The Dog Year Page 8

  He scratched his weekend beard and said, “What do you think this is?”

  “I don’t know. Some kind of intervention. A lecture. A forced conversation, after which I’m going to walk away and need a nap.”

  Lucy read his pause and frowned. She remembered her father’s brand of discipline from her childhood. I’m going to stand here until you decide that I’m not giving up in the face of your stubbornness.

  But the fight went out of her. As if accepting her medicine she sighed and said, “All right. Let’s get this over with.” Without speaking, they walked next door, where a small coffee shop/bookstore struggled to survive next to the retail giant, hoping against hope that wireless and an artful latte counted for something in this crazy world. So much so that the owners had named the shop Artful Latte in a Crazy World.

  At the counter, Lucy made a show of paying for their drinks, and with their coffees in hand, they chose seats away from the knitting circle, a gaggle of women chatting away in plush chairs.

  “What have you been up to since high school, Lucy?”

  “You mean other than working the five-finger discount? Just say it, okay? Give me the law talk so I can go.”

  He laughed and said, “You’re angry. I remember that.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I’ve been thinking about you since I saw you at your house. Do you remember me from high school?”

  “Sorry. No.”

  “We had lockers across the hall from each other.”

  She shook her head. “Sorry, Mark.”

  “I’m not surprised. I was angry, too. A loner. Into weed. Not your type.”

  “Ha! Like I had a type.”

  He took a sip of his coffee with unwavering eyes. His jaw looked tense. It was not an expression Lucy had the strength to fight. But it wasn’t an unattractive look, either.

  “I saw you come out of class once. Kick the shit out of your locker. Rip something up. What were you so mad about?”

  “Puberty, high school. Whatever.” She thought for a minute. “No, actually, I do remember. Biddy Bartholemew voted me Best Hair for Senior Favorites—you know, in the yearbook.”

  “Better than Biggest Stoner.”

  “Look at my hair. I have always had the worst hair in the history of our school and she knew it.”

  “Why’d she do it?”

  “So I wouldn’t get the category she wanted.”

  “Which was?”

  “Most Humorous.”

  “Didn’t you get that one?”

  Lucy paused. “Wow, you have quite the memory.” When he didn’t respond she said, “Ugly girl gets Most Humorous, Best Personality. Yeah, that’s not a cliché.”

  “Was Ugly Girl a category you gave yourself?”

  “I don’t remember ‘Stoner’ being on the Senior Favorite list, either. What were you so mad about?”

  He shrugged.

  Lucy shoved her chair back. “Oh, I get it: This is a one-way walk-down-memory-lane therapy session. Look, I gotta go.”

  “Jesus, calm down. I just took a minute to collect my thoughts. Not everyone thinks at the speed of light.” He took a swallow from his coffee. “Shitty home life, back then. These days, I guess because I went from weed to alcohol to divorce before I turned thirty-five. A whole life in just a few years.”

  Lucy caught a flash of the high school boy she thought she hadn’t remembered. The dark eyes, hair hanging in them, acne. “I think I remember you now. You were smaller.”

  “I bloomed late. That pissed me off, too.”

  For a second, in her mind, she stood back in the hall outside the high school principal’s office. She’d been on her way to work on the yearbook. Teenage Mark had shrugged out of the office, a large hand on the back of his neck steering him into the hallway. His father, saying, “Dumbass. I told you three strikes and you’re out.” He’d shoved Mark—who worked to appear cool in spite of the bully dad who’d yoked him—down the hall. Lucy had watched the pair all the way out the door, where the father cuffed Mark twice, hard, at the side of the head.

  She nodded toward the Walmart. “That wasn’t the first bar of soap that’s ended up in my pocket, you know.”

  “Cleanliness is important.” He grinned.

  “Feloniously important.”

  “So you’re a doctor, and—what? They don’t pay you enough?”

  “Yeah. And you drink too much because—what? Every day is a gift and you’re going to unwrap the ribbons?”

  His head snapped back an inch. “At ease. It was a joke.” Sighing, he said, “Look, you can go if you want.”

  “I don’t need your permission.” She shook her head. “I don’t know why I do it, okay? Like you probably don’t know why you drank yourself out of your marriage.”

  He winced. “Not to reduce the enjoyment of this conversation or put too fine a point on it, but I can drink, get divorced, and still not end up in jail. Can you say that about what you do?”

  “Are you going to arrest me?”

  His face fell. “Does it seem like that’s what I’m doing here? Arresting you?”

  “I’m not a criminal. I’m not!”

  “Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt,” he said.

  “That’s another thing I hate about AA—the catchy one-liners that get thrown in your face like they’re some kind of solution. Like the receiver will be enlightened and never drink again.”

  He laughed. “Sorry to use another tired cliché, but you are a ballbuster.” He laughed some more. “I love it.”

  Lucy pulled a face. “I assure you, that is not something people love about me.” She spread her hands on the table and examined her short nails. “I get that I have a problem, I just don’t think there’s any mystery involved. I’m trying to fill a hole in my life with things instead of experiences. But I’m going to counseling just to make sure. The hospital wants me to go to AA.”

  “It helps, Egypt. Especially in the beginning.”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “Next time, you might end up in real trouble.”

  She dragged her eyes up. “Why not this time?”

  “Call it valedictorian dispensation. But get some help. Next time you might end up at my place.”

  “Jail?”

  “Or whatever.” He looked away when he said it and Lucy felt something fish-like flip in her stomach. “Either way, it’s trouble for you, I imagine.”

  “I just don’t get how AA might help. I don’t drink.”

  “You’re a smart woman. I’m sure I don’t have to connect the dots for you. If you don’t want to see it, though, I can’t make you.” As she moved to leave he said, “Biddy Bartholemew always was a bitch.”

  * * *

  Lucy sank into her car seat and started to cry, another unpredictable impulse she seemed to have no control over lately. Wiping her face with the spare lab coat she kept in her car after the fast-food napkins ran out, she watched as Mark Troutman exited the coffee shop. It was hard to reconcile her memories from high school with this solidly built, confident man. Straight-backed and lean, he pulled a well-worn baseball cap from his back pocket and covered a testosterone-fueled bald spot. She sniffed her hand, looking for Richard’s scent; finding only the smell of coffee, she turned the key in the ignition.

  As she inched her car forward out of the parking space, a small dog darted out from under the grocery corral. Lucy slammed on the brakes and her eyes met the dog’s, and for a moment—a moment right out of a wine commercial featuring attractive young people in a singles bar—she felt a connecting of souls. Then the dog darted away, moving like a Navy SEAL as it zigzagged around the wheels of cars both parked and in motion. Lucy cringed as she heard the screeching brakes of a black SUV.

  She bolted from her Subaru and into the path of a honking black Mini
Cooper hell-bent on making its small-car way in a big-car world. She dodged a woman pushing a wheeled walker and flinched as the dog ran between the tires of a Holsum bread truck. The dog ran full out, ears flapping for speed, until both it and the woman with the walker exited the parking lot and headed straight into the oncoming traffic. Lucy held her hand out as a traffic cop might do in order to save school children.

  Through blaring horns and elevated fingers she shouted, “Dog!” One woman screamed, “Jesus fucking Christ,” out her car window in a reaction that would have been more appropriate during a terrorist attack.

  Across the street, Lucy jumped onto the grassy boulevard of a Pontiac dealership and scanned the area for the dog. A tiny flash of white and brown rounded the side of a Bonneville and headed for the back lot. She followed, waving at the salespeople behind the plate-glassed showroom, finally catching up with the shaft of a tail connected to a round, furry rump unflatteringly lodged in a wire fence.

  As Lucy approached, the dog stopped struggling and peered around at her with the large, buglike eyes of a chronic hyperthyroidism patient, soulful, desperate, unable to sleep for worry of where its next meal was coming from. Lucy let it sniff her hand.

  “You’ve got yourself in quite the predicament. I’m living that same life, metaphorically speaking. I totally have my ass caught in a big gate.” The dog allowed her a scratch behind the right ear. “It sucks,” she said. “I know.”

  Lucy was able to push apart the pliable links of the fence so that the dog popped loose. But instead of making a break toward freedom, it stepped right onto Lucy’s knees, stretched up, and sniffed her neck, chin, and mouth. There was no overly forward licking or gratuitous wagging, just a gentle and serious snorting coupled with a stare that said something like, I know all about you; where’s the roast beef?

  “You’ve got some burrs in your ears, little one. And no offense, but you don’t smell so good.”

  The dog opened its eyes and looked apologetically into Lucy’s. “You need a bath. And maybe a few less donuts. What’s a pretty girl like you doing wandering around, anyway, getting into trouble? Where’s your collar?” Lucy’s knees creaked as she stood and gathered the dog into her arms. “Let’s get you in a tub and sort things out.”

  The dog sighed and wrapped her tail around Lucy as if to say, Oh thank God, I’m bushed. If you had some bath salts, that would be nice.

  A fifteen-minute drive later, Lucy carried the dog inside the house and without preamble lowered her into the sink in the kitchen. She stroked the small animal under her chin and tested the water to make sure it was warm enough. Slowly she began bathing her. Occasionally the dog licked Lucy’s hand or snuggled into her armpit, but mostly she just gazed into space in apparent bliss. Dirt ran down the drain, and what had been a stiff brown coat morphed into a silky fawn color with white highlights. Her toenails, too long and ragged, changed from mud colored to a pale seashell pink. Lucy pulled several dish towels out of the drawer. When she had finished drying her, she said, “Now let’s get you something to drink.”

  Lucy filled a bowl and set it down near the back door, then mopped up the water from the bath. After collecting the towels and placing them in the laundry room, she turned, searching for the dog. “Here, girl,” she called. She followed the wet footprints out of the kitchen, down the hall, and into her makeshift first-floor bedroom. There, in a doggie circle on her bedspread lay the damp bundle of brown and white fur, burrowed into Lucy’s powder-blue robe. Her snoring had a slight whistle at the end of each breath.

  Ever since Richard’s death, Lucy had been unsure of what to do in her own house. It was a feeling she’d gotten used to. But this time, there was another being to accommodate. A being that she found she didn’t want to disturb.

  She noticed the blinking message light on her phone, but ignored it and crawled into bed next to the little animal. She reached out a tentative hand and rested it on the dog’s paw. The dog articulated a very clear, almost human woof, and just before Lucy closed her eyes she saw the outraged face of her cat, glaring at her from her bureau. The righteously indignant jut of her tail broadcasted her disapproval, and Lucy mouthed, “Oh relax, Mrs. Bobo. Go lick your privates.”

  10

  Smoke and Mirrors

  When Lucy woke from her nap, it was dusk. A wonderful smell floated in the room: bacon. She rubbed her eyes and wrapped herself in a shawl. She called out, “Charles?”

  As she padded into the kitchen, her brother pushed an omelet onto a flowered plate. “Happy Halloween.”

  “Do I need to change the locks?”

  “I guess I would if you don’t want Meals on Wheels wandering in and cooking you a gourmet meal while providing sparkling, low-conflict conversation.” Charles raised his eyebrows and said, “I didn’t bring this dog with me, but she seems to know her way around. She said I could stay.”

  Lucy knelt to pet the soft, downy animal. “She got her ass stuck in a gate,” she told her brother. “That’s how we met. I gave her a bath.”

  “Are you keeping her?”

  “No. I’ll try to find out where she lives. Put posters up or something.”

  “So Stewart from frozen foods just needed to get his ass caught in your gate and he would have gotten inside?”

  Lucy looked up. “Huh?”

  Charles gestured toward the phone. “He called while you were sleeping.”

  “Oh. Ugh. What did he say?”

  “Listen for yourself,” he said.

  The answering machine registered two hang-ups, followed by Stewart’s voice. “Hi, Dr. Peterman. Um, Lucy. This is Stewart. From frozen foods? Um. Sorry I missed you the other night. I always do that. Come on too strong, I mean. I—I hope you’ll forgive me for putting you on the spot.” There was a pause and Stewart went on. “Please don’t feel bad.” There was another pause. “See you in the frozen foods. No harm, no growl, as they say in football.”

  Charles grimaced at Lucy. “No harm, no growl?”

  “He’s got a real way with words.” Lucy’s face fell. “I am the social equivalent of a chronic dieter. I vow to do better, dream of the perfect friendship, but I’m unable to muster the hyper-vigilance needed to put down the sabotaging behavior and reach out for help.”

  “Yep.”

  “I need to go to People Anonymous. ‘Hello, my name is Lucy and I suck at interpersonal relationships. It has been two years since my last dinner with someone not related to me.’”

  “And Stew was that chance?”

  “He was a start, I guess.” Lucy rubbed her eyes, “You know, once, when I was flying somewhere to a surgical conference, they had me seated right next to an emergency exit. I asked to be moved, immediately after hearing the three criteria for using that seat.” Lucy ticked them off on her fingers: “You must not block the exit, hurt yourself or others, or get distracted. Given what might be occurring at the moment when I’d need to wrestle the door off its hinges, I couldn’t make any of those promises. Shit, I get distracted while brushing my teeth. I hurt people while grocery shopping. If the plane was going down, I’m pretty sure I’d block the exit.” Lucy ran her hand through her wild hair. “I’ve gotta call him.”

  “He sounds understanding.”

  “That makes it worse. Where’s Phong tonight?”

  “Spanish class. You know he’s running for alderman. Thinks he should be able to speak the language of the people.”

  “How’s the campaign going?”

  “He spit a coffee bean twenty-nine feet and one inch at the Coffee Festival.”

  “So that’s a really important skill for an alderman. Also, fairly impressive. How’d he do it?”

  “He told the newspapers he just shut his eyes and thought Olympic gold.”

  A loud, frat-party kind of barking erupted from the living room. Lucy strode toward the front door, calling over her shoulder, “It sounds li
ke I have five breeds in here instead of one smallish, dappled doggie.” Seconds later she appeared in the kitchen looking panic-stricken.

  “Luce?”

  “The cops are here. In the driveway.” Charles looked so unaffected by the news that Lucy was forced to add, “Now!” in such a hysterical tone that the dog paused mid-yip.

  “Jesus, calm down.”

  “Do you think the hospital finally called them? Or Stewart, maybe? He probably checked the surveillance tapes, saw me steal that pumpkin. But I put it back!”

  “You stole a pumpkin?”

  “Charles, go out there. Tell them I’m not home. Tell them I’m in surgery.” Lucy looked wildly around. “No, don’t. They must know I’m not working. That’s why they’re here. You’re supposed to stick close to the truth when you lie; that’s what they say.”

  “Who?”

  “Lie experts. Tell them I’m indisposed. Tell them I want to be alone.” Lucy paced around the kitchen.

  “Okay, Garbo. I’ll answer the door. You try and get your bag of nuts together and sit like a good little squirrel and shut up.”

  As Charles stepped out of the kitchen, Lucy whispered a loud “I love you.”

  She stood there, hugging the squirming dog, who chewed a cat-shaped rawhide, until Charles reentered the kitchen. Then she blew air through her lips and rolled her eyes. “That was close.”

  “There’s someone here to see you.”

  “Hi, Egypt.” Mark Troutman strolled into the kitchen and put his hand up in a casual wave. “This isn’t an official call. This is for that rogue cat of yours that terrorizes the neighborhood. I’m dropping off information on how to get her properly licensed.” He held out a small pamphlet with a cartoon kitty on the front.

  Charles smiled. “I told him you’d never get that cat a license if I gave this to you.” To Mark he said, “She needs a strong authority figure.” And then he quietly left the room.

  “I don’t know what to say,” Lucy said.

  Mark said, “‘Thank you’ is customary in this country.” She just blinked, and after a moment he said, “Okay then, I’m going back to work. Maybe we could have coffee again sometime.”