Two Good Dogs Read online

  Mr. Farrow tries a different tack. “The Internet, as you know, has changed things. Kids aren’t sophisticated, necessarily, but they are worldly. Connected. Assaulted on all sides by words and images that they can’t really comprehend. Rap, hip-hop. Drugs. Violence. The list goes on, and we’re not shielded from it by virtue of being a town of fewer than seven thousand. When I started here, teen pregnancy was a big deal. Now, not so much. However, eating disorders and self-mutilation crop up with astounding frequency.”

  “She’s eating. Although she’s become a vegetarian. And she’s not cutting.”

  “It’s not always obvious.”

  “No. I suppose it’s not.”

  “She gave Ryan a pretty good kick in the nuts. Did she ever tell you what provoked it?”

  Mr. Farrow’s vulgarism makes me smile a little. “No.”

  “Is she normally more physical than verbal when she’s upset?”

  “No. She can be very effective verbally.”

  “Look, I’ll check in with her, informally, and see if anything comes up.”

  I hand him the Kleenex box, which he carefully sets back on the corner of his desk. Mr. Farrow reaches out one soft hand, and when I take it, he pats mine with an avuncular There, there. Oddly, I feel a little better. The human touch.

  * * *

  I leave Mr. Farrow’s office with a balled-up Kleenex still in my hand. Cody is supposed to meet me outside the office suite, but she isn’t there, as the dismissal bell hasn’t yet rung. So I hang around, pretending some interest in the bulletin board laden with out-of-date announcements: Join the Debate Club! Sign up for Chorus! Try Robotics! Big kids wander by, seniors flaunting the privilege of being seniors, I suppose. A little boy lets himself into the office suite. He looks too young to be in high school, and then I remember that this small school includes the junior high. The bell finally rings, and the doors aligned along the hallway pop open to release the hordes into the world. The din of voices is accompanied by the banging of every single locker door in a cacophonous counterpoint. As suddenly as they appeared, the students are gone to their busses or, if they are upperclassmen, to their cars. Still no sign of Cody.

  Teachers begin to emerge, poking their weary faces out to see if the coast is clear. A student dressed in a short skirt and leggings, with overachiever stamped all over her worried face, runs up to one of the teachers, and I can see the resignation in the teacher’s smile as she grants the student an after-school audience.

  Still no Cody. I’m beginning to feel like I’ve been stood up. Which is ridiculous. Cody knew that I was coming today, that I would meet her here in front of the office. Just to make sure, I take a peek out of the double doors to see if Cody’s outside, wondering where I am. Nope. Nobody out there. No Cody.

  “Mom?”

  Finally. I turn toward my daughter’s voice and am struck at how sad this kid looks. For once, the usual combativeness is gone. The sullen Wish you would get off this planet expression is different. A trick of the light, surely, but it’s the first time that I have seen Randy in Cody’s face. It’s there, in the cheekbones, in the way she won’t meet my eyes.

  “You want to talk about my meeting with Mr. Farrow?”

  “Not really. Am I on punishment again?”

  “No. He’s just worried about…”

  “My behavior? That it? As usual?”

  “Your attitude.”

  “I hate it here. That’s my attitude.” Cody bears down on the word.

  “It’ll get better, I promise.” I wrap an arm around Cody, surprised to find her suddenly a bit taller, but not surprised at the stiff resistance to my touch. My affection. Cody jerks herself away from me as if disgusted by such familiarity. A blocky-looking girl comes down the hallway, black hair like a rooster’s coxcomb, eyes hidden by the excess of black mascara, black lipstick completing the ghoulish mask. She jangles as she walks, chains slapping against her meaty thighs, which are encased in what look like military paratrooper pants. She wears what used to be called engineer’s boots, black, thick-soled things bearing heavy buckles at the ankles. Her appearance screams Look at me, but don’t you dare look at me, so I pretend not to look, not to notice. Kids can be so self-destructive.

  As the girl walks past us, she lifts her chin, nods at Cody, a minimalist greeting if ever there was one, which is met by a similarly vague nod from Cody. It’s enough to signal that this, without doubt, must be the Molly whom Cody spoke of exactly once. Open mind, close mouth, I think to myself, and follow Cody out of the building.

  * * *

  Cody can feel the burn of her mother’s curiosity about Black Molly. Skye doesn’t miss much, and that curt greeting in the hallway after school was as blatant as a hug. Cody’s kind of mad at Black Molly. What was she thinking, getting up parental interest like that? But Skye doesn’t belabor the moment, thank goodness. No soppy Oh, was that your friend?

  The nod wasn’t a greeting per se, but a warning. In her backpack, in that little zipper compartment in the smallest section, wrapped in what looks like a dirty tissue, is a whole joint. A gift, Molly said. Not to be enjoyed alone, but later today, at an agreed-upon rendezvous. Black Molly told Cody that she wanted her to carry it, as it really belongs to her third-eldest brother, and if he finds it on her, he’ll kill her. He may be stupid, she says, and she can easily turn his suspicions toward one of their other brothers, as they are all thieves, but why chance it. Black Molly, it seems, has a family of five brothers and one sister, the eldest, who’s already a mom herself and living in Greenfield. They live a mile from the LakeView, as the crow flies, and she and Cody will meet in the state park that separates them.

  Skye is quiet on the ride home. Too quiet. If she throws down some ridiculous punishment for whatever transgression Mr. Farrow has accused her of, Cody will just freak. She really doesn’t want to blow off Black Molly. That would not be a good idea. Black Molly may not be the kind of girl she hung out with in Holyoke, but she’s an improvement over no one at all.

  An hour later, Cody says she’s going for a walk, that she’ll be back before dinner—in effect, throwing her mother a bone of civility. Hoping Skye doesn’t ask where she’s going. Or, worse, suggest she go with her, a mommy and daughter walk. Like they used to do. Back when. Back when a walk around the block, through the cemetery, ended up, somehow, always, at Dairy Queen. Back when she was a kid. There’s no Dairy Queen in this town.

  “Okay, be safe.”

  “Safe. Right. I don’t think I need to worry around here in no-man’s-land, do I?”

  “About bears.”

  “Again. Right. Bears.”

  Black Molly is waiting for Cody close to her end of the blue flash trailhead. Neither one speaks and Cody follows Molly as she goes off the trail a few yards to a shelter made out of long branches arranged against the fork of a tree, creating a primitive lean-to-cum-tepee.

  “Cool. Did you build this?”

  “Yeah. I’ve built a few. Come in handy when you want to get away.”

  Black Molly sits down, looks at Cody. Raises an eyebrow, the one pierced with a safety pin. “Ahem.”

  “Oh, right. Here.” Cody pulls out the joint. She’s forgotten a lighter. “Did you bring matches or anything?”

  Black Molly slides a hand into one of the multiple pockets in her pants, pulls out a matchbook. “Always prepared, like a freaking Girl Scout.”

  Cody respectfully waits for Molly to light up, take a drag, pass her the joint. It’s different from Mosley’s medical marijuana.

  Molly takes the joint back. “So, what’s your story?”

  “Haven’t got one.”

  “You do. We all do.”

  “Came from Holyoke, mother bought the Bates Motel. End of story.”

  “I’ll tell you a secret if you’ll tell me one.” She passes the joint back to Cody. Smiles. Cody notices that her teeth are very crooked. Thinks that you don’t see that much anymore. Should she recommend her orthodontist? He’s all right, even if he
does have fat fingers. She starts to laugh.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Fat fingers.”

  “Whose?”

  Cody, despite the giggles, recognizes that she may have insulted Molly, whose hands are a fine match for the blockiness of her body. “My ortho.”

  “Your what?” Now she’s laughing. “What’s an ortho? Some kind of pervert?”

  This sends Cody into another fit of the giggles. “Braces, teeth…” she manages to get out, then taps her own teeth, decorated with Dr. Odell’s torture devices.

  “So. That’s the best you can do? That’s your secret? Braces?”

  Hell no. “My father was shot to death.” Cody keeps laughing; it seems as though someone else has blurted this out, this weird confession, the something she’s never supposed to talk about. Her Secret. She is so outside of her own body right now that it seems like all anyone had to do was ask for it and she, or this voice that comes out her own mouth, would spill it.

  “Cool. I wish mine was.”

  Cody shrugs. She hadn’t thought of Randy’s death as “cool.” She takes another toke, hands the spliff to Black Molly. She guesses that having a father shot dead is a distinction. It wasn’t like she was one of those kids who wish their parents were dead, and what happened would have been like getting what she wished for. “I mean, I didn’t, like, live with him, or, like, love him or anything. But he was my dad.” She doesn’t know if this is true. It just sounds true right now. It sounds like she isn’t worried. And for sure it doesn’t suggest that she witnessed it.

  Molly speaks around the retained breath, hands the joint over. “Random shooting, or what? Line of duty?”

  “Guess you could say it was random.” Cody squeezes her eyes shut to help hold the inhalation in longer, so long that she disassociates herself from her THC-induced confession, the cloud in her head muffling the near-constant fear. Just to be safe, she adds, “How should I know? I wasn’t there.” The fact that her voice squeaks a little isn’t a tell; surely it’s because of the effort to hold in the smoke.

  Molly gives Cody a little shove and Cody hands the joint back to her. She’s feeling sapped out. Then she remembers the deal. “So, what’s your secret?”

  “Nothing cool like yours.” Molly stubs the joint out, wraps the remainder in the tissue, slides it into her pocket. “One of my brothers likes to watch me.”

  “Watch you what?”

  “You know.”

  “Say it.”

  “When I’m in the shower.”

  This strikes Cody as funny and she is launched into yet another laughing fit.

  “It’s not funny.” But then Black Molly starts to laugh, too. “He’s gross. He thinks I don’t know he’s there and what he’s doing.”

  Cody finds herself flat on the ground, looking up. The light coming through the propped branches is silvery and the shimmer of beech leaves looks like fairies dancing. She should make a wish. Capture a fairy and make it grant her three wishes. No, it’s not fairies who do that. It’s what? Trolls. Trolls under the bridge. Her first wish would be to go back to the way it was before, when her father was a jerk, but alive, and his killer hadn’t looked right at her.

  “So, tell me,” Black Molly says. “Why is that your secret? I’m pretty sure a shooting even in Holyoke makes the news.”

  “Sure, of course. It’s just that no one around here knows.”

  “So? What’s the big whoop? Wouldn’t that kind of, I don’t know, make you interesting?”

  “I don’t want to be interesting.”

  “Everyone wants to be interesting.”

  “Please don’t say anything. Really.” The buzz is flattening out.

  Beneath the thick eyeliner, and despite the serious high, Black Molly’s eyes in her wide face are surprisingly clear, intelligent. Knowing. She scans Cody’s face, smiles her crooked smile. “All right. For now.”

  * * *

  The air is decidedly sharper this visit and it gets dark so much earlier. At least Adam is comfortable on these backwater roads now, and he finds his way to the LakeView almost without thinking. He’s been up three more times since that first night. It’s funny how he finds himself thinking about the Berkshires when he’s back in Boston, thinking about how relaxed he is when there. It’s only about a hundred miles away, but it might as well be a thousand for how remote he feels. Not one personal item to throw the switch of memory. No misplaced earring caught in the fiber of the bathroom rug, no box of herbal tea growing stale on the shelf. He can’t bring himself to throw out the tea, or drink it. He doesn’t know what to do with the mateless earring. He can sit in room number 9, enjoy his solitude, bear down on whatever memory he wants to, and weep if that’s what he needs to do. Or just watch silly television and not think at all.

  Up here, in room number 9, he can shut off his phone and not take the six phone calls a day from the cadre of well-meaning women who have taken it upon themselves to guide him through his grief, as if they have developed a schedule he needs to keep. As if solitude isn’t something that he craves. Or deserves. To them, he’s indulged in private grief long enough. Three months—no, four now, and he’s being urged to “get back out there.” He hadn’t been “out there” when he met Gina. He was a shattered and very angry man serving out a community service sentence, stripped of his dignity, his family, and his shield of wealth. She took pity on him.

  These women, this coven, have no idea what he needs. Certainly not a date. Certainly not a social life. He has Chance, and that warm, solid block of dog is enough for him.

  As he pulls into the driveway, Adam realizes that he looks forward as much to seeing Skye as he does to crashing into that queen-size bed. Because she has no idea of his past, recent or otherwise, she treats him like anyone else, any other guest, not someone to be pitied, or bullied back into life. She has no idea about him. All she sees is the repeat customer with a dog. The truth is, Skye isn’t too keen on him coming back with the dog, but she isn’t impolitic enough to say a definite no. He knows she’s not remotely making enough to be able to reject his money outright, but she always waffles a bit, just for show. “You know, if I let you, I have to let everyone else.”

  “No, you don’t. Say I’m a special case. He’s a therapy dog.”

  “Well, is he?”

  “Yes. I have issues.”

  “I bet you do.” She smiled, just in case he thought she was being snarky.

  He knew she wasn’t. It was that little zinger that made him feel, briefly, normal. “Besides, aren’t I proving that having a dog-friendly hotel is just as easy as any other kind?”

  “No.”

  “I’ll clean my own room.”

  That got a laugh. “No, no. That’s Cody’s job. Okay. One more time.” She held up a teasing finger. “I mean it, Adam March.”

  That “One more time” has become their little joke.

  This time, it’s a little different, as he’s here on a weekend for the first time. The big open-house event at the Artists Collaborative is tomorrow, Saturday night, and he’s to be there to make sure that the event runs smoothly. Personally, Adam hates these glad-hand schmoozing events, but they are a necessary evil in the world of fund-raising. Friend-raising is what they are. With the Christmas holidays fast approaching, and the end of the tax year, when philanthropic impulses surge, it’s high time Mosley’s crew got the attention of potential donors, and made them into new friends. Friends with deep pockets. Patrons of the arts all their own.

  Because it’s a weekend, Adam isn’t surprised to see more cars in the parking lot of the hotel than he sees on a weekday. It makes him smile, thinking that maybe things aren’t nearly so dire for Skye as he’s thought. Seven cars are nosed up to the concrete steps. Lights on in eight of the fifteen rooms.

  “Welcome back to the LakeView, Mr. March.” Skye smiles at him over the light glowing from her desk lamp. “Where’s the dog?” Does he imagine it, or does she look hopeful that he’s left the dog behind? />
  “Outside sniffing around.”

  “Oh. Okay.”

  “You were hoping?”

  “Maybe.”

  “You know what they say, ‘Love me, love my dog.’”

  “They don’t really say that, do they?”

  “Somebody did.”

  “But they never said ‘Love me, accommodate my dog.’”

  “Sure they did.”

  “Ever wonder who ‘they’ is?”

  “Are?”

  “Adam. Stop. Enough.”

  They conduct the business of checking in quickly, the dependable rhythm of it. It’s a dance they know well, and in minutes she’s handed him his key. As usual, room number 9. It really is beginning to feel like home.

  CHAPTER 9

  I know the drill. I’ve got the whole backseat to myself, on which I am comfortably cushioned with a folded quilt that Adam has thoughtfully provided. A bowl of water is in the foot well and a yummy shinbone awaits my attention as soon as Adam gives me his command: Stay; watch the car, my mandate to protect this space with my life. With fresh air coming in through a lowered window, the scents of the early cold-time evening waft in, as do the sounds of the humans going past the car, the women’s heels click-clicking, the men’s voices. The snap of a purse clasp, a little laughter. Each time the door to the building opens up, the same two voices speak greetings. Some of the words are meaningful to me: Hello! Welcome!

  Pretty soon the parking lot quiets down and I nose my bone in between my clever paws. I get down to a meditative grinding of the hard white surface, prodding that luscious center of marrow with my tongue. Ah, heaven.

  I may have dozed off. Which is what I do. However, my slumber is abruptly ended at the sound of one of my kind yowling. Although I do not have a sense of time, I know that I have heard this particular yowling before. Here, meaning while I was in this car. As before, I feel as though I must answer in canine solidarity. I am here. Here. I cannot see you. I cannot smell you. But I am here.

  It translates to a furious barking. I am rewarded with a change of tone in the yowling of my unseen compatriot. His vocalization becomes more of a greeting, telling me that he, too, is here.