Starting From Scratch (2 page)

on the shelf above his head. e damn thing was so heavy,

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Georgia Beers

I was continually amazed each time he pulled it down that

he didn’t knock himself senseless with it. Josh is a gadget

man, up on every new piece of electronics on the market

today, every camera, every computer, every video game, but

he refuses to use the thesaurus on his Word program. He

told me once he didn’t trust it, that he was sure there were

way more options for each word than the ones

programmed into the computer and that Microsoft was

exercising its worldwide control by making people use only

the handful they designated. I told him he was a freak,

which he didn’t argue.

T. Harrison Jones & Associates is a small advertising

firm. e staff amounts to just a dozen or so people, but we

work very well together and we’ve come up with some

pretty brilliant campaigns for some of the most successful

companies in upstate New York. Small and mighty, that’s

what Tyrell likes to call us. He’s the T. in T. Harrison Jones,

as well as the owner, CEO, president, all that good stuff.

He hired me a little over a year ago and I have done

everything possible to give him the best I have to offer. He

treats his staff with respect, something I hadn’t seen much

of in my past jobs, and I want to stay here as long as I can.

Josh was here before me, and Anita Christopher was hired

just after me as a senior account executive. e three of us

make a formidable team and we helped THJ garner a

reputation locally. An impressive one.

“How was the view at the bank?” Josh asked as he

squinted at his monitor.

“As stunning as always,” I said, tossing in a dreamy

sigh for good measure. Since our computers are placed in

the corners of our desks, we actually sit almost with our

backs to each other. We’d carried on many a conversation

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Starting From Scratch

without ever looking at one another. “And she had to talk

an irritated customer off the ledge.”

“I bet she did it in six seconds flat.” Josh was also well-

aware of Elena Walker, since he did his banking at the

same branch I did.

“Easily.” I opened up the file on the design for the

microbrewery on which I’d been putting the finishing

touches. “I think he fell in love with her.”

“Well, he’ll have to stand in line behind us.”

“I tried to tell him that. Telepathically, of course.”

“Did he get the message?”

“I can’t be sure.”

“Did you drool all over yourself?”

“I think I did.”

“Pig.”

I hung my head. “It’s true. I’m such a guy.”

Josh laughed, a loud bark of a sound that shocks most

people the first time they hear it. “Well, we’re happy to

have you counted amongst us.”

Our witty banter was interrupted by the ringing of my

phone, which I snapped up mid-chuckle. “Avery King.”

“Hey, you. Sounds like you’re having fun over there.

Shouldn’t you be working and miserable like the rest of

us?”

I grimaced at the voice on the other end of the phone.

Lauren and I had been together for almost three years and

broken up for nearly two. Our split had initially been ugly

(what breakup isn’t?), but I thought we’d gotten to a place

where we were almost friends. Lauren seemed to think so

too, and called me every couple of weeks or so just to say

hi…and to check up on me, I was sure. I didn’t call her at

all.

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“Hey yourself,” I said, trying to twist the grimace into

something more pleasant. Josh mouthed “the ex?” at me.

When I nodded, he pantomimed hanging himself. I

whipped my head in the opposite direction and looked

away from him so I wouldn’t bust out laughing in Lauren’s

ear. “What’s up?”

“Not much,” she said, releasing a sing-song sigh, a

trademark of hers that told me she was bored and just

wanted to chat. “I had a free minute and thought I’d call to

say hello.”

Lauren’s one of those people with whom all you have

to do is get the conversation started and then you barely

have to participate outside of tossing in an occasional, “uh-

huh” or “I see.” I knew if I gave her a push, I could get

some work done while she talked, and she wouldn’t lay the

guilt on me about not having the time for her. “So tell me

what’s new,” I prompted.

Across the cubicle, Josh picked up his own handset

and rapped it against his skull.

For the next fifteen or twenty minutes, Lauren

rambled on about her job, her mother, the date she went

on last weekend (I think she was hoping for a tinge of

jealousy from me…which she didn’t get), while I made

some final adjustments to the color and outlines of the

logo design I needed to hand off to Anita later in the day.

She started her wrap-up with, “Well, I should let you get

back to work.”

I jumped all over that. “Oh, yeah. We’re working on a

big project today and I really need to get back to it.”

“We should get together for dinner some time, you

know?”

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Starting From Scratch

“You’re right. We should,” I lied, panic nearly seizing

me. Dinner with my ex was not something high on my list

of things I’d love to do with my evening. “Let me check my

schedule at home and get back to you, okay?”

Josh snorted. I flipped him the bird.

“Okay,” Lauren said, and I couldn’t tell if she was on to

me or not. “It was nice talking to you, Avery.”

“Same here.”

I barely let go of the handset in its cradle when Josh

said, “You are
not
getting together with your ex, are you?

What is wrong with you people?”

“What do you mean, ‘you people?’” I teased, knowing

exactly what he meant.

“You lesbians and the whole staying friends with your

exes thing. What
is
that? Besides freakishly weird.”

“It is freakishly weird, isn’t it?” I shook my head. “I

have no idea. It just happens.”

“It’s crazy, is what it is,” he muttered. “You don’t see

straight men doing that.”

“at’s because the exes of straight men usually hate

them with every fiber of their being.”

Josh pursed his lips and exhaled through his nose as

he nodded. “Yeah, there is that.”

e rest of the day went by quickly, just the way I

liked it. On the way home, I stopped at  e Grape

Stomper, my favorite little wine store, and bought myself a

bottle of cheap zinfandel. Not because it was cheap, but

because it was surprisingly good. I also bought a bottle of

something a little more expensive to take to dinner with

me.

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When I unlocked the door to my townhouse, I was

greeted by Stephen King, the love of my life. Well, not so

much greeted by as looked at. He was stretched across the

back of the couch and could barely be bothered to lift his

head and acknowledge my presence. I set my briefcase on

the floor by the coat tree, put the wine on the kitchen

counter, then crossed to the living room and pressed a kiss

to the wiry hair on his head. In response, he gave a huge

yawn, his long tongue curling out, then in on itself like one

of those New Year’s Eve noisemakers.

“Hey, buddy,” I said to him. “Have a good day?”

His thick black tail began to wag slowly as he came

alive from his afternoon nap. He seemed to pour himself

onto the floor, sliding down from the back of the couch to

the seat, then from the seat, like a sooty black puddle of

ooze. He stretched again, first his front legs, then his back

ones. I shook my head with affection for the performance.

Steve is not a dog to be rushed.

We’d met not quite a year before when I decided I

wanted a dog to keep me company. I’d thought about a

purebred and I’d even gone so far as to research some

different breeds, look up some breeders on the internet,

and talk to a friend of mine who’s a vet. My timing

couldn’t have been better, though, because the local branch

of the Humane Society in Rochester was in the middle of

its annual fundraiser. During that time, they snagged a

couple hours on a Saturday afternoon to have a telethon

that was broadcast on a local television station. I’d been

channel surfing and ended up watching the whole thing

(not to mention calling in to donate fifty bucks). e shots

of all those dogs dropped off or picked up and just waiting

to be adopted really pulled at my heartstrings and I

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decided then and there that that was the kind of dog I

wanted. I’m sure there are deeper reasons for why I chose

this route, but the bottom line is, I went there the next

Sunday and met Steve and the rest is history.

My vet friend and I had a rough idea of his

background. She thought he was definitely some kind of

terrier, either Cairn or Scottie, judging from his short,

stubby legs and coarse, wiry hair. His stubbornness and

inability to walk without his nose to the ground seemed to

back her up pretty well. I suspected he also had a little

Border Collie in him. His ears were pricked up, but then

the ends flopped over. He tended to follow me around the

house by walking right at my heel, herding me in a sense.

And his hair was all black except for the white band that

ran right around his chest and a touch at the very tip of his

tail. He was easily the oddest-looking dog I’d ever seen and

that was one of the reasons I was so drawn to him.

Another was his personality. He is like a little person

trapped in a furry suit, and there are times when he looks

at me and for a split second I get a flash of a person. I

swear he’s often thinking human thoughts. at’s why I

gave him a human name, which he grew used to in a

shockingly short period of time. Plus, I thought having a

dog named Stephen King was pretty funny. What can I

say? e guy is a brilliant writer, and I am easily amused.

Steve went outside to do his business and then I fed

him before packing him and the better bottle of wine into

my car so we could head to dinner.

Maddie Carlisle and Joan “J.T.” ompson were my

best friends in the whole wide world. I’d met them as a

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couple nearly ten years ago at the universal meeting place

for lesbians: a softball tournament. I’d been called by a

friend as a sub for somebody who flaked out at the last

minute and I spent the entire weekend playing some

decent third base. I didn’t suck, but I wasn’t an exceptional

player. Many of these women were, though, and I enjoyed

simply watching them almost as much as actually playing.

J.T. was particularly amazing. No matter what the

sport, she’s one of those women you pick for your team

even before you choose your own girlfriend. She is the best

first baseman I’ve ever seen in softball. She spikes a mean

volleyball that leaves a reverse imprint of the word

“Wilson” on the forearms of anybody brave or stupid

enough to attempt to receive it. She was the star of her

high school and college basketball teams. e woman has

God-given athletic talent.

Maddie is pretty damn athletic herself, but knows

enough not to get into any kind of competition with J.T.

She just does her thing and smiles proudly while other

people stand in awe of her girlfriend.

It’s hard to explain exactly why the three of us became

such close friends. ey’ve been together since the dawn of

time; they’re the only lesbians I know who were one

another’s first girlfriends and are still together. ey’ve seen

me through more than one disastrous breakup and they’ve

continued to love me even after I did some really,
really

boneheaded things. ey are my lifeline and my

conscience.

eir modest-looking house is in Penfield, about

twenty minutes from my townhouse development in

Brighton. Modest-looking from the outside, that is. e

inside looks like it could have served as the photo model

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Starting From Scratch

for one of those
House Beautiful
or
Home and Garden

magazines. What J.T. has in athletic ability, Maddie more

than equals in her decorating skills.

I’d barely opened the car door and Maddie was

coming out the side door, arms thrown open.

“Stevie-boy! Come here and give Aunt Maddie a

kiss.”

I shook my head in wonder as Steve scrambled across

my lap and out the driver’s side door, right up into “Aunt

Maddie’s” embrace and set to work bathing her with his

gentle kisses. I never get that kind of greeting from him.

“What do you do, rub bacon all over your face before

we come over?” I asked her as I followed the love fest into

the house, my nose lifting just like Steve’s as I caught the

delicious scent of whatever Maddie was making us for

dinner.

J.T. stood in the kitchen sifting through a pile of mail