The Dog Year (20 page)

W
hite knuckled, Sidney gripped the armrest in Lucy's Subaru. Sidney said, “We don't have to do this today. You've got too much going on to worry about me right now.”

“No, it's fine. Great, actually. I had to get clear of my house. I don't really know what to do with myself there. And to be honest, Mark could stop by at any moment, and then I'd have to talk about the future.”

Riffling through her purse, Sidney said, “I don't think I have my rewards card.” But she said it like she might have said,
I'm having a heart attack.

“We've been talking about getting groceries for a month,” Lucy said. “A carton of eggs, maybe some milk. Just a few things to put in your fridge. We're not shopping for the apocalypse.”

“Don't joke.”

Lucy touched Sidney's hand. “I need to get some things for Sara. And I need more dog food, too. You're doing me a favor. You are accompanying me to the store in my hour of need.”

“Here are the rules,” Sidney said. “You can't follow me around and make suggestions about what to buy. You can't put things into my cart. I have to do the aisles alone, and if you so much as
tsk
about my choices, I will leave without making a single purchase.”

Lucy nodded.

Once they were inside the store, the women separated. Pushing a shopping cart, Lucy avoided the toiletries, namely Richard's favorite Irish Spring soap, and moved to the bakery section. Poppy-seed cake, Charles's favorite. An apology to her brother in the form of sugar, fat, and lemons. She selected the largest one she could find, then grabbed a fudge-glazed Bundt cake for Sara, thinking of her slim hips and pale face.

After fifteen minutes of searching the aisles for basics—coffee, cream, veggie burgers, bread—she put two cans of soup into the cart and strolled, unprepared, into the section that carried baby supplies. Diapers filled the shelves along with plastic bottles, cans of formula, teething supplies, and rubber nipples. She hefted a tiny package of thirty-six newborn diapers and examined the cartoon baby on the side of the green and purple plastic. As she shoved them back on the shelf, she heard laughter and glanced down the aisle toward the register. Sidney, with her perfect posture and her killer cheekbones, stood chatting with Stewart, who was handing her a slab of what Lucy recognized as frozen lasagna. Clearly a slab that could serve four or two on Lazy Park Lane.

With the stealth of a Mrs. Bobo, Lucy peered behind an end cap of canned black beans and twelve-packs of diet Coke. Sidney was smiling. “So this is the entrée you'd ask for if you were stranded on a desert island?” she asked Stewart.

“Oh yes,” he said. “It's magically salacious.”

“You mean magically delicious?”

“Exactly.” Nodding, Stewart strolled away, a good Samaritan who'd done his job well, providing tasty food to the hungry. He would sleep soundly tonight.

Lucy slipped to Sidney's side, surveying her cart. Coffee, diet Coke, fat-free milk, fat-free tofu, a bunch of grapes, and a yellow box of artificial sweetener. And the fat-filled rectangle of frozen lasagna. “So you met Stewart,” she said.

“He's the only reason I can even get through this grocery store. Every time I come in, he greets me with a new idea for dinner. He is the nicest man. Absolutely adorable.”

“You think?”

“He's like a small stuffed man. I want to put him on my mantel at home.”

“Not in your bed?”

Sidney seemed to consider this seriously. “I don't know. I'd want him around all the time. I'll bet he'd adore you like it was a calling. You can't go wrong with that kind of man.”

“Really?” Lucy asked.
“Really?”

Sidney headed with her cart to the checkout line and placed her carefully chosen goods on the conveyer belt. “Lucy Peterman, you have not had enough love-knocks to judge. Your first love was a bingo. I'm not saying Stewart is a love connection. He's not the kind of guy you lust for. But he's obviously a good, kind man.”

“You don't think he's a little . . . odd?”

“
You're
a little odd, Lucy. Hey, hold my place, will you? I'm going to get some garlic bread. I used to love garlic bread.”

Lucy selected a package of gum. The rectangle fit squarely in her palm. It would easily fit in a pocket or purse. She stood there watching the items in Sidney's cart sitting on the conveyer belt until Sidney returned, empty-handed.

Lucy checked her face for anxiety. “Are you really having dinner with Stewart?”

Sidney spoke in a hushed tone. “These cashiers should have to take some kind of oath of silence before they're allowed to work here. Can you imagine what they know about people? The woman ahead of us bought an EPT test and, like, fifteen Lunchables. She probably has a houseful of kids and is scared to death she's got another one on the way.”

As Sidney paid for her purchases, Lucy replaced the gum she was holding and picked up a box of Tic Tacs. Then she glanced at her friend. A florid network of splotches had climbed from Sidney's collarbone to her jaw. “I wonder what they think of me?” she said.

“You all right, Sid?” Lucy touched her hand.

“Are they thinking, ‘If she eats that lasagna she can kiss her nice, tight ass good-bye'?”

Sidney shoved her minor purchases into a fabric bag, and, leaving the lasagna behind, darted for the door. Lucy hesitated, left her own basket of would-be purchases on the counter, and followed her with the frozen lasagna in hand. “You did great, Sid,” she said as they stood together outside. “Take a deep breath.”

“Ma'am,” said a voice over Lucy's shoulder. “Excuse me, ma'am.”

Lucy stopped. “Yes?”

“I work in security. Please come with me. We'd like to talk to you about what you have in your hand.”

She held up Sidney's lasagna. “Oh, this is hers. She's already paid for it. I was just bringing it out to her.”

“Not that hand.”

Lucy froze. Sidney frowned. “Lucy?”

“What?” Lucy looked at the Tic Tacs she was holding. “Oh my gosh! I'm so sorry. I didn't mean to take this. I just forgot to put it down.”

“Please step inside, ma'am.”

“No! You don't understand. I didn't steal this. I just forgot I had it in my hand.”

Sidney's face was registering a confused frown.

“If you follow me, we can talk about this in the office.”

“Here. Take it. I don't even like Tic Tacs. They just make me hungry.”

“Ma'am. If you don't come with me, I'll have to call the police, and I really don't want to do that.”

“Sidney.” Lucy held out her hand. The Tic Tacs rested on the bed of her palm. “I didn't mean to take these, I swear.” She dropped the frozen lasagna right onto the asphalt, then plunged her hand into her jacket pocket and tossed her phone to Sidney. “Call Charles.” Then she put her head down and followed the man into the store.

Stewart stood at the customer service desk as Lucy passed him, accompanied by store security. “Here, Here. Brian, there must be some mistake. My goodness, this is Dr. Peterman.” He rushed around the partition toward the pair.

“Step back, Mr. Laramie,” the plainclothes security guard intoned. “This is our job.”

Amid the rising panic in her chest, Lucy thought,
Stewart from frozen foods has a last name.

“I'm sure this is just a misunderstanding. No worries, Lucy,” Stewart finally said. Stress seemed to have finally sorted his thoughts into a fully organized cliché.

Lucy negotiated the stairs to the security suite. At the top, the guard held the door for her. Inside the mostly empty room, Lucy looked through a two-way mirror and was treated to a bird's-eye view of the entire store. The produce looked lush, the dairy case organized—and she could almost read the coupons in the hand of the woman standing in the chips aisle. Lucy dropped her package of Tic Tacs onto a table. The plastic box made a ridiculous rattle as it hit the tabletop.
Can I keep this?
she wondered.

“Really. This is just a mistake. I was worried about my friend. She has anorexia, and shopping is really stressful for her.”

“Do you have anything else in your pockets, ma'am?”

“What? No, of course not.” Lucy took one step toward the window. “Look, my groceries are still down there. I was going to buy everything, but my friend was having a panic attack.”

“Please empty your pockets.”

“I will not.”

Brian seemed unmoved and a little bored. “Did you walk out of this store without paying for something?”

“I've explained that.”

“Are you refusing to empty your pockets?”

“Oh for Christ's sake.” Lucy stood and pulled the lining of her jacket pockets out. She dropped her credit card and grocery reward card onto the table. She yanked at her jean pockets in a frenzy of activity and her ChapStick popped free from the lining, fell to the floor, and rolled to the corner. “See. Nothing. Look, I've been patient with this whole idiotic procedure so far. Cooperative. I don't think you want me to call my lawyer. This is ridiculous.”

“Would you like to see the videos, ma'am?”

“Videos?”

“Mr. Laramie has intervened before.”

A hot brick of shame sat between Lucy's shoulder blades.

The man pulled out a clipboard and began writing. “I'm going to write a summary of what has occurred today. And you are going to have to answer some questions.”

A telephone rang in the room and the man spoke quietly into the receiver. “All right.” To Lucy he said, “I'll be right back, ma'am.”

Lucy rubbed her eyes while anxiety spread in her chest like the roots of a tree. She took a breath. Tried to calm her thoughts. There was a poster on the wall. National Association for Shoplifting Prevention . . .
BECAUSE SHOPLIFTING STEALS FROM ALL OF US.

Lucy put her head on the table, then thought better of it when she imagined the people who might have sat in this chair before her. Criminals with dirty hands.

The door opened behind her and the security man returned with the police. Lucy closed her eyes.

“Egypt.”

“Sidney called
you
? Oh Jesus Christmas. I just can't catch a break.”

Mark shook his head. “I am your break, Egypt.” He turned to the security man and said, “I'll take it from here.”

“We have a procedure.”

In a voice that said
back off,
Mark said, “You did a nice job. But I got this now.”

The man pursed his lips like a fisherman losing the biggest catch of the day, the line having snapped, the silver lure gone for good.

Mark grasped Lucy's upper arm with firm, gentle assurance and helped her stand. Then she said, “I feel sick.”

“She needs some air.” Mark ushered her out of the security suite and down the steps to the main level. They passed Stewart, who was wringing his hands. Lucy kept her eyes averted and let Mark guide her out the door.

“I think I might throw up.”

“Just relax, Lucy.”

“No, I mean literally. I think I might be sick.”

Outside, she bent from the hip and took in big gulps of air. He rested his hand on her back. “Okay, now.” After a few minutes, he said, “You feeling a little better?” She nodded. “Lucy, look at me. I have to take you in, and you cannot throw up in my squad car. Okay?”

“Are you arresting me? Am I going to have a record? I can't have a record. Oh my God.” She bent over again. He didn't say,
I warned you
, or
I told you so
, or
You have the right to remain silent
. Once she caught her breath, they moved to his car and he gently placed his hand on her head and sat her down in the backseat. Before she was able to pull her legs in, she saw Sidney rush over.

“How
could
you?” Lucy said. “You of all people.”

“Lucy, I . . .”

“I was here for
you
.”

Sidney bit her lip and backed away from the squad car. A mother with two children walked in a wide arc away from them, and an older man with eyeglasses and an enormous belly glanced their way. A gust of air threw a dusting of snow under the tires.

With her clinical eye for detail, Lucy examined the backseat of the car. Black, dirty, cell-like. The cage that separated driver from passenger looked unbreachable. She couldn't muster even the smallest idea of escape, defense, or irony.

It was a short ride to the police station. Mark opened the car door and knelt in front of her. “You okay?” he said, sounding like a parent comforting a child. She looked into his eyes and said, “You know, I don't think I am.”

M
ark held the door for Lucy as they entered the Elmwood police station. She hoped that if she stood tall and wiped the guilty look off her face, people might think she was there to file a complaint; maybe report a stolen bicycle. But at the fingerprinting station, she lost all hope of saving face. She couldn't even look at Mark while he donned the same blue latex gloves found in hospitals, maternity clinics, and Lucy's bedroom.

“Life is just one ironic experience after another,” she said. “Maybe once you figure that out, you get to move on to the afterlife, which is probably a musical parody.” Mark was holding her left hand, rolling her fingertips one by one across the pad and onto the paper with partitioned spaces for each finger. She lifted her eyes to his. “Do I have to do this?” She gulped. “I'm feeling really dizzy.”

“I know. I know what this feels like, Lucy. I know what you're going through.” Mark handed her a tissue for her fingers.

The whole police department looked remarkably
unlike
what Lucy had seen in movies. The building resembled a school more than it did the battleship gray precincts depicted in television shows. Even so, there was nothing Midwest-friendly about the holding area. Tiled, with a drain on the floor. Lucy imagined the many possible reasons for a place that could be hosed down without un-handcuffing a perp from the bench.

“How can you still be so nice to me?”

Mark walked her into a small private room and gave her a chair. Lucy sat on it heavily, planting her feet on the cracked linoleum. He shrugged. “I feel like I know you.”

“You don't.”

“Well, I know all the bad stuff. Let's leave it at that.” He left the room.

Alone now, Lucy looked around.

In her mind's eye she saw herself sitting there. Valedictorian, early honors graduate from college, chief resident, renowned surgeon, unwed shoplifting mother-to-be. She heard her father's voice dispensing advice for everything from boredom to confusion to self-pity.
Claim the responsibility that is yours, and then go help someone.
She heard her mother's voice.
Get a grip, Lucy
. She rubbed her hands across her face as if they were a washcloth.

Then Charles walked through the door.

“Jesus, you look like shit, Lucy.”

“Oh, Charlie. Oh my God, I'm glad to see you.” She stood and put her arms around her tall, lanky brother and hugged him close. “I've missed you.”

Then she sat back down. “I stole a package of breath mints and now I'm going to lose my job. Breath mints. Not even good ones. They were the orange-colored ones that look and taste like baby aspirin. Yuck. They haven't told me anything yet, but once the hospital gets wind of this, I'm screwed. Do you think I'll lose my medical license?”

She stopped, a little out of breath, and looked at her brother. “Um. How are you? And Phong, of course. How are you and Phong? So you are thinking of adopting? That's terrific. You'd make a terrific father. Just terrif.”

Charles handed her a folded piece of paper. “Mark says I can take you home now.”

“Really? I'm free to go?”

“Yes, you little freak, you're free to go. God, no more
CSI
for you.”

“I don't understand.”

“Your good friend Mark—and make no mistake, Lucy, he is a good friend—essentially rescued you from the store. He's not going to bust you for Tic Tacs, but he wanted to make an impression on you by bringing you here. From the looks of your face, he did.”

Lucy nodded.

“You have a problem, you know.”

“I actually have a couple of problems,” she said. “Three, maybe. Or four. Is he still out there?”

“He got called out for something worse than a Tic Tac heist, but before he left, he had your car brought to the station. And he called me from your phone.”

“What do I do now?”

“Drive yourself home. Go help someone. Take some responsibility for your life.”

Alone in her car, she unfolded the paper Charles had given her. It was her fingerprint sheet, along with a note from Mark written in black ink.

Go to AA,
it read.

*   *   *

Lucy pulled into her driveway just as the painter was leaving. He poked his head out the truck window. She noticed the green apple–colored paint she had chosen for the new room swiped across his forehead. “Almost finished, Dr. Peterman,” he shouted as he drove away. She smiled a jagged smile, but couldn't bring herself to wave.

Inside, Sara slept, mouth open, on the couch, with Larry cuddled at her shoulder and Little Dog yawning widely at her hip. Hearing the door open, the girl groaned and rolled to her side. Lucy shuffled down the hall to the baby's room and hit the dimmer switch on the wall, turning it all the way up, then down, then up again. The room brightened and dimmed and brightened. She did this several times before Little Dog came in to view the light show. Lucy glanced at the dog. “It's nice to have control of something,” she said.

Turning, she left the door open and walked into the room she'd shared with Richard, and, more recently, Sara, and systematically packed all the hospital supplies into printer boxes and loaded them into her car.

*   *   *

Sara appeared at the front door just as the last box was loaded. A sharp wind had caught Lucy in the face, grabbing her scarf and tossing it over her shoulder as if she were a character in a comic strip being buffeted by bad weather.

“You look better,” Lucy said to Sara, but in truth, the girl looked about as awful as she herself felt: wasted, desperate, and out of resources. “How's your arm?”

Sara shrugged.

“I bet you haven't eaten. Let me see what I have in the freezer.”

Sara gazed outside long after Lucy went inside, possibly wondering where she'd be sleeping now that winter had come. After a time, the smell of dinner beckoned her back indoors.

*   *   *

Sara chewed her second hamburger, dousing it with catsup, pickles, and mustard before finishing it in what seemed like one gulp. She put her chocolate milk down and said, “So what is going on?”

Lucy looked at Sara as if just realizing that bringing a person into your house was essentially bringing in a witness. A potential judge and jury.

Sara said, “I mean, your room is filled with hospital shit, only now it's not. You've got a bunch of pills, which is kinda cool. Every time the doorbell rings it's either a painter or someone delivering something.”

Lucy put down her fork and said, “I'm pregnant.”

Without missing a beat Sara said, “Aren't you supposed to, like, glow or something when you're pregnant?”

Lucy winced. “Maybe that happens later.”

“You keeping it? Looks like you can afford it.”

“I am, yes. But not because I can afford it. Because I've always wanted to be a mother.”

“Nice for you.”

“Sara, I'm not who you think I am.”

Sara licked her fingers without looking up.

“You can believe whatever you want of me, but you should know some facts. While you were sleeping today, I got caught stealing at the grocery store. I had to go to the police station.”

“Police stations suck. Social workers are always making your life miserable. Most cops don't give a shit, either. Mark does, though.” She pulled a pickle out of the jar, put it in her mouth, pinched her napkin. “What did you take, anyway?”

“Tic Tacs.”

“Dude. Stupid.” Sara ticked off on her fingers the reasons for the idiocy of Lucy's choice of contraband. “They're noisy. Taste like ass. Cheap. And seriously? You want to risk it all for Tic Tacs? You gotta go for something worth it, something that doesn't need refrigeration, something useful. Next time, try beef jerky—not that turkey jerky crap—or candy. Something with peanuts. Protein is where it's at.” Then she pushed away from the table and left the room.

Calling after her, Lucy said, “There's not going to be a next time.”

Over her shoulder Sara tossed, “Whatever.”

*   *   *

Later that night Lucy couldn't face the cheerful expectation of the new nursery and tried to get comfortable on the couch. Little Dog stubbornly lay on top of her, making each position change awkward for both of them. She grabbed the television remote and surfed through the channels, searching for something more appealing than what was in her mind. It was easy to find the dregs of society on television; toddler beauty pageants and reality shows that made perfectly nice places like New Jersey look like less dignified versions of the primate house at the zoo. She pulled her purse off the antique coffee table that she and Richard had found at the Elkhorn Flea Market. “I love it,” she'd said when they'd found it one Saturday.

“It weighs a ton,” he said, already taking out his wallet.

“Are you going to buy that huge Coca-Cola sign?”

“This is your thing, Luce. Don't try and get me hooked on this trash-into-treasure fascination of yours.” But he
had
become hooked, and the vintage red Coke sign hung in their kitchen above the butcher-block table, right next to the pot rack.

From the side pocket of her purse she tugged out the pamphlet from the Cryobanking Conception Clinics, and her fingerprint sheet fell into her lap. She read Mark's note about AA. Good thing she'd never gotten into scrapbooking, she thought, tucking the form under her pillow. On television, there was a squeal from a toddler who'd just been crowned creepy-queen for a day. Lucy had just enough energy left to hit the Power button and shut it down.

*   *   *

The next morning, during her morning shuffle around her neighborhood with Little Dog, Lucy noticed that it was Christmas season everywhere but inside the house. She remedied this after lunch while Sara was sleeping by hauling home a small evergreen she bought a few streets away to benefit the high school hockey team's fund-raiser. Then, after propping the tree on her front stoop, and in a rare take-charge moment, she changed clothes and drove to the Humane Society, hoping for some doggie optimism. When she returned home, the tree had been moved from outside and now stood in Lucy's red and green tree stand in the picture window. A piece of brown twine had secured it to the curtain rod in the corner, and the chairs and couch were repositioned around it.

Lucy stood in her living room as the wet from December's first snow flurry melted off her boots and left a big wet spot on the carpet. She gazed at the tree.

Sara had her good arm sunk deep into a box of Kashi cereal. “Mark stopped by,” she said. “He's the father, isn't he?”

Lucy nodded.

She chewed the cereal, the muscle of her jaw clenching through her thin, pale skin. Then she said, “Dude, this cereal tastes like dog biscuits.”

Lucy nodded again and said, “I gotta get some help.”