Dogfight Read Online Free Page B

nineteen and always teasing me about not dating. While Grace was filling out her paperwork, she pulled me aside and said, “Bingo. That’s the one. Ask her out, Dr. Shaw. We’ll double. You can set me up with that pretty son of yours.”
    She also teases X, when he sometimes comes in to earn his allowance after school. Both of us, X and I, clearly enjoy it.
    â€œCan’t. She’s my new neighbor,” I said. “If it didn’t work out, I would always be running into her at the mailbox.”
    â€œIf you don’t get a date soon, the customers are going to think you’re gay. Think about what that would do to business,” she said.
    After X left for school today, I called the office, told Sissy and my other assistant, Roy, to take the day off, and spent the morning watching Grace. From the window in my study, I can see into her kitchen and living room, but when she went to the second floor, I had to dash up to X’s room and crouch on his bed, where I imagine he must watch her. Our separation on the stairwell was torturous. The dog followed her everywhere. I wondered what my son thinks when he does his spying. I crossed my arms on the sill, the way he does, and pressed my forehead to the cool glass. I pulled his blanket over my shoulders. She must seem to him unreal, a gift so lucky, so fantastic, he can hardly believe in her. I pictured him saying honest prayers that she wouldn’t go away, the image so perfect and fragile that to touch her, to even imagine touching her, might make hercome apart in wisps of smoke. X’s return from school confined me to the study, and now I have lied my way into having to leave the house altogether, but I don’t mind really.
    One thing has impressed me about X since my discovery. He hasn’t brought anyone over to watch with him. When I was his age, the first thing I would have done was have a dozen friends lined up at the window eating popcorn or something. Having a secret to share made me feel important. But not X. He doesn’t want to share her. He doesn’t want to spoil whatever it is he’s feeling up there. I hope he doesn’t know that he’s splitting time with his father.
    It is almost five o’clock by the time we leave. X is very careful when dressing for the mall. He has selected a plain white T-shirt from the Gap, Levi’s jeans, and brand-new Nike high-tops. Close to two hundred dollars for the whole outfit. I had no idea. His mother did all his shopping. I have suits that cost less, and, except for the shoes, he looks like a fifties hoodlum. I half expect him to roll a pack of cigarettes in his shirtsleeve.
    We drive a while, all interstate and highway on the way to the mall, and X is quiet, maybe thinking about his CD player, maybe thinking about Grace. The breeze from the open window whips his hair. I let myself think about Grace, too. I’m not sure how I will react when I see her again in person. In the flesh, so to speak. Our meeting, as neighbors, as doctor/patient, is inevitable. I wonder sometimes if she knows that she is being watched, if the absence of curtains on her windows is deliberate, and not, as I tell myself, just because she’s new to town. I don’t think she knows that her vet lives next door—the last four days, I’ve been getting my mail under cover of darkness—but I wonder if she can feel our eyes on her, if the two of us are giving off some kind of lonely vibe. X is staring, blank-eyed, in front of us. Our thoughts of Grace fill the car as palpably as the quick air.
    â€œHow about you roll that window up and let’s get some AC going,” I say.
    He rolls his eyes at me but does as I ask. He turns on the radio, and I turn it down a little. X does a sigh, one that is full of implications.
    â€œDad, I need to ask a favor,” he says. “There’s this girl I want to ask out, and I was wondering if you’d drive us to the movies. Her