Notes From a Liar and Her Dog (12 page)

I nod.

“And two, you need to straighten out that vet problem.”

“What vet problem?”

“Come on, Ant.” Just Carol folds her arms in front of her and sets her elbows on the desk. Her green eyes won’t let me go. “You know exactly what I’m talking about.”

“How can I straighten it out? I don’t have the money to pay!”

“I’m sure we can work that out. But we’ll need to talk to your mom about it.”

“My mom? Why do we have to bring her into this?”

“Because what you did was illegal. And she is the person responsible for you.”

I look over at Harrison. He’s nodding his head.

I take a deep breath. I suppose with Just Carol, I could maybe try the truth, kind of like an experiment. Maybe. But not with my mom. Please, not with my mom. Lies are the only way I can handle her.

I feel trapped. It’s stuffy in this classroom and full of a dusty, chalky smell, which makes me cough. I want to get out.

“Look, Ant, your mom is going to find out about the vet one way or another. It will be better if you tell her.”

“Better than what?” I ask, staring at the chalkboard, which has a list of things Columbus brought to America. Nutmeg, silk, cinnamon, salt, it says.

“Better than if she finds out from someone else.”

I glare at Harrison. “See! I tell her one thing and she blabs it to everyone.”

“I don’t mean I’m going to report this or tell your
mom anything. I’m not. All I’m saying is, if you want to continue with the zoo program, this is what you need to do. If you don’t, it’s up to you how you want to deal with the vet. But I suspect that eventually the vet will track you down …” She cocks her head. “Or
the police.
”

“But they might not,” I say. I look around the room. Anywhere but at Just Carol. My eyes rest on a projector with its cord rolled in a neat stack of O’s.

“That’s true, but if you do it again, the odds are you’ll be found.”

“Who says I’m going to do it again?”

“I’m hoping you don’t. But I see the way you love that dog, and I suspect that if he gets sick again, you’ll take him to the vet.”

“I’ll go to a different vet, that’s all.” I look out the window as a group of fourth-grade girls walk by.

“There aren’t that many vets. And who knows if the next one will insist on payment when services are rendered. That’s typically the way it works, you know.”

She has me now. I’ve thought of this before. I’ve wondered what I would do if I had to take Pistachio in again. There are four other veterinary hospitals, but they are a long way away.

Harrison has a pencil in his hand. He has erased half of a car somebody else drew on the desk. Now he is redrawing it, much better this time.

“So if we tell her about the last time, what does that have to do with the next time?”

“I don’t want to promise anything, Ant. But I will talk to your mom about working out a way for you to
take Pistachio to the vet when he needs to go.” She looks over at Harrison. “Do we have a deal?”

I say nothing. The late bell rings. “I’ll be at your house tonight, okay, Ant?”

Harrison kicks me under the desk.

I look out to the now quiet hall. The lights are buzzing in this room. It sounds like a thousand tiny grasshoppers are trapped inside. But I am nodding. I am.

I
watch out the window for Just Carol. Pistachio sits in my lap. I told my mom Just Carol was coming, but I didn’t exactly explain why. “She wants to talk to you about the zoo program,” I said. “Oh,” my mother replied, and that was it. She’s preoccupied today. I don’t know why.

I try to imagine what will happen when Just Carol gets here. Part of me wants my mother to behave badly in front of Just Carol. I think Just Carol will like me better if my mother is mean. No one would love Cinderella if she didn’t have a mean stepmom. The other part of me wants Just Carol to wave a wand over my mother and change her into the mom I want. A mom who says, “You know, I’m sorry. If I had let you take Pistachio to the vet in the first place, none of this would have happened.” I think about my real mother. This is exactly what she would say.

I sit there fretting and watching the driveway. My tummy gurgles, the way it does when I get upset. Then, without thinking about it, I do something I almost
never do. I dial the number on the kitchen bulletin board. The one beside “Don/Atlanta Office.”

My dad will be mad, but right now, I don’t care. I mean, if Elizabeth can call him, why can’t I? This way he can talk to Just Carol on the phone, and my mom won’t have to know anything about it. When Just Carol comes, I’ll just hand her the phone and she won’t have to see my mom at all. My dad doesn’t get so upset about stuff like this. Once when I was little, I bit Felicia Johnston’s arm because she cut a big handful of Elizabeth’s hair, and when my dad found out, he was almost proud of what I’d done.

I wind the phone cord around my finger and wait for the call to connect. “Leebson Insurance,” the receptionist says.

“Could I speak to Don MacPherson, please?”

“I’m sorry, Don MacPherson is no longer with the company. Could someone else in our sales department help you?”

“What?”

“Mr. MacPherson no longer works for Leebson.”

My mouth opens. Nothing comes out.

“Miss? Hello?” The receptionist asks, “Can someone else help you?”

“No,” I say. I hang up the phone. Pistachio squirms against me. It takes me a while to realize I’m holding him too tight.

The receptionist is wrong. That’s all there is to it. I stand staring stupidly at “Don/Atlanta Office” written in my mother’s neat handwriting. Then, my feet walk
up the stairs to Elizabeth’s room. I’m not quite sure why they do this except that I know Elizabeth hates moving as much as I do. It’s the one thing we agree on, Elizabeth and me.

Elizabeth has scooted her chair up to her dresser. Her nose is two inches from the mirror. She is inspecting her chin. “Elizabeth,” I say, “I called the Atlanta office. The receptionist said Dad’s not working at Leebson anymore.”

I can almost see the words travel inside Elizabeth’s head and register in her eyes. Her eyelids close, her head rocks back.

“She’s probably wrong,” I say. “It’s probably a mistake.”

Elizabeth shakes her head. “Must have just happened. I’ve been calling every week to check.”

“You have? Why?”

“Because I knew this was going to happen, that’s why.”

“Oh,” I say. Elizabeth has been checking up on our dad. This is not what I wanted to hear. I feel as if Elizabeth has just belted me in the gut. I take a deep breath and try to recover. This feels even worse than the receptionist saying he doesn’t work at Leebson. It feels more real, somehow.

Elizabeth sits absolutely still for a minute, then jumps to her feet and runs down the stairs. I follow her out to the backyard, where my mother is tugging a weed vine that has snaked itself around her yellow pansies.

“MOM, DID DAD QUIT?” Elizabeth cries.

My mother’s head snaps up, her hand is gripping the vine. Her eyes look surprised and unhappy, like she’s just spilled grape juice on herself.

When I see this, I know it’s true. I try to carve a way this will all be okay. Maybe he already has a new job right here. Maybe that’s why he quit.

“How did you find that out?” my mother asks just as the doorbell chimes its fake-organ sound.

“He better get a new job in Sarah’s Road, because I’m not leaving.
I’m not!
” Elizabeth says, her voice low and tough.

“Me neither. There’s no way,” I say. “Where is Dad if he’s not in Atlanta?”

My mother shakes her head and bites her bottom lip.

“Mom, where is he?” Elizabeth asks.

The doorbell chimes again.

“He’s in Philadelphia visiting Uncle Anthony. Now who is that?” she asks, wiping her hands on a yellow plaid dishrag she keeps in her gardening pants pocket.

“Just Carol,” I say.

“Why did he quit?” Elizabeth asks.

“Look, I’m not going to play middleman here. He’s calling tonight. You talk to him about this, not me,” she tells Elizabeth, then turns to me. “Antonia, are you in trouble again?”

I shrug my shoulders. My mom’s hands fly to her head to push a loose strand of hair behind her ear. She has a pained expression on her face. “I am in no mood for this,” she says.

“I mean it, Mom,” Elizabeth says.

“Enough, Elizabeth. You’ve made your point. We’ll talk about this later.”

I give my mom a comfortable lead as she walks through the house to the front door. I don’t want her to notice I have Pistachio and tell me to put him outside. I can’t face this without him.

“Hello, Mrs. MacPherson. I’m very sorry to intrude,” Just Carol says when my mom opens the door. Just Carol is smiling hard, in a funny no-teeth-showing way.

Kate is in the living room watching TV. The doorbell rings loudest in the living room, but she probably didn’t hear it. Kate watches TV the way she counts money. If a stack of nickels is in front of her, she can’t see anything else.

“Kate, you’re going to have to turn that off,” my mother says. Kate’s whole face gets red, and she looks as if she might explode. The only time Kate ever gets mad at my mother is when my mother makes her turn the TV off. “Katherine.” My mom whispers something in her ear. Kate calms down. She still looks grumpy, but not like she’s ready to kill. She heaves a couple of times, then presses the power off. In the sudden silence, Kate’s trance is broken and she looks over at Just Carol.

“You’re the art lady for the upper grades,” Kate says.

“Yes, I am.” Just Carol smiles.

Kate settles into the sofa as if she’s going to stay.

“Kate,” my mom says, “would you go upstairs, please, honey.”

Kate smiles sweetly at my mom. “Yes, Mommy,” Kate says. She walks by me. I hear the coins jingle in her shoe. “What did you do now?” She mouths the words at me.

“So,” my mother says when Kate is upstairs, “what is this all about?” My mother is being very polite, but she has her guard up. Her mouth is smiling a pretend smile. She is standing up and hasn’t suggested any of us might sit down.

“Ant has something to tell you,” Just Carol says.

“Antonia,” my mother says.

“Antonia, yes,” Just Carol corrects herself.

My mother is staring at me now. Her mouth is not smiling, not even in a pretend way.

I look up at Kate, who is crouched by the upstairs banister, trying to hear every word. “I took Pistachio to the vet,” I say. I look down at him. He tries to wiggle out of my arms. The sound of our voices is making him nervous. Or maybe it’s just that he knows he isn’t supposed to be in the living room.

My mother waits for more.

“I took Pistachio to the vet and I didn’t pay for it,” I say.

“How much?” my mother asks. She sits down. Just Carol and I sit down, too.

“I don’t know,” I say.

“You don’t know, or you don’t want to tell me?”

“I don’t know.”

Just Carol clears her throat. Her green eyes laser through my head.

“I gave the vet the wrong address, so you won’t get
a bill.” I look down at the rug. I wish I could crawl under it. This didn’t seem like such a terrible thing when I did it. It certainly didn’t seem like stealing. It seemed like taking care of my dog. But now with Just Carol and my mother staring at me, I feel like I wet my bed.

“The vet on the corner of Deeson and Meyer Way?”

“No. I went to a new one.”

My mother snorts. “And why are you telling me this?” She looks at Just Carol.

“Because Just Carol says I have to straighten this out, otherwise I can’t go to the zoo anymore.” I pet Tashi, hoping my mom doesn’t tell me to take him out of here.

My mother nods her head. Her tongue rolls over her teeth.

“So it wasn’t your idea to tell me, it was Miss Carol’s.”

I look down at Pistachio.

“You’re the art teacher?” my mother says.

“Yes.”

“So what are you suggesting?” my mother asks Just Carol.

“I think you and Antonia need to go to the vet and find out how much is owed and then figure out a way for Antonia to work it off. And I think”—Just Carol is looking shaky now—“you need to work out an arrangement for vet care for her dog. Because I feel like this is going to happen again unless Ant—Antonia can feel as if she is taking responsible care of Pistachio.”

“
Responsible
care,” my mother says. She has been
fairly calm until now, but this last statement seems to have irked her. “And tell me how this has anything to do with the business of art?”

“It’s only my business because Antonia told me about it.”

“So you’ve come here to tell me I’m a bad mother and I’ve made bad decisions.”

“Not at all, Mrs. MacPherson.”

“Sure you are,” my mother says, taking a Kleenex from her pocket and blowing her nose. My mother is the only person I know who can blow her nose this delicately. The rest of the world honks away, but she sniffles sweetly and politely. I don’t see how she can get her snot out this way.

“That’s what you were saying with that trip to the principal’s office. You were saying I am such a bad mother that my child wants a new one. As if I didn’t know she had this whole adoption fantasy going. You were trying to rub my nose in it, but luckily your principal saw through you.”

“I can see how you could feel that way.” Just Carol is focusing all the intensity of her green eyes on my mother. “I’m sorry I handled that the way I did.”

This stops my mother. She seems surprised that Just Carol has said this. She takes a breath and starts again. “And as for Pistachio, Pistachio is old. And if Antonia had her way, that dog would be going to the vet twice a week. I mean, what can a vet do about old age? Or is this my fault, too?”

“I’m not trying to make any of this your fault,” Just Carol says.

“I don’t take him every week. I only take him when he’s sick,” I say.

“Well, perhaps we could start a vet fund. And Antonia could do some extra work in order to have enough money to take him when you both decide he needs it.” Just Carol looks at me and then at my mom.