Page 50 of Is She Really Going Out with Him?
The vet issympathetic. He asks how old she is, but I don’t know because we got her as a rescue. The vet guesses she was about twelve and says that’s a good age for a cat. He says he can try to determine the cause of death if that’s what I want, and I say that I do. As the vet is talking to me, Will reaches out to hold my hand and this makes me want to burst into tears. Will being kind and supportive is even more confusing than Will being irritating or flirtatious.
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Humphries,” says the vet, handing me Katniss’s collar.
“It’s Ms. Appleby now,” I say quietly.
“Sorry, I’ll be sure to update our files,” says the vet with a nod.
Back in the car, Will and I sit in silence.
“I need to pick up Ethan from school in twenty minutes,” I say eventually.
“I’ll drive you,” Will offers, and I look up at him in surprise.
“You don’t need to do that.”
“I want to.”
“Why are you being so nice to me?” I ask. “I’m not giving you your chair back.”
Will shrugs, a dimple forming on his cheek. He reaches across the car, takes my hand, and squeezes it. The firm warmth of his skin is so comforting, but beneath that, there is another feeling refusing to be dampened.
“I like you. Is that enough of a reason?” he says, and I feel myself smiling.
While Will drives me to Ethan’s school, he starts singing “Build Me Up Buttercup” quietly to himself.
“You’re always singing that song,” I tell him.
“Am I? Sorry.”
“Don’t apologize. I like it.” As I look out of the window I see a ginger cat walking along a wall and it conjures a fresh wave of grief over Katniss. “Do you have pets?” I ask Will, hoping conversation might distract me.
“My brother has a tortoise, but he’s pretty antisocial. He hides in the garden for weeks.” He pauses, then goes on.
“We had a dog when I was a child. Well, he was Mum’s dog, really, but she let Simon name him, so he got called Big Dog.” This makes me smile.
“So you shouted ‘Big Dog’ when you took him for walks?”
“We called him BD. He was a Bernese mountain dog, so he really was big. Simon must have been four or five; he wanted totrain him to be a real mountain rescue dog. He’d get me to play dead somewhere in the house, then BD would have to find me.” Will smiles at the memory. “He was the worst rescue dog, he’d just lick my face until I stopped pretending.”
“Sounds like a good technique to me,” I say.
Watching Will, I see his face pass through a spectrum of emotions—fond recollection morphing into something more painful.
“When Mum died, BD stood sentry in the hall for weeks,” he tells me. “He didn’t understand that she wasn’t coming home. One day, Simon pulled a beanbag into the hall and joined the dog’s vigil. Dad didn’t think it was healthy, tried to get them to do something else, but they wouldn’t. One night, after a particularly miserable dinner, none of us knew what to do with ourselves, least of all Dad. Simon had laid out cushions in the hall. He wanted us to sit with him. So, we did. We all sat on the floor with the dog and we talked about Mum. It was the first time we’d seen Dad smile in months.” Will pauses, lost in thought for a moment. “Maybe BD wasn’t such a bad rescue dog after all.”
“That’s a lovely story,” I say, touched. We share a look, a smile of understanding. Then his phone rings and I see a face flash on the screen, a photo of the beautiful blonde he rode home from Hay with. He rejects the call, then shifts uncomfortably, checking and rechecking the rearview mirror as though this woman might be behind us. She calls again, I see her name on the screen—Deedee. Will answers the call, flicking it onto speakerphone and laying the phone in his lap. He rubs his neck, and I get the feeling he doesn’t want to talk to this woman in front of me.
“Hey you,” comes the woman’s voice.
“Hey, Deedee, I can’t talk right now, I’m in the car with a colleague. Can I call you back in a bit?”
“Sure, hon, speak later.” Her voice is perky, and she has an accent I can’t pinpoint.
Will looks across the car at me, his face apologetic, his eyes guilty.
“Who was that?” I ask, unable to help myself.
“No one. Nothing that can’t wait,” he says with a tight smile. “Listen, I’m sorry if I confused things in Hay, I have a habit of doing that.” His eyes are now trained on the rearview mirror.What does he mean, that he has a habit of getting women to strip for him or a habit of confusing things?
