Dog Beach Unleashed Page 6

  Soon everyone else arrives. Claire’s eyes are red, as they usually are these days. I try to study Calvin, to see what he does when he sees me. Does he get nervous? Does he straighten out his shirt or anything?

  But nope. Nothing. He just nudges his head in my direction, the way he says hi most of the time. Then he goes to play Frisbee with Ritzy, Oreo, Atticus, and Rascal. They’re a crew this summer, and they can’t be separated.

  Ritzy looks so small compared to the others. Sometimes I can’t even see her little brown and white Jack Russell body. It gets hidden by the bigger dogs.

  “So, what’s up, Rem?” Bennett asks. “Gonna bail on your swimming lesson again?”

  I glare at him. “I only bailed once.”

  “Whatever.” He puts his hands on his hips and does a fake-angry pose.

  I know he’s joking with me, but I can barely look at him. Why does he care about missing our swimming lessons when he didn’t care that Calvin liked me?

  The boys all go to handle the dogs for a moment, while the girls take a break and do some serious lounging. It’s a new thing we started, giving one another a few minutes off.

  “I don’t know what to do about Mason,” Micayla says. “He’s just kind of needy lately. Like, he asked me if I’d quiz him on Italian.”

  “What?” Claire scoffs. “Are you serious?”

  “Yeah.” She makes a face. “I mean, come on. No one wants to quiz anyone on anything in the summer.”

  “Are you two even together?” Claire asks.

  Claire always has a way of saying exactly what she’s thinking. Sometimes it hurts people’s feelings, but she does it anyway. It seems to have gotten worse this summer, but I think it’s because of everything she’s dealing with at home.

  “Never mind. Forget I even brought this up.” Micayla gets up from the sand. She walks away, to the dogs and the boys.

  Claire raises her eyebrows at me. “What was that all about?”

  “They are together,” I remind her. “You knew that.”

  “I did not. They barely even hang out. And Mason rarely helps at Dog Beach anymore.” She huffs. “Can I have the day off? I’m really tired.”

  “Whatever you need to do,” I say.

  She looks at me, waiting for me to say more. Maybe I should be more supportive. But right now Lester is twisted up in some seaweed because he was trying to run away from Ritzy, and the rest of the dogs are barking because they’re starving and waiting for their lunch.

  I have no idea how to balance the dog responsibilities with my friend responsibilities. But I’ll have to find a way.

  It’s gray out, but Josh and the Improvimaniacs practice with the dogs on the beach. It’s so funny that it takes my mind off the gloomy weather and my gloomy mood.

  Right now they’re pretending Oreo is a professor and the four actors are in a class with the rest of the dogs. It’s cracking us up, because Oreo keeps falling asleep on the sand and Josh’s friend Liat has to wake him up over and over again.

  And then it starts pouring. Not raining. Pouring. Thick, clumpy raindrops that pelt the dogs’ fur and make it hard for us to see.

  “Guys, come on!” Josh yells to us.

  “What?” I yell. It’s hard to hear through the rain.

  He yells back, “Follow me. Grab the dogs! Quick!”

  So we gather up the dogs and all their stuff as fast as we can. Ritzy’s such a slow walker that Calvin picks her up and runs with her. We follow Josh and the Improvimaniacs until we’re standing in front of the old Seagate Hotel.

  “Come on in.”

  Josh really wants us to bring the dogs in there? Dripping, wet-dog-smelling dogs? I can’t believe it. But I’m too drenched to argue.

  Once the dogs are inside, they run around the lobby and check out the place. They sniff every corner. They’re as confused as we are.

  “What’s going on?” I ask. “We’re allowed to be in here?”

  “Yeah, my family owns this place,” Josh tells us. “It’s empty this summer while my mom and her crazy sisters figure out what they want to do with it. It was my grandfather’s place, and since he passed away, they haven’t decided if they should sell it or not. Anyway, we’re staying here this summer, running the improv and theater activities for the kids and looking after the place.”

  “Really?” I ask. “Just you and your friends?”

  He nods. “Yup. You seem shocked.”

  I look around to my friends, but they’re with the dogs. I am shocked. I can’t imagine having an entire hotel to ourselves.

  “So, you’ve spent a lot of summers on Seagate?” I ask him.

  “I visited a bunch, but I never spent the whole summer. My mom and her sisters are so distraught about my grandfather dying that they didn’t have the strength to come here or figure out what to do with the hotel. So I said I’d come and sort things out, if I was allowed to bring the Improvimaniacs with me.”

  “I see.”

  “And it’s been so rainy, we’ve been indoors way more than I like to be,” he tells me. “So it’s good to have the extra space.”

  “Right.”

  “It was the first place I could think to take you guys when it started raining.” He cracks his neck. “Must be tough for you guys, too. What do you do with the dogs when it rains?”

  “Nothing,” I say. “They just stay home for the most part, where they get bored. Plus, we make a lot less money.”

  “Wow.” Josh laughs. “You’re quite the entrepreneur.”

  “No, no, that’s not what I mean.” I crack up, picturing myself in some kind of fancy suit, working on Wall Street. “We’re trying to raise money, to save an animal shelter in Manhattan that’s in danger of closing.”

  “That’s awesome,” Josh says.

  I shrug. “Thanks.”

  “Well, now you can bring the dogs here when it rains,” he says. “It’s just an empty space for the most part. As you can see.” He looks around. “Hope you don’t need to, though. I hope the weather takes a turn for the better.”

  I nod and look around the place. It’s gigantic. We’re standing in what used to be the lobby, but everything’s gone except for the old concierge desk. The carpet has been pulled up, revealing worn wooden floors. And there’s a bay window at the back with a window seat.

  I remember my grandma telling me a few years ago that when she was in her twenties, everyone would come here to the hotel for a fun night out. There’s a picture of her and Grandpa sitting on that window seat. They’re all dressed up, looking into each other’s eyes. It’s one of my favorite photos. They look like movie stars, the most beautiful people I’ve ever seen.

  I wonder if she was friends with Josh’s grandpa. I bet she was.

  “It’s a great space,” I say. “It’s so big, and the high ceilings are amazing, along with the view, of course.”

  “Yeah, it’s great,” he says. “I’d like to keep it in the family, but I think my mom just wants to move on.”

  Josh goes to find the rest of the troupe, and I walk over to help with the dogs.

  “So we can just hang out here?” Micayla asks me. I tell her the whole story about the hotel and Josh’s grandpa.

  She listens but then changes the subject. “Everything seems crazy today. Claire is crying. Bennett and Calvin keep arguing about what teams are going to make the Super Bowl, even though it’s July! Even the dogs are acting nuts.”

  I look around. Things seem moderately calm to me.

  “I don’t get it,” I say. “The dogs are all lounging.”

  “They’re fine right now. But I didn’t even have a chance to tell you what happened with Lester this morning.”

  “What happened?” I ask.

  “He kept trying to run away when I picked him up, even though I called him to come back a hundred times. Then he hopped onto someone’s lap outside Breakfast on the Boardwalk and took a bite of the woman’s egg and cheese sandwich. And he can’t even have dairy!”

  “For re
al?”

  “Yes, Remy. I don’t know what’s gotten into him. He’s clearly struggling with something.” She looks right into my eyes. “And you, you’re struggling with something, too. I can tell. Your mind is in a hundred different places.” She puts her hands on my shoulders and tries to get me to focus.

  She’s right. No matter how hard I try to pretend that I have everything figured out, Micyala can tell when I don’t.

  “Okay.” I take a deep breath. Focus, Remy, focus. Right now I need to be here, helping with the dogs, helping my friends. Finally I come up with an indoor activity that would be good for the dogs and for relaxation.

  We gather all the dogs together, and we get them to sit more or less in a circle. Maybe it’s possible for us to do some doggie yoga. I try to guide them to breathe in and breathe out and breathe in and breathe out.

  “This is ridiculous!” Claire says, standing up. “Dogs can’t do yoga! And neither can I.”

  “Claire, come on,” Calvin groans. “Just sit down.”

  “And of course dogs can do yoga,” I say defensively. “Hello! Downward-facing dog?”

  No one laughs, and that disappoints me a little bit.

  “I need a personal day,” Claire says. She’s been asking for days off more and more lately, but she’s still here.

  “Claire,” I say, though I’m a little bit tired of begging her to stick around, “please stay.”

  Even though my begging sounds forced, Claire sits back down. Calvin and I make eye contact, and I feel like I’ve swallowed a brick. And then that brick goes down my throat and into my stomach.

  I don’t understand how anyone can focus on anything when there’s a boy you might really like who might also really like you. And there’s also a boy you thought you really liked, but maybe you were wrong.

  At the end of the day, we take the dogs home. Then Calvin and Bennett go to shoot hoops, and Claire, Micayla, and I walk home slowly, deciding to stop at Sundae Best on the way.

  We’re sitting at one of the tables in the back, drinking our milkshakes, and for the moment everything feels right.

  “It’s a milkshake kind of day,” Josie says from where she’s working at the counter. “Some days are for slurping, right?”

  I don’t know exactly what she means by that, but I think she’s right.

  It’s good to be here, just us. Just the girls. Drinking milkshakes and talking about nothing all that important—which nail polish brands don’t chip, when our moms will let us see R-rated movies, and the magic of the Sundae Best Surprise Scoop.

  “I like to pick my flavors!” I proclaim. “I know there are flavors I haven’t tried, but I like what I like. It’s weird to me that anyone would ever pick the Surprise Scoop.”

  “I disagree,” Micayla argues. “It’s fun to be surprised sometimes. Plus, I never would have known that their mango sorbet is one of the most delicious things in the world if not for the Surprise Scoop.”

  Claire says, “You guys, you don’t need to agree. One of you likes surprises, and one of you doesn’t. That’s it.”

  “I guess,” I reply. “But it still seems that the Surprise Scoop concept is—”

  “Anyway …” Claire widens her eyes at me and turns to Micayla. “I’m sorry about what I said a few days ago. About the Mason thing. I guess I did know you guys were together. I wasn’t being very nice.” She looks down at her nearly empty glass.

  “It’s fine,” Micayla mumbles. “Whatever. It’s not really that big of a deal.”

  I don’t add anything, because this seems like a conversation between Micayla and Claire. Plus, I want to leave room for Claire to talk about her situation at home if she wants to.

  But instead of Claire talking about her family, Micayla continues. “So, how do I do it? Break up with Mason, I mean? Is there a nice way to break up with someone?”

  I look at Claire, and then Claire looks at me. Neither of us has any experience with this situation.

  “Probably not,” I reply. “Breaking up is kind of a mean thing to do, even when it’s necessary, ya know? And you’re going to have to see him for the rest of the summer.”

  “Right.” Micayla slumps in her seat. “So tell me what to do. Guys, come on. Help!”

  We stay at Sundae Best for another hour or so, brainstorming ideas. But none of them really seems nice.

  “Bring him here,” Josie says after we ask her what Micayla should do. “The Breakup Bowl is the best way to do it. A waffle-cone bowl with five scoops, whipped cream, and chocolate sauce.”

  “Really?” Micayla asks.

  Josie nods. “It says you can still be friends. And everything is better with ice cream.”

  A few days later, Bennett comes over to give me a swimming lesson after a long day at Dog Beach. I keep telling myself that it will be over soon. We have only an hour left until he has to go home for dinner. I count the minutes.

  “We should take advantage of the fact that it’s not raining, Rem. Do you want to go walk on the beach later tonight?” Bennett asks me after I swim a few laps. He doesn’t wait for an answer. “Remember when we were little and all we wanted was to be able to go for night walks on our own? And it seemed like a million years before we’d be able to do it?”

  I nod. “It did seem like forever. But now it’s here. Isn’t it weird how you don’t feel the passage of time when it’s passing?”

  “Yeah,” he says. “It’s like all the little days add up to a lot of time.”

  “Right. It’s just like how it’s Seagate’s centennial summer.” I pop under the water and then pop back up. “One hundred years is so long when you think about it, but it just passed by, one day at a time.”

  He squints from the late-day sun.

  “I guess that’s why it’s so important to celebrate this big anniversary,” I tell him. “Because if we don’t, time just goes on and on, and no one notices that it’s passed.”

  He hops up onto the edge of the pool and runs his hands over his wet hair. “I see what you’re saying. But also, you can get so bogged down with the big things that you miss the little moments sometimes. Like how great this swim lesson is.”

  It feels like I’ve swallowed a huge clump of mashed potatoes. It was only a few minutes ago that I was counting the minutes until the lesson would end.

  And before I have a chance to realize what’s happening, Bennett hops back into the pool. He comes close to me, and that first-kiss conversation we had back in February pops into my head like a flashing neon sign.

  But what about what he said to Calvin? How could Bennett tell Calvin to “go for it” when he wanted to kiss me a few months ago?

  We lock eyes, and I can feel it—he’s going to kiss me. Really kiss me. Like, on the lips.

  No. No. No.

  But then he flicks me on the forehead with his index finger, the way he does when he wants to zap me out of my thoughts. The moment of danger is over. I breathe a sigh of relief.

  I didn’t want Bennett to kiss me. But then, why did I get so upset about what he told Calvin?

  A few mornings later, we all meet at the Seagate Hotel. We’ve started calling it the Seagate Doggie Day Camp Rainy-Day Headquarters.

  We’re wearing windbreakers more often than bathing suits these days. This looming grayness just isn’t right.

  When we do get a day at Dog Beach, I feel anxious the whole time. I want to make every moment perfect for me and my friends and make sure the dogs are having the best day ever. Which is impossible.

  The rainy days feel hard, too. Everyone, including the dogs, seems sad and lethargic. And that makes me anxious.

  But I’m most anxious about the almost-kiss with Bennett. I keep thinking about how much I didn’t want it to happen. This must mean that I don’t ever want to be more than friends with him. But should I tell him?

  Oreo seems to have the ability to sense my anxiety. Whenever I get stressed (which is often lately) he hangs out by me, as if he wants me to know he’s there.

&nb
sp; He keeps walking up to me and sitting by my feet, like he’s saying, “What’s the trouble? How can I help?” His big Portuguese water dog eyes say that he has everything figured out, that he has good advice stored somewhere in his brain—like he’s my dog therapist!

  “Guys, come check this out,” Josh calls to us from the room that used to be the library of the hotel. Micayla and Claire are in a corner of the lobby with Marilyn Monroe and Tabby, playing some kind of game where they roll a ball around and the dogs try to catch it. Bennett and Calvin are upstairs rolling up rugs and seeing if they can make more space for the dogs.

  “Listen,” Josh says. “This record player has been here since the 1940s. I had a specialist from the mainland come over to fix it up. And he said it’s in great shape.”

  “Cool,” I say. I sense that Josh is really excited about this, which makes me excited about it, too.

  He puts on an old record. Classical music. It sounds clear and crisp and not scratchy at all. “We’re gonna start using more music in our routines, so I’m pumped about this.”

  Right then, Lester sprints in from a corner of the room. While the music plays, Lester starts “singing.” Really singing, with his head arched up toward the ceiling.

  “Holy sssh-sugarsnaps.” Josh catches himself before he swears. “That dog can sing! Yo, Juan, come over here!” he calls out.

  His friend Juan and the other two Improvimaniacs run in, and Lester keeps singing along with the record.

  “A whole world of possibilities just opened up,” Liat says. “We have a singing dog!”

  I’m happy for them. They really want to win their national competition, and now it seems that they have something the other teams won’t. Maybe they can convince the Decsinis to let them borrow Lester so they can incorporate him into the routine. Lester can be their secret weapon! And the cocker spaniel seems so happy when he’s singing. He’s a totally different dog—alert, focused, confident.

  We might never have known about Lester’s hidden talent if Josh didn’t play that old record. I guess the rain brought about one good thing.