Chapter 18 #2
I didn’t feel very fine. Or like fineness was on the horizon. But if anything was going to wreck our chances of long-time fineitude with Jaz, it was me freaking the fuck out in the kitchen when she could walk in at any second.
So I swallowed my furball of fear and uncertainty and raw selfish insecurity and said, “Yeah. I guess you’re right.”
* * *
We barely saw Jaz at all that day. Oliver felt it was very important that she have her own space—I tried not to compare that too directly to what he’d said about Spud—so we stayed out of her room and just called from the corridor at lunchtime to see if she wanted anything.
From her silence, we assumed that she didn’t.
Although I was still feeling a little bit shaken up about the whole there-is-an-actual-human-with-complex-needs-depending-on-us-to-fulfil-those-needs thing, it was competing for headspace with the whole I-need-to-organise-a-very-cool-and-appropriately-alternative-music-festival-or-I’ll-lose-my-job thing, and because apparently today was one of my pretending-to-be-a-professional days, the job thing won out.
So I sent the obligatory follow-up emails and the enquiry emails and the follow-up phone calls that had to come after the enquiry emails, and by five I’d at least got confirmation from the three mediocre wedding bands I’d been trying to book.
Admittedly, in two out of three cases, the confirmation had confirmed that they didn’t want to play my festival for shit-beetles, but Harvest Moon had been willing to do it.
Although apparently they’d changed their name to Stardew now.
“Well,” I said, putting a half a tick next to book bands in my mental list of things that needed doing, “that’s nearly a win, isn’t it, Spud?”
Spud said…Spud said nothing. Because Spud wasn’t there.
“Spud?”
We’d left the pen door open because Spud was pretty well socialised by now, but on days I was home, he usually stayed in the study anyway for pack animal reasons. I got up from my desk and started searching.
“Spud?”
The patio doors were closed, and I couldn’t see him in the garden, but I went out anyway just in case he’d developed some previously unknown doggy superpower and slipped through the keyhole or something.
“Spud!” I called out loudly enough that I was probably causing a minor nuisance to the neighbours.
An unwelcome face appeared over the fence into Next Door’s Garden. “Lost your dog?”
“No,” I lied unconvincingly.
“Yes, you have,” replied Next Door’s Kid with mocking triumph. “You’re such a dickhead that your dog ran away, and you’re too much of a dickhead to admit it.”
I tried very, very hard to be the adult in the room. But I wasn’t actually in a room and didn’t feel much like an adult. “Up yours,” I replied, extremely adultly.
“Up my what?”
I suddenly remembered that I was talking to a child and therefore couldn’t explain either what I expected him to put things up or what I expected him to put up it. “Your…yours,” I finished. It wasn’t my finest hour.
“My yours?”
“Yes.” I turned around to go back into the house.
“You going to call me a bum-face again?” asked Next Door’s Kid as I walked maturely away.
I ignored him.
“Bum-face,” he yelled, and then laughed his Gatling gun laugh.
Inside, I locked the doors carefully behind me and continued the search. Assuming the doggy-superpower scenario was off the table—which, let’s be clear, it should have been from the start—Spud had to be in the house somewhere.
I started on the ground floor, hoping he’d not found a way to get into the fridge or something, which, again, seemed unlikely, assuming ordinary dog parameters. When that failed, I went upstairs, calling for him as I went.
Finally I heard a muffled “Ruff.”
“Spud?” I stood mid-corridor and called out again.
“Ruff.” The sound was coming from Jaz’s room.
I approached cautiously and knocked on the door. “Jaz?”
No answer.
“Is Spud in there with you?”
“Ruff.” That was Spud again, unless Jaz had a really good line in dog impressions.
From a certain point of view, I could have left it there.
The missing pet mystery was solved, so I could, in fact, have just gone back to work.
On the other hand, for all I knew, Spud was trapped alone in a sparsely decorated room.
Although if he was, that meant we’d progressed from a missing pet mystery to a missing child mystery, which wasn’t strictly an upgrade.
“Can I come in?” I asked.
Still no answer.
“Okay, I actually don’t even know if you’re there, so I’m going to come in unless you tell me not to.”
I gave Jaz a count of five and then, when she said nothing, I eased the door open.
She was, in fact, there. She was lying on the bed, with her back propped up against the wall. I noticed that she was barefoot and that her toenails were painted a bright electric blue. Mostly, though, I noticed that she had my fucking dog on her lap.
I mean technically he was our dog. Mine and Oliver’s. And even more technically he was all three of our dog, mine, Oliver’s, and Jaz’s on account of how she was in fact part of the family for as long as she needed to stay with us.
But less technically, she’d been here five minutes, and my fucking dog was lounging across her legs like they were the most comfortable place in the world.
“You okay?” I asked both of them, trying to sound friendly instead of horribly betrayed.
“Ruff,” said Spud.
Jaz didn’t say anything.
“Is he going to be…” I tried, then I went to, “It’s just, we’ve got this quite strict training thing.”
And for the first time since she’d arrived, Jaz said a whole sentence. “I can look after a fucking dog.”
It would have been hypocritical of me to say Language, but also I felt I should probably say Language. I didn’t, though, because as well as being a hypocrite, I was also a coward. “Okay,” I said instead. “Let me know if you need anything.” And I beat a hasty retreat downstairs.
My Spudless workday ended well enough, dog-treachery aside, and I didn’t really begrudge Jaz the company. It was probably nice for her to hang out with somebody she could not-talk with.
Oliver made us a Tuscan bean stew for dinner on the basis that it would keep warm and have flexible serving portions, so Jaz could choose whether to join us or not.
I wasn’t especially surprised when she chose not, and I just about heard Oliver’s voice from upstairs as he told her that she was welcome to change her mind anytime and that the leftovers would be in the fridge if she was hungry later.
“It’s fine,” Oliver reassured me when he came back down.
Once again, I did my best to be the fineness I wanted to see in the world.
It lasted for as long it took me to tear off a chunk of focaccia and dip it into the balsamic-vinegar-and-olive-oil drizzle that Oliver had set out in a dish for us.
“Is it? She hasn’t eaten all day or left her room, and she’s still hardly said anything to either of us. And what she has said had fucks in it.”
Oliver frowned. “We should probably make sure we teach her to moderate her language.”
“Great,” I said with extremely fake enthusiasm. “How?”
“Set positive examples and clear boundaries.”
“Great,” I said with equally fake enthusiasm. “How?”
“By being explicit about what we require from her and responding consistently. The advantage of human beings relative to dogs is that you can actually explain things to them.”
It wasn’t the perfect time for it, but I tried to lighten the tone. “You’ve met my work colleagues. Explaining things to human beings is way harder than you make it sound.”
“Young people are malleable,” Oliver said, setting down his fork. “They rise or fall to your expectations. We just need to make sure ours are appropriate, bearing in mind that she’s probably extremely traumatised.”
I was just doing my best Yeah, I guess you’ve got a point nod when a voice came from the kitchen door.
“I’m not traumatised.”
We both looked around to see Jaz in the doorway, bright blue toenails standing out sharply against the dark-grey dining room carpet.
“Would you like some dinner?” Oliver offered. “It’s Tuscan bean stew.”
She crossed the kitchen floor with quick, short steps and grabbed what was left of the focaccia. “I’m not fucking traumatised.”
And before we could reply, or demonstrate our compassion, or set clear boundaries, she was gone.