Must Love Dogs: New Leash on Life (23 page)

"Son of a witch with a capital B," I said for her.

"
Exactly," she said. "I'm pathetic."

I nodded my agreement. What are sisters for if not to point out the things the rest of the world is too polite to mention.

She walked over and slammed the slider to the balcony shut. "So,
what
, do you live in a barn?"

"
Ha," I said. "You sound like Grammy Hurlihy.
We can't keep heating the whole outdoors, kids.
"

Carol turned around to face me.
"You know, I'm kind of done with this whole vacation."

"
Turkeys are done," I said. "People are finished."

"
If it ain't one thing, it's six," Carol said.

"
Have fun and don't do anything stupid."

"
Catholic girls don't wear patent leather shoes. Omigod, I just remembered one of the nuns telling us that if you're ever in the backseat of a car with a boy and tempted to go all the way, to think of Mary standing outside the car window crying. Or maybe it was Jesus."

"
Ha," I said. "No wonder we turned out so well, with all that sage advice in our formative years."

Carol reached for one of her shopping bags.
"Yeah, no kidding. Though I might have to try that car window line on Siobhan when I get home."

Chapter

Thirty

Somewhere in the chaos of the resort Carol had managed to get our boarding passes printed before we left for dinner.

I held out my hand.
"I can hang onto mine."

She ignored me, attached the sheets of computer paper to her clipboard,
threw the clipboard on top of her suitcase. I could picture her handing them out to us just before we went through security at the airport, like cookies to three-year-olds.

I
'd changed into nice jeans and the only decent top Carol had packed for me. It was the outfit I would have worn if Paul Ridgefield hadn't turned out to be a dog owner impersonator-slash-womanizer. If we'd actually had coffee that had actually led to a date. I was over him, but a part of me still hoped I'd run into him tonight looking really, really good.

"
I can't believe Dad and Michael are blowing us off for dinner on our last night," Carol said. "They could have at least called to say they weren't going to make it back in time. We have
reservations.
"

"
So what," I said. "So our party of four turned into a party of two. We'll just tell them the other two people got sick, or our dates dumped us, and they'll give us a smaller table. Whatever."

"
It's so rude," Carol said. "This is what I hate about big families. Everybody feels totally free to dump you when they get a better offer. Because even if you stop speaking to them, it doesn't really matter because there are still plenty of siblings left to hang out with. There's no scarcity."

Carol
's phone rang. She scooped it out of her purse, looked at it, put it back in her purse.

"
Aren't you going to answer it?"

"
It's Christine."

"
That's so rude," I said.

My phone rang. I dove for it and answered on the second ring.
"Hello," I said. "I can't hear you. Hello? Hello?" I threw my phone on my bed.

Carol rolled her eyes.
"Yeah, I'm sure she fell for that. We are so going to have to make this up to her when we get home. Okay, where was I? Right, what would it take to pick up the phone and say that you're otherwise occupied for the evening?"

"
When you're otherwise occupied, you don't always think of it, because, well, you're otherwise occupied. God, do you think Michael and Phoebe are actually getting along?"

"
I don't want to talk about Michael
or
Dad," Carol said. "They don't deserve it."

The red walls of the restaurant enveloped us like a hug when we walked into The Jazz Corner. A group of musicians were pla
ying the kind of swing music our dad would have loved.

I started to order an orange blossom martini then caught m
yself. Carol ordered a glass of Chilean chardonnay so I did, too.

"
You're not going to pout all night, are you?" I asked as I dug into my citrus-less prosciutto-wrapped sea scallops with pear and apricot chutney.

"
I will if I want to," she said.

"
Fine," I said. "Be like that."

I tapped my feet to
"Jump, Jive 'n' Wail" while we ate. The food was great but I had to admit I was over this impromptu vacation, too. I was even pretty sure I was ready to get on with my life.

The band announced a short break. Carol yawned.
"Someday," she said, "I'm going to start a business."

"
You already started a business," I said.

She reached for her wine.
"Another business."

"
Okay," I said. "I'll bite. What kind of business?"

She took a long sip.
"I'm going to run an adventure camp for women who need to have some fun."

"
But we're having fun," I said.

"
You
might be having fun," she said. "I spent the whole day wandering around by myself trying to have fun, and I couldn't freakin' remember how to."

"
Language," I said.

"
I said
freakin'
," Carol said.

"
Relax," I said. "I'll help you run the camp if you want. I mean, I could use some more fun, too."

Carol shook her head.
"Oh, please. Your whole life is fun."

"
Right," I said. "It's a giggle a minute."

"
Okay, I left messages for both of them," Carol said. "I can't believe they're still not answering their phones."

"
Yeah," I said. "Who does that?"

Per Carol
's instructions, I'd written Michael and our dad a note on a sheet of hotel paper so they'd know what time they needed to be packed and ready to leave for the airport. I chewed a piece of Trident spearmint gum until it was soft, then used it to attach the note to the bathroom mirror. The gum part was my idea.

I fell asleep while Carol was still flipping through channels on our shared TV. I woke up to the sound of her banging on the a
djoining door.

"
Hurry up in there," she yelled. "We need to leave for the airport in an hour."

Michael opened the door. He was wearing drawstring pants and no shirt and his hair was sticking up all over his head.
"Where's Dad?"

"
What do you mean, where's Dad?" Carol said. Instead of waiting for an answer, she pushed past him into the other room. I followed her.

"
His bed is still made," I said.

"
It was like that when I got in last night," Michael said.

"
And you didn't tell us?" Carol yelled.

Michael shrugged.
"I just figured he was spending another night with Sugar Butt and they'd meet us at the airport."

"
Wait," I said. "Where's his duffel bag?" I pushed open the door to the bathroom. "His shaving kit is missing, too."

Michael reached down and opened the tiny refrigerator door.
"Beer's gone."

"
I'll kill him," Carol said. She turned and ran into the other room, grabbed her phone, hit a button.

"
Dad," she yelled. "Pick up the phone. We're getting ready to leave for the airport so Sugar Butt needs to get
your
butt back here right now."

"
Here, give me the phone," Michael said. "I've got it down to a science."

Michael hit redial a couple of times. Then I called our dad
's phone from my phone. It rang three times then went to voicemail. Frank Sinatra crooned about his regrets being too few to mention. Then the music faded and my father's voice said,
What's tickin', chicken? Billy Boy's not home right now, so don't bother to beat your gums off time. Just plant your message and I'll dig it later.

"
Dad," I said when the beep finally stopped. "It's Sarah. Listen, you have to come home with us. You can catch up on your sleep, and then you can invite Sugar Butt for a visit. We'll have a cookout. Okay, well, call me."

I hung up and looked at Carol and Michael.
"Now what do we do?"

"
Do either of you know if his phone is set up so we can track it with GPS?" Carol said.

"Remember?" Michael said. "We enabled it when we gave him the phone for Christmas."

"
Do you know how it works?" I said as we followed Michael back to the other room.

He scooped up his phone from the nightstand between the two beds.
"Yeah. Annie and Lainie have location tracking set up on their phones so Phoebe and I can keep an eye on them. I might have actually used it a few times to check up on Phoebe, too."

"
Grab your stuff and make it snappy," Carol said. "We're going after him."

It was early enough that the tourist traffic hadn
't completely clogged the roads yet, so we made good time getting off the island. We were all dying for coffee and breakfast, but in the end we chose our father over caffeine. We simply didn't have time for both if we were going to make our flight.

Michael sat in the co-pilot
's seat, tracking the green GPS map on his cell phone. My growling stomach helped keep me awake in the backseat as we drove.

Carol shook her head.
"Dad's Dad, but he still wouldn't do this to us. Would he?"

"
Of course not," I said. "At least I don't think so."

"
Hard to say," Michael said.

I managed to yawn and sigh at the same time.
"I have this awful feeling that Sugar Butt is holding him against his will. You don't think she could manage to tie him up by herself, do you?"

"
Sure I do," Carol said.

"
Especially if there was some kind of a striptease involved," Michael said.

"
Eww," I said. "It's way too early for that image."

"
I can't shake the feeling," Carol said, "that we're going to knock on the door and she's going to pretend he's not there. And then she'll try to keep us from coming into the house. And she's got him tied up in her bedroom—"

"
With a long yellow silk scarf," I said.

"
Polyester," Carol said. "And blindfolded with a black sleep mask. Velveteen."

"
He'd think he died and went to heaven," Michael said. "She wouldn't get carried away and hurt him, would she?"

"
She might if he tries to get away," Carol said. "I just hope he has the good sense to just sit tight and trust that we'll come after him and not set her off."  

We drove for a while in silence. I was lost in my lapsed Cath
olic version of a prayer, which always started with a mini-confession, followed by a longer apology for not checking in more often.
Just let him be safe, just let him be safe.

"
Okay, we're almost there," Michael said. "Get over to the left. It looks like the next turnoff."

Carol put on her blinker and we pulled off the main drag.

We drove slowly past an enormous brick sign with MOON CITY painted on it in big yellow block letters. Rows and rows of matching yellow flowers were spaced evenly in front of the sign. Ahead of us, down a palm tree-studded lane, a serious-looking guardhouse with an electric privacy gate blocked our way in.

"
Are you sure this is it?" Carol said. "I thought Sugar Butt lived in Savannah."

"
This is definitely it," Michael said. He turned his phone so Carol could see. "Look. It's right there—that little dot on the screen. Wow, there's like a million houses in this place. And three pools. Looks like a golf course, too."

"
This feels so familiar," I said. "Wait, I know. Those people who were cooking chicken on their grill and an alligator tried to follow them into their house to get some?"