Earnest (13 page)

When Jeff finished reading, mixed with his rancor were resignation and fatigue. Though he'd never forgive Anna for what she'd done to him and Earnest, he consented, as did she, to Purcell's proposal. Jeff signed away half his right to his own dog, then rose, drained, from the table.

The room filled with the shuffling of papers and twanging of briefcase latches. Earnest wriggled out from under the table and pressed his body against Jeff 's legs as if he were begging not to be left behind. When Anna tried to attach the leash to his collar, he shrank back, timid and unsure. He hid behind Jeff.

Jeff hugged him. “I'll pick you up on Friday night,” he promised.

As Anna pulled Earnest toward the door, he looked back at Jeff, his eyes confused.
Why aren't you coming home with us?

Earnest's innocence ripped Jeff 's heart into confetti. Guilt steamrollered him flat. He was responsible for Earnest, and he should have protected him from this misery. But Jeff had failed, and now Earnest was going to get shunted back and forth between two homes. It wasn't fair. He'd suffer. It was all Anna's fault.

C
HAPTER
23

O
n Friday night Earnest paced the condo, and for the first time Anna could remember, he sniffed his kibble, laced with canned duck and sweet potato, and he walked away. When he looked back at Anna, his eyes said as straightforwardly as he'd ever said anything,
Yuck.

Because he'd always been a blue-ribbon porker, his indifference to dinner concerned her. So did his restlessness as he paced around the condo. She handed him a cow's hoof so he could gnaw away his nervous energy. But he refused it too. As a last line of defense, Anna got out his brush, the fastest way to make him happy.

A rampant hedonist, Earnest considered grooming a dog's equivalent to a bachelor's night in a five-star resort, including a six-course dinner with sirloin and ice cream, a postprandial walk on a golf course, and nubile nymphs gyrating on his minibar. All it took was one glance at his brush, and Earnest would lie on the floor, his legs in the air in his flasher position, and present his sides, chest, and belly. He would close his eyes and ready himself for bliss.

Tonight, however, Earnest bristled his eyebrows and gave the brush a mistrustful look.
Are you trying to lure me into ecstasy so I'll forget about Jeff?
Earnest stationed himself at the front door in the posture of a stone lion guarding a library. Clearly, he knew that Jeff was coming.

At the mediation, Anna had heard Jeff tell Earnest that he'd pick him up on Friday. It
was
Friday. Therefore, Earnest must have an uncanny inner calendar, or he was one of those dogs who knew when his person was coming home.
Except Jeff was now only half of Earnest's person. And this was no longer Jeff's home.

Now Anna would have to hand over Earnest to the dishonorable twit—as Joy would say—who had manipulated her into sharing her own dear dog. For that, she would consider him eternal scum. She was ready to spurn him.

Though she was mentally prepared for Jeff, at his inevitable knock on the door, Anna jumped inside her skin. But Earnest, as anyone would expect, went wild. He whimpered and danced and nudged his nose against the doorknob, trying to turn it and usher in his cherished alpha, his BFF, the most wonderful man on earth. Earnest's rejoicing yips said,
Let him in! Let him in!

The yips threw dry straw on Anna's flames of jealousy. Would Earnest be as happy if
she
knocked on the door? She was his attentive caretaker. He was supposed to love
her
most. He was
her
dog. But as he pressed himself against the door, she felt like he was more Jeff 's dog than hers, and her value to Earnest might be about even with a tick's.

Grammy had once told Anna that she should never compare herself to another person, that everyone was unique and equally worthy. But maybe in the eyes of a dog, some people were more worthy than others. Maybe Jeff was Earnest's banana split, and Anna was the rancid whipped cream that got stuck in the aerosol can.

Anna stiffened her shoulders, the better to meet her rival for Earnest's affection. She marched across the living room, unlatched the deadbolt with an assertive click, and opened the door just wide enough for Earnest to squeeze through. As he rushed to Jeff, she gave Earnest's haunch a final anguished pet.

“I assume I can pick him up at your apartment on Monday morning.” Her words were more clipped than a poodle.

“Yes.” Jeff did not address her by name, but his “yes” conveyed an entire thesaurus's worth of adjectives he might have chosen to accompany “Anna”: repellant, abhorrent, detestable, appalling, revolting, repulsive.

She felt that his “yes” stomped on her self-worth. But, worse, she felt desolate that Earnest was gone. Except for his nights with Dr. Nilsen after the fire, tonight would be her first time in over two years to be alone in the condo.

Earnest's constant presence had become a part of her. She'd taken it for granted, like her next breath or tomorrow morning's sunrise. Tomorrow when the sun
did
rise, Earnest would not be snoring next to her, pressing down the mattress, and radiating warmth. She would not feel his moist nose nuzzle her awake so she would give him breakfast.

Anna backed toward the love seat and fell against the pillows. The condo's silence consumed her. She stared at the empty rectangles where Jeff 's paintings had been. She was empty too. Lost, if you wanted to put a fine point on it. The only time she'd ever felt so alone was after Grammy died and her parents sent her to a Seattle boarding school.

C
HAPTER
24

U
nder a picnic table, Jeff found a stick the size of an extra-fat flute.
Perfect.

He held it out to Earnest. “Look, Bud.”

Would he beg Jeff to throw it? Or take it with a mighty chomp and swagger around, playing I-have-it-and-you-don't? For the first time ever, Jeff wasn't sure Earnest would show interest in the stick, for which his passion had known no bounds.

Since Earnest had wakened with his head on Jeff 's pillow, he'd been moping. Normally the Canine Hoover, he had sniffed his breakfast and taken only a few desultory bites. At the Mini Kickers' soccer game, he'd flattened back his ears, a sure sign he was pensive, and followed Jeff around, a shadow in need. Earnest had hardly noticed that Bobby Biggs's ego still needed plumping after last month's score for the opposing team.

Now the kids and parents had gone home, and Heron Harbor Park was Jeff and Earnest's private bonding ground. Earnest had patrolled the blackberry bushes and seemed to accept that they did not produce in late fall. If he were willing, it was playtime.

“Here! Want the stick, Earnest?”

His eyes lit up.
Yes! A stick! A stick!
He tugged it out of Jeff 's hand and pranced around the picnic table, showing off his trophy.

Relieved at the enthusiasm, Jeff reached out to grab the stick. “Give it to me.”

Earnest let him take it, but he stared at it so hard his body quivered.
Throw it! Throw it! My genes are programmed for chasing and returning! I am bred to fetch!

Jeff raised his arm and hurled the stick into Heron Harbor, and the glorious retriever in Earnest sprang to life. He charged down the beach and lunged into the water, then paddled to the stick like a Knight Templar on a quest for the Holy Grail. Earnest gripped the stick in his mouth and paddled back to shore, victorious. He ran, dripping, up the beach, dropped the stick at Jeff's feet, and shook his body, baptizing Jeff with water.

“Good boy! The wonder dog!” Jeff patted Earnest's head.

Earnest fastened his gaze to the stick, then glanced up, his eyes pleading,
Please, please, oh please, Jeff! Retrieving is my mission. You wouldn't want me to go against my nature!

Jeff picked up the stick, drew back his arm, and pretended to throw without releasing. Refusing to fall for the ruse, Earnest planted his paws in the sand and did not budge. But he trembled with anticipation—until finally Jeff threw the stick for real. Earnest shot across the beach and leapt into the water.

Again and again Jeff threw, and Earnest, tirelessly eager, charged into the harbor and fetched. He wagged his tail hard enough to light up Seattle for a week. His joyful face said,
Hurrah! My favorite game! I have Jeff all to myself!

Only Anna had been able to lure Earnest from his obsessive compulsion for retrieving when she'd sat and watched him and Jeff on this very beach. Once in a while, she got up and snatched one end of Earnest's stick. Gripping the other in his mouth, he hung on like the fish hooked in
The Old Man and the Sea
as Anna dragged him around, his paws skidding through the sand. His flapping ears exclaimed,
Oh, wow! How great is this!
He never let loose of the stick till she did.

A pleasant memory, but to hell with her,
Jeff thought as Earnest plopped the stick in front of him again. He wondered at Anna's ability to sneak into his mind, boot him out of the present, and drag him back to the past as surely as she'd dragged Earnest around the beach. Jeff would not allow it. He shoved her out of his thoughts and threw Earnest's stick with extra force. Earnest swam out to get it.

After what felt like one-hundred-and-thirty-seven-thousand throws, Jeff's arm began to tire—far sooner than Earnest's determined legs. “What do you say, Buddy? How about a Granny Smith apple?”

That temptation alone might not have enticed Earnest from the game. But when Jeff turned around and walked to the picnic table, Earnest responsibly followed. He dropped the stick as Jeff handed him an apple slice. Though not so gleeful about it as in the past, Earnest looked pleased about the crunch.

“I wish we could be together every day. All I want is to make you happy.” Jeff handed him another piece. “On Monday you're going to have to go back to Anna. You know that, don't you?”

Earnest munched his apple. He raised the top of his ears and cocked his head the way he did when he was listening.

“I hate that I can't have you with me all the time. But that's the way it is. I couldn't stop this horrible arrangement.”

Earnest cocked his head to the other side. His eyes looked sad.
I love you, man.

“I love
you.
I want you to know that,” Jeff said.

Earnest's expression matched his name—serious, honorable, sincere. He looked so vulnerable that Jeff could not continue. He swallowed against the lump gathering in his throat. His heart felt like every beat took effort.

C
HAPTER
25

W
ith a serving spoon, Anna scraped out her pumpkin's pulp and seeds. She emptied them on newspapers spread over her counter, around which she, Joy, and Lauren perched on stools. Tonight they were combining their monthly financial meeting and annual carving party. As house treasurer, Anna officially began:

“Our October finances are grim. We all know our individual savings accounts to buy this house have taken a dive. But now we also have to worry about our stash for expenses. It's down to zero. Halloween decorations wiped us out.”

“Our whole kitty's gone? That's
it?
” Lauren's carefully plucked eyebrows rose toward the ceiling.

“That's it,” Anna said.

“What about Christmas decorations? I don't have a whole lot of money to put in. My sales are pathetic,” Joy grumbled.

“Your regulars will flock to you for Christmas presents,” Anna said.

“If they don't, I'm doomed. I'll close,” Joy said.

“And then what? How will you eat?” Lauren asked.

Joy shrugged as if food were a minor matter. “I'll finish
Wild Savage Love
.”

Lauren, who had a degree in English literature, drew zigzag lines across her pumpkin's face for future teeth. “Joy and I have been working on her plot,” she told Anna. “I keep telling her that John and Penelope have to escape before Murdon sells them into slavery.”

“Where are they now?” Anna asked.

“In Tunis. Murdon's ship just landed, but they're still in the brig. The slave market's a block away. They can hear the moans and screams of desperate captives. Penelope is freaking out,” Joy said.

“That's sad,” Anna said.

“Exactly. You're supposed to grieve for them,” Joy said. “Slavery's going to drag out the suspense. John and Penelope have to suffer for a while.”

“Maybe they've suffered enough. How would
you
feel if you'd been kidnapped and locked up for months on a foul, nasty slave ship?” Anna emptied another scoop of pumpkin on the newspaper.

“I like happy endings,” Lauren said.

“Give John and Penelope time. After they're sold, they'll find each other again. Birds will tweet,” Joy said.

Lauren stuck a paring knife into the edge of what would be a tooth. “Joy, what are you carving?”

“Leonardo DiCaprio.”

“How could that possibly be Leonardo DiCaprio?” Lauren asked.

Joy turned her pumpkin around to show his eyes, nose, and sexy grin. “In case you need enlightenment, this is a goatee.” She'd drawn it and his eyebrows with a black felt-tip pen.

“Oh, I get it.” Lauren carved another tooth. “My pumpkin's Hannibal Lecter.” From a black tote bag, Lauren pulled out a tennis shoe and the lower third of a jeans leg stuffed with cotton. “These are going to stick out of his mouth. He's already eaten the rest of the body.”

“Pretty scary,” Joy said.

“Mine's not.” Anna, who'd been concentrating on her pumpkin, showed them the leaves and flowers she'd drawn on it. No face.

“You don't have your heart in it,” Lauren said.

“Too much to worry about right now,” Anna said.

“What besides this house and money?” Lauren asked.

“Isn't that enough?” Joy asked.

“I'm worried about Earnest. Look how thin he is. His ribs are sticking out,” Anna said.

When Earnest heard his name, he opened one eye. He cocked an ear. Clearly, he'd been eavesdropping because he rose from his lily pad and walked to the counter.

Anna reached down and petted his shoulder. “I can get him to take a few bites of broiled chicken, but forget kibble.”

“He's upset. His life has changed,” Lauren said.

As if on cue, Earnest stared at the floor like all his friends had come down with ague and keeled over dead, and he was alone. His tail sagged at half-mast. He turned despondency into an art form.

“Maybe he'll perk up tomorrow. He loves Halloween. He thinks every trick-or-treater has come to visit him,” Anna said.

“Is he going to be a bumblebee again this year?” Joy asked.

“A zebra. I wanted him to be a unicorn, but all I could afford was black paint for his stripes,” Anna said.

When she reached down to pet Earnest again, he walked away as if he didn't care what he was going to be disguised as.
Zebra schmeebra,
said his posture's droop. He flattened back his ears and hunched his shoulders. If his heart had been a piece of paper, “bummer” would have been written on it.

 

At 4:00 p.m. on Halloween, Gamble's merchants turned the downtown into a trick-or-treater's mecca. In front of stores, they handed out candy to passing crowds. At intersections, Rotary Club volunteers in iridescent vests directed traffic. The organist at Grace Congregational Church played spooky music that floated through the air from speakers hidden in the steeple.

Everyone wore costumes, including dogs, who were often disguised as bats, tigers, and sharks. Anna's economic straits had driven her to turn her last year's princess dress and crown into a fairy godmother outfit. For a magic wand, she'd bought a dowel, and on the end she'd glued a silver star. In her pocket was fairy-dust glitter she intended to throw on children.

At three forty-five Anna poured bags of 3 Musketeers, Mars bars, and Reese's Peanut Butter Cups into black wicker baskets. As she carried them to the porch, a small pain flashed above her eyebrow. Her grueling day had caught up with her. Since breakfast, she'd had no time to sit down.

More people than expected had wanted Halloween flowers, and she'd almost run out of ceramic pumpkin vases and the tiny metal spiders she stuck on gold and orange mums. Also in demand had been her “Boo Bouquet,” which included ghosts she'd stayed up making till 3:00 a.m. with four-inch squares of sheets. She'd stuffed their heads with cotton, tied white string around their necks, and stuck them from wire among roses and carnations.

Earlier today Anna had given an extra ghost to Tommy, age ten. It was a reward for writing the October poem for Lauren's community poetry post—about Igor, the Venus flytrap, who after the fire had replaced the unfortunate Fang.

On the porch, Anna handed Lauren and Joy their candy baskets. Lauren had turned her little black cocktail dress into a witch's costume, applied black lipstick and nail polish, and put on a pointed hat that made her a scary seven feet tall. Joy wore a sexy gypsy outfit—a low-cut peasant blouse with a tiered skirt, and a gold scarf, knotted above her left ear.

Earnest seemed to have decided to be a misanthropic zebra. He clumped to the corner next to the front door and lay down under long cobweb wisps and man-sized ghosts, which hung from the beadboard ceiling. He ignored children streaming down the sidewalk: three girls disguised as bottles of mayo, mustard, and ketchup. A boy dressed as a mouse with his mother, a cat. A jellyfish carrying a clear plastic umbrella from which hung Saran Wrap strips for tentacles. A flock of angels left over from Christmas pageants.

Tommy arrived as an orange felt traffic cone, and Sam, his golden retriever, wore a George Washington wig that his mother had found in Gamble Playhouse's costume bin.

“Earnest, come here,” Anna called. “It's your best friend, Tommy. Say hello.”

Usually, Earnest bounded over and licked Tommy's face, but tonight he struggled to his feet as if lying on the porch had exhausted him. He plodded over to Tommy, whose face he couldn't lick anyway because it was mostly hidden behind orange felt.

“Is he sick?” Tommy asked.

“I don't think so. But lately he's not been himself,” Anna said.

“Why?”

“I'm not sure.”

“I'll visit him tomorrow.”

“You do that. He'd like it.” As Tommy turned to leave, Anna waved her magic wand and tossed fairy dust on him. “Any particular wish?”

“That Earnest would feel better,” Tommy said.

Wrenching words
.
From the mouths of babes.
“That's my wish too.”

As Tommy made his way back down the crowded sidewalk to Rainier, Anna glanced across the street. In front of Sawyer's Restaurant, Jeff was hurrying along in a parka and blue muffler, his eyes as straight ahead as a Marine's in parade formation. Doubtless, Jeff had just arrived from work and was headed to his apartment. Also doubtless, he intended to avoid Anna—because he looked like his neck might break if he turned his head.

Tonight's Jeff contrasted sharply to the Jeff she'd loved last Halloween. With relish, he had thrown himself into haunting the house and scaring the children. He'd cut out cardboard gravestones, painted “RIP” on them, and lined them up in the front yard. On the porch he placed coffins he'd made out of wooden crates from Hall's Imports down the street. Jeff recorded scary noises and screwed colored lightbulbs into upstairs lamps. From a Seattle party store, he rented a fog machine.

When the big night came, thanks to Jeff, red and orange lightning flashed in upstairs rooms, and wails and screeches pierced the dark. Fog billowed out the windows and front door. Occasionally, Jeff leaned from a window above the porch, shone a flashlight under his chin, and laughed, “Heh-Heh-Heh!” Then he dangled a plastic skeleton by the neck a nd cackled like a deranged chicken. He shrieked and rattled his Honda's snow chains. Some of the kids had been too afraid to come to the porch, so Lauren had handed out candy on the street by her community poetry post.

The memory of that happy night warmed Anna. But the warmth lasted only a moment before the mediation's fight over Earnest invaded her mind. For the last ten days she'd brooded about Jeff 's aggression, his unfair usurping of her dog.

Anna quickly stepped in front of Earnest to block his view. If he saw Jeff, he'd dash across the street to him, and she would not give him the satisfaction of knowing Earnest missed him.

Anna patted Earnest's stripes. “Good boy. Good zebra.”

Pain flashed again above her eyebrow.