Wild Roses by Deb Caletti Page B

discard his tie on the floor. He paced into the kitchen, and a
moment later paced back out again. I was getting a seriously eerie feeling. An
uneasiness that didn't have a name. It was his agitation. And he had this weird
look in his eyes, like he was watching something I couldn't see.
    "He always knows where I am, doesn't he?" Dino
said. "He can see me wherever I am, that bastard."
    Okay, shit. Something freaky was definitely
going on. My body tensed in high alert. I wanted Mom home. Creepiness was doing
this dance inside my skin.
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    Dino strode into his office, shut the door with
a click. The house was quiet except for Dog William huh, huh, huhing beside me.
I was glad for his presence--at least I wasn't completely alone. I had one of
those inexplicable moments where I looked at Dog William and he looked at me,
and I decided that dogs really had superior knowledge to humans, held the
secrets to the universe, only they couldn't speak. It's an idea you quickly
discard after you see them chew underwear, but right then I felt better thinking
one of us understood what the hell was going on.
    And then suddenly the silence was shattered.
Sorry for the cliche, but that's what happened. Shattered, with the sudden
frenzy of the violin, the sound of someone sawing open a tree and finding all of
life and death pouring out.
    "Wow," I said aloud. "Jesus."
    He didn't tune first. That was what I realized.
Not tuning was like a surgeon not snapping on his gloves. Like, well, going out
without first putting on your shoes.
    It was the first time he'd played in months and
months. But this wasn't just playing. This was unzipping your skin and spilling
out your soul. I had a selfish thought then. Actually, it was kind of a prayer
to anyone who might be listening and interested. Please, I begged. Don't let
Dino be crazy when Ian Waters comes.
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    Chapter Four
    Here's the thing about dealing with people who
are beginning the process of losing it. Your most overwhelming urge is to make
sense of something that doesn't make sense. You try to make it fit, even if it
doesn't really. You look at their crazy world from your sane world, and try to
make your logical rules apply. As I stood in the hall with Dog William, I
decided that there was a plausible story for Dino's behavior. Something
rational. I was having trouble coming up with a story, but hey, there was one
somewhere because there had to be. Maybe he got a letter from an old friend he
wasn't so happy to hear from. And Italy--Italy was hot, right? How many times
had I heard that1. So you know, maybe he was homesick for his shoeless days in
Italy. And what about Einstein? A genius, yeah, but he couldn't match his socks,
so he gave up wearing them.
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    Maybe this was something like Einstein. A
shoeless, paranoidish genius thing. Of course, the deep inside piece of you that
knows everything was saying this had nothing to do with Italy or Einstein or an
old friend. That inside piece of you knows that your life is veering in a
direction you have no desire to go. Basically, downhill.
    That night I heard yelling. Dino just really
going at it downstairs in his office. I'd heard him yell before, usually at his
managers, but I couldn't imagine who he'd be yelling at now. Mom had gone to bed
already, and the house had been silent. A moment later I heard Mom come out from
their bedroom, her hurried steps down the stairs. The front door opened, slammed
shut. I slipped out of bed, peeked out my front shades. Dino was on the front
lawn in his bathrobe, his skin looking white in the moonlight. He stalked around
a bit as if trying to decide what to do, then went behind the hydrangea bushes
in the direction of the shed. I lost sight of him, then waited a while to see if
he would reappear. Nothing. Finally I got back in bed, stayed on high alert. The
house was quiet. I tried to go back to sleep, but when I finally started to doze
I heard their voices downstairs. I