Chapter 4 #2
He’s overly transfixed by Jenni too, draping his arm around her the whole time, his fancy watch catching the sun and blinding
us like a white-collar weapon. He laughs too loudly at everything Jenni says. It feels like he’s entranced by the idea of
dating someone poor, someone artsy, someone outside his echo chamber. But the novelty could wear off tomorrow and he’d be
gone in the blink of a drink. This wouldn’t bother me except that I know it will bother Jenni. She still hasn’t gotten the
hang of letting love in and out the revolving door every night. She’ll be pretty crushed when Peter moves on, but that’s what
the Redstockings are for. We pick up the pieces and arrange them in glorious mosaics.
After tossing back a couple more glasses of wine, I’m not drunk, but I probably wouldn’t pass a sobriety test either. Unless
I tried to pass it and then I could.
My phone starts buzzing. It’s a number I don’t recognize, probably some political pollster asking my opinion on gun control
or abortion. I nearly always talk to pollsters because I respect their commitment to the cause, whatever their cause is, and
I also like to tell them the opposite of what I actually believe. It’s a good time, leading people on like that.
I’m grateful for this call now. It gives me an excuse to stop paying attention to Peter—not that I was waiting for an excuse, but I’ll still take it. Walking to the far end of the garden, I pick up.
“What do you want?” I bark into the phone.
I’m all ready to give some hugely believable spiel about why I think marriage should only be between a man and a woman and
everyone who thinks otherwise is going straight to hell. This is the only way to make sure the progressives don’t get too
complacent, because the day that all the polls say the overwhelming majority supports gay marriage is the day that people
lose the fire to keep fighting the good fight and forfeit fifty years of progress.
“Emily Jane,” the person on the phone says.
It’s so invasive how these people know my name and probably my address, maybe even my Social Security number. It’ll only be
a matter of time before they sell my data to the highest bidder. I pity the fool who tries to steal my identity. I’ll sue
them for all they’re worth and take the Redstockings to Amsterdam with the winnings. I’m lost in those happy little thoughts
when my brain backs up and hears the voice behind the words.
“It’s Chris,” the pollster says and I realize it’s not a pollster at all. It’s Chris.
My insides flip over themselves a few times before I can calm down enough to land on the appropriate flavor for a reply—sriracha
sauce and toasted sesame seeds. After a pause, I get it right. “Why’re you calling me?” I ask. “Have you never heard of texting?”
He lets out a shaky laugh and I get the feeling he’s already wondering if he made the wrong decision by calling. This makes
me certain that it’s right. Guess it was only a matter of time after all.
“I have a favor to ask you,” he says. “And I thought it would be more polite to call than text.”
Now I’m awake. I can think of a lot of favors Chris would want from me, but unfortunately I don’t think he’s asking about those. I can’t pass up the opportunity to poke about it, though. “Let me guess,” I say. “You’re inquiring about a threesome with you and Olivia?”
I swear I can feel him trying not to smile a guilty sort of smile. “Not quite,” he says and informs me that he and Olivia
are going to her parents’ place on Long Island for some long weekends in August.
I choke on my own eye roll because on Long Island is how rich people refer to the Hamptons.
It’s like when the prick from Harvard says they went to a small college just outside of Boston.
I’ve got no patience for this. If you’re going to be privileged, then at least wear your privilege on your sleeve so I can
yank on it and cause a scene.
It’s not clear where Chris is going with this, but I pretend I know. “Oh, you’re inviting me to the Hamptons?” I say. “I could
be persuaded. I’ll dance on broken beer bottles on the beach until my feet bleed and paint the sand red. It’ll be spectacular.”
That gets him nice and flustered. He says sorry, he’s not getting this out right—he was wondering if there was any chance
that maybe I might take care of his dog, Arnold, on the weekends he’s gone. “I’d pay you, of course, and you could stay at
my place, but really no pressure. Just wanted to check.”
I don’t even dwell on how wishy-washy the request is. I’m too busy being surprised because no one has ever asked me to collect
their mail before, let alone take care of a living, breathing pet. I love animals and they love me right back, but responsibility
isn’t exactly my strong suit. I can be objective about that.
“You want me to take care of your dog?” I clarify.
Chris says yeah, he can’t stand kennels and he just thought Arnold and I would get along well.
I catch a whiff of his motive, sniff it right out.
“I’m the only person you know who doesn’t summer in a no-pets-allowed Hamptons palace, aren’t I?” I ask.
He says no, that’s not it at all; I’m just the only one he’d trust his dog with.
That makes me laugh. “Oh yeah, because I’ve given off such trustworthy vibes from the thirty minutes you and I have spent together.”
“I think I’ve got a decent sense of who you are,” he says.
I’ve got to admit that this freaks me out. It almost feels like he knows something about me that I don’t know. But then I
remember he’s just doing what men do: talking a big game when they’ve got no facts to back it up.
“Of course you don’t,” I say. “And you should just use one of those dog-walking apps. Find someone there who’s got good reviews
and all that.”
“I haven’t had great luck with those apps,” Chris says. “Arnold is family, and he’s got to be in good hands.”
I nearly make an innuendo about my good hands, but I can’t get it out. Because out of nowhere and everywhere too, my throat
is filled with stupid pebbles of nostalgia. I’m missing Melon, the Shetland sheepdog my parents got my little sister and me
the Christmas I turned seven. I named her Melon because I was in a phase of life where I was obsessed with melons; it doesn’t
really have much of a backstory. Sometimes the best things are the simplest.
I was Melon’s favorite. No one could argue with that, though they did anyway. The day after my little sister went to college,
Melon died, just never woke up. It was like she’d been doing her best to hold the family together and now that my parents
were empty nesters, her duties were done—she knew it was a hopeless cause to make those two fall back in love, if they’d ever
been in love in the first place. It’s hard to picture even with an imagination like mine.
“What’s your offer?” I ask Chris, and I’m pretty taken aback at how high of a number he gives. I negotiate it up 20 percent
anyway because women are always getting the short end of the stick when it comes to compensation.
He agrees to my terms and asks if I can come by next week to walk through Arnold’s routine.
“Sure, that works,” I say, and then I jab the End Call button. I always like to be the first one to hang up.
There’s all this charged energy looping through me as I walk back over to the table. I sit in my chair again, tapping one
bare foot on the gravel, then the other. I’ve got to get this restlessness out but it won’t budge. It’s lodged inside like
there’s a blockage in my veins. But my bones feel unstuck, fresh from an oil change.
“What was that?” Hal asks me.
“Oh, nothing,” I say. “Just a delightful NRA caller reminding me to fight for my rights.”
“Right, because our children dying in mass shootings every day is the epitome of freedom,” Hal says.
“And the Constitution should be taken literally,” Tara adds. “With no exceptions, given it was written nearly two hundred
and fifty years ago when arms meant rifles, not machine guns.”
“Precisely,” I say, feeling an extra wave of gratitude for these beautiful humans that I get to call my best friends.
Jenni murmurs in Peter’s ear that we’re just joking.
“It’s not a joke,” Hal says. “Gun violence is now the second-leading killer for teens, behind car accidents. It’s pandemic
territory.”
“Of course the shootings aren’t a joke,” Jenni says. “Just how EJ trolled the caller.”
“You really shouldn’t pretend to agree with those maniacs,” Tara tells me, as if people-pleasing isn’t her entire personality.
“It just gives more fuel to their fire.”
“Fighting fire with fire,” I say. “It’s the only way.”
I zone out for a bit, enjoying the way that not telling them about the dogsitting for Chris makes it seem like a secret, or
something exciting enough to be a secret.
Anything that isn’t worth hiding isn’t worth keeping. That’s one of the EJ aphorisms of life.
I tune back in when they’re talking about women’s basketball, and I start being a little warmer to Peter, only because being cold is getting kind of old and I’m too preoccupied thinking about Chris and why he called me of all people.
The feeling I keep coming back to is that he doesn’t actually know why he did, that he’s just as confused as I am right now.
Victory splatters me like paint, vibrant and vivacious. I knew Chris wouldn’t be able to stay away from me. I knew he’d cave
eventually.
I top off everyone’s wineglasses and propose a toast to winning bets. The others don’t understand the meaning, but I don’t
elaborate. I just lap up the wine and squirm happily in my seat from side to side, avoiding the center, the evenness of it
there.