Dog Park

Chapter 4

Awooooooonnnngggg
My eyes snap open and I flop off the edge of the bed where I'd been so precariously balanced. Cujo barks, then jumps off the bed, stepping on several of my most vital organs.
    Hannah is cackling raucously, her phone held out in my direction. The man on the screen took a deep breath to blow the shofar again, but he doesn't make it before I grab the phone and shut it off.
    "Shanah Tova, motherfucker. You missed morning service 'cuz Mom let you sleep in." I pull myself up, wrapping the blanket around me. I glare at Hannah as I hobble out into the living room/kitchen, stiffer than a roof shingle. My mother is in the kitchen, fiddling with the coffee pot. She looks at me and, despite the bags under her eyes and the gray hairs floating around her face, she smiles with all of the warmth of the world. She gives me a tight hug through the blanket, which is already feeling stuffy.
    "Shanah Tova, dear. I told Hannah not to wake you." I reach past her to the coffee maker. I press the 'TIME' button, then the power button, then smack the side. It gurgles to life, steam floating out from the top almost immediately.
    It's been almost a week since I met Oliver. That means it's Friday again, which, thanks to the everlasting grace of Gd and several school board members, we have off. Every day, I've been to the dog park with Cujo. Every day, he's been there, waiting for me or stumbling in soon after. We talk sometimes, about movies or music. Neither of us cares about sports, but we're both more than willing to mock the school athletes.
    "Do you have homework?" Mom's voice disrupts my daydreaming and I go through my classes one by one.
    "A little bit for English. I can do it while the challah rises."
    "Alright, as long as it gets done. I'm heading to the store, do you need anything? Check your recipe."
    "I'll text you, but I don't think I need anything."
    "Be good to your sister. If I don't find the frozen stuff, I'm going to do some errands after. Don't burn down the house."
    "No promises." As I hear the door close, I go back to my room to pull on a tank top and socks. Cujo stares sleepily at me from on top of my pillow. She'd spent half the night barking and growling at the window, waking up from nightmare after nightmare.
    "Don't look at me like that, dog. I have bread to make; I can't get back in bed to cuddle you." I proceed to get back into bed to cuddle her. Her wet little nose burrows into my neck, exhaling hot, damp air. I let my eyes close for a minute.
    I wake up half an hour later, drowsy and sweating like a frozen water bottle. I can hear the clink of Cujo's tags and the crunch of her toys in the living room. I haul myself out of bed and into the kitchen. I scoop some ice from the freezer and gulp down two glasses of water without stopping for air. Finally, I refill the glass and sit back down at the table. My recipe is the first thing up on my phone, and I start to pull out ingredients.
    Flour, egg, sugar, yeast, oil, water. They all make it into the bowl, coming together in a mass of sticky dough. I leave it sitting on the counter, covered in a cheery yellow towel. My phone's timer is set for an hour. I look at my homework, sitting so peacefully in its folder at the other end of the tiny table.
    Nah
    I cross the room to the couch and flop down on it. I play on my phone for a bit, then just put in headphones and listen. The music is comfortingly familiar, even if I don't speak Yiddish. An hour later, I scoop the dough, twice as big now, onto the cleaned and floured countertop. I separate it into six huge strands, then braid them all together. The braiding is calming and oddly satisfying but hard on my shoulders. Once the almost-bread is savely covered again, I find an ice pack and alternate shoulders. When I look out the small, slightly greasy window at the end of the hallway that separates my room and my sister's, I can see the dog park. It's completely empty now, and I'm not surprised in the slightest. Noon, on the first day of Rosh Hashanah, in 112 degree heat is too much for even the most hyper dogs or people. I fill Cujo's bowl with ice cubes and a glass or two of water. She slurps greedily, though she's been drinking water all morning.
Hannah's door is closed, but I can hear a podcast going. Hannah spends most of her time in her room, as do I. Mom thinks we're 'establishing our boundaries'. Mostly, the AC vents work better closer to the unit, so it's at least five degrees cooler on our side of the apartment.
I look at the clock and swear. Logically, I know that it's 12:16. That leaves my bread ready to be baked at 2:00, give or take. I wouldn't preheat the oven, however, until at least 6, upon punishment of death by either Hannah, Mom, or melting. I stick the bread in the fridge and resolve to think about it later.
*
When Mom comes home, I'm finally putting the bread into the oven. She looks even more tired, but there's a smile on her face, three (!) shopping bags in her hand, and her hair looks freshly cut.
"Well, don't you look spiffy. We almost sent out the hounds." I try to keep my voice light; sarcasm seems to be my default these days.
"You know who I saw at the store? Marlene. She said you did some work for her last week."
"Yeah, I did. She just needed some help planting a rosebush and I had some extra time. Did you get red cabbage?" I take two of the shopping bags from her hands and start unpacking groceries. Our previously bare fridge suddenly looks almost full, with two kinds of cheese and the fancy apples. Mom must've gotten a bonus. Or overtime. Or something, because out of the bag comes another type of cheese and a bottle of the good honey. Not the liquidy, plastic bear kind. The kind in a jar. Locally farmed, raw, the whole package.
"I thought we'd celebrate proper this time. I took tonight and tomorrow night off. I thought we could all have dinner together. Maybe invite your friends tomorrow?" I just look at her and nod, eyes feeling a bit hot. It doesn't matter that I have maybe one friend who would probably not entirely hate coming over for New Year's dinner.
"Okay. Good. I didn't know if you had plans." I shake my head and keep organizing the fridge. She'd also brought home another loaf of challah. I'm almost offended until I realize that this is pumpkin-tomato-whatever. I don't make fancy bread, but it's nice to have sometimes. I set it on the counter, away from the oven.
Two hours later, we're all sitting at the table. Hannah has her earbuds out, Mom brushed her hair and put in earrings, and I... put on pants. An elegant family are we.
The challah is good, and so are the baked potatoes. The meat is unidentifiable but tastes fantastic. For desert, we take turns slicing off pieces of apple and breaking off bits of bread and dipping them in honey. We get through half the jar before we're done. It's nice, with the lights off and Mom laughing and Hannah eating as if she hasn't in weeks. Cujo's flopped under the table and we each slip her bits of apple. After the leftovers are wrapped up and in the fridge, we migrate to the tiny couch. I don't really fit on it anymore, so I sit on the floor with my head resting on Mom's thigh.