Free Sleep With The Lights On by MAGGIE SHAYNE

grinned, going for the kind I’d heard called shit-eating and said, “This is really fuckin’ cool.”
    They laughed. Great. Sappiness averted. We all went inside.
    Family party that first night. Amy, who I considered family, Sandra, the twins—still no Mott. And, of course, no Tommy. Sandra and the kids avoided mentioning his name, and when I did, the subject was gently, firmly changed. Sandra had been in touch with the police again. Still no news. Let’s focus on celebrating tonight. Tommy would want us to . End of subject.
    Eventually everyone went home. Well, everyone but Amy, who hung back, offering to help with the dishes. But I knew that wasn’t what she really wanted.
    So I washed, and she dried, and while I was thinking this china pattern really didn’t suit me at all and imagining how much fun I would have picking out something new, she finally got to the point.
    “So there are a couple of things...”
    I pulled the plug on the sink. “I could tell. What’s wrong, Amy? You never keep quiet for this long. You afraid I won’t need an assistant anymore now that I can see, because honestly—”
    “Pshhhhh. Are you kidding? You couldn’t get along without me if you had four sets of twenty-twenty eyes.”
    “Oh, you think so, do you?” I looked her up and down for effect. She wore short black boots with killer heels and silver buckles, a pair of black leggings under a skintight miniskirt, an off-the-shoulder top that looked like it had been caught in the gears of the washer and torn up a little, with a white cami underneath, and a silver necklace with a giant skull. “Your job is safe, kid, unless I find out you’ve been dressing me like that, in which case, you are so fired.”
    She smiled so big I got distracted by her teeth. Straight and white except for the incisors, which stuck out in front of the rest a little bit.
    “You could not even hope to pull this off,” she said with a look at her own getup.
    “Why would I want to?”
    She rolled her eyes.
    “So, if you’re not worried about your job, then what’s up?”
    Her demeanor changed. I couldn’t put my finger on it until I stopped looking and started feeling again. Her body had shifted away from mine a little, and I sensed her shrinking into herself, not quite as open as before. She’s hiding something. Or wishing she could. But she knows she has to tell me, whatever it is.
    “Come on, Amy. In case you haven’t noticed, I’m dying to be alone in my house for a while. Just spill it, so you can leave already.”
    She did look at me then, and offered a crooked smile, more on the left than on the right. “I hope you never change,” she said. “You’re such a bitch. I just love you so much. So yeah, there’s one little thing.”
    “I’m listening.”
    “You know how we talked a while back about getting you a service dog?”
    Okay, that was not what I’d expected. “Yeah?” I stretched out the word.
    “Well, we got all the stuff, and then we never got the dog. But we never got rid of the stuff.”
    “The stuff,” I repeated.
    She nodded, and now she was hopeful, opening up a little more, I felt it, and heard it in her voice. I could see it, too, in the lift of her dark, perfectly plucked eyebrows. Are my eyebrows that perfect? I have to go check .
    “Yeah, the dog bed, and the leashes, and the feeding bowls and dog toys, and—”
    “But, Amy, I don’t need a service dog now.”
    “I know. But I wanted a dog, anyway. I mean, I got into the idea when we were thinking about one for you. And then my friend Nikki told me about this one that really needed a home. Not a service dog, just a...just a dog.”
    I was starting to get a very worried feeling.
    “She’s kind of old, and her owner died, and none of the family wanted her and she was going to get sent to the shelter. I was gonna keep her myself, but my landlord won’t let me, and—”
    “But, Amy, I don’t need a dog.” Hadn’t I said that already?
    “Oh, come on,