Kathleen Hale - No One Else Can Have You

Dom smiles. Behind him the microwave beeps, finished. “Sure,” he says softly, getting up.

My phone buzzes and I jump. Who could be calling me right now? Ralph and Dom are the only people who call me anymore and they’re both right here.

Ruth cell calling . . .

I leap off my stool and run into the living room—bounding over Ralph and ducking into the hallway, clutching the cell phone in front of my face. What a huge mistake—a total mix-up. Where did she go? How did she fight him off? Whose body did they actually find? My chest is tight with relief and excitement—but also there’s that heart-dropping-into-stomach thing, like when you’re in your driveway after dark, searching your car for a textbook you probably left at school, and all of a sudden you feel like someone’s watching you.

I press Talk. “Hello?” My voice sounds strange. Shaky and scared and hopeful.

“Kippy, it’s Davey.”

I exhale, deflated—“Oh”—and walk back to my stool in the kitchen, trying to look like, “whatever.” Across the room, Dom is pulling a steaming bowl of melted tomatoes out of the microwave with bare hands and cursing under his breath. He puts it back and reaches for a pair of oven mitts. “Right, duh. Hi, Davey.”

“They gave us her phone back today and I really needed to get in touch with you.”

“I mean it makes total sense and also I knew it was you, so.” I roll my eyes like, obviously—definitely didn’t think it was your sister or anything , even though Davey can’t see me. Dom puts the steaming bowl down on the counter with a triumphant flourish and I wave him away.

Davey clears his throat. “So here’s the thing: some girl named Libby is on her way over here, and at first I was like, ‘Yeah, okay, fine,’ because that’s what I’ve been saying all day—but it’s almost dark, and I’m beat, and I literally can’t take another visitor. Could you do me a big favor, and call her cell or something, and tell her not to come, please?”

“Libby Quinn?”

“Yeah, make any excuse you need to, just—”

“No, it’s just that I don’t have her number.”

“What? She said you guys were friends.”

Dom hands me a soda and a fork, and uncaps a beer for himself.

I sigh. “The last time I talked to Libby Quinn, she put my face in her boobs and called me Katie.” Dom gives me a look. I poke at the contents of the bowl, and one of the tomatoes dissolves with a hiss. “Which is not my name.”

Davey makes an exasperated noise. “Listen, could you at least come over and run interference? I seriously can’t talk to another repressed, fake . . . neighbor type . . . I’m hanging by a thread here.” He sounds accusatory, like I’ve done something wrong. I remind myself that grief does weird things.

“Sure, let me—” My mind spins, wondering how I’ll explain this to Dom, who once joked that he’d be fine with me hanging out with boys once he was dead. Plus, on the car ride home, Dom kept emphasizing how much he loved me, and how much perspective Ruth’s death had given him and every single parent in the PTA—and how he wanted to spend as much time as possible with me these next few days. At one point it seemed like he might cry. Oof. “Give me ten minutes.”

“I appreciate it,” Davey says.

I hang up and peek at Dom, who’s staring at the steaming bowl, looking suspicious and a bit disgusted. “Ralph, you want any of this?” he yells.

“What?” Ralph shouts. “One sec, I’m playing.”

I give Dom a small wave to get his attention. “I’m really sorry, Dommy, but I’ve gotta go.”

He looks aghast. “Wait, what? Pimple, if it’s about this terrible salad, I can get us a new thing.” He reaches for me. “How about we call The Pizza Place and get a full sausage pepperoni, and have them put a vegetable on it?” He smiles at me. “I’m sure they’ve got a vegetable, honey.”

I give him a pleading look. “Davey’s having an emotional crisis and I need to go sit with him.” I reach for my bag. “Come on, Dom, you know how much you condone emotional check-ins. Please . . .”

“No.” His tone has completely changed.

“Dom!”

“What’s going on in there?” Ralph calls.

“Nothing!” I shout back.

Dom takes a deep breath. “Kippy, could you just stay here, please—the poor Frieds, I think about what they’ve lost and I just—”

“Get off my nuts,” I snap, slipping on my backpack. I look away, feeling guilty. It’s something Ruth used to say to me. “I want to hang out with someone my own age.”

Dom purses his lips. “I wouldn’t say he’s your own age—”

“Quit it!” He’s always acting like every boy likes me, and it’s humiliating.

He sighs. “You know that I trust you—and that I’m not averse to compromise. As long as there’s adult supervision—you know how I feel about that, Kippy—”

“I said quit it! I mean, it’s just like, for cripe’s sake, you know? I could use some frigging breathing room is all.”

Dom clears his throat and crosses his arms. “All right, that’s okay. A bit irrational but—you know what . . . you can be upset, you’re a teenager, it’s your job to be upset.” He reaches primly into the cutlery drawer for The Pizza Place take-out menu. “I, on the other hand, am a grown-up. So I will not be getting upset. I will be eating a delicious, meat-covered, deep dish pizza. With Ralph.” He looks up at me, stern. “You be home by 8.”

The fact that I had my own car was always a big gripe with Ruth. It’s just a used Astro van, not some baller deal or anything—only slightly cooler than Dom’s worn-out Subaru. It’s got the weird captain’s chairs in the middle row, and the thick fabric curtains on the side windows. But Ruth got jealous. It didn’t even help that I let her name it Rhonda. She said she’d put it to better use than I did. Take boys out. Roll around in back. It adds almost ten minutes to my trip, but I take the long way to the Fried’s so that I don’t have to pass the cornfield.

There isn’t any wind to rustle the pine trees lining Davey’s driveway; they’re just standing there, like watchmen. The lights inside the house and the lamppost by the mailbox are off. The only way I even know anybody’s there is that Libby’s white SUV is parked in the driveway—I guess she beat me. Plus, Pasta Batman is sitting by one of the pine trees, like he usually is, wagging his tail. The Frieds have these two enormous dogs, Pasta Batman and Marco Baseball. They’re both some kind of Great Dane-Saint Bernard-werewolf hybrid. I remember the first time I came over, we pulled up in Mrs. Fried’s truck, and my first thought upon seeing them was “We might not be able to kill those things with the car.” I envisioned them bouncing off the fender, getting up, cracking their knuckles, and then diving through the windshield to eat our necks. Each one looked like some sort of sasquatch/gorilla, or a dinosaur with fur. The sort of animal that brings emergencies to mind like, “It will get me.”

“Davey and I named them when we were so young we were still a little bit retarded,” Ruth explained quietly, introducing me to the dogs later that day.

“Mrs. Konik says we’re not supposed to say that word,” I reminded her. “It’s a real bad one.” But I knew exactly what she meant because at the time I had a cat named Mother Peanut Butter.

Anyway, Pasta’s too ancient to be scary now. I slam my car door and he hobbles over, and out of habit I whisper, “Hi, funny doggie!” Before I can give him a hug he tips onto his arthritic spine, panting, waiting for me to rub his belly. The driveway pebbles crunch underneath his squirming back. I hear muffled shouting through the pine trees, give him a few quick pats, and then speed walk across the driveway, ducking through the branches.