I wanted to call out to it, to ask the dog to stay, could I take it home, but exhaustion rolled over me so fast that I collapsed on my ass and fell over sideways onto the ground, closed my eyes.
I woke with the frost of the alley pressing up into my ribs, clavicle, patellas, lips gritted with road filth. I was lying in the same place where the dog had been, only now the sun had shifted behind the buildings completely and there was no warmth in the alley, I composed myself on my knees and shivered, again and again.
Never before had I saved something so far gone, human or animal. Death looked just as I’d expected, silence and a hollow darkness, and from that place I’d pulled back the lightning of life.
I squatted on the concrete, leaned against the clefts of mortar in the brick wall, birds shot across the gray above, I smelled the happy-hour grease of a kitchen heating up, roving packs of baggy boys passed at the far mouth of the alley, a delivery truck backing halfway toward me from the other end with its incessant beeping. In my pocket, my phone lit and buzzed. A message from Khadeja:
Hungry for some dinner?
With all the things banging around in my brain, the galaxies of exhaustion, I still answered, probably too quickly, Yeah, you at home?
The answer came back as quickly: Wasn’t inviting you over, just asking if you were hungry, haha.
“The hell,” I said out loud, but just as quickly she wrote, Just kidding. See you soon?
I hate you, I sent back. Let me get a shower first, my ‘uke. Be right there.
And so I went, on wiggling quadriceps, deltoids hived with weakness.
* * *
WHEN RIKA OPENED THE DOOR for me the television was on, puppet animals gabbing at each other, then a flash to trembling cartoon numbers that counted down from ten, then two bright puppets entered from opposite sides of what appeared to be a public-housing street.
“Mom’s making curry,” Rika said, turning back to the screen. Her schoolbag slouched in the corner by the love seat.
“Don’t you have studying to do?” I said.
“Come on,” Khadeja’s voice called from the kitchen, “people have been telling that child what to do all day. Give her a little freedom.”
“Freedom to watch television,” I said.
“Yes,” Khadeja called out. “You could maybe come in here and help me.”
“But you’re doing such a good job,” I said.
Only a skeptical snort from the kitchen.
“Sounds like trouble,” Rika said to me, without turning from the television.
“She didn’t say anything,” I said.
“Yeah,” Rika said. “You’re really in trouble.”
I mussed Rika’s hair, even as she protested and tried to escape. “What do you know, anyway,” I said. “You’re six.” I headed to the kitchen.
And it was Khadeja, her strong cheeks and bright eyes, intricate Arabic earrings dancing against her dark-brown neck, hair pulled back in that same Afro bun. Down to a white V-neck but still in her black office pants, her thick thighs pressing through. She was evaluating the curry, as if it had insulted her.
“How’s it going in here?”
“Curry’s a little off,” she said, but when she turned and saw me she stopped. “Jesus, Noa.”
“What?”
“You look exhausted,” she said. “I know I’m not supposed to say that, but seriously.”
“Thanks,” I said. “You look fat in those pants, as long as we’re being honest.”
She laughed. “Sorry. But, Noa, you look like you ran a marathon and only ate cigarettes the whole time.” She hid a smile behind her hand. “I can’t believe I just said that.” In the living room the television babbled on and on, more puppets and some sort of giant animatronic elephant, it seemed they were talking about what makes rain.
“Are you still here?” Khadeja asked. I hadn’t realized how long I’d been staring at the distant screen. Khadeja came so close to me, one of our shoulders brushed, hers smooth and warm as a cheek.
“There was this dog today,” I started to say. “It was—” Khadeja placed a palm against my stomach, eyebrows raised in concern, all at once I wanted to tell her everything. But I remembered the last time people knew me: all the neighbors that had heard and suddenly and always after needed me, the small stacks of cash my parents would bring in …
I shook my head. “Never mind,” I said. “I make it sound worse than it is. It’s mostly allergic kids eating peanut butter, cats stuck in trees, people faking heart attacks so they can get out of jury duty.”
The smile she gave was flat, polite. “I’m right here,” she said. “I can listen.”
“I know,” I said, but I didn’t say anything else.
* * *
AFTER DINNER RIKA did her normal game of trying to avoid a bath and bedtime, was clever about it, asked after the ‘ukulele I’d brought over, if she could hear me play it.
“It’s too late to play now,” I said to Rika. “You only want me to play when you’re avoiding something.”
“‘Ukulele,” Rika said. She chanted it, I refused, she hollered it out loud, ‘Ukulaylaayyyyyyyyyy, I stood and mugged my face, she scrambled from her chair and grabbed the ‘uke herself, began to strum it terribly. It was a fifteen-hundred-dollar ‘uke, more than that, a graduation gift from my parents for Stanford, I never did know how they’d afforded it, and all the answers I’d imagined since tore my heart so bad I played it even when I didn’t want to play it, and it said for me the sharks, the graveyard, everything my parents thought would come after. I mugged and moved, Rika ran, down the short hall, made it to the corner of her room, tried to strum again, but I was there too quickly.
“Give it,” I said to her.
“It’s mine now,” she said, not even holding it right, upside down, missing the frets, missing the strings when she tried to strum. “I’m the best ‘ukulele player in the world. Like way better than you.”
I snatched it on her next attempt, and cradled it in one arm. She reached for it and I turned to shield, wait, I told her, just wait. I strummed the chords, twisted the tuning pegs. “You knocked it out of tune.” Just then I felt Khadeja arrive in the doorway behind me, just her shadow and the vanilla-floral scent of her.
They both knew to listen when I had the ‘uke, I knew it was one of the things that made me for Khadeja, I knew that. I did this often at their place, made music, sometimes after dinner, sometimes after Rika was asleep and it was just Khadeja and me in the living room, Seagram’s we’d cut with ginger ale, or just as often sober, I’d pull out the ‘uke and play, sing well enough for it to work, warm honey. It did things to me, to be that sort of person for them.
I played a few songs, right there, right then, “Guava Jelly” and “Leaving on a Jet Plane,” each chord better than the last, the extra notes I could stick in and make ring longer, I warmed to it, Rika wanted “Somewhere over the Rainbow” but I said I was sick of it, played a version of “Bring Me Your Cup,” ran that into “Stir It Up,” the way I believe Marley would have liked it, his hoarse and wailing voice, it was the best end for all of us, when the last chord went down I said to Rika, Enough, enough, now, it’s time for your mother to give you a bath.