Earnest (14 page)

C
HAPTER
26

W
ith the latest
Gamble Crier,
Jeff fanned the broiling steak's aroma toward Earnest, who was sprawled on his side across from the oven door.

“Sniff, Earnest, sniff. How good can it get?”
Fan, fan
.

The smell wafted straight toward his nose, which Jeff wanted to quiver with excitement. But Earnest's nose stayed resting on the floor like a wet coal lump rescued from a snowman's eye.

“This steak is for
you,
Earnest. The whole thing. You don't have to share a bite.” Jeff fanned again. “I've seen you lunge after a measly sliver, and now you'll have twelve ounces! You like steak better than cheese!”

Jeff might as well have been hawking Styrofoam. Earnest did not raise his head. His listless gaze explained his position:
I am not hungry
.
I have important moping to do.
To emphasize that point, he moaned, a discouraged rumble from deep inside his chest.

Jeff also felt discouraged. “Okay. Maybe you'll feel better about it when it's in your bowl.”

He broiled the steak to medium rare, which was supposed to extract from Earnest whines and anticipatory leaps around the kitchen. But in disappointing silence, Jeff cut the meat into tempting bite-sized pieces, set them on a plate, and put them into Mr. Ripley's refrigerator, where duct tape held up shelves inside the door. While waiting for the steak to cool, Jeff opened the
Gamble Crier
he'd been fanning and reread an op-ed piece he'd skimmed in Thrifty Market an hour before. The editor's sentiment wasn't any better the second time. “What a misguided jerk,” Jeff mumbled to himself.

Now that Grabowski had put his sign in front of Mrs. Blackmore's house, Cedar Place's permit applications were public knowledge. And biased, provincial Gamble citizens, such as the editor, were already sniping at the project. The town did not need a big commercial building, said his op-ed piece, and more would surely follow. “Developers are only out for profit. Next thing we know they'll want to build a Walmart here. We can't sit back and let them ruin our small town,” he said.

The narrow-minded editor would lead the charge against Cedar Place. He'd print readers' letters against the project and toss those in favor into his trash. Opposition loomed, and it unsettled Jeff. It was another thing he couldn't control, like the Gamble permit process and Lincoln Purcell's mediation.

To hell with it.
He folded the
Crier
into a lopsided square. Intending to deposit it on his closet's newspaper pile, he walked into his hot-pink living room and, as usual, shuddered at the damned color. As he passed his oak drafting table, so out of place in the pink brothel he called home, his eyes went to the right front leg.

A foot from the floor was a ring of chewed wood, wet with saliva. Splinters, like bits of toothpicks, were scattered on the rug. The leg looked like a beaver had been gnawing it for dam purposes but had not yet finished the job.

There was only one beaver-like animal in the apartment, and he was in the kitchen. He'd assaulted the leg when Jeff had left him for fifteen minutes to buy his steak. Earnest had struck at lightning speed, then innocently settled on his kitchen bed as if he'd never heard of a drafting table. He must be protesting something. Or mad at Jeff. Or scared to be left alone in the apartment.
What is
wrong
with him?!

Earnest's sensitivity had gotten the best of him. Once a stable, secure companion, he'd become erratic and temperamental. He'd given in to neurosis and acted out his fears. Maybe he was afraid of being abandoned again, or maybe sudden change had upset him. As Jeff and Anna's former family rock, he was unused to being handed back and forth. Jeff could not be mad at him. Anna was the one to blame.

Jeff tossed the
Gamble Crier
on Mr. Ripley's red-and-brown plaid sofa and went back to the kitchen. Earnest did not look at Jeff or raise his head. He did not seem inclined to apologize for his destructive act, either. He might not even have remembered it now that he was busy attending to gloom.

Unsure what to do for him, Jeff turned to the steak. “Okay, Earnest. You ready for some rapture?”

He took the steak out of the refrigerator and felt the pieces, warm enough to be delicious, but not too hot for Earnest's mouth. Jeff poured them into Earnest's white ceramic bowl and set it in front of him, like he was King Farouk, who ate a hundred oysters in one sitting.

“Service with a smile. You don't have to stand up to eat!” Jeff said. “I've heard of starving dogs in Afghanistan who'd kill for one bite of steak, and you've got at least fifteen here.”

With all his heart, Jeff wanted Earnest to be a gleeful glutton again. Jeff wanted Earnest to dive at the bowl, gulp down the steak, and look up at him with Oliver Twist's entreating eyes, begging,
Please, sir, I want some more.
Jeff wanted Earnest to get back to his old self.

Earnest rolled over to his sphinx position. At first he looked at the steak as if it were a personal affront, but then the smell coaxed him into nibbling pieces. But he did not inhale them, as Jeff had hoped. Nor did he finish the feast.
You can't make me happy with food,
said his chin as he set it on his front paws to mark the end of dinner.

“Do you eat at Anna's? Are you only sad with me? Would you rather be with her?” Jeff asked. Or was Earnest an equal opportunity dog who spread the worry around to both of them? Jeff would talk with her about it—if they were speaking to each other. Tonight was the first time since Mad Dog's letter that he wished they were.

 

Later that night, Jeff brushed his teeth and avoided looking at the eyelashes of the whales cavorting on the shower curtain. They irritated him. He washed his face, stepped into his flannel pajamas, and went into the bedroom. He turned on Mr. Ripley's lamp, a ceramic owl with a burlap shade sticking out of his head.

Lying in the half circle of light cast on Jeff 's pillow was a cow's hoof that Earnest had not yet finished chewing. Only he could have set it there, though he'd never brought anything but himself to bed before. At first Jeff thought Earnest had meant the hoof as a bread-and-butter gift to say,
Thank you for the steak.

Then Jeff decided that Earnest had wanted to leave a message. He might have been pointing out,
I'm sorry for gnawing on your drafting table. I meant no harm. I couldn't help myself.
Or he may have wanted to tell Jeff in the only way he could how important Jeff was to him. The cow's hoof might simply be saying,
I love you, man.

Though Jeff did not know Earnest's intentions, he did know that he loved his dog. More than anything.
People may disappoint you, but Earnest never would,
he thought. Jeff found him in the living room, not far from the site of the drafting table massacre. “Thanks for the cow's hoof, Buddy. Come on. Let's go to bed.”

C
HAPTER
27

D
r. Nilsen was smiling when he came into the exam room. He washed and dried his hands and threw his paper towel into the trash. When he looked down at Earnest, his smile faded and his forehead creased. “Earnest, you've lost weight.”

“Seven pounds according to your scale,” Anna said.

“That's worrisome.”

Dr. Nilsen squatted down and handed Earnest a biscuit. Though he took it politely, he set it down uneaten and turned his head away.
I'd rather not.

“He'll hardly eat anything,” Anna said. “Yesterday he licked my ice cream cone, and this morning he ate a piece of cheese. But he won't look at his kibble.”

“So you're holding out for the good stuff, are you, Earnest?” Dr. Nilsen asked. “We've always had to worry about keeping your weight down, not fattening you up.”

Dr. Nilsen quickly checked Earnest's gums and teeth. He took his temperature and looked into his ears, then coaxed him to stand and prodded his belly. “He seems okay except for his weight.”

Anna laced her fingers together. “I took him to the library for his reading session with the kids. He always loves it, but he lay there in a funk.”

“He's like that all the time?”

“Lately, pretty much. Do you think he could be upset?”

“Sure. Earnest is emotional. His feelings are transparent. He could be telling you he's depressed.” Dr. Nilsen leaned against the sink and shoved his hands into his lab coat's pockets. “Anything stressful going on at home?”

Anna had dreaded that inevitable question.
Of course, there is stress at home.
And there was no pill to cure Earnest of Jeff and Anna's split, which was Earnest's problem, she suspected. Today's trip here was to confirm it.

Anna explained that Jeff had moved out, and they were sharing custody of Earnest. “I think maybe he doesn't like going back and forth between us.” She glanced at her loafers' stitching. “He might be grieving for his former life when he was happy.”

“That makes sense. You've got a sensitive animal here,” Dr. Nilsen said. “Any chance you and Jeff will get back together?”

“No way. Never.” Anna fired off that edict. “We're definitely mad at each other.”

“Earnest's picking up every bit of it. If you're sure you won't reconcile, you've got to find a way to help him feel better,” Dr. Nilsen said. “Can you take him out together and pretend you got along? You need to show him nothing terrible has happened and his world is still secure.”

Taking Earnest anywhere with Jeff felt like a prison sentence. But Anna could not let her beloved dog pine himself into a skeleton. “I guess if Jeff agrees, we could take Earnest for a walk.”

“That's worth a try before we put him through a lot of tests,” Dr. Nilsen said. “Look at things from his point of view. He may feel like he's failed because he hasn't kept his pack together. Seeing his family disintegrate is a real hardship for a dog. His world's fallen apart.”

Guilt.
“You think a walk is enough?”

“It'd take more than one. You and Jeff need to get together every week till Earnest starts eating again. He needs a lot of attention right now.”

Weekly walks would be forced marches, but she was willing for Earnest's sake. “I don't know how Jeff is going to respond.”

“He'd do anything for Earnest. If he hesitates, have him give me a call,” Dr. Nilsen said. “If Earnest stops taking treats, bring him here right away so we can x-ray him and do a blood panel. And bring him in if the walks don't work. You don't want him to get too thin.”

Dr. Nilsen held out his hand to Earnest for a shake. As he offered his paw, for the first time in days Earnest brightened. Though he may not have understood Dr. Nilsen's prescription, he seemed to pick up concern and goodwill.

“As a vet, I sure wish breakups never happened. Believe me, they take a toll.”

Guilt again. It gouged large chunks out of Anna's heart.

 

Before Anna turned the key in Vincent's ignition, she told herself,
Get it over with. You have to do it for Earnest. You can't put it off.

She got out her cell and texted Jeff:

 

 

She hesitated. The screen's bright blue “send” crooked a finger at her and beckoned,
Press me.
When she still hesitated, the button shook a fist and urged,
You are a lily-livered wastrel if you won't take this step for Earnest. You know what's right.

Anna inhaled and steeled herself. She pressed. The text flew through the ether to Jeff.

There. It was done.

C
HAPTER
28

J
eff rested his elbows on the picnic tabletop and looked around Broken Arrow Park. Anna was nowhere to be seen.
She's probably late just to hassle me,
he thought.
She wants me to shiver in the cold. If it rains, she'll
really
be happy.

When something plopped on the grass behind him, he turned around. Earnest was hovering over his stick, begging for another throw. He stared at the stick, then at Jeff, then back at the stick. Earnest's eager eyes said,
Oh, please, please! We've only played fetch for half an hour. That's not enough!

“Okay.” Jeff picked up the stick and threw it into the empty Little League diamond, and Earnest tore after it, a blond streak across the grass.

A Native American village had once been located on this very spot. It was surrounded by meadows, beyond which was a dense wood of evergreens and maples, their autumn leaves now shed. The park was called Broken Arrow because of early Suquamish skirmishes here, but you'd never guess that anyone had fought in such a peaceful place. Joggers ran on the gravel path around the park's perimeter. Children, bundled up against the cold, played on swings and slides. P-Patch gardeners dug up shriveled vegetable plants and put their plots to bed for winter.

Externally, all was calm. Internally, Jeff felt uneasy, on guard. He did not look forward to seeing Anna. He'd answered her text with a single word:
Fine.

That had been as much as he could bring himself to say when his warm feelings for her had blown away like so much dust. Earnest was the only reason he'd agreed to meet. If Dr. Nilsen thought Jeff and Anna should walk their dog together, he was willing. Whatever it took for Earnest.

After a dozen more stick throws and impatient glances at his watch, however, Jeff considered leaving. Finally, Vincent sputtered into the parking lot. Earnest pricked his ears and dropped the stick at Jeff 's feet. When Anna opened Vincent's door, Earnest dashed to her before she jumped to the ground.

He wagged his tail and yipped.
Oh, you're here! You're here!
He pressed against Anna's knees.

She bent down and kissed his forehead. She was always leaving lipstick prints—and Jeff was always washing them off. Now he'd have to do it again when he and Earnest got back to his apartment. Anna was inconsiderate.
One more strike against her.

Jeff took his time sauntering across the grass. When he reached Anna and Earnest, he did not say hello. He did not smile. He stood there, wooden, his feet planted in the parking lot's gravel.

But Earnest sprang to life. No one could have missed his joy that the two people he loved most were together. He ramped up his yips to ebullient cries. His ears flapping, he circled Anna and Jeff again and again as if he were lassoing them together and staking out his family's boundary. He leapt in the air and rolled in the grass, then pranced around them, swishing his tail.

Earnest's pure, innocent rejoicing tugged at Jeff. It was contagious. How could he not get into the spirit of joy when his best friend was so happy? Jeff fell to his knees, grabbed Earnest, and wrapped his arms around him. Anna kneeled down and hugged him too. Across his back, her arm brushed Jeff's. His forehead grazed hers. Soon their petting hands touched; and when Earnest wriggled, they accidentally petted each other. Their breaths mingled into one exuberant cloud.

As Earnest whined and wiggled, Jeff's and Anna's eyes met. He smiled at her as warmly as the old days. When she smiled back, she glowed. But then Jeff pictured the twitch of Mad Dog Horowitz's rodent whiskers and remembered signing away half his right to Earnest. Jeff drew back into himself, a clam slamming his shell closed. The softness around Anna's eyes hardened.

Their play was over. The curtain fell on
The Importance of Loving Earnest
and rose on
The Iceman Cometh
. Without looking at each other, Jeff and Anna got to their feet. Jeff attached Earnest's leash to his collar.

“Come on, Earnest.” Jeff would talk with his dog but damn well not with Anna.

Though Earnest obeyed, his mood shifted. Obviously, he had picked up Jeff and Anna's huff, and he did not approve. Disappointment radiated from him as he walked stiffly between them down the gravel path.

“I want to tell you something,” Anna said.

“Fine.”

“When I picked up Earnest last Monday, he was filthy. You'd taken him where he'd stomped through mud, and his fur was stiff with saltwater.”

“So?”

“So I was late to work because I had to take him home and bathe him.”

“What a shame,” Jeff said.

“You're being snarky.”

“So what?”

Earnest raised his head and gave Jeff and Anna a shriveling look. He curled his lip, and for the first time ever, he growled at them. He hooded his eyes as if the very sight of them annoyed him, and he let them know in the harshest terms,
Your scrapping is intolerable. You are the rat finks of the Western world.

Earnest stepped off the path and walked on the grass as far away from Jeff and Anna as his leash would allow. His stand on the matter of their barbs was irrefutable when he lifted his leg and drowned the thorns of a Nootka rose bush.

“Dr. Nilsen said we should act like everything's fine so Earnest will feel secure.” Anna's words sounded irritated, flea-bitten.

“How can we act like everything's fine when it's not?”

“We should talk.”

“I have nothing to say to you,” Jeff said.

“I don't have anything to say to you, either.”

Jeff wanted to tell Anna to take her hornets' nest of anger elsewhere. But he decided if she wanted talk, he would give her talk. He would fill the air with words so Earnest might think they were conversing and he would feel better. No problem.

The first words that came to Jeff were from the Gettysburg Address, which his sixth-grade teacher, Mrs. Watkins, had made him memorize—and which would be imbedded in his brain forever. He began: “Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

“All right!” Anna seemed to understand his ploy. “London Bridge is falling down, falling down, falling down.”

Like our relationship.
“Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and dedicated, can long endure.”

With contempt, Anna rolled her eyes. “Rain, rain, go away. Come again another day.”

“We are met on a great battlefield of that war. . . .”

“No kidding,” Anna interrupted. “Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall and had a great fall. All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Humpty together again.”

“That government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

“Little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet. Along came a spider and sat down beside her.”

Earnest, being a perceptive and intelligent dog, looked at them like they were lunatics. He yanked them off the path to a rhododendron bush, under which he found a sniff-worthy molehill. But Anna and Jeff stayed stuck on Grudge Mountain.