the person holding him didn’t know what to do with dogs, and didn’t particularly like them.
For whatever reason, knowing that the dog was possibly as freaked out as I was actually made me feel better—like I wasn’t in this entirely alone. “Okay,” I said quietly to him, rubbing my thumb over his fluff. We’d already stopped at one station, and I didn’t want another one to pass before I figured out what to do here. “Okay, let’s figure this out.”
I had to do this in bite-size chunks. If I thought about everything that was happening, it would be too much. I’d learned this from my dad, before I could even remember learning it. My favorite place to do my homework—even in kindergarten, when we really didn’t have any—had always been wherever my dad was working. I’d pull up a chair next to him at the kitchen table or sprawl on the floor under his desk in his office. I’d tell him about my book report/science project/social studies paper, and he’d discuss what he was working on too. He’d tell me about how you had to build a legal case piece by piece, and how everything had to be airtight or the whole thing fell apart.
When I was particularly stressed about whatever homework I had, he’d calm me down by talking about how you just had to take everything one step at a time. That if he thought about his entire case at once—how much was at stake, how much he had to correctly argue—he’d never get past the first motion.
So he just took it step by step, only trying to control what he could. “How do you eat a whale, pumpkin?” he’d ask me, looking over his glasses.
“One bite at a time,” I’d always reply.
“Atta girl,” he’d say, giving me a wink.
“One bite at a time,” I murmured to the dog, who panted at me. “Okay.” I glanced around, worried that someone had heard me talking to myself—then realized that Brad’s presence was probably insulating me from that. Because while muttering to yourself was a surefire way to have people not want to stand next to you on the train, it was perfectly acceptable to talk to a dog. Maybe this was why people had them.
The biggest problem was that I didn’t have a phone. I could barely remember the last time I’d been without one—not since I was a kid. I was in New York City, and I didn’t know how to get anywhere, or how I was going to get in touch with anyone—
It suddenly hit me—Kat didn’t have a phone either. So even if I could somehow get ahold of someone else’s, there was no way to contact her. Did I even know Kat’s number?
This was enough to startle me out of my panic.
Did I?
She’d been saved in my phone, first in my favorites, for the last four years, so I’d never had to actually punch in her numbers. But it was moot anyway, because even if I managed to remember her number, all it would do was ring on Teri’s coffee table.
It was now becoming clear to me that maybe I didn’t know anybody’s phone number. Maybe Beckett’s…
And he was in the city tonight. I remembered his text that I’d gotten on the train. But immediately after I thought about him, the shame that I felt whenever Beckett came up crashed over me once again. How I’d wrecked things with us, there in the dining room of the Boxcar Cantina. And then I hadn’t been brave enough, or honest enough, to tell Kat what had actually happened.…
All of which meant that I probably shouldn’t call Beckett, even if I remembered his number, which I wasn’t sure that I did.
I glanced up at the 1-800-BANKRUPTCY ad and realized that I at least knew Cary’s number: I Cruise. I knew my home number, my dad’s work number, and—I was almost positive—both my parents’ cell phones. Realizing that made me feel a little better. But then I thought about Kat once again and remembered I had no way to contact her—and she had no way to contact me—and I was back to panic again.
What. Are You Going. TO DO?!
“Seventh Avenue,” the announcer said, and I looked out the window as the train started to slow down. I rubbed the dog’s fur with my thumb again as I tried to think about my next steps. Just a tiny bite of the whale—not everything, just what I needed to do right