Whom Dog Hath Joined (32 page)

That was cold comfort, I thought, if solving
the mystery resulted in losing Lili.

Rick left, and I stared out my office window
at the blustery afternoon. Eben Hosford had gotten himself in trouble, I
thought, because he had held his secrets for so long. I wasn’t going to do that
to myself. I picked up the phone and dialed the main number for the Fine Arts
department. “Hi Matilda, it’s Steve Levitan,” I said, when Lili’s secretary
answered. “I don’t want to talk to Lili right now – I just want to know if
she’s in her office.”

“Some kind of surprise?” she asked.

“Something like that.”

“Yes, she’s here. She usually stays until five
on Fridays.”

“I’m on my way,” I said. “If she tries to
leave, can you stall her?”

She laughed. “I can do anything if I set my
mind to it.”

“Words to live by,” I said.

I grabbed Rochester’s leash and he bounded
over to me. I locked up the office, and on my way into Leighville I made a pit
stop at Genuardi’s grocery. I picked five bouquets of roses in red, pink and
white from the bins by the front door.

“You must be in big trouble,” the cashier said
to me as she rang them up.

“You could say that.” I paid and carried the
roses out to the car. A few minutes later I was parked near Harrow Hall, and
Rochester and I were on our way to Lili’s office.

“Oh, my,” Matilda said when I walked in. “How
beautiful! She’s on the phone but you can stick your head in.”

I thanked her, and unhooked Rochester’s leash
so he could go into Lili’s office first. I’m not stupid; I know the power of
the dog.

I heard Lili say, “I’ll call you Monday then,”
and hang up the receiver. Staying hidden, I stuck the five bouquets of roses
inside the door and waved them like a white flag.

“You can come in,” she said, laughing.

When I walked in she had Rochester’s paws up
on her lap and she was receiving doggie kisses. “Five bunches!” she said. “What
kind of trouble do you think you’re in?”

I laid the flowers down on her desk and kissed
her. I was worried that it might be the last time I’d get to, once I told her
what I had to say, and I wanted to make it count.

“Wow,” she said, when we finally parted.
“Hello to you, too. But you’ve really got me curious. What’s up? You didn’t
hack again, did you?” she asked. “I already told you that it doesn’t matter to
me, as long as you’re careful.”

“It wasn’t hacking,” I said. “Let’s sit down.”

She sat behind her desk, and I sat in the
visitor’s chair, like a misbehaving student come to the department chair for
discipline. Rochester slumped to the floor by my side.

I told her about the confrontation with Eben
Hosford, how he’d pulled his rifle. “Rick and I managed to talk him down,” I
said. “Rick took him back to the station. After it was over I realized the
person I most wanted to be with was you. So I’m here.”

Lili was quiet for a moment. Then she said, “I
thought when I quit photojournalism I left behind all the hotshots and the
adrenaline junkies. Obviously not.” She reached out and took my hand. We’d had
this conversation before, how Lili had come to rural Pennsylvania to find a
quieter life. And how I had difficulty controlling my curiosity.

“Do you think we’re doomed to love the same
kind of person over and over again?” she asked. “To keep on making the same
mistakes?”

Was she saying that our romance had been a
mistake? “I don’t think so,” I said. “Sure, you have a lot in common with Mary.
You’re both smart, beautiful, ambitious. Jewish, with all that means. But in
the most important ways, you’re totally different.”

I took a deep breath. “I’ve been working hard
to get Mary out of my head, and now I’m not sure that I need to. Because having
her to compare you to makes you seem even more amazing. Your independence, your
creativity, your heart. And no matter what you might think, I know I’m nothing
like Adriano or Phillip. Neither of us is going to repeat the mistakes we’ve
made in the past.”

“Of course we are,” Lili said, but she smiled.
“But the important thing is that when we do, we’ll be smart enough to recognize
them and fix them.”

“I’m really sorry, Lili. I should never have
confronted Eben like I did. I wasn’t thinking. I was just going on instinct. I
promise if you agree to move in with me, I’ll think before I act.”

“Don’t make any promises you can’t keep,” Lili
said, but her mouth rose at the edges. She stood up and opened her arms to me.

We hugged and kissed and Rochester kept trying
to nose his way between us. When we finally disengaged she said, “You need
someone to look after you, and Rochester’s just not doing a good enough job.”
She leaned down and wagged her finger in the dog’s face. “You need to keep your
daddy out of trouble.”

He licked her finger and his tail swished back
and forth.

“I know I don’t have anything big enough to
handle all these roses here in the office,” Lili said, picking the first bunch
up and sniffing. “Mmm.”

“Guess you’ll have to take them home,” I said.
I reached out for her hand and twined it with mine. “Wherever you’re calling
home.”

She picked up all the roses and said, “Let’s
head to Stewart’s Crossing.”

* * *

Lili baked a pie with the last of the season’s
apples, and I brought two six-packs of microbrew beer. When we pulled up in
front of Rick’s house there were already a couple of cars along the street and
I heard the sound of Springsteen, laughter and dogs barking from his back yard.

The temperature was perfect – cool enough to
enjoy the back yard, but not so chilly that you’d need a sweater. I opened the
gate and Rascal came running, chased by a cream-colored golden retriever puppy
and two young boys. I recognized the younger as Hannah’s son Nathaniel, and
assumed the eight-year-old in the baseball jersey was Tamsen’s son Justin.
Rochester rushed forward and the three dogs romped together, the two boys
jumping in the middle of them.

Mark Figueroa was sitting on a picnic bench
talking to Tamsen, his long legs stretched out in front of him. Her sister
Hannah stood near her, and I could see the resemblance between them clearly –
both slim, blonde and pretty. At the far end of the yard, Joey Capodilupo had a
rubber football in his hand, and he threw it toward the dogs, who rushed it.

I assumed that the hipster-looking guy with
square black glasses was Nathaniel’s father, because he picked the boy up and
twirled him around.

Lili and I walked into the house, dropping off
the pie and the beer. I uncapped two beers and joined Rick at the barbecue,
where he had begun grilling burgers. “Looks like a pretty good party,” I said.

“That’s for me?” he asked, taking the beer
from me. “Thanks.”

Gail and Declan were the last to arrive, both
of them looking shyly around. While Rick grilled, I joined Declan, Joey and
Hannah’s husband, Eric to play with the kids and the dogs. “What’s your name,
handsome?” I asked, picking up the little white golden. He was half Rochester’s
size but all muscle and had to weigh close to forty pounds. He licked my face
and I laughed.

“That’s Brody,” Joey said. “My baby boy. Just
turned a year old.”

“He’s adorable. How’d he get so white?”

“They call it English cream,” Joey said. “All
the golden puppies I’m seeing lately are his color. White is the new gold.”

“I’ll stick with the old gold,” I said, as
Rochester rushed toward me, jealous of my attention to any other dog. I sat on
the grass with Rochester’s head in my lap and looked around at all my friends,
their kids and their dogs. It was a life I could only have imagined when I left
prison to return home. Lili came over to join me and I said, “Whom dog hath
joined, let no man put asunder.”

“An excellent sentiment,” she said. “And now
let’s eat.”

Acknowledgements

Big thanks go to my critique group partners:
Miriam Auerbach, Christine Jackson, Kris Montee and Sharon Potts, who have
guided Steve and Rochester on many adventures.

Ramona de Felice Long did a terrific job
editing the manuscript, and Nancy Gazo was my beta reader. I appreciate advice
from Jim Born, Jackie Conrad, Sharon Sakson and Zita Goldfinger.

Special thanks for outstanding service in the
role of golden retrievers go to Jacoplax’s Brody Baggins and Jacoplax’s Griffin
Goodfellow, who inspire, amuse and love me every day. And of course, to their
daddy.

This book is dedicated to all those who lost
loved ones during the Vietnam conflict.