That’s Nasty

Oscar

“Seriously?” I lift my shoe to confirm what I think just happened. Yep. That’s a slimy pile of dog crap now squashed under the sprinkling of snow on my front path. And all over my sneaker.

I stick my foot into the small snowbank at the edge of our walkway to scrub off what I can, then march over to Frankie’s house and knock on the door. There’s noise inside, but after thirty seconds, she still doesn’t answer. Her car is out front, so I know she’s home.

“Frankie, open the door.” I knock again, louder this time. I haven’t seen her since she last reamed me out for coming into her house—which I stand by doing because I didn’t know if she was dead or alive—but I’ve had enough of her active avoidance.

Another minute with no response makes me more irritated.

“I’m not going anywhere until you open the door.”

Finally, the multiple locks disengage. Frankie pulls the door open, looking like she’s had the life scared out of her.

“Are you okay?” I ask, no longer concerned with my poop-covered shoe.

She looks up at her ceiling and blinks her eyes several times. When she refocuses on me with a hardened glare, she replies, “Can I help you?”

Her snarky tone makes any sympathy I have quickly disappear.

“Ever heard of stoop and scoop? You know? When you pick up after your dog?”

“Oscar, I spend a lot of my time in an animal hospital. You don’t even want to know the number of places I’ve cleaned feces out of, including my own hair. I’m familiar with the concept.”

I grimace at that image, then I start imagining the kinds of scenarios that could result in washing dog poop from your hair. The most dominant thought is a dog twirling its tail like a hippo and flinging excrement around the vet office, right across the back of Frankie’s head.

“Did you come to talk about dog poop for a reason?”

I give my head a subtle shake to remove that graphic scene playing out in my imagination and refocus on Frankie. “Your dog pooped on the path and now my shoe is ruined.”

She doesn’t budge. Her facial expression doesn’t change. She just stares at me with her eyebrows pulled together. “Good joke.”

“Do I look like I’m joking?” I lift my shoe to show her the evidence.

Still, she’s unfazed. “Come back to me for some sympathy when you’ve had to clean it out of your hair. Brad hasn’t even been out the front door today, and he isn’t to blame for your shoe.”

She attempts to close the door, but I hold my hand out to stop it. Something seems off today, and while I should relish in turning the tables and blaming her for something she didn’t do, it doesn’t feel as good as I thought it would.

I miss the spitfire Frankie who didn’t hesitate to stand her ground. “Are you sure he didn’t get out again?”

“Yes, Oscar. I’m sure. He didn’t let himself out the locked front door, take a dump on your path, and lock the door behind him on his way back in. And luckily, someone broke into my backyard and patched up the fence, so he didn’t get out that way either.” She glares at me with a hint of the intensity she usually has, but she’s not quite as feisty as I’m used to. “Do me a favour? Stick a thumbtack under your toenail and kick a wall!”

There she is. I feel better now. So much so, I can’t help the victorious smile from overtaking my face. That’s the final straw before Frankie closes the door and locks it behind her.

I hobble back home and remove my shoe on the front porch before heading inside. All three roommates stare at me from the living room when I enter.

“Usually, when there’s snow on the ground, we wait to take our shoes off until we’re inside, mate,” Austin chides.

“Not when they’re covered in dog crap, mate. I’ll wash them in the sink downstairs.” I smirk at him because his bedroom is the only one in the basement.

“The laundry sink. Don’t use the bathroom, man. I brush my teeth there.”

“No promises,” I add, continuing to walk past, carrying my dirty shoes.

Before I reach the top of the steps, Austin catches up to me.

“What happened to your shoe?”

“Pretty self explanatory, no? I was looking at my phone, trying to answer a text from my mom…”

“Man, that’s rough. I just shovelled thirty minutes ago, so it must have been a fresh one.”

“Lucky me.”

Austin continues chatting about some new app he’s developing with a classmate. It’s meant to be a virtual study hall, where students can make groups based on their classes and host video study sessions, as well as start conversation forums. It sounds like a great idea, so I let him ramble on while I scrub my shoe, but I struggle to stop my mind from wandering back to Frankie.

Something was off today. Maybe I should ask Blake if he knows something. Or Hollis. I know my sister has spoken to Frankie a few times, and the one time Hollis stopped in to drop off some groceries, she went next door and stayed at Frankie’s for a while before she left. If something is wrong, Hollis probably knows.

But is my curiosity strong enough to risk the endless barrage of questions my sister would hurl at me because I asked? No. Nor am I desperate enough to ask Blake.

So I continue to listen to Austin explain the intricacies of app creation and answer his questions about what features I’d like to see, all while my mind is elsewhere. To be specific, it’s thirty feet to the north.

Three hours later, my phone rings in the middle of me trying to finish my assigned reading for tomorrow. I glance at the phone to see “Mom” lit up on the screen and quickly remember I never got around to replying to her text.

“Hi, Mom.”

“Well, I’m relieved you’re alive. Don’t tell me you’ve gotten too busy to talk to your mother.”

“Never. I had an… incident and forgot to answer.”

“Is everything okay? Do I need to drive down there and sort someone out?”

My siblings have forever teased me about being a momma’s boy and complained endlessly about how I get special treatment. I deny it every time, but it’s 100 percent true. I’ve never heard her offer to “sort someone out” for Hollis or Ethan.

“No need. I handled it. How are things there? How’s Dad?”

“Fine. Busy. This new rec centre they’re planning is taking up all of his time. That leaves me… the lonely empty-nester.”

“What about Ethan?”

“He’s never home. This new business is keeping him busy whenever he’s not at work, so we don’t see him much. You know he’s more the silent type.”

“Sorry, Mom. If I was cut out to be a free-loading deadbeat who lived in his parents’ basement, I would, just so you could avoid the empty nest.”

“That’s sweet of you, honey. I am happy you’re taking your own path. I’ll just have to wait for grandbabies.”

That sentence makes me choke on the water I’m sipping, but Mom ignores my coughing.

“Don’t go making me a grandma anytime soon, though, young man. I don’t care how pretty that neighbour of yours is.”

Hollis better hope I never get wind of her in the proximity of anyone she could potentially date, because I’ll rat her out with no remorse. Sure, I’ve talked about Frankie with my mom, but her appearance never came up. I have no doubt Hollis was the one who mentioned it.

“Trust me, Ma, the neighbour and I are not making any babies. We barely even talk.” And when we do, neither of us has anything nice to say.

“It’s the ‘not talking’ that a mother worries about. Trust me, I never got pregnant from talking.”

“Ma!”

“Just proving my point.”

And that marks the end of my interest in any conversation for the day. “I better get going. Hopefully Hollis and I will be able to come home for a visit soon.”

Despite my intention to end the call, my mom continues talking for another twenty minutes. She tells me about my aunt’s grandkids, the book club she joined, and her friend Marnie’s cheating scandal.

Much like with Austin, earlier, I listen politely, all while my mind wanders elsewhere. Right to the one person I wish I could stop thinking about.