Just Friends Read online

  But, as things turn out, it is Ramona who has done the throwing; Ramona has inadvertently started the Jenevieve Capistrano ball rolling.

  Mrs Minamoto Adds “Agent of Fate” to Her Many Skills and Talents

  Singing a Woody Guthrie song about a hobo to himself, Josh rides into town, the mats slung across his back in their bags and Ramona’s canvas satchel holding her yoga gear strapped to the rack over the back wheel. He pulls up in front of the Moon and Sixpence – which the Minamotos call an “arts and crafts gallery” but most everyone else in town calls a store – and locks his bike to a lamp post.

  Mrs Minamoto isn’t just a gallery owner (or storekeeper, depending on how you look at it), she’s also an artist with an international clientele. One of her “eco-sculptures” is in the front window – a fantastical creature made out of antennae, exhaust pipes, old cans, wires and plastic hoses – surrounded by more usual crafts such as handmade quilts, small tables carved from tree stumps, hand-blown glasses and ceramic bowls. There are a few people browsing through the aisles. Jade Minamoto sits in front of the cash register at the jewellery counter on the far side of the room, looking through a magazine. Today, besides her usual armful of silver bangles, several strings of beads and oversized silver earrings, she wears an intricately patterned scarf (possibly African) around her head, an embroidered blouse (possibly Mexican) and a patchwork Chinese jacket. Ramona’s mother is a one-woman global village.

  Josh sighs. It’s good that there’s only one Minamoto in the store, but it would be better if that one Minamoto were busy. Very busy. He likes the Minamotos – you could never accuse them of being unpleasant and they are definitely interesting – but as much as he likes them, he also finds them intimidating. Or maybe overpowering would be more accurate. If people were birds, most of the citizens of Parsons Falls would be sparrows or robins; the Minamotos would be salmon-crested cockatoos.

  The bamboo wind chimes over the entrance sound as he opens the door. Although the Moon and Sixpence specializes in “traditional American crafts” the CD that’s playing softly is Tibetan crystal bowl music. You could never accuse them of being narrow in their tastes.

  “Josh!” Jade Minamoto jumps from her antique wooden bar stool, and charges around the counter to embrace him, nearly lifting him off his feet. Ramona has her father’s dark hair and eyes but her mother’s large bones. “What a nice surprise! I haven’t seen you since our wonderful summer sojourn in the mountains.”

  Where, besides buying cast-iron parlour stoves and wooden dry sinks, she spent many rainy afternoons communing with the spirits of the forest through meditation.

  “No, I guess not.” She’s the only person who can make him actually chuckle. Hehhehheh… “I’ve been really busy since we got back.”

  “Oh, I know, I know…” Her bracelets jangle and her earrings swing. “Haven’t we all? But the nature of the cosmos is constant change and movement, isn’t it? So that’s all to the good.” Without warning, she grabs his shoulders and holds him at arm’s length, scrutinizing him as if the vacation had been three years ago and not three weeks. She has the grip of a sumo wrestler. “How have you been? How’s your evolution?” This is what he means. How are you supposed to answer a question like that? My evolution’s progressing nicely, thank you. Any day now I’ll be crawling out of the primal swamp? “And how’s the cosmos treating you?”

  With its usual indifference. “I’m fine, thanks. I—”

  “You know,” she says, rushing on as if the buzzer’s going to sound and cut her off, “I was thinking about your birth chart. It’s one of the most interesting I’ve come across.” Besides being an artist and retailer of exceptional handmade goods, Ramona’s mother is an amateur astrologer. There’s very little that happens in the world for which Jade Minamoto doesn’t hold some poor planet responsible. “I’ve always felt close to you, Josh, but this really gave me new insights into your character and personality.” He’s pretty sure that isn’t good news. “I’m so glad we finally had the opportunity to sit down and do it.”

  For which he blames the long mountain nights, the rain and the lack of TV and computers in the cabin.

  “Yeah, me too.” He’d been avoiding it for years. “It was terrific. I never realized how complex astrology is.” It certainly put both psychoanalysis and genetics in a new perspective. “But the reason I—”

  “You don’t fool me.” Having released his shoulders, she gives him a playful poke that nearly sends him into a display of baskets. “I know you don’t take it any more seriously than Ramona does. She jokes that I’m the Cosmic Cowgirl.” Ramona also says she figures it’s lucky her mother’s not into seances or reading the innards of sacrificial lambs. Those could cause problems. “But astrology is a science almost as old as man himself.”

  Science! If Einstein hadn’t been cremated, he’d be rolling in his grave.

  “Speaking of Mo – that’s why I’m here.” He pulls the purple velvet bag off his shoulder and thrusts it and the canvas satchel at Mrs Minamoto. “She asked me to bring this by. You know, because she’s babysitting and didn’t want to carry it around with her.”

  “Why, that’s very kind of you.” He’s thrusting but she isn’t taking. “I hope she didn’t put you to any trouble.”

  “No, no trouble. She’s always doing stuff for me.” And then, perhaps because that’s true, instead of saying that he’s in a hurry and can’t stay around, he says, “I wasn’t doing anything else anyway.”

  “Well, I’m relieved to hear that.” She smiles as shyly as a woman who’s as retiring as a hippopotamus can. “In that case, I wonder if I could ask you for another favour, Josh. Just say ‘no’ if it’s too much.” As if he could say no to his mother’s best friend and live a peaceful, guilt-free life. “You know I’ll understand if you can’t do it. I don’t want to impose. But I was wondering if, perhaps, you could take Ramona’s things to the house for me. It would be such a help.”

  It doesn’t strike him as that big a help, since all she has to do is put them in the car when she closes the store and take them out of the car when she gets home, but it seems like such a small thing that he doesn’t wonder about it. He thought it was going to be something much, much worse. Go around town collecting garbage for her sculptures. Stay and keep her company in the store for the rest of the day. Name his first-born Seven Moons.

  “Yeah, sure.” He slings the mat back over his shoulder. “No sweat.”

  “And while you’re there” – whop! it’s so fast that he barely hears the trap snap shut behind him – “if you could give Georgia O’Keeffe a little walk? Frank was supposed to be back this morning but he’s been held up, and I really can’t leave the gallery.”

  Georgia O’Keeffe in this instance is not the famous modernist painter but the Minamotos’ dog. Everything Frank and Jade Minamoto like – from music and art to food and home furnishings – is so esoteric it’s astounding they ever found out about it in the first place. Georgia O’Keeffe is no exception. She’s small and has a face that looks like someone very heavy sat on it for quite a long time. Georgia often wears ribbons or barrettes to keep her long hair out of her eyes, making her look dainty and demure. People are always cooing over her, Oh, isn’t she adorable. But she isn’t adorable, or dainty and demure. She may be small but she has the nature of a much larger animal. A lion, say, or a crocodile. She seems to be fond of the Minamotos (at least, she’s never bitten one of them), but there is very little else in the world that meets with her approval. She barks at everything – people, moving vehicles, lamp posts, balloons, drifting leaves, things that humans can’t see – and can’t spot another dog without trying to attack it. Especially if it’s another dog that’s at least twenty times her size. She has never really warmed to Josh either.

  “I don’t know… I mean, I’d love to help you out, Mrs Minamoto, but Georgia doesn’t always listen to me.” It once took him twenty minutes just to get her out from under a car. If she was ever sent to obedience schoo
l, she was probably expelled.

  Georgia O’Keeffe, however, isn’t the only one who doesn’t listen to Josh. Jade Minamoto has already dashed back to the counter and retrieved the spare house keys. “You just have to assert yourself, Josh. I know you’re basically a gentle and unassuming person, but you have to be lead dog. Make her understand you’re boss.” She shoves the keys into his hand. “Just put on her lead and walk her around the block. She’s been cooped up all morning. She’ll love you for it.”

  He looks down at the key ring he’s holding. Our Lady of Guadalupe, encased in plastic. Of course. His mother’s key ring is from the local garage.

  “Don’t worry about the keys,” says Mrs Minamoto, not reading his mind. “You can give them to Ramona at school tomorrow.”

  She means, if her dog doesn’t kill him.

  Georgia O’Keeffe – who besides having a disagreeable personality has highly developed senses of smell and of hearing – starts barking before he even steps onto the porch. She is an impressive jumper for an animal with no legs to speak of, and hurls herself at his back while he’s trying to disarm the alarm. Why bother having an alarm when you have psycho-pooch, who, tired of leaping, attaches herself to his jeans so that he drags her with him as he goes to the kitchen for her lead. What little joy Georgia gets out of life is at least partially about going outside. He picks up the lead, pink like her collar (and all her other accessories, though really they should be black as pitch to match her heart), and as soon as Georgia sees it she lets go of him and throws herself against his legs, yapping hysterically for him to attach it to her collar.

  I am lead dog, he tells himself. I am in control. He commands her to sit and, miraculously, she does. Probably she’s just exhausted herself and is taking a quick break. He fixes her with his sternest look. “I’m warning you,” he warns her, “we’re going once around the block for you to do your business, and that’s all. I don’t want any drama. No going after kids on bikes. No running after cars. No harassing Rottweilers. No chasing cats. Nothing. Because if you’re going to cause trouble you can stay here.”

  She seems to accept his terms; she wags her tail.

  Their progress from corner to corner is slow but remarkably uneventful. She sniffs and pees, and twice takes a dump, Josh turning his back so he doesn’t have to watch, then taking the pink pooper-scooper and slipping the poo into the pink plastic bag with his nose squinched up and his eyes only half open.

  The walk goes so well that, even though this wasn’t how he planned to spend his afternoon, Josh is humming an old and very positive song about a dog under his breath as they turn back into the Minamotos’ street, and congratulating himself for finally standing up to Georgia O’Keeffe, an animal not much bigger than a cantaloupe. Which is when there is a sudden tug on the lead – and, before he knows what’s happened, she’s gone in a beige blur. He stands there for several very long seconds, caught in time like a fly in amber, holding air and watching the tawny smudge of fur tear across the road and straight up the oak tree in the middle of the opposite yard, the pink snake of nylon of her lead trailing behind her. Hell and damnation. It’s not as if dogs can actually climb trees. She really is the Devil’s spawn. Josh races after her, causing a blast of horn and squealing brakes. She’s not even on the lowest branch, but two above it, pressed against the trunk of the tree and, for the first time in all the years he’s known her, looking worried. Up in the highest branches, a squirrel peers through the leaves, watching. At least she listened when he said not to chase cats.

  Josh may not be an athlete but he has enough agility and strength to pull himself into the tree. He grabs Georgia O’Keeffe, who, besides all her other negative qualities, doesn’t like to be held. She squirms, wriggles and whimpers. She nips at him – shoulder, ear, chin, hand. How the hell is he supposed to get down and hold on to her at the same time unless he simply jumps? He judges the distance between them and the ground. He’ll probably break a bone or two, but it’s unlikely he’d break his neck. Not impossible, but definitely improbable.

  He is trying to decide the best way to throw himself for the minimum injury to both him and the dog when a voice below says, “Oi! You there! You mind if I ask what you’re doing in my tree?” It is not what you’d call a friendly voice.

  Josh looks down. A man built like a cement wall is glaring up at him. He’s wearing heavy green gardening gloves and a heavy black scowl. He’s a man who has “lead dog” written all over him.

  “What are you, deaf as well as stupid?” Somehow, although the man doesn’t raise his voice, he sounds as if he’s shouting. “Get down from there this minute! You’re trespassing on my property.”

  This is not a request, it’s an order – from a man who is obviously used to giving them and to being obeyed. This, however, is one time when he’s going to be disappointed.

  “I can’t,” Josh calls back, as Georgia draws blood from his hand. “I have this dog—”

  “Dog?” The man steps closer for a better look at the wriggling mass Josh is clenching. “That’s not a dog. It’s a toupee with feet.”

  “Whatever you want to call it, sir, that’s fine. But I still can’t get down while I’m holding her.”

  “Don’t make me come up after you, young man.” This is not a request, either. It’s a threat. “Because if you do, it’ll be the first time in your life you truly understand what it means to regret something.”

  Okay, so what does Josh know about trespassing laws? For instance, can he be dragged out of the tree and arrested? He’s wondering if this man has the right to injure him if he’s unarmed and hasn’t actually broken into his home when, like the sun coming out from behind a very large, very dark cloud, a smiling girl steps out from behind the man and says, “It’s okay, Dad, I know that boy. He goes to school with me.”

  Is fear making him hallucinate, or is Jenevieve Capistrano really smiling up at him?

  “Hi! It’s Josh, right?” He’s never looked her straight in the face before. It’s a wonder he doesn’t fall from his branch like a ripe apple. “What are you doing up there?”

  “I’m waiting for a bus,” says Josh.

  Only Jena laughs.

  “He says he can’t get down,” says her father. Clearly there is room for doubt in his mind if in no one else’s. “Because he’s holding that ridiculous-looking mutt.” If the Capistranos had a dog it would undoubtedly be part wolf.

  “You go back to what you were doing,” Jenevieve tells her father. “I’ll get the ladder and help them down.”

  Before he lumbers off, her father gives Josh one last glare. “Just make sure you don’t break any branches,” he says.

  Georgia O’Keeffe stops struggling as soon as he hands her to Jena and curls up against her. He isn’t sure if dogs can laugh, but if they can this one is definitely laughing at him. He thinks he saw her wink.

  Josh comes down the ladder slowly; he’s never stood in front of Jenevieve before. She has to look down.

  “What a surprise,” Jena says when he reaches the ground. “I never expected to find the boy who tried to blow up the science lab in a tree in my front yard.”

  “It wasn’t me,” says Josh. “And it was an accident.”

  He really likes her laugh. If you could bottle it and sell it you could probably bring about world peace. At least for a day or two.

  “And this is the dog from across the street.” She hugs Georgia and kisses the top of her head. Georgia’s tail waves like happiness. “She’s adorable.”

  No, she isn’t, but she’s definitely lucky, being hugged and kissed by Jenevieve Capistrano. Who would ever have thought he could envy that pushed-face creature?

  “Yeah. The Minamotos. I was walking her for them. But she got away.”

  “The Minamotos. Of course. They own that cool store in town.” Her smile hovers over Georgia O’Keeffe’s head. He never noticed the dimples before. “So you must be friends with the daughter? I don’t really know her, but I’ve seen her around. And we�
�re both in the drama club. The really tall girl with those amazing eyebrows and that great mouth?”

  “Ramona.” If asked, Josh would have said that Ramona definitely has eyebrows and a mouth, but he never really noticed how amazing or great they are. Then for some reason, he feels the need to add, “And I’m friends with her parents, too. Our moms are really close.”

  She nods, sunlight sparkling off the pink in her hair. They stand there smiling at each other for a few seconds. He can’t seem to find anything else to say, but he doesn’t want to go.

  And then Jena comes to his rescue for the second time. “Hey, you want a drink?” she asks. “You must be thirsty after climbing up that tree.”

  He would drink ditchwater if she were offering. “Oh, I don’t— I wouldn’t want to put you to any trouble.”

  “It’s no trouble.”

  His eyes dart around the lawn. He’s not so sure her father would want him in his house any more than he wanted him in his tree.

  “Don’t worry about Dad. His bark is worse than his bite.”

  Which is not something you could say about Georgia O’Keeffe.

  The Ball Continues to Roll

  Josh and Carver are leaving school together – Carver to go to the dentist and Josh into town to pick up the new harmonica he ordered. Carver is talking about a recent article he read on fracking when he suddenly breaks off, comes to a stop, claps Josh on the shoulder and says, “Am I losing my mind, or did I just see you wave to Tilda Kopel?” He couldn’t look more shocked if he’d seen Josh shaking hands with the CEO of Shell Oil. “What happened? You sell her your soul?”

  “No, of course not. The invisibility shield finally wore off and she can see me now.” Carver doesn’t laugh. “Oh, for Christ’s sake, I wasn’t waving to Tilda.”

  “Well, it sure looked like you were waving to her. I thought the Apocalypse was upon us.”

  “Well, I wasn’t.” Jenevieve was just about to get into the Kopel BMW. “I was waving to the girl with her.”