Imagine you are me again. You are shopping at the mall for back-to-school clothes, and your little brother starts gyrating and making all kinds of annoying sounds. Your mother and father insist that you escort him to the ladies’ room while they finalize their purchases. Totally humiliated, you show him where the men’s room is and wait patiently out by the food court. After a few minutes, your parents arrive and demand to know where their son is, just as your little brother emerges from the restroom, minus his pants. He proceeds to run through the food court, butt-naked, while you chase him around. Your parents respond by:
A. Scooping up the little streaker, securing his clothing, and giving you an extra $50 to ease your embarrassed soul with some additional clothes;
B. Yelling, “Why’d you let him go in there by himself? Go in there and get his pants before he catches his death of cold”; or,
C. Saying, “Wait, I’ve gotta get the video camera for this.”
The answer is not A. I’m reviewing this and similarly embarrassing moments courtesy of Donny Disaster as we make our way to Livvy’s house in the late-August heat. One of our less environmentally aware neighbors has his sprinklers on—like it will actually do any good at high noon—and Donny is tugging at his leash, wanting to romp through the water.
“Forget it,” I say. I keep a firm grip on the leash.
Donny whimpers and pulls harder.
“Look,” I say, “we’re almost there, and they have central air conditioning. Besides,” I add, “Mom will kill me if I let you get wet and you get sick again.”
Donny relents. He continues to plod along beside me. He gave up walking on all fours a few blocks ago because he was scuffing his knees and getting gravel in his paws. We get to Livvy’s, and I’m about to ring the doorbell when Donny barks.
“Arf,” he says. “Arf, arf, arf,” like some yappy little dog the size of a football—the kind of dog you want to pick up and see how far you can punt it.
“Here,” I say, handing the leash to my brother. “Hold Donny and don’t let him run away.”
The stupid kid holds out his hand, then he stands there on the steps, holding himself by the leash.
“Hey, Mattie, what’s up?”
It’s Nate. My stomach does the shimmy thing again. “Livvy’s in her room,” he says and holds the screen door open for me. A blast of cool air hits me in the face as I step into the foyer. How I covet real air conditioning.
“What’s with the kid?” Nate says, looking out at Donny.
“He’s a dog,” I explain.
Nate nods. “Is he house-trained?”
He smiles when I laugh, and my knees get mushy. Nate is 16, almost 17. He plays football. Defensive back. He is a god. For a moment, I forget that my brother is a dog. I forget that I have a brother.
I picture Nate in a white shirt that bares his muscular chest. He sweeps me up in his arms, carrying me off to some secluded castle on a hilltop. I feel his hands running through my hair, caressing my face. I feel his warm breath as he kisses my neck. I feel him sniff my ankles.
My Harlequin moment shatters around me. Donny is sniffing my ankles. I want to kill him.
“Bark,” says Donny.
“Stay,” I say. He sits down inside the doorway, still holding the leash.
Nate chuckles and wanders off. I follow him with my eyes, then climb the stairs to Livvy’s room. Music pumps from behind her bedroom door. I can hear her singing—sort of. Livvy can’t carry a tune in a bucket. She can’t carry a tune in a dump truck. I knock on the door.
Nothing.
I bang on the door.
“What,” she yells.
“Stop torturing those cats,” I yell back.
The door flies open. “Chica,” she says, putting her hands lightly on my shoulders and doing the Hollywood kiss-kiss-in-the-air thing. “Come on in, the water’s fine.”
I step into the chaos Livvy calls her room. Multicolored beads hang from the ceiling. A lava lamp bubbles on the nightstand, and a mini disco light is spinning on top of her dresser. Her bed is piled with something that I’m sure her mother calls linens.
“Can you turn it down?” I say.
“The music?”
“No, the pot roast. Duh.” I plug my ears to try and keep from going prematurely deaf. The thumping subsides to a moderate throb.
“I thought little Donny dude was coming with you,” Livvy says as she walks across the top of her bed to the window on the far side of her room.
“He did,” I say. “He’s sitting in the foyer by the door.”
“Why?”
“Because I told him to stay.” I watch as Livvy scrapes an old sticker off her window with a nail file.
“Why?” she says.
“Because that’s what dogs do,” I say. “They sit. They stay.”
Livvy turns to look at me. “Huh?”
“Did I not tell you this?” I’m sure that I must have mentioned it before now. “Donny is a dog. At least, this week he’s a dog. Next week, who knows? He might be a cat, or a cow, or a ring-tailed lemur.”
“Your little brother totally rocks,” she says. She turns back to the sticker removal project. Little pieces of brightly colored paper fall in curls on the windowsill as she works. “So you wanna help me rearrange furniture?” she asks.
“It would be an honor and a pleas— . . . well . . . let’s just stick with honor for now.”
She scrapes the last of the sticky part of the sticker from the window, then sweeps the remnants from the sill onto her floor. I shudder.
“Toss the stuff off my bed into the hall,” Livvy says. “Then we can finish rearranging.”
“I didn’t realize you’d started yet.” I look around the room.
“Ha ha,” she says. “I reorganized all my drawers already and cleaned my closet.”
I look toward her closet. The door is closed and I decide it’s better to take her word for it instead of checking for myself.
“Don’t believe me?” she asks. She climbs over the bed again and slides the closet door open. I cover my eyes, completely scared of what may be hidden inside. Then I peek between my fingers and let out a loud gasp.
“You didn’t think I was serious.” Livvy sounds genuinely hurt. Then she grins.
I gather up the jumble of sheets and blankets and toss them into the hall. “What goes where?”
“I wanna turn my bed around and put it over there.” Livvy points to the corner by the window. “Then I want my dresser over there.” She points to the corner on the opposite side of the window. “Then I’ll have all this floor space, and it’ll feel like my room is ten times bigger.” She spreads her arms out wide.
“How feng shui,” I say.
Livvy moves to the head of her bed and starts tugging.
“Don’t you want to vacuum first?”
She looks at me like I’ve suddenly started speaking Swahili.
“You know, vacuum? Clean the floor?” I move my arm back and forth to demonstrate.
“What for? I can do it after I move the bed.”
I shrug, move to the opposite end, and help her shove the bed into its new position against the far wall. We discover an interesting collection of furry stuff underneath where her bed used to be.
“So, that’s where that went,” Livvy says, picking up a dust bunny-covered sports bra. She tosses it at me and I duck.
The doorbell rings, and Livvy peers out the window. In a flash she is at the dresser, pulling clothes out and tossing them on the unmade bed.
“Something wrong?” I ask. I head to the window and look outside. A green Jeep sits in the driveway.
“Chris,” Livvy says, her voice a flustered hush. “Chris’s here. Chris’s here.”
“You are so pathetic.”
She changes clothes in a rapid-fire motion that makes me dizzy. Now she wears a cotton skirt and a pink tie-dye shirt. “Is this good? Or should I wear the red T-shirt with the denim shorts?” Without waiting for a reply, she changes again.
“Have you gone bananas?” I ask. “Chris doesn’t even know you breathe air, so he most certainly isn’t going to notice what T-shirt you’ve got on.”
Livvy pauses and looks at me. “Thanks for your support.” She grabs a brush off the top of her dresser and maneuvers her long hair into a ponytail. She fastens it with a big silver clip, then spins around to look at me again. “So?”
“So?” I say.
“Let’s go see what those boys are up to,” she says. She gets this devious grin on her face that makes me a little nervous. It reminds me of the time she talked me into calling Michael Cummings and pretending I was another girl, trying to find out if he liked Livvy or not. I’m just not good at lying or pretending to be someone I’m not.
A door in the kitchen leads to the garage. Livvy tiptoes over and presses her ear against it. Even from where I’m standing, I can hear noise coming from the other side.
“They’re working on the Mazda,” she says. A loud, metallic clanking confirms her statement. “Want a Popsicle?” she says. She nods toward the garage where their storage freezer is. My knees start to feel wobbly again.
“Livvy, don’t go out there and bug them.”
“I’m not bugging them,” she says. “I’m getting Popsicles for us and for your brother.”
She twists the knob, motions for me to follow, then opens the door. I walk quickly behind her, feeling like a total goon. I stand frozen on the steps that lead to the garage. The faint smell of grease and gasoline hangs in the air. I notice a little extra sway in Livvy’s hips as she moves past the midnight blue Mazda sitting on blocks. The hood is raised and Nate is bent over the engine. He looks at Livvy and me, his face streaked with oil and sweat. Even grungy, he’s gorgeous.
“Just getting a treat,” Livvy says as she opens the freezer door. “You guys want one?”
Nate practically glares at her. “We can get our own, thanks.” He sounds like he’s rather annoyed at the interruption. Chris looks like he might start to laugh.
Livvy heads back toward me, five or six Popsicles in her hands. “Let me know if you change your mind,” she says.
I follow her to the kitchen and take up residence on a stool near the counter. Livvy tears the paper away from a grape Popsicle, and I unwrap a lime one.
“Do you think he noticed?” she asks.
“That you’re a complete dweeb?” I say. “Yeah, he noticed.”
She throws the wrapper at me.
“It’s not my fault you’re pathetic,” I say, throwing the wrapper at her.
“No more pathetic than you,” she says.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning I saw you drooling over my brother, chica,” she says.
“I wasn’t.”
“Were too,” she says. “Speaking of ‘he doesn’t even know you breathe air.’”
Even though I know she’s right, it still stings to hear it. I have known Livvy since third grade. Her brother was in fifth. He has been making my knees wobbly ever since I first saw him on the playground.
“I grabbed one for Donny,” Livvy says. “What flavor does he like?”
“Depends,” I say, looking toward the front door. “Donny,” I call. Livvy puts the extra Popsicles in the freezer as I head toward the door. “Donny,” I call again. “Want a Popsicle?”
Livvy joins me in the foyer. “Is this where you parked him?”
“Yeah,” I say. I look around for signs of my brother.
“He probably got bored,” she says.
“That’s what I’m afraid of.” I don’t even want to think of where he might have gone. Or what he might be doing.
I walk back toward the kitchen, then into the dining room at the rear of the house. “Donny, knock it off and come here.”
“Hey, little dude,” Livvy calls. “I’ve got a Popsicle for you.”
I run back to the foyer and open the door. The heat presses on me as I step outside. “Donny,” I call at the top of my lungs. I look up and down the sidewalk, across the street. No sign of him. Nothing.
I walk back to the house. Livvy is standing by the stairs.
“Great,” I say. “I’ve lost my dog.”