Stay!: Keeper's Story (9 page)

Chapter 13

T
IME PASSED AND
I
SETTLED COMFORTABLY
into the peaceful life of a child's pet and a family member. I slept on the floor beside Emily's bed and licked her face to wake her each morning, ignoring the preening and stretching of Bert and Emie, who occupied one of the pillows.

Summer was an exquisite time. With school finished, Emily was at home each day, and together we played in the yard and explored the nearby meadows. I frisked about like a puppy, chasing butterflies and grasshoppers. Emily and I took turns hiding in the tall unmown grass and leaping out to surprise each other. Again and again I retrieved the ball that I had trained her to throw.

Now and then the pair of cats deigned to join us out of doors, but they always pretended to think that our games were boring and juvenile, and after a short romp they inevitably found a sunny spot in which to languish, yawning.

At the end of that idyllic summer, Emily's front teeth reap-peared, she got new shoes, and it was time for her to return to school. Each morning I trotted beside her on the dirt road, returning to the little brick farmhouse only after I had seen her safely to the edge of the schoolyard. There I waited, relaxing in the yard, guarding my household, during the day. Occasionally I chased a squirrel for amusement. I could see Bert and Ernie luxuriating on a windowsill, watching my playful antics with bored disdain. The cats rarely came outdoors. They were too concerned about muddying their paws or dampening their sleek fur with dew. Never in my life before or since have I met such a pair of vain and lazy creatures. Even so, I had an odd affection for the pair.

If the weather was unpleasant, I had simply to scratch politely at the kitchen door and Emily's mother would invite me inside. My bowl was always full of fresh water, and the kitchen smelled of herbs and newly baked bread.

What a happy, undemanding life! I remembered my lucrative days as a supermodel with no regret that they were ended, though I thought still of the photographer, when we were struggling to find our way in the world. I remembered dear Jack with affection and a touch of grief, but the days of shivering under flattened tin, of foraging for food in dumpsters, held no nostalgia for me. My earliest memories, of my sweet mother, remained a source of tender thoughts, and I forgave her for leaving us alone. I rarely thought of my quarrelsome, boisterous brothers at all.

It was only Wispy for whom I still yearned. Sometimes, watching Bert and Ernie, observing their admiration of and attachment to each other (egotistical though it was, since they were identical), I fell victim to an overwhelming sense of loss.

Once, long ago, I had a sister!
Oh, can you imagine how I have...

I couldn't quite get the second line right, since the only rhyme I could think of,
kissed her,
wasn't really accurate. But I enjoyed working on it, toying with the words in my mind as I lay drowsily in the sunny yard.

One morning it was raining. Dutifully I walked Emily to school. She was wearing a shiny slicker and boots and taking pleasure in wading through some of the puddles that had appeared in the uneven road. I tend to be somewhat fastidious about my appearance, and damp fur is extremely unattractive, so I did not take much pleasure in the morning walk. Once, back in the city, I had seen a Weimaraner dressed in a raincoat; it had seemed foolish at the time, but now, dripping as I was, I began to wonder whether perhaps a doggy slicker might not actually be a desirable thing.

Back at the house, I scratched at the door and was grateful, as Emily's mother dried me with a thick towel. She had been making cookies; I could smell the dough. I shook myself to rearrange and fluff my still-damp fur. On the kitchen counter, a small television was turned on. I am not a television fan, although I do enjoy reruns of the old
Lassie
shows. There is something about Lassie—the keen intelligence, the aristocratic bearing—that reminds me of my mother.

Actually, that's what I was thinking at that moment: how much this scene was like an old
Lassie
rerun, with the dog entering the kitchen of the farmhouse, where Mom was baking cookies. Of course, there were no Siamese cats in the life of Lassie, and at this moment, Bert and Ernie were watching me through slitted eyes from their spot on the windowsill. There was also no television, I was thinking as I smoothed my own fur with my tongue, in Lassie's kitchen.

I circled my spot on the braided kitchen rug, lay down, and yawned.

Suddenly I heard, in whining unison from the cats, "It's Keeeeeeper!"

At the same moment I heard Emilys mother say in a startled voice, "Keeper!"

I raised my head, of course. Never before had the three of them at once called out my name.

To my surprise, they were not looking at me. They were staring at the television. Not wanting to leave my comfy spot on the rug, I craned my neck to get a better look at the small screen. A commercial was playing. I could see the rear end of a dog, its tail dangling in obvious discontent, walking away with a sort of contemptuous gait. Then the camera showed a woman tasting some low-fat yogurt, its brand clearly visible on the label, from a small carton. The woman licked her lips and smiled. "Well," she said to the camera, "I like it just fine!"

Emily's mother started to laugh. She closed the oven door after sliding the tray of cookies inside. She reached over and clicked the television off. The cats rearranged themselves, examined their paws, and closed their eyes again.

"That dog looked just like you, Keeper!" Emily's mother said. "Did you see him? He sneaked a taste of the yogurt, and then he made a face. Did you see how he sort of sneered and walked away?"

I hadn't seen anything except the rear end of the dog. It had looked, except for a bent section of the tail and a small patch of discolored fur on the hip, astonishingly like my own rear end, which I confess I have viewed occasionally in a mirror by twisting my body around carefully. From the description of the dog's facial expression, I could picture the sneer. It had been my famous sneer.

But I was quite certain the dog was not me. I had never made a yogurt commercial. The photographer had found a way to replace me with an imposter, a look-alike, a wannabe.

Or...? Could it possibly be? My mind raced.

I searched my recollections from those earliest days, so long ago. I recreated visually the scenes from the alley: our cozy home behind the trash cans, our little litter cuddled there together. There I could see Wispy in my memory, the smallest among us, struggling always to find her place. She had looked so undernourished, so bedraggled, so appealing in her homeliness, with her fur unkempt and her tail not quite straight.

Suddenly I remembered with certainty and recognition the small patch of discolored fur on Wispy's left hip.

In disbelief I rushed over to the television set as if I could will the commercial to run again. But the screen was blank, the set dark and silent. Emily's mother had left the room. The only sounds in the farmhouse kitchen were the faint hum of the refrigerator, the snores of the two Siamese cats, and the rain falling against the windows.

I tried desperately to think what to do.

Chapter 14

O
H, IF ONLY A DOG COULD CONVERSE
in human speech! Life would be so much easier. If we could write letters, send e-mail, pick up a telephone and communicate! Instead, when told, "Speak!" we put forth an abbreviated "Woof," which garners us a pat on the head and a biscuit.

I needed no praise or biscuits now. I needed information.

Pretending to be napping on the rug, I spent most of the day trying to figure out a way to find Wispy. I was quite certain it had been she in the commercial. No other dog in the world could be so much like me in mannerisms and yet at the same time have that familiar patch of discolored fur, that particular bend to the tail.

The only way was the one I did not want to undertake. I felt that by using my canine sense of direction, smell, and memory, I could very probably find my way back to the city where I had lived. It would take time, and I would have to make my way again through the woods, foraging, to reach the golf course from which I had fled. From there it would be even more difficult, but I know there have been cases where lesser dogs than I have followed car routes for many miles.

In the city, I could make my way to the photographer again. I knew that in his keeping I would find my sister, though how she had achieved the role as my replacement was beyond my powers of imagination.

But to make such a journey would mean leaving the little farmhouse and the family—even the cats—that I had come to love and call mine. What kind of Keeper would I be if I abandoned those dear ones who had taken me in?

There were moral questions involved.

I tossed and turned on the rug, groaning aloud as I wrestled with my options.

What is the answer? What is the way?
To leave? Remain? To go? To ...

I was torn not only with indecision but with the frustrations of a poet looking for the right word.
Abide
didn't rhyme at all, though it had the right meaning. Being a poet is so difficult.

Bert and Ernie, watching me from the windowsill, finally expressed their impatience with my moral and literary struggles, even though they didn't know the cause of my agony.

"Geeeez," they whined in unison. "How can we sleeeep, with you making so much noise?" Finally they rose, looked at me in disgust, and went back upstairs to their alternative napping place.

When Emily came home from school, she knelt beside the place where I still lay on the rug. "You didn't meet me on the road," she said in concern. "What's the matter, Keeper?"

I lifted my head and looked into her solemn, trusting eyes. Poor child! She had no idea that I was wrestling with the idea of leaving her. The realization made me groan anew.

"Mom!" Emily called. "Something's wrong with Keeper! He's groaning! I think he's sick!" Her voice was worried, and she stroked my head gently.

Her mother hurried into the kitchen and knelt beside Emily. It was a lovely moment, lying there surrounded by humans who cared for me. My eyes actually filled with tears at the sweetness of it.

"Maybe he just has a cold," Emily's mother said. "His eyes are running. And he did sneeze this morning when he came in from the rain."

"But I think his stomach hurts, too," Emily said. "He was groaning a minute ago."

A plan began to form suddenly in my mind. Yes! I began to perceive a way in which I could find a route to my sister, and I would not have to survive in the woods, eating rabbit! It was suddenly quite clear to me what I must do.

I whimpered a little and rested my head uncomfortably on the bare floor.

Emily's mother rose and went to the refrigerator. "Let's see if he'll eat something," she suggested to Emily. "What does he like best? What would tempt him?"

"Not dogfood," Emily said. "He hates dogfood. Do we have any leftover macaroni and cheese? He loves macaroni and cheese."

Her mother looked at her suspiciously. "How do you know that?"

Emily blushed. "I fed him some, under the table," she confessed. "He really loved it."

Her mother sighed. But I could see, even from my reclining position with my half-closed, moist eyes, that she was removing the covered baking dish from the refrigerator.

"Should I put some in the microwave, do you think?" she asked Emily.

I groaned in reply. A dog doesn't need his food warmed. Cold macaroni and cheese was the finest treat I could imagine. I lifted my head and upped my ears slightly. I allowed my tail to thump pathetically against the floor.

"I don't think he cares," Emily said. "Just give it to him cold. See? He's looking better already."

I watched alertly while her mother scooped a lavish helping of macaroni and cheese into the bowl marked FIDO.

But as she set the bowl beside me, I remembered the plan that had come to me just a moment before. I remembered my sister. I knew that everything depended on my ability to withstand temptation at this moment.

It was excruciating. But with the bowl of macaroni within six inches of my mouth, with the smell of macaroni, and especially the smell of cheddar cheese, and a hint of Parmesan, permeating my nostrils, with wild desire palpitating in my very soul, I forced myself to turn away. It was perhaps my finest moment of renunciation. I groaned loudly, writhed a little, and placed my head miserably on the floor.

"That does it," said Emily's mother, and I could hear her lift the bowl and place it on the table. "He
is
sick. Put your raincoat back on, Emily. We're taking him to the vet."

She carried me to the car. I lay limp in her arms, as good an actor, I thought, as Lassie or Rin-Tin-Tin. I did feel a little guilty, deceiving them, but it was part of the plan that I hoped would serve us all well in the end.