A string of bad luck choked the month of June. I had to move into a sublet, a rickety Victorian two-bedroom. The breakup forced me out of our apartment, but at least I got the dog, Elvis. Then Elvis died for no apparent reason. Keeled over during a hike in the hills and gasped for air. I ran with him in my arms all the way to the car and the wildflowers laughed at me while I cried. After driving to the animal hospital the veterinarian couldn't revive my dog, but charged me quite a pretty penny anyhow. June was ugly. June hurt.
"I heard you crying," said Derek, my new housemate, an EMT who would be handsome if he didn't look so damn serious every moment of his life. He sat at the fake-wood table sucking a juicebox. He was probably on break. Those EMT guys work all the time. "Everything ok?"
"Elvis died," I said. "Yesterday."
"Huh," said Derek, looking around the kitchen, the dirty faux-Spanish linoleum floors and the piles of dishes, as if he expected to see Elvis there. "That's a tragedy."
I couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic—I'd only moved in a week before. I stared at him, at the almost-fake blue of his eyes, and decided he was being the only way I'd yet known him to be: utterly serious.
"Did you give him CPR?" Derek asked.
"Can you give animals CPR?"
"Sure," he said.
I tried to imagine my mouth on the mouth of my beloved cockapoo. I guess I should have tried, I didn't even think to at the time. I put my head in my hands and wept a little more. When I looked up and dried my eyes, Derek was staring at me, sucking his juicebox. It made slurpy sounds like it was empty.
"They teach CPR classes specifically for animals," he said.
"Do they now."
"Don't you work with animals?"
"No. I work at a clothing store for animals."
He blinked at me, and said, deadpan, "Like little dog sweaters and stuff?"
"Exactly." I sighed. "Yeah, I need a new job."
"It seems unfair there's no 9-1-1 for animals. That's always bothered me," said Derek.
I'd never thought about it before. "Yeah, well, what are you going to do."
He stared at the tiny stained glass chicken that hung in our kitchen window, right above the sink. "When I was a kid, I made an animal hospital in my dad's garage. I mended birds' wings and gave rodents CPR."
I watched him, decided he wasn't pulling my leg, and begged myself not to a) gag or b) laugh out loud.
"I had a shoebox where I'd put all the bugs I found floating in my dad's pool," he went on. "Many of them lived."
"That sounds...very nice."
He shrugged. "Why not try to save things, if you can?"
Lying in my twin bed at night, I was comforted by the thought that I shared walls and a bathroom and kitchen with someone who knew how to save lives. What convenience! If I had a blood clot from my birth control pills: he would be there. Slipped and fell in the shower? He could perform CPR in his sleep. Cut off a finger while slicing potatoes? No problem, Derek knew how to administer stitches. And so on. In a way, I felt safer than I had in my own apartment, sleeping next to my now-ex boyfriend. Derek and I were mutually polite and private, so we made good housemates. We were both messy and didn't mind it. We kept to ourselves except for dinner on Sundays. I missed cooking for someone, I missed someone mmm-mmming my salads and sandwiches and offering to clear the table. The notion that I used to have that, I used to have a warm body to curl up next to at night, two warm bodies if you count Elvis curled up at our feet, was foreign and detached. Me? That was me? Nothing felt real unless it was here. Now Derek was here.
What made me buckle and weaken, other than the two-buck Chuck we were drinking That Particular Sunday Night, was the idea that Derek—although seemingly emotionless, lacking intellectual gusto, and maybe even a few years too young for me—could save things. That was why I went into his room with him that Sunday, why we fucked, why I slept with him all night in his twin bed with the racecar bedspread.
When Derek's alarm went off at six a.m., the Morning After, and he hit the shower, I couldn't fall back asleep. My mouth was still stained purple from the night before and I, blinking at the big-tittied ladies on his calendar and the posters of sports cars, felt I had stepped into another world. My last boyfriend was the kind of man who called himself an artist, and pronounced it "art-eest," without shame. Our apartment was spotless, sparsely decorated, the furniture matched the wall trim. Derek's room was a mishmash of male adornments including a small Tiki-looking statue with a gargantuan penis, a couple of dusty, decades-old soccer trophies, and Sports Illustrated magazines wrinkled with footprints. Like the rest of the apartment, Derek's room was bedecked with an artless hodgepodge of found-it-on-the-curbside furniture. And I liked that. I could be anyone I wanted around him, I could leave a pile of clothes on the floor and not get yelled at. Plus, he could save me.
I'm an admittedly nosy person. While he showered I poked around his desk, saw a couple of envelopes—bills, nothing personal. I opened his closet to look at his clothes since I rarely saw him in anything besides the blue uniform. When I slid the mirrored doors open and pulled the string attached to the light bulb with a little pop, I was surprised to spy no shoes on the floor. Instead, there were about seven or eight open shoeboxes. Upon closer inspection, one was filled with bugs in critical condition—unmoving roly-polies, still ladybugs, sleeping bees. Two shoeboxes had what looked like ailing mice inside. Another held a cooing, sick-looking pigeon. Shocked, I stared at the boxes at my feet, and closed the door.
"You found the hospital," Derek said, toweling his hair off in the doorway.
"Yeah...how long has this been here?"
"Just a week or so."
"Maybe you're in the wrong business," I told him. "Maybe you should've been a vet or something."
"Maybe." He stared at his closet door and shrugged. "It's just a hobby."
"Huh." I cleared my throat. "Kind of unsanitary, isn't it?"
He shrugged. "I wear gloves when I handle them." He walked over to me, wrapping the towel around his waist, and blinked at me with his too-blue eyes. No one had eyes that blue, naturally.
"Do you wear contacts?" I asked him.
"No. Why does everyone always ask me that?" he asked. Then he kissed my neck. There was nothing soft about his kiss. I pulled away.
"I have work," I said, edging toward the door. "Sorry."
"This early? The dog sweater store opens this early?"
"I have a meeting," I lied.
"Okay," he said, shrugged and got dressed like I wasn't even there. Who knows what he thought or felt. His lips didn't twitch, his eyebrows didn't raise or furrow. His face never changed.
We didn't have sex again. The Not Having Sex happened (or didn't happen) smoothly, without discussion or drama, just a painless mutual forgetting. No cruel name-calling, fights over pets and possessions, or threats of lawsuits, like my ex. A few nights later Derek invited me into his room to watch a VHS tape of NASCAR races, and, remembering the odd assortment of sick insects and rodents behind his closet door, I kindly refused. He shrugged and yawned and scratched his stomach and went to bed. Right after July started I came home one afternoon and found him at the fake-wood table, staring into the air, about six empty crumpled juice boxes strewn on the tabletop.
"Something wrong?" I asked him.
"Bad day at work."
I'd had a bad day at work too. But when I had a bad day at work, I got yelled at because we were out of pink Chihuahua ponchos. When Derek had a bad day at work, people died.
"Oh no," I said, and sat down across from him. "What happened?"
He shook his head and looked at me. Recently, I'd decided he had Serial Killer Eyes. There was an unflinching, unblinking quality about them that was mesmerizing and yet very wrong. I didn't hold it against him or anything. It wasn't Derek's fault he had Serial Killer Eyes.
"It's just too horrible to talk about," he said.
"Really."
"I don't want to get into specifics, but it involved a baby and a lawnmower."
"Shit," I said. A nauseous feeling washed over me.
He drummed his fingers on the tabletop and shook his head. "Sometimes I want to do something more worthwhile," he said.
"More worthwhile than saving lives?" I asked.
I wanted to do something more worthwhile too—lately I'd thought about bartending. But I wasn't about to tell Mr. EMT that.
"I want to make an impression," he said. "You know. Be one of those guys who people remember his name. Leave something behind on this earth."
"That's ambitious," I said.
There was a long silence, and I stared at his dark brown hair and thick neck and blue uniform. I had sex with you, I thought. I slept in your bed with you. How very bizarre.
"I'm thinking about adopting another dog," I told him. "A maltipoo."
"Malty-poo?" he repeated.
"It's half poodle, like Elvis. Only Elvis was a cockapoo. They're hypo-allergenic."
He stared into the air and shook his head. I wondered if he was still thinking about the baby and the lawnmower. How do you forget a thing like that?
"Would that be all right with you, if I adopted another dog?"
"You're only here 'til August anyway." He shrugged. "The more the merrier." He gathered the crumpled juiceboxes into a pile in front of him.
"Who's your housemate, anyway?"
"My brother."
"You have a brother?" I asked, and realized that I knew hardly anything about him.
"Yeah," he said. "Four of them."
There was a long silence. In our apartment, silence is the distant shush of the freeway. I yawned and pointed at the yellow door behind Derek.
"What's in that closet?" I asked. "I was thinking about storing some of my stuff in there to make space for the new doggie bed I'm going to put in my room." He stared at me with his too-blue-to-be-true eyes.
"For the new doggie," I repeated.
"There's a rat in there," he said.
I waited for him to elaborate, recant, say he was joking, something. Nope. "Uh—what?"
"I moved a rat from my closet to there. It was for the safety of the others."
"The others," I repeated.
"In the hospital."
I stared at the yellow door and nodded and said good night. Babies and lawnmowers and closeted rats—I'd had enough Derek for one evening, thankyouverymuch.
At the next Sunday dinner I had a dog to feed scraps to: a white fluffy rescued maltipoo I named Diddley, after Bo Diddley. I made Derek and I dinner, and as he shoveled salad in his mouth, Derek watched the dog with eyes that seemed extra unblinking and extra blue. I wondered if that was what joy looked like in an expressionless face with Serial Killer Eyes.
"He's adorable," said Derek.
"Isn't he?"
"You should take a pet CPR class."
"Maybe." As much as I loved Diddley, I didn't so much like the thought of our lips touching.
"Is that a jean jacket he's wearing?" Derek asked.
"Yeah, what do you think?"
"I love it," Derek said without hesitation.
We ate the rest of the meal without talking. I liked that about Derek: no pressure for small talk, no blathering. We could even burp aloud at the dinner table, we had that kind of relationship.
"How's the hospital?" I asked, drinking two-buck Chuck from a mug.
"The rat died," he said. "But the pigeon's good to go. I'm releasing her tomorrow morning before work. Care to join me?"
"What time?" I asked.
"My shift starts at seven."
"AM?" I said. "No thanks."
I got up and rinsed off my plate. Diddley followed me, licking my heels. Maybe it was the wine's fault, but I got a twinge of happiness that warmed me.
"You know, I'm glad I met you." I looked at Derek, balled up my apron and threw it on the floor. "Even though you keep rodents in your closets, and you're a little weird, you're a really good person."
"You think I'm weird?" he asked. Then his cell rang. "Hello," he said. "Hi Baby. Okay. Sure thing. See you there." He hung up and looked at me.
I squinted at him. "'Baby.'"
"Jealous?"
"No."
"I figured." He burped. "Blind date."
"And you're calling her 'Baby?'"
"That's her name."
"Oh." For the first time, I felt a crimp of awkwardness between us. And an out-of-nowhere flash of lonely. I turned and grabbed the compost bin and stepped outside. Diddley followed me. In the back yard, I emptied out the compost. I stood in the yard and noticed the plum tree's plums were ripening, some splattered in the grass. The thought hit me: this isn't my home. I have to go away soon, I have to move on. Soon this won't be real anymore. I picked up Diddley and hugged him. I straightened out his jean jacket and put him back on the ground and watched him eat a plum.
The compost bin stunk and had dusty blue–green spots of mold growing inside, so I decided to be a Good Samaritan and wash it out. I didn't know where the hose was, so I opened the small silver shed near the compost bin. Inside, I didn't notice a hose, but I did see a lot of junk, and a large crate with a pillow inside. A ravaged, mangy raccoon blinked at me from the crate. "Oh, for the love of—"
I closed the shed door and ran back inside the apartment with Diddley following at my heels. Derek was still sitting in the same spot at the kitchen table, only now he was sucking on a red Otter Pop.
"Something wrong?" he asked me.
"There's a fucking dying raccoon in the shed."
"He's dying?" said Derek, standing up and scooting his chair with a spine-tingling sound.
I sighed. "I mean, there's a raccoon in there."
"He was attacked by a cat, I think. He's not dying, but his condition is critical."
"Nevermind," I said, holding up my hands. I'm leaving in August, I told myself. Two short weeks away.
I found a place. A studio was all I could afford, but hopefully soon with the bartending gig I was starting at night I might be able to upgrade. I packed my things in the same boxes I'd used to move into Derek's place. It seemed like I'd just unpacked, and now I was packing it all up again. Déjà vu—only now there was a different half-poodle dog at my side. Derek offered to help me move. He said he was thinking about buying a van right around the same time and that he liked helping people move.
Fine, I said. Thanks.
But on the day of, the 31st of July to be exact, a Sunday, I didn't see Derek anywhere. I waited in the kitchen for a half hour, jingling my keys and staring at the yellow door. I peeked out the curtains incessantly. I even did some dishes, I was so antsy. I noticed a strange old ambulance, all beat-up and eighties looking, parked next to the mailbox out front. I got a weird feeling and walked out there. My weird feeling got warmer, warmer as I went into the sideyard. In the backyard, I saw the shed door ajar, and I peeked in the doorway.
Derek, clad in his EMT uniform, sat next to the unmoving raccoon-in-a-crate and shook his head. Derek's lips were bleeding. His face was wet but inexpressive.
"I lost him," said Derek. "I lost the little guy."
"Why are your lips bleeding?"
"I tried to perform CPR," he said. "He bit me."
"A now-dead raccoon bit your lips."
"Yes."
"When you were giving it CPR."
He nodded.
"You were giving a raccoon CPR," I had to say out loud. I shook my head. At that moment, Derek seemed like he was either Animalia's messiah or the biggest idiot I'd ever known. Maybe the two weren't mutually exclusive.
"It didn't work," he said. He dabbed at his lips with the back of his hand, looked at the red smudge it made, and shook his head. "I lost him."
"You need a rabies shot," I said.
"I know I do. I'm an EMT, remember?"
"Let's go get you a rabies shot."
"I'll do it later."
"Derek, we're getting you a rabies shot," I said, my voice climbing. I was surprised at how naggy I sounded, like a big sister, or a wife. I glared at him and crossed my arms.
He drove us to the hospital—the real hospital, of course, not a closet full of shoeboxes. He drove in the beat-up ambulance. When I asked him about it, he said he bought it, fair and square.
"For your job?" I asked him in the exam room. "Don't they give you an ambulance to drive at your job?"
Just then Doctor Yu came in. Doctor Yu shook her head at Derek when he explained about the raccoon and the CPR. "Again?" she asked. Derek got his shots. He was told to come back for more shots. Then, with a little cotton puff taped to his inner elbow, he helped me move with his old-school ambulance.
"How was your date?" I asked him as we dragged the last of the boxes inside. Diddley was leaping and bounding around the tiny studio, running back and forth from wall to wall.
"Date?" Derek put the box down and blinked at me.
"With Baby."
"Oh," he said, and shrugged. "No connection."
"That's too bad," I said, feeling an odd sense of relief. "At least you found out now and not, like, six months into a relationship."
"Is that what happened to you?"
"Yeah. He was way older than I was. He wanted to impregnate me and put a ring on my finger and all that."
Derek's cell phone rang. He picked up. I heard the quiet buzz of someone yelling in his ear. "Hey. Sorry. Don't yell at me. I didn't realize you were coming so soon. I'll take care of it. See you soon. Love you." He hung up and pointed at the phone. "My brother," he said to me.
"Ah."
"He showed up early. He's mad because the place isn't clean. A real neat freak."
"Shit, sorry. If I'd have know that I would've cleaned up better."
He shrugged. "It's okay. What were we talking about?" "Nothing," I said.
He cleared his throat and looked at the boxes on my floor with an almost-wistful look in his blueblue eyes. He reached down and pet Diddley. "Well," he said to him.
"Well."
There was a long silence. He stood up.
"You're a good guy, Derek," I said.
"Thanks."
"I don't think you should give rats and raccoons CPR, though."
"Why not?"
The very fact he had to ask that question made any answer I could muster up futile. I shook my head. "It was fun living with you for two months," I said.
"You changed my life," he said.
I watched his face for some flicker that he was kidding—but no, he was dead serious. His swollen red lips didn't twitch.
"How did I change your life?" I asked.
"You gave me a great idea. After Elvis died, you said something about there needing to be a 9-1-1 for animals."
"I didn't say that, you said that."
"Really?"
"I'm pretty sure."
He paused. "Anyway, that's why I bought the ambulance. I'm going to start a business—an ambulatory service for pets. A 9-1-1 for animals."
"It's a good idea," I said. "You're a real entrepreneur."
"Yeah."
We shook hands. He stood frozen for a minute, and then waved.
"Bye," he said, and turned toward the door.
I got a lurch inside me. It was a peculiar moment, a tipping point where I could feel something ending and becoming unreal, and something new and unreal unfolding and becoming real. My new life. A new night job. My new studio, all alone, really alone. "Dinner Sunday?" I asked.
"You still want to do Sunday dinners?"
"Sure, why not? I like cooking for someone," I heard myself say. Hmmm. Was I just being polite or was I making an actual offer? Sometimes I suggest things, in parting, that are meant to soften the blow of goodbye but end up sounding instead like commitments. With my ex, the last thing I said to him was, "We'll hang out soon. Take Elvis to the dog park or something." That, of course, was a lie, but even I didn't know it at the time. And the not-knowing made it so much easier.
"My brother doesn't like eating in front of people," Derek said. "He doesn't like people eating in front of him, either."
"Well, your brother doesn't have to come."
Derek looked at the doorknob and then up at me. The slightest smile broke upon his broken lips. It looked foreign, that smile, that tiny parting of pink, the momentary flash of straight white teeth. I jumped in surprise.
"Okay," he said. "See you then."
I watched his blue back as he exited the doorway and shut my door. I locked the chain and turned around and looked at the boxes, the boxes, the stacks of boxes and the blankness around it that would soon be transformed, filled, and real.