California Tales by Jane Ciabattari

Author:Jane Ciabattari [Ciabattari, Jane]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: She Writes Press
Published: 2014-05-19T00:00:00+00:00

The girl showed up at my door around noon on the third day after the earthquake. “I wasn’t sure I could find you,” she said when I opened the door. She was pale and serious. I stepped aside and let her in. The dog came trotting into the living room from my bedroom, where I had set her up with a series of soccer balls to nose around the walls for fun, and perched next to the couch, eyeing the girl. The girl let out a cry and went to the dog and knelt to hug her. I thought the dog was cool for not going to her first.

I sat the girl down on the orange couch and brought her a glass of water. She leaned over the dog, murmuring.

“Where were you?” I asked. I couldn’t keep the edge out of my voice.

“I drove all day, half the next night,” she said. “I kept thinking of the time my brother dyed his hair purple and insisted I drive with him to New York in the middle of the night to see David Bowie. He was a fly-me-to-the-moon, you-can-be-anything-you-want-to-be kind of brother. When he crashed, nothing worked.”

She was silent, stroking the dog. “I was falling asleep at the wheel. I checked into some motel. I couldn’t sleep. So I drank a load of coffee and drove back.”

She stood up. “I’ve got to get home.”

“I’m not letting you go anywhere.”

“Are you trying to save me from something?”

“What about her? I can’t believe you left her here.”

“You really are some Mr. Fix-it. Coming here was his dream. He saw her with her own television series, like Lassie. So I did it for him. Now I just want to go home.” She buried her head against the dog and sobbed. Their hair mixed together, two heads with that unusual mahogany red. For the first time I wondered if she had dyed it to match.

“She was more his dog than mine,” she said softly. “She was the last of a litter of six. Every time someone came along to buy her, she’d sit on my brother’s foot. In the end he couldn’t sell her. I’ve never seen him love a dog like that.”

“But that didn’t stop him,” I said.

“You don’t understand.” She reached out and touched my arm. “He was sick.”

“I think you and Stella would be safer if you both stayed here tonight.”

“I don’t know if anything can make me feel safe.”

She seemed near collapse. I got her a blanket and she stretched out on the orange couch and fell asleep almost at once.

I sat at my computer for a few more hours, working, with the dog curled up at my feet. At one point she stood up and put her head in my lap. “You’re a beauty,” I said, rubbing her ears. Her tail thumped on the floor. It struck me that maybe the worst was over and I was on the other side of something. On one side was the time before

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