed over that
last night. Why didn’t you want to move?”

Kevin sighed. “Right around the
time Annie first told me about the Boston idea, Shannon started calling me,
like every day, telling me I had to do something to... help you. I was
stressing out, cuz I didn’t know what to do. Then Annie and I fought, and I
left. That’s when I got the idea to move in with you—I needed somewhere to go,
and you needed, well, someone to be here.”

Maggie twisted the towel in her
hands. It was as she’d guessed last night at the park. He’d moved in to help
her, not because he needed a favor.

“Kev, I appreciate what you did for
me. Really. But... now I feel guilty about you and Annie. Why didn’t you tell
her what you were doing? You... you big dummy.” She hit him again with her
towel.

“Well, I’m glad we’re all three in
agreement that I’m an idiot.” He rolled and unrolled the placemat she’d set on
the bar. “It’s not like I thought I was picking my sister over my girlfriend.
It all just happened so fast. It wasn’t like I had this well thought out plan.
Annie was bugging me to move—and, ya’ know, it’s kinda scary to think about
making a big commitment and moving across country with someone. And then Shay
started bugging me; and Annie and I had that big fight. I just kinda moved over
here and figured it’d all work itself out.”

“It’s not going to just work itself
out though, Kev. You need to put in some effort.” She went into the kitchen and
pulled the waffles out of the oven and loaded up their plates.

“I
am
making an effort.” Kevin buttered his waffle. “I called her. I apologized.”

“So, back to your call. You
explained why you hadn’t wanted to move, and then what?”

“And then she said I was
really
stupid, cuz if I’d just explained all that in the
first place, she would have understood and she would have waited for me. She
said I’ve never been any good at articulating my feelings or my plans.”

“I thought you said this call went
well? When does it start to go well?” Maggie sopped a bite of waffle in syrup.

“Just shut up and listen. Anyway, I
told her I was going to try hard to work on that particular flaw of mine,
starting with articulating the fact that,” he paused and wiped his mouth on his
napkin, looked down at his plate and rushed out, “that I love her and need to
be with her.”

Maggie gasped and froze with a
second waffle in mid-flight to her plate. “You did?!” Kona picked up on the
excitement and danced from paw to paw as if sensing a waffle in his immediate
future. “What did she say? Did she say she loves you too? Because I know she
does!”

“She said we should talk.”

“She wants to talk about how much
she loves you.” Maggie pointed her fork at him. “And she wants to start making
plans for you to move to Boston.”

He smiled at her, shook his head,
and went back to eating.

She bounced in her seat. “I am so
happy for you. This is so great. Let’s give Kona a waffle. He enjoys a good
celebration.”

She tossed one to the dog and they
watched as he inhaled it like a furry Pac-Man.

They turned back to their plates in
silence.

As she ate, it occurred to her that
soon she might not have anyone to make waffles for. Besides Kona. She would be
alone, again. She felt a bit of panic rising up in her. She hadn’t done so
well, living alone before Kevin moved in. She didn’t want any more practice at
it.

~~~

Kevin didn’t get back until almost half past four. As usual, he held back on the emotional details of their conversation, but
filled her in on the practical ones. Annie had confessed that she’d called her
brother, Jeremy, as soon as she got off the phone with Kevin. Jeremy still
wanted to hire him, so there was no problem there.

“The guy who’s heading up sales
isn’t working out, so Jeremy’ll move him to tech-support.” He hunted in the
junk drawer for paper. “He wants me to start right away.”

Annie was flying back tomorrow
morning, and Kevin would join her as soon as he could.

“Which will be soon,” he said as he
started making a list. “I can probably be there by early next week. I just need
to sort out my stuff; figure out what’ll fit in the car.” He bent over the
paper. “Get car tuned up,” he said to himself. His plan was to drive
cross-country, which he figured would take four days. “Go online for maps,” he
muttered, scribbling.

Maggie watched while Kevin darted
around. He’d start one task, drop it, move to another, stop to laugh at
himself. He was so happy.
Well, he’s always happy, but now
he’s insanely happy
.

“Wow, a week,” she said. “Can I do
anything to help?”
Help you get out of here and on to your
new life so you can leave me all alone that much sooner?

She’d gotten used to having Kevin
around. It had been fun to have someone to do things with, someone to cook for.
Again, she felt tears sneaking up.
Come on, Maggie. You’ve
got a new life to be excited about too. There’s your job and your volunteer
position and yoga. And Helen and Russell. It’s going to be
...

She didn’t want Kevin to see her
cry. She got up and started heading out of the room.

“I need to call Mom. You want to
talk to her?” Kevin asked.

“No, not right now” She knew she
sounded like Minnie Mouse. She kept walking.

“Mags, you OK?”

“I’m fine,” she squeaked and
scurried to her bedroom.