Dog Beach on a Sunny Afternoon
Key West boasted a few public beaches, but only one catered to dogs, the aptly named Dog Beach. It sat near the corner of Waddell and Vernon. There was an open area of sand that led to the water's edge, which was calm and turquoise. On the left side, piles of slippery rocks were less easy to navigate. Hannah kept her dachshund away from those, paranoid the little hot dog would wiggle into a crevice and never make it out. She pedaled up on her beach cruiser with the dog in a heavyweight basket. It danced around her legs while she locked up the bike.
"Hang on a second!" Hannah hopped around to keep her ankles free. The U-shaped bolt resisted. "You're going to chop off my feet. I dunno who you think's gonna pedal us home." Finally managing to snap the pieces together, she straightened. "Unless stranding us is your master plan." The little dog wiggled in place, not the picture of innocence. Hannah scowled. "Thought so. C'mon." Out on the sand, she unhooked the leash and let him run around.
Mallory usually made time after work for her dog, since Tuffy liked to play in the small waves and dig in the sand. It always meant a bath when they got home, since the salt and sand made the bulldog's thick fur stiff, but it wasn't much of a hardship. The redhead had made sure to bring along the pooper scooper and a couple of paper bags in case the mutt made a mess. Even without a law in place, she wasn't leaving anything behind for anyone to step in.
She took him off the leash, and he immediately scampered off to the water's edge with a happy yelp. She followed behind more slowly, carrying a bag lunch and a blanket. Tiny waves or not, the water was calming and a good place to spend time thinking. Lord knows she had plenty to think about lately.
"Hi, Hannah." She'd been friends of a sort with the blonde since arriving in Key West, finding her friendly and open. "How's the tourist trade going?"
"It's crap," Hannah admitted, "But I'm betting it picks up soon. Vacation souvenirs make great stocking stuffers. Plus I put up a display of seashell ornaments on a miniature tree, and those always sell." Her pet, Bartholomew, disappeared into a hole another dog made. Tiny sprays of sand came out, which meant he was digging for Asia again. Figuring it was safe to take her eyes off him for a minute, the blonde made her way to Mallory's side. She kept her hands in her front pockets. A twist of plastic bag hung out of the rear one.
"How's things?" The wind kicked up and wrapped Hannah's ponytail around her neck like a scarf.
"I managed to pick up a few more hours at the store," Mallory replied. "Tanya called in sick again, asked me to pick up half of her shift. I'm pretty sure she was faking, but as long as the difference gets added to my paycheck I'm not complaining. Much. When she gets fired, I'll probably lose that overtime if someone reliable gets the job."
The redhead shrugged, laid out the small blue blanket on the sand. "I'm looking forward to Thanksgiving. Ma's going to send me a special care package since I can't make it home this year. I think she's afraid I'll starve to death if she leaves me to my own devices." The bag crinkled as she set it down next to her, her lunch of sandwiches and Saltines waiting for her. "Wanna sit?"
"Yeah, sure!" Hannah helped anchor the corners of the blanket and sat down. "I haven't had real Thanksgiving in years, not since my grandma was around. Are you bummed you can't get home?" She curled her legs to the side and looked around. The dachshund had a nose full of sand. He sniffed around in circles, looking like a furry metal detector, and found a stick to chew on. Hannah gave her attention back to the redhead. They were casual friends who went out for drinks occasionally, but ran into one another on accident a lot.
"A little. Ma usually spends two days beforehand cooking and getting things ready. But I can't afford it this year, not even the gas money, so I'm just going to be there by proxy." Truthfully, she could have used her mother's counsel, but how did you start that conversation? 'Could you please pass the sweet potatoes, I'm pregnant?' Just as well for her to take some time to prepare her words more carefully.
Overhead, a seagull called, and she watched the bird land on the wet rocks off to the right. Tuffy was in the water, spray splashing up around his back feet. "You can come over and help me eat if you want. I'm sure there'll be enough food for half a dozen people."
"Oooh, that sounds fun. I'll cook something, too," Hannah said, fiddling with her beaded necklace. A brown and white conch shell hung off the end. "I'm a genius with a casserole dish." Making plans that didn't involve microwaved turkey dinner perked her up. She shifted and stretched out her legs, scratched at a grain of sand on her kneecap. Before them, the ocean stretched beautiful and greenish-blue. Just after the hurricane brushed past them, she kept wanting to get out there, maybe take a walk on one of the quiet beaches, like the one by Fort Taylor, but she hadn't done it.
"Go on any hot dates lately?" Hannah pulled white sunglasses out of her pocket and propped them on her nose.
"I think I'm about finished with dating for a little while," Mallory said, and her mouth twisted ruefully. As far as she knew, Hannah had never met Dominic face to face, which was just as well. "You haven't met someone new while I wasn't looking, have you?"
She could probably tell Hannah, now that she thought about it. She knew enough about the blonde to know that she'd had an unconventional childhood, and it might have rendered her unlikely to judge. A burden shared was a burden halved, or something like that. "If I get as big as a house in the next few months, men will be the least of my troubles."
"Oh, please, I doubt you're gonna eat that much at Thanksgiving." Hannah smirked at her friend's craziness. "Even if one of my specialities is sweet potato casserole with cinnamon and brown sugar and butter and toasted marshmallows." She continued looking seaward, oblivious for the time being. A white and blue sailboat slipped past on the horizon.
Then she lowered herself to her elbows. "As for hot dates, my last one was in October with this guy named Chet. Pssh... like that was gonna go well! He picked me up in his dad's Porsche, which wouldn't be so bad, except he kept claiming it was his. He found a piece of Bart's dog fur on my pants and freaked out, like I killed the upholstery. He works at the Westin, which pretty much means I'm never walking past it again."
"Men can be jerks about their cars," the redhead said sagely. "You should watch for that, they're the worst kind to get involved with."
She took the half-pack of crackers out of the bag, and the bulldog abandoned gnawing on a piece of driftwood to trot over to the blanket she shared with Hannah. He didn't really need the salt, but she gave him one anyway as a treat. Crumbs littered the cloth, and she brushed them off as he went back to his former task. Beyond the shoreline, gulls cawed and soared.
"And I didn't mean getting fat from eating too much," she added, committing herself to taking the plunge. "I meant baby weight."
Hannah's mouth flopped. "Mallory!"
She watched her from a reclined position and couldn't help cutting her eyes at the redhead's waist in profile, which looked totally normal so far. "You're with child?!" The news took her off guard. It was like finding out they had an invisible friend listening in on the conversation. All the sudden, there was this... whole other being in their zone. "Obviously there was a hot date! Or at least a serviceable one. When did it happen?"
"I'm two months along," Mallory said, and her cheeks were flushed. "I'd been late before, but I got one of those home tests from the drugstore and it came up positive.I finally got up the nerve to go to a clinic and get it confirmed. The day nurse was really nice to me."
She felt near tears suddenly, and she cleared her throat. She felt pretty brave about this whole thing most of the time, but telling Hannah made it real in a way it hadn't been just yet. With child. A baby. The redhead ate three crackers in quick succession, listening to the water lap at the hard-packed shore. "It's kinda terrifying."
"Well, yeah," Hannah said, scrambling back into a sitting position. Trying to imagine herself in the redhead's position wasn't tough. They were both single girls in their twenties, living by themselves in Key West. Neither of them slept on beds of cash, either, though it was on Hannah's list of things to do before she died.
"Does he know?" She clasped her hands in her lap. The mysterious 'he' was of interest, but she didn't want to pry... yet. It was a delicate moment. Prying came later, perhaps over a giant brownie, a box of tissues, and a copy of Steel Magnolias. Thank god Mallory didn't have diabetes.
"Not yet." And she couldn't imagine telling him either. When she turned out to be an adult and Dom didn't, she'd known it was a bad sign. This predicament was going to be hers, at least for the foreseeable future. Mallory crumpled the top of the plastic cracker wrapper, twisted it shut.
"Don't be embarrassed if I start to cry," she told Hannah with a shaky attempt at a smile. "I haven't done that part yet."
"I won't be embarrassed. I'll give you my sleeve!" The blonde held up her arm in its white zippered hoody. Hot pink lettering spilled down the side, a scrolling font that said 'Key West'. A palm tree and a conch shell framed it. "I can't imagine how freaked out you must be. But just remember, after a while, it's gonna get exciting, too. That is, if you're planning to keep it. Loaded question." Hannah put down her arm. "Remember, I'm not gonna judge you either way. I can barely remember to feed Bart." It was a slight exaggeration, but the responsibilities of pet ownership were tough enough, especially when vet bills came around.
Two slow tears ran down Mallory's left cheek, and she wiped them away with the back of her hand. "I don't know what I'm going to do yet." Having the kid was not the question, since she wasn't sure she could face an abortion appointment. But after that? It was a blank. She wanted kids, but someday, in the future. It just looked like the future was now. She tried to stifle a sniffle and failed.
"You're the first person I've told." She bowed her head into Hannah's shoulder, her chin trembling. Freaked out didn't begin to describe it. A loud sniffle, then, finally, tears.
"Oh no... hey, it's okay." A soft voice wasn't enough comfort by far. Hannah made her arms into a cradle around the redhead and combed her hair. She stiffened once she realized what she'd done -- the extent of the skin-on-skin contact, which sometimes spelled trouble -- but when nothing strange happened, she began to relax. "You're gonna be alright. Plenty of women make it through this, and they're nowhere near as put-together as you." She wasn't sure what Mallory feared most, being unprepared for motherhood or having her life change so fast. It was hard to comfort when she didn't know what angle to work. "You can vent, if you want."
"He's just such a jerk, y'know? Cute, but beyond immature." And that was the worst part, that she felt like she'd been taken in for a sucker. But self-recrimination was not her style, and after a few minutes the tears retreated. Hannah was right; she was made of sterner stuff than some people might think, and she would get through this. How wasn't clear just yet, but she had nothing but time. Seven whole months of it.
"Thank you," she said to Hannah, sitting up straighter and drying her eyes on her shirt tail. "It's like needing a pressure valve, y'know? Something to just take the weight off."
"Yeah." Hannah played with the stretchy cuffs of her sleeves. "Well, don't worry about bugging me. I'm available for valve-turning whenever. You could even come by the stand, if you needed to. I'm good for a distraction." The breeze ruffled the corner of Mallory's blanket. She put it right and brushed flecks of sand away. "For instance, we could get kiwi-strawberry custards and use our spoons to point at weird tourists." She would've suggested fruity alcoholic beverages to take the edge off, but that was inappropriate. "If they notice, we can say, 'oh, I was just admiring your awesome boat shoes'."
"They are a fashion statement, aren't they? One that says, 'Hi, I'm a dork'." Mallory managed a chuckle, albeit kind of a half-hearted one, but she did feel better, and had probably made a closer friend of Hannah in the process. She was going to need friends in the coming months. "I'll come by sometime, maybe we can have lunch or something. My treat the first time as thanks."
A sudden blurred furry shape down at the water line distracted her, and she said, "Tuffy! Tuffy, no! You don't want to play with the dead jellyfish." She gave the blonde an almost comically exasperated look, then pulled herself to her feet. "Let me go get him and bring him back. If he messes with that, he'll be licking the bathmat for the next three months."
"At the very least." Hannah's nose wrinkled. She looked around and spotted Bart sniffing at a palm tree, then peeing on it. She snapped her fingers and whistled. The dog raced over, its short legs working furiously to cover the sand. He bounded onto her lap and yelped. "Why are you so spastic?" Hannah struggled to her feet and put the leash back on him. "I need to get a real dog." Her sunglasses were quickly covered in a film of canine saliva.
"You'll be okay?" She dodged the animal's lolling tongue and watched Mallory.
"Yeah, I'm fine now, thanks. I'll stop by your stand in a couple of days, we'll get that custard." Mallory put her hands in the small of her back and stretched, looking out towards there the sun sparkled on the water. It was a beautiful day, if nothing else.