Just Add Water (1) by Jinx Schwartz Read Free Book Online Page A

own pearly light.
    RJ was stretched out on a redwood
seat surrounding the tub, his front paws dangling in the water. He extended one
leg, testing the waters in more ways than one.
    “Don’t even think about it,” I told
him. He looked guilty.
    “How can you read that dog’s mind?”
Jan asked, pulling a bottle of chilled wine from its ice bucket.
    “Great minds and all that. One of
these days I’m gonna let him come in,” I said. An overwhelming feeling of loss
stung my eyes. One of these days, and soon, RJ would be gone.
    “Oh, what the hell. Come on in,
boy.”
    RJ’s tail thumped uncertainly once,
twice, then he stared at me with the same twitchy anticipation as when he
smelled a hidden treasure in my pocket. There was enough light so he could
study my face. “Does she mean it?” his eyes seemed to ask.
    Jan slapped the water. “Come on in
RJ,” she cooed.
    RJ, not a dog to be asked thrice,
launched himself forward in a full body belly flop that sent a tidal wave of
hot water into my wine glass.

7
     
    A persistent thump on my pillow heralded
an après Chardonnay kind of day. The
logjam of dog hair in my hot tub dictated my morning’s main activity.
    Jan wisely decided to abandon my place
and snitty attitude for her own BDR-less abode.
    RJ watched, with the irksome smugness of a
teetotaler, from a safe, splash free distance while I drained, washed,
polished, and refilled the tub.
    Adding insult to self-induced
injury was my discovery of several loose deck planks, a leaky water pipe under
the tub, a suspiciously slow drain in the basement sink, and two hanger-uppers
before I could figure out how to use my new caller ID. An epic headache, hairy
hot tub, disintegrating house, nuisance caller, and dying dog pushed me to the
tottering edge of a severe pity party. After a morning of hard work laced with
liberal doses of self-loathing, I gratefully set the tub controls to HEAT,
turned on some Pavarotti, and collapsed on the couch with a half liter glass of
cold wine. It didn’t taste as good as it had the night before. And I don’t
really like opera all that much, but I have a deep affection for anything of value
featuring fat people. Sumo wrestling is my all time favorite.
    It was time to whine.
    “Mama,” I blubbered into the phone,
“why me?”
    “Hetta Honey, are you intoxicated?”
Mother drawled.
    “I’m not drunk, but I’ve been drinking. My ship has
not sunk, but it is sinking,” I singsonged, quoting a poem a friend composed
one tipsy night at the beach.
    I could picture Mother giving my father her
“Hetta’s on the phone and it isn’t good news” look. Although it was
midafternoon in Texas, I also knew she was perfectly coifed, she had her “face”
on, and her petite form was adorned with something linen by Liz Claiborne.
Pressed. I’ve long suspected I was adopted.
    “And I plan to drink more,” I
sniveled. “My life is the pits.” I would have said my life was shit, but one does
not use the word “shit” when addressing my mother. “Pits” was even pushing it,
as it could be construed as referring to a body part.
    “Oh? May-un problems?” Mama asked,
trying to sound sympathetic even though she and my father had to be sick of my
historically histrionic love life.
    “No, no man this time” I wailed. “I
wish it was only that. RJ’s got cancer and he’s gonna die.”
    “Oh, dear. I’m putting your father
on.” Mother, like me, doesn’t do well with bad news. That’s Daddy’s job.  
    My second sip of wine tasted
better. I blew my nose and waited. RJ, upon hearing his name, had put his head
in my lap so I could scratch his ears. Mother covered the phone’s mouthpiece
with her palm, but I could catch muffled snatches of conversation.
    “Hetta . . . upset.”
    “What . . . another . . . hope . .
. real job,” I made out before Daddy took the phone. “Hetta, are you all
right?”
    “I am, but RJ’s dying.”
    “What of?”
    “Bone cancer.”
    “Too bad. Can’t