Georgie, All Along (15)

“Just so you know, though, I have this.” From behind her back she holds up a can of Raid. “This is wasp spray and I will absolutely unleash it on your face if you do anything . . . untoward. It’ll hurt and you’ll probably go blind.”

I almost—almost smile. Except then I figure that she wouldn’t have threatened Evan with a can of wasp spray. My annoying jealousy over my brother is what drives me to take a step inside.

“Don’t tell me you’ve got the wasp spray,” I say.

Her brow furrows and she looks down at the can and then at me. She nods thoughtfully. “That’s a good point. The element of surprise, and all that.”

This time, I have to bite my cheek to keep from smiling.

Strange, that.

Hank’s still in there rooting around, having the best night of his life, and I shake my head, moving into the living room with Georgie following behind me. It’s worse than I thought, because the dog seems to have—oh, Jesus—unpacked her bag all over the living room floor, and he isn’t rubbing himself on the furniture after all. No, he’s flat on his back, legs in the air, rubbing himself all over a pile of her clothes. I think he might’ve knocked over a candle somewhere in the process, though at least it wasn’t lit. Worse is how he’s somehow got his tail stuck through the leg hole of a pair of her underwear; it kind of waves back and forth like a flag as he wiggles himself around.

“Hank,” I say, sharp in a way I held back before, sharp in a way I rarely use with him, and it works. He rolls onto his feet, that big, wide, tongue-lolling mouth of his stretched into the kind of great big grin that makes me think it’s crazy for anyone to be afraid of him. I’m glad he’s up on his feet, but in some ways this is worse, because the underwear-as-flag situation is much more noticeable now.

“Oh my God,” Georgie says, which is getting to be her catchphrase during this encounter. I can’t say as I blame her.

“I’m sorry,” I say, but she says the same thing at the same time, and I know I’m giving her another grumpy look. “What do you have to be sorry for?”

She looks back over the mess on the living room floor, clothes scattered all over, and winces. “Uh,” she says. “Yeah, I don’t know.”

I make a move toward Hank because I have to solve this flag situation, but then I realize I can’t touch this woman’s panties without her permission, even if they’re not attached to her. I freeze with my hand out, and I know it looks ridiculous. This is ridiculous.

“Oh, I’ll—” She moves past me and with her non-wasp-spray-wielding hand, she snatches her underwear from around Hank’s tail. He is thrilled; he believes this is the start to keep away, the game we play with the stuffed duck I’ve got out in my truck, along with his other things. He leaps up and her eyes widen in surprise; then she shoves the panties into the pocket of her robe. For the first time since this shit show started, Hank takes the hint and sits down. Onto more of her clothes, but still. This is an improvement.

“Stay,” I say firmly. I look over at her and she is either red in the face from embarrassment or from the effort it’s taking her not to laugh. Maybe both. For a second we stare at each other, and I’ve got this feeling I’m not all together sure about. Curiosity, but with some kind of edge to it. Some kind of thing I don’t want to acknowledge.

Georgie breaks the spell by grabbing her phone off the arm of the couch, and—oh man, there’s a bra there; it’s underwear all over the place in this house. I drop my eyes again while she shoves it behind a pillow. Then she makes her way back to the kitchen, the robe trailing behind her. I’ve never seen a robe like that in my life; it reminds me of water, the way it moves. It’s growing on me, the look of it on her, which is not the kind of thing I should be thinking about, especially in regard to a woman who, however toothlessly, has recently threatened to blind me.

I summon Hank to follow me, toss him a treat from my pocket when he obeys my command to lie down on the rug by the back door. I look over to see if Georgie has noticed that my dog does in fact listen to me when circumstances are more settled, but she’s setting her phone on top of that notebook she was holding when I came in. She cringes slightly when she swipes her fingers across the screen, but it passes quickly. I stand on the other side of the counter and she puts it on speaker, the sound of ringing cutting through the awkward silence. She keeps the wasp spray within reach.

“My parents are lousy with phones,” she says, after the third ring. “He might not answ—”

“Is that my Little Red Georgette calling me?” Paul Mulcahy’s voice booms from the other end, and Georgie winces. I clear my throat. That’s a pretty funny nickname.

“Dad, you’re on speaker.”

“We’re in a place called Durango!” he says, as though that’s the natural response to being on speakerphone.

“Okay, but—”

“Your mom met a woman who teaches pottery here.” There’s rustling. “Shyla!” he calls, loud enough that Georgie and I both take an instinctive step back from the phone. “It’s the Midnight Train on the phone!”

The Midnight Train?

I smile as I realize it, “The Midnight Train to Georgia.” I bet Paul’s got a million of these. When Georgie rolls her eyes I can tell she hates them all, but sort of in the same way I used to hate it when Carlos would make fun of me for being “named after pants.”