The Unexpected Everything - Morgan Matson Page 0,103
it when I’d told her about their other business, Temple of Groom. I had learned that my sweetest dog was Waffles the pit bull, and the most ornery one was Trixie the bichon, who looked like the meekest dog ever, just a white ball of fluff, but it was all a facade. She was the alpha and would growl down dogs who outweighed her by a hundred pounds. I’d learned that the big dogs were usually pretty happy to roll with things, while it was the little ones who were the most stubborn. I’d found out the hard way what happened when you were walking six dogs and a cat streaked across the road. I knew that Lloyd always wanted to smell the flowers, but if you let Leon do it, he’d sneeze for the rest of the walk. And I’d discovered that Bertie seemed to have no sense of how time worked—if he saw a squirrel in a tree, he’d run back to that same tree every day, like the squirrel would have been waiting there that whole time. “Bert springs eternal,” Clark had dubbed it. But mostly I began to realize that I was good at this. And there was a feeling of accomplishment when I drove back after a walk with a dog in the passenger seat and three dogs in the back, everyone tired and happy and panting out the windows, a feeling I’d done something that I’d never felt in any of my internships or summer programs before this.
“Remind me where we were,” Clark said, when we broke apart. He gestured for me to give him another leash, and after a moment’s consideration, I gave him Rufus—I knew he and Bertie got along.
Our saga of Marjorie and Karl had continued to expand, taking quite a few twists and turns. The fact that Marjorie originally intended to kill Karl had pretty much been quietly forgotten by both of us, and I was always trying to give the road bandits they encountered some kind of ailment that I would then try to get Marjorie to diagnose, despite Clark always vetoing this.
Clark had started today’s installment in earnest when we’d picked up Pippa, but almost right from the start I’d had issues with his current direction. “I was telling you that Marjorie wouldn’t say that,” I reminded him.
“Oh, right. Well, I think she would. It makes sense for the story.”
“Ugh,” I said. “Not going to happen. She’s not going to get up and admit to everyone in a crowded tavern how she feels about Karl.” I realized that Wendell was in danger of getting tangled with Pippa and switched him over to my other hand.
“Why not? I think it’s important.”
“Why does she need to tell everyone how she feels about him? Isn’t it enough that Karl knows?”
“Does he, though?” Clark asked, raising an eyebrow at me. “Do you think it really counts unless other people hear it?”
“Of course,” I said immediately. “Probably more so.”
Clark shook his head, then stumbled a few feet as Rufus and Bertie lunged simultaneously for a squirrel that was running up a nearby tree. “Why do you think people get married with lots of guests there?”
“Probably for the toaster ovens.”
“You might be right. But I think it’s more than that. I think there’s something to saying it in front of people. It’s like it means more when you say it out loud, where everyone can hear you.”
“Fine,” I said, relenting. I was starting to learn when Clark wasn’t going to let go of something, and I wanted to get to what happened next. “Marjorie confesses all to random tavern folk.” I looked over at him, wondering if I might be able to get something I’d been pushing for now that I’d given in to this. “Can we finally do my thing where Marjorie discovers penicillin?”
“I told you, there’s no penicillin in this world.”
“But there’s mold, right? Maybe Marjorie’s just smarter than everyone else.”
Clark smiled at me. “You make a good point,” he said, pulling me in for a kiss as all around us dogs barked and leashes got hopelessly tangled.
• • •
“You okay?” I asked, looking across the table at my dad, who was staring down at his plate, his expression concerned.
“Maybe,” he said after a slight pause, picking up a chopstick and nudging a piece of sushi. “I’m not entirely sure what this is, though.”
I shook my head as I dunked my vegetable tempura in soy sauce. “I can’t help you there.”