Pug Hill - Alison Pace [110]
Honestly, Betsy, I think, could you maybe just this once, with the stranger right there, give it a rest? I tighten my grip on the leash and I’m about to roll the dice, I’m about to see if maybe, just maybe, I can get her back over to the field to take the walk I’d planned. The guy bends down and picks up a rock and throws it out into the water.
Betsy barks, right at him, and he turns around. And then he smiles, a really big white toothy smile, and Betsy barks again and he walks toward us.
And all I can think for a second is, No way.
He looks exactly the same as I remember him but I can’t, looking at him, make out whether he looks really young now or if he must have looked older than the rest of us back then. I’m sure though that he looks no different; his eyes are the same, the way they were always a little bit sad, only now they don’t seem sad as much as they seem wise. Maybe that’s what they always were, wise, and I was just way too young to know what wise was.
“Hope McNeill?” he says, grinning as he walks over.
“Benji Brown,” I say as he stops, right in front of me. Betsy barks again and Benji Brown bends down to pat her. She flips over to display her belly. As he rubs it, he looks up at me and smiles again and I notice that the sad/wise eyes are actually different from how they used to be, because now they’re a little bit sparkly, too. Benji Brown, I think, the only man to ever make me mix tapes. Benji Brown, The Only One That Got Away.
“Wow, Hope McNeill,” he says again, and then hesitates. “Is it still McNeill?”
“It is,” I say, and I’m really happy to be able to say that. “You still have that pretty red hair,” he says, and smiles, and then he laughs.
“Yeah,” I say, “I do,” and then, as I say that, the church bells start to ring. No, really, it’s nine A.M. on a Sunday morning; they’re actual church bells ringing.
“Wow,” he says, “it’s great to see you.”
“Wow,” I say back to him, because, really, Wow! “Benji, it’s so great to see you, too.”
“Um, actually, it’s just Ben, now,” he says and smiles back, a little embarrassed, and I don’t think he should be embarrassed. Benji, in its day, was a very cool name. In spite of myself, in spite of everything I’ve learned in these past few months about the complete unimportance of footwear, I steal a glance at his feet. He’s barefoot.
“Ben,” I say. “How have you been?”
“I’ve been great, really good, how have you been?”
“Great, great,” I say and right at this moment, I feel like all along, it’s been the truth.
“Do your parents still live here?” he asks.
“Yeah, they do. Yours?” I ask, and for the life of me, I cannot stop smiling.
“Yeah,” he says, “just came out for the weekend.” He’s smiling a lot, too. “You work at the Met, right?” he asks, and I think it’s nice that he knows, and it’s nice, too, that after all these years I still really like the way it sounds when someone says, “you work at the Met,” even with all the things lately that have been distracting me.
“Yeah, five years,” I say and then, “What are you doing these days?” I remember years ago someone telling me that Benji Brown graduated at the top of his class at Duke Law School.
“I work for the DNC,” he says.
“The DNC?” I say, and believe you me when I tell you, I can hardly get the words out.
“The