Strays (10 page)

A
s I approached the entrance to Central Branch Library, I thought about what Doug, my counselor, had said during our last session: It was okay for me to feel angry. Anger wasn't my enemy, but I had to take control over the way I dealt with it. I tried my best to let all of the emotions flooding my system—anger, anxiety, sorrow—wash over me like a wave as I entered the building.

But inside, the familiar mustiness overwhelmed me. It amazed me how the smell of stale books could make all of the mental preparation I had done completely disappear. I was living proof of an olfactory phenomenon I had only read about in my science books. It all came down to my emotional brain. Scientists were studying whether or not other animals possessed the ability to recall emotions via smell. As the scent traveled up my nostrils to my head, my palms grew sweaty and I froze—a prisoner of my own memory.

“Everything I'm feeling is okay,” I reminded myself, plagiarizing from an affirmation Doug had repeated during each session, and I headed toward the computers. I remembered that when I was little they'd still used the old-fashioned card catalogues—large wooden pieces of furniture with rows and rows of mini-drawers filled with little three-by-five cards that listed each book alphabetically by author. Computers made things a lot easier, but Mom would always talk about the glory days of the card catalogue. When her own library went digital, she lobbied to take one of the empty files home, and she placed it in our entryway. Over the years, we filled it with all sorts of knickknacks—items found at the beach or on our walks through Topanga: a bird's nest in one, seashells in another. It was her personal treasure trove.

What had happened to that piece? Had Dad just up and sold it when we moved without even consulting me? Yet another way he was showing me he totally didn't care—that my opinions didn't count.

Sitting at the new and improved computer catalogue system, I typed
fairy tales
, which directed me toward shelves upon shelves of books. The Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen—they were all there, altered versions of the same story told over and over again, just as Perry had explained. I thought about Perry's instruction to have us look at these stories differently, from an original point of view, in order to glean something new from the story. I liked that idea.

“Hey, Iris!” It was Bettina from my class. She had just arrived with Lorrie, the one who had refused to sit next to me on the first day of summer school.

A librarian emerged and immediately brought a finger to her lips, shushing the offending shouter. Lorrie had spotted other classmates, who waved us over to their corner table. I approached cautiously, a little on edge, taking in the library environment and trying not to think too much about my mom.

“Hey,” I said, taking a seat. “What are you guys doing?”

“We were talking about the fact that the summer school crowd is unequivocally hotter than the non-summer schoolers,” said a girl from class.

Now there was a mangled theory.

“I totally agree,” said Bettina. “Delinquents are just better looking.”

I was glad that I wasn't the only one who considered herself a delinquent.

“And we're also talking about the assignment,” said Perry, who sat down with a pile of books that she fanned across the table. “I've played matchmaker here, trying to pair you up with texts that I think you'll get the most from.” She handed out various books to people around the table, doling out the Brothers Grimm, Charles Perrault, Aesop, and John Francis Campbell. Soon everyone had a book but me.

“This is it.” Perry passed the book to me, and I held it in my hands. “
The Bloody Chamber
by Angela Carter. She'll help you get an A.”

“I'd pass the class with a C-minus,” I said.

“Better to at least try for that A.”

I scanned the cover. It gave me the creeps. Rapunzel was in her tower, screaming her head off. The tower was resting on what looked like an ocean of blood. The whole scene was kind of disturbing. I tried to imagine how this book could help me do anything but have nightmares.

“Take the next little while to read around your books,” Perry instructed. “And then make some predictions on paper about how your particular author might interpret fairy tales. What kind of spin have they put on them?”

For the next thirty minutes, I was what my court-appointed therapist would refer to as a “healthy griever.” I was going about my business in a place that reminded me of my mom on a sensory level, and I was surviving. This was a big deal.

But when Perry left our table to seek out some “lit crit,” as she called it, the conversation turned.

“I'm so tired. I was hanging out on Pacific. I didn't get home until two,” said Bettina.

“What were you doing?” asked Lorrie.

“My brother snuck me into the Catalyst to see Modest Mouse. It was awesome!” said Bettina. “What did you do last night, Iris?”

Summer break. Sixteen years old. Surely I could come up with something other than hammering a wall and watching nature shows. But before I could fabricate a fabulous Thursday night, Lorrie interrupted. “Beat anyone up lately?”

The group looked at her, stunned that she would let anything like this slip.

I had been doing my best just to fit in—go by unnoticed. That was it. I slammed my backpack down on the table. The noise it made was amplified by the fact that the library had been so quiet.

I got in Lorrie's face, as close as I could. I could feel her breath exiting her mouth.

“You really want to find out what I can do?” In that moment I felt as though I could have ripped her face off.

Before I could say anything more, Perry ran over and held both of my shoulders. I aggressively shrugged her off. “Don't touch me!” I yelled.

“Let's go outside,” she said.

“Aren't there rules about this?” Lorrie asked.

Before I knew it, I was outside, my chest heaving in and out, a tightness taking hold in my throat.

“Just breathe,” Perry said.

Part of me wanted to push her away. I was good at doing that. But instead, I went with my instinct and moved toward her, just a bit. It was enough to get her to move closer to me, arms open. And there we stood, her arms wrapped around me tightly, and she made a slight shushing in my ear while I cried with such force, I thought I would never be able to stop.

And then that moment passed, like a paper bag that had gotten caught in a temporary gust of wind before landing once again on the ground.

“Lorrie is just a bully. You can't let someone like that take control over you,” said Perry.

“Why do you care what I do?” I asked.

“It's my job,” she said.

I thought about other teachers at Santa Cruz High who didn't take their jobs seriously—teachers like Schneider who thrived on students' public humiliation. And others, like Ms. Kaminsky, who had always been too busy to talk to me. If only they all had the same standards as Perry.

Perry handed me a tissue. “How did you end up here?”

“I failed English.” She must have known that already.

“I know, but I mean here in Santa Cruz. At this school?”

I told her the whole story, sparing few details. I didn't try to protect her from my grief or the tragedy of the situation.

Perry listened thoughtfully. “I don't know your dad, but why did you let him take you away?”

“What do you mean?” I asked, even though I fully understood.

“It sounds like he made you run away from everything you knew. Everyone you loved. It's hard enough to have a parent die. He didn't have to kill your whole world.”

I'd spent so long making excuses for my dad, I'd neglected my own entitlement to happiness. He was the adult. It was
his
idea to move.

Maybe Perry was right. Maybe things wouldn't have turned out so awful if I had stayed in LA, at my school, with my friends, at our house, with miles and miles of beaches. I had spent so much energy being angry that I didn't even take the time to figure out what in the world I had been angry about. And yet Perry was able to articulate it so easily.

“It's just not fair,” I said. That's how life was sometimes.

“I'll go back inside and grab your backpack for you, and then you can take off early.”

I accepted Perry's kindness.

*

My route home took me past Pergolesi again. The smell of roasting coffee made me circle around the block to do a drive-by to see if Ashley was there. No sign of her. I could safely get a cup of coffee without another confrontation.

It felt good to be in my favorite coffee shop again. But as I waited in line, Ashley emerged behind the counter, tying an apron to her back.

“Can I help you?” she asked before looking up.

“I'll have a latte, please,” I said.

She recognized my voice right away, and our eyes met.

“Hey,” she said.

“What's up? Actually, can you make it a double shot? I've kind of had a rough day,” I said.

I was relieved that we weren't making lame small talk with each other; instead, I watched in silence as she retrieved my drink. But at the same time, I wanted more of an interaction. I wanted something real to pass between us.

As I went to pay, she put her hand up. “It's on the house,” she said. She was about to say something more, but just then a gaggle of moms pushing their babies in strollers descended upon the counter, and I just waved good-bye and headed toward my bike.

I chugged the double latte as I cycled to dog training. By the time I got there, I was jittery, and I felt as though Roman could sense the change in my demeanor. He eyed me inquisitively.

“It's just me on caffeine, boy,” I said, extending my hand out to him. When he pranced toward it, I didn't recoil. The coffee had made me brazen, or maybe it was something else. Maybe when I released all my emotions with Perry, I released some fear as well. I didn't want people to be afraid of me. I didn't want to be afraid of Roman. What if I met him with the same openness that Perry showed me?

Roman approached my hand and gave it a gentle nudge with his perpetually wet nose.

“Good boy,” I said.

As we went through our routine of commands—sit, walk, stay, down, heel—I allowed Roman to touch my palm with his nose every time he successfully listened. This was what he had been trying to do for a while now. It was his way of saying, “I hear you.” It felt good to be heard.

We moved on to a new command,
come
, which involved getting the dog to sit and stay as we walked a few paces away and then said, “Come,” at which point the dog was supposed to bound toward us and resume a sitting position. But Roman was having a hard time with this one.

“You were doing so well, boy! Of all the days to be difficult,” I said to him, “why are you picking today?”

I set Roman up with a
sit
and
stay,
and once again I moved away before calling for him. He just sat there, ears perked, staring at me. When I walked over to talk to him, he tried to nudge my palm with his nose.

“No,” I said. “You need to do it right.”

Kevin saw I was struggling and came over to give Roman some tougher leash corrections. Roman was acting like a horse about to buck its rider off.

“You excited for the bonfire tonight?” asked Talbot as we moved on to a new task: newspaper retrieval.

“If I can get through this afternoon,” I said.

Oak smiled at me from across the lawn.

“Look!” said Randy. “I got Tinkerbelle to pick up a newspaper!” His little Chihuahua had managed to envelop an entire section of the paper in her mouth.

“Hope you perfected your ‘come' command first—the newspaper trick was a bonus,” said Kevin, still correcting Roman.

“Who in the world would want their dog to get them the newspaper?” asked Shelley.

“You'd be surprised at what little details are the make or break for potential dog adopters,” said Kevin, who finally had gotten Roman to listen to the “come” command. “This retrieval talent has won over many a new owner.”

Kevin handed me Roman's leash. “I'd go back to basics with him for today. Do the ‘stay' command a few times before moving on to something new.”

I got Roman to sit, but when it came time to stay, he fussed, standing up again the second I took a few steps back from him.

“Come on! Stay!” I shouted. This was a dog who knew how to do this but was choosing not to. We'd started the day so well, but now he was getting on my last nerve. My caffeine buzz was fading.

I walked over to him and did a harsher leash correction, the way I had seen Kevin do before. Roman growled and then lashed out at me, jumping off his one hind leg to try to bite my arm. Luckily, I saw it coming and quickly moved my arm out of harm's way. I was shaking with fear.

Today was not the day to mess with me.

“You okay, Iris?” shouted Kevin from across the lawn, working with Persia on the paper-retrieval technique.

“No!” I shouted back.

“What do you need?” he asked.

“I don't feel safe,” I said.

It was as though I had said the four golden words. Right away, Kevin was at my side, taking command of Roman's leash.

“I'll see what I can do,” he said, disappointed. “Just sit over here and watch until class is over. You don't need to work with him anymore.”

I had a seat in the shade of a cypress tree and watched the others practice the exercise.

“Where is he taking Roman?” asked Talbot.

I just shrugged. Roman had scared me—that wasn't an exaggeration. As Kevin led him away from us, the dog let out a mournful cry that landed in the pit of my stomach.

How in the world was someone as damaged as me supposed to be able to help a dog like Roman?