4th of July

Chapter 52

WHEN CAROLEE CALLED AND asked me to keep Allison for a few hours, I wanted to plead, “Please don’t ask me to babysit.” But Carolee got to me before the words left my mouth.

“Ali misses that pig,” she’d said. “If you’ll let her visit Penelope, she’ll amuse herself and I can get my molar fixed. I’d really appreciate it, Lindsay.”

A half hour later, Allison bounced out of her mom’s minivan and ran up to the front door. Her dark glossy hair was in two bunches, one on either side of her head, and everything she wore, including her sneakers, was pink.

“Hi there, Ali.”

“I brought apples,” she said, pushing past me into the house. “Wait’ll you see.”

“Uh-huh,” I said, faking some enthusiasm.

As soon as I opened the back door, Penelope trotted over to the fence and began grunting a noisy string of squeals and woofles—and Allison squealed and woofled back. Just about the time I thought the neighbors would call the animal warden, Allison grinned at me and said, “That’s what we call Pigese.”

“So I’ve been told,” I said, smiling back at her.

“It’s a real language,” Allison insisted. She raked the pig’s back and Penelope rolled over, assuming her ecstatic, feet-in-the-air stupor. “When Penelope was a piglet, she lived in a big house near the sea with pigs from all over the world,” Ali told me. “She used to sit up all night and talk Pigese with the other pigs and during the day she gave pedicures, called pigatures.”

“Is that right?”

“Pigs are a lot smarter than people think,” Ali confided. “Penelope knows lots of things. More than people would ever realize.”

“I simply had no idea,” I said.

“Look,” Ali continued. “You feed her the apples. I have to paint her nails.”

“Really?”

“It’s what she wants.” With Allison assuring me that it was okay to let the pig onto the back deck, I did what I was told. I held Granny Smith apples so that Penelope could chomp them while Allison chattered to us both and painted the pig’s cloven hooves with pearly pink nail polish.

“All done, Penny.” Ali beamed proudly. “Just let them dry. So,” she said to me. “What can Martha do?”

“Well, as a matter of fact, border collies also have a language. Martha is trained to herd sheep on command.”

“Show me!”

“Do you see any sheep around here?”

“You’re silly.”

“Yes, I am. But you know what I love most about Martha? She keeps me company and she warns me about bad guys or even about things that go bump in the night.”

“And you have a gun, right?” Ali asked with an almost cagey look on her sweet face.

“Yup. I have a gun.”

“Wow. A gun and a dog. You rock, Lindsay. You might be the coolest person I know.”

I finally threw back my head and laughed. Ali was such a cute and imaginative child. I was shocked at how much I liked her and how fast. I’d come to Half Moon Bay to rethink my whole life. Now I was being visited by a vivid fantasy of me, Joe, a home, a little girl.

I was turning this shocking thought around in my mind when Carolee came into the backyard with a lopsided Novocain smile. I couldn’t believe two hours had gone by and I was so, so sorry to see Ali go.

“Come back soon,” I said, hugging her good-bye. “Ali, come back any time.”