“You’ve got yourself a deal.” Abigail delivered a peck on the lips. “But it starts next week. I need to get this finished.”
“Then I’ll keep the dogs out of your hair for the rest of the day.” Jackie practically skipped out the back door, as though celebrating a new lease on life.
Abigail sighed and looked down at her jumble of papers. Things hadn’t gone quite the way she had originally hoped, but she had to admit that staying the course—that is, continuing to take only one class at a time in pursuit of her degree—took some of the pressure off, and it would definitely be better for their finances to keep working. Jackie was right about them needing more time together, time that they could set their worries aside and enjoy each other. Abigail was feeling better about things already.
So was Mango, who sat up and scratched, sending a shower of orange fur through the air.
***
“Those kittens didn’t last any time at all!” Oscar was looking over the report for Saturday, his regular day off. “I think it’s amazing how you always get people to take two.”
Jackie chuckled. “Audie taught me that trick.”
“You ought to think about selling cars or something. You’d be rich!”
“Money isn’t everything, Oscar. Abigail and I were talking about that just yesterday. We both need to quit working so hard and try to have a little fun once in a while. Which reminds me, after this week, I’m going to start taking my day off on Monday so I can do some of the stuff around the house. That’ll give me and Abigail some free time on Sunday.”
“That’ll do you good, Jackie. Mondays aren’t the best day to be here anyway. I can get Edgar to help me.” It was the day they put down the animals that had exceeded their stay.
“Well, I was wondering if you’d think about changing the…you know”—Jackie couldn’t stand to speak of it—“over to Tuesday.”
“Why? We can handle it. You don’t have to be here. I know how hard it is for you to do that sometimes.”
“It’s hard for you too, though, and Edgar doesn’t like holding the cats. At least if I’m here, I can make sure their last few minutes are calm and that they aren’t scared or anything.”
Oscar nodded in agreement. “I’ll admit it’s easier with you than him. I’m all right with switching to Tuesdays from now on. But Edgar’s supposed to pick up this afternoon, so we’ll have to take care of business today as usual.”
Jackie cleared off the stainless steel table so they could get this horrible part of the week over with.
“Have you and Abigail decided what you’re going to do with Danny Boy?”
“I’m taking him home with me today.”
“Whew!” Oscar made as if to mop his brow. “I am sure am glad she—”
“Abigail doesn’t know yet. I know she’ll be all right with it, but probably not at first.”
“So you’ll be in the dog house tomorrow?”
“Yeah, but I know Abigail. The animals get on her nerves sometimes, but she loves them as much as I do.”
He followed her out to the customer counter, where she picked up the tablet of preprinted adoption forms and began to fill one out. “Just practice saying this with me a couple of times. ‘Oscar tried to talk me out of it.’ Got that?”
“Oscar tried to talk me out of it.”
“That’s right. ‘He said I shouldn’t do it without you saying it was okay.’”
“He said not to do unless you said it was okay.”
Oscar nodded. “And one more. ‘Tell your mom you think Oscar Shaw is one of the handsomest men in all of Sumter County.’”
Jackie laughed so hard she snorted. “You’re the biggest chicken I ever saw. Everybody at Leon’s knows you’re sweet on Raynelle. If she didn’t like the idea, she would have said so by now.”
“I’ll get there one of these days. I’m just taking my time.”
“Uh-huh.” Finished with the adoption form, she pulled a folded check from her wallet and wrote in the required amount, forty-nine dollars, knowing full well she couldn’t cover it.
“Romance isn’t something you ought to rush. It’s better if you let it simmer for a while…taste it like a stew every now and then until it’s just right.” Oscar closed his eyes and rubbed his stomach.
“Sure it ain’t Leon you’re in love with?”
Thoughts of the greasy-spoon cook snapped him right out of his daydream. “You know what I mean. You and Abigail took your time getting to know each other.”
“Yeah, but at least I eventually got around to asking her out.”
“I’ll get there one of these days.”
“Let’s just hope it’s before somebody new comes into Leon’s and sweeps Raynelle off her feet.” Jackie could see that her remark, which was only halfway serious, had unnerved him. “A woman doesn’t want to be kept waiting too long, Oscar. Raynelle’s a good one, and she needs somebody nice like you. But you better speak up for her before somebody else does.” She tore off the adoption form and clipped her check to the upper corner. “I’d, uh…I’d appreciate it if this got lost in the shuffle for a couple of weeks. Think we can do that?”
“Sure.” Oscar opened his file drawer and dropped it in the back so that it slipped beneath the folders to the bottom. “Remind me about it one of these days.”
***
Jackie checked her watch as she pulled her truck into the side yard so she wouldn’t block the Escort, which was backed into the carport. She had waited till the last minute to leave the shelter, knowing the cover of darkness would buy her a little time to talk with Abigail before bringing the Irish setter into the house.
As soon as she killed the engine, all four dogs ran to the fence and began to bark.
“See your new friends, Danny Boy?”
The setter stood up on all fours in the front seat, excited by both the dogs and Jackie’s voice.
Jackie got out and went around to the other side, the side farthest from the house, where Abigail couldn’t see her scoot the new arrival into the backyard. The other dogs greeted the newcomer with enthusiasm, sniffing and barking in invitation to play. “This’ll go a whole lot better if I can explain things to Abigail first. If you have any questions, just ask Wally. He’s in charge when I’m not around.”
She dreaded what she knew would be a heated confrontation once she went inside. Abigail had every right to be angry about her bringing home another dog. She wished right now that she could turn back the calendar just a little, long enough to find the right homes for Sweet Pea, the beagles, and the cats. Abigail was right that she hadn’t kept her promise to do that. That was definitely going to make it tougher to sell more promises today.
Things would calm down in a couple of days—but they would be long days for Jackie. Abigail wouldn’t talk much, and would probably sleep on her side, turned away. On about the third night, she would come closer in their bed and they would snuggle, kiss a little, and eventually make love. Their love affirmed, the matter would then be mostly closed, but it would probably come up again when one of the dogs misbehaved.
Jackie paused at the back door, figuring this would be a great day to take the time to wipe her feet. The fewer things she did to upset Abigail, the better.
“Hi, honey.” she called. “Abigail?”
She walked through the kitchen to find Abigail sitting on the couch, a mass of crumpled and torn papers in her lap. Her eyes and nose were red from crying.
“What—honey, what happened?”
“Those damn animals happened, Jackie.” Her voice was a mix of anger and frustration.
“But how did they…” She followed Abigail’s eyes to the top of the entertainment center.
“Apparently, Tao didn’t appreciate me leaving my lab book in his space. So he pushed it off, and of course, the dogs couldn’t just let it lie there on the floor.” She waved the wad of paper at Jackie as if accusing her of conspiracy. “So thanks to them, I have to get a whole new lab book—forty dollars that I don’t ha
ve—and I have exactly one week to redo a whole semester’s worth of work. I was hoping for an A and now I’ll be lucky if I get a C.”
Jackie started picking up the strewn papers, her mind racing with ideas for how to fix this mess. “That’s it. I don’t care what we said about emergencies—we’re going to take some money out of our savings account and get you a new book. And we might as well get enough for a new battery…and groceries for the next couple of weeks.” A little extra money would go a long way to solve a lot of their immediate problems. She just hoped Abigail wouldn’t want a pound of flesh as well.
“And where am I going to find the time to do all this again? This took me days, Jackie.”
“I can help. It’s all here.” She continued to gather up the ripped pieces of papers, straightening the creases and spreading them on the coffee table like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. “All we have to do is”—she read the notes on one of the pages and looked at Abigail in horror. “You dissected a cat?”
“Give me that!” Abigail snatched the papers from her hand. “I can’t take this anymore, Jackie.”
“I know, I know.” She reached out to pull Abigail into an embrace, which she fought at first before going limp in Jackie’s arms.
“I mean it, it’s not just today—it’s all the time.” She turned her face away from Jackie’s and continued, almost as if talking to herself. “They wake me up a hundred times a night moving around on the bed. The house is filthy. They track dirt in, and there’s cat hair on everything.”
“I’ll run the vacuum every day, Abigail. And starting tomorrow, I’ll get to work on finding—”
“I’ve heard all that before.” Abigail pulled away and slumped onto the couch. “What’s going to be different about this time?”
Her word choice made it clear that it wasn’t a rhetorical question. She wanted to know specifics.
“Well, I’ll get Oscar to help me tomorrow. We’ll take some pictures and print up some flyers. I’ll take enough money out to run some ads in the paper.”
Seemingly satisfied with the proposed plan, Abigail nodded in resignation. “I hate having to spend our hard-earned money that way, but it’ll be better in the long run because of what we’ll save on food and cat litter.”
Jackie nodded in agreement. She would have agreed to practically anything right this second.
“And we have to draw the line, Jackie—you can’t bring home any more stray animals. I know you hate it when—” She stopped short, and Jackie could see the wheels turning. “Today’s Monday.”
The dogs, in yet another display of their uncanny sense of timing, picked that moment to stir up a fuss in the backyard. The new arrival’s deep bark was especially distinct.
Abigail jumped up and started for the back door. “Please tell me you didn’t.”
Jackie grabbed her by the arm. “I had to, Abigail. I told you about him…about how much he reminded me of Danny. I couldn’t let him be put down.”
“So you brought him home, after I specifically said no!” Abigail’s face was almost purple with rage. “That’s exactly what I was talking about the other night, Jackie. You always hear me loud and clear. You just don’t give a damn what I say or how I feel. It’s all about you…and all about these dogs and cats. Fine, you can have each other!”
She grabbed her coat from the closet and stormed toward the door.
“Abigail!” Jackie followed her to the door, but it was too late to stop her. As Abigail got into her car, Jackie crossed her fingers that it wouldn’t start.
But this time it did.
***
Abigail sat at Rosemary’s kitchen table peeling the label from the bottle of her second beer.
“I couldn’t believe it, Rosie. After all the times I’ve told her that it felt like the animals were taking over, she goes and brings another dog home. We can hardly afford to put food on our own table and we’re paying almost fifty dollars a week to feed seven other mouths—now eight.”
Rosemary put her finger over her lips and gestured down the hallway, where AJ had already gone to bed. “You should have put your foot down last year when she brought home that one-eyed cat.”
Abigail waved her hand in the air dismissively. “Clementine isn’t the problem, except when she gets into it with the dogs for taking over the bed.”
Rosemary shuddered. “I don’t see how you can stand to sleep with all those animals. If I had a dog or a cat, it wouldn’t even come in the house.”
“You can’t tell Jackie that. She treats those animals better than a lot of folks treat other people.” Abigail helped herself to an uncharacteristic third beer from her sister’s refrigerator. “But I’ve had it this time. Out they go.”
“You ought to stay over here a few nights. That’ll get her attention.”
Abigail shook her head. “No, I have to go back home so I can stay on her case. She needs to know I mean business.”
“Abigail, listen to me. Moving out is how you get Jackie to know you’re serious. It’s not up to you to make her do this. She already knows how you feel about it, and if she really cares about you, you shouldn’t have to ride herd on her.”
Abigail frowned at the brutal assessment. “She cares.”
“Maybe, but she’s not doing a very good job of showing it. And I think all those animals are just the tip of the iceberg.” The dryer buzzed in the laundry room and Rosemary got up to get the clothes.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean weren’t you telling me just the other night that you two were broke all the time? And you want to go back to school and get a better job, but what about Jackie? Is she going to work her whole life at the dog pound for minimum wage?”
“She makes more than that,” Abigail argued, unable to conceal her defensive streak. “And we talked about that the other night. There’s more important”—she waved her hand in the air as if to grab the right word—“stuff than money.”
“The only people who ever say that are the ones who don’t have any.” Rosemary pulled out the clothes that were likely to wrinkle and draped them over the back of one of the chairs. Then she set the basket on the floor so she could sit and look her sister in the eye. “You know I like Jackie, but—”
“You always say that right before you say something mean about her.”
Rosemary sighed. “I do like her. But she’s not my little sister, and you are. I’m always going to want what’s best for you. And I don’t want to sit by and watch you do what Mama did.”
“Jackie would never lay a hand on me.”
“I know. That’s not what I meant. But Mama let life pass her by while she waited for Chuck to get his shit together. And things just got worse instead of better.”
Abigail shook her head vehemently. “Jackie doesn’t have a mean bone in her body. How can you even talk about her and Chuck in the same breath?”
“Chuck wasn’t always a bad guy. We used to like him when we were little. Remember that?”
Abigail nodded.
“But he never had any ambition, and when he finally realized he wasn’t ever going to amount to anything, he took it out on Mama to make himself feel like a man.”
“Jackie’s not like that, though.”
“I know. But you and Jackie are right where Mama and Chuck were before all hell broke loose—spinning your wheels. Is that what you want out of life?”
“Of course not.”
“All I’m saying is that now might be a good time for you to step back and ask yourself where you’re going and how you’re going to get there. If you want to make something of yourself, you can’t just sit by and wait for things to happen, and you can’t let Jackie and all those animals drag you down. You’ve got a chance to make something of yourself by finishing school.”
“You seem to be forgetting that Jackie and I happen to love each other. What good does it do me to make something of myself”—she used her fingers to draw imaginary quote marks around her sister’s words—“if we’re not tog
ether?”
“There’s nothing that says you can’t be together, but don’t let that stop you from doing what’s best for you. If you want to go back to school like you said, do it. Save your money and move in here and help me with AJ. You said it would only take another year if you went full-time, and you and Jackie can keep seeing each other. Maybe that’ll light a fire under her and she’ll start being more responsible. Who knows? In another year or so, you might both have your feet on the ground. Wouldn’t that be better than three or four more years of being behind the eight ball?”
Abigail shook her head. “I can’t just move out, Rosie. That would hurt her so bad.”
“Then tell her it’s for both of you. Get her on board too.”
Abigail blew out a resigned breath that caused her bangs to fly upward.
“Besides, that’s your third beer, so you’re not driving home tonight anyway.”
“Crap. I’ve got to be at work at six thirty. I’ll have to go home in the morning and change.”
“You can wear something of mine.”
Abigail pushed herself up from the table and looked at the phone. “I guess I should call her. I don’t want her to worry.”
“Go on to bed. I’ll call her. I don’t want her trying to talk you into coming home tonight. I’ll just tell her you’re staying here and that you don’t want to talk to her right now. She’ll know you’re really mad this time.”
Abigail nodded. “’Kay.”
***
Jackie’s stomach did a little flip when she saw the Escort in its usual spot backed into the carport. There wasn’t a moment all day she hadn’t worried about coming home to an empty house. They had argued in the past, but it had never gotten so bad that one of them had to leave, even to cool off. To Jackie, that was the sign she had really gone too far this time.
She didn’t blame Abigail one bit for being angry at her. But tonight, she had good news. Hank Fuller was finally having a backyard fence installed. The impetus wasn’t the dogs, but as Oscar had feared, a near tragedy involving Hank’s three-year-old son. And as soon as that fence went up tomorrow afternoon, Mo and Molly would have a new home.
She parked in the worn grass beside the driveway and went to the back fence, where she was greeted at once by all five dogs. Danny Boy seemed to be fitting in just fine. He was content to let Wally be the alpha dog, and exceedingly tolerant of the beagles’ efforts to rile him into rough play. And like the other dogs, he pretty much ignored Sweet Pea.
Luck of the Irish Page 5
