Pug Hill - Alison Pace [111]
“Oh, I know,” I say quickly, not wanting him to think I don’t know what the DNC is, or worse, that I’m not all for the DNC, or worse yet, that I’m (I’m whispering now) a Republican. “It’s just,” and I pause as it occurs to me just in the nick of time that to tell him all about my theory, how what I really need, even more than Patrick Dempsey, Jason Bateman, Ed Helms, Stephen Colbert, Adrien Grenier, Joaquin Phoenix, and David Duchovny, is a Democrat, might be a bit weird. I nod my head instead. I smile some more. He smiles, too.
“That’s really interesting,” I say, “that’s terrific.” And yes, I know, I probably could have said something better, something smarter perhaps, but really I think this was okay because he’s smiling back at me, and saying, “I really love working there.”
And then we just smile some more at each other for a minute. It’s not at all a bored sort of okay-we’re-all-caught-up-here-time-to-move-it-on-out sort of smiling, as there is something so sweetly goofy about it.
“What are you up to while you’re out here?” I ask after a while.
“Oh, not much, just hanging out,” he says, and pauses for a second, as if he’s considering something.
“My dad just put his boat in the water and I was going to take it out for a sail.” He turns his head a little bit as he says this, and I think, Oh, good, he’s going to invite me. A second goes by and then I think that, also, maybe he isn’t.
I’m just about to say, “Have a great time,” or some approximation of that and then I think how once I say that, I’ll go back to the house with Betsy, and spend a little more time with Annabelle, and Captain. I’ll say good-bye again to everyone and head back to the city, back to the Rothko and to the pugs at Pug Hill. Everything will be like it always was, which isn’t a bad thing. But things, I think, could also stand to be different. I’ve learned these past few months about standing up straight, and enunciating and taking deep, calming breaths, and speaking clearly, and taking a room, one person at a time. But more than that, what I’ve learned is that, maybe, it really isn’t even about all of that. In the end, I’ve learned, it’s about being able to take a risk. I take a calming breath, because that helps, too.
“Would you like some company?” I ask.
“I would love some company,” he says, all the emphasis on love. And then, as soon as he says it; I realize that I might not be hearing church bells after all. What I might be hearing— actually, what I am most vertainly hearing, loud and clear and unmistakable—is Erasure. Track number eleven from the Pop! album: the song that starts with the guy screaming, We’ll be together again!
“Sounds good,” I tell him, and I think it’s probably best that he has no idea I’m talking about a song lyric.
“Great,” he says smiling, and looks down at his watch. “Want to say, two o’clock? I’ll sail over and pick you up at the dock?”
“Two o’clock,” I say, a little loudly, and it’s all I can do to not ask him if he hears Erasure, too, because I’m pretty sure he must. Betsy starts barking again and not just one bark, like usual, but barking, continuously until Ben, looks down at her and says, right to her, “You can come, too,” and she stops barking and looks up at him, quite taken. “Does she like sailing?” he asks me.
And of course, as you know, Betsy likes almost nothing so much as she likes the wind, and I tell him she does. Betsy’s still looking up at him, silent and perfectly still. I don’t think she can quite believe how completely he gets it.
“See you at two,” we both say, at exactly the same time. I think, but don’t say, Jinx. That’s something, I think, the not saying it.
I pull very lightly on Betsy’s leash, just to test the waters, so to speak, and surprisingly, she gets right up and runs ahead of me, back over the hill to the field. Betsy and I walk across the field together, and then turn around and head toward home. The whole time, the whole way back to the house, the Erasure song is still playing, really loudly, in the background.
Before I know it,