by Kellie Bean
My phone buzzes in my pocket, I quickly move to embrace the distraction, forcing my feet to settle in place as I fish out the device from my pocket. It's a new text from Jamie, one of two messages I have waiting for me.
I'd somehow missed the message from Jason Habble, which came in five minutes ago.
The fact that it's been five minutes since I last checked my phone is probably a pretty good indicator of just how focused I am on Molly's arrival. One more look out the window at our driveway reveals that nothing has changed. She still isn’t here. I know Kendra won't appreciate me texting her to ask what the delay is after only a few minutes.
I offered to go pick her up myself, but my boss wanted to give the entire family a rundown of what to expect and how to care for an un-weaned puppy.
So, I have to wait.
I click on the text from Jason first, a little worried about what I'm going to find inside. Last night at Jean-Anne’s party, Jason somehow ended up as my unexpected make out buddy for the night. At the time, I assumed we both knew it didn't mean anything specific. He was looking particularly great in a blue plaid button up that really brought out the color of his eyes. We had a lot of fun. He’s one of the few guys I hang around with who is never afraid to get up and dance, not caring—or at least pretending not to care—about how he looks when he does.
This wouldn’t be the first time a guy misread my intentions.
Jason: Hey Reece, it's Jason.
Inside, I flinch a little. The super formal introduction thing probably isn't a good sign. I will myself to keep reading.
Jason: I just wanted to let you know that I had a really great time last night, and that maybe, if you ever wanted to go see a movie or something, I'd be down. Let me know.
I delete the message, promising myself that I'll talk to Jason in person next time I see him. For now, Molly's arrival should be a totally justifiable excuse for why I didn't get back to him.
It's not like letting him down now versus telling him later is going to change the outcome at all.
My memory flashes back to a moment from the night before when Jason ran his fingers through my freshly straightened blond hair, a shiver of anticipation ran down my spine.
Last night had been fun.
I put that particular train of thought on hold. I can come back to it later. As soon as I open the message from Jamie, I'm assaulted by a storm of capital letters.
Jamie: YOU MADE THE TEAM!!! WE MADE THE TEAM!!!!
Reece: What!?
I respond back right away, already sure that there is no way I've misinterpreted what she's telling me, but I want more details anyway.
I let out an involuntary squeak, drawing my parents’ and my sisters' attention.
"Are they here?" Reilly asks, bouncing up from the couch to look out the front window, taking over the spot I'd been occupying only a minute before.
Distracted, I look outside. "Not yet. I might have some other good news. Give me a second.”
I stare down at my phone, willing Jamie to answer. A second later, she does.
Jamie: Tessa forgot her phone at school yesterday, so she went back for it this morning and Coach Wasserman was there. She told Tessa to wait around, then she ended up posting the team roster like ten minutes after that.
Jamie: She didn't want to wait before jumping into practice, so she put the results up a few days early. I think the plan is to email everyone details later. I'm not sure.
Reece: !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Reece: Do you know who else made the team?!
"I made the soccer team!" I practically yell out, startling my family all over again. If I thought I felt awesome yesterday, that was nothing compared to how I'm feeling right now.
At once, Reilly moves over to hug me and gives me a quick squeeze before letting me go. "I knew you would!"
My dad stands up and nods his approval before wrapping one arm around my shoulders and hugging me in close to him. "We’re so proud of you, sweetheart. You've always been unstoppable."
I grin up at him but before anyone else has a chance to congratulate me, I hear the familiar bang of a car door shutting. At once, I'm sprinting back to the window.
There's a vehicle in our driveway, but it's not Kendra's van. Instead, it's John that's walking up our driveway with a brown and white puppy in his arms and a backpack slung over his shoulder.
Before he can ring the doorbell, I'm at the door, swinging it open.
At first, he just stares at me, a little shocked but I don't notice what he does next. I’m already so focused on who he is holding. She’s here!
I scoop Molly out of his arms all while cooing nonsensical words at her. She only blinks at me, not making any noise at all. She’s probably a little overwhelmed and confused.
I force myself to calm down. This has to be a big moment for her, taken from her siblings only a day after she lost her mother.
John follows me inside and probably instantly regrets it, since he’s greeted by all five of my family members as they crowd out of the living room, into the front hallway. Molly is taken from me before I have a chance to object.
"Don't overdo it.” I say, trying to sound like an authority on the subject. "She's probably overwhelmed already. We might want to put her down and give her a chance to explore a little."
"Where's your aunt?" I ask, turning to John who is still standing back a bit, clearly somewhat intimidated by the chaos around him.
"Mrs. Connery’s spaniel broke his foot, so Aunt Kendra couldn’t get away. She was going to message you, promising to come by later, but I was at the shelter anyway picking up more formula. It’s not like I could have been any use there, so I offered to do the puppy drop-off instead. I hope that's okay."
Without even really meaning to, I reach over and give John the quickest of hugs, still vibrating with energy. "Thank you, thank you, thank you."
I pull back and find John looking a little stunned, but a dopey grin quickly takes over his mouth. "Happy to do it. My mom and I took all three of the boys yesterday, so I didn’t think it was fair that you had to wait any longer to get your puppy fix."
"Well, you're definitely my new hero. I feel like I've been waiting for Molly forever. I know I don't get to keep her, but I already have a feeling that taking care of Molly for the next few weeks is going to be the best couple weeks of my life. Which I know sounds super lame, but I've never had a dog before."
"You're going to love it." John promises. "I'm supposed to run you guys through formula preparation. Aunt Kendra sent me with a huge list of puppy-proofing suggestions. She'll probably call later to make sure no one has any questions." John has turned his attention away from me and toward my parents, who I turn to see, have both been watching us with strange expressions on their faces. I don't have time to wonder about it.
My puppy needs me!
The seven of us, eight counting Molly, all move into the living room where the tiny dog is unleashed onto the floor, only moments before her back legs squat outward at an awkward angle. It's a stance I recognize all too well. "Crap." I call out, moving to scoop her up but knowing I’m already too late. She waddles away before I can reach her, a tiny puddle is left where she was standing a moment before.
"Nothing to worry about.” my dad says. "I'll get the cleaning supplies."
I let out a quick sigh of relief. It wasn't sure how much my parents would expect from a dog this young in terms of behavior. Accidents were inevitable, but I was kind of hoping that I'd catch most of them before anyone else noticed.
Still, they committed to two weeks and have never been the type to back out of something at the first sign of trouble.
"So, I'm realizing I don't know the first thing about how to potty train a dog this small." I confess to John.
"Don't worry too much about it today, just let her settle in. I’ve found that the easiest way is to just have her outside as often as possible, praise or reward her every time she does her business on the lawn, ignoring her whenever she g
oes anywhere else. She should get the idea more quickly than you think.”
"I've actually been reading some articles." Rhiannon chimes in, “That’s sound advice."
John looks somehow pleased that he's managed to get Rhiannon's approval, even though by all accounts, he is definitely the expert in this area.
"You know, I don't think I've ever seen all four of you in the same place before." Oh, that was what the dopey expression was about. "It's cool! Especially now that all of your hair looks different from one another. You're like a living example of one of those apps that lets you try on different hairstyles."
I can't help it, I laugh out loud at that. "How do you even know that those apps are a thing?"
"My mom.” John answers, unapologetically. "She loves that kind of stuff."
"Well, points for coming up with some sort of quadruplet observation that we've actually never heard before," Reagan says. I chuckle again. She has a point.
Molly has worked her way under the coffee table that sits between our two large couches. Reilly is sitting on an armchair in the corner of the room, I can tell from the look in her eye just how closely she's tracking the puppy’s trajectory.
I already suspect that she's going to be my biggest ally in Operation: Puppy Sitting for the next couple of weeks, and not just because she'll never say no if I ask her for help. I think she considers herself more of a cat person, she’s also not the kind of person to ever turn away anything little, squishy or adorable.
For the next half an hour, John goes over all kinds of useful tips for taking care of a dog this small, even though I've heard a lot of it before from Kendra, I still make myself pay attention. I promised everyone but mostly myself, that I would take this seriously. Even though I'm sure that my mom and Rhiannon are going to have both mental and physical notes about everything John says, I can't let anyone accuse me of not having given this my all.
I get to be a dog parent for only two weeks, so I'm sure as hell going to be the best one I can be and hopefully give Molly her strongest chance at putting her best paw forward for her future family.
Whoever they are, it already hurts to think about them.
"Okay, I think that’s everything. I should probably get back to help my mom with our own mini-pack. She's great with dogs, but puppies can be a lot of work. Last time we had a whole litter of them at our house for a week, I came home from school once to find her hiding out in the bathroom reading on her phone, just because she was feeling outnumbered and outgunned."
Since she arrived, Molly has not once stopped moving around the living room, sniffing everything she approaches. As soon as John stands up, only about a foot away from where she is currently investigating a crumpled-up sweater that Reagan left on the floor earlier, Molly sits and looks up at him expectantly.
"You're really good at this.” I say, standing up too since I know it's my job to walk John out of the house.
"Nah, right now I'm pretty sure she just thinks I'm her pack leader or something. She'll forget all about me in twenty minutes."
I shake my head emphatically. "No way. That is some serious puppy respect right there."
John says his goodbyes to my family, I dutifully walk him back to the front hall, thanking him again profusely for ensuring that I didn't have to wait any longer than necessary to be reunited with Molly.
"It was no problem, really. If you want, I'll give you my number in case you have any questions. Or if you're not too busy, you're totally free to bring Molly over to play with her brothers. She's already missing out on some of those big socialization milestones she should be going through with her mom, so it wouldn't hurt to give her some more time with puppies her own age if possible."
I study his face, trying to figure out if the offer to exchange numbers has any sort of hidden meaning or intention, but he looks completely sincere. He's genuinely offering just to be helpful. I already know I'm going to take him up on his suggestion.
I have only two weeks to win dog parent of the year, and I'm sure Molly will be thrilled to be reunited with some of her siblings.
It’s hard not to wish that I'd asked to take more than one of the puppies once I'd realized just how open-minded my parents were prepared to be about the whole thing.
Still, I’ve got Molly for now, so it’s probably better that I didn’t push my luck. I’ll take what I can get. Either way, between Molly and the big news about the soccer team, today officially qualifies as the best day of my life.
At least so far.
Chapter 6
The sun beams down on my face as I sit with my legs sprawled out in front of me out on our front lawn. Reagan’s bare toes touch my own as we form a small barricade in the grass, to keeping Molly close by.
I swear she looks bigger already.
“Any ideas for birthday stuff this year?” Reilly asks from where she’s perched on the house’s small front porch. The question is almost enough of a distraction to break my focus and let one small, determined puppy barrel past me and onto the driveway.
“Haven’t given it much thought.” I answer as my fingers wrap around Molly’s middle. Her body is mainly white but has one big patch of brown covering most of her back and down a back leg. One of her front paws is the same tawny color, along with the right half of her face.
I’m surprised to find my answer to Reilly’s question is actually true. Our sixteenth birthday will be coming up right along with the first week of school. While the milestone birthday is something I feel I’ve been thinking about for years, this birthday hasn't seemed like as big a deal to me as I used to think it would. “You?”
Reilly shakes her head. Together, we look over at Reagan.
“Don’t ask me. Parties are more your thing. I was probably just going to do something with Kent on the weekend… or something. I’m not sure. He keeps hinting that he has something planned.”
“Ooooh.” I call out, in tune with Reilly’s own teasing call.
“Shut up.” Rea calls back, but she’s actually grinning.
“Didn’t we just pass your one-year anniversary?” I ask.
Reagan furrows her eyebrows, which look a fair bit more unruly than my own. “No. We’re barely past six months.”
“Not that anniversary.” I wiggle my own eyebrows. “The one year anniversary of the day you two first started making googly eyes at each other.”
“You mean the day we moved to Fairview?” Reagan says with an exasperated huff, she didn’t miss a beat in remembering that those two days were one and the same.
“I like my version better.”
It’s kind of weird to think that my family has now lived in Fairview for a whole year–not counting the time when we lived here as babies. My sisters and I were actually born here—the Fairview Four. Since we’re identical quadruplets, some people thought it was kind of a big deal at the time. In order to afford to have four babies at the same time, my mom had to take a better paying job in Richmond, Virginia, moving us away before we were old enough to remember what this place was like.
Now we’ve been back for a year.
Weird.
“So, did you guys want to do a party or something?” Reagan asks, clearly attempting to turn the conversation away from her own love life. Either that or she’s still kind of loving that she now has a pretty awesome group of friends that she gets to invite along.
I’m not really sure I get the theatre geek thing. Or the geek thing at all. I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen Reagan happier.
“Probably.” I answer, considering the idea. “You know Dad would go for it. Sweet sixteen and all that.”
“We’d probably have to limit it to a few people each.” Reilly chimes in. As much as it sucks, I know she’s right. So far, it’s probably one of the few downsides I’ve found to having three sisters I share a birthday with. No way I’ll ever be able to invite everyone I want to over for one big, Reece-centric birthday party. If my sisters invited their friends too, it would just be way too many people
for one house.
I mean, we could all have our own birthday parties, but that doesn’t seem quite right either.
“Dibs on getting to use however many of her invites Rhiannon doesn’t want.” I call out.
Reilly shoots me a disagreeing grimace. “Don’t say that in front of her.” she chides. “She has friends.”
“Does she though?” I ask.
Reilly only shrugs. Rhiannon knows all of our friends, she also knew the people we hung out with back in Richmond. She even had a couple close friends back there too. She still mostly likes to keep to herself, an impulse I’m not sure I’ll ever understand.
“I can talk to Mom and Dad about birthday ideas.” Reilly says, stretching her legs out in front of her. There’s no question that out of all of us, Reilly has gotten the best tan this summer. I’m a little jealous of the bronzy glow of her skin, especially since I feel like I’ve spent all my time outside since school finished in June.
I guess once you factor in my time at the animal shelter, all of my extra naps, and the fact that a lot of the time I’ve been spending outside has been after the sun has gone down, I guess I don’t get to complain.
A low-whistling noise comes from a few houses down, I recognize the sound at once. It’s pretty obvious from Reagan’s expression that she does too. I don’t even need to turn around to know I’ll find Kent walking down the street toward us. He and Reagan have spent almost every day together this summer, sometimes alone and sometimes with their friends.
The two of them usually end up spending their alone time here, even though there isn’t really anywhere to get actual privacy at our house. I guess it beats the alternative of being under the constant scrutiny of Kent’s mom, a reporter for Fairview’s only newspaper, and a pretty big pusher of anything Fairview Four related.
“There’s my favorite girl.” Kent says, a little too loud once he reaches our lawn. Reagan steps toward him, but Kent is moving in the opposite direction. As soon as I notice what’s going on I lift my knee, letting Molly nudge her way under my leg until she’s free and running full speed toward Kent.
