Read Online On a Night Like This by Ellen Sussman - Free Book Online Page B

know who the owner is?” Amanda called back.
    “He’s cute,” Blair said. “Or something.”
    “Oh, God,” Amanda moaned.
    And then she returned with a note, attached to Sweetpea’s leash, tied to the bottom rail of the porch.
    Sorry about the other night. Sweetpea wants to spend the day with you. So do I, but I’m not as bold as she is. I’ll come back to get her later this afternoon. Have fun. Luke.
    “Who is this guy?” Amanda asked, reading over her mom’s shoulder.
    “Nobody. A guy with a cool dog. Let’s get out of here.”
    They borrowed Casey’s car—he left the keys under the floor mat and Blair figured this was one of the perks of fucking the landlord—and drove to Crissy Field, Sweetpea perched between them on the front seat.
    When they walked on the beach, Sweetpea ran ahead, ran back, ran in circles around them, crazy with dog joy. Amanda found a stick and tried teaching Sweetpea to fetch, but the dog wanted only to rub her soft fur against their legs and to run at their sides.
    They walked at the water’s edge, letting the dog splash in the gentle lap of the tide. There were other morning beachcombers and plenty of dogs, but Blair felt as if she were wrapped in the fog with her daughter, protected from the rest of the world.
    “So why was he sorry?” Amanda asked.
    “Who? What?”
    “Sweetpea’s dad. The guy who wrote, ‘Sorry about the other night.’”
    Blair walked for a moment, considering. Which part was he sorry about? Misremembering her as tall and blond? Being a golden boy who dreams women out of thin air and then they appear, falling in love with him on the spot? Or did he say something about her dying and leaving a daughter behind?
    “If something ever happened to me,” Blair started, then stopped, almost stumbling over Sweetpea, who seemed to back up into her. So she looked at her daughter and tried to shake the thought out of her head, then picked up the pace so that Amanda had to half-jog to keep up with her. “If I died . . . a car accident. A drive-by shooting. Something crazy. Who would you live with? I mean, there’s Daniel, I suppose, and there’s a couple of teachers you like—”
    “Mom? Mom! Stop! What are you talking about?”
    “Just thinking about it. I mean, people write wills and figure this stuff out and I’ve never thought about it, but I mean, it could happen to anyone, and you’re almost old enough to be on your own, but you’re still a kid. You’re my kid; I mean, no one else could raise you or anything—”
    “Mom! Stop!”
    Blair stopped. Sweetpea sat at her heels, panting. Had the dog understood all that and was now exhausted by it all? Blair watched the ebb and flow of the tide, thought about breathing like that, in and out, pulled by something much quieter than the noise in her own head.
I can’t do this,
she thought.
If I tell her, then it’s irrefutably true.
    “We’ll talk about it later,” she said.
    “We’ll talk about what later?” Amanda asked. She stood, hands on hips, unmoving.
    “This idea. This question. I mean, it’s an interesting question. We don’t have family; you don’t have a father; we don’t have zillions of aunts and uncles to send you to in Omaha—”
    “Omaha?”
    “Someplace safe. Someplace to finish growing up.”
    “Mom?”
    “I didn’t sleep well. The guy. The dog. Weird dreams.”
    “Mom?”
    “Yeah, yeah, keep walking.”
    So they walked, and Sweetpea circled round them, holding them close.
    And after a while Amanda said, “I just asked why the guy was sorry.”
    “Right,” Blair said. “The guy. I didn’t tell you about the guy.”
    “Sweetpea’s dad.”
    “Luke Bellingham. He made a movie.
Pescadero
or something.”
    “You’re kidding!
Pescadero
?”
    “You saw it?” Blair asked, looking back at Amanda, who had stopped in her tracks, dropped her jaw and was staring bug-eyed at her mother.
    “Everyone saw it.
Pescadero
? We just studied
Pescadero
in my film class this