by Linda Benson
As we pull into our paved driveway, there’s a car parked by the front door. Louise Barton stands hunkered under the entry, ringing the bell. My mom reaches up and clicks the garage door opener and pulls into our massive garage. She walks back around to the front door and I follow.
“Louise, I haven’t seen you in ages. Let me get the door open. I can’t believe all this rain.” My mother turns the key in the lock and we all duck inside.
“I only have a minute,” says Louise. “But I wanted to tell you that I just talked to Trudy Alfresca up at the animal shelter.”
Trudy Alfresca? I hang my jacket up in the front hallway and lower my book bag to the ground. Why does that sound familiar? Oh yeah, that’s Olive’s aunt.
“A stray yellow dog was brought in today,” says Louise. “Trudy seems to think it was the same one that belonged to a friend of yours, so she asked me to let you know.”
“A yellow lab?” I ask. “Calypso?”
“You mean Denise’s dog?” My mom sets her purse down and unbuttons her jacket. “He never came back, so they figured he was gone for good. They already bought another one to replace him. They paid an outrageous amount, something like seven hundred fifty dollars, for a pup from a breeder back East.”
“They got another dog already?” I say, anger bubbling inside of me. “That’s just stupid. They didn’t even take care of the one they had! That’s why he ran away.”
“Well, they got a smaller breed this time,” says my mom. “Something rare, with a name I cannot even pronounce. They keep him in the house in a crate while they’re gone.”
“In a crate?” That makes me want to barf. “Unbelievable. I cannot believe someone would do that to a dog.”
Louise Barton glances at her shoe, like she’s trying to compose her thoughts. Finally, she sucks in a breath. “Well, David, I kind of feel the same way as you. That’s not really a good way to take care of a dog, especially for hours at a time. But maybe you could tell your friend that the dog they used to own was found, in case they still care about him, or want him back. Apparently he was hanging out around a farmer’s yard for some time, hungry, and finally caught a chicken and ate it. That didn’t make the farmer too happy, so he brought the dog to the shelter.”
“That dog is a great dog,” I burst out. “He used to play fetch with Olive and me.”
“Who’s Olive?” My mother looks at me quizzically.
“She’s a girl who lives up the road. She was staying with her aunt for the summer.”
“Trudy Alfresco,” says Louise Barton.
“Yeah, that’s her Aunt Trudy. And now Olive goes to my school. But she was the one who found that dog, Calypso, or whatever those people called him. He’s the coolest dog. He has a ton of energy, but he’s really gentle. Mom, could we go by the shelter and adopt him? Please?”
The thought of that yellow dog being caged up at the shelter makes me sick in the pit of my stomach. He’s a dog that needs to run free.
“David, I know we’ve talked about getting another dog someday. But I just bought the new furniture downstairs, we don’t have a fenced yard, and frankly, I just don’t think we need a dog like that. One that runs off all the time.”
“You got new furniture because Grant is coming home,” I burst out. “You got your hair fixed all different because Grant is coming home. Is that the only thing you even care about? How about me? How come I can’t even have a dog?”
I stomp up the stairs. I know I just acted like an idiot in front of Louise Barton, but I don’t really care. Calypso. What a waste. His owners didn’t even wait an entire month to get another dog.
For some reason, the news about the yellow dog being locked up just makes me want to pick something up and throw it. So much for signs, I think. I always thought that yellow dog was a sign for freedom. Just goes to show you how wrong a person can be.
39-Olive
“Rise and shine, darling.” Aunt Trudy pokes her head into my bedroom.
I mean the guest bedroom. Rags purrs softly, nestled next to my side. The white kitten lies on the bed also, and I reach down to pet her. Rags has made herself at home here, and she seems happy. She’s even been friendly with some of the other cats, and she romps around the living room with the little white one.
“Come on,” hollers Aunt Trudy again. “Up and at ’em. This is the last day of your life you will ever be thirteen.”
Why is she so cheerful? I pull the pillow back over my head. Usually Aunt Trudy lets me sleep in on Saturdays, since I have to get up so early to ride the bus to school. And then I remember. Tomorrow is Sunday, my birthday, and my mother’s probably coming to surprise me. Maybe she’ll even show up today.
I get up and make my bed right away, brush my hair and wander into the kitchen. Aunt Trudy seems especially happy and is making pancakes.
“We might have company for breakfast,” she says.
Yeah, I know. It might be my mother.
“Swede is bringing us a load of hay and I think he’s bringing that boy with him. You know, the nice one. David.”
I groan. David is the last person in the world I want to see this morning. Especially after I dreamed up all that stuff in my head about him being my boyfriend, and then found out he only thinks of me like a kid.
“What time are they getting here?” I ask. “Maybe I’ll stay in my room.”
“What in the world is wrong with you this morning, Olive? Swede and David are bringing us some hay and I thought it would be nice if we made them breakfast. And it wouldn’t hurt you to help.”
Just like I thought. I’m not staying here out of the goodness of Aunt Trudy’s heart. I’m staying here to work.
Swede’s big brown pickup jostles up the driveway, bumpity-bump over the ruts in the gravel. I peek out the kitchen window and see the hay stacked tall, higher than the cab of the truck. And sure enough, there is David, riding shotgun in the passenger seat of the pickup. Great.
“Did you invite David to your party tomorrow?” asks Aunt Trudy as she mixes the pancake batter.
“No, I did not,” I say. “Why would I want him here?”
Aunt Trudy whistles. “Boy, did somebody wake up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.”
I finish setting the table, cross my arms, and look daggers at Aunt Trudy. “Anything else?”
“No, that will do for now. They won’t be in for a while. Not till they get that whole load stacked in the barn.”
I stomp back to my bedroom, wishing I could just crawl back into bed and make the entire last six months go away. Tomorrow my mom will be here to get me and I won’t have to worry about helping Aunt Trudy with the chores, or what David thinks about me, or anything.
I undress quickly, open the bathroom door, and jump into the shower. At least if I have to have breakfast with “the boys,” as Aunt Trudy calls them, I can smell good. I towel off and pull on a new T-shirt Aunt Trudy bought me from the Walmart in town. I glance out my window and see Shakespeare and Paintball nickering through the sagging fence. They were almost out of food, and I know Aunt Trudy’s been worried about having enough hay to get through the winter.
“Are you done in the shower, Olive? Would you mind putting the puppy outside?”
I can hear Goldy yipping from her small pen in the laundry room. I throw on one of Aunt Trudy’s old barn jackets because I don’t have a warm one of my own. I pick Goldy up, but instead of putting her in her pen on the back porch, I wander out to the barn. At least I can say hello to Swede.
He’s up on the truck bed, throwing the last few bales down to David, who stacks them high against the back wall of the barn.
“Well, good morning there, girlie,” says Swede, winking at me.
For some reason, it doesn’t bother me that Swede thinks of me like a girl. But David—somehow I thought he knew I was more grown-up than that.
“I can smell those pancakes,” says Swede. “Been dreaming about ’em all night, ever since your Aunt Trudy called and told me she’d
be making ’em this morning.”
She didn’t tell me. She never tells me anything. Which is why I just know she’s keeping the news about my mother’s arrival a surprise.
“David, can you manage those last few bales by yourself?” he asks.
I glance at David, who balances a hay bale between the two hooks in his hands. He throws the bale up onto the stack, wipes the sweat from his forehead with the sleeve of his long-sleeved flannel shirt, and nods at Swede.
“Yep. No problem,” he says.
“I’ll just mosey on into the house and see how breakfast is coming along.” Swede turns and ducks out of the barn, trotting across the backyard toward the kitchen.
“Is that Goldy?” asks David. “I can’t believe how fast she’s growing!”
I nod. The dog squirms in my arms and I can barely hold her. I didn’t come out here just to see David. But suddenly we’re in the barn together, alone.
He shoves the last two bales up onto the top of the stack, sets his hay hooks down, and walks over. “Can I see her?”
I hand the gangly puppy over to him.
David snuggles Goldy against him, and the pup kisses him all over his face. “Ooh, you’re a little sweetheart aren’t you?” he coos. “She must be lonely, with all of her brothers and sisters gone.”
“Seems like it. She whines quite a bit now. But those dogs in the backyard play too rough with her, so we still keep her in the pen.”
“I wish I could take her home. She’s going to grow up to look like the yellow dog.”
“Calypso?” I say. “He got turned in to the shelter.”
“I know. Our neighbor came by and told us.”
“I wanted to bring him back here, but Aunt Trudy says we already have our hands full with the dogs we have. She said he’s a nice-looking dog, and hopefully he’ll get adopted.”
Goldy licks David’s face all over until he puts her down on the ground, where she wiggles at his feet.
“She likes you,” I say.
“I know. I asked my mom if we could adopt Calypso, but she said no because we just got new furniture. I’m pretty sure she’d never let me have a puppy. But if I could, I’d take this one home.”
“Maybe if your mom could just see her—while she’s still cute.”
“Yeah.” David grins. “Maybe I could just walk up the driveway with her, and say ‘Look, Mom, she followed me home.’”
“You should definitely try that,” I say. For some reason, I have a hard time staying mad at David.
Goldy romps around his feet, barking and biting David’s shoelaces. “Wow, I’m starving,” he says. “I didn’t eat breakfast because Swede said we’d been invited somewhere. I didn’t know it would be here.” He glances toward the house. “Smells like pancakes.”
“Yeah, Aunt Trudy makes good pancakes. I’ll miss those.”
“Miss them? Are you going somewhere?”
“Oh, I didn’t tell you? My mom’s done with…with her classes down in California and she’s coming up to get me. She’ll probably be here tomorrow, for my birthday, and then…”
“Tomorrow’s your birthday?”
“Yeah, and as soon as my mother comes, we’ll be going…”
A frown floats across David’s face.
“Come and get ’em,” Aunt Trudy hollers out the back door. “They’re sitting on the table getting cold.”
40-David
I wander into the house behind Olive, where Aunt Trudy has filled the kitchen table with syrup and butter and heaping plates of pancakes. Ever since Olive started school in the fall, I never gave a thought to the fact that she might be leaving again so soon. The news sits tangled in my gut and suddenly I’m not as hungry as I thought.
Swede’s already at the table and begins to fork in his food as soon as we sit down. “Trudy, you make the best pancakes of any woman I’ve ever known.” He winks at her.
“Oh, is that so? Here, son,” Aunt Trudy hands me a plate. “Have as many as you want. You’ve been working hard out there.”
I glance over at Olive. No one has mentioned that she’s leaving, and I don’t feel like I should bring it up. Aunt Trudy dishes out four pancakes onto my plate and is piling on more. I raise my hand for her to stop.
“No, thanks.” I mumble. “That’s plenty. These look great.”
“Well, thank you,” she says. “Glad to have a few menfolk around once in a while. And feeding you up good is the least I can do, since you went to all the work of making sure Shakespeare and Paintball will eat for a while longer.”
“Although I don’t know what good those darn old nags are anyway,” says Swede. “You only rode them one time this summer.”
I try to catch Olive’s eye, to see if she’s embarrassed by this comment. I mean, she was pretty chicken about riding the horse. But she just looks out the window, like she’s staring at something far away.
“So David,” Aunt Trudy says. “Did Olive tell you she was turning fourteen tomorrow?”
“Yeah.” I’m trying to think of something funny to say to make Olive smile. But she sits there with a dark look on her face and I can’t catch her eye.
“We’re going to have a little celebration tomorrow,” says Aunt Trudy, “if you’d like to come up for a piece of birthday cake. That is, if you like carrot cake.”
“Aunt Trudy,” Olive hisses, between her teeth. “How could you?” She tromps out of the kitchen, leaving her half-eaten plate of pancakes congealing in syrup on her plate.
“I don’t know what’s got into that girl,” says Aunt Trudy. “Age thirteen was just fine, but now she is acting like a teenager. At any rate, come by tomorrow afternoon if you like, David.”
“Tomorrow? Sunday?” I can’t focus, because I’m trying to figure out what’s wrong with Olive. Then I remember my luncheon date at the golf course with Senator Hyster. “I…I can’t be here. I have—another appointment.”
“Oh,” says Aunt Trudy. “Olive’ll be disappointed. The gals from the animal shelter can’t come, and that means it’ll just be me and…”
“I’ll be here, Trudy. Never fear.” Swede scoots his chair back from the table, and sets his napkin back down. “But we’ve got three more deliveries today, David,” he says. “I really appreciate you filling in for James. I guess he just up and left the state. Anyway, we’ve got to be out at that quarter horse ranch on the other side of town before noon. You ready?”
“Yeah,” I say. I glance around the house as Swede says his goodbyes to Aunt Trudy. Where did Olive go? I mean, she said she’s leaving with her mom. Did she mean tomorrow? Is she going back to California?
But Olive is nowhere to be seen and Swede is heading out the door. “Umm, thanks for the pancakes,” I say to Aunt Trudy, feeling awkward. “Could you…say goodbye to Olive for me?”
“Will do,” says Aunt Trudy. “I don’t know where she went. She’s been acting strange all morning.”
It’s almost four o’clock in the afternoon by the time Swede drops me off at home. My muscles are sore from lifting and stacking all those hay bales, but I feel like I’m getting strong. As I shower, I make a fist in front of the mirror and admire my bulging biceps. Yeah. Strong.
My mother makes a nice dinner for once, spaghetti and French bread and a big salad, and I’m so beat that I crash almost immediately after. I try to block out thoughts about Olive leaving. I mean, if she’s going back to California to be with her mother, I guess I should be happy for her, shouldn’t I?
But right after she shared the news this morning, Olive acted so strange and sad. Maybe I should have hugged her when we were in the barn together. Or at least told her how cute I think she is. Now I might not ever see her again. Instead, I get to see the senator tomorrow. Like I’m really excited about that.
I toss and turn all night, wondering if Olive is leaving for California soon. Will I even get a chance to say goodbye to her? I glance at the red numbers on my clock. It’s two a.m. and I’m still thinking about it. I must finally drift of
f, but I am so flat-out exhausted that I sleep too late. When I roll over and glance at the alarm clock again, it’s almost eleven a.m.
My dad pounds on my door and hollers through it. “Get with it, son. Don’t want to be late for our appointment with the senator.”
I stagger bleary-eyed down to the kitchen, wishing I hadn’t slept so long. I feel more tired than I did last night. My dad has his laptop open and my mom reads the paper. I rustle around in the cupboards. All I want is a bowl of cereal and to be by myself, so I can think.
“Better hurry up and eat,” says my dad. “I’d like you to wear that new long-sleeved sport shirt your mother bought you.”
“Maybe I don’t even want to go,” I snap. “Maybe I have other things I’d rather do in my life. Did you ever think of that?”
“David.” Dad’s eyes narrow to a glint. “I’m going to overlook the fact that you just said that. Now go get dressed.”
“Maybe I don’t even want to go to the Air Force A-ca-de-my,” I say, stretching the word out for emphasis. “Maybe I’d rather go to California and see what it’s like down there.”
“Don’t use that tone of voice with your father,” says my mother.
“It’s all right.” I watch my dad compose his face, like he’s getting ready to try one of his cases. “Son, I understand your feelings of wanderlust. You’re a young man and it’s only natural. Let me tell you what California is like. The southern half is crowded, congested, filled with smog and too much traffic, and you wouldn’t like it at all. The northern part is pretty to look at, with nice mountains and redwood trees, but once you’ve driven through it on vacation, there’s really no need to go back.”
Everything is cut and dried to my father, black and white—like my future. I feel my hands clench into fists. “Well, did you ever think that maybe I’d just like to go see it for myself, and make my own decisions?” The words spill out of me like bile and I can’t stop. “I feel like my whole life is decided already. Have lunch with the senator, take these classes, go out for these sports, go to the Air Force Academy. Maybe I’d just like to buck hay for a living. Did you ever think about that?”
