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  “Whatcha thinking about, Van?”

  I looked over and his eyes were right there to meet mine.

  “Just taking it all in.”

  “I didn’t freak you out, did I?”

  “Oh, no! I appreciate your honesty.” My words echoed in my head. I appreciate your honesty. It sounded like I was reading aloud from a form letter.

  “That’s my house,” Alex said, slowing down as he pointed to a raised ranch with brown shingles and black shutters. The hedges were a little overgrown and there was a Frisbee on the roof. At the end of the driveway stood a big wooden bear statue. He was wearing orange plastic sunglasses.

  I smiled. It looked like the kind of house where you could put your feet on the coffee table.

  We drove about a quarter of a mile, and turned in to a driveway in front of a yellow ranch.

  “Well, here we are,” Alex said. “On the way back, you’ll have to tell me your life story, and at least ten of those deep dark secrets.”

  Joe woke up when we pulled into the driveway. His eyelids were still droopy, but he surveyed the scene, ears at attention, trying to make sense of where we were. As soon as Alex put the truck in park, a short man in a long white apron came out of the door next to the garage door. Louis was not what I expected. He looked like Jimmy Durante. He was a round little man, with thinning hair that might have been dyed black with shoe polish, and a nose like a sweet potato.

  Alex leaned in to me and said, “Wait for it. The charmer part. It’ll all make sense.”

  “Hey, Lou!” he yelled, as he opened his door.

  “Oh, Alex the Great! Alex the Great!” Louis called back, waddling over to the truck.

  Alex got out of the car, and Joe followed him, bounding over to Louis.

  “Crap!” I yelled. I got out of the car and grabbed for Joe, but he darted away from me.

  “He’s fine,” Alex said.

  Joe circled Louis once and gave him a sharp bark. “All right, all righty,” Louis said. He leaned over and patted his knees. Joe put his paws on Louis’s knees and licked his chin before running off to smell the mailbox post. “See, we’re good buddies already,” Louis said, wiping his face as he stood up. “This must be Savannah.”

  I was amazed that he knew who I was. It meant that Alex had been talking about me. I wondered what the nature of the conversation was, if it was more on the side of “I’m taking this crazy girl to the park and then I’ll stop by with that book you were waiting for,” or if it was more of a “I really like this girl, I’m going to think of an excuse to come by with her so you can check her out.”

  “You didn’t tell me she was so lovely.” Louis talked to Alex, but waddled over to me and hugged me around the waist. He pulled away and kissed me on both cheeks. His cologne was dizzying. The hand he kept on my side was so big that it made my waist feel tiny. “I’ve heard great things about you,” he said, and his breath smelled like cigarettes and peppermint. The parts of him didn’t make sense, but the pieces all together were quite something.

  “Come in! Come in!” Louis said, trying to corral Alex with his free arm.

  “We need to get going,” Alex said. “I just stopped by to give you that book you asked for.” He did a half jog over to the truck.

  “What do you mean, ‘get going’? You say you’ll come by, I bake! I just poured the honey on the baklava, and there’s a pound cake in the oven. Stay! Stay!”

  “Next time, Lou,” Alex said, walking over to the truck.

  “You can stay, right?” Louis asked me, nodding to prompt my answer.

  Alex came back with a biography of Elizabeth Taylor. I raised my eyebrows at him. “Long story,” he said.

  “Now, we have coffee,” Louis said. “Vannah wants to stay and have coffee. You stay.”

  “Are you sure it’s okay, Van?” Alex asked. “This guy is great at putting words in your mouth. He’s talented in that way.” Alex winked at me.

  “It’s fine with me,” I said. “As long as Joe isn’t a problem.”

  “Problem?” Louis asked. “He’s a gift! Look at him.” He gestured toward Joe like a circus announcer presenting him to a crowd. “He’s beautiful. Beautiful. Joey! I have biscuits in the cupboard!” Joe’s ears perked up. He raced over to Louis and sat in front of him at full attention. I couldn’t blame him. I’m sure Joe had no idea what a biscuit was, but Louis’s enthusiasm was strangely compelling. “Come on, Joey,” Louis said, and Joe followed us to the house.

  Louis kept one arm around me, the other around Alex, until we got to the door. He pulled Alex down closer to him and said, “I love this kid. I just love him,” and kissed him on the cheek.

  Whenever I’d talked to my mom about a guy, she asked me if he came with “references.” Her theory was that if a guy’s friends thought a lot of him, and they seemed like nice people, it validated him more. Apparently, no one liked my father much. He didn’t have any good references. Alex, on the other hand, had a very enthusiastic reference in Louis.

  We went in through the garage. It felt like a real garage. Louis had a shiny black Lincoln Continental. But there were oil stains on the concrete and folded-up beach chairs hanging from the rafters. Diane’s garages all had spotless floors and were just for storing cars. Lawn furniture had its own outbuilding.

  When we got to the kitchen, just off the garage, the oven timer was beeping. Louis scurried over, and pulled the pound cake out of the oven, using the corner of his apron as an oven mitt. “Hot, hot, hot!” he yelped, dropping the loaf pan on top of the stove and shaking his hand out. Joe ran over to Louis and sniffed his hand. “Oh, you’re a good boy,” Louis said. “You worry about old Lou, huh?” He pulled a handful of biscuits out of a box in the cupboard. He broke off a piece and gave it Joe, and then shoved the rest of them in his pocket, effectively making him Joe’s new favorite person.

  The kitchen smelled like garlic and coffee and vanilla. It was warm. The walls were a creamy orange color, like those foamy marshmallow pumpkins that come out at Halloween. Alex looked at me and raised an eyebrow like he was asking a question. I tried to raise an eyebrow back at him, but they both went up. Worried that Alex might not get that I was okay with being there, I said, “Louis, thank you so much for inviting us for coffee.”

  “Sit!” Louis gestured to the kitchen table, which was under a huge fake crystal and gold chandelier. He’d set the table for coffee, and the baklava was arranged on a pretty flowered plate.

  Alex and I sat at the table and waited for Louis. Well, I waited. Alex snuck a triangle of baklava off the plate as soon as Louis turned his back. “I’m starving,” he whispered, and popped the baklava into his mouth. I liked how at ease he was in Louis’s house. I wondered how he and Louis knew each other, but Louis was busy pouring the coffee into a thermos pot at the other end of the kitchen, and Alex had his mouth full, so it didn’t seem like the right time to ask.

  I looked around the room. The kitchen-living room area was an assault on my eyes. The rooms shared a wall, and the change from kitchen paint to living room paint seemed to have been made arbitrarily- a crooked, hand-painted line from ceiling to floor where foamy orange met mint green. The line from brown kitchen tile to canary yellow shag carpet seemed more planned, and came right before the doorway to the hall, about three inches after the line on the wall, as if Louis had run out of orange paint.

  I stared at the wall like it was a piece of postmodern art at MoMA.

  “Vannah, you like it?” Louis came over with the coffee thermos. I tried to find something to say about it, as Louis gestured to the living room. I hadn’t noticed the Pepto pink curtains. Luckily, most of Louis’s questions didn’t require answers.

  “My first wife, she thought walls should be white, but Greta”-he sighed and gestured around the room-“Greta loved color.”

  I wondered if Greta was responsible for the couch. It was brown and bulgy, like a fat old man.

  “Vannah,” Louis said, sitting down, “you remind me of Greta. You have co
lor.”

  “Thank you,” I said. Alex laughed with his mouth full, and tried to hide it. He was already on his third piece of baklava.

  “Takes me two days to make it, and you eat it in five minutes,” Louis said, pretending to scold Alex, but it was obvious he was pleased. He poured each of us a cup of coffee, and passed me the cream and sugar.

  The coffee was rich and dark. “This is amazing,” I said.

  “Chicory,” Louis said, “and some vanilla. You scrape it off the beans. Not this stuff from a bottle.”

  “Louis is an excellent cook,” Alex said. “He’s giving me lessons.” I pictured Alex and Louis in aprons, covered with flour, like a Laurel and Hardy routine.

  “A man should know how to cook,” Louis said, holding his index finger up. “None of this ‘man’s work’ and ‘woman’s work.’ A man should cook.” He elbowed Alex. “Women think it’s sexy.”

  Alex turned bright red.

  Louis looked at me. “Right? Right.”

  I laughed. “He’s right,” I told Alex. “I personally speak for all women, and we do think it’s sexy.”

  “What do I tell you?” Louis said to Alex. “You listen to old Louis. I know a thing or two.”

  “Or three?” Alex said.

  Louis shrugged. “Eh, three is pushing it.” He smiled at me and winked.

  I loved being with them. I didn’t feel judged. I didn’t feel like I wasn’t good enough. It didn’t matter if I didn’t say the right things, or that I spilled coffee on my jeans. Joe slept happily under the table, with his head resting on my foot. Alex and Louis joked around and told me stories and were elated when I laughed with them. Louis told me about how, when Alex was a kid, he used to try to save all the desiccated worms stretched out on his driveway on a hot day. He collected them in a cup and hosed water on them to “wake them up.”

  “I tell him, I say, ‘You leave those worms overnight and in the morning they’ll be fine.’ ” Louis laughed. “I didn’t have the heart-I’d wait until he went home and then I’d dig a bunch of fresh worms to refill the cup.”

  “For the longest time,” Alex said, “I was convinced worms could be reconstituted. Before I left for vet school, Louis pulled me aside to tell me about the worms. He wanted to make sure I knew.”

  “I didn’t want him to fail Biology,” Louis said.

  “I already knew by then,” Alex said.

  “Eh.” Louis winked at me. “I’m not so sure.”

  I told them about the time I got chased by a goose at Gedney Park and fell in the pond in my Easter dress. “Oh, my mom was so pissed. Like full-name pissed. ‘Savannah Marie Leone! How could you?’ ” I said, copying her Long Island accent.

  Alex snorted. “Oh, you know you’re in trouble when they pull out the full name,” he said.

  “She made the dress herself and it was the first thing she’d ever tried to sew. It was hideous and crooked, but she was so proud of it, and she wanted to take Easter pictures. She went to the car to get the camera and came back to me looking like Swamp Thing. She didn’t see it happen, and she totally didn’t believe me. But that goose was mean. Hissing and everything.” I shuddered. “My mom made me pose for the pictures anyway. I had duckweed in my hair, and I was covered in mud. But we had pictures of it. A whole roll of film of me posing by the pond holding a tulip.”

  We traded stories for hours. I gave them my best impression of Mr. Wright telling me about the pet weight limit. Alex showed me how he could bend his elbow back farther than anyone rightly should. Louis told us a joke about Dean Martin and the Dalai Lama that made absolutely no sense, but he had us laughing until tears ran down our faces anyway, because of the way he told it-many hand gestures and an absolutely awful Jerry Lewis impersonation.

  We drank all the coffee and ate all the baklava, leaving only a sticky mess of honey and walnut bits on Louis’s milk-glass platter. Louis showed me his stamp collection, and wedding pictures from all three of his marriages, while Alex did the dishes, and Joe licked biscuit crumbs off the kitchen floor. I felt like I belonged there, like there was nothing at all weird about hanging out in a kitchen with my dog’s vet and his eighty-year- old friend.

  When we were getting ready to leave, Louis noticed the pound cake sitting on the counter. He smacked his forehead and muttered something to himself in Italian.

  “I think we’re too full for pound cake now,” Alex said.

  “Tomorrow!” Louis said. “You come back tomorrow.”

  “Louis, I’m sure Van is busy,” Alex said, sighing.

  “No,” Louis insisted. “You can come back, right?” He shuffled us to the door and gave me a hug good- bye. “I have an idea. I have something important.”

  “Uh-oh,” Alex said, laughing.

  “No! Good!” Louis said. “Good idea. Tomorrow. Promise?”

  We made plans to come back for pound cake and whatever Louis had up his sleeve.

  Joe bounded out the door as soon as we opened it, and ran laps in the front yard until Alex opened the truck and let him in.

  “You speak Italian?” I asked, as we pulled out of the driveway.

  “I speak Louis,” Alex said, shrugging. “Sometimes there’s a little Italian thrown in with his English. If you’re around him enough, you just know what he’s saying.”

  Joe was wide awake, after his leisurely nap on Louis’s kitchen floor. He sat up and looked out the window, growling, soft and low, whenever he saw a pedestrian or a motorcycle. Alex and I giggled at him.

  When we turned down my street, Alex said, “Look, I really appreciate the way you humored Louis. If you don’t want to go back again tomorrow, just say the word. I mean, you thought you were getting a training lesson and the next thing you know you’re having coffee with Louis for three hours. Don’t feel like you have to go tomorrow too.”

  Suddenly, I felt silly. Like maybe I’d humored too much or was too accommodating or somehow made it so that Alex couldn’t get on with his day. I mean, Alex had been trying to leave and I was the one who agreed to stay. And maybe I had overstayed my welcome. I started doubting everything. Maybe he hadn’t tried to kiss me at the park. Oh, God, I thought, picturing myself kneeling in the grass with my eyes closed, waiting for him to kiss me, when maybe he was just reaching over to pick some fuzz out of Joe’s fur or something. And maybe taking Joe to the park wasn’t a date. Maybe he was just helping me out of pity. I couldn’t trust my instincts anymore.

  “It’s fine,” I said. “Either way, really. It’s fine.” I started playing back all the things I’d said. Everything I’d thought was witty suddenly seemed stupid and inappropriate. That story about the goose and the Easter dress, mimicking my mom’s accent. When I said that I spoke for all women about cooking being sexy. Good Lord!

  When we got to my condo, I collected Joe’s new leash and collar from the backseat. “Thanks,” I said, holding them up. “And thanks for helping us.”

  “Anytime,” Alex said, but that’s just something people say. He didn’t have to mean it.

  I said a weak good- bye and got Joe and myself out of the car and into the house before I could embarrass myself any further.

  I settled down to try to get some work done. I checked for an e- mail from my client, but there wasn’t one. I ran out to the mailbox to look for a check from my other client, but there wasn’t one. There was, however, the most obscene credit card bill I’d ever gotten. In addition to the charges for all the dog stuff I’d bought for Joe, there was the actual charge for Joe. Then the wedding charges: the manicure, the hair and makeup, that ugly, ugly dress and the final fitting, those stupid sandals and the elbow- length gloves. Plus, there were my regular charges: groceries, gas, and late- night trips to Wegmans for nonessentials like ice cream, Marshmallow Fluff, and beer. The bill was more than eight thousand dollars. Even if my client did finally come out of hiding and pay up, I wasn’t going to have the money to cover it. I’d just paid off my credit card debt from college, and here I was going under again at the wors
t possible time. I needed a new home. I needed a down payment and Realtor fees and moving expenses and good credit. And I needed a cushion, because I had no one to fall back on.

  I tried to sit at my desk and do the little bit of work I had, but I couldn’t focus. I felt clammy. I rolled a highlighter around on my desk with the palm of my hand, listening to the ridges in the cap clicking against the wood, and I tried to clear my head. I caught myself breathing too much, but I felt like I wasn’t getting enough air. I wrung my hands. I ground my teeth. I got up and paced around. Joe got tired of following me, and collapsed on the floor with a big harrumph. I didn’t know what to do with myself, and I needed a distraction, badly. In the absence of one, I started replaying the whole date with Alex in my head, trying to figure out if it was actually a date, or if I just misunderstood everything. He’s been married before, I thought. Sarah Evans. And in my head, I saw Janie and Peter’s wedding all over again, except Alex was the groom, and he wore a red flannel shirt with his charcoal gray tuxedo. I pictured the vows. I pictured the kiss. I felt like my heart would break all over again. And before I knew it, my phone was in my hand, and I was calling Peter.

  “Hey,” I said to his voice mail. I knew I’d get voice mail. I didn’t even know if he had international service, or what was involved in international service. And even if his phone did work in Paris or Düsseldorf or wherever he was on this leg of his honeymoon, I doubted he’d pick up. “Just thought I’d check in and say hi. I was thinking about you and just wanted to . . . say hi. So I hope you’re having a good honeymoon, and I guess I’ll see you when you get back, or you can always call me, and maybe we can talk about-” I caught myself. I realized what I was doing. I was panicking about the real things in my real life and I was turning to Peter, like he was actually the cause and the solution. Like maybe he’d finish what he almost said in the carriage house and we’d have this happy ending and all of a sudden everything would be certain and I wouldn’t be worried about stupid real stuff. And then all I could think about was Janie. The way her face crumples when she cries. Her top lip curls and her forehead wrinkles. Her shoulders shake and she sobs so quietly that you can barely hear it. “Say hi to Janie for me,” I said, and hung up.