A Dog Called Jack

by Ivy Pembroke

  There was a general chorus of oh, no.

  “Well, we have to fix that,” said Diya.

  “Absolutely,” said Max. “We shall turn the power of the street onto your romantic entanglements.”

  “Soon you’re going to have a new baby and be much too busy to deal with my romantic entanglements,” said Sam.

  “Which is why we must work quickly. And also I will, of course, leave the situation in Diya’s capable hands.”

  “Do I need to bake something again?” said Diya.

  “I can help,” said Anna.

  “I’m so very glad that we’re all being united in worrying about my love life,” said Sam, “but I’m sure I can sort it myself—”

  To his chagrin, everyone shook their heads and made negative comments about that.

  Even Bill felt he had to correct that. “You’re very bad at women,” he said. “If you feel like you need to borrow some of my wood carvings, that might help.”

  “Oh, Christ,” said Sam.

  “How do you think we might fix you and Miss Quinn?” asked Teddy.

  “Well,” said Max, “all I have to say is: it’s going to be Christmastime, on Christmas Street. So I think it ought to be something incredibly good.”

  * * *

  The day of the Christmas play was also the day that Mr. Hammersley came home.

  It also happened to be the day that Arthur and Max brought home the tiny baby boy they had met three days earlier.

  Sam helped Mr. Hammersley on with his coat and said, “Before we go to the play, I thought we’d stop at Arthur and Max’s to meet the baby.”

  “Going to a Christmas play,” grumbled Mr. Hammersley as he buttoned up his coat. “I never heard of anything so foolish in all my life.”

  But Sam noted he didn’t ask to stay home, and Sam had been present when Mr. Hammersley had got the all-clear to attend the play.

  It helped that Libby had agreed to allow Jack to star as “Manger Dog in Environmental Crisis.” He was wearing a special festive red collar for the occasion and practicing his part with Teddy and Pari outside. Considering that his part consisted entirely of “lying still in the manger,” Sam hoped he would excel and not be thrown off by the audience.

  When Sam stepped outside with Mr. Hammersley, Teddy said eagerly, “Is it time to go?”

  “In a bit. Would you like to go and see Arthur and Max’s new baby quickly before we go?”

  “Yes!” said Teddy.

  “I’ve already seen him,” said Pari. “Mum took me earlier.”

  “Not interested in seeing him again?” asked Sam, amused, because Pari’s little nose was wrinkled at the prospect.

  “He doesn’t do much,” said Pari.

  Sam laughed. “Not yet anyway. Before you know it he’ll be walking and chasing Jack around.”

  Sam and Teddy and Mr. Hammersley walked to Max and Arthur’s and knocked on the door.

  It was Arthur who answered, looking magnificently pleased with the state of the universe.

  Sam smiled and said, “Have you had a constant stream of visitors?”

  “Yes,” called Max from the other room. “But come in. We never tire of showing him off.”

  Mr. Hammersley said, “He’s just a baby. You lot all started out that way, too.”

  “Surely,” Max responded, “none of us were half as beautiful as this baby is.”

  He was beautiful, too. Although not as beautiful as Sam remembered Teddy being, he was a lovely baby. And this one was impossibly tiny. Sam couldn’t remember Teddy being that small. He looked absolutely swallowed up in Max’s arms, nestled comfortably in the crook, sleeping with the steady exhaustion with which the newly born greeted the world. Max leaned down and held him out a little bit so Teddy could look.

  “You must remark upon how beautiful his nose is,” Max said. “Arthur can’t stop talking about the beauty of his nose.”

  “Shut up,” Arthur said, sounding vaguely embarrassed but also, still, very pleased.

  “He’s lovely,” said Sam. “The second most beautiful baby I’ve ever seen.”

  Max eyed Teddy with mock seriousness and said, “Hmm, I suppose I’ll allow the possibility that Teddy was a handsome baby.”

  “What’s his name?” asked Teddy.

  “Jack,” answered Max.

  Teddy’s eyes widened. “Really?”

  “No,” said Arthur. “It’s Charlie.”

  Sam laughed.

  “In the end,” said Max, “we decided Jack probably wanted to keep his own name.”

  “In the interest of the street’s sanity, we thought we wouldn’t want to have lots of shouting for two beings named Jack,” added Arthur. And then, after a pause, “Also we like the name Charlie.”

  “Charlie’s nice,” said Teddy. “And pretty soon he’ll be running around with Jack, so it’ll be nice to have a different name.”

  “Let’s not rush it,” said Arthur. “I’m going to savor him being not-mobile for a little while.”

  “What do you think, Bill?” asked Max of Mr. Hammersley, who had been silent so far. “Approve of him?”

  Mr. Hammersley looked down at the baby, and Sam thought he was going to say something gruff, but instead what he said was, “He’s a lucky little boy.”

  Sam could tell Max had been completely caught off-guard by the way he blinked in reaction. Then he said, “Thank you,” with genuine pleasure.

  Arthur said to Teddy, “I’m sorry to be missing the Christmas play about insurance agents.”

  “I guess Charlie’s too little to go?” said Teddy.

  “A bit,” said Arthur. “But I expect you and Pari to act it out for me tomorrow.”

  “Arthur is very keen on seeing the heroic insurance agent,” said Max.

  Teddy said, “Pari and I will act it out for you with Jack. Jack’s the real star of the whole play.”

  “And what about everything for after the play?” asked Max, giving Sam a meaningful look.

  “Hopefully it will work,” said Sam. “Libby and I have been texting, and she’s somewhat accepted my apology, so I think the rest of this will work.”

  “Of course it will,” said Max. “It’s brilliant.”

  “It’s too bad we didn’t know you were going to have Charlie before,” said Teddy suddenly. “He could have played the baby Jesus in the manger.”

  “Maybe next year,” said Arthur.

  “This year he’s very busy being the best Christmas gift in the whole world,” said Max.

  * * *

  The entire street walked together to the school, save Arthur and Max and Charlie. And maybe it was a bit much, this large group of people all attending the Christmas play, but it also felt absolutely right. Sam sat in the middle of a crowd of people he hadn’t even known a few months earlier, and watched his son in his first Christmas play, and it suddenly struck him, all at once, that they’d done it, he and Teddy. They’d embarked on a grand adventure and they had ended up here, surrounded by a support system Sam could only have dreamed about. All of these people, all of whom cared about his son, all of whom had made their lives so much richer. Sam thought of how lonely the pair of them had been before, with only each other to lean on, and thought now of how each person on the street had, in their own way, brightened their lives.

  Teddy stood, an angel in a snowfall in a desert, and announced great tidings, and Sam looked at the people all around him—none of them strangers, all of them unexpectedly and remarkably dear to him—and thought, Great tidings indeed.

  Jack comported himself remarkably well by basically following Teddy and Pari all around the stage. Pari played the insurance agent and relished every single phrase of her delivery. She was dour about climate change but she had a lovely line about how the purpose of insurance was to give you room to enjoy the things that you love. “Like our climate, and the baby Jesus,” she finished.

  The audience gave them a standing ovation when it was over, and Jack stood and looked out at the crowd and wagge
d his tail as if he had been responsible for all of it.

  “What did you think?” Sam asked Mr. Hammersley.

  Mr. Hammersley said, “Was the little girl—what’s her name? Pari?—really playing an insurance agent?”

  Sam laughed.

  “Sam!” squealed Ellen, coming up to him and giving him a tight hug. “Teddy was brilliant.”

  “Do you think he has a future on the stage?”

  “No. But he was brilliant all the same. Now, are you going backstage to talk to Miss Quinn?” Ellen gave him a stern look.

  “I am not.”

  Ellen sighed. “Sam—”

  “Now, now, no lecture necessary. I think we’ve mostly made up the fight. I’ve apologized at least, and she seems to have accepted the apology, but she also seems a little wary.”

  “But we have a plan,” said Diya, immediately inserting herself into the conversation. “We have a very good plan to win her back.”

  * * *

  Libby, when the last parent had finally been small-talked with, thought maybe she would go home and treat herself to a large glass of wine and a very long bubble bath. The play had been exhausting to achieve, requiring the negotiation of multiple personalities, and of course through it all had been an annoying lingering lack of satisfaction with Sam. It was ridiculous to have been that affected by a row so early in the relationship, ridiculous to feel off-kilter as a result, as if Sam had already been such a regular feature of her life that he could be so missed. It was ridiculous, and maybe partly the problem was how much Teddy could remind her of him. At any rate, Libby was relieved to have got through the play, and was hopeful that maybe, with a little more mental space, she could decide what she wanted to do about Sam.

  Maybe she could decide if she wanted him more than he wanted her, which seemed that it could possibly be the case. He had given no impression, through the series of texts they’d exchanged since their last meeting, of missing her nearly as much as she had been missing him.

  And then, backstage, she came upon Jack, sitting by the coat she was going to grab on her way out the exit.

  “Jack,” she said in surprise. “What are you still doing here?” She glanced around, but there was no one backstage with her, and she knew the hall had been empty, as she’d just come from there.

  Jack wagged his tail at her and showed off the fact that, pinned to his red bow collar, was a piece of construction paper with a curlicue instruction on it. Follow the stars. Libby looked at Jack, at the note, and then back at Jack.

  “What’s this? Are you in on the secret?”

  Jack just wagged his tail again.

  “I see,” said Libby. “Not telling, are you?” She could, she knew, tuck the note in her pocket and just ignore it. She could go home to that bubble bath and bottle of wine.

  . . . But she didn’t want to. She wanted to see Sam. She wanted him to make her laugh by saying something silly. She wanted to feel the way she felt when he looked at her. And it was Christmas. Shouldn’t you get the things you wanted at Christmas, at least?

  So Libby stepped outside, with every intention of following the stars. She had no idea it was going to be meant so literally. But directly in front of the door had been placed a scattering of gently glowing plastic stars, and there was another pile a few meters away, and another pile a few meters away from that. Libby did indeed find herself following the stars, Jack wandering beside her, sniffing at the stars as they approached, all the way to Sam’s street.

  She probably would have simply gone to Sam’s house, except for the fact that he was clearly standing at the other end of the street, lifting his hand in greeting, under a little garden archway.

  So Libby began walking to him. And, as she began walking, the dark houses along the street began slowly to light up as she passed them, thousands of twinkling fairy lights arranged in the shape of stars that followed her progress down the street. It was . . . enchanting. Utterly absolutely enchanting. She paused as she got to Sam, to turn back to look over her shoulder, at the twinkling stars all over the houses on the street, and then she did turn to Sam, who stood under the archway watching her, his hands in his pockets.

  “Hi,” he said, with a little half smile, and Libby had been very inclined to forgive Sam entirely prior to following stars to a street with lights that turned on just for her, and even more inclined to do so after all of that, but it was the little half smile that did it, that made Libby close her hands on his jacket and lean up to kiss him. A soft, sweet, lovely, perfect kiss; a kiss composed of stars.

  Libby, eyes closed, stayed close to Sam and breathed him in.

  “Damn it,” Sam whispered. “I didn’t even get to use the mistletoe in my pocket.”

  “You didn’t need to,” Libby said, and opened her eyes to look at him. “You didn’t need to. This might be too much for me to say,” she added, suddenly fearful of the intensity of all of this.

  “I just lit up a street with lights for you. I mean, all of the neighbors helped—a lot—but still: Libby. That might have been too much to say.”

  Libby said, “I moved to London, this entirely new place, and nothing about it felt like home until I met you.”

  Sam smiled at her, so soft and sweet, and Libby thought how she wanted to just sit and keep track of years’ worth of his smiles. He said, “I moved to London, this entirely new place, and I found this incredible home, and I want you to be part of it. Now, I don’t think I’m very good at dating—”

  “Nobody’s good at dating,” said Libby.

  “—but I do know that I don’t feel like you take my breath away. I feel like you give it back to me. I feel like you make me feel as if I can take a deep breath for the first time in a very long time, and I would like to keep that. If you would like to have me. Even if I’m an utter prat sometimes.”

  “I can deal with utter pratness,” said Libby, “as long as it’s only sometimes.”

  “Yes,” said Sam, laughing. “I really hope it’s only sometimes.” Libby was going to lean up and kiss him again, except that she was distracted by the fact that there were snowflakes suddenly catching in Sam’s sandy-colored hair. She didn’t kiss Sam; she leaned her head back and looked up at the sky, where snowflakes were falling, catching the twinkling of the street’s fairy lights and gleaming like tiny diamonds against the black velvet of the sky over their heads.

  It was, Libby thought, her breath caught in her throat, like standing in a sky of stars falling all around them.

  She looked back at Sam and asked, her voice hushed to match the snow, “Did your magic street make it snow?”

  “I wouldn’t put it past them,” said Sam, and kissed her until her cheeks were rosy and the snow was thick on her eyelashes.

  Epilogue

  If Jack had to tell you this story, he’d tell you:

  On Christmas morning, on a street called Christmas, a dog called Jack was presented with a bookshelf that had been carved and painted by some members of his family. The bookshelf, he was told, had his name carved into the front by the man called Bill. It had his likeness painted on the back by the man called Max. And the purpose of the bookshelf was for the whole street to collect and keep treats and toys for Jack.

  The bookshelf sat in a back shed, and its shelves gathered buckets of treats, gnawed pieces of rope perfect for playing tug-of-war, beloved tennis balls, and ragged stuffed animals that could be torn and thrown and chased. The members of Jack’s family stopped to add to the shelves, or to pull new toys off when they wanted to play with him, and Jack loved the bookshelf.

  Jack also loved his new bed, in the house of the boy called Teddy and the man called Sam. He loved how they tore down the fence between their garden and the man called Bill’s garden, so Jack could move back and forth at will. He loved when the woman called Libby was at Sam and Teddy’s, because she was the best at scratching his back. He loved when Bill was also at Sam and Teddy’s, and it was all of his favorite people in one place.

  Jack was less sur
e about the tiny human who had just begun to crawl around and kept pulling at Jack’s fur. But Jack thought maybe he’d get better.

  Things always seemed to get better.

  Jack lost one family and gained so many more families. Every day for Jack was Christmas.

  Jack’s a special dog.

  Acknowledgments

  To the small army that helps to create a book, thank you! With special thanks to:

  Thalia Proctor and Maddie West, for giving me this great opportunity, letting me share this lovely story world with all of the characters, trusting me with this amazing project of theirs, cheerleading along the way, and generally making this creative process so much fun;

  The entire team at Little, Brown, for embracing this book and nudging it into shape to be the best it can be;

  John Scognamiglio, Robin Cook, and the team at Kensington for shepherding the U.S. edition.

  My agent Andrea Somberg, for tireless belief and support;

  Sonja L. Cohen, for always being willing to read drafts and tolerate frantic writing, even when we’re supposed to be at Harry Potter World;

  Larry Stritof, for also tolerating such things;

  Kristin Gillespie, Erin McCormick, Jennifer Roberson, and Noel Wiedner, for being bright spots;

  Aja Romano, for teaching me about narrative structure, even if I ignored all of it;

  All the Internet folks, through fandom and Twitter and Tumblr and Slack, who have been willing to indulge my love of Christmas romances and who teach me daily, in all the best ways, how to be a better writer, and who remind me daily, in all the best ways, how much I love writing;

  And Mom, Dad, Ma, Megan, Caitlin, Bobby, Jeff, Jordan, Isabella, Gabriella, and Audrey, for always being my favorite kind of chaos. I love you all dearly.