Must Love Dogs (12 page)

Mother Teresa, showing admirable speed for a dog her size, grabbed one of the balls in her teeth, and threw it up in the air. It landed on a can of Bud, which fell over sideways with a glugging sound.

“Jesus!” one of the guys yelled.

“That was your beer,” the other one said.

“Your ball, though, hotshot.”

Michael bent down to stand the beer can up again. “Shit. I’m sorry, guys.”

“Rule number one,” said the bigger of the two, “never apologize for anything your dog does.” He turned to me and glared, leaning on the rusty golf club. “Did he spill my beer?” he asked, gesturing to Michael.

“No.” I smiled nervously. It was starting to get dark.

“And it’s a damn good thing he didn’t!” he practically roared. Then, holding the golf club horizontally with his arms wide apart, he jumped forward over the club and then backward. He finished with a little tap dance of sorts.

“Sarah, this is Mitch,” Michael said. “Mitch, my sister Sarah.”

As I shook Mitch’s hand, the smaller guy reached into his sweatshirt pocket, pulled out three golf balls and started to juggle with circuslike precision. “Balls,” he said, taking off his baseball cap and catching them in it one by one. “You can’t ever have enough of them.”

Michael shook his head. “This is my sister, Sarah, Jeff. Be nice to her, you two.”

As I was reaching to shake hands with Jeff, we heard the sounds of an engine straining up the hill. A golden retriever and an Airedale ran by barking, followed by Mother Teresa. Michael grabbed my hand. “Run,” he yelled.

I ran.

*

Michael and I sat in the 4Runner, breathing hard. “I thought you were in good shape,” he said.

“I was so scared I forgot to breathe.” We laughed. We could hear Mother Teresa panting heavily in the backseat. “What would have happened if we got caught?”

“Seventy-dollar fine for an unleashed dog.”

“That’s it?”

“Seventy dollars is a lot of money.”

“But we wouldn’t have gotten arrested for trespassing? That wasn’t the police?”

“No. The dog officer. People who come here to jog or walk sometimes call to report the unleashed dogs interfering with their exercise. Assholes.” He turned his head to the backseat. “Right, Mother Teresa?”

“I don’t think you should teach her words like that, Michael.” I started to laugh again. “Oh, my God, that was so much fun. Thank goodness you had a flashlight. I can’t believe how fast it got dark. I liked your friends, too, what little I saw of them. Do they live around here?”

“I have no idea. I don’t even know their last names. Those aren’t the kinds of things we talk about.”

“Then what do you talk about?”

“How many balls we found, how we’re hitting them, if anybody runs into any assholes. Sorry,” he said to Mother Teresa. “Once Jeff, he was the juggler, thought he saw a couple of coyotes out there.”

“I’m glad you have people to hang out with, Michael. Do you talk to Billy Jr. and Johnny much?”

“Only when I run into them at Dad’s.” Michael started the car. “Jesus, it’s late. Phoebe’s gonna kill me.”

We drove quietly for a while and I realized that a part of me hated Phoebe for not appreciating my brother. Michael was sweet and funny and she was lucky to have him. And if she ever said one bad thing about him in front of me, I’d strangle her for him.

When Michael pulled into my driveway, I asked, “Do you think things ever get better between two people, or do they decide what they’re willing to put up with?”

“Do you want the happy answer or the sad answer?”

“I don’t know. Surprise me.”

“Well, what I’d like to believe is that maybe you get to the point where you can see both sides of things. I mean, sometimes Phoebe has a point. I’m really not that interesting and I forget to notice things a lot.” He put the 4Runner into park. “But then maybe the other way to look at it is that, other than those couple of faults, I’m a pretty nice guy to have around the house.”

I leaned back against the passenger window and looked at Michael. “So what happens?”

“Well, I can’t speak for Phoebe, but I know I’ll hang in there. Keep trying. I can’t even imagine leaving. How could you tell your kids something like that? Or anybody else, I guess. Would you ever have left Kevin? I mean, if — ”

“If he hadn’t left me first? No, I don’t think so. I just figured that was the life I picked, so I had to make the most of it. Sometimes I’m not even sure I deserve a new life now. I mean, I blew it, you know. Maybe that was my only chance.”

“Where did we get these bad attitudes, do ya think?” asked Michael.

“The nuns?”

“Yeah, that works. Let’s blame them.” Michael locked his elbows and pushed off on the steering wheel, stretching his arms and shoulders and yawning at the same time. I yawned in response. “Seriously, Sarah. You have chances now, lots of them. Are you getting out to meet people yet? I’m just going to keep bugging you until you say yes.”

“I guess so.”

“What do you mean, you guess so? It’s a yes or a no answer. You’re either trying to meet someone or you’re not.”

“No, I think you can also be trying to try.”

Crystal Gale was singing on the radio. Michael turned it up. “I used to think she was singing, ‘Doughnuts make my brown eyes blue.’ ”

“Don’t they? I don’t know, Michael. Sometimes I think I’m missing a few of the essential rules.” We sat listening to the song, joining in with Michael’s version of the chorus, until it was over. “You know that Creedence Clearwater song, the one about there’s a bad moon on the rise?”

“Yeah, I love that song,” Michael agreed.

“Well, I always thought they were singing, ‘There’s a bathroom on the right.’ ”

“It’s not quite as powerful that way.”

“Michael, what if I say to myself, I’m ready, I want to have a whole new wonderful relationship, and then it never happens?”

“So what? So then you’re back to square one. And you’re there now anyway.”

“Yellow.”

“How can I talk to a man who answers the phone that way?”

“What way?”

“With a color.”

“Is that what it sounds like? I thought I sounded like I was in the middle of doing something extremely important when you called.”

“What, like naming your crayons?”

“Cute. Very cute.”

So what if John Anderson had a few quirks. Everyone had something. At least John didn’t bray or snort when he laughed, or I hadn’t noticed it yet if he did. And he was fun to talk to. I realized he was waiting for me to say something. “Well,” I said. “I just wanted you to know that I’d been giving some thought to our second date, just like I promised. Sorry it took me so long.”

“That’s okay. I eventually tore myself away from pacing circles around the phone and actually went out a few times. I even went to a networking soiree for singles.”

I felt my heart drop to about knee level. “Oh, good,” I said. “Good for you.” I should have called him back sooner. Instead I’d spent a couple of weeks floundering around in my indecision. Did I like him enough? Would he still like me once he got to know me? If so, what was his problem? And what was mine? Would any relationship I touched go the way of my marriage? Would I bore him to death?

“A friend dragged me there. I didn’t want to go. What a bunch of whackos.”

I laughed, hoping it sounded believable. I wondered if I was feeling bad because I liked John more than I realized. Or was it because he was so willing to move ahead without me? “So, um, what was it like?”

“Awful. It was at this woman’s house in Cambridge. She was probably older than my mother. You know the type. Big house, money so old that you’d never even guess she had any. Tweed skirts with knee-high rubber gardening boots.”

“Or a pearl necklace with lace-up oxfords.”

“Yeah, that’s it. Anyway, she’d sent out invitations to all the single people she knew, roughly between the ages of birth and death, and asked them to bring friends who were single but not romantic possibilities for themselves. It was like being in a twisted version of
A Christmas Carol
, seeing the Ghost of Singles Past, the Ghost of Singles Present, the Ghost of Singles Future. You know, the entire continuum of loneliness. Believe me, it wasn’t a pretty sight.”

I tried to face the fact that I should probably ask John if he could get me added to the list for her next party. I mean, now that John had moved on without me, what was left? “So what did everybody do?” I asked.

“Drank okay wine. Ate so-so hors d’oeuvres. Checked each other out. Then the hostess made us all sit in a circle and tell something personal about ourselves and what we were looking for. You wouldn’t have believed these people.”

“What did they say?” Despite my impending depression, I was interested.

“Well, the first couple of people just whined about their ex-spouses.”

“Look who’s talking,” I said before I could stop myself.

Fortunately, John laughed. “I do whine about my ex- spouse, don’t I?”

“Well, now that you mention it…. but finish your story.”

“Thanks for pointing that out. I’ll work on it. Okay, let’s see, the next person talked about conflicted sexuality. The one after that about conflicted geography.”

“What?”

“You know, whether he’d be happier on the West Coast.”

“Oh, I get it.”

“And then, get this, one woman stood up and said a couple of years ago she thought her marriage was over. So she had an affair with another man and suddenly the sex in her marriage had never been so good and the sex with the other guy was pretty good, too, and it was all a bit complicated but seemed to work for her. But then the guy she was having an affair with got sick of waiting for her to leave her husband so he found someone else. But not before he told her husband about the affair. The husband left her. And so, she said, she was grieving them both and hoping to transcend the pain and move forward into a new relationship.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. I left before it was my turn. Pretended to go to the bathroom and took off.”

“I don’t blame you.” I was so busy being relieved that he hadn’t stayed around to meet someone that at first I didn’t realize someone was knocking at my door. “John, someone’s at my door.”

“Sarah, if you want to hang up, just say so.”

“No, someone’s really at my door. Can you stay on the line while I see who it is? Nobody ever comes over this late.”

“Okay. Don’t just open the door, Sarah. Check first.”

I couldn’t see a thing when I looked out the peephole. The knocking started up again, loud and insistent. I stood on my tiptoes and looked down. Dolly’s scalp showed through her hair quite dramatically from this angle.

“Oh, Jesus, it’s my father’s girlfriend,” I whispered into the phone.

“Do you want to call me back?”

There was probably no way to avoid answering the door. I could picture Dolly still knocking the next morning. Maybe that’s what my father meant about her not being squirrelly. “No, stay on the line. I’ll pretend it’s an important phone call and get rid of her fast.”

“That’s a pretty big stretch.” John’s voice was tight.

“Oh, God, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. Wait one second, okay?” I opened the door and took a couple of quick steps back. “Hi, Dolly. Did you get the boa?”

“Where is he?” Dolly was dressed in a full-length satiny mauve down coat, the big puffy kind with stitched rectangles holding the feathers in place. I wondered if it would have been a jacket on a taller person. Her Ford Fiesta was idling angrily in my driveway. I hoped it meant that this would be a quick visit.

“Where is who?”

“That no-good alley cat of a father of yours. Where is he?”

“Dad?”

“Don’t be cute with me, missy. Of course I mean ‘Dad.’” Later I would tell John how much Dolly looked like Clementine, the Yorkie he had borrowed, and how I wanted to sink down to the floor and bury my head between my paws just like Mother Teresa had.

“I don’t have any idea where he is. Did you try him at home?”

A muffled voice came from the phone in my hand. “Is that him?” Dolly grabbed the phone from my hand. “Billy Hurlihy, you no-good, two-timing son of a gun.” She paused, listening. “Well, how was I supposed to know? She’ll have to call you back when things aren’t so busy around here.” Dolly pushed a button on the cordless. Her eyes were like chunks of watery ice.

Dolly handed me my phone. “Find him. Now.”

*

While Dolly turned off her car, I dialed my father’s number. I could almost see him, tilted back in the re- cliner we all called Dad’s, looking at the phone and not answering. His machine picked up. Frank Sinatra crooned about his regrets being too few to mention. The music faded and my father, sounding more like Dean Martin than Frank, said,
What’s tickin’, chicken? Billy Boy’s not home right now, so don’t bother to beat your gums off time. Just plant your message and I’ll dig it later.

The beep was long and loud. “Hi, Dad, it’s Sarah. It’s, um, nine seventeen Friday night and Dolly’s here. At my house. And, um, she wants me to find you. So pick up the phone, Dad.” My voice hit an unexpected high note. I cleared my throat and continued. “Come on, Dad, answer the phone.” I forced myself to look at Dolly, who was standing across from me again. “He’s a very heavy sleeper. Always has been.”

“Tell me another while that one’s still warm. Listen, you just inform that good-for-nothin’, low-life father of yours that Dolly’s staying right here until Daddy comes to pick her up.” She released a short puff of breath through pursed lips, and then Dolly took off her coat and hung it over the back of my couch. She crossed her arms over her torpedo-like breasts defiantly, then nodded at me to continue.

“Uh, Dad, Dolly says she’s planning to stay here until you come to get her. Dad, if you can hear me, PICK UP RIGHT NOW.” I waited. This is the last girlfriend of his I will ever meet, I vowed. “Dolly,” I said, “how about if I keep trying to call my father and, in the meantime, you drive over to the house. If he’s not there, you can always come back. I’ll make tea.” I tried to smile convincingly. If I could just get her out the door again, I could lock it and turn out all the lights. Maybe go into my room and hide under the covers for the rest of my life. I mean, it’s not like I’d be missing all that much.