Page 6 of Happiness for Beginners

Pickle was never happy about much, but going to the vet made her positively suicidal. As I waved a falsely cheerful good-bye, I felt a squeeze of regret and wondered if I should have left her at Duncan’s place after all. But I couldn’t have. That dog didn’t know how lucky she was. If nothing else, the party last night had likely saved her life. If I’d left her with Duncan, I’d no doubt have returned weeks later to a desiccated pile of fur and a befuddled-looking brother, scratching his head, saying, “Ithoughtshe got awfully quiet.”

Walking back to my Subaru after the drop-off, I realized I’d parked so hastily that I’d left one tire partway up on the curb. I hadn’t even noticed at the time, but, back out front, the wonky tire was the first thing I saw. The second thing I saw was Jake, standing right next to it, holding a Starbucks coffee.

“Nice parking job,” he said, handing me the cup.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“Thought I’d save you the trouble of picking me up.”

“What if you’d missed me?”

“Well, that would have been the opposite of saving you trouble,” he admitted. “But that’s not what happened.”

I took in the sight of him: bed-head hair, cargo pants with no belt, and a surprisingly clingy T-shirt with Snoopy on it. His duffel bag leaned against the car.

“Worried I’d skip town without you?” I asked.

That made him smile. “You bet,” he said.

“I thought about it,” I said.

He rummaged in his backpack and pulled out a book with a whale on the cover. “I’ll read the whole time,” he said. “You won’t even know I’m here.”

I gave him a look. “Right.”

“Ready to go?”

“Not really,” I said, but I unlocked the door anyway.

As I watched him shove his bag into the way back, I wondered how he’d known where to find me, but then I remembered the Pickle packet I’d assembled for Duncan, with a highlighted map to the vet’s.

“Duncan showed you the packet,” I said.

Jake nodded and slammed the hatchback closed. “You’re very thorough.”

I was. In fact, I’d truly gone overboard. Letters of explanation to the vet. Letters of explanation to Duncan. More information than anybody needed. I felt a sting of shame that swung right over to resentment at Duncan for forcing me to be that way. “When it comes to Duncan, I am.”

“Want me to drive?”

“No.”

No, I did not want him to drive. If it were up to me, he’d be crammed back there with his duffel, and I’d be up front, alone with all the music I’d collected for the journey: Joni Mitchell, Nina Simone, Indigo Girls. The plan had been to sing my lungs out on the drive west, to team up with everybody from Annie Lennox to James Brown and belt out every emotion in the human repertoire. And then, hopefully, by the time I hit Wyoming, to be done with them all.

Of course, I wouldn’t be belting anything out in front of Jake. That’s not the kind of singing you do with a stranger. Or a friend of your brother’s. I glanced over at him. Driving a thousand and one miles today in songless silence while this kid played video games on his phone was not what I’d signed up for.

But there it was. Life never gives you exactly what you want. That didn’t change the fact that it was time to go. We buckled up and I edged us out into the street.

“So,” I said, as we joined the flow of cars. “It’s one thousand and one miles from here to Evanston.”

“One thousandand one?”

“Roughly.” I nodded. “Google says it’ll take fifteen hours and twenty-two minutes,” I went on, glancing at the clock on the dashboard, “and it’s eleven minutes after nine now, thanks to Duncan, so we won’t make it in time for dinner. We should arrive at my grandma’s house—”

“After midnight,” he finished.

“Right,” I said, giving a little sigh. I wondered if I should call and tell Grandma GiGi not to wait up. She was a night owl, but she wasn’t literally nocturnal.

“I bet we can still get you there for dinner,” Jake said. “A late one, anyway.” I could see him thinking. “Google’s assuming we’re driving sixty-five miles an hour. But we’ll be doing eighty or ninety, at least.”

---