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  He wished he was not always so passive. He wished he had the gumption to shut Lisa up.

  To shut her up so that she never bothered him this way again.

  Leon narrowed his eyes and his mind flashed to the redneck in the mesh trucker’s cap, to Dane Honeycutt.

  You know what to do.

  Leon remembered saying it, but not what it meant. But he did remember the outcome of instructing his father to be quiet and watch the television (Just be quiet and watch your teevee shows, dad.). That his mind did not obscure, however much Leon wished it would. For the first time in his life, Leon had told his father what to do and, astonishingly, his father carried the order out with literal precision. For all he knew, his dad was still sitting there in his ratty old chair, struggling to stay awake through the cavalcade of mind-numbing daytime programming.

  Trying like hell to obey Leon’s command.

  Shut up, Lisa.

  If he said it, would she, too, obey?

  Shut up and leave me alone.

  He licked his lips and watched Lisa’s jaw wag, her full lips working overtime to describe every single detail about the hilarious intricacies of Frankie and Joe’s antics. And he asked himself what he had to lose—if it failed to work the way it worked on his father, the worst that could happen was Lisa getting upset and stalking away. And was that such an unreasonable price to pay for peace and quiet?

  And yet, if it did work…

  “Hey, Leon?”

  His eyes darted up to find Ami looming behind Lisa, her fingers woven together and a perfectly serious expression upon her face. Lisa continued to ramble.

  “Think I could borrow you for a moment? I’m sorry Lisa—” She touched Lisa’s shoulder, which finally silenced her. “—I’m a little out of my element on this spreadsheet I’m working on, and it’s past time I had it done.”

  Lisa arched an eyebrow, fully aware that Ami knew far more about spreadsheet applications that Leon ever would. She folded her arms over her breasts and frowned.

  “Sure,” Leon said meekly. “Glad to.”

  He stood up from his chair and flashed an insincere grin at Lisa, who reciprocated. She went on her way, and Leon followed Ami back to her cube.

  “You looked like you were drowning,” she said.

  “Thanks for rescuing me.”

  “It’s karma, my friend. You rescued the poor pup, right? So you were up for one free rescue yourself. How is she, by the way?”

  Leon sucked in a deep breath. You know what to do.

  “Bess is good,” he answered.

  “Oh, you gave her a name already?”

  “Yes,” Leon quickly lied. He only betrayed himself by the slightest twitch of his eyebrows. Ami did not appear to notice.

  “That’s a good name for her. Bess. Yeah, I like it.”

  “It seemed to fit.”

  They reached her little piece of the third floor, where she sat down and Leon lingered awkwardly in the walkway. Ami’s desk was the antithesis of his own—clean, organized, everything in its proper place. There was a photograph of her and her dogs, all of them huge and muscular, in a flowery frame. Beside it was a mug with the Nigerian flag on it. Leon would never have recognized the sea-green bands bookending a white one in the middle, but the word nigeria was spelled out in block letters directly beneath it. The paper flap at the end of a teabag’s string dangled over the edge.

  “You might as well hang out a minute, so she doesn’t catch on,” Ami said.

  “I think the jig’s already up.”

  Ami grinned devilishly.

  “Ah, but wasn’t it worth it?”

  “Absolutely,” Leon said.

  “Do you want to grab lunch with me today?”

  The question was so sudden and wholly unexpected that Leon faltered a bit and had to take a step backward to anchor himself. He felt his heart palpitate and a few dozen beads of sweat budding on his face. Even if he had been prepared for the invitation, he probably would not have known how to respond to it. But he was not prepared at all.

  “I was kind of thinking Southern comfort food, myself, but if that doesn’t work for you…”

  “It’s fine,” Leon said. He heard the two syllables escape his mouth but felt no responsibility for them. They seemed to just come all on their own.

  “Great,” Ami said. “There’s the little place on Market Street called Mama Helen’s. Cafeteria style, terribly greasy food. Ever been?”

  “No.”

  “Well, then you’re in for a treat. I’ll swing by your hole at eleven-thirty. Sound good?”

  “It sounds…wonderful.”

  Ami smiled.

  “Just don’t forget to bring your defibrillator,” she said. “Because this stuff is deadly.”

  * * *

  “I was born in Lagos but my family moved to the States when I was six,” Ami explained. She was dissecting an enormous fillet of chicken-fried steak with her fork and knife as she spoke. “Back then it was the capital city. When I was three, there was a military coup and the country went to hell, so eventually we came here. I’ve never been back.”

  “That’s sort of sad,” Leon opined.

  He had barely touched the mountain of mashed potatoes and bacon-infused pulled pork on his plate. He was not entirely sure that he wanted to.

  “Not really. I barely remember it, to be honest. My home is here, always has been. I’m told I have a slight accent, but I feel as American as anybody.”

  “I like it,” Leon said. “Your accent, I mean.”

  “I don’t know why I can’t lose it. People always ask me where I’m from, and I tell them Jackson Hole Road on the west side of town. That always trips them up.”

  “Do you still have any family over there?”

  “No. There was an uncle, my father’s brother, but he was killed by Babangida’s thugs back in the eighties. There’s no one now.”

  “Oh,” Leon said, embarrassed that he asked. “I’m sorry.”

  “If you don’t start eating those black eyed peas pretty soon, you’re going to lose them,” Ami said, deftly changing the subject.

  “I guess I’m not very hungry.”

  “It’s all right if you don’t like the grub—I didn’t make it.”

  “It’s not that. I’ve just got this headache I can’t seem to shake. Had it for a couple of days now.”

  “Take anything for it?”

  “Well, yeah. Oxycodone.”

  “Jesus,” Ami rasped. “That must be some headache.”

  She stuffed a forkload of breaded meat into her mouth and commenced chewing.

  “It’s my dad’s meds. I kind of…borrowed some.”

  Ami stopped chewing and gaped at Leon.

  “Bah-wo fum?” she asked, her mouth full.

  “What’s that—oh, yeah, I borrowed some. It was really killing me.”

  She swallowed hard, took a sip of sweet tea and said, “Leon, you ought not to take other people’s medication. That shit is serious.”

  “Oh, it’s not like I’m trying to get high or anything like that.”

  “Even so.”

  Leon lowered his eyebrows and sat back in his chair. He was taken aback by her judgmental proclamation, an attitude that seemed to border on sanctimoniousness. To Leon, it was nothing less than inappropriate that Ami should pass judgment on something she knew nothing about—on someone she knew nothing about. He frowned deeply and stabbed a chunk of pulled pork with his fork. The tines scraped against the plate, metal shrieking against ceramic. Ami winced.

  “Have you always lived with your father?” she asked, her eyebrows raised solicitously.

  “No,” Leon answered sharply. Then, realizing that it came out a little too brusquely, he elaborated: “I was on my own for a while, after college. Just a little efficiency apartment on Denson, up the street from the DMV. It was okay. Quiet, mostly. But dad’s getting on in years and he can’t really do all the things he used to do. He fell in the shower and broke a hip about three year
s ago; that was what did it. That’s when I moved back in with him.”

  “That’s pretty noble of you,” Ami said. “You two must have a pretty great relationship.”

  Leon laughed—a loud, high-pitched squeal. Ami blinked several times in rapid succession, startled by the laugh, and she smiled nervously.

  “I hate him, actually,” Leon said. “I hate him from the bottom of my heart. But he’s my dad. Children are supposed to take care of their parents, aren’t they?”

  “Yeah,” she said in a barely audible whisper. “Yeah, I guess they are.”

  “So that’s what I’m going to do. I’ll take care of the mean old bastard until the day he dies.”

  He grinned sardonically and poked the fork into his mouth. Thereafter, Leon and Ami finished up their lunches in total silence. Neither one of them had anything more to say. When they were done, Ami drove him back to the office and thanked him for a nice time. Leon pursed his lips, sure that she was being dishonest about it—it really wasn’t such a nice time at all, thanks to him and his big, stupid mouth—but he said he enjoyed himself, and they went off to their respective cubicles.

  Once there, Leon logged into his terminal and finally checked his messages. Three of them were from his supervisor, Cheryl—the first asking about an overdue report, and the second two demanding to know why he hadn’t called her back yet. A fourth message was from Ami, left yesterday afternoon.

  “Hey, Leon, it’s Ami,” the tinny voice on the line said. “I don’t have your home phone number, but I wanted to express my gratitude for taking in that dog. I don’t know a lot of people who would show that kind of compassion. You’re aces in my book, fella. Cheers.”

  Leon pressed his lips together and punched in #76 to erase all messages. He then closed his eyes and laid his head down on the desk.

  The headache was back in full force.

  9

  The man on the screen was vaguely familiar, perhaps a former football star or some washed-up action hero from the seventies. He looked a bit haggard, worn down and gray, and even his best efforts at playing the part of the enthusiastic salesman were utterly ineffectual. The clunky device on the counter in front of him whirred, turning a gooey yellow dough into delicious pound cake in under thirty minutes, or so he promised. For six easy payments of nineteen-ninety-nine, he said you couldn’t go wrong. The contraption he was pimping would eventually pay for itself.

  Harold stared at it, and at the tired looking guy rambling on about it, and at the unending scroll of information whizzing by the bottom of the screen. Special offer…buy now…perfect for birthdays…not available in stores. Who was that guy? He couldn’t place him, though he knew he’d seen the guy a hundred times. For some reason, Harold’s mind just couldn’t make sense of too much input, and the infomercial on his television was inundating him with input. There was too much to focus on, too many variables. Even the fake plastic plants strewn strategically around the studio in which the mysterious pitchman stood contributed to Harold’s mounting bewilderment. He strained to sort it all in his head, to understand everything that was being thrown at him, but it only made him more sleepy. His vision blurred. His face felt slack, as though it was only barely hanging onto his skull. He was perfectly exhausted. But he had to stay awake.

  He had to watch teevee.

  “And when we come back, I’ll show you how this baby whips up garlic breadsticks that will compliment any meal and impress your friends and family,” the faded salesman spat.

  Harold sat still and quiet, and he waited patiently for the guy to come back.

  * * *

  Buckeye grumbled and moaned, twisting his head at an impossible angle. His back right foot thumped rhythmically on the carpet and his tongue slipped in and out of his mouth. She knew his secret spot, the area just under his floppy ears where he most liked to be scratched. She always got it right, every time. And Buckeye was completely powerless to resist. Next to ham, this was probably his favorite thing in the world. But ham was better.

  Riley whined and jabbed his snout at her. He was jealous of the attention she was giving Buckeye and, perhaps, a little flummoxed. He was the elder dog, after all, and thus deserving of first dibs on all things, scratching included. It was perfectly unfair that she should reach directly for Buckeye upon returning home, as though Riley was second fiddle around there. He was old and going blind in both eyes, and he knew he was getting to be troublesome with the increasing messes he kept leaving on the floor, but that did not supersede his position as first and eldest dog. As far as Riley was concerned, he was number one. And number one should be scratched first. He bared his teeth and gave a low growl.

  “Stop that,” Ami snapped. She gave Riley a light tap on the nose. He dropped his head and raised his gummy, red eyes to her. Buckeye pressed closer to her, delighting in the upper hand Riley’s transgression afforded him.

  Males are the same across the board, Ami thought with a crooked smile. Men and dogs. All the same.

  She rose up and sauntered past the competing dogs on her way to the kitchen, stepping over Booger along the way. Booger was both the youngest and the laziest. He never got up for anything less than food or the pressing need to go outside. The rest of the time he just slept.

  But they were her boys, her best friends and, essentially, her children. And although she often chastised them for their inherently male traits, Ami knew that they were far superior companions to any human male. They would never abandon her, never deceive her, never hurt her in any way. If that kind of unconditional commitment amounted to the occasional mound of dog shit on the carpet, Ami figured that was a pretty good deal. Hell, she’d probably let a man crap on her floor once in a while if he could match the dogs’ loyalty to her. Though if she ever found a guy with that kind of loyalty, she imagined she would just go live with him in his space bubble on the moon, which was about as likely an outcome as the loyalty itself. As things stood, she was content with Riley, Buckeye and Booger.

  Ami dropped her keys on the kitchen counter and hit the switch on the coffee maker. Every night before she went to bed she prepared her coffee for the morning, and every morning she did the same for that afternoon. That way, her caffeine fix was always just a few minutes away. While the machine heated up and gradually began dripping the hot, black fluid into the carafe, she wandered across the apartment to her bedroom, where she undressed and slipped into a tank top and a pair of pajama bottoms. Her work clothes ended up in a crumpled pile on the floor—in most ways she was an exceptionally clean and organized person, but laundry was not one of those ways. She left the pile there and went back into the living room, where the dogs had formed a lopsided canine triangle in the middle of the floor.

  She sat down on the loveseat, waited for the coffee to brew, and thought back to her strange day. Mostly, she thought of Leon. A really nice guy, but a little…odd. The argument about the medication—if indeed it could be deemed an argument—was in all likelihood nothing more than a simple misunderstanding. Reviewing it now, Ami decided she probably overstepped her boundaries anyway, telling a guy she hardly knew what he should do with his body. So he took some pain pills for a killer headache—not such a big deal. She should not have opined aloud about it in the first place, and Leon’s sharp reaction was largely justified. That much she was willing to let go. She even planned then and there to apologize about it.

  The comments about his father, on the other hand, were more difficult to pass over. It was not just that he clearly loathed his father, for anyone had a right to hate their parents and Ami assumed a great many people had damn good reason to do so. Perhaps the man truly was an abominable character, maybe even abusive in some way. Whatever the case, she did not know the score and was in no position to hold it against him. But the cold, dead look on his face when he curtly spouted his hatred, that was what put her off. It was an almost sociopathic look, the look of a man who could watch his father struggle for breath and do nothing to help him. Just watch. And wait.


  I hate him from the bottom of my heart.

  The coffee maker sputtered and gargled, spitting up the last dregs of coffee into the carafe. Ami sucked in a long breath and sighed it back out. She was playing junior psychiatrist again and she knew it. Looking too deep and making rash judgments based on too little data. Leon was no sociopath, he was just a melancholy little man with poor social skills and an asshole for a dad. Probably he’d never had much luck with women and was beside himself with anxiety to find himself across the table from one at the restaurant. Besides, hadn’t he taken in the dog—Bess, he named her—with no protest at all? Certainly that was not the mark of a man with no heart.

  “Jesus, Ami,” she said aloud, shaking her head as she got up from the loveseat. “Give the poor guy the benefit of the doubt, for Christ’s sake.”

  She poured herself a cup of coffee and set to adding liberal doses of low-fat milk and sugar to it. She stirred and tasted it, and decided it needed more of both. When she was finished with her alchemy, Ami took the coffee out to the balcony where she sat quietly and sipped at it while listening to the birds and the distant interstate. It was going to be a low-key evening as most of her evenings were, just pasta out of the box and a bottle of wine and an old movie on teevee. There was a Torchy Blane marathon running on one of the local stations, which seemed like a decent way to while away a Thursday night. She’d watch the films and drink her wine, and she would probably fall asleep on the loveseat with her long legs dangling over the edge.

  And, wonder of wonders, tomorrow was Friday at last. Just eight more hours left to suffer before the long overdue weekend. As she blew gently at the surface of the light brown coffee, Ami wondered if it would be wise to invite Leon out someplace, to a movie or a café, to make it up to him.