The Unexpected Everything (35 page)

TOBY

Toby clearly wanted to know how dinner had gone, but it was easier these days to call or video chat with her rather than text her. But then it buzzed again, and I saw Palmer was texting now too.

PALMER

HOW DID IT GO?

“Let me guess,” my dad said, picking up the cheesecake plate and pushing himself back from the table. “Bri?”

“Toby,” I said, shaking my head. “And Palmer, too.” My phone buzzed again. “And now Bri.”

“Well, I'll leave you to it,” he said, placing the plate, with at least three good cheesecake bites remaining, in front of me. Then he patted my shoulder quickly, just once, before he turned and headed down the hall to his study.

I watched him go, then picked up my fork, settled back in my seat, and wrote back to my friends.

I looked down at the dog sitting in front of me, a smallish sandy-colored mix of some kind. This was a one-time walk; his owners usually spent the summers away but were back in town for just a day or two and needed him to get some exercise. The dog looked back up at me, his tail thumping on the ground. “Okay,” I said, smiling at him as I made sure his leash was clipped on tightly. “Ready for this?” I paused when I realized I'd blanked on his name. But in my defense, when I'd gone to pick him up, it had been a pretty chaotic scene. The dog had been running around barking happily, seemingly trying to get himself as underfoot as possible. Classical music was blaring and a girl who looked a year or two younger than me was doing a series of very complicated pirouettes in the kitchen, while a guy who looked like he was probably her brother sat nearby with a thick law textbook, seemingly unfazed by all of this, muttering about torts. It was a girl around my age who'd taken charge, giving me the dog's leash and instructions for where to walk him.

“Sorry about all this,” she said loudly, trying to be heard over the music, as she gestured behind her. “We usually spend the whole summer at our lake house, but my sister has an
audition for a dance company in New York tomorrow, so . . .” She shrugged, and I tried to hide my surprise, since the twirling girl looked like she couldn't have been more than fifteen. But I'd taken the dog and said I'd be back in about half an hour. Now I knelt down to see if his name was engraved on his tag, but there was just an
M
, and his owners' phone number.

“Okay, M,” I said, as I straightened up again, hoping that when I brought him home, I could give a report on how the dog did without having to use his name. “Let's do this.”

The dog trotted forward, tail wagging, and I started walking him down the long, steep driveway toward the road. As I walked, I pulled out my phone, telling myself I just wanted to listen to some music, pretending that was the real reason right up until the moment I scrolled to my brand-new audiobook section. I'd transferred the discs Clark had given me to my phone two days ago but hadn't listened to them yet. It seemed like the time had come.

I took a breath and pressed play, and the sonorous voice of a very famous British movie star filled my ears.

“If it had not snowed on the second day of the Aspen moon,” he intoned, and I noticed, not for the first time, how
everything
sounded better with a British accent. “The life of Tamsin Castleroy would have been quite different. . . .”

I turned up the volume as I walked along with the dog, trying to pay attention so I didn't miss anything, as I listened to Clark's story.

•  •  •

“Wow,” Maya said, looking at me with her eyebrows raised. She glanced down at the pile of dogs at her feet. It was the three terriers again, the ones that were normally so hyperactive that
my arm was always sore afterward from having to pull back against the leash the whole time. But now they were flopped on the wooden floors of the tiny office Maya and Dave ran their business out of. I had been walking them nearby and figured I might as well stop in with them, since I needed to get a set of keys for a new dog, and this way I could pick up my paycheck. All the dogs looked exhausted, and Tofu—normally the most hyperactive of them all—was starting to fall asleep in front of me, despite the fact that another dog was currently sitting on his head. “It looks like they really got a workout.”

“Yeah,” I said, busying myself by folding up the extra plastic bags I kept in my back pocket, avoiding Maya's eye. “There were . . . um . . . lots of squirrels today.” Maya nodded, and it looked like she believed me. My explanation was almost as rational as the truth, though—that I was currently devouring Clark's books, and the dogs I walked were feeling the direct effects of it.

Once I'd gotten the hang of listening to the audiobook, it hadn't taken long for me to get swept up in the story of Tamsin, a rebellious princess who captured the attention of the Elder, the mysterious, Yoda-like figure who lived in the woods on the outskirts of her kingdom. There was a prophecy, and since Tamsin fit the description, many—including herself—believed she was the chosen one, the one who would unite the kingdoms torn asunder by a hundred years of war. I had my doubts about this, and the Elder did as well. But he started to teach her anyway, as Tamsin's roguish brother, Jack, kept the kingdom more or less (oftentimes less) afloat, honing her abilities, especially her talent for communicating with birds. The first book had
ended on a cliffhanger, as Tamsin and the Elder were forced to flee the kingdom, pursued with an invading army at their backs. I'd downloaded the second book immediately and was already about halfway through it.

I was listening to it constantly—in my car, in my room, before I went to bed, my phone propped on my nightstand and a sleep timer on so I wouldn't miss anything. But the place I really loved to have the story told to me was while I was at work. There was something wonderful about being outside, moving, keeping an eye on the dogs in front of me while the rest of me was swept up in the story. As a direct result of this, all my dogs were getting much longer walks than normal, since I hated to stop in the middle of a really great part. The walks that were normally twenty minutes had turned into epic walks that took us all over town, and as a result, most of them were getting pretty wiped out.

“Well, it sure looks like they had fun,” Maya said as she bent down and scratched Banjo's ears. Banjo immediately flipped onto his back and looked at her expectantly—he was a fool for belly rubs.

“Definitely,” I lied, since I honestly couldn't have told her. Tamsin had been captured by the book's great villain, locked in a tower, and separated from the Elder, so the amount of fun the dogs were having had not been my primary concern.

“So here are the keys for the Wilson house,” she said, handing them to me. “You got the e-mail Dave sent you?” I nodded. Dave was beyond on top of this—making sure I had dog information and addresses and instructions, most of it laid out on spreadsheets.

“I should probably get these guys back,” I said, looking at
the time on my phone and realizing that I should have had them back an hour ago and was going to have to hustle if I wanted to bring them home before their owners returned from work.

Maya nodded, but then looked at me thoughtfully. “You've been doing a great job here, Andie,” she said. I looked at her, surprised. “I mean it. I think you really have a talent for this.”

“Dog walking?”

“Working with animals,” Maya said, looking at me steadily. “Not everyone does. Certainly not all the people we've hired have it. But you do.”

I nodded, trying to process this. At the start of the summer, I would have said that it was just walking dogs, that anyone could do it, but now I wasn't so sure. Especially after Toby came on one walk with me and spent the whole time freaking out every time Bertie sniffed a tree. Maya gave me a smile as she clipped her carabiner filled with keys back onto her belt loop. “So . . . ,” I started, not really even sure what I was asking her. “Did you know you always wanted to do this? The whole dog and cat thing, I mean?”

“Oh,
no
,” she said, shaking her head. “Not at all. I was actually in business school, getting my MBA. That's where I met Dave.”

“Really?” The question was out of my mouth before I could stop it, and I hoped I didn't look as shocked as I felt.

“I know,” Maya said with an easy laugh, not seeming insulted by this. “Hard to believe, right?”

“So what happened?”

Maya smiled as she bent down to scratch Banjo's belly, and the dog's back leg started twitching like crazy. “At the end of the day, I decided I wanted to do something that made me happy.”
She gave the dog one last pat before standing up again. “And it's working out so far.”

I nodded as I clipped the Wilson keys onto my own key ring. Maya handed me my paycheck, we said our good-byes, and I stepped out into the late-afternoon sunlight, three dogs moving sluggishly behind me. But even as I tried to get the dogs to move, Maya's words were staying with me. The idea that you could rethink the thing you'd always thought you wanted and change your plan—it was almost a revolutionary concept. That you could choose what would make you happy, not successful. It was the opposite of everything I had long believed to be true. I looked back at the office for a moment, Maya's words still echoing in my head. Then I gave Freddie a pat on the head and pulled the dogs back out onto the sidewalk.

ALEXANDER WALKER

Andie, you okay?

ME

Fine.

ALEXANDER WALKER

It just sounds like you're crying. At 3 a.m.

ME

I'll keep it down.

ALEXANDER WALKER

What's wrong?

ME

I just finished Clark's second book.

ALEXANDER WALKER

Oh boy.

ME

HOW COULD HE DO THAT?

ALEXANDER WALKER

I think there's ice cream in the kitchen.

Meet you there in ten?

ME

Better make it five.

•  •  •

“What's going on?” Clark asked as I glared at him, taking the stairs to the diner two at a time, my arms folded tightly over my chest.

“I'm not talking to you,” I said, pausing at the ever-deserted hostess stand, looking around the restaurant, and seeing Palmer and Tom sitting a booth over from our normal one. I started to head over to them, Clark following close behind me.

“You're technically talking to me right now,” he pointed out, and I just glared at him again.

“Hey!” Palmer said as we arrived. Tom slid out from where he'd been sitting across from her and walked around to sit next to her, doing an abbreviated version of his usual complicated handshake with Clark.

“Hello,
Palmer
,” I said pointedly to her.

“Um, hi,” she said, looking from me to Clark, clearly sensing something was going on.

“Perfect timing,” Tom said, drumming his hands on the table. He nodded at the mini jukebox at the end of the table. “Because I put my money in, like, half an hour ago, and now you two will be here for my song.”

“What's happening with you guys?” Palmer asked, mostly asking this question to me.

“Well, Andie's not talking to me,” Clark said as he got a menu from where they were pressed against the wall with the ketchup and saltshakers. “I don't know why.”

“Oh, yes, he does. He knows what he did.”

Palmer and Tom both looked at Clark. “What did you do?” she asked.

“He killed Tamsin,” I said, glowering at him, while across the table from me, Palmer's jaw dropped.

“You
what
?” she gasped.

“Fictionally,” Clark explained hurriedly. “It's not like she was a real person.”

“Clearly not, to you,” I huffed.

“You bastard,” Tom said, now glaring at Clark as well.

“Wait, why are
you
upset?” Clark asked, sounding baffled.

“Because it's all coming back to me now,” he said, shaking his head at Clark. “Really,
how
could you have done that?”

“Yeah,” I said, turning to him. “Was it all just a big joke to you or something?” After I'd eaten my way through a half pint of cookie dough ice cream, trying to deal with my grief about this, I'd left a series of predawn texts on Clark's phone that had started sad and then had gotten more and more
angry when I realized that all of this was his fault and he could have prevented it if he'd wanted to. When he'd picked me up to go to breakfast, I'd crossed the line into refusing to speak to him.

“Hey, remember when I said I wanted you to read my books?” Clark asked. He shook his head. “I regret that now.”

“You read a book?” Palmer asked, looking impressed.

“I did try to warn you,” he said. “I told you I wrapped up her story at the end of the second book.”

“I thought you meant you gave her a happy ending.
Not
that she died a terrible death in the highest tower.”