Dog Crazy (8 page)

Anya is at the stove, stirring a pan of scrambled eggs, her back to me. She shows no sign that she has witnessed any of this. I cling to Giselle for another few seconds, trying to catch my breath. The vertigo has never hit me so hard before, and I feel unnerved. When my heart no longer races, I straighten, angling myself away from the windows.

“This house is amazing,” I say. To my own ears, my voice sounds thin. I clear my throat, pressing my hand against my chest. Giselle shakes out her fur and the tags on her collar jingle.

Anya looks over her shoulder at me. In the light, her skin is so pale it appears nearly translucent; the circles below her eyes make her look as though she's been punched. Her gaze moves around the kitchen and I have the sense she hasn't noticed the state of the house in a long time. She gives a half grimace, half shrug and resumes scraping the spatula along the bottom of the pan.

The kitchen itself, admittedly, is not amazing. Cupboards
hang from broken hinges and spidery cracks litter the ancient tiled counter. The grout between the tiles is speckled with what might be black mold, but is certainly ripe breeding ground for bacteria. I'm beginning to question whether anyone should eat anything that emerges from the room. Still, falling apart or not, a property like this—the double lot, the view—must be worth millions of dollars.

I notice that there are several paintings on the wall, beautiful, unframed cityscapes in vibrant colors. One of them depicts the view from the kitchen window—in it, a thick blue bank of fog hangs over the ocean, looking every bit as solid and unchangeable as a distant mountain range.

“Did you paint these?” I ask.

Anya glances over her shoulder. “No, Rosie, my grandmother, did. She only stopped recently. Arthritis. But she says she's still painting in her mind, and that's where she's always done her best work anyway. She calls those poor translations.” Anya points the spatula in her hand at the painting with the fogbank. “That's
Poor Translation Number Two Hundred and Four
.” She turns back to the stove and gives the eggs one last, half-hearted poke. “These are . . . whatever.” She turns off the burner. “Let me introduce you to everyone.”

I follow her through another swinging door into a dining room, relieved to put distance between that view and myself. At the end of a long table, an elderly woman sits in a wheelchair, her white hair loose around her shoulders. She is frail-looking but beautiful, emitting a sort of Earth Mother elegance in an ankle-length batik tunic. Her dark eyes dart right to mine as I step into the room. She is flanked on one side by a stout, middle-aged
woman with a bored expression and on the other by a sandy-haired, broad-shouldered man who is handsome in a self-aware, movie-star way.

“Everyone,” Anya announces, “this is Maggie Brennan.”

“Hello,” I say.

The blond man arches an eyebrow. “What is
that
?” he asks, looking at Giselle.

“Clive,” says Anya. “It's just a poodle.”

“Her name is Giselle. I'm exercising her for a friend.” Giselle looks up at me as if to say,
You call this exercise?
I rest my hand on her head.

“That's my brother Clive,” Anya tells me. Clive nods at me without rising out of his chair, the look in his eyes one of cool amusement. “And that's my grandmother, Rosie, and her nurse, June.”

“Nice to meet you,” I say, holding out my hand first to Rosie. “Thank you for having me.” I expect her hand to feel fragile, but instead it is plump and warm in a way that makes me think of Lourdes's daughter Gabby.

“Pleasure,” she says. Her voice is clear and strong, but her hand falls to her lap when I release it as though she'd drained her small reserve of energy lifting it to meet mine.

As I'm shaking hands with June, Rosie begins to cough, a wet, rumbling sound that rolls through the room. When the cough clears, she gives me a droll smile. “I'm fine in
here,
” she says, raising one trembling hand to tap her forehead. Again, her hand falls back to her lap like a stone. June murmurs something in her ear. Rosie nods and rests her head against the pillow behind her. She closes her eyes, and I wonder if she has fallen asleep.

Henry appears at another door at the far end of the room. “Good morning,” he says, striding toward us. When he bends to kiss his grandmother's cheek, she smiles, but doesn't open her eyes.

“Henry, this is Maggie Brennan,” Anya says. “But I guess you two have already met.”

Henry turns toward us. “Have we?” he asks quickly. “No. I don't think so . . .”

“Maggie Brennan,” Anya repeats. “She's the therapist you made me see. You e-mailed her.”

“Oh, right. Of course. We met over e-mail. Hello.” He shakes my hand, holding the grip only slightly longer than he had outside.

Clive sets his coffee mug down on the table with a thud. “Where the hell is the Prince?”

“He means our other brother Terrence,” Henry tells me. “He's always late. I vote we start without him.”

Anya clomps toward the kitchen door.

“Can I help you?” I call after her.

“Yeah,” she says without turning. “You can help me find Billy.”

I can't tell if she is giving me a hard time or if it's just her blunt way of answering my question. I feel my cheeks flush. “I meant in the kitchen,” I say, but she's already gone.

I catch Rosie's nurse, June, looking at me with what appears to be pity in her eyes. She stands and brushes her hands down the side of her navy-blue nurse's top. “I'm going for my walk,” she says, glancing at Rosie, who appears to be asleep. “I'll have my cell phone if anyone needs me.”

“I'm sure we'll be fine,” Henry tells her. “Thanks, June.”

Henry pulls out a chair for me and then seats himself between Rosie and me. After a few beats of silence that no one seems in any hurry to fill, Anya pushes back through the swinging door, carrying a tray of toast surrounded by containers of jam and a butter dish. She sets the tray beside me and then clomps into the kitchen again without a word.

Rosie's eyes pop open as the door swings shut. “You'll want to fill up on the toast, dear,” she says to me, her dark eyes glinting with mischief.

Clive glances sideways at his grandmother and laughs.

After I place a piece of toast and some jam on my plate, I hand the platter to Henry, and then reach down to stroke Giselle's head. She's lying at my feet, but her head is up and her ears are alert as though she, too, is trying to sort out the tangle of tension in the room. I tuck her leash under my thigh.

“You seem young to be a doctor,” Clive says. He is meticulously spreading jam over his toast and doesn't look up as he speaks.

“I'm not a doctor. I trained as a therapist and now I run a pet bereavement counseling practice.”

Clive's smirk communicates that as far as he's concerned I might as well have said I make balloon animals for a living.

“But I'm not here in any professional capacity,” I add. “I'm just a friend.”

The kitchen door swings open again and Anya comes in with another platter, this one holding the mound of eggs, now speckled with herbs. She holds out the platter so I can serve myself.

Clive glances at me, one eyebrow raised. Henry, too, is watching me. Even Rosie is leaning slightly forward in her wheelchair.

When I scoop a modest spoonful of eggs onto my plate, I
realize the little black specks aren't herbs. I wonder if they're bits of burned egg or if that ancient nonstick pan shed its toxic lining into the scramble.

“Do you always cook for these breakfasts?” I ask Anya.

Across the table, Clive does an exaggerated shudder. “God, no!”

Anya drops the platter down next to him. “They hate my cooking.”

“Your cooking is fine,” Henry says. “Clive is just being . . . Clive.”

I lift a forkful. “I think it looks delicious.”

When Anya shrugs and looks away, I set the fork down, eggs untouched. Giselle lifts her nose and sniffs the air and then turns her head away, not meeting my eye. Anya yanks out the chair beside mine and sits. The room fills with the scraping sound of jam being spread over toast.

“Maggie is going to help me find Billy,” Anya announces.

I hurry to swallow a bite of toast. “Well,” I say, “we're going to look.”

“Who the hell is Billy?” Clive asks. His knife hovers in midair above his plate, jelly oozing off its sides.

Anya doesn't answer. I notice her plate is empty.

“Clive,” Henry says. “That isn't funny.”

“Billy?” Rosie asks. “Where is he?”

Henry turns to his grandmother. “You remember, don't you? He ran away last month. He's gone.”

“He didn't run away,” Anya mutters.

Henry looks at his sister. “He's been gone a month,” he says again, his voice both gentle and emphatic.

“Oh,” Rosie says. She presses her head back into the pillow
and studies her granddaughter. “Well, it proves what I've always suspected: Billy is the smartest member of this family. When the wanderlust bug buzzes in your ear, you don't swat it away.”

Anya looks like she is about to respond, but voices drift in from the kitchen and two men push through the swinging door. Giselle jumps to her feet and I catch her leash before she can spring toward the newcomers.

“I'm late, I'm late, for a very important date!”
the older of the two men sings. He is tall and sandy-haired like Clive, but where Clive appears to be made of stone, this man is made of soft clay. His face is pudgy and defined mostly by a big, bristly blond mustache. “I ran right into Huan . . .” he says cheerfully, clapping the other, smaller man on the shoulder. His face freezes and his voice trails off as he catches sight of me.

“Terrence and Huan,” Anya says, hardly looking at them, “this is Maggie Brennan.”

“Brennan,” Terrence repeats. He looks questioningly at Henry. “The dog whisperer?”

I laugh. “Bereavement counselor. All of my patients are two-legged.” As if to prove me wrong, Giselle's wagging tail sends my fork sailing off the table. It lands on the floor with a sharp clatter.

Terrence stares at Giselle, a perplexed smile on his face. Huan picks up the fork and hands it back to me, grinning. He has shaggy black hair and a sweet, youthful face. He's probably a decade younger than I am, closer to Anya's age than my own.

“I'm the neighbor,” he says. “Nice to meet you.” It's the first genuine welcome I've received all morning and I like him instantly.

Terrence seems to recover from his surprise at seeing me and shakes my hand heartily. “Please excuse me for being late,” he says.

Clive tells me that Terrence owns a chain of stores called Mattress Kingdom, adding drily, “So he's a very busy man—far too busy to consult a clock.”

Terrence doesn't seem to register Clive's sarcasm. “You've heard of us?” he asks me eagerly. “You've probably seen our TV commercial.”

“Well, of course she has!” Clive says.

“It rings a bell,” I venture, though it doesn't.

Terrence's smile fades. He looks crestfallen. “ ‘Sleep like Royalty'?”

“Terrence,” Clive says, “give our guest a moment before you proposition her, won't you?”

Terrence flushes, barely glancing in his brother's direction. “It's our slogan,” he explains. “ ‘Sleep like Royalty'!”

“Oh, well . . . I've only been in the area a few months,” I say. “I'm from the East Coast.”

Terrence brightens. “New to San Francisco! If you're in need of a mattress . . .” He pulls a business card from his pocket and hands it to me. “We have one store in the city and last year we opened two more in—”

“Terrence,” Clive interrupts. “Let it go. You're being as dogged as the merciless march of time.” He looks at me and smiles a smile that stops on his lips. “That was for you, Maggie. A little pet bereavement humor.”

“Hilarious,” Anya says.

“Right, well,” Terrence murmurs to me. “Call the number and
ask for me. I'll make sure you get a good deal. A good night's sleep is so important.”

“Thank you,” I say. These days, I think I'd do almost anything for a good night's sleep, so I tuck his card into my pocket.

Clive's humor, such as it is, seems to have run its course. His voice turns clipped. “If you two latecomers would deign to join us, I might have time to do something other than eat breakfast during this century.”

“Is there enough?” Huan asks. “I don't want to impose.”

“Anya cooked!” Rosie says, masterfully arching an eyebrow.

“In other words,” says Clive, “there's plenty.”

Anya crosses her arms in front of her. “Oh, just sit down.”

Huan, blushing, pulls out the chair on the other side of Anya. Terrence sits down heavily between Clive and Huan.

“Terrence,” Rosie calls from the other end of the table, “that's my seat!”

Terrence struggles to his feet, his face red, and Rosie begins to laugh.

“I'm only teasing. When's the last time you saw me sit anywhere but this damn wheelchair?” She cranes her head and searches the table until she catches my eye. She winks. “Terrence takes everything very seriously,” she says, as though we're the only two people in the room. I smile.

“It's a good thing he does,” Clive mutters. “For your sake.” Rosie is still looking at me and I'm not sure she hears him.

Sitting in the midst of this uneasy breakfast, I can't help but wonder why Anya told me to come today, at this particular time. She must have had a reason. I decide to do what I do best: listen.

“Where are Laura and the kids this morning?” Henry asks Terrence.

“The mall.” Terrence crunches loudly into a piece of toast and his mustache immediately grows shiny with butter. He reminds me of a cartoon walrus. As far as Ravenhurst brothers go, I decide he might be the best of the bunch; I'd take his earnestness over Henry's distrust and Clive's derision any day.