Minerva Clark Goes to the Dogs Read online

  “I was thinking we all could go to the coast for a few days. Do you have a boyfriend or anything?”

  “Uh …” I said. “What do you mean?” A boyfriend! No, I did not have a boyfriend. I had an almost-boyfriend who had not called me. The fact Kevin had not called me made me crush on him even more. What was with that? I’d checked my phone about twenty-seven hundred times that day. I fished my phone out of my back pocket and checked it again. No messages. My mom didn’t notice I hadn’t answered.

  “I remember when I was your age, my parents always wanted to take us camping and I never wanted to leave my boyfriend.”

  “Well, I am taking a class.”

  “But you’ll be able to miss it, won’t you?”

  “I don’t think they like you to miss.”

  “Well, I’m sure they’d understand. So what else is going on there?”

  “We’re sort of in the middle of dinner.”

  “You’re making healthy food choices I hope.”

  “Got a plate of steamed broccoli sitting out there getting cold as we speak.”

  “Great! That’s one of my favorite snacks. Although I don’t think I could eat a whole plate of it. I always said you were just like me.”

  I hoped not.

  We chatted for a few more years about making a pilgrimage to Claire’s, and resisting the temptation to stop at Cinnabon. From the sound of it, she had every minute of every day planned. She wanted us to get up early and go to a mother/daughter yoga class taught by a friend of hers in the Pearl District. We talked for a few more minutes about eighth grade, and she wondered whether it was too early to go school clothes shopping. I reminded her we wore uniforms at Holy Family. Before we hung up she said, “Don’t forget, I’ve got a big big surprise!”

  I know every kid my age thinks their parents are strange, but my mom really is strange. She’s like someone who’s had a spell cast on her and thinks that this very moment in time is the only moment that exists, that there was never a past, when she and my dad were married and had four children. Morgan once said that’s because our mom is trying to live in the Now. Quills snorted and said it was because she felt guilty about leaving us, but couldn’t admit it, because then she would have to admit she was wrong. I secretly believe Quills is right, but I didn’t like anyone to say anything bad about her.

  The weird part of her Living in the Now business, though, is that she never likes anybody to change. She thinks of us all as we were in the Way Back When. She has my brothers and me fixed at certain ages, and that’s how we always are. Mark Clark liked to play “office” when he was in first grade, and to her, being a computer genius is just a grown-up version of playing office. Quills used to sing into the end of a hairbrush in front of the mirror, so it was no surprise that he wanted to be a world-famous rock singer. When Morgan was little, he used to pick up rocks and stare at all the tiny creatures that lived beneath it. Somehow she connects that with being a Buddhist, but I can’t remember how. Anyway, I am her sensitive, tender blossom (don’t laugh!) because I used to cry when the buttons would fall off my jackets. I really didn’t think she’d like the post-electric shock-mystery solving me, who hardly ever cried at all anymore.

  It was easier not to think about my mom at all, and most of the time, I didn’t.

  After dinner, I did the dishes, including drying the pans too big for the dishwasher.

  I did not check my phone messages.

  I did not calculate how many hours until Kevin, who I was starting to realize had totally lead me on, was coming back from Fly-Fishingville, Montana.

  I got a Dove Bar out of the freezer, even though I was stuffed. One advantage of thinking you’re great the way you are is that one more little zit doesn’t make any difference.

  I decided I hated Kevin, and wouldn’t think about him anymore, ever again.

  I marched up to my room and checked my e-mail, to see if maybe Kevin had e-mailed me.

  Nothing. Now I truly despised him.

  I ate my ice cream and IMed Reggie. At least Reggie never lead me on and said I had cool wild hair like the surfer chick girls in Maui.

  Ferretluver: So how would you get rid of a diamond?

  BorntobeBored: Give it to an evil girlfriend and wait until she breaks up with you?

  Ferretluver: LOL.

  I waited a few minutes. Reggie had the most active online life of anyone I knew. He was probably IMing two or three other people. Or just Amanda the Panda. I tugged my rebus notebook out of my top drawer, flipped through the pages.

  CI II (see eye to eye) and ROOD (back door) were among my most recent ones, and they struck me as really easy and babyish. I wanted to make some full sentence rebuses that included drawings, but I couldn’t draw. Kevin could draw, of course, but I was never speaking to him again.

  BorntobeBored: Who’s got a diamond they want to get rid of?

  Ferretluver: It was that red one I was telling you about. If you were trying to sell it, where would you go?

  BorntobeBored: You couldn’t sell it.

  Ferretluver: ????

  BorntobeBored: They’re just too dang rare. It would draw too much attention to itself. You’d need a fence.

  Ferretluver: Whaz that?

  BorntobeBored: Miss Law & Order Addict doesn’t know what a fence is?

  Ferretluver: *embarrassed*

  BorntobeBored: A fence is the guy who receives the stolen stuff, then sells it to the right people who won’t attract attention.

  Ferretluver: *light bulb goes on* So what are you doing right now?

  I waited for an answer, but never got one. I glanced back down at my rebus notebook.

  When I read the rebus that said NHAPPY (unhappy without you), I closed the notebook.

  I glanced at my screen and saw I had a new IM. Someone named Bryceyoyo. Bryce Duncan?

  Bryceyoyo: thought mebbe you’d be out blowing stuff up!

  Ferretluver: Where’d u get my address?

  Bryceyoyo: the class list. teacher dude passed around that sheet, remember?

  Ferretluver: Duh. I was too busy snoooozing.

  Bryceyoyo: whatcha up to?

  Ferretluver: Trying to figure out who might have stolen a red diamond.

  Bryceyoyo: hey, wait a minute, aren’t you that girl who helped the cops catch a murderer or something?

  Ferretluver: Yup yup

  Bryceyoyo: *whistles* awesum!

  And then I did the exact thing I hollered at Chelsea for doing. I told Bryce Duncan all about finding Sylvia Soto by searching through the garbage at Coffee People, and how we tracked her down, and saw that the diamond had been taken from the center of the ring, and how now Sylvia was probably missing. I told him about Tonio, and how suspicious he’d acted when Chelsea and I had asked about his sister, and about returning to the apartment only to run into the house sitter Shark, who was so clearly not the house sitter, who was a security guard, who may or may not have been turning the place upside down, looking for … what? A stolen diamond?

  Bryce Duncan (like Mark Clark, Bryce Duncan was one of those people who for some reason begged to be called by two names) said he heard that security guards are always applying to be cops, but the cops don’t want them because they’re too eager to draw their weapons and shoot up the place. I LOLed, but felt creeped out at the same time.

  I heard muffled noises in the rest of the house, the brothers settling in to watch a movie downstairs in the TV room, then after some time, the pipes knocking the way they do when the shower goes on.

  Bryce Duncan asked questions. He was almost as funny as Reggie, but not quite. He wondered who the red diamond was for. That was a good question I hadn’t thought of. Who was the diamond for? Louis de Guzman made jewelry for a lot of rich people in Portland. Was this for a ring for the mayor’s wife, or someone like that?

  Finally, it seemed very late.

  Bryceyoyo: so i was wonderin, you have the e-mail or number for Jenna?

  Ferretluver: ????

  Bry
ceyoyo: that uberhottie in our class.

  Ferretluver: What about the stupid class list? Isn’t that how you got my e-mail??????

  Bryceyoyo: can’t read the girl’s handwriting.

  For some reason, it was reassuring that Bryce Duncan was crushing on the girl in the newsboy hat from basic electronics. She was cute in the standard cute girl mode. It made perfect sense why he would want her number. There was no mystery of love and attraction at all.

  I logged off, brushed my teeth, and went to bed. Why had I told all that stuff to stupid Bryce Duncan? I tossed and turned. I fell asleep trying to tell myself that it wasn’t as bad as blabbing to the owner of a pawn shop. It wasn’t as if Bryce the Yo-Yo was suddenly going to launch into his own search for the rare red diamond. Still, I felt awful. I kicked off my comforter, tugged the sheet up around my chin. It was stuffy in my room.

  Suddenly, I sat up in the dark.

  Bryce asked who the diamond was for. Who was the diamond for? Whoever it was, he or she would have known Mr. de Guzman was bringing it into the country. He would have known the day it was set to arrive, and he may have also known that Mr. de Guzman wasn’t transporting the gem the normal way, but hiding it in plain sight in his daughter’s cheap glass ring. And if he knew all that … then what? Then maybe he told someone else, who was either Sylvia Soto, or knew Sylvia Soto, and she thought she’d nab the diamond for herself. One thing was for sure: There was at least one other person who knew when the red diamond was arriving in Portland, and I had to find him.

  The next morning, after I did my chores, I borrowed Morgan’s mountain bike and rode to the de Guzmans’. They lived about a mile from us, thirty blocks, give or take, and it was all downhill, through a string of neighborhoods with wide shady streets. Mark Clark, who loved telling me stories about how much he rode his bike when he was growing up, was thrilled to pieces. I made a point of avoiding the street where I’d seen the hawk speeding away with the baby opossum in its talons. I’ve heard birds have neighborhoods just like everyone else.

  The sprinklers were on at the de Guzmans’. They had a perfect, cushiony jewel-green front lawn. There were no cars in the driveway. It looked as if no one was home.

  Still, I leaned my bike against the side of the house and went to the front door. Even though I could have called on my cell, sometimes it’s better just to show up and see what happens. That was something else I learned from watching detective shows. The detectives almost never call first.

  Seconds after I rang the bell, from deep in the house, I could hear the scrabble of what sounded like a hundred doggie toenails on the wood floor. I smiled just thinking of Winkin’, Blinkin’, and especially Ned, who didn’t quite fit in. Through the door I recognized the voice of Mrs. de Guzman. She was hollering, “Boys boys boys! Stop it right now!” There were two long panes of glass on either side of the door, and through them I could see the dogs jumping all over each other, and Mrs. de Guzman with her red hair and gold jewelry trying to shush them with no success at all.

  She opened the door just wide enough to peek out, but the dogs escaped anyway. They ran around like wind-up toys, scampered around the wet lawn barking madly at the sprinkler. As soon as the stream of water rotated back in our direction, the dogs started biting the water. I burst out laughing, and so did Mrs. de Guzman, even though, at the same time, she was shrieking: “Blinkin’, no!” or “Neddie, no no no. Stop that!”

  “Hey, Ned! Here, Ned!” I could not help myself. I bent down and slapped my thighs and he came bounding over and—ha ha!—jumped straight into my arms. He licked my face. He smelled like fancy shampoo and wet dog.

  “Ned,” shrieked Mrs. de Guzman, “you know better than that!”

  “Nah,” I said, “my fault.”

  “That dog is a loverboy, that’s for sure,” said Mrs. de Guzman, shaking her head.

  I helped her round up Winkin’ and Blinkin’, whom I could not even tell apart, and by the time they were all back in the house, I was soaked.

  “Good Lord! Come inside and let’s get you toweled off. I’m so sorry …”

  Like most moms I know, she was speedy and efficient. She was everywhere at once, racing through the house and chatting at the same time, her gold bracelets dangling on her bony wrist. Mrs. de Guzman’s copper penny red hair was needle straight. It swung around her small head as she threw open the French doors that lead to the backyard, Winkin’, Blinkin’, and Ned bustling around her ankles, then raced back out of the kitchen to another part of the house, talking all the while.

  “Normally these dogs are more well-behaved. They’re show dogs, but even show dogs need to be exercised regularly. Our dog person is a terrific guy, but he’s not the most reliable young man on earth. He’s one of those poor souls who needs a few jobs just to get by, and sometimes he shows up late, or not at all. Louis thinks we should get rid of him. And Ned. You don’t want a dog, do you?”

  “Well, yeah,” I blurted out.

  She smiled. “Let me get you that towel.”

  While she was out of the room I took the opportunity to snoop around a little. In our kitchen we had a desk shoved in the back corner where the adults sat and wrote out bills. It was also a holder for old mail and catalogs. I was hoping I’d catch a glimpse of a bill or a letter or a note, something that would give me a clue who the red diamond had been meant for. I glanced around. There was nothing out of place, no stacks of papers, no pencil holders, nothing ugly.

  Mrs. de Guzman hurried back into the room with a fluffy white towel and handed it to me.

  “Can I pour you some coffee, hon? Or, do you drink coffee yet? I don’t think it’s good for you girls, but Chelsea loves her lattes, and when I was a girl in the South we drank coffee with chicory—”

  “That sounds good,” I said. I didn’t know what chicory was. Maybe it was like cinnamon?

  “Oh Minerva, it was! We loved our chicory.”

  She pulled out two blue coffee mugs and set them on the counter. Mrs. de Guzman was obviously one of those grown-ups who enjoyed hearing herself talk, which was fine by me.

  “Do you know when Chelsea will be home?”

  “Not for a while, I’m afraid. She and her dad are playing eighteen holes this morning. Cream and sugar? It’s a terrible habit to get into, cream and sugar, nothing but empty calories. But it’s the only way to drink coffee at your age, right?”

  “You read my mind.”

  Mrs. de Guzman laughed, too. When she smiled, I saw she had some lipstick smeared on her front tooth. “Well, at least I can read someone’s mind! Between my daughter and my husband … well, it’s been a little tense around here since we returned from London. Chelsea told you about our little situation?”

  “Yeah, she did,” I said.

  Mrs. de Guzman disappeared into the pantry for a moment and returned with some of those crumbly wedge-shaped cookies called biscotti. I hid a smile. Quills called biscotti Human Dog Biscuits.

  “Louis is fit to be tied, of course, but it’s his own fault. He’s been doing this for decades, trying to avoid paying the exorbitant prices Brinks charges for transport, and insurance, customs clearance. Of course, he also does it for the sheer fun of it. I’ve carried diamonds into the country in my dental floss case before! Anyway, this is the chance he took not using the proper channels.” She took a sip of her coffee and sighed. “I do miss my chicory.”

  “I’ve heard those red diamonds are really rare and valuable.”

  “Ohhhhh, yes,” she said.

  “The person whose ring it was for must be, like, really upset,” I said. It was a lame thing to say, but I didn’t want the conversation to veer back into Mrs. de Guzman’s girlhood coffee-drinking experiences. I took a small sip of coffee. Ugh.

  Mrs. de Guzman rolled her eyes. “Well, that’s the silly thing. It’s not as if the diamond was for a girl’s engagement ring, or even an anniversary or eternity ring. It was for Rodney von Lager’s new movie.”

  Rodney von Lager was a local Portland guy w
ho made independent films. Mostly, they were shot here in town using real people as actors. He was famous for being anti-Hollywood, but every once in a while he would make a big Hollywood movie that would get nominated for an Academy Award, which made him more famous. But he always came back to Portland.

  “I heard he was shooting something here this summer. My brother’s band played a few songs for that movie he did, 53 Miles West of Venus. Quills thought it would mean a record deal for his band, but the movie pretty much sank like a stone.”

  “Chelsea didn’t mention your brother had a band. Would I know it?”

  “Humongous Bag of Cashews?”

  “Of course.” I could tell she’d never heard of it, but she was somebody’s mom, and part of her job was to be polite and encouraging.

  “The diamond was for his movie?” I didn’t understand. Why would a movie director famous for making artsy low-budget movies need a real diamond?

  “He’s doing an urban remake of Lord of the Rings with street kids. Is that right? Louis knows better than I do. He needed a red diamond for the ring.”

  “A real red diamond? Isn’t that kind of …” I didn’t know what the word was. Out of character? Ridiculous?

  Mrs. de Guzman must have read my mind again. “It’s pure madness. But apparently Rodney von Lager is known for ‘keeping it real.’” She made quotes with her fingers. “He wanted a real red diamond in the ring mostly to inspire the greed and wonder in his actors. In one of his other movies he shot in a house that was supposed to be like the one he grew up in. There was a window in one of the coat closets, and he delayed the start of production to have an identical window installed in that closet. And here’s evidence of the von Lager madness—in the movie, they never open the closet door.”

  “So you mean no one ever sees the window?”

  “No, ma’am. An absolute waste of money, in my book. I grew up in Louisiana without a pot to piss in—excuse me, but you get my point—and this just burns me up.”

  I poured some more milk into my coffee, took another polite sip. Sure, it was bizarre, but I’d heard stories like this before about perfectionist film directors. The bigger question for me was, how did he know Sylvia Soto? Was she working on the movie? Was she his neighbor? His nanny? His girlfriend? Somehow Sylvia knew to be at the airport the day the de Guzmans arrived. Somehow she knew to shadow Chelsea, and to offer to buy her ring straight off her finger. But how?