Underdog (8 page)

“Two,” he countered, picking a chocolate square rolled in almonds and an apricot-filled heart with icing.

Aunt Alice took one too and, finally, so did I. We sat in the kitchen eating and talking, nice and easy and relaxed. I could see they both were beginning to feel comfortable with me and it seemed to me that if I could just make them understand that I was a good kid, a happy kid, a kid who wouldn’t bother them, they might not send me away.

But first, I had to find Gus.

Chapter 8

148 Oleander!

Another old lady, but this time one with a bright red mouth and lots of dark eye makeup around her blue eyes and a pile of blonde hair. Maybe it was a wig but it sat up high and yellow on her head.

“Yes?”

“Uh, Mrs. Doyle, I’m looking for the Kaplans. Mr. Holland said I should come and ask you if you know where they are.”

She stood looking at me for a second or two, her head on one side. Then she asked it. The question I’d been expecting since yesterday.

“Why aren’t you in school, little girl?”

“Oh! Well, it’s a holiday and I thought this would be a good time to get in touch with the Kaplans.”

“Oh
—a Jewish holiday?” said Mrs. Doyle, and I smiled and nodded.

“Are they relatives, dear? Such nice people. Wonderful tenants. Their little boy, Joey, was a real doll. He’s not so little anymore. They sent me a picture of him last Christmas. Hard to believe but he’s eleven years old now. Little Joey!”

Eleven years old. Just my age. And Mrs. Doyle knows where they are. “No, ma’am, not exactly relatives but I need to get in touch with them.”

“Come in, come in,” said Mrs. Doyle. “I’ll give you their address and I’ll show you the pictures of Joey and Danny.”

“Danny?”

“The younger boy. Of course, I never saw him. He was born after they left San Francisco but he looks just like Joey, and Myra says they’re coming for a visit this summer and she’ll bring them both over to see me.”

“Where are they, Mrs
.
Doyle?” I said, feeling scared and almost hearing the roar of oceans between me and Gus.

“New York now. He teaches, you know. Very smart
— you wouldn’t think it to look at him—a skinny little man with a stutter. But he’s been all over—Scotland, France, Chicago, and now New York. She’s tired of traveling, she says, and she wants to settle down. Here—I have their pictures right here in this envelope.”

Upstairs, a woman began singing and Mrs. Doyle looked up to the ceiling and rolled her eyes. “There she goes again,” she said to me, “She promised she wouldn’t. I never would have rented her the apartment if she didn’t promise. I told her
—between one and five I’m gone and you can sing all you like then but not when I’m here.” The singing went on and Mrs. Doyle handed me an envelope
and said, “Just sit down and look them over, dear. I’ll be right back.”

She left me alone in the room and I sat down carefully on a very soft chair. I opened the envelope and pulled out some pictures. The first one was of two boys and the others showed the boys sometimes by themselves and sometimes with a woman or a man and sometimes with both. Dr. and Mrs. Kaplan and their two sons, Joey and Danny. I really felt like a close friend of the family. But in none of the pictures did I see Gus.

The singing suddenly stopped upstairs and shortly afterward, Mrs. Doyle returned. “She said she forgot,” Mrs. Doyle told me. “So I said to her, ‘Miss Sorenson, this morning at 6:30 you also forgot and the day before yesterday, I believe, you forgot at eleven in the evening.
1
She apologized and said it wouldn’t happen again but I don’t think she can help herself. You just can’t trust those music conservatory students.”

She looked at the pictures in my hands and smiled. “The Kaplans were the best tenants I ever had. I hardly ever saw Dr. Kaplan, and the little boy was in nursery school all day and took long naps whenever he was home. Marvelous people!”

“What about their dog, Mrs. Doyle?”

“Their dog?”

“Yes. Their little black dog, Gus. What about Gus?”

“Poor thing!” said Mrs. Doyle. “I don’t generally like animals but he was really unusual
—such a quiet, gentle dog. I felt so bad for him when they left.”

“What happened?” I cried. “Didn’t they take him with them?”

“Why, they couldn’t take him with them. They were going to Edinburgh and they had to leave him. They felt bad too because he was such a sweet little thing. I would have taken him myself if I didn’t have all this good furniture. But a dog is going to chew on things and jump up on furniture and you know what else.”

Even though Mrs. Doyle was nothing at all like Mrs. Firestone, I knew how to ask the right question this time.

“Where is Gus now?”

“Was that his name, dear? I didn’t remember. Well, they left him with Mr. Bailey over in the dry cleaning store on Aster. I don’t think he has him anymore but let me give you the Kaplan’s address and when you write to them be sure to send them my love.”

Mr. Bailey, said the young woman in the cleaning store, was out making some deliveries and would not return until the afternoon. No, she said, she didn’t know anything about a dog named Gus. She only came in twice a week to do alterations but why didn’t I come back after one o’clock.

It was 10:45 which meant I had over two hours to get through before returning. What was I going to do for more than two hours? I tried to tell myself that now I really was on the right track but I began feeling worse and worse as I circled around the dry cleaning store and thought about Gus. About how nobody really wanted him. About how every owner had kept him only a little while and then passed him on to somebody else who didn’t want him either.

I looked at a clock in a barber shop
—eleven o’clock. I knew I’d never last for two hours watching the shop and
thinking about Gus. I began walking. What could I do to make myself feel better? I could eat something but it was too early, and in any case, I wasn’t hungry. The thought of Gus, little, helpless Gus, being passed from one owner to the next made me angrier and angrier. I wanted to hit somebody. I wanted to scream and yell and say, “What kind of people are you to treat a little dog like this?”

Then I saw the library and hurried inside. There was a woman at the desk who looked up at me and asked, “Why aren’t you in school?”

“It’s a Jewish holiday,” I told her.

“Oh,” she said, “I didn’t know.” Then she smiled at me and went back to her work. I found the children’s room and the librarian showed me the section on dogs. For the next couple of hours I read through most of them. I looked at pictures of German shepherds, collies, beagles, and miniature poodles. None of them looked like Gus. Then I read a book on how to take care of dogs.

Mr. Bailey was in the store when I returned. He shook his head when I asked him about Gus. “That wasn’t his name,” he said, “but it was the dog I got from the Kaplans.”

“A little black dog?” I asked.

“That’s right
—a little black dog but his name was Casper.”

“Where is Gus
—I mean Casper now? Do you still have him?”

“No,” he said, “I don’t. It was when the Missis got sick. Casper kept whining and whining. It made me nervous. I guess he knew she was going but I couldn’t stand it. I didn’t say anything to her
—to my wife—but I left Casper
with my cousin and later, after she passed away, I didn’t want him back. I’m at the store all day so who was going to look after him?”

“Where is Gus now?”

“Why, with my cousin,” said Mr. Bailey. “I haven’t seen him for a year or so but he was there when I saw him last.”

“Is he ... is he happy?” I asked. But I knew the answer before he began speaking.

“Happy?” said Mr. Bailey. “Well, I don’t know that I ever thought about a dog being happy. Casper was a good dog
—good for the Missis because he was so quiet and didn’t bother anybody. Never jumped up on you or made a lot of noise. Until she got sick you hardly even knew he was there.”

“Please, Mr. Bailey,” I said, “could you tell me your cousin’s name and give me his phone number?”

Mr. Bailey said no. But after I told him about Gus and me, he explained that he and his cousin had argued last time they met. He didn’t remember what it was all about but he knew his cousin had been wrong. Still and all, he said, it wasn’t right to give people’s telephone numbers to strangers, even the numbers of stubborn, intolerant people like his cousin. But he agreed finally to call and ask if I could come and see Gus
—only he said Casper.

“Leave me your phone number and I’ll call you when I get home. Nobody will be home now at his house.”

“Why don’t I call you later?” I suggested.

“I won’t be home until nine or ten.”

“Then I’d better come back tomorrow.” I knew that my aunt and uncle would grow suspicious if a strange man called me up or if they heard me talking to somebody on the phone.

I went home and helped Gina vacuum the white rugs in the living room that weren’t dirty, and clean off the spotless bathroom fixtures. She said I was a big help and she told me how she met her boyfriend and what her parents thought of him and vice versa.

My aunt said we would have a quick dinner that night since her women’s group would be arriving by eight. She made steaks with stuffed mushrooms, baked potatoes, and salad. I guess I must have been wolfing down my food because she watched me, smiling, and said, “I must say, Izzy, just in the few days you’ve been here, I think you’ve put on a little weight.”

I stopped eating, not knowing whether she approved or not. I had forgotten to eat any lunch that day and I was ravenous- Besides which, my aunt is a marvelous cook.

“Just look at her, Roger. Don’t you think she’s looking better since she came? Not so pale and peaked?”

My uncle had been thinking of other things but he looked at me and mumbled something in agreement.

Aunt Alice kept smiling. “So, Izzy, how is school? Is everything all right?”

“Just fine,” I told her.

“And Miss Ballard? Do you still like her?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Have you made any friends?”

“Well, yes. There is this one girl who sits next to me.”

“The one who showed you around yesterday?”

“That’s right. That one.”

“What’s her name?”

“Uh
—Debbie—Debbie Doyle.”

“That’s nice, Izzy. And I want you to feel you can invite your friends here anytime you like.”

“Okay. I mean
—sure, Aunt Alice, I will.”

“And she can stay for dinner if it’s all right with her mother.”

“Great!” I told her. “Great!”

Lucky for me, her mind was on her reading group. We all ate quickly and then I offered to do the dishes.

“That’s fine, Izzy, if you don’t have too much homework.”

“I did it already,” I told her.

“Well, then, maybe I’ll go and get dressed.”

I looked my aunt over. She was wearing a pale beige dress with little ivory-colored flowers and some gold chains around her neck. I wondered what she was going to wear for her reading group.

“And Izzy, I want you to meet all the women in the group. They’re eager to meet you. As a matter of fact, if you’re interested, you can sit in and be part of the group. We usually discuss a book that deals with some subject of interest to women.”

I tried to figure out what she was saying. Did she want me to sit in on her group? I would do anything she wanted even if it meant listening to a bunch of boring women yattering about a boring book.

“Uh, sure, Aunt Alice. That sounds very interesting. But do you want me to get dressed too?”

She inspected my clothing
—jeans, pink shirt, pink sweater, and shook her head. “No, Izzy, you look fine. Most of them will come dressed very casually. That’s why
I want to get out of my work clothes and into something more informal.”

Something informal turned out to be a pair of white pants and a pale yellow sweater both as clean and pressed as if they were brand new.

“You really are a handy little thing,” my aunt said, looking over the kitchen when she returned. “I never could do anything in the kitchen until I was married.” She opened the refrigerator and pulled out the tray of petits fours. “My mother never let me lift a finger.”

“Well,” I told her, “Karen and Sandy never minded what I did.”

My aunt set the tray of petits fours down and turned toward me that worried look all over her face.

“Izzy,” she said, “I didn’t mean
...
”

“It’s okay,” I said quickly, and then I remembered that I wasn’t supposed to say okay so I added, “I mean
...
I’m sorry ... I forgot.”

“Oh, Izzy!” She started to laugh and she gave me a quick hug. I helped her set up the table in the dining room and soon her friends began arriving.

There were six of them. I smiled at each one as Aunt Alice introduced us and they asked all the usual questions
—how old I was, what grade in school, my teacher’s name? ... I helped Aunt Alice serve the tea and petits fours and then I sat in a chair near the back of the room and pretended to be interested in what they were talking about.

It was a book that made a lot of them angry. I’m not sure why but they felt it insulted women by implying that men were smarter. Something like that.

“It’s good that Isabelle is sitting in,” one of them said. “Girls have to realize that there’s nothing they can’t do and it’s time they stopped letting men push them around.”

Men and women, I thought to myself. Not just men
— women too. They’re just as bad. Like Mrs. Kaplan and even Mrs. Firestone. They didn’t have to give Gus away. I smiled whenever the women looked in my direction but all the time I was thinking of Gus and how mean everybody—men and women—had been to him and how far away tomorrow seemed.

My uncle came out of his study and the women stopped complaining about men for a little while to say hello to him. “Izzy
—ah—Izzy—-could you come here for a second,” he said to me.