The Story of Us

by Deb Caletti

  But more to the point, the presents, the phone calls … It’s amazing when you think about it. Here we are, two different species, but we have this deep connection, one that’s been going on for centuries, ever since the first wolf and the first man decided to hang out together. It’s kind of beautiful: not-furry and furry, one who talks and one who doesn’t, two-legged and four-legged. But relying on each other. They are devoted, but we return that devotion. We look at their funny, sweet ears and the little leash dance they do, and our hearts swell.

  One time I went with Mom and Jupiter to the vet…. Did I tell you? I’m sure I did. She was just getting her regular shots. But there was this man sitting in his car in the parking lot. A big man, in army fatigues, his hair in that military buzz. His palms were pressed to his eyes, and he was sobbing. His shoulders were heaving. He held a blanket on his lap. Just the blanket. Mom looked at me, and I looked at her, and we both looked at our own girl down there on the ground, sniffing the sidewalk, getting the day’s dog news. Mom said, Oh, honey, and I just shook my head, nothing we could even speak aloud. But I never forgot it, that raw grief.

  We are so vulnerable, giving out our love like that. Still, it’s strong, that bond. Us and our good pals.

  And, thank you for your suggestion, but as you can see (dying dog story, above), I could never be a vet like you. You’ll make a great one, but I couldn’t handle it. I love dogs, I always have, but I’m not wild about all animals. Hello, birds? Yeah, sorry about all the screaming I did whenever one got too close. When you’re a vet, will you have to fix creepy bird legs? Oh, God. Shiver.

  I’m not really one of those crazy dog people either. I wouldn’t have ten of them. I don’t love each and every one in some sort of dogs-are-better-than-people way. I mostly just like the ones with sweet eyes. I do try to smile at every poor, patient guy tied to a streetlamp outside a store, no matter what they look like. I feel so bad for them. But face it, there are the leg humpers and the mean ones, the bullies, the opportunists, the overly anxiety-ridden, same as us. I guess my love is more of the everyday kind. Where you shout at them to stop doing some annoying thing and then carry them around on your shoulder, watching how pleased they are to be up high. You admire their beautiful ears and serene expression and then get mad when they pretend they can’t hear you when you call them to come. And it’s all forgiven; the ways both of you are imperfect. A devoted relationship, with the regular, daily togetherness of rawhide and slow stop-and-sniff walks. One girl and her own one dog.

  Same as you and me. One girl and her own one boy.

  After we met, the next big moment in our story was The Day Things Changed Between Us, right? You know when that was. You better know, butt head. You said in your last letter that I shouldn’t worry about writing things down, that the important stuff will stay with us. Probably. But it’s worth it to take a little extra care, isn’t it? I do believe this: Stories are what you have when the place is gone and the dried-up roses have crumbled and the ring is lost and that old car is finally junked. Stories are where the meaning ends up.

  So, here. The story of that day.

  My parents—their divorce was finally over. You weren’t there when they were together, but you know what the deal was. You know how I hate to talk about it. My father’s dark moods, the holes punched in the walls, the rest of it. I remember a few times, seeing things, I told you. It wasn’t all bad, though, right? We weren’t some TV movie drama. We went to Disneyland. We drew chalk pictures on the sidewalk, and Ben had a basketball hoop. We got bikes for Christmas. My dad had a briefcase, and my mom packed our lunches. He never lifted a hand to Ben or me.

  She’d say it herself, years later—the worst way to leave an angry man is the way she did it, but I guess she was scared, and she thought Jon Jakes would save her. Us. He would put a big, strong cloak around us all, and guide us out of the evil forest with the grasping trees that came alive at night. Of course, Jon Jakes was also chosen because he wouldn’t hurt a fly. Opposite of my father. A good thing, ordinarily. But not in someone who was supposed to fight dragons.

  You remember what my father did to Jon Jakes that time. I don’t even like to admit my father could do those things. And I have to give Jon Jakes some credit because he didn’t run from my mother then, when most people would have. I would have. He was good to Ben and me, really. But he felt he deserved what my father did to him, because you don’t go off with another man’s wife. He didn’t understand that for my father the rules didn’t work quite that logically. There wasn’t a rule for what he did to my mother all those years, was there? Some rule that supposedly made violence okay? Or some rule for what my father did to his sisters growing up. Or even to other men in some neighborhood football game on a Saturday morning—hitting too hard on purpose. Digging into some guy’s heels with the toe of your shoe because you hated his superior attitude. We used to sit on the sidelines of those games with our mother, counting the swear words the dads would say.

  Anyway, she left him, and then there was this bad time of meeting in parking lots to exchange our bags and all that, visiting him for the weekends. Bags shoved roughly into the trunk … The muscle in his cheek tightening, clenching … He’d try to change the mood as we drove away, joking with us, though his eyes were still on her car in the rearview mirror. I saw a pack of cigarettes in his ashtray, and he’d never smoked before, that I knew of. And, oh God, when my father fought for custody and lost, the complicated pity we felt … Because we wanted to love him. Did love him. Do. Very much. In spite of everything—what he used to do—he was the one we felt sorry for.

  But finally the divorce papers were signed. My mother put some weight on again after getting so thin. After a long while Jon Jakes moved in. Mom tried to be the “good” divorced parent, but when we’d come back from seeing Dad, she’d always ask how things went with this tipped-up high pitch to her voice, and it drove us crazy. I know she worried, but jeez. It didn’t help anything. We could handle it! Mostly we could.

  I remember Ben and me in your rec room, telling you about all this. We never talked about it. Every now and then to Mom, but no one else. Even she—she knew her own story, but not our story. You listened. And then you did the best thing you knew to do. You got out your video games, and we spent some good hours destroying things.

  We—ha. It was more like the two of you guys, putting up with me hanging around. Every day since that snowy one. You two became the best of friends after all those car rides to school with your mom and my mom taking turns driving. Those car rides were the best. The sunrise light on the mountains, the fog lying low in the valley, the car not warmed up yet, and Mom’s coffee cup steaming in the cold. We’d take that secret shortcut and see those three old people on their morning walk. Remember? Bob, Betty, and Louise, we named them. Said the old guy had two wives.

  I’d get so hurt when you two would kick me out of Ben’s room! But mostly you let me come along, and I was happy. We’d all go to the baseball field and run Jupiter around the bases. She could run so fast then. I think she’d have a heart attack if she ran like that now. We’d ride our bikes down to that small, weedy lake in the woods, which was choked with lily pads and surrounded by cattails. We brought our sketch pads that one time. Bike freedom. The only freedom we had until we could drive!

  But this day just you and me walked down to the church grass. I don’t know why. I don’t even remember where Ben was. We had Jupiter on her leash, and we were lying on the lawn, drinking out of water bottles we’d brought. We were practically spread out right by the church sign (sort of sacrilegious, come to think of it), the one that always had those corny and inspiring messages. God Serves Soul Food, whatever. Your head was back, looking at the sky. Cloud shapes. I watched them too. Jupiter was scratching her back on the grass, upside down, paws in the air.

  “Clown head,” you said, and pointed.

  I didn’t see it. Then I did. “Ha, clown head,” I said. My turn. I pointed now. “Cow.”

  “Yeah.
His ears there,” you said. Changing white forms on a blue magic slate. What was I, thirteen? I don’t even know. You propped on one elbow to look at me. I propped on one elbow to look at you. Our bodies were lined up, our toes almost touching. And all at once you looked different to me. Not different—the same. The same but more. You held my eyes. You seemed surprised. There was this girl lying next to you. A girl, not just Ben’s sister. And you reached out—you tucked a lock of hair behind my ear. That’s all. You had the tenderness of a good guy already. How did you have that right then? How is that possible? You grew up around horses. You knew how to be gentle, and how to set a firm hand on something skittish. Though, maybe it was just the way you came. Who you are.

  “So, Cricket,” you said. “How’d you get your name?” Of course you already knew. Nowhere special. Just something that came from me trying to say my own name when I was small. But you asked like we were first meeting. Teasing me. And you grinned.

  And I grinned back. There was this strange energy between us. I felt it. I could almost see it.

  At that moment Jupiter righted herself to dig madly with her front paws at something she smelled underground. It ruined the mood (and the lawn), and I was so embarrassed. You’d seen her do bad stuff a hundred times, but it was something embarrassing all of a sudden.

  Later I thought about it over and over, that finger tucking my hair back. Yeah, I must have been thirteen or so, because I remember thinking about it in Senora Becker’s Spanish. Middle school. ¿Dondé está el baño? Senorita Catherine! That finger, my hair, that finger, my hair. Your own crazy hair, swooped down over your forehead. Looking at me intently with those eyes.

  I still think about it, that finger. And of course all that happened later.

  I will definitely tell Gram and everyone you said hi. Yeah, I’ll tell her you said to behave herself too. And I will give Jupiter a pat hello. Right now she’s looking at me patiently, but like, Cricket, are we done yet, please? Can we turn out the light? I can barely keep my eyes open. Your new boss sounds like an asshole. Really? He made you serve him coffee? And it wasn’t black enough for his taste? He doesn’t deserve you.

  I guess after what happened, after what I did, neither do I.

  Love always,

  Cricket

  chapter

  six

  “Sleepyhead,” Mom said to me as she let me into the shared bathroom the next morning. She was brushing her teeth, and her mouth was all white froth. Sheepyhahd, it sounded like, the mix of words and Ultrabrite with foaming action. She spit, wiped her mouth with her robe sleeve. I hoped Dan Jax knew all her disgusting habits.

  “Have you heard of a towel?” I asked.

  “Why look for a towel when your sleeve is conveniently located right on your arm?”

  “You better not drink from the milk carton when you live with Dan,” I said. “Or the Coke bottle.” I hated when she did that. I went into the tiny adjoining room where the toilet was, shut the door between us.

  “I’m supposed to irritate you right now,” she called through the door. “It’ll help us separate when you go away to school.”

  “Doing a great job,” I said.

  “You could irritate me more, okay, honey? Because I’ll miss you like crazy.”

  “Don’t worry. You’ll still have Jupiter.”

  “Thank God dogs don’t go away to college. It’s going to be pretty quiet.”

  “Can we not talk about this right now?”

  The school question. God, the school question, where I’d been stuck all my senior year and still was stuck, one of those annoying squares on a board game where you sit and sit until you finally roll the magic number that frees you.

  I could hear Mom unzip her makeup bag. “I know you hate it when people point out that you’re cranky, but are you cranky?”

  I flushed, came back out. My mother moved over so that I could wash my hands. She was putting on her mascara, and she had that mascara face people get—chin dropped down, mouth open. It looked silly, but then, honestly, I had the same face when I put on mascara. I guess I was cranky.

  “Did you hear those stupid mating raccoons last night?” I asked.

  “Is this a joke?” she said.

  “No, they were on the roof or something. Then when I finally got to sleep, I had a dream about Janssen. One of those dreams that go on and on the whole night. You know those dreams within a dream? Where you say, ‘That’s just like that dream I always have and now it’s actually happening,’ but that’s happening in a dream?”

  “I hate those,” she said.

  “I have this same one, over and over. He’s lost, and I can’t find him. I look for him behind the doors of this big house. I try to call him, but I can’t dial the numbers right. How can I think about going away without him if I miss him like this after two days?”

  “You’ve known him so long. He’s a part of you. Like your arm, practically.”

  There are downsides to divorced mothers who date and have relationships. First, the obvious—your mother is dating. You’re the one that’s supposed to be dating. And I wasn’t even dating. I’d been with the same person for forever. Mothers dating, there’s just something wrong about it, against nature, like those sixty-year-olds who have quintuplets. Oh, she’ll borrow your clothes, too. The dating, the clothes, and the excitement and nerves she shows as she’s getting ready—it’s all your territory, you know? It’s bad enough when they listen to your kind of music, something they have no right to have even heard of, and then this. A mother, your mother especially, should be in those mother jeans with wide ass pockets and high waists, and she should maybe be, I don’t know, clipping coupons and making dinner and not having men wanting to touch her. Jesus, you’ve seen him touch her, and it honestly gives you the creeps. Sex and mother. See? Just reading those words in the same sentence made you feel that way. Imagine the truth of it in your own house.

  But on the good side? All the relationship stuff—the excitement and the nerves but also the deep feelings and confusion and crushing blows to the self-esteem and the sense of getting it right, of flying—she could understand. It wasn’t some distant memory from a long-ago part of her life. It was fresh enough that she got it. She tossed and turned with it in her own bed late at night, same as I did when I fought with Janssen. She hurt over it, she screwed up, didn’t know if she should call or not, called, wished she hadn’t called. When we talked, it wasn’t all shoulder patting and stupid expressions like “There are plenty of fish in the sea.” She knew how stupid that expression was. Because it was about a particular fish, that fish. See, a person in your territory—they might be a trespasser, but they might also be a friend.

  “He’s like my other half. I hate that expression. Not half. He’s like my other whole.”

  Mom hugged me. I decided to try and relax. Maybe I just needed to go downstairs and have whatever smelled so great down there. “I love you,” Mom said. “You are my own sweet nut head, aren’t you?”

  “My nut head is a mess,” I said.

  “Your head has never been a mess. You have a case of human nature, that’s all. Change is a messy business. Maybe you need to go downstairs and have some of those great blueberry pancakes Rebecca made.”

  “That’s what smells so good.”

  I suddenly remembered: that boy on the stairs. The dogs and the daughters. Mom and Dan, arguing but not arguing.

  “You doing okay, Mom?”

  “Two cups of coffee, never been better.”

  Yeah, well, looking on the bright side was one of my mother’s worst habits. No matter what she was going through, all she needed was the easiest invitation to optimism—coffee, say—and she was in. She gave too much optimism to Jon Jakes and Vic Dennis. But once she ran out of it? It was gone for good, forever gone, and they were left wandering the wide, crowded halls of Sea-Tac, stepping over the carry-on bags of weary businessmen.

  Mom was back to her makeup now. Come to think of it, there was also a lipstick face.r />
  “The wedding?” It was a test.

  “Planning out the logistics today with Rebecca. Who will do what, where. Some cake guy Rebecca knows is coming tomorrow.”

  Relief. But then I had a nightmare vision—dogs, cake, some bad romantic comedy movie where the two inevitably merge in disaster.

  “Can you see it?” she said. “The dogs destroying some huge, fancy cake, like in the movies?”

  My mother had this creepy way of reading my mind, I swear. I decided to test her. You have a creepy way of reading my mind, I thought.

  But she only looked at me and smiled.

  “See you downstairs,” she said.

  Jupiter must have strolled out from my open door, hopped downstairs, and found Ben to let her out. I knew because Rabbit was in the middle of the hall, dragged like a carcass and then abandoned for smells of sausages. I was surprised to find her and Cruiser in the dining room, sitting stiffly next to each other there, looking formal and attentive as if they were at a job interview. Yeah, Ben had treats. He sat on the floor in front of them as Dan and Hailey and Amy watched. Everyone else was standing around in the living room talking, their syrup- and blueberry-streaked plates abandoned on that huge wood table. The ocean was all morning newness and sparkly beginnings outside those large windows.