Dog Crazy (16 page)

I
arrive at Grant and Chip's apartment with Giselle in tow and my pockets bulging with counterconditioning incentives. Giselle had eaten the last of Toby's biscuits, and I only had a few scoops of his boring old kibble left in my apartment, so I'd scoured Lourdes's kitchen for special treats. I have a bag of Giselle's organic peanut-butter-and-molasses cookies, some cold cuts sliced into strips, diced chicken nuggets that Lourdes keeps in her freezer for Portia and Gabby, and even a few bites of leftover salmon from a salad. I've brought double the amount I think I'll need so that I can give Giselle a treat each time I give Seymour one—it doesn't seem fair to only reward Seymour. Besides, Giselle has earned every goody I can offer her and then some.

Grant is clearly in a hurry to get to work and runs Seymour downstairs when I ring the doorbell. I immediately drop down to Seymour's level and tell him what a good dog he is and ply him
with a few of the fancy peanut butter treats. He's shaking a little, but wags his tail slowly. The whites of his eyes are only slightly visible, which I take as a good sign.

“Seriously,” Grant says, handing me the extra key he has made. “Come by anytime for Seymour.” It's amazing that after one meeting he's willing to give me a key to his apartment, but I know it's an indication of how hopeful he is that our walks will eventually deliver Seymour into the arms of a more suitable family. Plus, I suppose he can see that I'm a dog person, and in my experience dog people tend to give other dog people the benefit of the doubt.

I'm relieved when Giselle and Seymour and I turn off the block before a train passes. I steer us down some of the quieter Cole Valley streets on our way to Anya's house, and continually ply the dogs with meat and fish and peanut butter snacks. I can only hope that Seymour's stomach can handle the smorgasbord of snacks and he doesn't end up leaving a nasty surprise behind Grant's couch after I return him to their apartment. Both dogs are plastered to my sides, gazing up at me with such unwavering intensity that they occasionally trip over their own paws. They're not exactly demonstrating impressive leash skills, but at least Seymour is so focused on the food that he hardly seems to be aware of what else is happening around him. His ears give a little twitch, his eyes widening slightly, each time a car passes, but if I hand him a treat in the exact same moment, he keeps pace with me. And he doesn't once try to back out of his leash.

When we arrive at Anya's house, she's sitting out on the front steps and her face looks drawn. Giselle runs to her, tail wagging, and Seymour, I'm pleased to see, follows suit, but Anya only pets them for a moment before standing.

“What's the matter?” I ask.

“Rosie's sleeping in the living room. I didn't want the doorbell to wake her, so I thought I'd just wait outside.”

“How's she doing?”

Anya blinks and looks away. “She hasn't really been the same since she got home from the hospital. She sleeps a lot.”

“Her doctor says it's okay for her to be home?”

“As long as we have a nurse here full-time. June's been sleeping on a mat on the floor next to Rosie's bed.”

A full-time nurse must be expensive. It's no wonder that Henry is adamant about going to Los Angeles. “And how are you doing?” I ask. “How are you holding up?”

Now Anya's eyes brim with tears. She swipes at them with the back of her hand. “Like crap,” she says, staring at the ground. “I feel like I'm losing everyone at once.”

It's the kind of genuine, forthright, self-aware admission that she would never have made to me when we first met. Giselle nudges her thin snout below Anya's hand and Anya begins petting her again.

“I'm so sorry,” I say. “Even though it might feel like you're alone, you're not. Henry is moving away, but he's not leaving your life. He'll always be here for you. You can count on him. And I'm sure your other brothers will support you as well. And I'm here for you, Anya. I'm not going anywhere. Unless you want me to.”

“You're okay,” Anya mumbles. Giselle starts wagging her tail faster, encouraged. “And we're going to find Billy soon. That will help.”

I smile, but don't say anything.

Anya looks up, scanning the sidewalk behind me. “Henry is
coming again today,” she says. “He called yesterday to ask if he could join us.” On the word “us” her eyes move to meet mine, and I immediately wonder if he told her about visiting me at my apartment.

“That's nice of him. Maybe you two should go on your own.” I don't want to intrude if Henry is trying to spend some quality time with his sister before he leaves for Los Angeles, but even as I suggest the idea I realize I'm hoping Anya will shoot it down.

“Nah,” she says. “Here he is now.”

We meet Henry halfway up the path. “Morning,” he says, smiling at me. “Is it just me, or do you have an extra dog today?”

I tell him that Seymour is the dog that Anya photographed for SuperMutt. “I'm hoping if he gets more accustomed to city walks, it will increase his odds of being adopted.”

“But,” Henry says, kneeling down in front of Seymour and smoothing back his large ears, “who could say no to you? Just as you are?” Seymour's long pink tongue laps him on the side of his face and he stumbles backward, laughing.

I'm afraid I might be beaming at Henry now. I know I'm struggling to restrain myself from pulling him to his feet and kissing him. Instead, I ask, “Any chance your apartment in L.A. is dog-friendly?”

Henry stands and shakes his head, smiling sadly.

We've just turned onto the sidewalk when the door of the neighboring house opens and Huan steps outside. “Good morning!” he calls. “Can I come?”

Anya shrugs.

Henry nods, waving him over.

Huan's face breaks into a grin and he jogs toward us. He stops
beside Anya, flicking his hair out of his eyes. He's wearing a black T-shirt with a logo of a skateboard on the chest, but the overall impression isn't that different than if he were wearing an oxford. There's something so polite and earnest and good-natured about the kid that it's hard to resist the impulse to reach out and ruffle his shaggy black hair.

“Let's go find Billy,” he says in a determined voice. “I love that dog.” He turns to me. “My parents never let me have any pets. My dad says he's allergic, but I don't believe him. I think he just thought a dog would distract me from school.”

“Your dad's a jerk,” Anya says.

Henry gives her a look. “Anya!”

Huan laughs. “It's okay. It's kind of true.” Then his face flushes. “He's a
well-meaning
jerk.”

Anya rolls her eyes. “I've been looking for Billy for weeks. Why are you jumping on the bandwagon now, Huan?”

“Filter, Anya,” Henry says quietly.

“What?”

“You don't need to say every single thought in your head.”

“Are you advocating self-censorship?”

“Yes,” Henry says. “But I'm calling it human decency.”

Anya shrugs, but I can see she feels bad. Actually, when she glances toward Huan, she seems almost shy. “Fine. I would be positively delighted if you would join us, Huan. We're going to Tank Hill.” She turns to me and holds out her palm. I try to give her Seymour's leash, hoping they'll do a little bonding, but she snatches Giselle's instead and strides off.

“Sweet,” Huan says, hurrying after her. “I love Tank Hill.” He falls into step at her side and Henry and I trail a few steps behind.

I realize it's the first time I've been outside without Giselle at my side.
Recondition!
I think, and begin plying Seymour with bite after bite of salmon in the hope that it will distract both of us from the fact that Giselle is getting farther ahead.

“I wanted to help you from the beginning,” I hear Huan telling Anya. “But I didn't know you were letting people come with you.”

Poor kid. He's probably been watching her set off on these walks for weeks, gathering his courage to ask if he can help her. The crush he has on her is as touching as it is painfully obvious.

“Kite Hill, Tank Hill . . . How many hills are there in this city?” I ask Henry, glad to have him nearby as another distraction.

“Technically seven, but those are the really big ones that don't even include Kite Hill and Tank Hill. All together, there has to be close to fifty.”

I hurry to open the bag of cold cuts now that Seymour has made his way through the salmon. It's hard to believe that I used to enjoy the meditative aspect of walking.
Did you get lost?
John used to joke when Toby and I returned from a particularly long walk.
Nope,
I'd answer.
Just untangling the knots
. That's how walking with Toby always felt—like I was working loose the kinks of the day.

I miss that sense of freedom, and peace.
When I'm better,
I think,
I'm going to walk these hills every day—with or without a dog by my side
. I'm surprised by the sudden intensity of my desire to do this, to be myself again.

“He'll be happy when he sees where we're going,” Anya says, looking back toward Seymour, who, despite a belly full of food, still has tucked his tail securely between his legs. “Dogs love this park.”

Tank Hill is only a couple of blocks from my apartment, but I'd never made it up there with Toby because Lourdes had warned me that he might not be up for the climb. We head up a series of steeply twisting streets, making our way out of Cole Valley, and eventually the street ends and a dirt path begins, winding up through the bare, grassy park. The air feels damp and heavy with fog. If I were in Philadelphia, I would have said it was about to rain; but in San Francisco, I've learned, you just never knew. By the time we reach the top of the hill, we'll probably have entered another microclimate entirely.

I have to admit that these strange, wild little parks that dot the city are sort of magical. One minute you're on a street lined with tight rows of homes, and the next minute you're on an open, exposed patch of grass and rock with views in one direction or another or sometimes, to my dismay, every direction at once. Tank Hill is a particularly hidden one, tucked into the slope that leads up to Twin Peaks, skirted by roads that seem to protect rather than reveal the secret park around which they curve.

“There used to be a water tank up here,” Henry tells me when we reach the flat area at the top of the hill. “According to Rosie, it was dismantled in the fifties.”

We're all huffing and puffing from the climb—even Seymour seems momentarily winded, plopping himself down at my feet and panting as the cool breeze ruffles his ears. He lifts his nose and sniffs the air, catching some scent.

“Look,” Henry says, pointing over my shoulder.

The direction he points, out toward the city, is exactly where I've been trying not to look. I take a deep breath and turn slowly. We're standing on a huge, craggy, reddish boulder, the edge of
which hangs over a hill so steep it isn't even visible from where we stand. I can see the wooded silhouette of Buena Vista Park to the east, the long, verdant expanse of Golden Gate Park to the northwest. A hard wind blows toward us from the coast, which has been devoured by the fog. The fog hides most of the Golden Gate Bridge, too, though pieces of the bridge suddenly appear and disappear as the silvery clouds race and tumble through the sky. The land on the other side of the bay is completely hidden behind a dreary expanse of sky.

Just as the vertigo threatens to knock out my knees and send me tumbling off the rock, I hear Henry's voice near my ear. “Do you see it?” He points toward the stretch of Cole Valley just below us. I peer down, but the city is growing blurry—partly from my own vision, and partly from the thickening stream of fog. My throat tightens, something in my chest twisting, pinching. I feel as though I might be sick.

One.

Two.

Henry is close behind me; he puts one hand on my upper arm and levels his other arm over my shoulder, still pointing down toward the city. “Right there,” he says. “The white house four up from that intersection, across from the big palm tree.”

I manage to gaze blearily along the line of his arm to his finger and beyond, down toward the streets of Cole Valley, which suddenly, miraculously, come into focus.

“Oh,” I say, surprised.

It's Lourdes's house. My blue door is hidden, but there is the fence at the sidewalk, the small plot of green that surrounds the house, the garden boxes in the rear yard, the thread of gray that is
the stone path. My little oasis. The house feels so snug, so private, from inside, but from up here I see that it's packed in with the neighboring houses, the crowded city of streets and sidewalks and houses and people and life pressing right up against it.

Way up here on Tank Hill
,
exposed to the elements,
I realize, looking down,
is probably more of an oasis than my apartment.