“What are you thinking?”
I was going to tell her I was thinking about how incredible she looked, and how long it had been since I had picked up a woman for a date, and how nervous and sick and awkward and strange I felt even if I didn’t seem like it. I wanted to tell her how I’d been thinking of this night since the moment I asked her to go out, how I’d planned and prepared, and how everything was going to be perfect—
My cell phone rang. I carried a small one for emergencies.
“Sorry,” I said as I searched the middle compartment that divided our seats. “I just brought it to look cool.”
“Go ahead. You can answer it.”
Erik was on the other end of the line. He sounded serious.
“What’s up?” I asked him.
“Man, I don’t mean to bother you, but your dog’s acting kinda funky.”
“Kinda funky? What’s that mean?”
“I just got home. It looks like he got sick all over the place.”
“Maybe he just ate something bad.”
“I don’t know. He’s in the living room lying down and whimpering. He doesn’t look too hot.”
“Are you sure? Did you give him any water?”
“I tried to. He doesn’t seem to be responding to anything. He’s shaking, too. I don’t know, man. I don’t know anything about dogs. Should I give him a shot?”
“I already did. He’s not due for another one today.” I thought for a second. We were twenty minutes away from our destination. “He looks real bad?” I asked Erik.
“Yeah.”
“How bad?”
“You know I wouldn’t call you if he didn’t. He won’t get up. I even offered him one of those treats he loves. Acts like he doesn’t know it’s there.”
I thought for a second as I glanced at the remarkable figure beside me.
“Do you want me to call someone?” Erik asked.
“No. Just hold on. I’ll come and get him.” I turned to Genevie, who was watching me with curious eyes. “You’ve never met my dog, have you?”
“Barney? The diabetic dog?”
“That’s the one.”
“No. You’ve told me all about him, though.”
I turned down a side street and began heading away from Lake Michigan. “There’s a slight problem,” I said.
“What?”
“I think he’s really sick.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Would you mind if we went back to—”
“No, please, hurry. Don’t worry about me.”
“I’m sorry,” I said as I raced down the city streets.
“It’s okay. Really.”
“It’s just, I’ve had this crazy dog since I was sixteen. My parents took care of him when I first went away to college, but for the past seven years it’s been pretty much him and me.”
“Sheridan, he’s your dog. I’d be offended if you did anything other than go back home for him. Okay?” She gently squeezed my arm.
I looked at her and nodded. The clock on the dashboard said we had eighteen minutes to get to our original destination.
By the time I arrived at my apartment and picked my poor little dog up and carried his shivering body out to the car, I knew we would miss our date. I didn’t want to just put Barney in the backseat—I was afraid he’d fall off—so I placed him in my lap and drove with his head facing Genevie.
“You’re going to be okay,” Gen softly spoke as she rubbed Barney’s head.
Barney kept shifting to make himself more comfortable, and I kept pulling him back from crawling into Genevie’s lap.
“He’s fine,” she kept saying.
“I don’t want you to get dog hair all over your dress.”
“It’s just a dress.”
We were idling at a red light when Barney’s little body suddenly jerked. He made coughing noises and tried to get up. All he could do was push his head over into Genevie’s lap.
The light turned green, and I concentrated on the street again.
“Uh, Sheridan?” Genevie said.
“Yeah.”
“I think Barney’s sick.”
I shot a look at Genevie in the darkness of my Honda Accord. “Yeah?”
“No, I mean, ‘sick’ sick. He just threw up in my lap.”
“You gotta be kidding—oh, Gen—” I blurted out a few curse words.
“No need for that. Just keep driving—don’t slow down.”
“Barney! No, boy. Come here.”
“It’s fine. It wasn’t much.”
“I am so incredibly—”
“Sheridan, I said it’s fine.”
“Sorry.”
“Do you have any napkins?”
“Yeah, the glove compartment. I think. Are there any—yeah, in there.”
“See, no big deal,” Gen said as if nothing had happened.
I was going to apologize again; then I saw the look of humor on Gen’s face and burst out laughing myself.
Genevie and I looked like we had been planning to go to the opera, then accidentally taken a wrong turn and ended up in an animal hospital. The staff knew me well; when you have a diabetic dog, you tend to be a fixture at such a place. The all knew Barney and loved him. They’d find out what was wrong.
“How’s your dress?” I asked Genevie.
“It’s fine. Really. I got a wet paper towel, and it’s as good as new.”
We both looked at one another and laughed again.
I looked at my watch. “Well, we missed it.”
“Missed what?”
“The boat.”
“We were going on a boat?”
I nodded. “One of those dinner cruises that go out on Lake Michigan. Ever been on one?”
“No. I’ve always wanted to.”
“Yeah, me too,” I replied. “I still do.”
“So the boat’s left?”
“Yep. Seven-thirty.” I looked around at the walls full of animal posters and how-to advice on taking care of animals. The area had a distinct animal smell—not horrible, but not exactly the sort you’d associate with a first date, official or unofficial.
“Well, aren’t you glad you got dressed up to go to a vet?” I asked.
“It’s not your fault.”
“I know, but—”
“Look, they said it’s good you brought Barney in. There’s nothing else you could have done.”
“I’m just glad this isn’t technically a date,” I said.
“Me too. Then I’d get really dressed up.”
I looked at her dress again and apologized in the middle of laughing.
“Sheridan.”
“What?”
“You’ve never seen me get angry, have you?”
“No. Do you get angry?”
“I will if you don’t stop apologizing.”
“Okay, okay.”
We waited over an hour. Most of that time was spent telling childhood horror stories about throwing up. Genevie kept making me laugh with story after story. Even though I was disappointed about not making the dinner cruise, I felt as though I could have stayed in the animal hospital talking with her for hours. It was impossible to have a negative attitude being around her.
“Now you can see why I don’t date,” Gen remarked, causing both of us to burst out laughing again.
As we sat waiting on any news about Barney, a vet tech came in the lobby and asked us if we wanted to see some puppies. She took us to a room in the back, where she pointed to them in a cage. It was a litter of five-week-old sheltie puppies with their mother. Genevie instantly walked over and asked to hold one of the fuzzy creatures. Thoughts of her vomit-stained black dress or the missed ship seemed far from her mind. She gently took the ball of soft, light brown fur in her hands and held it close to her, softly brushing its head.
“Aren’t you just precious?” she said, talking to the puppy. “Isn’t it adorable?” she said to me.
I nodded and watched her holding this little puppy. I w
as moved by her tenderness. For a moment I forgot about everything that had happened and found myself lost in the fact that I was still with Genevie, still watching her smile and listening to her sweet voice. She looked like a runway model doing an advertisement for animal care.
“This has got to be the cutest puppy I’ve ever seen,” Genevie said, her smile filling her whole face. “You didn’t know I’m a dog person, did you?”
“Even if they throw up?” I asked with a smile.
“Sure. Look at him. Hey, little guy. I adore puppies. I’ve even been thinking about getting one, but I wasn’t sure. This little guy here is such a sweetheart.”
I opened my mouth to say something but nothing came out. I was stunned by how Genevie seemed to glow with excitement.
“Is this little guy for sale?” Genevie asked one of the young women behind the service desk.
“Well, actually, they all are.… “
Barney would have to spend the night at the hospital. The veterinarian told me that he had violently reacted to his insulin shot for some reason that they weren’t sure of. We talked in specifics about what I needed to do once I took Barney back home. The vet also reaffirmed the decision to bring Barney in.
This made me feel better. That and the fact that Genevie left her name and number in hopes of having the little dog she had fallen in love with.
Sounds familiar.
It was after eight-thirty by the time we left the parking lot. We still had to eat, even though I realized I hadn’t thought about food once during the entire evening. “Well, any ideas on where to go?” I asked her.
“Let’s see. We’re in Chicago. The night is young.”
“And you have puke stains on your dress—plus a fair amount of puppy hair.”
“Stop it. That puppy was so sweet.”
“He certainly seemed to like you.”
“Listen, are you real hungry?” Genevie suddenly changed the subject.
“Am I hungry? No, I guess not. Not really.”
“Then I know a good place for us to go. And I know what we can do about dinner.”
“Sounds good to me. My idea sank.”
“It was a great idea. You were taking care of your dog.”
“Stupid dog,” I said, half joking.
“You love that stupid dog.”
“I know. Erik’s probably going to give me a hard time, though. He’s always telling me how he’d never give a dog a shot every morning and night. He’d give the dog one big shot.”
“That’s horrible.”
“That’s Erik.”
“Well, never mind that. Just go where I tell you to.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“You’ll like this. I promise.”
“Do you take all your dates here?” I asked.
“This isn’t a date.”
“Oh, that’s right.”
“Anyway, it’s good to have a backup plan. Just in case of animal emergencies.”
I laughed and drove my Honda through the busy streets of Chicago, wondering where she was taking me.
An hour later, I stood next to Genevie as we looked down on Chicago from the heavens. Her smile was bewitching as she handed me our dinner.
“I hope you like either Twix or Milky Way,” Gen said.
“I just love the cookie crunch of Twix,” I said with a smirk. “I was just telling myself how I would kill for a Twix.”
“Be quiet.”
“Seriously, I do like them.”
“It’s not much, but—”
“It’s fine. I’m not that hungry anyway.”
We were standing on the observation deck of the Sears Tower, overlooking the night lights of the city. I felt as if Gen and I were in another universe, as if we had been granted a brief sojourn in a waiting station for the heavens. The world beneath us looked like a scene from a Star Wars movie, with thousands of blips of light stretching off in every direction except for the east, where the dark lake spread out silently. The city beneath us seemed to shimmer and move with activity and life. The magnificent view, the clear night that allowed us to see for miles in each direction, the lovely woman with me, and the fact that I had never once made it up to see the Sears Tower—all of this made the evening more ideal than any date I could have tried to plan.
Perhaps God is trying to tell you something.
Moments earlier, as we rode up in the elevator, Genevie had exclaimed over the fact that I had never been up in the Sears Tower.
“Never?”
“Nope.”
“And you’ve lived around here all your life?”
“Mostly,” I said.
“When I came to Chicago, it was one of the first things I did.”
“Take your date up to the Sears Tower?”
She nudged me. “This isn’t a date, remember. And no. I came up here by myself.”
“You’re brave.”
“I figured I had to see it sometime. The sooner the better.”
“I always assumed I would. I just never got around to doing it.”
“Well, you finally are tonight,” Genevie had told me just as the elevator opened out onto the wide, glassed-in observation area. There weren’t many people up there tonight, just a few couples who strolled around holding hands or cuddled up on a bench gazing out at the view.
“Do you want to sit on that bench over there?” I asked Genevie after we had made several circles around the room. “Your feet have to be killing you.”
She glanced down ruefully at those beautiful pumps. “I’d love to sit.”
I stared off into the city’s nightscape and felt uncomfortable again, unsure what to say.
“What I want to know,” Genevie began, eliminating any awkward silence, “is why Sheridan Blake doesn’t have a girlfriend.”
“Who says I don’t?”
“You. Several times.”
“Oh, that’s right,” I said.
“Well?”
“I could ask the same of you.”
“I told you my reason. I don’t know what I’ll be doing in the next year. My life is at a point of transition.”
“So guys stay away from you.”
“Something like that,” she replied with a smile. “Or maybe I stay away from them. But what about you?”
“I stay away from girls.”
“And why is that?”
“My life is at a point of transition.”
She laughed. “What transition would that be?”
“Finishing up school, trying to get a life, the basics. Yours?”
“Finishing up school, trying to get a life, the basics,” Genevie gently mocked with a deep voice.
“Did you think you would be in Chicago this long?”
“Honestly? No. I always thought I would be here for only a few years. When I was little, I used to travel a lot with my parents—when they were together, that is. We would go on so many vacations together—even overseas, whenever they could scrape together the money.”
“You remember those trips?”
She nodded. “Mostly. I loved flying. My parents always told me I was going to grow up to work for a travel magazine or something like that.”
“So what happened with the dreams of traveling?”
“That little thing known as divorce,” Genevie said. “My whole world changed. I ended up wanting to help hurting people like I used to be.”
“I’m sorry—”
“It’s okay. It’s worked out for the best. And I still have those dreams, you know. Some days I dream of just leaving all of this behind and going off on some wild adventure overseas.”
“So if you show up missing one day, I should go look for you in Fiji or somewhere like that.”
Her smile warmed me. “Or Kauai. Or Australia.”
“You’re a brave woman.”
“Why? You don’t see yourself traveling much?”
I shook my head. “My home is here. I once attended a school out of state. For a year. I hated it.”
“But you’re sort of a loner, right?”
I nodded.
“So what prevents you from getting up and leaving it all behind? Your family? Friends?”
“Myself.” I said nothing more.
Genevie squinted her dark eyes and appeared to be examining me.
“What?” I asked.
“You’re hard to figure out. You know that?”
“Is that bad?”
“No. I kinda like that. The silent and mysterious type.”
“Please,” I replied.
We spoke about everything, from our childhoods to recent television movies we had seen. Once again, I found Genevie refreshing and easy to talk to. I hadn’t known how badly I had needed someone to talk with until I found myself opening up to Genevie. It seemed like I had a dam full of silent memories and thoughts that had risen to the point of overflowing.
At one point I singled out one of the small illuminated dots on Lake Michigan. “That’s where we should be now.”
“No,” she said softly. “This is where we should be.”
Half an hour before we were to head back down to earth, to the ground level, Gen excused herself to use the ladies’ room. I decided to venture into the small gift shop—where Genevie had bought our dinner—and found a small metal tin that bore a picture of the Sears Tower on it. The box held commemorative chocolates. Perhaps a small gift would help Genevie remember this night.
I was sitting on the bench looking out over Chicago’s stunning nightlife when something even more gorgeous came into view. Gen walked toward me, her silky black hair falling down below her shoulders. She brushed it back with her hand as she sat next to me. “I wanted to put it down. Hope it’s okay.”
I nodded. “You know, I never—”
“What?”
“I never told you how incredible you look tonight.”
“Yeah you did,” Gen replied.
“I didn’t say it with any justice. Gen, I think you’re one of the most beautiful—”
She put a slender finger on my lips to stop my sentence.
“Thank you,” she said.
For a moment, I let go of the Sheridan I had been for so long, the glum and hesitant stranger I wouldn’t have recognized a decade ago. I moved closer to Gen and held her hand in mine. I wanted to say more, wanted to ask her permission to do what I wanted to do, then glanced at her striking look of contentment. I looked down at her lips and then back into her eyes for a brief second, before I closed my own and kissed her. Her lips opened gently, the kiss soft and sweet. I didn’t know how long it lasted. Gen squeezed my hand as if to confirm our actions.
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