Welcome to Dog Beach (9 page)

I finish my Froot Loops and then run upstairs to put on a bathing suit. It's so easy to get dressed on Seagate. Breakfast in pajamas, never worrying about what to wear for the day—always just a bathing suit with shorts and a T-shirt over it. When I was little, I would walk around Seagate in
only a bathing suit and no one minded, but now it just feels awkward to do that.

When you think about bathing suits too much, you realize how weird they are. You're pretty much just wearing underwear, but underwear that everyone can see.

I'm upstairs changing into my turquoise-and-white two-piece when I hear Bennett and Micayla downstairs. I quickly make sure my door is closed. The safety of Seagate is also a little bit nerve-racking—friends can walk into your house anytime, including when you're changing!

When I'm dressed, I find them downstairs looking through one of my mom's furniture catalogs and eating Cheerios out of the box.

“This chair is way awesome,” Bennett says. “It's like a chair bed. Right? Doesn't it look big enough to sleep on?”

“Sure.” Micayla turns the page.

I wonder how long I can stand here without them noticing me. It's strange how engrossed they are in this catalog. My mom is obsessed with furniture, so she subscribes to tons of magazines, and pretty much every furniture designer in the world sends her a catalog. The same way I like to imagine perfect schedules, she likes to daydream about redecorating.

If it were up to her, she'd redecorate every year. She loves changing things up. And I'm exactly the opposite. If it were up to me, my room on Seagate would still look the way it did when Grandma owned the house. And my room in Manhattan would look the same way it did when I was a little girl.

I just like things to stay the same.

“Oh, hey, Rem,” Bennett says. Is it possible that he's gotten taller in just one day? Looking at him sitting in one of our wooden kitchen chairs, it seems like his head is a whole foot above Micayla's. I wonder if it was always like this and I just didn't notice. “People are setting up the Sandcastle Contest and I said I'd help. Micayla's in too. You're gonna come, right?”

We always help set up the Sandcastle Contest. We help get all the supplies organized and hang the banners and walk around Seagate getting people to sign up. But I'd totally forgotten about it. I need to go to Dawn's and tell her that I will help with Oscar.

Then I realize that Bennett and I never officially said we were going to watch Oscar together, but Dawn asked him too—not just me. In my head, I made the decision that I'd do it, but I don't know if he did. And he's actually the one who found Oscar in the first place.

I reach into the box for a handful of Cheerios. I never get sick of cereal. I could eat cereal all day, every day, and be fine with it.

“Oh, what'd you decide to do about watching Oscar?” Bennett asks as if he read my mind. “I really want to, but it's going to be hard on the days I have to walk Asher to and from camp. My mom ended up taking him today because I forgot about the Sandcastle Contest.”

“I want to do it,” I tell them with my mouth full of Cheerios.
It sounds gross, but sometimes it's okay to be gross with your best friends.

“What are you guys talking about?” Micayla asks. “Anything I should know about?”

Micayla was out to dinner at Picnic last night for her parents' anniversary. Picnic is Seagate's fanciest restaurant, and it's a really ironic name. When people think about picnics, they think casual and sitting on the grass and stuff, but this place is super fancy—white tablecloths, tall crystal glasses just for water, and even the salads cost a lot of money. The food is good, but it's the kind of place where you have to whisper during the meal, and eating there always takes forever. It's not really my kind of restaurant.

So we tell Micayla the whole story, and she says, “Well, I want to watch Oscar too!”

I look at Bennett and he looks at me and again I wonder if we're talking with our eyes or not. We're going to have to have a real conversation with words about whether we can still talk with our eyes.

“Remember how I was the one who was really able to communicate with Danish?” Micayla reminds us. “I mean, I have a gift. I'm practically Mary Poppins.”

We were obsessed with that movie when we were little, especially the parts when Mary was able to communicate with Andrew, the dog. So over the years, Micayla convinced us that she was able to have conversations with dogs too.

Danish would bark, and Micayla would talk, and then
Danish would bark back. But his pitch would always change, and it really seemed like Micayla understood what his barks meant, and that Danish understood Micayla's words.

I had totally forgotten about that, even though I have conversations with Marilyn Monroe all the time. But I didn't think I had magical powers—the conversations just seemed normal to me.

“I don't think Dawn would mind,” Bennett says. “And it would really help to have more people, especially when I have to watch Asher and you guys have to do, um, more lying on the beach.”

We both hit Bennett at the same time, and he says, “Ouch. I'm getting beaten up by girls!”

We all agree that we'd love to watch Oscar, so we decide to head over to Dawn's right away so that we can get to the Sandcastle Contest prep on time.

Dawn answers the door with one baby in one of those carrier things, one baby over her shoulder, and the third one crying in a swing behind her. Oscar is running around in circles barking and pushing his metal bowl with his nose.

“Oh, I am so glad to see you guys!” I'm not even sure if she notices that Micayla, who she's never met, is with us. “Oscar is hungry and needs to go out. The food is in the cabinet next to the stove. Thanks, guys!”

She leaves us standing in the foyer, puts one baby down on a pillow on the couch, and picks up the crying one in the swing. It feels like she's immediately forgotten we're there. I
guess that means we're just supposed to get started.

Bennett grabs the food. I pour some water into Oscar's other bowl. Micayla talks to him and pets him, and he calms down within seconds.

We really are a good team.

I go back to the living room to tell Dawn that we're leaving, but we find her on the couch, asleep, with three sleeping babies around her. Waking any of them up would probably be the worst thing we could do, so we tiptoe out with Oscar on his leash.

We walk him over to Dog Beach, which is luckily right near where the Sandcastle Contest prep is going on.

As soon as we get there, he runs onto the beach as if he's been waiting his whole life to get there. He starts playing with a French bulldog that we always see around. I think her name is Latte. Micayla walks off to start up a Mary Poppins–like conversation with that pair of Malteses we met the other day, and I keep an eye on Oscar, just to make sure he's playing nicely with others.

Bennett tells us he's going to check in with the Sandcastle Contest people.

I watch as he walks away, thinking back to that whole exchange with Dawn last night, the brother and sister thing, and the “We're just friends” thing. I don't know why I'm still thinking about it. It just seems to be stuck in my head, the way a burrito sits in your stomach hours after you eat it.

Bennett is Bennett. No one really spends much time
thinking about him. That sounds kind of mean, but it's just that I know him too well to have to wonder what's going on with him all the time.

Oscar goes over to get a drink of water out of this special doggie water fountain that Daisy Dog Lover Extraordinaire (that's what Daisy McDougal calls herself) had installed a few summers ago. I follow behind him and rub his belly for a minute. And then when I look up, I see Bennett walking toward me, but he's not alone.

He's with two other people.

The C Twins are back.

Bennett and Calvin take off to meet the Sandcastle
Contest organizers, leaving me alone with Claire.

“I got kicked out of tennis camp,” Claire tells me, digging her toes into the sand.

“Why? How?”

“If you let me talk, I'll tell you,” she snaps.

I stay quiet.

“I got kicked out because I didn't want to play,” she says, groaning. “I mean, seriously. My parents were paying for me to be there, so why did the counselors care if I played or not?”

I try not to look too confused. “Um? I guess because if you're not playing tennis, what are you really doing there?”

“Yeah, Remy. Thanks.” Claire huffs and walks away, leaving me standing alone with Oscar. He seems tired and ready
to go home, but I want to wait for Micayla and Bennett to get back before I head out.

Oscar goes back to playing and I sit down on a bench for a few minutes, feeling unsettled. I realize how good it felt when Calvin and Claire weren't here, but now they're back and Claire is being rude and surly and Bennett is busy with Calvin. I'm not sure where Micayla is, but I get this lonely feeling where I just want to go home and crawl under my covers.

I wish Danish were here. Oscar's nice and all, but he's not my dog.

So far, day one of the three of us watching Oscar is turning into me watching him. By myself.

“Remy, right?” I look up and see Mr. Brookfield, Claire and Calvin's grandpa, standing over me.

I nod.

“You running a doggie day care or something?” he asks. For a second I'm confused, and then I look down at my feet and see Oscar and two other dogs just sitting around me. I'm not even sure how or when the other two dogs got there.

“No, just watching one dog.” I smile. But then I think about my time with Marilyn Monroe, and I wonder if Mr. Brookfield is on to something. Maybe I
am
on my path to running a doggie day care. “You guys don't have a dog, right?”

I don't ever remember seeing a dog running around inside or outside Mr. Brookfield's house, so I'm not sure what he's doing at Dog Beach.

“No, I just like coming to sit here,” he says. “I like the benches. If you get up and stand on that one over there”—he points to the green bench a few feet away from us—“you can see the whole island. Try it sometime.”

I want to try it right now, but I'm nervous that someone will see me doing it and tell Dawn that I'm not acting like a professional dog watcher.

“So you come here, just to sit, even though you don't have a dog?” I ask Mr. Brookfield.

“I do,” he says. “The main section of beach doesn't have benches. And I don't want to carry a chair. Plus, I like to watch the pooches.”

“There are chairs on the south end,” I tell him. “When the Seagate Inn remodeled, they donated all their old lounges so that anyone who wanted a lounge chair could have one.”

He nods. “That's true. But I'm good here.”

I thought I was the only one who liked going to Dog Beach even without a dog.

I want to ask him something, but I don't know if I should. In all the years I have known Mr. Brookfield, I've never really talked to him before. I wonder if he was at Dog Beach all the times I was here with Danish and I never even noticed.

It's strange how you can see something all the time and not even realize it's there. It's like how when Mom rearranges the furniture and I promise myself that I'll remember how it used to look. But then after only a few days, I forget. Even though I saw it the old way for so long, I still can't remember.

In the distance, I see Bennett with a stack of posters that he'll have to hang up, reminding everyone about the Sandcastle Contest, and then I see Micayla talking to someone. It takes me a few seconds to figure out who it is, but when I squint my eyes, it's clear that it's Mason Redmond.

She's actually talking to her crush!

I'm excited and sad at the same time. They've probably forgotten about Oscar.

“So tell me more about that whole scream thing,” I say finally, trying to think of something other than myself.

“I'm so glad you asked. What exactly would you like to know?” Mr. Brookfield asks. He stretches his legs out in front of him, and I notice he's wearing bright white sneakers and tall tube socks. It occurs to me that older people don't like to wear sandals as much as young people do. I wonder if there will come a time when I won't want to wear flip-flops every day. It's too sad to think about.

“How come nobody knows it's your scream that's in all those movies?” If Claire were here, she'd probably tell me to be quiet and that nobody really cares about it. But I do care. It's so mysterious.

I'm suddenly grateful that it's just Oscar, Mr. Brookfield, and me right now.

“I had a very small role in a movie, and I was grateful to get it,” Mr. Brookfield tells me. “I'd been on a million auditions. In this one, I was cast as the person who was going to get attacked by an alligator. We shot the scene, and then the
director told me they'd want to get the screaming sound just right, so we'd record it later. We did record it later, but the scene got cut considerably, so you could really only see the back of my head. And then eventually, even my head got cut. But the scream. Oh, that scream! They kept it. And for years and years, and still today, people are using that scream!”