by Jay Quinn
I couldn’t help myself. I sat right down on the floor and surrendered to the sniffs, lickings, and frantic welcome of all the pups. I could barely contain my laughter as they tickled me with their wriggling bodies and wagging tails. They all gave out short, sharp barks of delight at their visitor. All but one. Alone at the other end of the room, a single pup sat alert but aloof from the fray all around me. “Hey baby,” I said encouragingly. “Hey, come see me.”
The puppy looked at me warily. I crawled a few feet toward him and settled back on my shins. “What’s the matter baby? Come see me. I won’t hurt you.” I looked up at Steve, who leaned against the wall with his hands in his pockets, just watching. The puppy took a couple of halting bounds toward me then stopped again. Not thinking, or caring, what I looked like, I moved forward to rest on my forearms with my ass in the air. In the dog books I remembered, this was called a “bow-play” stance. Thinking like a dog, and not like a middle-aged man, I was rewarded when the puppy stood, took two steps toward me, and responded with the same bow-play stance.
“That’s my baby, wanna play? Come see me. Come see me!”
The puppy ran to me and licked my face. Laughing, I lifted the chubby little pup up and checked. It was a female. I crossed my legs Indian fashion and set the puppy inside them. Contentedly, she rested her chin on my thigh and looked up at me with a pair of pale-blue eyes. She was a gorgeous little Chesapeake. “Aren’t you a shy girl?” I looked up at Steve and grinned. “What a doll-baby. Which one do you have picked out for me?”
“Looks like you’ve been picked out. Want a beer?”
“Sure, but what do you mean?”
“I don’t pick out no dogs for nobody. I wait and see who takes to who. She’s yours if you’ll have her.” Before I could answer, he stepped into the kitchen.
I looked down at the puppy. She sighed and closed her eyes contentedly, her chin still on my thigh. I rubbed her small head gently with the back of my fingers. “I’ve not ever had a girl dog before,” I said quietly.
Steve strode gently through the little swarm of puppies and extended a bottle of Corona. As I took it from him, I realized I was exactly eye level with his crotch and he was about a foot and a half closer than he needed to be to hand me a beer. “Girl dogs are good,” he said. “They’re not as prone to run off and they’re protective as hell. She’ll stand her ground and let somebody know right quick whether or not they’re welcome.”
With that, he sank down to the floor next to me and tied a bit of yellow yarn around the pup’s neck.
“What’s that for?” I asked.
Steve stood again. Unless I intended to carry on further conversation with his crotch, I decided I ought to stand as well. He looked down at me and, half smiling, offered his hand. I took it and helped me get to my feet.
“I got some other people coming to look at pups this weekend,” he said. “I want to make sure they know this one’s taken.”
“Oh, I see.” Again he held me in his unsettling gaze. It seemed a direct challenge for me to answer a seductive question he hadn’t asked. I was getting a little sick of it. I decided to address his overt but unspoken sexual challenge. “By the way, nice package, too.”
“That surprise you as much as the interior design?”
“Not really. I sort of expected it,” I said.
Steve nodded and tried not to let slip a grin. He managed to suppress it. “You can come get her in a couple of weeks. I like to keep them until they’re eight weeks old, let ‘em get weaned good.”
I took a hit off my Corona and looked at him. He was older than I recalled, but he still couldn’t have been more than 30. The sun had etched a few lines in the corners of his eyes. His coarse, dark hairline was still well forward. He had at least a day’s worth of dark stubble, and none of it betrayed any white. I reached into my jeans jacket’s inner pocket and pulled out my cigarettes and lighter, then looked at him questioningly.
“Let’s go out on the deck, I could use a cigarette myself,” he said.
I followed him out the sunroom’s door onto the deck’s worn, gray boards. I offered him a cigarette, but he had already pulled a pack from his back pocket and was holding out his lighter with cupped hands toward me. I accepted his light and watched him get his own lit against the wind. The snow was whirling around us, but the house knocked off most of the wind. “I thought we’d be blown off our feet out here, but it’s not so bad,” I said.
Steve nodded. “Wind and snow’s coming in from the southeast. This snow could go on awhile. The front’s coming in off the ocean and meeting up with a lot of wet air.”
“The view from here is incredible,” I offered hesitantly.
Steve regarded me a bit more gently. “I didn’t mean to give you a hard time in there, you know, about the house.”
“No problem,” I said.
“I was expecting some pissy queen until you got down, right in there, with the dogs. You’re all right, Chris.”
I drank my beer and smoked in silence for a while, wanting to ask, but trying to figure out the best way. Finally, I just said: “So, exactly what did our mutual friend Dr. Heath say about me? Did he tell you I was this precious prissy princess? I didn’t think I came off that way.”
Steve gave me a frankly appraising look up and down before he replied. “Naw, he didn’t say nothing much like that. He told me you had some pricey furniture I’d get a kick out of, but he never said you were stuck up.”
I ambled down the pier over the marsh grass to the dock. My beer was half gone and my cigarette nearly finished, but I didn’t want to leave. Belatedly I asked, “Can I take a look at your boat?”
“Looks like you’re heading that way,” Steve said pointedly, and flicked his cigarette out into the snow. I did the same, and in two strides he was next to me. We walked in silence until we got to the dock. “She ain’t a beauty, but she’s reliable as the day is long.”
I looked over the boat’s clean lines. It had a flaring upsweep at the prow—boat people called it a Carolina Flair. It was meant to keep the spray and waves off the fishermen when the waters in the sound turned rough. “It’s a day boat isn’t it?” I asked.
“Yeah, that’s what she’s for—shrimping or crabbing.”
“You still go out much?”
“Enough to get by, in the right times of year. It was my dad’s. I keep it up and use it.”
“What happened to your folks?” I asked.
Steve looked at me sharply, then turned his attention back out over the water. “They’re gone. Dead a few years now.”
“I’m sorry to hear it.”
“Why?” he said. “You didn’t know them.”
Now I was pissed. The man switched from hot to cold so fast I couldn’t keep up. He was impossible. “You know something?” I said. “You’re a tough son of a bitch to have a conversation with.” With that, I turned to head back down the pier toward the house.
Steve caught me by the upper arm and pulled me back. Taking the opportunity of the spin to catch me unawares, he kissed me, right on the mouth. As I pushed him away he said, “That’s what I need to talk about with you.”
“Fuck that,” I replied. “What did you think? I was coming over here to pick out a puppy and get laid? I don’t need this shit off of you.”
“Okay. Don’t stomp off all mad. I was getting your signals crossed myself. Of course, you were on my floor with your pretty little ass all stuck up in the air and eyeing my crotch like you’d seen Christmas.”
“Are the pickings so bad down here in the wintertime you can’t even ask if someone wants to sleep with you?” I asked angrily.
“You tell me. If I know Heath, he’s about done tapping that ass and already’s got one foot out the door. I thought … forget it. Let’s go.” He grabbed me by the hand and started pulling me along the pier toward the house.
I snatched my hand away and said, “Would you quit grabbing me and pulling me places like I was five years old?”
; Steve stopped and laughed, “Okay, Little Bit. I guess you can get back to your house under your own steam.”
“Little bit? What the hell? I’m not so little. Goddamn, you’re infuriating.” Big as he was, I wanted to punch him in the head.
Steve laughed again, put his hands in his pockets, and took off. There was nothing to do but follow along behind him. Angrily, I threw my beer bottle off into the wind and started walking.
Over his shoulder Steve yelled something back that the wind snatched and carried away. Quickening my pace, I said, “What? I couldn’t hear you.”
Steve mounted the steps to the deck and waited for me with a disarming grin on his face.
“I said—what did you say? I couldn’t hear you back there.” I stood my ground on the pier below him, as if I had any choice other than to climb the stairs to the deck and go through the house to leave.
“What I said is: Can we start this over?” He looked down at me, still grinning. “How about we do start this over? You aren’t a lot of things I thought you might be, so …”
“So what?” I said in reply to that maddening grin.
“So, would you like to start over?”
I stood and looked at him without saying anything.
“You know you’ve either got to swim or get past me to leave don’t you?”
“Oh hell, yeah. I know that. Do you always trap your guests like this?”
Steve laughed happily. “Only the ones I don’t want to get away.”
“You do realize I’m 48 years old, right?”
“So what? I’m 38.”
“You can’t be that old.”
“Hey, neither can you—you look about my age. Anyway, I couldn’t care less how old you are. Do you want to pretend we’re 20? 18?”
“No, that’s not what I meant at all.”
“Okay,” he said.
“Okay then. But I’m not promising I’ll end up sleeping with you.”
“Fair enough. Since I got a do-over, I’ll play nice from here on out. Now come on and take another look at your puppy before you leave.”
I started up the steps, and he just watched me. He didn’t get out of the way until I was standing a foot away from him on the step’s edge. “You’re an asshole, Steve Willis.”
He looked at me without his normal hateful stare and said, “No I’m not. I’m actually a pretty nice guy—just remember: Pickings are slim in the wintertime.”
“I’ll think about that,” I replied.
He stepped out of my way with a grin and said, “I think you and me are going to be real good friends, Chris Thayer.” He stood waiting for my response.
I thought for a moment. Here was trouble with a capital T. But I’d gotten myself in trouble before and came out okay. “Maybe so, Steve Willis.”
“I’ll surprise you,” he promised.
“No doubt.”
When I got home, covered in puppy slobber and alternately infuriated and excited by Steve Willis, I had two messages waiting for me on voice mail. The first was from Trey. He wanted to know if he and Susan could come down and spend the night on Saturday. The next was from Dr. Rivera. He sounded frankly impressed when he said he had spoken with Father Fintan. Apologizing for the lack of notice, he wanted to know if I could come in at 8:30 the following morning for an interview. He asked if I would please call back to confirm the time.
Looking at my watch, I noticed it was nearly 4:30. I returned the call and spoke to a pleasant woman who explained the doctor was in a session, but said she’d be happy to pass along my message. She offered directions and waited while I scrambled for something to write them down on. We ended the conversation on a nice note when she explained she was the doctor’s wife and she looked forward to meeting me as well.
Barely able to contain my excitement, I returned Trey’s call next. After the usual hiatus of canned music, I heard him answer: “Trey Ronan.”
“Well, hello Trey Ronan! Is it snowing in Raleigh?”
“Hey, Chris!” He sounded unusually happy to hear from me. “What do you mean, is it snowing?”
“We’re in the midst of a wonderful snowstorm here,” I said. “I haven’t heard if it’s going up mid state.”
“Well, that’s interesting. I haven’t paid attention to the weather. In any event, that’s not why I called earlier. It is okay if Susan and I drive down for the evening on Saturday, isn’t it?”
“I’d be thrilled to have you guys. I’ll cook you something you’d like. What sounds good?”
Trey hesitated a minute, then said, “Let’s don’t do that. We’d like to take you out for dinner, okay?”
“Sounds fine. Maybe I’ll cook you a nice Sunday lunch then.”
“Chris, don’t go to any bother. We’ll need to leave early afternoon on Sunday and I’ll get sleepy driving if I’m stuffed from a big lunch.”
“Okay, then.” I was a little disappointed to be robbed of an opportunity to mother him, but what he said made sense.
“We’ll see you about 3 o’clock Saturday afternoon.”
“Okay, Trey. I’ll see you then. Drive safely, okay?”
“Okay!”
And, he was gone. I was a little disappointed he didn’t ask about my job search. For once, I had something exciting to tell him. Then I decided it was just as well. Who knew? This time tomorrow morning I might be in the same boat I was in today: jobless but happy.
I was happy. I made myself a rare drink. Heath’s pointed questions over the holidays had made me self-conscious about the level of bourbon in the Jim Beam bottle. It could become very easy to drown my boredom in a mellow drunken haze as easily as I could go shopping on the Internet and spend what was left of my monthly allowance on books or DVDs or other stuff. I told myself the drink was to celebrate the snow and the rather exciting day I’d had.
I turned on my fireplace, but forewent sitting in the living room to sit on the sun porch instead. I curled up on the generous sofa and sat with my drink in the twilight without turning on a lamp. I wanted to watch the sky deepen with the snowy light and follow the flakes as they raced in off the beach. The windward sides of the houses up the street were bare of any accumulation, as was my deck. But under the scrubby live oaks, the snow accumulated in tiny drifts that gleamed in the silvery-blue light.
The wind was picking up, but I was warm in my house and warmed by my drink and excited by my first winter storm on the island. Contentedly, I let my mind go blank as I listened to the wind’s faint howl, and the thoughts of the day became scoured out by a gentle kind of happiness. I did wonder at Steve Willis’s bizarre behavior, but I was willing to give him some latitude. I supposed he was used to putting the moves on someone and having them fall into bed or onto the floor with him.
In any case, it was just a series of crossed signals between Steve and me. I would be seeing him again in two weeks to pick up my puppy. I was looking forward to it, as a matter of fact, but if he thought he’d be “tapping that ass” right from the get-go, he’d best be thinking about saving his time for something else. While I seriously doubted Heath gave a damn who I slept with, I did. The thought of doing Steve Willis had a lot of appeal, I had to admit. But, that would happen when I decided to let the wolf-eyed bastard break him off a piece, not before.
With the slip and slide the bourbon provided, my thoughts jumped then to Father Fintan. Who would have thought I’d discover such an intelligent, broad-minded priest in this back corner of the world? On a whole other level, of course, I was as excited to get to know him as I was Steve Willis. While I was hardly a social butterfly, I’d had more opportunities for intelligent conversation in Raleigh than I’d had here on the beach. I was looking forward to hearing what Father Fintan had to say on many other topics.
Night settled on the beach, with the snow still falling and the wind keeping me company. Reluctantly, I stood and went into the darkened house to look for something to wear for a job interview. The next day was certain to be as interesting as this one had been.
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Dr. Anthony Rivera’s practice occupied the second floor of a surf shop on the Atlantic Beach causeway. It seemed an incongruous pairing from the parking lot, but I thought the view of the marinas that flanked the building both in front and behind would be stunning. From one side at least, that proved to be a good assumption—I entered the patient’s waiting room and stood looking out over the causeway and boats beyond. The early morning was filled with a cold, brittle light, intensified by the refracting waters of the sound. In the chill left by the winter storm, the snowy scene seemed almost unreal with its highly sharpened edges. I decided I wanted to work in this place—and badly.
After a few moments, the office door opened to reveal a lovely blonde woman who looked no older than 25. She had the fresh good looks of a beach girl, blanched pale and cool by the winter morning’s light.
“Chris?” she asked.
“That’s me,” I said and extended my hand.
She strode into the waiting room and took my hand. “I’m Cathy Rivera. Tony has been delayed. Unfortunately, he had a patient admitted to the hospital last night. He’s checking up on her before he comes in. Would you like some coffee?”
“Cathy, I’m afraid I’m a little coffee’d out. I was up early and walked on the beach this morning. It took nearly a full pot to warm me up, and now I’ve got the jitters.”
“That’s perfectly understandable. How about some decaf tea?” she asked.
“That sounds great.”
Smiling, she indicated I should sit. “I hate to keep you in the waiting room, but with the new HIPAA laws, I can’t ask you into my office, where all the records are. And, I prefer to let Tony invite you into his office. Would you care for sugar? The blue stuff?”
“The blue stuff is fine. What’s HIPAA?”
