Sleeps with Dogs (22 page)

After three agonizing days of waiting for news on Larry, my colleagues passed along an email from Sara. I'd just returned from the big pre-Thanksgiving grocery-shopping trip, taking my mom's advice to go late on a Tuesday to avoid the day-before crowds and still get fresh produce with which to cook.

Sara had attached a photograph of Larry in his younger days, sitting atop the Hansens' back fence. With it was a brief explanation of how the neighbors had found him, alive but just barely, lying in their backyard. They'd always kept food and water out for Larry, and they suspected he was making one last journey to his spot when he had a heart attack. Andy and Sara did not see him alive, but they buried his remains in their own backyard beneath the lemon tree.

It was the final paragraph that stopped me short. In an effort to lift Sara's spirits, Andy contacted his friend who ran a cat rescue. They'd already adopted a three-month-old named Rhoda.
Can't wait for you to meet her. Simpson and Leilani are already warming up to her,
she wrote in closing. It seemed, then, that they were moving right on, and at lightning speed.

For my part, I would have to figure out a way to get beyond it. He wasn't mine, after all. But the loss felt acutely personal nevertheless.

After Biscuit's sudden departure from our family, we tried to commemorate her legacy. I had written a very maudlin poem about “the unstoppable, rebel force” of her cancer, and how she was “my big white tissue, absorbing my sadness with her gentle brown eyes,” which we framed alongside favorite photos of her—carrying a giant
branch around in her mouth as though it were nothing more than a stick; frolicking in a rare Atlanta snowfall; lounging on her blanket in the utilitarian doghouse my dad made out of plywood with a sheet metal roof; sitting next to me on the front porch, the wild white blond hair I had in my youth an impressive match to the creamy shock of fur that forever hung in her eyes; and a top-ten list of her best characteristics. She let rats eat her dog food without objection; she always pooped in the ivy; she loved to roll in grass, but most especially in our neighbors' zoysia. I still had her blue canvas collar, white fur tangled in the buckle, with her rabies tag and our address in case she ever wandered too far afield, which she never did.

I was strangely insulted by the rapidity of Larry's replacement. Did his loss not warrant a grieving period? Or was the loss so great, or so long-anticipated, that the best and only salve was a brand-new kitten to fill the Larry-shaped hole in their home? I didn't have that luxury. I had a Larry-shaped hole, too, but only an uncooked ten-pound turkey to fill it.

His death cast a pall over what was an otherwise pretty serviceable Thanksgiving. We had two last-minute additions to the guest list: a guy from the newcomers' group that I'd tried and failed to date, and his colleague-maybe-girlfriend. The potential awkwardness of that scenario was overshadowed only by events of the night before, in which I'd made a pass at my ex. Out of loneliness, for old time's sake, because we were great friends and I knew it wouldn't screw anything up. As it happened, he was back with his ex, and they'd just moved in together, so he'd remained on the sofa in his sleeping bag instead of sharing my bed.

But no one said a word about the slightly charred casserole and stuffing, which I'd accidentally scorched while attempting to warm it in the broiler. And—due to the unexpected extra mouths—we ran out of turkey before we'd eaten our fill. But everyone politely
claimed they'd had plenty. To me, a post-Thanksgiving Friday without ample turkey leftovers was unnatural. A failure. But I kept this criticism to myself, relieved as I was that everybody else seemed satisfied with the fare.

After the table was cleared and the dishes mostly cleaned, my mind was filled with Biscuit, and Larry, and the unshakeable question of whether—and how—he'd be memorialized. And, too, a nagging sense of humiliation and aloneness. My ex, out there asleep on our bony uncomfortable couch, had his ex; my friend left with her boyfriend; Ian was with his girlfriend on the other side of the wall; and then there was the guy I'd tried making out with after all on my sister's advice, and his “friend,” who'd walked off together into the evening full on my semi-successful first attempt at a Thanksgiving feast. I had plenty to be grateful for; I knew that. I just wanted—more than anything—to have someone to share it with.

In my one act of defiance—and in secret solidarity with Larry and his memory—I never again took care of Leilani or Simpson or Rhoda. I always came up with an excuse as to why I was unavailable for the dates they requested coverage for, gracious in my apologies and always agreeing—through the proxy of my fellow pet sitters—that I just had to meet Rhoda-the-wonder-cat, who was apparently fast friends with Simpson in a way Larry never had been.

My avoidance allowed Larry to remain in memory as he'd always been. He sat there by the porch as night descended, surveying the world with his steady gaze, a gentleman tomcat ready for some dinner and a petting before he departed again to lead his quiet cat life.

 

To: “Smitty”, “SB”, “TBug”, “LTat”

Subject: Insta-love

My dearest, best girls,

“I can't believe it. I am in love! I am love with a handsome, talented duke!” (That's from
Moulin Rouge,
in case you didn't catch it.) Against all odds and out of nowhere, I have met someone, and he is one of the most beautiful creatures I have ever clapped eyes on. I am outta my league here, so if anyone has a copy of “How to wrangle a man one trillion times better looking than you, never letting him know that you want to be his personal baby-maker,” can I borrow it?? If I can figure out a way to see him again, I will lick his snout in gratefulness for subverting my recent and truly terrible opinion of men.

I love him. I love love! La la la.

LDogg

CHAPTER TEN

Bachelors

T
he dog was Baxter, a mixed breed six ways to Sunday that purportedly included traces of Rottweiler, some variety of shepherd, ditto for terrier, and maybe chow somewhere in there, which seemed dubious but for the dense-to-frizzy quality of his coat, and a faint purplish hue to his tongue. He was cute as he could be at his advanced age and with the myriad end-of-life issues he struggled with. His breath could kill a dragon. His stomach was concave from a botched excavation of a foxtail that had traveled through his nostril and wormed its way into his stomach. He was arthritic, his bark sounded like a smoker's cough, and he was so deaf I'd have to shake him awake when I arrived at his house. Even the vibration from my feet on the floorboards or the door shutting behind me did nothing to alert him to my arrival.

His owner, Drew, lived in a chimney-shaped house set high above Berkeley. It was mere steps from a maze of densely wooded
hiking and jogging trails where we did our walking, or in Bax's case, shuffling. It was a great house: two stories, perfectly square, timber frame, with a wide view of the bay and city below. Until recently, he'd shared it with a wife and her Tibetan terrier, Matilda, as well as their marmalade Garfield, who was missing his ears and tail from a long-ago run-in with frostbite. The cat was still in residence, but the wife and her dog had fled in the wake of a trial separation.

I met her once, when she was dropping Matilda off on her way out of town. She was blond, tough looking, and rode a scooter with a bin in the back that Matilda occupied. For his part, Drew was white blond, rosy cheeked, round in the belly, and spoke to Baxter in the most awful baby talk. His voice would go all high and squeaky, and he'd say things like, “Who's the cutie-wootiest Baxter boy?” I mean, we all talk to animals—I am as guilty as the next person—but he might've reserved the special voice for private moments alone with Baxter. I couldn't honestly say that I saw the attraction for either of them—Drew or his erstwhile blushing bride. The dog-talking voice alone made my ovaries shrivel into hard little infertile pellets.

In the absence of a wife, Drew eventually took on a roommate, presumably to help with the rent. I can't figure any other reason he'd have welcomed this guy into his tiny house. The new roomie was a full head shorter than me, wore braces, had a bong that stood almost as tall as he did, and had no job that I could readily detect. He was often on the couch, stoned, watching basketball and hollering at the screen when I'd come by for Baxter. Why he couldn't mind the dog and save Drew some money, or himself some rent, was beyond me. Not that I was complaining; five-days-a-week walks were my bread and butter, and I was more than grateful to have Baxter locked into my regular schedule.

When the ex-wife's Tibetan terrier was staying over, which happened occasionally, my normally sedate stroll with Bax was a
slightly more fraught undertaking. But it was also slightly more money. Matilda absolutely refused to go on-leash, which made me nervous. Baxter wasn't leashed either, but he could barely move without assistance, so I had little fear that he was going to escape into the woods. Matilda, on the other hand, was fast. When she moved, she seemed to leave those streaky graphics in her wake that you see in cartoons when Road Runner takes off at speed.

On more than one occasion, she leapt from the front porch onto the trail and didn't reappear for fifteen minutes or more, during which time my heart was lodged up near my uvula. To rally her, I had to trill, “Matilda, Matilda, Matilda,” three times fast and then vibrate my lips, as though I were giving someone a raspberry, at a high pitch. How Drew and his wife determined that this was the most effective way to summon the dog was beyond me. It certainly wasn't dignified, and it wasn't even consistently effective. But this was the only way to make her come back to me.

When she reappeared, tearing up the trail toward Baxter and me, who always shuffled along at least twenty paces behind, it was no guarantee that she wouldn't take off again, so I just kept repeating the same absurd four-part call to keep her engaged. She liked to jump from the ground up to my chest and into my arms in one impressive leap and lick my lips when I made the raspberry sound.

I was surprised to find that, as humiliating as it was to do this in front of the assorted Cal students and outdoor enthusiasts that passed, it was still preferable to chasing her around until she finally got worn out or I was able to pin her to the ground.

Drew was one of a new crop of bachelors I'd taken on recently. There was no accounting for why so many simultaneously single men were in need of pet care. Or, rather, I understood why the newly single would need some help covering for their fur babies, but I couldn't account for the sudden rash of singletons.

Far worse off than Drew and his stoned Doogie Howser of a roommate was a one-time pet-sitting job I took up near Orinda. The house was enormous, part of new construction that had sprung up along the highway. The owner, like Drew, had recently lost his wife, though it wasn't entirely clear how or why. When I met him for the first time at the front door, it was one of the first things out his mouth, part of his apology for the state of the once-grand house.

“Sorry about the house. My wife isn't here.” And hadn't been for some time, from what I gathered by the complete and unmitigated disaster that this man and his two enormous and poorly kept Akitas lived in. Pizza boxes were stacked on the kitchen floor, leaning crazily into the cabinets, dishes so long unwashed that they were actually stuck to the marble countertop. Dusty clumps of dog fur the size of my head littered the living room floor, which was empty save for the dogs and a lone leather couch facing a flat-screen TV that took up most of the far wall. The whole place looked like the end of an empire.

He wanted to pay me up front, and in cash, which was rare. I was used to invoicing at the end of pet-sitting jobs and seeing a check in the mail after thirty or so days. At the eleventh hour, he asked if I could come an extra day; he'd leave the additional cash with my payment by the front door. He was going to a motorcycle show and wanted to extend his stay.

I was grateful for the cash payment and thrilled at the sudden and unexpected extra day of pay. It was funny scooping up that stack of cash, as though I was a woman of ill repute, leaving by way of the garage with my earnings. I'd grown so used to crisp, carefully penned checks; this stack of cash without so much as an envelope was jarring.

With the cash, the owner left his garage-door opener, so that I could take the dogs in and out for their walks that way instead
of via the rather ostentatious and very steep staircase leading to his front door. I wondered if this was because the dogs couldn't manage the climb. Even though they'd been described as “young, four or five years old,” they moved like ancient and infirm shadows of the dogs they might once have been. Their fur was matted, their breath ungodly, and, like most Akitas I've met, they were pretty ornery. But unlike most Akitas, they didn't seem to have much energy—or any at all. Once I had them on-leash, it took some extreme prodding and wheedling on my part to get them off the leather couch. I gave up pretty quickly trying to connect with them, both because they seemed completely immune to, and even a little annoyed by, my pets and ear-and-butt scratches, but also because I quickly discovered that no amount of scrubbing could remove their distinctive stench from my hands.