Seamus was lying on the rug, gnawing on something white and floppy. He saw me and immediately ran over, his tail a wagging blur.
“Hey, fella,” I said, picking him up. It felt good to be greeted so warmly—although I wondered if he would still love me if his canine brain could fathom what a loser I was.
“Have a seat,” Matt said. He scurried about, picking up books and stacks of dirty dishes. It was then I noticed how messy the place was.
“Oh no. Did Seamus . . . ?” I gestured helplessly at the papers and Starbucks cups strewn about the carpet.
Matt looked confused for a second, then started laughing—a deep, musical laugh that reverberated through me. It was like Kinky’s bass cranked up to eleven, only better. “You think Seamus did this?” he asked, chuckling. “No. This is all me. I’m a pathological slob. Slob-a-noid maximus I think is the clinical term.”
“Good,” I said, letting out my breath. “I mean, I’m glad he wasn’t a big problem. Or was he?”
“No, he was no trouble,” he said, tossing a pile of clothes and other debris into the linen closet. “He just got a little . . . chewy. That’s all.” He walked over and picked up the white thing Seamus had been munching on: a mangled athletic sock.
I sucked in my breath. “I’m so sorry!”
Again Matt laughed, and again my insides hummed. “Don’t worry about it. I made half of these holes.” He gestured to an empty spot he’d cleared on the couch. “Sit down for a sec.”
“Okay.” As soon as I settled onto the couch, Seamus struggled in my arms, trying to get at the sock dangling from Matt’s right hand. “Uh-uh,” I said to Seamus. “You’ve chomped on enough stuff today.”
“It’s okay,” Matt said. “Let him go for it. I don’t mind.”
I released Seamus and Matt tossed the sock into the air. Seamus caught it and ran to the far corner, where he proceeded to whirl about, play-growling and flailing the sock as if it were a stray rattlesnake.
“Keep it. It’s yours,” Matt called out to him. He kept his gaze on Seamus as he lowered himself into a fudge-colored recliner. Gradually his features slackened into the usual bummed-out expression he wore around us.
Guilt shot through me as I thought about how difficult these last two hours must have been for him—how he must have been battling his dog hatred the entire time. Mrs. Krantz was right. He was extremely nice. And it was thoughtful of him to hide it all from me.
“I really, really appreciate your taking him in,” I said, leaning forward. “Especially with . . . you know . . . the way you feel and all.”
His eyebrows disappeared beneath his hair. “What do you mean? How do I feel?”
It was cute how surprised and slightly worried he looked. He seemed almost embarrassed that I’d picked up on this aversion of his. “It’s okay,” I said. “I could tell the first time I saw you that you don’t like dogs. No big deal.”
“Don’t like dogs?” he repeated. For a while he just looked at me as if I were speaking in code. Then suddenly, a bemused smile stole its way across his face. “Ohhh. No. You’ve got it all wrong. I love dogs.”
“You do?” It was my turn to stare at him suspiciously.
“Yeah. It’s just that . . .” He pressed his hands together and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “You see, I had a dog. A golden retriever named Jessie. Had her for ten years. She, um, died two months ago.” He said all this in a strained tone, as if hurling the words from deep within him.
“I’m sorry,” I said softly. I sat there, completely riveted, battling an overwhelming urge to touch his face and try to smooth away the sad cracks on his brow.
“I found a lump on her belly,” he went on, gazing down at the carpet. “It was cancer. The vet did everything, but . . . after a while it was clear nothing was helping. So we . . . so I . . . stopped her suffering.” His voice petered out at the end.
I wanted to say I’m sorry again, but I couldn’t. I felt almost too heavy for speech. The phrase wasn’t good enough anyway—it was way too skimpy to truly impart how I felt. All I could do was stare at him and feel his heartbreak.
Ever so slowly, Matt seemed to particle-beam back to the present. His gaze lifted and he shifted awkwardly in his seat, rubbing his hands as if cold.
“Anyhow, that’s probably why I seemed so out of it around Seamus,” he explained. “It just, you know, reminded me.”
“Yeah,” I mumbled. “I imagine.”
He turned and looked at Seamus, who was chomping merrily on the toe of the sock as he held it between his front paws. I studied Matt as he watched my dog, wondering how I could have misunderstood him all those times.
It’s his eyes, I decided. Those sleepy, hooded eyes. They made him appear brooding when he was simply thinking—or remembering.
Seamus caught Matt looking at him and dropped the sock, his ears pricking like perfectly folded cloth napkins. Springing to his feet, he ran forward and leaped onto the coffee table, surfing on a piece of paper and knocking an assortment of pens, notebooks and Styrofoam cups to the floor.
“Down!” Matt shouted.
Seamus instantly hopped to the floor, his ears flattening against his head and his body bowed with guilt. He seemed totally taken aback by Matt’s reaction. Even I had to fight the urge to hit the carpet.
“Sorry,” Matt said, grinning awkwardly. “Force of habit.”
“It’s okay.” I reached for Seamus, thinking I should comfort him. I really didn’t want him to dislike Matt, especially now that I’d discovered Matt didn’t dislike him. But to my surprise Seamus walked over to Matt and licked his hand. Matt’s lips curved into a grin, and he bent down to scratch Seamus on the head. “You can crash here anytime you want, little guy,” he said sort of wistfully.
A Christmas bulb pinged on inside my head. “Hey,” I said. “What are you doing tomorrow morning?”
“I’ve got a class and then a couple of hours of rat holding. Why?”
“Damn!” I slumped back against the cushions. “It’s nothing. I just need to figure out something to do with Seamus.”
“What do you mean?”
I proceeded to fill him in on almost everything: my impulse decision to adopt Seamus, his wild behavior, my lack of sleep, my promise to Christine not to let him run loose, his skirmishes with Mrs. B, and my promise to Mrs. Krantz to keep him away from them. The entire time I babbled, Matt sat and listened patiently, stroking the long fluffy fur on Seamus’s ears.
“So I can’t keep him on the terrace. And now, apparently, I can’t leave him in my room either,” I concluded, having worked up to a full whine.
Matt sat back in his seat. “Maybe you could try what I used to do with Jessie.”
“What’s that?”
“Leave the radio on.”
“Huh?” Matt struck me as a smart guy, but it seemed that adding music would only make Seamus howl louder.
“Seriously,” he went on, chuckling at my reaction. “Set it on one of those morning talk programs. It always calmed my dog. I think the sound of voices made her feel less lonely.”
“Really?” Maybe he was on to something. After all, Seamus hadn’t howled when the party was going on, and our place had been full of yammering people. Of course, maybe he had and I just didn’t hear it over all the noise.
“You know, it just might work.” I nodded slowly. “Yeah. I’ll give it a shot. Thanks.”
“No prob.”
We sat there grinning at each other for an immeasurable moment. Gradually, I could feel the skin on my face begin to sizzle. Just when my hair seemed ready to catch fire, I mustered my strength and turned away.
“Come on, Seamus,” I called, standing. “Let’s go.”
Seamus rose up and glanced from me to Matt, stamping his paws and whimpering slightly.
“Go on,” Matt said, giving him a gentle nudge.
Seamus gave him a wide-eyed, soulful look—the one I thought he only gave me—and scurried over to my feet. I scooped him into my arms a
nd headed for the door.
“Thanks again,” I said. “For everything.”
Matt got to his feet and shoved his hands into the pockets of his baggy shorts. “Not a problem. I guess I’ll see you around.”
“Yeah. See ya.”
As I opened the door and stepped out onto the landing, Seamus started to whine. Clearly he was reluctant to leave Matt.
He wasn’t the only one.
“Do you hear something?” I asked, pressing the Lower Volume button on the TV remote.
“Will you stop?” Christine said irritably. “That was just the ice maker. Everything’s fine.”
We were sitting on the carpet with our backs against the couch watching a behind-the-scenes documentary of Gilligan’s Island. Or at least I was trying to watch it. I had left Seamus in my room with the radio on in order to test Matt’s method before tomorrow. So far it seemed to be working, but I still jumped at every teeny-tiny noise.
“Sorry,” I said, increasing the volume again.
She repositioned the stuffed wiener dog she was using as a neck pillow and slouched farther down the front of the couch. “You’re as bad as Robot when we’re making out at my dad’s house.”
“Where is Robot anyway?” I asked tentatively. I was half afraid uttering his name might conjure him up—like a perfectly timed sitcom character entrance.
“He and the guys needed to practice,” she explained. “They’re going to enter the Battle of the Bands at the Danger Zone next week.”
“Oh.” I nodded as if I knew what she was talking about.
“Besides, we needed a break. You know how it is? When you’re with your boyfriend so constantly he starts to get on your nerves?”
“Yeah.” Actually I had no idea what that was like. I’d mainly spent the last two years plotting ways to spend more time with Chuck. But getting Mom to ease up on curfews was like requesting leave from a prisoner-of-war camp. Of course, looking back now, I saw that Chuck always needed plenty of space—the better to arrange secret meetings with Trina, no doubt.
I grabbed a handful of Cheetos and glanced over at Christine’s sharp profile. Was she worried that Robot might be off getting to know a female fan better? Somehow I doubted it. It was weird. I always thought all boyfriend-girlfriend relationships were the same. But she and Robot were nothing like me and Chuck. She squabbled with him, bossed him occasionally, and even enjoyed time away from him—like now. My friends and I would never do that to our guys. In our circle, who you dated declared who you were—and how important you were. So you always had to treat your relationship as a sacred thing. Not so with Christine and Robot.
“So, I’ve got to ask.” I rubbed off the orange cheese powder on my T-shirt and turned toward Christine. “This morning Robot didn’t sound British at all. What’s up with that?”
Christine just sat there, concentrating on a montage of all the visitors to Gilligan’s Island: the rock band, the headhunters, Leonardo da Vinci, the Gilligan look-alike spy. . . . Finally she glanced over at me, her features set in a sour scowl.
“Okay. So he fakes it a little. So what? His mom was born in London and they fly to England every Christmas to visit relatives.”
“All right. I’m sorry,” I said, waving my hands in a surrender gesture. “I just don’t understand why he does it.”
She shrugged. “I think he started it to get girls. Now he does it because it gives the band some cool cred.”
“But don’t people know? Or won’t they find out? I mean, he can’t keep it up all the time, right?”
“But he does.” Christine sat up straight and pivoted about to face me, hugging the patchwork dachshund to her chest. “His older brother once told me that Robot started using the accent when they moved to San Antonio. I think Robot was, like, twelve and realized how popular it made him. His parents just let him do it, figuring it was his right to creative expression or something. They’re both therapists.”
“Really?” I forced myself not to laugh. Not only was Robot not from England, but the fact that his parents were both professionals sort of debunked the whole greaser-punk persona.
“Anyway,” Christine went on, “the only time he drops the accent is when he’s really sick or tired. I guess it takes too much concentration or energy or whatever.”
“But doesn’t it ever bother you?” I asked, peering closely at her. She didn’t strike me as someone who could put up with much bull.
She shook her head. “Nah. I did crap like that too when I was in fifth grade. I told all my friends my dad was a CIA agent and that was why he was never around.” She started to laugh. “I even said if they ever told anyone they would go to jail or die mysteriously. You know, like deadly germs in their glitter lip gloss or something. Actually, I think a couple of those girls still believe it!”
I laughed. Knowing Christine, I wouldn’t doubt that.
Just then, I heard a faint clunk. “Did you hear something?” I said, leaning in the direction of my room.
Christine whacked me on the head with her wiener dog pillow. “That was the air conditioner.”
“Sorry,” I mumbled.
“You know, you say that a lot. It’s kind of annoying.”
“Really? I’m sor—. I mean . . . Oh.” I stared down at my orange-streaked lap. “Anyway, thanks for not ratting me out to my mom about Seamus.”
“No biggie. You won’t tell anyone Robot’s little secret, will you?”
“No way.”
“Good. Thanks.” She grabbed some Cheetos and turned back to the program. “God, I can’t stand Gilligan. He screwed up their chances to get rescued so many times, you’d think they would have barbecued him.”
I laughed. “I never liked him either. I always had a crush on the professor.”
She cocked an eyebrow at me. “Seriously? That’s sad.”
“Come on. Out of all the men on that island, who would you pick?”
Christine thought for a moment. “Yeah. I guess you’re right,” she conceded. “But then, you love that ugly dog too.”
8
It was my first day of the summer curriculum program, and except for my compounding lack of a good night’s sleep (my eyes were starting to look as if they’d been pushed farther into my head), everything was going perfectly.
My classes had gone well. In both history and world literature, they’d utilized the standard meet-and-greet pattern. Vital schedules and syllabi had been handed out. Teaching assistants had been introduced. And instructors launched into overviews of what we should have already learned in high school.
Whenever I would glance around the giant lecture halls, the other hundred and fifty-odd students looked as if they felt the same way I did—slightly awestruck and eager to please. Everyone cranked out several pages of notes, and there was hardly any talking. We all felt as if the word newbie flashed in neon across our foreheads, so we were desperately trying to give off the laid-back vibe of real underclassmen.
As I headed toward the West Mall, where I was supposed to meet Christine, I glanced at my reflection in the glass walls of the Flawn Academy Center. I had tried hard that morning to dress the part of a bona fide college student, deciding eventually on the following: a pair of cropped, khaki carpenter pants, lightly dusted with black fur (from Seamus); a red tank with a fresh hole in the side seam (also from Seamus); and leather flip-flops that had been chewed to the moist, spongy consistency of Twinkies (ditto). My hair was swept up into a no-nonsense ponytail, and my backpack was slung casually over my right shoulder. I was kind of glad Seamus had chewed on that as well. Shiny new packs were a dead giveaway that you were a high schooler. Only a lunch box would be worse.
Christine was already waiting for me in front of the West Mall fountain. With her unique look and who-cares attitude, she had no problem passing as older. After our conversation the night before, I felt we had a closer bond now. Maybe even a real friendship.
I was in such a good mood, I felt charged up and bouncy. As I walked toward Chr
istine, I marveled at the faint rainbows in the spray of the fountain and how the sun gleaming through the oak leaves made dotted patterns on the sidewalk.
“You look high,” Christine said as I approached. “What’s with the big smile?”
I didn’t even realize I was smiling. “Nothing,” I said, trying to play it cooler. “I just like it here.”
We headed for the nearby intersection and blended into a crowd of about two dozen others also crossing Guadalupe Street. I glanced at everyone around me, feeling an overwhelming sense of camaraderie. These were my people. This was my world.
“Are you on crack or something?” Christine asked irritably. “Your cheesy grin is back.”
“I was just . . . checking out the guys,” I mumbled, keeping my eyes focused in front of me.
“Man, you’re a lousy liar.”
We turned the corner at Twenty-second Street and walked west, then turned on Pearl Street toward our building. As we headed for the front door, Matt walked out of it, looking amazing in a pair of blue running shorts.
“Hey,” he said, tossing his head to sweep the hair out of his eyes.
A warm, squishy sensation swept through my chest. “Hey,” I said back. Christine gave me a teeny nudge with her elbow. “Oh. Um . . . this is my roommate, Christine. Christine, this is our neighbor Matt.”
“Hi,” she said, nodding at him casually.
He nodded back. “Nice to meet you.”
“So Katie . . . ,” said Christine, heading toward the entrance, “I’m going to run upstairs and grab some lunch.” As soon as she walked behind Matt, she shot me a wide, knowing smile.
“Okay. See you up there.” I waited until she’d disappeared into the building before turning back toward Matt. “How are the rats? Still happy?”
“They’re fine,” he said, raking the hair off his forehead. “How did things go with Seamus? Did you try the radio trick?”
“I tested it last night and it worked great,” I said. “So I set it up again this morning. Have you been here a while? Heard any howling?”
He shook his head, causing his forelock to fall back across his brow. “Haven’t heard a thing.”
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