Where We Belong (5 page)

“Why not?”

“I don’t know. Never got the feeling he wanted me to. He keeps to himself. You stay away from him. I don’t like a man who lives alone and talks to a young girl but not his own neighbors.”

“It wasn’t like that,” I said.

“You don’t know.”

“I do know.”

“The world is a tough place.”

“Now
that
I
really
know.”

I opened the door to the backyard.

“Where’re you going, hon?” my mom asked.

“I don’t feel right with her being alone too long.”

“I’m looking out for her. Don’t worry.”

I kept going.

“What about your breakfast?”

“Could you bring it out?”

I didn’t really wait for an answer. I was volunteering to look after Sophie, so carrying a plate of scrambled eggs didn’t seem like too much to ask.

I walked out to the fence and stood over her. She must have seen my big shadow. But she didn’t seem to register I was there.

“Hem,” she said. “Hem, hem, hem.”

So maybe she did know. Or maybe she’d been saying it all along. Her voice was scratchy. But it wasn’t gone.

“What’s with this
hem
, Sophie?” I knew it had something to do with the dog, so I said, “Rigby. The dog’s name is Rigby.”

“Hem,” Sophie said.

Her hair was shiny and clean, and brushed. My mom had cleaned her up real nice.

“Rigby.”

“Hem.”

“Rigby.”

“Hem, hem, hem.”

I sighed and walked back to the lounge chair, and sat.

A couple minutes later, a plate of eggs was lowered in front of my nose from behind. I’d been so lost in my own head, I hadn’t even seen or heard them coming. My mom had put two buttered pieces of rye toast on my plate, and a tiny glass of orange juice.

“Thank you,” I said.

“Taste them. If they’re not okay, I’ll make you fresh.”

“They’ll be fine.”

“Taste them.”

I took a bite, careful not to bump my loose tooth with the fork. They were dry.

“They’re fine,” I said.

Stupid to waste them. They weren’t dry enough to throw away.

“You sure you’re okay out here with her? You had a rough day yesterday. It really should be my day.”

“I just want to see what happens with the dog. Then I’ll take some time off.”

She sighed. Kissed me on the top of my head.

“Wish you’d let your hair grow out.”

“I like it like this. I told you.”

“It would look nice long. More feminine. Oh… never mind. I’m sorry. Forget I said it. I promised you I’d butt out, didn’t I?”

I heard the door close as she went inside.

“You did,” I said quietly. “Twice.”

I was done with the eggs and halfway through the second piece of toast when the side door opened next door, and Rigby came bounding out. I looked up into Paul Inverness’s face. He just stood there in the doorway. Like Sophie and I might only be a bad dream. He looked tired to see me there. To see us there.

“Hem!” Sophie shouted. “Hem, hem!”

Rigby circled three times and squatted in the grass, then joined Sophie by the fence. I got up and walked over, and so did Paul. He was dressed too nicely for a day off. Not in a suit, but tan pants with a crease, and brown leather shoes, and a shirt that was blinding white. He was freshly shaved and smelled like some kind of aftershave. Like he was going on a date. Not letting the dog out to pee.

“Thought she’d lose her voice, and we’d all get a break.”

“Yeah. Sorry. She didn’t really scream till her voice was gone. She sort of screamed herself to sleep instead.” Then we both just stood there, feeling awkward. Well, I’m guessing about him. But he looked awkward. “I’m really sorry for what I said to you last night. About your dog’s ears. I was tired and stressed out, and usually I’d think a thing like that but not say it. I don’t know why I said it. I don’t know why you even put up with all that stuff from me. And you were polite about it. I’m surprised you didn’t just kick me down the steps and slam the door.”

Then I paused, finally halfway willing to hear what he would say back.

“I let you talk because I liked what you were saying.”

I made a face. It hurt my lip.

“How could you have?”

“I liked it because you were standing up for my dog. I liked that. You were championing her. Same reason I let you go on when you were reading me the riot act about your sister. That’s a good quality in a person. Standing up for someone who can’t stand up for herself.”

“Oh.” Which was a stupid answer, but I was embarrassed, and I didn’t know what else to say. Then I had to say something, so I said, “It’s Saturday.”

“It is. Thank God.”

“You don’t work on Saturday.”

“I don’t. Thank God.”

“If you hate your job so much, why do you do it?”

“Because I’m seven weeks short of retirement, and I can stand anything for that long. Even my job.”

“So… you’re… home all day?” Obviously, I was trying to scope out what kind of day with Sophie it was going to be. I was hoping it might be less obvious to him.

“Nope. Going to see my brother and his wife across town.”

I thought it was weird that he would tell me that. It seemed like too much information. He didn’t seem like the kind of guy who would tell you where he’s going. He seemed like the kind who would just say, “Bye.” And, if you asked, maybe would remind you it was his life. Not yours.

It seemed almost like he was really happy to be going to visit his brother, and he wanted someone to know.

“Taking Rigby?” Sooner or later, I had to get to that, and we both knew it.

“Nope. You’re in luck. Rigby’s going to wait here.”

I breathed deeply. As though I hadn’t for a long time. I think he noticed.

“Now it’s my turn to stick my nose where it doesn’t belong,” he said. “Maybe you could just get her a dog.”

“Sophie hates dogs.”

Then we both looked down at her, pressing her face up to the fence, trying to get closer to Rigby. I knew it must have sounded like a weird thing to say.

“Hem,” Sophie said.

“Her,” Paul said, directly to Sophie. “Rigby is a her.”

Most people didn’t talk directly to Sophie, so that was interesting.

“Hem,” Sophie said.

That was honestly the first moment it hit me. Sophie was saying
him
. Really, now that I knew, it could be
him
or
hem
just as easy. Her pronunciation wasn’t perfect, but it was enough like
him
that I couldn’t imagine why I hadn’t gotten that on my own. Why a stranger had to figure it out for me. Then again, with as many words as Sophie had said in her life, Paul Inverness had heard almost as many of them as I had.

I decided that was something I didn’t want to dwell on.

“I know it doesn’t make sense, what I said about her not liking dogs. It’s true, though. She just likes
your
dog. Not dogs in general.”

Another bit of silence, and then he shook his head. I could tell he was done with the conversation. He wanted out.

He turned to go.

“Have fun at your brother’s,” I said.

He stopped. Turned back. Gave me the strangest look. It was actually sort of…suspicious. Like I must have had an ulterior motive in saying it. “Now why would you say a thing like that?”

“I… oh. Um… I don’t know. Doesn’t everybody say things like that? You seemed like you were happy to go see your brother. That’s all.”

“I’m not happy to go see my brother.”

“Really? Seemed like you were.”

“I have no idea why you would say that. I don’t even like my brother.”

I wanted to say, “Then why are you going to see him?” But… not really, I didn’t. I wanted to think it. The conversation had taken a weird turn, and there was no way I was saying anything brave out loud.

He looked over at me on his way to the gate. Gave me this look. Like the sudden weirdness was all my fault, and none of his own.

I made a mental note not to get into any more conversations with Paul Inverness. Any more than I absolutely had to.

I went inside to tell my mom the good news. That things were going to be easy for a while. For a few hours, at least.

A few hours of peace is a lot.

Depending on what you’re used to.

I walked to the library, even though it was almost two miles away. It’s not that I didn’t have money for the bus. It’s that I didn’t have a lot of money, ever, and if I walked, I’d get to keep having it.

It was a smaller branch than I was used to, because we were out in the suburbs now. When I stepped inside, my eyes went straight to the computer room. It had eight computers, which wasn’t even half of what I was used to. But there were only two people using them. I was used to twenty computers and a line.

I walked up to the checkout counter. The woman there was only maybe in her early twenties, with hair that was blond but with a blue streak along one side.

I showed her my library card.

“We just moved. Can I use this same card here?”

She blinked a couple of times, like easy questions were harder to answer than hard ones. Then she said, “It’s the same library system all over the county.”

“Oh. Good. Thanks.”

Not that I wanted to check out any books. I love books. But I never checked them out. I read them for hours, and looked at pictures in them, but I didn’t take them home, because I didn’t want them to get ruined. But I knew I needed a library card to use the computer.

I started by sitting down at the reference computer for library books. I just sat there with my hands on my knees for a couple of minutes, trying to think. It didn’t really matter, because there were three terminals, and nobody was waiting to use any of them.

After a while, I felt like there was somebody behind me, so I looked up and around. There was a woman standing over me, maybe forty, with long, straight hair. She had nice eyes.

“Help you find something?”

“Oh. No, thanks. I’m pretty good at using the system. I’m just trying to decide where I want to go today.”

I watched her face for a minute. She was looking at me like that was funny.

“What?” I asked.

“Nothing. I just like that. It sounded nice. Where do you usually like to go?”

“I like travel. And travel books. And I like to look up travel photography and videos on the internet. But my favorite are big coffee-table books that tell you all about the places but also have lots of color pictures of them. Because then I learn about the place, but I feel like I can see it, too. But usually, libraries don’t have those, because they’re so expensive. I go all kinds of places, but my favorite is Tibet. So if I can’t decide, I’ll usually go to Tibet. I like mountains, so I also like India and Nepal and Bhutan, because they have the Himalayas, too. But I also like the Andes in South America, and the Alps. And I like Australia, because of the Great Barrier Reef. Even though that’s not a mountain.”

“Hmm,” she said. “Sounds like you know exactly what you want.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

I knew what I wanted, all right. How to get it was the problem.

She walked away, and I figured she couldn’t have cared less, and that I’d told her a lot more about what I was looking for than she needed to know. I never have much to say unless I’m in a library or a bookstore, and then I say too much. I never seem to get the talking thing right.

I was thinking maybe something new, so I started searching for Norway. Maybe someplace along the fiords or something.

A minute later, she came back and said, “We don’t have too much with photos on the Himalayas, but we have the Lonely Planet books for Tibet, Nepal, and Bhutan.”

She’d knocked me out of my train of thought. I felt disoriented.

“Thanks,” I said, “but I’ve read the Tibet one three times. And Nepal twice. Bhutan only once.”

“Read? Or looked through? Because those books…”

She held her hands apart, exaggerating about how thick they were.

“Yes, ma’am, I know they’re big, because I read them cover to cover, and I know how much reading that is.”

“Well. Wow. We could order something else from one of the other libraries.”

“Uh. No, ma’am, that’s fine. I’ll just go on the computer.”

It costs money every time they send a book from another branch.

“You know there’s the Road Warrior database—”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m good at that. If I ever go to a whole new country, I’ll go back to that. But I already know all the facts it has for all the countries I just talked about.”

“Hmm,” she said. “Can I interest you in a job as a reference librarian?”

I laughed, and it hurt my lip.

“I think I might be a little young.”

She put her hand on the top of my head for a second and then walked away. The whole time I was watching her walking, I could still feel that warm print where her hand had been.

I settled in the computer room and surfed Norway for an hour, but nothing made me feel the way I wanted to feel.