“I thought he was for her,” Darlene said, motioning toward Blair.
“She doesn’t want him,” Sully said. Behind him, Blair clucked her tongue, but she didn’t disagree.
“I usually require two references and a background check,” Darlene said. Her tone told him that she was willing to forgo her usual procedure, either because she was tired or because she had a good impression of him.
“Blair can vouch for me,” he said. They both turned to look at Blair.
She nodded, but her lips were pressed together in a tight line. “He’s pretty okay,” she said.
Thanks for that ringing endorsement, he thought. “Otherwise I have work references. My boss is the administrator of the hospital. There are a few other doctors I work with who would be willing to put in a good word.”
“I don’t think that will be necessary,” Darlene said. “I’ve been anxious to place Gilly since I got him.”
“Gilly?” Sully repeated.
Darlene shrugged. “He came with that name, and he’s two, so good luck trying to change it.”
“Gilly it is then,” Sully said. He paid the woman the suggested donation. She put Gilly on a leash and, just like that, he had a dog. Blair walked silently beside him to the car and got in while he tucked Gilly into the back seat. They drove home in silence. He had intended to walk Blair to her house, but she bounded out as soon as the car stopped.
“I’ll see you,” she said.
Sully took Gilly home and let him in the back yard, double checking to make sure the fence was secure. He waited a second to make sure Gilly was well occupied sniffing out the new space, and then he went to Blair’s house.
He knocked on the door. She answered with a washcloth in one hand. “I don’t like the way that went down,” he said. “I’m sorry I took your dog. I should have checked with you.”
“I’m not angry at you,” she said. “I’m angry at me.”
“Why?” He leaned against the doorjamb and stood upright again when he remembered he was trying to make amends.
“I wanted so badly to like dogs,” she said. “I should get a pet.”
“Why? Why is it so important to you to have a pet when you clearly don’t really want one?”
“It just is,” she said. “I tried, really tried to like him. He’s cute and sweet, anyone can see that. But the whole time all I could think about was…”
“The dog slobber all over your face,” he interrupted.
She nodded, looking up at him with sad eyes. “Even Hitler liked dogs. Why don’t I?” She lifted the washcloth to her face and started to rub where the dog had licked.
“That’s faulty logic, Miss P.” Absently, he took the washcloth from her and resumed washing her face. “If you base all your decisions on what Hitler did or didn’t do, then you’re not a nice person; you’re a neo-Nazi. If you saw a dog get hit by a car, what would you do?”
“I would stop and help it.”
“If you saw a dog shaking in the rain, looking lost and alone, what would you do?”
“I would take it in and try to find its owner.”
“That doesn’t sound like someone who dislikes dogs,” he said. “There’s a vast difference between not liking dogs and not wanting to own a dog. Not everyone who doesn’t own a dog hates dogs. Some people are ready for a pet, and some aren’t. The wiser option here is to know your limitations. Think how awful it would be if you got a dog and then realized you weren’t equipped for one.” He finished with her face and tucked the rag back into her hand.
“But I want to want a dog,” she said.
“Maybe you’ll get there someday. I’ll let you practice on mine.”
She grimaced.
“We’ll work on not letting him kiss you,” he said.
“I don’t even like dog kisses,” she muttered.
“What?” he asked.
“Nothing. So you have a dog now.”
He grinned. “I do. Thanks for that. I forgot how much I love them until I saw him.”
“If you and Hitler like dogs, maybe I am the normal one,” Blair said.
“Careful, Miss P. Talk like that will get you kissed again.” He tapped the doorjamb in a dismissive gesture and started to walk away.
“You keep your loose-lipped dog away from me,” she said, poking her head out the door to make sure he heard.
“Who said I was talking about the dog?” he called. With a wave, he went in his house and shut the door.
Chapter 10
A few days later, Tanya arrived. Blair was nervous. In the interim, she and Gilly had been making strides under Sully’s careful tutelage. “Strides” consisted of taking nightly walks around the neighborhood and saying “No” whenever the dog tried to lick her face. She had to admit he was growing on her as she became more comfortable with him. But even with all her practice with the dog, she knew she was nowhere near ready for two preschoolers and their mother. No one had ever stayed with her before. She gave a last, critical inspection of her guestroom to try and figure out what they might need. Finally she backed out of the room with a shrug. If they needed something that wasn’t there, they would have to ask because she couldn’t think of anything she had missed.
The doorbell rang. To Blair’s overstressed nerves, the sound was ominous. She answered it and saw a chubbier, more frazzled version of the Tanya she remembered.
“Hi,” Tanya said, and then she burst into tears. Behind her, Andy and Rachael followed suit. Blair glanced toward Sully’s house, suddenly wishing he were there for a rescue. No such luck; he was at work, and she was on her own.
“Come in.” The request came out sounding like a question, but the trio stumbled inside anyway.
“Sorry,” Tanya said. “We had to get up early and they didn’t nap in the car. Everyone is exhausted and hungry and…” she trailed off, making helpless swipes at her eyes.
Hunger was something Blair could fix. “I’ll make food,” she volunteered. “What do they like to eat?” She glanced down at Andy and Rachael, each clinging to one of their mother’s legs as if Blair was the villain from a movie come to snatch them away.
“Anything except peanut butter. Andy’s allergic,” Tanya said. “Or crunchy things. Rachael has issues with texture. No food coloring or additives. They don’t like vegetables.” She put her hands over her face and cried harder. “Listen to me; I’ve become one of the crazy moms I used to hate.”
“I’ll see what I can find,” Blair said. She eased toward the kitchen, hoping for escape, but the gang followed, howling and screaming until the kitchen was filled with so much noise Blair thought she might be headed for a breakdown of her own. Her hands shook as she scoured the cupboards, looking for suitable food. “Waffles!” she announced, holding a box of frozen whole-wheat waffles aloft like an Oscar.
“Perfect,” Tanya said. She collapsed into a chair and put her head down as Blair pulled out the waffles.
“Should I toast these?”
Tanya shook her head and pointed at her kids with a flick of her hand. Blair took that to mean she should simply hand them out as they were. She handed each of the kids a waffle. Their cries died down as the cold touched their fingers. A few seconds later, they were both eating.
“What can I get you?” she asked Tanya.
“Waffle’s fine,” Tanya said. She held out her hand. Blair stuck a waffle in and watched it disappear behind the wall Tanya had created around herself with her arm.
“Milk?” Blair asked.
“They’re lactose intolerant,” Tanya muttered. She sounded like her mouth was full and she was still crying.
“Your room is ready if you’d like to take a nap when you’re finished,” Blair said.
“They don’t sleep…ever,” Tanya said. She hiccupped a sob and coughed when she choked on waffle.
Blair looked at the kids, now nearing the end of their waffles. She knew what she should do, but she had no idea how to go about it. At last she realized she was going to have to tak
e the plunge and figure out the how later. “You could nap and I could watch the kids.”
Tanya’s head snapped up, half a waffle dangling from her bottom lip. “Are you serious? You would do that?”
Blair nodded, trying to look like she meant it.
“Blair, I seriously haven’t slept in…and you would actually…” Her lower lip quivered. The waffle bounced ominously, ready to fall off at any moment.
“No big deal,” Blair said. “Go to bed before they finish and maybe they won’t notice.” Stop crying and leave the waffle here, she mentally urged. As if Tanya heard her, she wiped her eyes, stuffed the remainder of the waffle into her mouth, and darted out of the room without a backwards glance.
By the clock on Blair’s wall, it took thirty seconds for the kids to realize their mother wasn’t coming back. They started to howl at a decibel that made their earlier noise seem like whispers. Andy was the first to jump off his chair and make a dash for the door. Blair headed him off at the pass. She didn’t want to touch him and frighten him more, so she simply stood in the doorway and body blocked him each time he tried to get around her. Next on his agenda was a furious flailing of his fists. For a two year old, he was powerful. Blair imagined she would have a couple dozen baby fist-sized bruises in the morning.
She tried to rationalize with them. “It’s okay. Your mom is sleeping, she’s tired. She’ll be back after she has a little nap.”
Rationality didn’t work; they cried harder.
Next she tried bribery. “Do you want more food?”
“Mommy, I want mommy!” they screamed.
She should have brought toys in preparation for their visit. She had nothing to offer them, nothing that would interest them. “How about a dog?” she blurted. “Do you like dogs?”
They grew quiet, staring at her as if she had said the magic word. Maybe she had; all kids seemed to like dogs. “Let’s go visit the doggy,” she said. She herded them out through the kitchen, a happy coincidence since it was the side that faced Sully’s house. He left Gilly in the back yard while he was at work, and his gate didn’t have a lock. She mentally blessed him for his forethought, even though he hadn’t done it for her.
“Gilly, it’s me, Blair,” she announced as they approached the fence. “We’re coming to visit. Don’t bark.”
The dog gave one answering woof and remained quiet as she opened the gate and ushered the children through. Gilly was deliriously glad to see them. He acted as if he had been on a desert island devoid of human attention for years as he rushed over and covered the kids’ faces with kisses. Blair was revolted. She started to stop him, and then the kids’ laughter registered. Maybe he was covering them with millions of dog germs, but they loved it. She made a mental note to wash their faces later and sat back to enjoy the show.
From there, Gilly took over. He seemed to recognize that Rachael was older and therefore more able to play with him. He picked up his squeak toy and deposited it at her feet. She threw it a yard and laughed in delight as he and Andy chased after it. Gilly soon grew tired of only running three feet. After a few failed attempts at getting Rachael to throw it farther, he deposited the toy at Blair’s feet.
She looked at the toy, covered in gooey slobber, and looked at the kids and dog, waiting hopefully for her to throw it. In desperation, she plucked a leaf from Sully’s hydrangea bush, used it to pick up the toy, and lobbed it as far as she could. This time both kids and the dog ran after it, laughing and barking with joy.
The game went on and on until both kids and the dog started to wind down like clocks. Andy was the first to go. He stopped running and started playing with a stick in the dirt. A few minutes later, he was asleep. Rachael took a more artistic approach, pulling up grass to create a small pallet for herself before curling into a delicate ball and falling asleep. Gilly positioned himself between them and likewise curled into a ball. Blair surveyed the scene, feeling more exhausted than she had ever felt. She didn’t want to lie on the lawn, but Sully’s chair was too far away and too heavy to move. Instead she pulled off the cushions and laid them near the dog and kids. Within minutes, she was asleep.
When Sully arrived home a little over an hour later, he didn’t understand why Gilly didn’t come when he called. Stepping onto the back patio, his heart dropped as he saw the tangle of humanity lying in his back yard. Had Gilly attacked someone? Was the seemingly gentle dog a killer at heart?
With his own heart in his throat, Sully crept closer until he made out the forms of Blair, Gilly, and two mysterious toddlers sleeping on his lawn. Blair, sensing his approach, startled and blinked up at him in a daze.
He sat cross-legged on the grass beside her. “Are you using my house as a hideout after you abducted these children?” he whispered.
“You know me—I’m baby crazy.”
Sully smiled and resisted the urge to reach out and brush a wisp of hair off her face. She beat him to it anyway, shaking her head so her hair fell perfectly back into alignment.
“Seriously, who are these children?” he asked.
“My college roommates’ son and daughter.”
“Does she know you have them?”
“She’s sleeping at my house. I don’t think she’s slept in four years. Neither have they, apparently,” she said, glancing at Andy and Rachael who looked like they were in a mutual coma.
“You went to college?”
“Hmm,” she said. She blinked up at him and he smiled again. He was enjoying her confusion a little too much. He had assumed she was one of those people who woke with purpose, always in command of her faculties. To learn that she wasn’t made the vision of the white nightie pop back into his head.
Don’t go there, he warned himself. “How long are you going to let them sleep on my lawn?” he asked. “I feel sort of like I’ve thrown a preschool frat party and these are the leftovers.”
“Toga,” she chanted before stretching and stifling a yawn. “I should go see if Tanya is up. If she wakes up and finds us missing, she might freak out. She’s the freak out sort.”
“So you’re opposites then,” he guessed.
“We couldn’t be more opposite if we tried.”
He stood and held out a hand to pull her up. She groaned with the effort of standing straight. “I’m getting too old to sleep on the lawn. My wild kegger days are over.”
They both knew she had never attended a kegger in her life. “You keep saying you’re old,” Sully said. “How old are you?”
“Twenty nine,” she said. “A month from the big 3-0.”
He shook his head. “You’re just a baby.”
“Tell it to my joints,” she said, rubbing her hip where it had rested on the hard ground. “Do you mind watching them while I check on their mom?”
“This isn’t one of those things where you say you’re coming back and then fifteen years later I’m paying for their braces and college while I wait on your return, is it?”
“Send them somewhere ivy league, doctor.” She patted his arm as she passed, slipping out the gate while he stared after her with a grin.
Blair tiptoed into her house, but there was no need; Tanya was still asleep. She left a note saying she was at Sully’s house and tiptoed back out again. When she returned, Sully was lying on the cushions and Blair took her turn sitting cross-legged beside him. “Rough day at the office?” she asked.
“Yes. Nobody broke any bones; it was horrible,” he said.
“Maybe you’ll get lucky and there will be a big pileup on the freeway with mass casualties,” she said.
“All I can do is keep my chin up and hope for the best,” he said.
“Really, is your job stressful?” she asked. She propped her chin in her hand and rested it on her knee.
“Sometimes. The worst part is dealing with people. I don’t have to deal with patients a lot; the techs do that. I mostly read x-rays and make recommendations. But there are always stressors in any situation.”
“Not mine,” she said. “
I only work when I want to. Sometimes I forget how it was to work and I feel sort of bad about that. I’m spoiled, I suppose.”
“You’re too hard on yourself, Miss P. If you had to choose, you would rather have your parents back, wouldn’t you?”
She nodded, feeling suddenly bereft.
“Well, there you go. Maybe you get to stay home and work when you choose, but the luxury came at a terrible price.”
“You’re being awfully nice to me today,” she said. “Are you sick?”
“If so, then you’ve probably got it, too, since you drank after me.”
“I’m going to take a vitamin.” She started to rise, but he grabbed her arm and pulled her back.
“You’re not leaving me with them again. They could wake at any moment and start screaming. I can see the headline now: ‘Local Radiologist Frightens Children.’”
“They’ll be equally as frightened of me. Which sounds better, ‘Local Doctor Frightens Children’ or ‘Local Unemployed Vagabond Frightens Children?’”
“They wouldn’t say that,” Sully said. “‘Unemployed Vagabond’ is redundant.”
They seemed to realize at the same moment that they were somehow holding hands. Sully dropped her hand and sat up, clearing his throat. Blair eased away and smoothed her fingers over the crease in her Capri pants.
“What are you going to feed these sleeping miscreants?” he asked.
“If they’re sleeping, how do you know they’re miscreants?”
“Why else would their mother be sleeping?”
“Good point, although they were good when we were playing with the dog.”
Their combined gaze fell on Gilly who was still sound asleep and snoring softly. “If they killed my dog, I’m not going to be happy,” Sully said.
“Clearly they didn’t kill him. Maybe they just broke him a little.” They had certainly exhausted him. He hadn’t moved positions since he fell asleep.
“Then again, maybe I should invite them every day to wear him out,” Sully mused.
Won't You Be My Neighbor? Page 12
