Chapter 5 Chris #2
I closed the magazine and tossed it on the cushion next to me, debating whether I should take a nap when someone started trying to open the front door.
I got up thinking it was going to be Donna or maybe Mike’s sister Janessa coming to check on him.
It was Larissa.
“Oh. Hey,” I said, blinking at her.
She stood there with Mike’s spare key from the planter and an overflowing brown paper bag full of groceries.
“I didn’t know you’d still be here,” she said, hoisting the bag on her hip.
“Let me get that,” I said.
She let me take the groceries and came in behind me, my dog yapping excitedly at her feet.
“Did he text you to come over?” I asked, heading to the kitchen.
“No. I just didn’t feel good leaving him home alone,” she said, closing the front door. “I didn’t know you’d be here.” She smiled down at her feet. “There he is!” The dog was bouncing, and she picked him up. “Oh, look at you! So handsome with your new haircut.”
She laughed while he licked her face and I smiled.
She held him out. “Why the diaper?”
“He’s not housebroken,” I said, setting the groceries on the counter.
She pulled him in and cradled him like a baby. “That’s okay because you’re so smart and you’re gonna learn. Yes, you are.” She looked up at me. “What are you naming him?”
“Nothing. I can’t keep him.”
Her face fell. “Why?”
“I work all day, and he needs to be walked regularly if he’s going to get housebroken.”
“Can’t you crate train him?”
“I tried. He poops in the crate.”
“Try a smaller one.”
“I got one he can barely turn around in. He was probably left in one for long periods. He doesn’t care if he stands in it. I think he’s used to it.”
She looked worriedly at the dog. “Where will he go?”
“I don’t know. I have to find someone. It might have to be the shelter.”
“Did you ask Mike?”
“Donna doesn’t like dogs in here. I only brought him ’cause I had to,” I said.
She chewed her lip. “Well, what if I helped? Could you keep him with help? If you’re comfortable with it, I could come over after work to walk him.
I get off at noon. I can be there at twelve thirty.
That’s about the middle of your shift, right?
And I can take him on my days off. My apartment doesn’t allow dogs, but if I’m just watching him for a day or two, they won’t notice. ”
“I can’t ask you to do that—”
“It’s no problem. I love dogs,” she said quickly. “I’d have one if my landlord let me.”
She and the dog peered up at me with puppy eyes and I don’t know what it was, but I didn’t think I could say no to her.
“What about if we do a trial run,” I said. “We try it for a few weeks.”
Her whole face lit up. “Really?”
“Yeah. Sure.”
The way she was smiling made me feel like I’d won a prize.
“So what do we call him?” she asked.
I scratched his ear. “I don’t know. Garbage Goblin?”
She scowled playfully at me.
“What about Woofarine?” she asked.
“Woofarine,” I deadpanned.
“Yeah, he’s kind of tough.”
“I could be okay with Woofarine.”
She beamed.
I watched her kiss the dog happily and realized I felt relieved.
I didn’t want to give him up. As much as the accidents in the house were driving me up the wall, I had to admit he’d pulled me out of my funk this last week. It was hard to be depressed when someone was so happy to see you—even if they were shitting everywhere.
Larissa gave Woofarine one more snuggle and then put him down.
“So how’s Mike?” she asked.
“Sleeping,” I said. “Convinced he has to run an Iron Man today.”
She laughed. “What? Why would he think that?”
“Jesse.”
“Ahhh. He couldn’t resist, huh?”
“No, definitely not.”
She took off her jacket and draped it over the sweater already on the chair. “I should probably go check on him,” she said.
“Uh, actually I don’t think he wanted you to see him like this,” I said.
“Huh. Well, you’ll have to tackle me to keep me out of there, so…” Then she walked around me and made her way to his room.
I smiled after her. I had to appreciate her tenacity.
She came back a minute later.
“He is really knocked out,” she said.
“Did he say anything to you?”
“Something about carb loading before the race?” She put her thumb over her shoulder. “I was going to make him some soup. Are you hungry?”
“From scratch?”
“Yeah.”
Technically I could leave now that she was here. I really liked soup though.
“Sure.”
She made me chop onions.
“What kind are we making?” I asked, crying.
“Vegetable beef,” she said over the carrots she was cutting.
“Does it usually need this many onions?”
“No. I’m making a triple batch. I freeze some for later, and I sell the rest.”
“To who?”
She shrugged. “A lady in my building. A guy who used to come into my old restaurant, a few friends. If I’m doing the work, I might as well cover the cost of the groceries. Make a little extra for bills.”
“Do you do this often?” I asked.
“At least once a week. Whenever I cook. Do you want me to take over?”
“What? The onions?” I said, wiping my eyes with the back of my sleeve.
“Yeah, you’re being pretty dramatic over there.”
I scoffed. “You gave me the hard job.”
“I didn’t think you could julienne carrots.”
“I can’t.”
“Well, then.” She gave me a playful look. Or I thought she did, I couldn’t see very well.
“I bet this soup’s gonna be great,” I said, squinting at my cutting board. “Salted with suffering.”
She laughed.
“So you cook a lot?” I asked, sniffling.
“I do. It’s cheaper than eating out and easier with my allergy, less risk.”
“Have you had bad experiences at restaurants?”
“Oh yes. Very bad. I can’t even work anywhere that serves nuts,” she said. “Makes it hard to find jobs.”
God, I couldn’t imagine trying to navigate that. Food, trying to kill you.
“Speaking of restaurants that don’t serve nuts, guess what I brought for the soup,” she said.
“What?”
“The ass bread from that one place.”
“The pumpernickel?”
“Yeah. I froze all the bread when I got home. My mom won’t eat the pumpernickel, so I brought it. It’s perfect for this.”
I agreed. And I was somehow even more excited for lunch now.
“You know, you should have taken some of the bread home,” she said, talking to me but looking at her carrots. “I felt bad that you left me everything. They’re expensive.”
I shrugged over my onions. “It’s just me in the house. It was too much.”
It wasn’t. I would have loved to take some of it home, but I’d wanted her to have it.
After she told me how much she was struggling, I’d wanted to help her—even if it was just bread.
Hell, I would have bought her a sandwich or something to take home that day if it wouldn’t have been weird to do it.
I’d settled for sending her home with five mostly uneaten loaves of bread and strong-arming Mike into paying for her car repairs instead.
As if thinking his name summoned him, Mike shouted groggily from the other room. “McNougattttt!”
Larissa tilted her head. “McNougat?”
I put my knife down and went to wash my hands. “It’s my nickname.”
“Your nickname is McNougat…” she said.
“Look, you don’t pick your own nickname.”
“The nickname picks you?” she said, clearly amused.
“Or your fucked-up friends do.” I dried my hands on a paper towel and went to see what Mike wanted.
“Hey, what’s up?” I said, walking into his room.
He was sitting against the headboard looking slightly more coherent than earlier. “My mouth is killing me…” he rasped.
“Okay.” I looked at my watch. “We can do a pain pill and some Advil.” I turned to get him a water, but Larissa was already coming in with it.
“Hey,” she said, sitting on the edge of the bed with the glass.
“Awww, shit, why’d you come?” he groaned. “I didn’t want you to see me like this.”
“Oh, stop. I don’t care,” she said gently.
His face was swollen. He’d taken the gauze out of his mouth and it was sitting on the nightstand in a soggy pink wet ball. I grabbed some tissues and picked it up before she saw it.
When I came back from the bathroom, she was holding his hand.
“He feels a little hot,” she said, looking at me.
I put a hand on his forehead and he swatted at me. “Get off me, dick. You smell like onions.”
I rolled my eyes. “He’s fine. The Advil will help.”
“Do you want some ice?” she asked. “For your face?”
“No, I’m just gonna go to sleep,” he said.
She squeezed his hand. “I’m making you lunch. Let me know when you’re ready.”
Gratitude moved across his expression.
I know he said he didn’t want it, but I could tell he was glad she’d come. Like she’d passed some test he didn’t know he was giving her.
I gave him the pills and he lay back down.
“We’ll be out here. Holler if you need us,” she said.
He nodded into his pillow and we returned to the kitchen.
“So McNougat…” she said, going back to the carrots.
I picked up my knife. “We couldn’t just let that go, huh?”
“Definitely not.”
“I like nougat candy,” I said, resuming my onion torture. “I got a big bag of them once on the way up to the cabin.”
“So they call you McNougat just for that?”
“That’s all it takes,” I said.
“Do the other guys have nicknames?”
“Yup. Jesse is Fisticuffs.”
She laughed. “Fisticuffs?”
“He got into a fight in the ninth grade.”
“Did he win?” she asked.
“No.”
She was cracking up.
“Xavier is Z,” I said.
“Why does he get the cool nickname?” she asked, scooping carrots into the stockpot.
“That is very Xavier of him, believe me. Completely on brand.”
“And Mike?” she asked.
“The Toilet Prince.”
She burst into laughter.
“It used to be Toilet Boy in grade school. Nobody but me and the guys were allowed to call him that.”
“I bet,” she said, still tittering.
“So what was Mike like in school?” she asked.
“Popular,” I said. “Prom king, popular. He played, two… three sports?”
She smiled. “He did?”
“Oh yeah. Got scholarships and everything.”
“But he didn’t go?” she asked.
“No. He tore his ACL in his senior year.”
“Oh. I didn’t know that. When I asked him about school, he just said he was a troublemaker.”