Also Known as Elvis (11 page)

“Sorry. I should have said something right off. It's hard, though, Skeeze. It's hard for me to tell you I'm marrying somebody else when your mom and I aren't even divorced yet. Life is strange, okay? I didn't see this coming. I mean, I knew it was no good between your mom and me. I knew there was no chance we'd get back together. But I was still kind of hoping we could be friends or something and I could be closer to you guys, spend more time together.”

“If you didn't move so far away, we could've spent more time together,” I say, but so soft I'm not sure he hears me.

We're pulled up at a red light now, and he turns to look at me.

“I miss our times together, kid. Look at you, you're stuck in a house with three girls. And hey, I like Gerri—I mean, I love Gerri. But it's not the same as . . . I miss my . . . you know what I'm trying to say here . . . I miss my son.”

I have no clue what to say back. I don't even
have a clue what to feel. I wish the light would hurry up and change and he'd stop staring at me.

When it does, I breathe out and he changes the subject. “Hey, I got an idea! Let's go out to the music store at the mall. We can check out guitars. You want to?”

“Really?”

“Hell, yeah!”

“Okay. Sure.”

He hangs a sharp right and we head out toward the mall. “There's this store in Rochester not far from where we live,” he says. “They have
amazing
used guitars. We could get you a Fender Strat in good shape for maybe five, six hundred. What kind do you like?”

I wonder how he could come up with five or six hundred bucks to buy me a guitar when he can't even make support payments to my mom. But I shrug the thought off and tell him, “I've never even held one. How should I know?”

“Well, you will by the time we're done at the mall,” he says, almost as excited now as when he
thought he saw Penny. “I hope the store's still there. Hey, when you come to Rochester, I'll take you to Bernunzio's. You'll be blown away. And Gerri can give you some lessons. She's awesome. Wait'll you hear her sing. Oh, man.”

“So that's how you met? The band?”

“Nah, we met at work . . . well, actually, we met at this bar . . . but it was hearing her sing and play that sealed the deal for me. Hey, there it is. Strings 'n' Things. It's still there. Pathetic name for a store, but they've got a big selection. Or at least they did. Del and I used to come here to mess around back in the day.”

So my dad and I check out guitars for two whole hours that go by like they're fifteen minutes. I not only get to hold one, I get to try out a whole bunch of them. I even master a couple of power chord riffs, which is awesome. There's this one Yamaha I really like, and it's only a few hundred bucks. Yeah, I know:
only.
As if I could afford even that. But it's still a whole lot cheaper than that used Strat my dad was talking about.

The guy at the store says I'm a natural. I don't know if I should believe him or not since, hey, it's his job to sell guitars, right? But I think he figured out early on that we weren't buying, so who knows, maybe I really am a natural. All I know is I'm having a good time. And I keep right on having a good time through lunch at KFC and six games out at Spare Time Lanes.

After my dad drops me off at home (“See ya, Skeezo.” “See ya, Dad.”), I'm hardly through the door when my mom asks, “So did you two have your big man-to-man talk?”

It's the first time I've thought about it since this morning at Betty & Pauls. I'm not sure what to tell her. We never talked about sex or any stuff like that. We talked about missing Penny and playing drums and guitar. We ate fried chicken and bowled six games. And my dad said he missed his son.

“Yeah,” I say. “Yeah, we did.”

Here's something weird. With Sunday being so slow at the Candy Kitchen and then having Monday and Tuesday off, I find myself missing working there, and pretty soon I'm dreaming about making hot fudge sundaes and banana splits. In the dreams, I'm using these random ingredients, like ketchup and dog biscuits and nut boxes. Nut boxes! I don't even know what they are, but I'm topping off sundaes with them, and everybody seems to like them, because there's a big sign in the Candy Kitchen window (except it doesn't look anything like the Candy Kitchen, being a dream and all) that says
SKEEZIE'S FAMOUS SUNDAES, NOW WITH NUT BOXES!

I wake up laughing. I swear, I'm
so
ready for my own reality show.

Anyways, Tuesday morning I walk Megan and Jessie to day camp (their third one this summer), then text Becca on the walk back home.

hey, we still got a date with a dog?

OMG! I AM SO PSYCHED! My mom says it's good ur coming with, so u can stop me from taking home every dog I see

who says I'm going to stop u?

lol!!! c u at 12

later

It's really peaceful when I get back home. No sisters. No mom. Then that dog Oscar pops into my head and I think: no dog.

I head out back to Penny's old doghouse. I'm all set to crawl inside when my phone buzzes in my jacket pocket.

You never call, you never write.

hi addie

You never capitalize, you never punctuate.

Hi! Addie?

That's better. How are you?

A.W,E:S?O;M-E!

I see that my being away hasn't robbed you of your sense of humor. What a shame. Miss me much?

Who is this again?

Very funny.

We go back and forth like this for a while, Addie eventually telling me what she's been doing with her grandma (who is cooler than 99 percent of the grandmothers on the planet) and me telling her what's been going on with me. When I say I'm looking at dogs with Becca in a couple of hours, she says,
Sounds like fun. Just be careful.

what do you mean,
I text back.

I wait a full minute until she writes,
Sorry, I've got to go. Getting our hands hennaed. Running late. Ciao.

Okay:

1. She has clearly been texting with Joe. Addie never said “ciao” before in her life.

2. What does “getting our hands hennaed” mean?

3. More important, what does “just be careful” mean? Careful of what?

Becca and her mom show up early. I've met her mom before. She's pretty nice as moms go. And she seems even nicer today because she's as
excited about getting a dog as Becca is. In the back of her station wagon are a crate, a doggy bed, and two overstuffed, humongous bags full of toys and food from Pete's Pets.

“I guess you're planning on going home with a dog,” I crack, and they both smile at me from the front seat.

“Thanks so much for going with us, Skeezie,” says Mrs. Wrightsman. “I'm afraid we
both
need somebody to be the voice of reason.”

“I'm not sure I'm the right guy for the job,” I say. “I'm a sucker for dogs.”

“I was telling Mom about Penny,” says Becca, turning down the corners of her mouth into an
aw, poor Skeezie
frown. I
think
she means it.

“I'm so sorry,” Mrs. Wrightsman says. “I know it happened a long time ago, but I don't believe we ever get over losing a pet. I had a canary named Alice that flew out of the window when I was, oh, nine or so. And to this day—”

“Mom!” Becca says sharply. “I don't think a canary and a dog are the same thing.”

“Well, of course they're not the same thing, Becca. One is a bird and one is a dog. But you didn't know Alice, did you? I did, and let me tell you, she was not your usual canary.”

“Omigod!” Becca cries. “I
so
have to tweet that!”

While Becca's thumbs are busy tweeting “She was not your usual canary,” her mom and I exchange sympathetic looks in the rearview mirror.

“I get what you're saying, Mrs. Wrightsman,” I tell her.

“I know you do, Skeezie. And please call me Lainy.”

“Um, okay.” Like that is ever going to happen.

Becca looks up from her phone and squeals, “Omigod, we're here, we're here! Mom, pull in, hurry up!”

“Becca, calm down! Do you want me to have an accident?”

Becca clamps her lips tight and keeps squealing in this muffled sort of way. I can't decide if I think she's way cute or obnoxious—like Megan, four years older.

After Mrs. Wrightsman, a.k.a. Lainy, parks, we run to the door of the shelter, Becca practically tearing my arm off. Inside there's another family, already looking at dogs.

Becca says in a stage whisper, “This isn't fair! What if they find the dog
I
want before I've even
met
her? Or him.”

“What if the dog you want was adopted yesterday?” I stage-whisper back.

Becca's mom comes up behind us. “
Thank
you, Skeezie. You see? You
are
the voice of reason.”

I puff up just a little imagining that Mrs. Wrightsman sees me as good son-in-law material, then think how weird I'm getting.

It isn't long before we're following behind the other family. They are totally Nick at Nite: blond mom; slightly balding dad wearing glasses; teenage boy in sagging pants, showing off his boxers; preteen girl in short shorts and flip-flops, her hair pulled back in a ponytail. All that's missing to make them the perfect family is a dog, and that's about to be remedied. We're walking down a corridor
of cages where Becca is melting and cooing and going ballistic over every single dog, even the ones that look like they want to rip you apart just for fun.

“Ooh, what about this one?” she asks, dropping to her knees and coming face-to-face with a mutt that could be a cross between a poodle, a terrier, and a mop.

“Her name is Trixie Belle,” she says.

“Pretty cute,” I go. “The dog, not the name.”

“I agree on both counts,” says her mom, “but we could always change her name. Should we ask to take her out into the play yard?”

Becca nods, then turns her head and gasps.

“Omigod!” she cries.

The boy in the almost-perfect family is holding the perfect puppy. Trixie Belle is history.

“They're taking
my
dog!” Becca goes in this pained voice, like her whole world has collapsed. “Look at it, look at it! It's the most adorable thing
ever
! We can't let them take it!”

Okay, this is one seriously cute puppy. I know,
I know: all puppies are seriously cute. But this one is like award-winning seriously cute. It's all shaggy fur and big ears and wiggly bottom. And with its round belly and black-and-white coloring it looks as much like a panda as a puppy—at least, from where we're standing.

Becca says, “I'm going over there.”

“Becca,” her mother warns.

“I'm not going to
do
anything, I'm just going to say hi.”

Watching her daughter walk off, Mrs. Wrightsman rolls her eyes, sighs, and says, “Whatever Becca wants, Becca gets.”

I nod my head like I get what she's talking about, and we start to follow after Becca—and that's when I take a turn into a completely different story. All of a sudden, I'm no longer there with Becca, her mother, the puppy, or Mr. and Mrs. Nick at Nite and their almost-perfect kids. All of a sudden, I only have eyes for Licky.

Okay, Licky is, like, the worst name ever. Even worse than Trixie Belle.

But next to Penny, Licky is the best dog ever. Trust me, I can tell.

She is looking up at me from her cage. I mean, right at me. It's like we
know
each other. I almost think it
is
Penny, because it's that kind of knowing. But she looks nothing like Penny. She's got short hair, for one thing. She looks like a butterscotch sundae, white with big caramel-brown splotches, but a sundae with floppy ears and a hound-dog face. She ain't nothin' but a hound dog, and oh man, those eyes. They're brown, like mine, and all happy and sad at the same time. And I swear, after we've been staring at each other for all of twenty seconds, her mouth breaks into a big smile and she hangs out her tongue like it's a flag with some kind of message written on it. Which of course it has.

I'm yours,
it says.
Take me home.

I drop down and press my nose to the chain link. Licky presses her nose to mine. It's like Penny all over again. And then I start doing this completely crazy thing, as if there's nobody else in the room, which as far as Licky and I are concerned, is true.

So what is this crazy thing I do? I sing to her. The King, of course. But not “Hound Dog,” which is probably what you're guessing. No, I sing, “Can't Help Falling in Love.”

I haven't even finished the part about the river flowing surely to the sea when Licky starts licking. It's not the easiest thing to sing to a dog when she's got her tongue all over your face; but when you're singing Elvis, anything is possible.

“Would you like to take her out to the play yard?” I hear someone ask.

I look up, and there's this woman probably my grandma's age, bending over. She's wearing a smock kind of thing, which I'm pretty sure means she works here, or volunteers, or whatever. She has caught me in the act of singing to a dog, but she doesn't look like she thinks there's anything strange about it. She acts like people come in here all the time and sing to dogs. And maybe they do.

“Um, no,” I say to her. “I—I'm just here with my friend, uh—she's the one getting a dog. I'm just here to lick. I mean, look.”

She laughs. “Are you sure you don't want to take her out and run around with her? She could use the exercise; you'd be doing me a favor.”