Men and Dogs (14 page)

Eventually, she did lie, though. At the end of the summer, Hannah told Warren her plane was leaving on a Saturday, when in fact her flight was on a Wednesday morning at 8:06. Even on that last Tuesday night, the seconds of which she knew to treasure as the end of her time with Warren Meyers, Hannah kept to herself the fact that she’d be gone in twelve short hours.

Hannah’s mother didn’t entirely understand Hannah’s reasons for secrecy, but she was overjoyed that Hannah was finally getting rid of Warren. And now there was college! The possibilities! The men! An undeniable look of pleasure crossed her face when
Hannah told her she and Warren wouldn’t be seeing each other anymore.

“Very wise,” Daisy said. “I’m sorry to say so, but it’s true. Why waste college on a high school boyfriend? Very smart, Hannah.
Exactly what I would have done if I’d been lucky enough to go to a school like Stanford.”

When Hannah heard about the wedding, she was happy, in a way. It proved that her actions had been right. She had followed her instincts, and they had protected her. They still do. She feels almost lucky that she had a father who disappeared when she was eleven, because now, she can always sense when someone is going to take off. This has been an invaluable skill. After all, Hannah often theorizes, life is basically just designed to kick your ass, isn’t it? Give a friend five minutes, and they’ll tell you about how lonely they are. Talk to a stranger on a plane, and they’ll tell you how someone broke their heart.
Hannah doesn’t have to face this, because of a promise she made to herself in 1985. She was eleven years old, sitting in a church, humiliated because everyone was wondering why she wasn’t crying; it was then she decided she would never, ever let anyone else leave her, whatever the circumstances or what she had to do. Warren Meyers was the beginning, but there have been others, and evidently there will be more. No matter what happens, Hannah makes certain she’s always the one to leave first.

It’s a tragic thing, that a person’s body has to change.

She is standing next to the choirmaster, looking at Warren’s back. There’s extra flesh above the belt. His backside has widened.
It looks like he’s gained thirty pounds. Which is not so surprising, she supposes. Most men in Charleston gain weight with age. There’s too much salt in the food, and beer is served at just about every meal after eleven in the morning. “Charleston puffiness,” Tom calls it. You can avoid it with diet and exercise, of course, but it takes diligence, and Warren has obviously fallen prey.

There are other changes. The back of his neck, once tan and smooth, now appears surprisingly hairy. So are his wrists. He wears a blue oxford identical to the choirmaster’s, something he would never have worn when Hannah knew him. In fact, it would be rather easy to convince herself that this isn’t Warren Meyers at all, if not for the inimitable slouch of his back and the jiggling of his right foot. Even now she can tell it means he has a problem he’s trying to work out. Once upon a time,
it would have been a transition in his history essay. Now she supposes it’s something about the congregation. Or God?

Yet she is happy to note that she feels absolutely nothing. No excitement, no nerves—just the slightly sad satisfaction of curiosity, observing what happens to a person after the passage of a certain number of years.

“I’m Hannah Legare,” she tells the choirmaster.

Warren looks up from his computer and turns around slowly, his hands on the arms of his ergonomic chair.

“Hi,” she says.

“Hannah,” Warren says. He stands up and puts out his hand. She gives her best business-school shake. “Mom told me you were in town.”

“Ministers have computers?” A stupid thing to say, but she’s feeling pretty stupid right now. Her palms have sprouted rivers.

“Sure,” he says with a polite smile. “We’ve got to work somewhere.” He motions to the chair next to his desk. “Sit down if you have time.”

It’s as if she is a client. Or a potential hire.

“You look great!” she practically shouts.

“You, too.” Again, his tone is maddeningly hard to read. She knows he couldn’t really mean it; she has a big wound on her head, and her T-shirt and jeans are dirty from crawling in the closet, and she’s sweaty from riding up here on the Earth Cruiser.

“What can I do for you?” he asks.

Hannah’s not quite sure where to start. I love you? Sorry I ditched you? I’ve got to get ahold of myself, she thinks. It’s not like he’s special. He’s just a regular guy now, with none of the otherworldliness she remembers. It makes her a little angry, in fact. How could such a special person turn into someone so ordinary? How could he let himself devolve into an oxford shirt with Charleston puffiness? How could he be married to shit-for-brains Jenny White?

“I guess I don’t really know what I’m doing here.”

“Well,” Warren says patiently, “take a moment.”

“How’s your family?” he finally asks.

“Everyone’s good.”

“And how’s . . . San Francisco? That’s where you live, right?”

Is she detecting a trace of bitterness? Could he be cracking the door open ever so slightly?

“Listen, I’m really sorry about . . . you know, back in high school. The way I left and everything.”

Warren shrugs and waves his hand, as if brushing away a fly. “Water under the bridge.”

“It was a crappy thing to do. I know you must have been upset.”

“Oh, it was years ago. Who cares now? We were kids.”

“Still, I’m sorry.”

“So do you have porn on there?”

She knows she’s being obnoxious. But right now she’d do anything to garner a rise out of him.

“What?”

“Porn. That’s what all men keep on their hard drives. Even ministers, I imagine. So? What do you have on there?”

He pushes his chair back a little.

Warren pauses for a moment, then grabs a frame on his desk and flips it around so she can see it.

“This is my family.”

Hannah leans forward to look. Virginia was right about the girls. They’re perfect.

“Jenny White.” He tells her about how they started dating in college. How Jenny was the girl right after her.

“You’ve got a beautiful family,” Hannah says.

“Thank you.”

“Congratulations.”

“Again, thank you.” He picks up the photo and looks at it for a moment, then puts it down on his desk. “And you?”

“I’m married.”

“Great.” He nods. Once, twice. Again, a flicker of something she thinks she recognizes, but she has to work pretty hard at it. It’s like trying to find CNN in rural Slovakia.

“Hey,” she says. “I need your help, actually.”

“Sure.” He looks relieved at the concrete nature of this request. Hannah leans over, digs the photo out of her bag, then slides it across the desk.

Warren picks it up and looks at it. He frowns, then squints and brings the picture closer to his face, trying to make sense of the image.

“Hey, that’s Mom,” he says, smiling. He looks at it again. “Oh, and your parents.”

“Yup.”

He squints at it again and brings it closer to his face. He flips it over to see if there’s anything written on the back,
then turns the photograph right side up again and stares at it quietly. A minute passes. Then another.

Hannah knows not to say anything right now. And she’s glad for this silence, because what it means is that, despite the church and the wife and the two gorgeous daughters and the softened body, her Warren Meyers is still in there somewhere.

“What is this?” he finally asks.

“It’s a picture, Warren. Of our parents.”

“Where did you get it?”

“I found it in my closet. You remember, that room behind—” “I know.”

He won’t look at her.

“It’s still there.”

“Huh.” His face is no longer so pleasantly impartial. Another minute passes. Then, without looking at her, Warren tosses her photo in the trash.

“What are you doing?” She dives to grab the bin.

“Leave it,” he barks.

“Sorry,” she mumbles, reddening when she finds herself on her knees under his desk.

“Leave it, Hannah,” he repeats.

“Fine,” she says, climbing back in her chair again. “Why?”

“Because that picture can’t help you.”

“I didn’t say it could.”

“Screw God, Warren! God has got nothing to do with me.”

“If you feel that way—”

“Well, I’m sorry. I’m sorry to hear that.” He does seem sorry, and pauses for a moment. “The best I can do is try to guide you toward a more spiritual path.”

“Come off it, Warren.”

“But there are questions. You saw the photo—”

“Your father is dead.”

“We don’t know that.”

“We do know it, Hannah. That is the information we have.”

“You never used to think that.”

Warren pauses carefully. “Your father’s gone,” he says. “So your mother moved on. Digging this sort of thing up doesn’t help anyone.”

“I think it might help me.”

“You’re lying to yourself.”

They glare at each other a moment. She is so frustrated she has to keep herself from yelling out.

“Think about coming to services,” he says, serving up the dim smile again.

“OK. Yeah. Thanks.”

“You’re more than welcome.”

Their tones are merely civil now. Strangers in church. He stands up and extends his hand again, but Hannah can’t deal with it a second time and hurries out. The rain that threatened before is here now, coming down in torrents. It’s warm, at least.
She hops on the bike and pedals for a block, riding through the puddles on purpose and kicking up huge sprays of mud and water before remembering she’s left her picture in Warren’s trash.

“Shit!” she screams, ignoring the group of tourists gawking from a horse-drawn carriage in the street. She wheels around,
rides back to the church, and, throwing her bike against the gate, runs up the stairs.

Hannah is soaking. Water drips from her hair and clothes to the floor. She didn’t bother to wear a bra under her shirt this morning; this is a decision she now regrets.

When she gets to the doorway, she stops, surprised. Warren’s head is in his hands. He’s fished the picture out of the trash and laid it on his desk.

“Warren.”

He jumps slightly.

“I just came back for my picture.”

He nods. His right finger plays with a curl on his head.

“You’re wet.”

“It’s raining.”

He holds out the photo in front of him.

“Come to services.”

“I hate church, Warren.”

She takes the picture, her old lover’s hand still hovering in the air.

“Just come,” he says. “I’ll bring someone who can help.”

14
Palmer Gets a Call

A
S SOON AS he opens his eyes, Palmer knows today is not going to be a good day. Tom has risen already without bothering to wake him. He hears the rain on the roof and remembers he never covered the hot tub, he still has a kitchen he promised to clean, and Rumpus, no doubt, will not have been walked. He’ll have to take the dog with him to the office, where the other animals will nip at her, causing Rumpus to urinate both on the floor of the office and, later, at home, on an expensive rug of her choice. Still, Palmer deals. He dresses, showers, grooms, cleans, puts away, collects Rumpus, and heads to his own personal world, the office.

As with all things, this is only part of the answer, but the full reply to the question is too revealing for Palmer to say comfortably. What people like Tom and Hannah know is that Palmer became a vet because of Tucker, the dog his father left behind.

When Buzz disappeared, Tucker became Palmer’s dog. It was not a smooth transition; Tucker was highly distraught by the loss of his owner, and a year of horrible behavior followed, resulting in the destruction of upward of twenty-five shoes. After losing a pair of hand-me-down Ferragamos, Daisy even threatened to put the dog down, but seeing the expression on Palmer’s face, she silenced herself on the subject. Palmer patiently trained Tucker, taking him everywhere he could, including to football games and school. (Dogs were not allowed on campus, but in light of Palmer’s “circumstance,” a special exception was made for Tucker.) By the end of two years, even Daisy agreed that Tucker was so well behaved he had almost human qualities. He fetched his own leash and got the paper. Neighborhood legend was that the dog could sometimes be seen walking himself around the block.

When, inevitably, he received no answer beyond a wet-nosed nudge or an accelerated thump of the tail, Palmer would make sure his door was all the way shut and practice confessions:

“I’m gay, Tuck. Do you understand?”

“I like dick, puppy. Got it?”

Why must a dog’s allotted time on Earth be out of step with those who love him? By the time Palmer was in his third year at the Citadel, the dog’s snout was white and his eyes clouded over. He hobbled after Palmer at the beach and around the house with pitiful determination. Palmer tried to ignore the growing limp and the arthritic gait. Then one day, in an ill-advised attempt to leap into Palmer’s car, Tucker broke his hip.

“It’s up to you,” Daisy said. “Will can pay for it. We can fix it if you want.” (Never an animal lover, Daisy refused to assign pets feminine or masculine pronouns.) Palmer was tempted. He counted on Tuck’s heavy head resting on his chest in the morning, on his breath chugging a foot behind. But looking at the dog’s eyes, tired and dazed from drugs, Palmer knew the correct answer. After a day of deliberation, he gathered the animal—now little more than a nest of bone and loose skin,
smelling of an old mushroom—lifted him gently, and drove him to the vet’s office.

Even losing his father was easier than this. No one there but Palmer. No throngs of mourners, no somber receptions with ham biscuits and whiskey. Just Palmer and Tucker waiting in a cold room for the vet to end the dog’s life.

The vet’s name was Dr. Greene—young, tall, and lanky, with a surfer’s haircut. He had permanently flushed cheeks and an easy grin. Something about him even seemed a little bit holy. Dr. Greene put a gentle hand on Tucker’s head and left it there as he injected the twitching animal, didn’t move it until Tucker was fully still and gone. His demeanor left no room for doubt that, as a team, he and Palmer were doing the right thing. And at that moment—sobbing by the body of his lifeless dog—Palmer understood that while vets help animals, really they save people. So on that lamentable day, two things happened. He fell silently in love with Dr. Greene, and, more constructively, he chose a fulfilling, attainable profession.

When Palmer walks into his office, his assistant, Jenny, is chatting with the receptionist in the lab over coffee. He looks at the day’s lineup: almost all dogs. Not surprising; Charleston is a dog town. There are dogs in cars, dogs tied up outside bars, dogs leashed to the legs of strollers. Dogs pace in the backs of trucks, dogs surf the bows of boats, dogs roam the beaches, their college-student owners too distracted by beer and skin to notice their animals knocking over small children.
No apologies necessary when this happens. In a dog town, the dogs win. There are some cats, too, of course. Snakes, rabbits,
gerbils, a few ferrets. But mostly Palmer’s patients are canine: big, shaggy, and forgiving—even when receiving their thermometer in the rectum or a final dose of barbiturates into the inside of their ailing paw.

Joining his employees for a moment, Palmer peeks out into the waiting room. “Good morning,” he says.

“Morning,” Jenny replies.

It’s clear that he has interrupted their gossip, so Palmer retreats into his office and sits at his desk. Within a minute,
Jenny appears in the doorway. Palmer looks approvingly at her sunny breasts, somehow perceptible through the loose blue scrubs.
If Palmer were going to have straight sex again, it would be with Jenny, who is blond and soft and feminine in a way he vaguely misses. He never would, though. It would be like ordering an ice-cream sundae as a side to prime rib. Besides, straight affairs are more complicated than gay ones, particularly at work. A gay fling would most likely be a onetime thing that would quickly evolve into some slight office discomfort and a few catty remarks before being forgotten altogether. Sex with Jenny would require tears and long talks. Not to mention that she happens to be the wife of his sister’s ex-boyfriend. Still, he can appreciate
Jenny’s skin—soft, tan, bearing the inexplicable scent of cooked butter.

She smiles at him wanly. Palmer thinks he might have heard her voice quiver. He braces himself. Jenny is a crier. She cries on birthdays, when she can’t find her keys, when it’s too cold out. It would be worth firing her over, but fortunately the one thing she doesn’t cry over is animal euthanasia. When it comes to pet killing, she’s a battle-ax.

“Warren like his birthday present?” he thinks to ask. Earlier in the week, Palmer went with Jenny to Croghan’s to select some cuff links for her husband.

“He did.” She pauses, sniffs, and takes an ever-present packet of Kleenex out of her pocket. “At least I think he did.”

“Maybe we should have gone for the band saw?”

“No, he liked the cuff links. I don’t know. With Warren, it’s just hard to tell.”

“Mmm.” Palmer does not particularly like Warren. He didn’t like him when he dated his sister in high school, and he doesn’t like him as Jenny’s husband. Warren is bland, unfeeling, and, frankly, boring. Sure, he has great eyes, but that doesn’t excuse his lack of enthusiasm over a birthday present his wife clearly spent hours picking out for him. Still, who is he to say?
He’s not going to get involved.

She dabs at her face. “How’s Tom?”

“Fine, thanks,” Palmer says.

“It would be such fun if we all went out. Have you asked him?”

“I keep meaning to!” he lies. “But my sister’s in town now. Had her over to dinner.”

He is immediately sorry he mentioned it. Jenny’s face instantly ages at least eight years. Moisturizer would help, Palmer thinks. Would Tom be pissed if I bought some of that stuff he likes for Jenny, too?

“Oh.” Jenny looks down at her pile of charts. “All right, then. Well, we’ve got three patients already in the waiting room.”

“Should we get started?” Palmer asks.

Nodding, Jenny returns to reception and calls the first patient in: a cat with lumps. The owner, a woman in her sixties,
hair dyed an aggressive shade of red, clutches her pet to her chest.

“Miss Matthews.”

“Palmer.”

As is the case with many of Palmer’s clients, Palmer has known Hattie Matthews since he was a boy.

“Palmer, I thought you got all of this last time. But now Tinkerbell’s got the lumps again.”

“Well, that’s the thing about cancer, Miss Matthews,” Palmer says gently. “It’ll tend to grow back.”

“I’m very disappointed, Palmer.”

Palmer doesn’t answer. He could say that he’s sorry, but he’s not; by looking at the cat’s teeth, he can see that Tinkerbell is at least fourteen. She peers at him and hisses.

“Hang on, Bell.”

“I was the first one in!”

“I know—just, I’ve got a big day ahead.”

She narrows her eyes.

“Well, I just hope I’ve made the right choice, bringing Tinker-bell to you.”

“You have indeed, Miss Matthews.”

“I don’t know what I’d do without her,” she continues, her voice beginning to shake.

“I’m sure you have nothing to worry about. Tinkerbell’s not going anywhere just yet.”

Palmer nods. He does have a tendency to put a positive spin on things before fully investigating. “Well, let’s just have a look.” He puts his hands on the cat and tries not to recoil at the cottage-cheese consistency that gives under his fingers.
No question about it; the cat’s a goner.

“Well?”

“Ummm . . .”

“Oh, no.” Miss Matthews’s eyes well with tears. “Is it bad?”

Most days, Palmer is quite honest with his patients, yet he is unable to break the news to Hattie Matthews today.

“I really don’t know, Miss Matthews. Let’s keep her here for some tests.”

The cat looks at him, exhausted.

“But—”

“I’ll be right back.” He hurries down the hall. A dog howls.

“Jenny!”

“Yes?”

“I need you to set up Tinkerbell for some tests.”

Jenny stares at him. “Are you serious?”

The receptionist cranes her neck to hear.

“Of course.”

Jenny looks around and lowers her voice. “I checked that cat on the way in. Its organs are sawdust.”

A trickle of sweat. Core temperature rising.

“Jenny, bag the cat.”

“Palmer, what is your problem?”

“Just—”

“Fine. Mrs. Murphy and her dog are in Room Two.”

Palmer spends the next hour petting, prodding, diagnosing. He knows why he is being so short with Jenny. He has to break it off with Tom. Today. He thought he’d have a little more time, but the episode with Hannah proves it. He needs to shut this thing down.

By ten thirty the waiting room is packed. Between a blind golden retriever and a spaniel with a tail burned from a shot- gun barrel, he takes a break and, assuming the demeanor of an executioner, calls his lover. “You didn’t wake me this morning.”

“I had to get to the office. We’re completely behind on the Gibbes Street project.”

“We need to talk,” Palmer says.

“I know—good idea.”

“Dinner?”

“All right,” Tom says. “I can take you to La Fourchette if you want.”

“That’s very . . . perfect.”

“No, really . . .”

“No, I know I’ve been kind of unreasonable. So let’s just shelve it.”

“Tom, I don’t think it’s a good idea for you to give up what you want for me.”

“Let’s just forget it.”