Irvine Welsh - If You Liked School, You'll Love Work

As Kendra applies her tinted moisturizer she thinks about Andrea Pallister. How she would have thrown herself at Trent. How she didn’t realize that, yes, some men did appreciate neediness, but generally only in short fucks. Then in her mind’s eye she sees Trent’s face slightly reconfigured from its iron-jawed, luxuriantly quiffed perfection; the nose more bulbous than she’d admitted, the complexion carrying a little extra flush. Perhaps a certain lassitude about the eyes and the mouth. On the wrong drugs . And so she readies herself to face her friends.

On her reappearance the conversation seems to strike up as if her presence has sent a signal, like an orchestera conductor waving a baton. — Never trust a guy who fucks a catwoman, Stephanie nods. — I mean, three cats! Her apartment smells so fucking gross. Who would tolerate that? Nobody but a closet slob.

— There is something just a little too gauche about him, Cressida agrees.

— That’s an interesting hypothesis, Kendra says icily, her composure restored. — You know what he once said about Toto? He said, ‘You could roll over and crush that little bastard and not even know it. I like dogs, but I prefer them big and robust. I wouldn’t want to live with something I could kill by mistake.’

Stephanie contemplates her friends with that look of knowing evaluation they’ve witnessed her deploy since their first psychology seminar at DePaul. — Reading between the lines that means he’s a slob. Covered in cat furs. Yuk! I’ll bet his idea of a good day out is the bleachers at Wrigley Fields.

— We’ve all done that one, baby, Stacie yelps in a guilty delight. The afternoon shift! And she notes two young men who are sitting at the next table. Hot, but obvious fags .

Stephanie is nodding in the negative. — In emergencies only, and just to check out a new look on the salivating frat boys. We never went there to seriously pick up , not like some demented, desperate sluts. Tricia Hales, anybody?

— A total SERB, Kendra scoffs.

Stacie looks blank again, as Cressida shrugs and Stephanie nods in approval. — Self-Esteem Rock Bottom, she gleefully enlightens them.

— She’s having a baby with that loser . In a condo , Kendra tersely observes.

Stephanie’s eyes widen in horror. — They aren’t even getting a house ? God, I bet her parents are proud of her .

— You would really say that Trent’s a slob? Stacie asks.

A beaming Stephanie turns to Kendra and Cressida in complicity. — Let’s face it, none of us are exactly novices when it comes to analyzing human nature.

The young men at the next table are preparing to leave. As they go, one says too loudly to the other, — Oh my God, the DOGS are out tonight. The Desperate, Obsessive Girl Snobs of Lincoln Park!

The girls are stunned and then outraged as they register this. Kendra reacts first, shouting, — Don’t acronym us, you faggots, nobody acronyms us!

— Woof! Woof! the gay men bark back at the girls, who all, except for Stephanie, manage to smile.

At closing time they walk out into the city night air, and the aroma of baking tar and concrete. Passing car headlights strobe them. Muscled and waxed young men, standing on street corners or under roadside trees, pay their thin bodies scant regard.

— I guess we asked for that one, Kendra says, — but we have got to just own that title. DOGS. DOGS of Lincoln Park, she tries it out for size.

— No we do nat, Stephanie insists. — These guys are misogynists. The sort of fags who blame their mothers for all the shit life has thrown at them.

— Honey, Cressida responds, — everybody blames their mothers for all the shit life has thrown at them. That’s what mothers are for .

Bickering starts up, as Kendra is aware that tiredness has just run over her. She turns and leaves them in the street with a limp, backhand wave and heads home up Halstead.

When she gets to the stairs of her apartment block, Kendra realizes that the third Stoli was a mistake. Its charge makes her feel bare and lonely as she enters her home and the air con sucks the evening heat out of her. She presses the phone’s messaging system. The developer guy, Clint, hasn’t called. — Toto puppy, Kendra shouts. — Where’s my baby boy? Does he love his mommy? Yes he does! Yes he does!

Strangely there is no sign of the dog. He is usually all over her. — Where are you hiding! Are you sick, baby? Kendra murmurs as she picks the handset from the coffee table and clicks on the television set. A date show flashes into her front room. The losers on parade make her happier to have come home alone. But it’s too quiet. Where was that little monster! She goes into one room, then another, feeling herself being breached by a sense of imminence. The apartment is silent and she can hear her own heart thump as she checks the cupboards, under the beds, all his hiding places.

Nothing!

The dog has gone. There is no trace of him. Sensing something evaporating inside her, Kendra sits down. Gathers her breath. Then she gets up and ventures outside. Had he somehow darted out when she’d opened the door? Unlikely. She surely would have noticed. She wasn’t that drunk. Down in the railed garden courtyard, she repeats his name over and over. — Toto. Toh-toh-oh-oh-oh.

There is no sign of him as she walks down the sidewalk around her block. Kendra is tentative, as if she expects her dog to materialize out of the vaporous night air, like a furry, floppy-eared angel. She squats in the narrow deserted street and calls his name, as if to do so will launch him into her lap from behind some shrub or tree. Soon all she can do, though, is contemplate the designer rips, frays, and distressing on the knees and thighs of her blue jeans.

Chef suddenly comes to mind. He might have seen Toto. She remembers that she had to take in a package for him from FedEx earlier; a long box. Retrieving it, she climbs up the stairs and bangs on the door. He answers, and he’s still in his whites. — This came for you, she tells him, his face glowing as she hands over the box. — You haven’t seen my dog around, have you?

— No, he informs her, — not seen.

— I just came back from a drink with some friends and now he’s gone, she finds herself sniffing to stifle a fretful rising inside her.

They head back downstairs in the garden, where Chef, a flashlight in his hand, helps her to search again for signs of Toto. They shine the beam up to where a window is open in her apartment. It’s in the back spare room, but there is no way the dog could have survived had he fallen from that height and there is nothing in the garden to suggest he had.

Back in her apartment, Kendra sits on the couch all of a sudden aware that heavy sobs are bubbling up through her. She hears the chef’s voice through her muffled confusion; insistent, instructing, and she gets up and follows him up the stairs, without being fully aware why. The pufferfish in the tank pout in scandalized outrage at her. As Chef goes into the kitchen, she says softly to them, — I’m sorry I ate your friend. Please bring Toto back.

Chef comes through with two glasses of Scotch in cut-glass tumblers. Kendra thinks briefly this isn’t what she needs, then she tries to work out what it is she does need, and can’t, so lets the proffered glass fill the void. Then he makes her eat something, a noodle concoction.

As she forces down the food and drink, Chef opens the box she has brought and is delighted with the sword he takes out. Unlike the other one it has a straight blade. — Ninja sword, by Paul Chen, one of best makes, Chef explains. — Ninja sword always straight, no like Shinto katana. He points at the one they used yesterday. Chef swings the sword as Kendra half-heartedly munches her way through the small supper.