Brown-Eyed Girl Read online

  “I have no idea,” Joe said.

  “I thought you knew how to handle dogs.”

  “Honey, there’s no way I could convince her that a cold vinyl seat is better than your lap. If you’ll keep holding her, I’ll zoom the shots and make the depth of field as shallow as possible.”

  “So the background will be blurry?”

  “Yes. See if you can get her to relax. With her ears flattened like that, she looks scared.”

  “What do you want her ears to do?”

  “See if you can get them perked up and facing forward.”

  I held Coco in different poses, calling her a sweetheart, an angel, a sugar-pie, saying if she behaved, I would give her all the treats she wanted. “Are her ears perked up now?” I asked.

  His mouth twitched. “Mine sure as hell are.” Lowering to his haunches, he took multiple shots, the camera shutter clicking nonstop.

  “Do you think someone will adopt her?”

  “I hope so. It’s not easy to get someone to take a senior dog. Not much time left, and health problems on the horizon.”

  Coco looked up at me with shining eyes and a gummy grin. I felt a sinking sensation as I thought of what would probably happen to this vulnerable, not-pretty creature.

  “If life were simpler…,” I heard myself say, “if I were another kind of person… I’d take her home with me.”

  The shutter clicks stopped. “Do you want to?”

  “It doesn’t matter. I can’t.” I was surprised by the plangent sound of my own voice.

  “That’s okay.”

  “I have no experience with pets.”

  “I understand.”

  I held Coco up and looked at her. She regarded me earnestly with that little-old-lady face, paws dangling, tail wagging in midair. “You have too many problems,” I told her.

  Joe approached, looking amused. “You don’t have to take her.”

  “I know. It’s just…” I let out a tight, disbelieving laugh. “Somehow I can’t stand the idea of walking away from her.”

  “Leave her here and think about it overnight,” Joe said. “You can always come back tomorrow.”

  “If I don’t take her now, I won’t come back.” I held her in my lap, smoothing her fur, wondering what to do. She curled up into a little donut and closed her eyes.

  Joe sat next to me, sliding an arm around my shoulders. He stayed silent, letting me think it through.

  “Joe?” I asked after a couple of minutes.

  “Mmm-hmm?”

  “Can you give me a practical reason for taking this dog home with me? Anything at all? Because she’s not big enough to protect me, and I don’t need her as a service dog or to herd sheep. So give me a reason. Please.”

  “I’ll give you three. One, a dog will give you unconditional love. Two, having a dog reduces stress. Three…” His arm slid away, and he turned my face toward his, his thumb stroking the edge of my jaw. He looked into my eyes and smiled. “Hell, do it because you want to,” he said.

  On the way back home, we stopped at a pet store for some basic supplies. Along with the basics, I bought a tote with mesh panels on the sides and a soft padded interior. As soon as I put Coco inside, she poked her head through an opening at the top and looked around. I was now a woman with a purse-dog, except that instead of a fluffy Pomeranian or a teacup poodle, mine was a toothless Chihuahua.

  The studio was empty and silent when we arrived. Joe carried my purchases in from the car, including a pet crate and a case of premium canned dog food. I arranged a foam mat and a soft blanket in the crate. Coco crawled in eagerly.

  “I’d like to give her a bath,” I said, “but she’s had enough excitement for now. I’ll let her adjust to her new surroundings.”

  Joe set the dog food on the counter. “You sound like an expert already.”

  “Ha.” I began to stack cans in the pantry. “Sofia’s going to kill me. I should have asked her before doing this. Except that she would have said no, and I would have brought Coco home anyway.”

  “Tell her I pressured you.”

  “No, she knows I wouldn’t do this unless it was something I really wanted. But thanks for offering to take the rap.”

  “Anytime.” Joe paused. “I’ll head out now.”

  I turned to face him, my nerves humming with anticipation as he approached. “Thanks for lunch,” I said.

  His warm gaze swept over me. “Thanks for helping at the shelter.” He reached around me, bringing me against a wealth of hard muscle. My hands crept up his back. The clean, earthy scent of him was becoming familiar, and it was a thousand times better than cologne. Finishing the hug, he let go.

  “Bye, Avery,” he said huskily.

  I watched with wide eyes as he headed to the door. “Joe…”

  He paused with his hand on the knob, glancing over his shoulder.

  “Aren’t you…” I blushed before continuing, “Aren’t you going to kiss me?”

  A slow grin crossed his face. “Nope.” And he left, closing the door gently behind him.

  While I stared at the door with astonished indignation, Coco ventured cautiously out of her crate.

  “What is this?” I asked aloud, pacing in a tight circle. “He takes me out for lunch and brings me back with a secondhand Chihuahua, and on top of that, no kiss good-bye or any mention of when or if he’s going to call… What kind of game is he playing? Was this even a date?”

  Coco watched me expectantly.

  “Are you hungry? Thirsty?” I pointed to a corner of the kitchen. “Your bowls are over there.”

  She didn’t move.

  “Want to watch some TV?” I asked.

  Her spindly tail wagged.

  After scrolling through channels on the flat-screen TV, I found an episode of a telenovela that Sofia and I had been following. Despite the eye-rolling theatrics and the eighties-style hair and makeup, the story was as addictive as crack. I had to find out how it ended.

  “Telenovelas teach important life lessons,” Sofia had once told me. “For example, if you’re in a love triangle with two handsome men who never wear shirts, remember that the one you reject will become a villain and plot to destroy you. And if you’re beautiful but poor and mistreated, you were probably switched at birth with another baby who has taken your rightful place in a powerful family.”

  I entertained myself by reading the English subtitles to Coco, infusing high emotion in the dialogue: “I swear you will pay dearly for this outrage!” and “Now you must fight for your love!” While misting Coco’s tongue with Evian spray during the commercial, I said, “Wait a minute, you don’t need translation. You’re a Chihuahua. You already speak Spanish.”

  Hearing the front door open and close, I glanced over the back of the sofa. Sofia came in, looking demoralized.

  “How’s it going?” I asked.

  “Remember the guy in spin class?”

  “Bike twenty-two?”

  “Uh-huh. We went out for drinks.” She heaved a sigh. “It was awful. The conversation kept stalling. It was more boring than watching bananas ripen. All he does is exercise. He doesn’t like to travel because it interferes with his workout schedule. He doesn’t read books or keep up with the news. But the worst thing was that he kept looking at his phone for an entire hour. What kind of guy reads his phone and texts during a date? Finally I put a twenty-dollar bill on the table to pay for my share of the drinks, and said, ‘I don’t want to interfere with your phone time,’ and I left.”

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “Now I can’t even enjoy watching his glutes during spin class.” Sofia plugged her phone into a charger on the counter. “How did your lunch go?”

  “Great food.”

  “What about Joe? Did you have a good time? Was he charming?”

  “It was fun,” I said. “But I have something to confess.”

  She gave me an expectant glance. “Yes?”

  “After lunch, we went shopping.”

  “For w
hat?”

  “A bed and a dog collar.”

  Her brows lifted. “That’s a little kinky for a first date.”

  “The bed and dog collar are for an actual dog,” I said.

  Sofia’s face went blank. “Whose?”

  “Ours.”

  My sister walked around the sofa. Her incredulous gaze dropped to the Chihuahua in my lap. Coco shrank back against me, trembling.

  “This is Coco,” I said.

  “Where’s the dog? All I see is a mole rat with bulging eyes. And I can smell her from here.”

  “Don’t listen to her,” I told Coco. “You just need a better stylist.”

  “I asked you once if I could get a dog and you said it was a terrible idea!”

  “I was right. It’s a terrible idea if we’re talking about a regular-sized dog. But this one is perfect.”

  “I hate Chihuahuas. Three of my aunts have them. They need special food and special collars and special stairs to get on the couch, and they pee five hundred times a day. If we get a dog, I want one that can go running with me.”

  “You don’t run.”

  “Because I don’t have a dog.”

  “Now we do.”

  “I can’t run with a Chihuahua! She would drop dead after a half mile.”

  “So would you. I’ve seen you run.”

  Sofia looked infuriated. “I’m going to go out and buy a dog too. A real dog.”

  “Fine, go get one. Bring home a half dozen.”

  “Maybe I will.” She scowled. “Why is her tongue hanging out like that?”

  “She has no teeth.”

  Our gazes clashed in the charged silence.

  “She can’t keep her tongue in,” I continued, “so it’s chronically dry. But a lady at the pet store suggested massaging it with some organic coconut oil every night, and misting it with water throughout the day – Why is that funny?”

  Sofia had started to choke with laughter. In fact, she could barely talk, she was snorting and wheezing so hard. “You have such high standards. You love beautiful, tasteful things. And this dog is so ugly and scraggly, and… Dios mío, she’s a lemon.” Sitting beside me, she reached out to let Coco smell her hand. Coco sniffed daintily and let Sofia pet her.

  “She’s not a lemon,” I said, “she’s jolie laide.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It’s a term for a woman who’s not conventionally beautiful, but she’s beautiful in a unique way. Like Cate Blanchett or Meryl Streep.”

  “Did Joe talk you into this? Are you doing it to make him think you’re compassionate?”

  I gave her a haughty glance. “You know that I’ve never wanted anyone to think of me as compassionate.”

  Sofia shook her head in resignation. “Come here, Meryl Streep,” she said to Coco, trying to coax her out of my lap. “Ven aquí, niña.”

  Coco shrank back, panting anxiously.

  “An asthmatic lemon,” Sofia said, settling back in the corner of the couch with a sigh. “My mother’s coming to visit tomorrow,” she said after a moment.

  “God, is it that time again?” I made a face. “Already?”

  Every two or three months, Sofia’s mother, Alameda, drove from San Antonio to visit for a night. These occasions always consisted of hours of relentless interrogation about Sofia’s friends, her health, her work, and her sexual activities. Alameda had never forgiven her daughter for moving so far away from the family and for ending a relationship with a young man named Luis Orizaga.

  Sofia’s entire family had tried to pressure her to marry Luis, whose parents were respectable and had money. According to Sofia, Luis had been overbearing and egotistical, and terrible in bed, besides. Alameda blamed me for helping Sofia to leave Luis and start a new life in Houston. As a result, Sofia’s mother could barely bring herself to be civil in my presence.

  For Sofia’s sake, I tried to be nice to Alameda. On one level I felt sympathy for her, as I would for anyone whom my father had hurt. However, the way she treated Sofia was hard to tolerate. Since Alameda couldn’t vent her anger on her ex-husband, she had made their daughter the scapegoat. I knew all too well how that felt. Sofia was always depressed for a day or two after her mother visited.

  “Is she staying here?” I asked Sofia.

  “No, she doesn’t like sleeping on our pullout. It hurts her back. She’s checking into the hotel tomorrow afternoon, and coming here for dinner at five.”

  “Why don’t you take her out to eat?”

  Sofia rested her head on the back of the couch and rolled it in a slow negative shake. “She wants me to cook so she can tell me everything I’m doing wrong.”

  “Do you want me to leave while she’s here?”

  “It would be better if you stayed.” With a halfhearted smile, Sofia said, “You’re good at deflecting some of the arrows.”

  “As many as I can,” I said, feeling a rush of love for her. “Always, Sofia.”

  Fourteen

  A

  fter brainstorming and mulling over ideas, Sofia had come up with two concepts for the Warner wedding. The first was a traditional formal wedding, perfectly feasible and impressive. Following a grand ceremony at Memorial Drive Methodist, a fleet of pearl-white limos would transport the guests to a crystal-and-roses ballroom reception at the River Oaks Country Club. It would be tasteful and elegant, the kind of affair that everyone would expect. But not the one we wanted the Warners to choose.

  The second wedding plan was a knockout. The location was the Filter Building at White Rock Lake, near Dallas. The historic building was a spectacular lakefront industrial design, with corbeled brick and exposed iron trusses and big windows overlooking the lake. It was almost a guarantee that Ryan would love the location, which would appeal to his architectural taste.

  Inspired by the Depression-era building, Sofia had conceived of a lavish Gatsbyesque wedding in creams, tans, and gold, with bridesmaids wearing drop-waist dresses and ropes of beads and the men in dinner suits. The tables would be covered in beaded fabric, and the flower arrangements would feature orchids and plumes. Guests would be transported from a hotel in Dallas to White Rock Lake in a succession of vintage Rolls-Royces and Pierce-Arrows.

  “We’ll make it fresh,” Sofia said. “Fancy but modern. We want it to be inspired by the Jazz Age without making it too accurate, or it will look like a costume party.” The team at the studio all loved the Gatsbyesque concept.

  Everyone except Steven.

  “You all know that Gatsby is a tragic story, right?” he asked. “Personally I wouldn’t care for a wedding based on themes of power, greed, and betrayal.”

  “What a shame,” Sofia said. “It would be so perfect for you.”

  Val interrupted before they could start bickering. “The Great Gatsby is one of those books that everyone’s heard of but no one reads.”

  “I did,” Steven said.

  “Required high school reading?” Sofia asked disdainfully.

  “No, for my own enjoyment. It’s called literature. You should try it sometime, if you ever manage to tear yourself away from those Spanish soap operas.”

  Sofia’s brows lowered. “You’re a fine one to judge, with all the silly sports games you watch.”

  “That’s enough, you two,” I interceded, giving Steven a blistering glance.

  He ignored me, picking up his phone. “I’m going to make a couple of calls. I’ll be outside. I can’t hear with all of you yammering.”

  “Go easy on him today,” Tank suggested as soon as Steven wandered out of earshot. “He and his girlfriend broke up over the weekend.”

  Sofia’s eyes widened. “He has a girlfriend?”

  “They just started going out a couple of weeks ago. But on Sunday, they were watching football at his place, and all of a sudden she turned down the volume and told Steven she didn’t think they should see each other again, because he was emotionally unavailable.”

  “What did he say?”

  “He asked if
they could wait to talk about it until half-time.” At our looks of disgust, Tank said defensively, “We were playing the Cowboys.”