Welcome to Dog Beach (19 page)

I'm glad that she still feels comfortable here. Sure, it's only been a few days of awkwardness between us, but it feels much longer.

“I guess this is your way of apologizing?” Micayla asks me, after spooning some eggs onto her plate.

I pour myself some juice and try to figure out what to say. “Well, I just wanted to talk to you.”

“Talk to me about how you're stealing Mason Redmond? And have become a totally mean friend?”

“Huh?”

“He asked you to go to Sundae Best. I heard it.”

“I don't like him like that.”

“Why? What's so bad about him that you don't like him?”

“Well, he only wanted to go to Sundae Best to discuss the dog-sitting business. That's what I mean. It wasn't, like, a date. If that's what you were thinking.”

I take a small bite of eggs. I'm not really sure what's happening right now, but it's not the way I wanted the conversation to go. “But anyway, I wanted to talk to you about other stuff. I wasn't only thinking about the Mason thing.”

“Of course you weren't,” Micayla says. “You always think about yourself. That's the problem. When you were sad about Danish, I did everything to cheer you up. And when
you wanted to do the doggie day care, I did everything I could to help. But now that I'm going to be a year-rounder on Seagate, you don't care. And even the whole Mason thing, you don't care about that either.”

“Micayla, that's not true.”

“It is true, Remy.” She pushes her chair back from the table, and it makes a terrible screeching sound. “I have to give up all my friends and my whole life, and you don't even want to talk about it. For one second, think about somebody other than yourself.”

Micayla walks out of my house without saying anything else. That wasn't at all how I expected this breakfast to go, and I don't have time to get upset about it. I have to clean up all the dishes and go get the dogs. But when I look at today's schedule, there's a huge problem. I am watching all of our usuals: Oscar, Atticus, Rascal, Marilyn Monroe, plus Tabby and Potato Salad. But I also said I could keep an eye on Palm and the pair of Malteses. That's nine dogs. And one me.

There's no way I can handle that.

And now that Micayla wants nothing to do with me, there's only one person I can call to help.

“Claire,” I say as soon as she picks up the phone.

“Yeah,” Claire answers.

“It's Remy.”

“I know.” She pauses. “What's up?”

I take a deep breath and pray that this works. I have ten minutes before I need to be at Oscar's. “I need your help. I know you said that the dog-sitting thing was nerdy. And I know you think I'm too sensitive. But I'm begging you. Can you please help me with the dogs today?”

“Really?” she asks, and I'm expecting her to tell me she's busy ironing her jeans again or she has to go to the pool and work on her tan.

“Yeah.”

“I thought you'd never ask!”

“Huh?”

“Remy, I've been waiting for you to ask me to work with the dogs all summer. But I figured you didn't like me and didn't want me around, so I never asked.”

“I had no idea,” I admit.

“I'll meet you at Oscar's in five minutes,” she tells me.

“You know where Oscar lives?”

“Yeah.” I hear the creak of her closet door in the background. “I pay attention, Remy.”

It turns out Claire is awesome with the dogs. Marilyn Monroe loves her instantly, and I swear they're sitting on the bench together talking about jeans. Even though Marilyn doesn't wear them, she seems like she'd be very into fashion. Marilyn Monroe barks and Claire turns around to show her the stitching on her jean shorts. It's very funny to watch. But it's not only Marilyn Monroe who Claire's great with—she's also great at rubbing Potato Salad's tummy in just the right spot, and Rascal has a good time splashing with her in the waves.

I wonder why I've waited so long to ask Claire to hang out with the dogs. And when I think about that, I start to feel bad. You really don't know what goes on inside someone's head until she chooses to tell you—or you choose to ask. I don't think I've been doing enough asking.

“We still need to go to Sundae Best together,” Mason says, catching me totally off guard when I'm at the water fountain filling up the dogs' bowls. “I think I have more good ideas for your business. Whenever you have time.”

“Okay, hopefully we will find some time.”

I look over at Claire, who's playing Frisbee with Atticus and Rascal while Marilyn Monroe watches from a few feet away. She's throwing the Frisbee and chatting with Marilyn Monroe, and I swear I've never seen her happier. Not even when she's talking about her jeans.

Maybe I could borrow her honesty and say something important.

“Mason, I have to tell you something,” I say.

“Yeah?” He perks up and then looks out into the ocean to make sure all the swimming dogs are okay.

“You should ask Micayla to go to Sundae Best.”

“Huh?” He blows his whistle for no real reason, but I can tell he feels most comfortable when he's in charge.

“I mean, not just to discuss dog-sitting. I just think she'd like it if you asked her,” I say. “I'm just telling you, because, um, in case you didn't know.”

He nods. “Okay, Remy. I'd better get back to the lifeguard's chair. The water can be dangerous for these little guys.” He pets Marilyn Monroe, who has just run over to us and is now sitting at Mason's feet. I pet her too. I wonder if she can see the difference in me—how honest and open I'm being.

At the end of the day, Claire and I walk the dogs home and I tell her how great she was. “Seriously, you're amazing with dogs.”

“Thanks.” She smiles. “They're awesome. I think I might want to be a dog groomer one day. But more like a dog stylist.
Or maybe I could just come up with an upscale fashion line for dogs. Doggie Couture or something.”

“All good ideas.”

After all the dogs are dropped off, I ask her if she wants to come over for dinner. “I think it's taco night,” I tell her. “My dad is back in the city, and my mom is really into tacos. She makes all kinds of fillings—fish, tofu, chicken, beef. She brings everything over to the table, and we can make our own combinations.”

I feel silly getting so excited about taco night, but I can't help it.

“Sounds delish. I'll ask Grandpa,” she says. “Oh wait, but Calvin and my dad are back. I'll probably have to see them. Boring.”

“I understand.” I hadn't thought about Bennett coming back for most of the day. Now I'm nervous all over again. I can't keep my feelings a secret anymore. I don't even know what the feelings are, but Claire inspired me today. You have to speak up. And when you do, amazing things can happen.

“You told Mason about Micayla, didn't you?” she asks. We're standing outside Mr. Brookfield's house, and part of me wants to run home but part of me wants to stay so that I can see Bennett.

“How did you know?”

“He asked me about it,” she says. “He was like ‘what do you know about Micayla Walcott?'”

“And?”

“And I said I didn't really know much, and then he said you told her that he should ask her to go to Sundae Best, and the whole thing was so funny to me that I just started cracking up.”

“Why?” Now I'm laughing, though I'm not really sure why.

“He's just so weird!” Now we're both cracking up, not really about Mason and not really about Micayla. I'm not even sure what we're laughing about. But in the middle of the full-out laughing session, two things occur to me:

1. Claire and I are real friends now. Only real friends have this kind of cracking-up moment.

2. Bennett and Calvin are watching this whole thing.

“We're baaaaack,” Calvin says. “Miss us?”

“Yeah, right.” Claire looks at me. “On second thought, Remy, maybe I will come for those tacos. And then maybe I will move in with you too?”

“Tacos? Abby Boltuck's famous taco night?” Bennett asks, and my heart immediately feels warm and happy, the way it does after I've had a bowl of lobster bisque at Frederick's Fish.

Bennett remembers everything.

“Yup” is all I can manage to say. I want to invite him over, but there's too much that I have to say. I wouldn't be able to eat the tacos, and I can't do that to my mom. Our conversation will have to wait. At least until after taco night.

“So what were you guys laughing about?” Calvin asks, zooming me back into the conversation.

I look at Claire and Claire looks at me.

“Just girl stuff,” she says.

It's been almost a week and Micayla's still not
talking to me. Bennett stopped by her house the other day to say hi, and he said she was kind of cold to him too. We don't really know what to do about it. We've never seen her like this.

Thankfully, Claire loves helping with the dogs. And Calvin seems pretty into it too. He really only pays attention to Rascal, but it's okay. I think Rascal needs some one-on-one time.

“So. Two questions,” Claire starts when we're on our way to Dog Beach. We've picked up Oscar, Marilyn Monroe, and Palm. The boys are getting the others.

“Yeah?” I ask, admiring the rhinestone bow Marilyn Monroe is wearing today. I've been searching online for doggie hair bows, so I can send her one for the holidays. I kind of want to make sure she remembers me during the rest of the year.

“When are you going to admit that you're in love with Bennett? And when are you going to make up with Micayla?”

That's another thing that's changed since Claire and I have become friends. She'll just ask really bold questions like it's no big deal at all. Basically, whatever's on her mind will come out of her mouth.

It took her pretty much all summer to say that she loved dogs and wanted to help out with the business. And now she'll say anything.

It's kind of crazy how someone can change so much in such a short amount of time. Or maybe Claire didn't really change—I was just willing to look at her in a different way.

Claire's personality is part awesome and part scary. I never know what she's going to say, and in a way I'm always worried that she'll embarrass me. But the good part is that she brings hard-to-talk-about things out into the open, and that can be really helpful.

“I guess my answer is the same for both questions,” I reply. “I don't know.”

“Oh.” Claire looks at me, but I don't make eye contact with her. I feel exposed, like she just walked in on me changing out of a bathing suit. “I need to tell you one thing, though. About Micayla. You're being kind of selfish, you know. She's the one going through this whole big change. All you need to do is be understanding. So what if she didn't tell you right away? Maybe it was hard for her. Anyway, it's boring to talk about this, so that's all I'm going to say.”

Her honesty stings the way it usually does, but maybe she's right. She probably is.

“Thanks. I'll think about it.” I can't look at her. “But how did you know? About the Bennett thing, I mean. Did your grandfather tell you?” I look at her, finally.

“What? My grandfather?” She laughs. “Why would he know?”

“No reason.” I guess she doesn't know about our conversation, and now I feel weird talking about it. But it's pretty clear that Mr. Brookfield isn't very gossipy. He kept his scream a secret for all these years.

“I know about your crush because it's crazy obvious,” Claire says. “The way you act when he's around—all nervous but chatty. The way you look at him. They way you bring him up in conversations when we're not even talking about him at all.”

“Oh.” I look down at my feet, and at the dogs, basically anywhere but at Claire. I feel even more exposed now, like I'm walking to Dog Beach totally naked.