Read Online Dog Stays in the Picture by Susan; Morse - Free Book Online Page B

much; not yet, even though Sam is still trying to decide what his long Ivy U essay will be about. He’s kicking around an idea for one about going to Toys“R”Us with Ben to choose a treat.
    I used to dangle visits to Toys“R”Us as a reward for the kids when they’d endured something particularly stressful, like being vaccinated or having a tooth filled. We’d go straight to Toys“R”Us from the doctor or dentist and let everyone pick out what they wanted in a specific price range.
    Eliza gravitated toward reliable standards like the Littlest Pet Shop or My Little Pony. The boys’ tastes were trickier.
    Being the same sex and age it was natural for them to want the same thing. Usually that thing had to involve batteries or chargers or mechanisms of some kind, which meant it was safe to assume the bloody device was bound to break. I would try to herd the boys to an aisle with something straightforward, like maybe a ball or a plastic dinosaur, but no. They had to have the bells and whistles—swords that light up and make Star Wars –type noises were of particular interest. Those things should be banned.
    What Sam found interesting fodder for his essay is that after I paid for their identical and fabulous Super Sonic Death Ray Whatsits (always checking carefully that the lights and the Bzzzzzzz sound effect worked properly on both Whatsits by pushing the Test buttons in the store), we’d drive home as quickly as possible. By the time we reached our driveway, ripped packaging littering the floor of the car, Sam’s Death Ray Whatsit would be stone-cold dead.
    Not Ben’s Whatsit. Ben’s Whatsit worked great. It was Sam’s. Always Sam’s. As if he occupied some kind of magnetic field—you know those people whose wristwatches stop immediately when they put them on? I don’t believe in curses, but Sam could make a case for it.
    Ben and his Whatsit could joyfully dart all over the house for weeks: Bzzzzzz! Bzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz! And there’d be Sam, in a corner, slumped mournfully over his identical but hatefully impotent Sonic Death Ray.
    Broken.
    And now Sam’s trying to figure out what this tendency to pick the defective toy might signify in the grand scheme, moving forward into life as a master of the universe at Ivy U.
    The fondue is superb. My secret is to make twice as much as the suggested portions, so we can all (except David) completely stuff ourselves. Sam says he’s abandoned his broken-toy essay idea. He is going to write what he calls My Philosophy —a provocative treatise exploring the way his friends and the talking heads on television seemed unnecessarily narrow-minded in their opinions during the presidential election. He thinks people his age are much too young to be fixed in their beliefs and need to stay open to new ideas. Not bad , we tell him.
    Eliza and Ben depart early to ring in the New Year with their friends. Must be nice; Sam is resigned to missing most of tonight’s fun with his buddies, but he’s hoping he can get out of here by midnight so he can drive to a friend’s for a sleepover. David and his mother retire to watch a movie. I do dishes ( why does cheese always stick to pots like frigging epoxy?) then pace in the next room.
    Lilly follows, alert to my growing anxiety, her toenails keeping time. Click-clack click-clack .
    Sam sits at the island in the kitchen with his laptop. Tick-tock tick-tock.
    Wait a second. There is no sound of typing coming from that kitchen. The boy has gone into a torpor again, I know it.
    Click-clack click-clack.
    Tick-tock tick-tock.
    Three hours to go.
    What am I doing anyway? Nobody stood over me when I applied for college. I filled in my one application by hand, in pen , and stuck the thing in the mail with a check, and a month or so later I was accepted. End of story. What a world we live in now.
    That boy needs a jump-start. Maybe I should go in there, grab one of