16 A Little Dog. A Redhead.
A Little Dog. A Redhead.
It was never easy getting the children out the door to go to the club for their tennis lessons.
It was the job of Prudence to clean up the kitchen after serving Hayward and Jilly’s breakfast. This left me to pack up their things (tennis racquets, water bottles, insect repellent, sun visors, ziplock bags filled with Goldfish crackers, Fruit Roll-Ups, and M&M’s) and get them out the door for our bike ride to the club.
You could pretty much count on Jilly to have misplaced one of her sneakers or complain that she didn’t have the right socks.
She needed hair ornaments to match that day’s outfit, or she’d decide she didn’t want to go to the club at all and have a tantrum because I told her it wasn’t a good idea to bring her American Girl dolls to tennis with her on account of how, the last time she’d done this, she’d lost one of the shoes and I had to spend an hour looking for it.
Getting Hayward out the door presented a different set of challenges.
From the moment he came downstairs in the morning, he’d be sitting in front of the television with his bowl of cereal beside him, eyes glazed over, playing a game—the sound of popping guns and miniature characters drowning out whatever anyone tried to say to him.
Sometimes I’d have to speak to him three or four times before he answered.
“Tennis sucks,” he said. “I don’t see why I even have to go to these lessons.”
“Your grandparents paid for them,” Regina said. Words that carried little effect. You have no idea how lucky you are, I wanted to tell Hayward. What I would give to take tennis lessons, to grow up with a father like yours.
Once we got out the door, things generally got better. I let Jilly lead the way, followed by Hayward. I’d bring up the rear, calling out to the two of them to slow down if a car was coming.
I loved our bike rides to the club—the perfect green lawns and the smell of cut grass in the morning, the neat, well-tended gardens and the happy-looking neighbors, trim and tanned, who waved to us as we pedaled past while they walked their dogs.
We made our tires wobble on purpose, pretending to be drunk, going no hands (just Hayward and me) on a particular flat stretch.
One time Jilly had us all singing “Rainbow Connection” from The Muppet Movie. Even Hayward chimed in.
It was late June. Seventy-eight days left in my Wonderland summer.
We were partway to the club—our bodies bent over the handlebars, standing up on the pedals of our bikes, pumping for all we were worth—when a small dog darted out in front of us.
Hayward managed to avoid him, but Jilly wasn’t as steady.
Swerving, her bike tipped over. She landed hard on the gravel sidewalk, letting out a wail as she went down.
A redheaded woman appeared, coming from the same direction as the dog. She ran to the spot on the ground where Jilly lay, her arms stretched out, with a dribble of blood on her knee.
“Oh my god!” the redhead called out. “Is she alright?” From the sounds coming from Jilly, a person might have thought she was dying. I set down my bike to investigate.
The woman got down on the ground next to Jilly, patting her leg. I wasn’t good at guessing grown-ups’ ages, but she looked younger than most of the mothers at the country club. She had long rust-colored hair and was wearing a pair of short-shorts.
“He was just so confused!” the woman explained, speaking of her dog, evidently—one of those miniature breeds, small enough to fit in a pocketbook. Later I’d learn the name of the breed: a shih tzu.
“My husband and I just drove up today to spend the summer. Pumpkin spent five hours in his dog carrier. The minute I let him out he took off before I had time to stop him.”
The woman patted Jilly on her leg some more.
From the way she did this, I got the feeling she wasn’t a mother, though she was playing the part, more or less.
“You’re going to be alright, honey,” she said, before turning to me as the closest there was at the moment to an authority figure.
“My husband and I are renting a house here for the summer. I guess you live nearby?”
Jilly had quieted down by this point, though she was still sniffling. When she stood up to take a step, she limped dramatically.
“Tell you what,” the woman said. “We’ll leave your bikes at our place, and I’ll drive you home. My husband can bring the bikes back later.”
When I told her where we lived, she looked excited. “Oh my god. Wonderland? You can’t see much of that house from the road, but when we passed this morning and I saw the sign, I told my husband I’d give anything to see it up close,” she said.
Sitting in the front seat of the woman’s car, I realized she hadn’t told us her name.
When we pulled up in front of the house, she just stood there for a moment, staring at the wide front door and the marble dogs on either side.
Jilly had been sniffling quietly. Hayward, in the back seat with Jilly, seemed to have taken an interest in the dog, Pumpkin, who’d jumped into the car for the ride and was now licking his face.
Then Forrest appeared. He was wearing his running gear, having embarked on his training regimen for the triathlon. Jilly ran to meet him, displaying no further sign of injury.
When he reached the redheaded woman’s car, he reached out a hand. Smiling, as usual.
“Forrest,” he said.
For a second she looked baffled. Maybe she thought he was referring to the trees around the property. More likely, she was taken by the man.
“That’s my name.” He laughed. “How about yours?”
“Brenda,” she said. “I’m Brenda. Brenda’s my name.
” She seemed to be having trouble speaking.
This often happened to women when they met Forrest. Once she’d collected herself, she explained what happened.
The dog. The bike accident. “Thank god your little girl wasn’t too badly hurt,” she said, waving an arm in the direction of Jilly without taking her eyes off Forrest.
“Some people might say it’s too early for a drink,” he told her. “But if you ask me, now is a fine time for a Bloody Mary.”
Just lightly, he placed his hand on Brenda’s back and led her up the granite steps into the house.
“Darling!” he called up the stairs, to where Regina was probably napping. “We’ve got company.”
I didn’t know it, but that was the beginning.
Over drinks on the patio, Jilly recounted for her parents the details of her collision with Pumpkin.
Hayward informed them that, for his birthday, he wanted a shih tzu.
Regina reminded him she was allergic to animal hair.
Hayward asked why everyone else he knew except him got to have a dog. Then it was Forrest’s turn.
“The good news is, if it wasn’t for my daughter’s unfortunate run-in with your little dog, we never would have gotten to know you, Brenda,” he said, looking into her eyes.
“Close call,” said Regina. I wasn’t clear if she meant Jilly’s accident, or the possibility that she and Forrest might have missed out on meeting Brenda.
She had to go, she explained, looking regretful. An old fraternity buddy of her husband’s was passing through town, and they were having a cookout.
“We need to meet him too!” Forrest said. I figured this meant her husband, not the fraternity buddy, though with Forrest, you never knew. He was always open to making friends. “What do you say you two come by for cocktails next week?”
“What can we bring?” Brenda asked.
“An appetite!” Forrest told her.
After she left, Regina’s face took on the look of a person who’s just discovered an invasion of bedbugs in her home.
“Who are these people anyway?” Regina asked Forrest, over dinner on the patio. As was generally the case, she’d been off somewhere—on her bed probably—during much of Brenda’s visit.
“They’re up from Connecticut for the summer. His father owned a car dealership that closed down recently, so he’s between jobs. His wife says he’s ‘assessing his next move,’” Forrest told her.
“Translation: unemployed,” Regina said. “I bet they’re staying in that dump across the lake, with the mold problem, that nobody wanted to rent.”
“Brenda’s pretty,” Jilly offered.
Regina made a sound like humming. A look passed over her face.
When dinner was over, Forrest scooped up Jilly, and the two of them headed toward the stairs. “Let’s see what old Ramona Quimby’s gotten into tonight,” he said. Hayward disappeared into the TV room. This left Regina and me by ourselves at the table.
“Forrest wants everyone to like him,” Regina said. “That’s his big thing. It probably has something to do with him growing up poor, not having a college education. Let’s be honest: The man barely knows how to read or write. This is how he compensates.”
“He can read,” I said, feeling a wave of fierce loyalty. At this very moment, for instance, he was upstairs on the bed with Jilly, reading a Beverly Cleary book to her.
Regina just shook her head. “Forrest never feels like he really belongs here,” she confided. “He’s got to try harder than everyone else. You wouldn’t think it to look at my husband, but he has a massive inferiority complex.”
Partly I liked it when Regina talked to me this way—as if I were a girlfriend of hers, a confidante.
But I felt guilty too, listening to Regina speak critically about Forrest. As if simply by listening, I was betraying him.
Because there was no doubt in my mind on this: I was on Forrest’s team, not Regina’s.