Page 67 of Love Undecided
“Not me, Mavis, this is about Remi,” I remind her. She nods and waves her hand at me.
Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip!
The doorbell rings and the dogs start to go a bit crazy running in circles around one another, like little tornadoes making a path for the door. I look at the time and realize it must be Bauer coming to get me.
Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip!
I open the door to a frustrated looking Bauer.
“Didn’t find anything new?” I ask.
“Not a thing,” he says, running his hand through his hair. The dogs jump in the air and fling themselves at the screen door trying to get at Bauer.
Yip! Yip! Yip! Yip!
Mavis makes it to the door and quiets the dogs. “Stella! Clyde!Shtum!Shtum!”
The dogs sit at her feet, tails spinning in little circles as they wait to envelop this newcomer in their swirling vortex of fur-filled love.
“Oy veymy littlekinderlachs,” she says to them. “So feisty today.” She looks up at Bauer. “They don’t usually like gentlemen callers,” she says, as she opens the screen door to let him in.
Stella and Clyde both start jumping as high as his thighs, trying to get his attention. They look like little ping-pong balls bouncing back and forth off the floor and his leg.
“Mavis, this is Chance Bauer, the gentleman I was telling you about,” I say.
“Pleasure to meet you, ma’am,” Bauer says, reaching out his hand to shake hers. Mavis takes his hand, then turns to me and says, “Katarina, if I was still amaydl, you’d have to beat me off this one with a stick, no?”
Bauer tries to cover a laugh with a cough, clearly surprised by her comments.
“You’ll get used to her,” I tell him. “She’s gotchutzpah, isn’t that right, Mavis?”
She reaches up and cradles my cheek in her hand, then pats it twice. “Oh, my Katarina, such a dear.”
I can’t tell if it’s a loving gesture or a patronizing one.
“I don’t mean to cut this visit short ma’am,” Bauer says to Mavis. “But we need to get going.”
I lean down to give Mavis a hug. When I straighten, Bauer puts his hand on the small of my back and turns me toward the front door.
“Ah, thelibeof the young,” she says.
I say goodbye one more time and head out the door with Bauer right behind me. We get a few houses away when he stops me and says, “You know she totally grabbed my ass, right?”
I look up at him, a huge smile on my face. Because that definitely sounds like Mavis.
“Twice,” he says. “And I think I liked it.”
“Of course you did,” I say laughing at him.
I want to be Mavis when I grow up.
