‘What on earth are those?’ Andrew stared wide-eyed at my dogs.
‘My mom was worried about security here too. She did a wedding for a very high-ranking military person and he told her about these military-trained dogs. Instead of paying her with money for the wedding, he paid her with these. They’re trained for combat, rappelling out of helicopters, skydiving, detecting bombs, and even performing emergency CPR.’
‘Wow! Okay, I alwaysthoughtyou were the most interesting person I’d ever met, but now Iknowyou’re the most interesting person I’ve ever met.’ He took a step closer. ‘Can I touch them?’
‘At ease,’ I said, and the dogs changed immediately, from military dogs to pets that rushed up to you, demanding head scratches and belly rubs. Once they’d raced at me, they raced at Andrew too. Andrew crouched down and scratched their giant faces.
‘They’re gorgeous! And huge!’ he said.
‘Zeus and Athena. I didn’t name them; they came named. I wouldn’t have named them that.’
‘I think it suits them.’ Andrew stood and looked down at his clothing.
‘Sorry, they’re huge shedders in summer. Come inside, I have something for that.’
Before going inside, I picked up their favorite toys and threw them down the hill. They waited for me to give the command.
‘Play time!’ I said, and they ran off to play, until I told them otherwise. ‘Some people think it’s cruel for dogs to be trained like this, but these dogs are bred to be working dogs. If you don’t keep them working and constantly give them activities to perform, they can get bored and become very destructive. Sometimes I’ll hide things in the garden for them to find, like they might do in the military. I also have an obstacle course for them here, and they love playing hide and seek, and swimming too.’ Truthfully, I loved my dogs. For the most part, they were my only companions, and for the most part, that was really all I needed. But sometimes I did find myself wondering what it would be like if I could find someone to share my life with. I only indulged that thought for a few minutes though, before I packed it away in the part of my mind where I filed those kinds of things away because I knew they were utterly impossible. So far, life had shown me that me and relationships didn’t work. They always seemed to go well in the first few weeks, but then something always changed. As if we were attracting magnets that had suddenly been flipped around, and what was once attracting was now repelling. It was my fault for this sudden change, though. I knew that. I’d had too many experiences that had cemented this one irrefutable fact: whenever people got to know me, beyond the mundane and informal ‘Hi, how are you?’s, they began to back away. I was too much. Too weird. Offensive. Outspoken. Irritating. Intense. These were the descriptions I’d heard over the years. It was all me: I was not relationship material. And I was okay with that, mostly, but there were some moments – moments that came late at night, in winter, in a cold empty bed – that made me wonder what it would feel like to be wrapped up in someone’s warm arms.
We entered my cottage and I picked up the sticky roller that I kept on the kitchen counter for this exact situation. Thoughtlessly, I started rolling it up and down Andrew’s body. His chest first. God, it was hard. I had known it was, but now I had physical evidence of that. It felt like I was rolling over solid marble, not flesh. My rolling slowed down at the unexpected sight of his nipple pressing against the inside of his shirt. The sight made me stare, made me swallow slowly, and I felt a little throbbing deep inside as I traced my eyes over him in a manner that I knew was totally objectifying.
I stopped when it suddenly occurred to me that this might be extremely inappropriate.
‘Sorry, is this a little . . .?’
I raised my head. He was looking down at me, and his irises seemed smaller than usual, swallowed by big black pupils.
‘Here.’ I thrust the roller at him and walked away, feeling a little shaken by the sight of that nipple and the strange effect it had had on me. I grabbed the other roller and rolled it over my dress. I made a mental note to call the mobile dog-groomer. These dogs were not bred for a hot country like ours, and in summer you needed to help them rid themselves of the excess fur. I suppose that’s why they were so obsessed with swimming and would jump into any body of water any chance they got.
‘This is not what I imagined your house looking like,’ Andrew said, doing a full circle in the small open-plan kitchen, lounge and dining room.
‘What did you imagine?’
‘Something not so . . . full of things.’
‘My mom says it’s cluttered.’
‘Well . . .’ He looked around.
‘I collect things,’ I said, and moved over to my tins. ‘These are antiques; I love the pictures on the lids. And these’ – I walked over to the row of cups – ‘antique teacups. I was really into making my own tea at one stage, but I got over that. And these are vintage stamps.’ I picked up a book and passed it to him. ‘I told you that I bought everything second hand. It’s kind of a hobby to go thrifting on weekends and see what I find. It’s like a treasure hunt.’
He opened the book of stamps and began flipping through the pages slowly and thoughtfully. Once he’d finished, he looked around the room. ‘I suppose because I know you to be so organized, I guess I was expecting something more minimalist.’
‘I like to be a minimalist at work, it keeps me focused. But at home I like to be surrounded by things, it makes me feel . . .’ I shrugged because I didn’t quite know the right word for how it made me feel. But it made me feel cozy, less lonely. It kept me distracted.
‘And what’s through here?’ Andrew started walking towards the small room that led off the open-plan kitchen/lounge area.
‘Wait, don’t go . . .’ But it was too late.
‘Okay. WOW!’ Andrew put his hands on his hips and turned one full circle in the room. I felt my cheeks go red, and a little flush of embarrassment tingled through me. I knew that playing a magical card game was perceived as very geeky at my age, but having an entire room dedicated to Pokémon was the height of geek. And, for some reason, I didn’t want Andrew thinking of me like others did.
‘I also sell rare cards. So it’s a business too, not just a hobby,’ I said, trying to justify the bookshelves of card boxes. ‘In fact’ – I walked up to one in particular – ‘this one is worth one thousand dollars, so . . .’ I paused and then pushed back past him. ‘We should get going. I’ll get what I forgot.’ I rushed into my bedroom, grabbed the handful of spinning, squeezing things and shoved them into my bag so Andrew wouldn’t see that I’d returned for what was essentially a bunch of toys. I felt instantly better knowing they were in my bag and, when I came back out, Andrew was standing in front of my tropical fish tank.
My fish tank contained a living, breathing coral reef filled with tropical fish that came all the way from the Maldives. I enjoyed the precise nature and complexity of it all. Checking the water quality, pH, temperature, salinity. Maintaining filtrations, making salt water, scrubbing algae. But, above all, I enjoyed sitting on my sofa and watching them glide through the water effortlessly. The bubbles from the filtration made the soft coral sway back and forth, and the blue UV lights emphasized the bright colors of the fish.
‘This is incredible,’ Andrew said.
‘The water has to stay at a very precise thirty-four degrees and the salt has to be checked regularly. Keeping fish is a very complicated hobby. Let’s go,’ I said, and walked outside, eager to get going again. I didn’t like dwelling in in-between moments like this. That time you spend waiting before you are due to go somewhere, or sitting in a cinema and waiting for a movie to start, and having Andrew here was starting to feel like one of those waiting moments. Waiting to go to dinner with my parents.
