3
Inga, the cleaning lady, had been by while they were out. Not that there was much for her to clean— everything except JR’s bed and George’s three most prized possessions was still in boxes. This was another maddening thing about George: he’d move them across the world in mere days, but it took him ages to unpack.
The only thing that would eventually force him to empty out the boxes was meeting a girl he liked. He’d invite her over to show off his cooking skills, and half an hour before she arrived, he’d sprint around the apartment, tossing books on the shelves and lining up suits in the closet. He’d stuff the kitchen cupboards with spices, garlic, and canned tomatoes, turn on some jazz on the stereo, and start sautéing onions for soup. And finally, the apartment would start to feel like home.
And humans thought dogs were predictable.
Still, Inga came every other day to search for any white and brown dog hairs that had escaped the dustpan on her last visit. JR didn’t mind her. She had soft grey eyes and calloused fingers that went straight for the sweet spot behind his left ear. She’d chat to him as she cleaned, and although he didn’t have a clue what she was saying, it sounded pleasant enough—probably something about how well her grandchildren did on their spelling tests. She also didn’t move his bed from its place near the fireplace that wasn’t really a fireplace. Which was nice.
“Chilly in here,” George commented as they came through the door. “Inga must’ve left the window open.”
If JR could have spoken Human, he would have informed George that she did it every time, to get rid of the smell of his cologne.
The cologne collection was one of the prized possessions George had actually bothered to unpack. He had three scents: “Cowboy” (leather and a hint of cinnamon, for evenings out), “Hero” (jasmine and lemongrass, for days at the office), and “Sailor” (old fishing boat, for weekend adventures that never involved sailing because George was afraid of deep water).
His second prized possession was the T.K. Wanderer Silverback Shaving Brush. He’d bought it in Helsinki for a price that would have kept JR in dry food for the rest of his life.
“It’s completely worth it, boy!” George had insisted. “It’s the crème de la crème of shaving brushes. Made with real badger hair!”
JR had never known a badger, but he didn’t imagine they deserved to be used to paint human faces with shaving cream. The sight of the T.K. Wanderer Silverback still made him queasy.
And then there was George’s third prized possession. Which now lay under the bed in several dozen pieces.
“Ready for a snack, boy?” George called, heading for the couch with the box of pastries he’d bought on the way home. “I can’t wait to try some Russian goodies.” He set his box on the coffee table and pulled out what appeared to be a fried dumpling filled with spiced apples. “They called this a piroshki. Looks good, huh?”
He unfolded the English newspaper he always picked up at work and proceeded to devour his pastry while catching up on the news. JR headed for his flannel bed by the fireplace that wasn’t really a fireplace to wait for George to toss him a piece of piroshki.
“Looks like the Russians won the hockey championships again,” George commented over a mouthful of fried dough and apples. It sounded more like “Wooks wike da Wussians won da hockey chummions again.”
JR stared hard at George’s snack, waiting for him to remember his manners.
He didn’t. “One of the metro lines was down yesterday, so everyone trying to get to work got stranded,” George reported, licking bits of apple off his wrist. “Glad I can walk to work. John has to take the metro every day, since the Australian Embassy’s way across town, and he says it’s just chaos. Thousands of people rushing off to work, elbowing and pushing each other for a spot on the train.” George shook his head. “No thank you.”
JR’s belly growled. He sighed loudly, but George didn’t notice.
The phone in George’s pocket buzzed, and he pulled it out to see who was calling. Then, before JR could object, he gulped down the last of his piroshki and ran his tongue along his teeth.
Humans. JR sank down into his bed and buried his nose in flannel.
“Hello? Oh, hey, Conrad. Tonight? Oh, well, okay. Sure, sounds good. I’ll meet you there.”
George hung up and shrugged. “Looks like I’m going out, boy. Conrad—he’s the Canadian ambassador’s executive assistant—wants to check out some art exhibit. I guess there’s a famous artist who sets up surprise exhibits in public places, and everyone rushes out to see them. His name’s Phil or something.”
He stood and yawned. “I’d kind of rather stay and hang out. That reality show about the figure skaters is on tonight.”
JR sighed again. Why anyone would want to watch a reality show about figure skaters—especially in a language they didn’t understand—was beyond him.
“But at least this’ll be a good chance to meet people,” George continued. Of course, by “people” he meant “girls.”
George headed for the bedroom, and once again, JR braced himself for the scream. But nothing happened. George emerged ten minutes later in a dress shirt and jeans, smelling like leather and a hint of cinnamon.
“I can’t find my watch,” he said, pulling his pockets inside out. “You haven’t seen it, have you, boy?”
JR sank deeper into his bed.
“Maybe I left it at work.” George checked his hair in the mirror. “I sure hope so. I’d be lost without the Dumont-Sauvage Seafaring Nomad AC III.”
JR closed his eyes, remembering the Dumont-Sauvage Seafaring Nomad AC III in happier times, when it was still waterproof to up to a thousand feet (not that it mattered, with George’s fear of deep water) and indestructible at zero gravity (another feature wasted, with his fear of heights).
“The hands are studded with rocks from a meteorite, boy!” George had exclaimed when he’d brought it home from a shop in Paris, after saving for an entire year to buy it. It was his third prized possession.
And now it was a mound of mechanical parts under his bed.
“I think I’ll be out late, boy!” George called as he pulled on his shoes. “Don’t wait up!” And he slipped out the door, without even tossing JR a goodbye biscuit.
JR sat in his bed for a while, mulling it all over. Part of him was relieved that George still hadn’t discovered the pile of shiny parts that used to be his watch. Another part of him was still put out that George hadn’t bothered to share his piroshki. But mostly, he just felt empty. Not hungry-empty; there was dry food in his dish near the door, and by the smell of it, some sticky crumbs on the couch where George had been sitting. No, this was a different kind of empty. The emptiness that came with knowing he had an entire evening to kill in a boring apartment, in a city he’d never know.
And with that emptiness came the twitchiness, back with a vengeance.
He closed his eyes and tried to think of something, anything, to distract himself from doing another Very Bad Thing. But all he could think of was the muddy, matted stray racing down the street with a ring of sausage in his mouth and a look of pure joy in his eyes.
JR began to salivate. He opened his eyes and blinked hard.
That’s when he saw the window—the one Inga had left open. Its curtains were trembling in the breeze.
She hadn’t left it open wide, just six inches or so.
Just wide enough for an average-sized Jack Russell terrier to slip through.
It happened like it always did when twitchiness was involved. One second he was sitting in bed, watching the curtains shiver, and the next thing he knew, his paws were hitting the cold concrete a few feet below the window.
He paused only a second to consider what he’d done before racing off down the street, his tongue flapping in the almost-spring air.