Large Animals in Everyday Life Read Free Page B

up into the bewildering light. The girl is not going away.
    â€œI like your hair,” she says. She grins shyly and undulates like a fish, making the raft move closer.
    Okay, I think. “I have to go upstairs and get ready,” I tell her. “Would you like to come up to my room with me and watch TV?” She nods and undulates, her small round behind rising and falling in the waves she makes.
    My phone’s message light still isn’t blinking. “Would you like a soda or something?” I ask the girl. She looks at the carafe of wine on the table. “How old are you?” I say. She blushes, pulls on the wet ends of her hair. “It’s okay,” I say, taking the paper crown off a glass and handing it to her. “What are you, eleven? You’re twelve?” I pour her a little more.
    â€œCan I look in your bathroom?” she says.
    â€œGo ahead, I’ve got some calls to make,” I say. I call the hotel switchboard and ask the operator to recheck my voice mail. Then I call the singer’s double-wide but hang up when he answers. Finally I call my own number in Florida and listen to the messages on my machine. Jeff Russell wants to know if I’ll be at the Round Bar tonight. “I’m hoping against hope,” he says. Sally from Live Oak Office Supply has my resumé and wants to set up an interview right away. The librarian is sending me a book that made him think of me, something about the “cultural wasteland of the South.” “Ciao, baby,” he says, his voice the same old sly whisper.
    â€œDo you have anyone you need to call?” I ask the girl when she comes out of the bathroom.
    â€œYeah, my brother,” she says. “He has epilepsy. He’s eighteen but he can’t be in the room alone ’cause he might crack his skullopen, like on the edge of the desk. Do you have any brothers or sisters?”
    I shake my head and lie down on one of the beds, exhausted from the sun. With my eyes shut I can again hear the singer on the phone, saying, “You know if I had my choice I’d be with you,” his wife’s cat crying in the background, his baby crying right into the phone, in his arms, it sounded like. “You know, you have a certain spiritual quality,” he said. “Have we worked anything out?” I asked, confused. “No, but we will,” he said. “I’ll be in touch.” Now it occurs to me that he never asked for my room extension. Does he remember my last name? I wonder.
    The girl speaks in soft monosyllables, sitting in her damp suit on a towel on the other bed, her feet on the floor and her back straight, reminding me of Jesus and his four girlfriends dancing at the Round Bar, which at the moment seems impossibly far away, a dark room somewhere on some darker, dirtier side of the planet. Her glass, on the nightstand, is already empty. “I’m sad about my dog,” she says after she hangs up.
    â€œGo get him,” I suggest.
    â€œNo,
she
,” she says. “She’s in Conyers but I don’t think she’s going to remember me when we get back. My dad said the first night she acted like she saw a ghost in the hamper but now she’s acting fine.”
    â€œHow long are you here for?” I ask.
    â€œUm, I don’t know. My aunt has a tilted uterus and we have to wait. Can we watch ‘Muppet Babies’?” I toss her the remote. “Can I come over tomorrow?” she says.
    â€œSure,” I say. “Listen, is your dog big or small?”
    â€œBig. Like this high.”
    â€œBecause I don’t know about small dogs, but I think if she’s a good big dog she’ll remember you when she sees you. She won’t know what happened exactly, but she’ll have this feeling that something was wrong but now it’s better. She’ll feel happier than usual, kind of desperately happy, you know what I mean?Like she won’t