The Accidental Tourist (10 page)

“Good Lord,” Macon said.

“I’ve had a cocker spaniel fly directly at my throat. Meanest thing you ever saw. Had a German shepherd take my ankle in his teeth. Then he let it go.”

She lifted a foot and rotated it. Her ankle was about the thickness of a pencil.

“Have you ever met with a failure?” Macon asked her. “Some dog you just gave up on?”

“Not a one,” she said. “And Edward’s not about to be the first.”

But Edward seemed to think otherwise. Muriel worked with him another half hour, and although he would stay once he was down, he flatly refused to lie down on his own. Each time, he had to be forced. “Never mind,” Muriel said. “This is the way most of them do. I bet tomorrow he’ll be just as stubborn, so I’m going to skip a day. You keep practicing, and I’ll be back this same time Saturday.”

Then she told Edward to stay, and she accepted her money and slipped out the door. Observing Edward’s erect, resisting posture, Macon felt discouraged. Why hire a trainer at all, if she left him to do the training? “Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know,” he said. Edward gave a sigh and walked off, although he hadn’t been released.

All that afternoon and evening, Edward refused to lie down. Macon wheedled, threatened, cajoled; Edward muttered ominously and stood firm. Rose and the boys edged around the two of them, politely averting their eyes as if they’d stumbled on some private quarrel.

Then the next morning, Edward charged the mailman. Macon managed to grab the leash, but it raised some doubts in his mind. What did all this sitting and heeling have to do with Edward’s real problem? “I should just ship you off to the pound,” he told Edward. He tapped his foot twice. Edward did not lie down.

In the afternoon, Macon called the Meow-Bow. “May I speak to Muriel, please?” he asked. He couldn’t think of her last name.

“Muriel’s not working today,” a girl told him.

“Oh, I see.”

“Her little boy is sick.”

He hadn’t known she had a little boy. He felt some inner click of adjustment; she was a slightly different person from the one he’d imagined. “Well,” he said, “this is Macon Leary. I guess I’ll talk to her tomorrow.”

“Oh, Mr. Leary. You want to call her at home?”

“No, that’s all right.”

“I can give you her number if you want to call her at home.”

“I’ll just talk to her tomorrow. Thank you.”

Rose had an errand downtown, so she agreed to drop him off at the Businessman’s Press. He wanted to deliver the rest of his guidebook. Stretched across the backseat with his crutches, he gazed at the passing scenery: antique office buildings, tasteful restaurants, health food stores and florists’ shops, all peculiarly hard-edged and vivid in the light of a brilliant October afternoon. Rose perched behind the wheel and drove at a steady, slow pace that was almost hypnotic. She wore a little round basin-shaped hat with ribbons down the back. It made her look prim and Sunday schoolish.

One of the qualities that all four Leary children shared was a total inability to find their way around. It was a kind of dyslexia, Macon believed—a geographic dyslexia. None of them ever stepped outside without obsessively noting all available landmarks, clinging to a fixed and desperate mental map of the neighborhood. Back home, Macon had kept a stack of index cards giving detailed directions to the houses of his friends—even friends he’d known for decades. And it used to be that whenever Ethan met a new boy, Macon’s first anxious question was, “Where exactly does he live, do you know?” Ethan had had a tendency to form inconvenient alliances. He couldn’t just hang out with the boy next door; oh, no, it had to be someone who lived way beyond the Beltway. What did Ethan care?
He
had no trouble navigating. This was because he’d lived all his life in one house, was Macon’s theory; while a person who’d been moved around a great deal never acquired a fixed point of reference but wandered forever in a fog—adrift upon the planet, helpless, praying that just by luck he might stumble across his destination.

At any rate, Rose and Macon got lost. Rose knew where she wanted to go—a shop that sold a special furniture oil—and Macon had visited Julian’s office a hundred times; but even so, they drove in circles till Macon noticed a familiar steeple. “Stop! Turn left,” he said. Rose pulled up where he directed. Macon struggled out. “Will you be all right?” he asked Rose. “Do you think you can find your way back to pick me up?”

“I hope so.”

“Look for the steeple, remember.”

She nodded and drove away.

Macon swung up three granite steps to the brick mansion that housed the Businessman’s Press. The door was made of polished, golden wood. The floor inside was tiled with tiny black and white hexagons, just uneven enough to give purchase to Macon’s crutches.

This wasn’t an ordinary office. The secretary typed in a back room while Julian, who couldn’t stand being alone, sat out front. He was talking on a red telephone, lounging behind a desk that was laden with a clutter of advertisements, pamphlets, unpaid bills, unanswered letters, empty Chinese carryout cartons, and Perrier bottles. The walls were covered with sailing charts. The bookshelves held few books but a great many antique brass mariners’ instruments that probably didn’t even work anymore. Anybody with eyes could see that Julian’s heart was not in the Businessman’s Press but out on the Chesapeake Bay someplace. This was to Macon’s advantage, he figured. Surely no one else would have continued backing his series, with its staggering expenses and its constant need for updating.

“Rita’s bringing croissants,” Julian said into the phone. “Joe is making his quiche.” Then he caught sight of Macon. “Macon!” he said. “Stefanie, I’ll get back to you.” He hung up. “How’s the leg? Here, have a seat.”

He dumped a stack of yachting magazines off a chair. Macon sat down and handed over his folder. “Here’s the rest of the material on England,” he said.

“Well, finally!”

“This edition as I see it is going to run about ten or twelve pages longer than the last one,” Macon said. “It’s adding the business
women
that does it—listing which hotels offer elevator escorts, which ones serve drinks in the lobbies . . . I think I ought to be paid more.”

“I’ll talk it over with Marvin,” Julian said, flipping through the manuscript.

Macon sighed. Julian spent money like water but Marvin was more cautious.

“So now you’re on the U.S. again,” Julian said.

“Well, if you say so.”

“I hope it’s not going to take you long.”

“I can only go so fast,” Macon said. “The U.S. has more cities.”

“Yes, I realize that. In fact I might print this edition in sections: northeast, mid-Atlantic, and so forth; I don’t know . . .” But then he changed the subject. (He had a rather skittery mind.) “Did I tell you my new idea? Doctor friend of mine is looking into it:
AccidentalTourist in Poor Health
. A list of American-trained doctors and dentists in every foreign capital, plus maybe some suggestions for basic medical supplies: aspirin, Merck Manual—”

“Oh, not a Merck Manual away from home!” Macon said. “Every hangnail could be cancer, when you’re reading a Merck Manual.”

“Well, I’ll make a note of that,” Julian said (without so much as lifting a pencil). “Aren’t you going to ask me to autograph your cast? It’s so white.”

“I like it white,” Macon said. “I polish it with shoe polish.”

“I didn’t realize you could do that.”

“I use the liquid kind. It’s the brand with a nurse’s face on the label, if you ever need to know.”

“Accidental Tourist on Crutches,”
Julian said, and he rocked back happily in his chair.

Macon could tell he was about to start his Macon Leary act. He got hastily to his feet and said, “Well, I guess I’ll be going.”

“So soon? Why don’t we have a drink?”

“No, thanks, I can’t. My sister’s picking me up as soon as she gets done with her errand.”

“Ah,” Julian said. “What kind of errand?”

Macon looked at him suspiciously.

“Well? Dry cleaner’s? Shoe repair?”

“Just an ordinary errand, Julian. Nothing special.”

“Hardware store? Pharmacy?”

“No.”

“So what is it?”

“Uh . . . she had to buy Furniture Food.”

Julian’s chair rocked so far back, Macon thought he was going to tip over. He wished he would, in fact. “Macon, do me a favor,” Julian said. “Couldn’t you just once invite me to a family dinner?”

“We’re really not much for socializing,” Macon told him.

“It wouldn’t have to be fancy. Just whatever you eat normally. What
do
you eat normally? Or I’ll bring the meal myself. You could lock the dog up . . . what’s his name again?”

“Edward.”

“Edward. Ha! And I’ll come spend the evening.”

“Oh, well,” Macon said vaguely. He arranged himself on his crutches.

“Why don’t I step outside and wait with you.”

“I’d really rather you didn’t,” Macon said.

He couldn’t bear for Julian to see his sister’s little basin hat.

He pegged out to the curb and stood there, gazing in the direction Rose should be coming from. He supposed she was lost again. The cold was already creeping through the stretched-out sock he wore over his cast.

The trouble was, he decided, Julian had never had anything happen to him. His ruddy, cheerful face was unscarred by anything but sunburn; his only interest was a ridiculously inefficient form of transportation. His brief marriage had ended amicably. He had no children. Macon didn’t want to sound prejudiced, but he couldn’t help feeling that people who had no children had never truly grown up. They weren’t entirely . . . real, he felt.

Unexpectedly, he pictured Muriel after the Doberman had knocked her off the porch. Her arm hung lifeless; he knew the leaden look a broken limb takes on. But Muriel ignored it; she didn’t even glance at it. Smudged and disheveled and battered, she held her other hand up. “Absolutely not,” she said.

She arrived the next morning with a gauzy bouffant scarf swelling over her hair, her hands thrust deep in her coat pockets. Edward danced around her. She pointed to his rump. He sat, and she bent to pick up his leash.

“How’s your little boy?” Macon asked her.

She looked over at him. “What?” she said.

“Wasn’t he sick?”

“Who told you that?”

“Someone at the vet’s, when I phoned.”

She went on looking at him.

“What was it? The flu?” he asked.

“Oh, yes, probably,” she said after a moment. “Some little stomach thing.”

“It’s that time of year, I guess.”

“How come you phoned?” she asked him.

“I wanted to know why Edward wouldn’t lie down.”

She turned her gaze toward Edward. She wound the leash around her hand and considered him.

“I tap my foot but he never obeys me,” Macon said. “Something’s wrong.”

“I told you he’d be stubborn about it.”

“Yes, but I’ve been practicing two days now and he’s not making any—”

“What do you expect? You think I’m magical or something? Why blame me?”

“Oh, I’m not blaming—”

“You most certainly are. You tell me something’s wrong, you call me on the phone—”

“I just wanted to—”

“You think it’s weird I didn’t mention Alexander, don’t you?”

“Alexander?”

“You think I’m some kind of unnatural mother.”

“What? No, wait a minute—”

“You’re not going to give me another thought, are you, now you know I’ve got a kid. You’re like, ‘Oh, forget it, no point getting involved in
that
,’ and then you wonder why I didn’t tell you about him right off. Well, isn’t it obvious? Don’t you see what happens when I do?”

Macon wasn’t quite following her logic, perhaps because he was distracted by Edward. The shriller Muriel’s voice grew, the stiffer Edward’s hair stood up on the back of his neck. A bad sign. A very bad sign. Edward’s lip was slowly curling. Gradually, at first almost soundlessly, he began a low growl.

Muriel glanced at him and stopped speaking. She didn’t seem alarmed. She merely tapped her foot twice. But Edward not only failed to lie down; he rose from his sitting position. Now he had a distinct, electrified hump between his shoulders. He seemed to have altered his basic shape. His ears were flattened against his skull.

“Down,” Muriel said levelly.

With a bellow, Edward sprang straight at her face. Every tooth was bare and gleaming. His lips were drawn back in a horrible grimace and flecks of white foam flew from his mouth. Muriel instantly raised the leash. She jerked it upward with both fists and lifted Edward completely off the floor. He stopped barking. He started making gargling sounds.

“He’s choking,” Macon said.

Edward’s throat gave an odd sort of click.

“Stop it. It’s enough! You’re choking him!”

Still, she let him hang. Now Edward’s eyes rolled back in their sockets. Macon grabbed at Muriel’s shoulder but found himself with a handful of coat, bobbled and irregular like something alive. He shook it, anyhow. Muriel lowered Edward to the floor. He landed in a boneless heap, his legs crumpling beneath him and his head flopping over. Macon crouched at his side. “Edward? Edward? Oh, God, he’s dead!”

Edward raised his head and feebly licked his lips.

“See that? When they lick their lips it’s a sign they’re giving in,” Muriel said cheerfully. “Doggie, Do taught me that.”

Macon stood up. He was shaking.

“When they lick their lips it’s good but when they put a foot on top of your foot it’s bad,” Muriel said. “Sounds like a secret language, just about, doesn’t it?”

“Don’t you ever, ever do that again,” Macon told her.

“Huh?”

“In fact, don’t even bother coming again.”

There was a startled silence.

“Well, fine,” Muriel said, tightening her scarf. “If that’s the way you feel, just fine and dandy.” She stepped neatly around Edward and opened the front door. “You want a dog you can’t handle? Fine with me.”

“I’d rather a barking dog than a damaged, timid dog,” Macon said.