Gaits of Heaven (16 page)

On Saturday evening, Rita sits across the table from
Quinn Youngman, who is eating a grass-fed organic baby duckling with farro, ramps, favas, cardoons, and guanciale, or so the menu promised. Rita’s dish, also described quite grandly, tastes to her like a plain roast chicken with mashed potatoes. Next to the chicken is a tiny puddle of violently red liquid. She wonders whether the puddle is, in fact, a sauce or whether it is blood that accidently dripped from the cut finger of someone in the kitchen. Consequently, she avoids tasting it.

“Pleasant little bistro,” Quinn remarks.

“Very,” says Rita, who thinks that Quinn probably likes this overpriced establishment because it is in a cellar and thus reminds him of the coffeehouses of his radical youth. Her own youth, which was thoroughly conformist, took place twenty years after the time of Quinn’s turbulence, so she has only his word for what that era of his life was like. Their age difference, she tells herself, means nothing. Quinn Youngman, M.D., is an attractive older man, an appropriate choice for her. Of his rebelliousness, nothing remains except the memories on which he dwells at some length. These days, his political activity consists of donating to the ACLU, Amnesty International, and the Democratic National Committee. He reads the
New York Times
and listens to National Public Radio. He is almost too appropriate for her.

When they have discussed the food for a few moments, Quinn says, “Oh, there’s Nixie Needleman over there, just coming in.”

Rita has seen Dr. Needleman before and is not surprised by the mountains of platinum hair, the thick makeup, and the cleavage. “She has quite a good reputation,” Rita says demurely.

Happily for Quinn and Rita, Nixie Needleman and the nondescript man accompanying her are shown to a table at the opposite end of what Rita continues to view as this expensive basement.

“Have you heard, uh, anything…let me start again.” Quinn refills Rita’s wineglass with the Argentine Malbec that he and the waiter made such a show of selecting. Rita considers it unsuitable for her chicken, but for all she knows, connoisseurs consider it utterly gauche to consume ramps and farro with any wine other than a Malbec. As an aside, I might mention that when Rita reviewed the restaurant for all of us, Caprice remarked that the ideal accompaniment to the menu was an unabridged dictionary.

Rita smiles at Quinn, who has, she reminds herself, many good qualities. In particular, there is nothing fringy or alternative about his practice of psychopharmacology. On the contrary, he is solid, knowledgeable, and compassionate.

Encouraged, he says, “This has to do with, uh, payment.” He exhales audibly. “Let me just say it. I have a new patient who’s been in treatment with her and also with”—his voice drops to a whisper—“Ted Green. What my patient has to say about him is nothing new—I’ve heard it before—and that’s that he expects to be paid at the beginning of each session. Preferably but not necessarily in cash.”

“I’ve heard that, too,” Rita says.

“Have you heard anything about…?” He nods in Nixie Needleman’s direction.

“About patients paying her under the table? No. Would she be so stupid?”

“What my patient has to say, and this is a credible woman, is that our, uh, silver-haired friend over there wasn’t happy to settle for the co-pay that my patient’s insurance allowed. My patient thought it was standard practice.”

“Well, it certainly is not standard practice! It’s very stupid. If the insurance company finds out, she’ll get nailed for fraud.”

Quinn nods. “It’s a dangerous game.”

“So is unreported income. If Ted gets audited, it’s the first thing the IRS will look for.”

“Eumie must’ve known,” Quinn points out. “Ted? Her husband? Of course she knew.”

“That was safe enough,” Rita says. “She’d hardly have turned him over to the IRS.”

Quinn laughs. “Don’t you treat couples?”

Rita looks chagrined. “I see what you mean. I definitely see what you mean.”

Ted Green had the nerve to call me at eight-thirty on
Sunday morning to demand that I make an emergency visit to treat Dolfo’s posttraumatic stress. Instead of arguing with Ted about the diagnosis, I asked him to describe what Dolfo was doing. Could he give some examples of worrisome behavior?

“He’s restless. He can’t settle down.”

“Does he seem to be in pain?”

“Pain! I knew you’d know. The dog maven! Dolfo is in pain.”

“Angell has a twenty-four-hour emergency service. The Angell Animal Medical Center. It’s on South Huntington Avenue in—”

“Emotional pain. He is suffering. But he has no words.”

For all I knew, Dolfo was suffering from a torn cruciate ligament or a nail bed infection or some other physically painful condition. It would be just like Ted, I thought, to focus on the dog’s mental state while failing to notice that he was limping or bleeding. Consequently, I agreed to take a look at the dog. Steve was, for once, sleeping late, and I had no intention of dragging him out of bed. Furthermore, if Dolfo needed veterinary care, I’d send Ted to Angell or tell him to call his own veterinarian’s emergency number. Steve and I had plans to take all the dogs to Gloucester for a hike and a picnic, and I wasn’t going to see our day together spoiled because of a dog who wasn’t even Steve’s patient. Leah and Caprice were still asleep, too. With luck, I’d be home before the human household was awake.

My previous semiprofessional visit to Ted’s had ended so sadly that I felt a superstitious sense of unease as I parked in his driveway, made my way up the stairs, rang the bell, and slipped off my shoes, but it immediately became apparent that the residents of the house, Ted and Wyeth, were noisily alive. As Ted was thanking me for remembering to remove my shoes, Wyeth was shouting from another room. “Stingy bastard!”

“Separation from parents,” Ted informed me in an under-tone, “is an essential component of normal adolescence.” Then he called to Dolfo, who turned out to be in the kitchen, where Wyeth was slouched at the table eating a bagel. His hair was greasy. He wore a torn short-sleeved white T-shirt with yellow sweat stains. As I had on the day of Eumie’s death, I noticed the peculiarity of his body. Although he wasn’t overweight, he had the kind of potbelly that usually develops only in adulthood. His bare arms showed such an absence of muscle that his flesh seemed held in place by skin alone. The sink was filled with dirty dishes. Everything stank of old food and dog urine. On the floor was a gigantic dog dish filled with stale-looking kibble.

“Coffee?” Ted offered. “Bagels. Cream cheese. Nova lox.”

“No, thanks,” I said. “I don’t have a lot of—”

As if I weren’t even there, Wyeth said, “The store opens at ten. The one I have is a piece of shit. And you promised.” He pouted like a two-year-old.

“I keep my promises,” said Ted, “and I never promised you a new computer.”

“You did so.”

“If I did, I’ve forgotten it.”

“That’s not my fault.”

“Wyeth, Holly has gone to the trouble to come here to help Dolfo. She is performing a mitzvah. You’re going to need to wait a few minutes, and then we’ll discuss things.”

“With a monitor and a printer,” Wyeth said. “And a router, too.” I wanted to tell him that what he could really use were manners, exercise, and a bath. If he’d stopped with the request for a router, I’d have controlled myself. As it was, he persisted. “Pig Face has a new notebook,” he said, “and an iPod and a new cell phone, and what’ve I got? I’ve got shit.” Before the insult to Caprice had registered on me, even before Wyeth had stopped speaking, he stretched one of his sausagelike arms over the table, grabbed a slice of lox, and held it above Dolfo’s head. Lox is, of course, smoked salmon, a treat that most dogs find irresistible. In that respect, Dolfo was a typical dog. His eyes lit up, his nose twitched, and he rose on his hindquarters. His foolish face was the picture of delight. And Wyeth raised the slice of lox.

Even then, I didn’t get it. In our household, we never feed dogs at the table, but we do train with food. That’s exactly what I assumed Wyeth was doing: teaching Dolfo to sit up or maybe to jump in the air.

Dolfo bounced upward, and Wyeth rose to his feet and dangled the slice of lox just out of the dog’s reach.

My temper snapped. I stood up, snatched the lox from Wyeth’s hand, told Dolfo to sit, and, when he obeyed, fed him the whole slice. I then addressed Wyeth. “Get something straight—you don’t tease this dog or any other dog ever again as long as you live. In particular, you don’t tease this dog with food. In fact, if I ever again even begin to suspect that you are thinking about teasing Dolfo or any other dog with food, I am going to put a choke chain around your spoiled neck and I am going to yank until your Adam’s apple bursts.” I turned to Ted. “And
you
. You’re supposed to be the grown-up here. What the hell is wrong with you? You heard what your son called Caprice, and I have no doubt that he’s called her that to her face. You saw him tease your dog with food. And you did nothing. And you’ve had the nerve to call me here on a Sunday morning to treat your dog’s posttraumatic stress? Let me tell you something! The stress afflicting your dog is you! If I thought that anyone would adopt him, I’d tell you to find him a new home, but you’ve made the poor dog unadoptable. You’ve ruined a perfectly sweet dog, you’ve let Caprice get so fat that her face is deformed, you’ve turned your son into a cruel, insufferable, demanding brat, God only knows what happened to your wife, and if I’m traumatizing you by telling you the truth, good! It’s about time someone did. You deserve it.”

With that, I walked out.

“The more I see of men, the more I prefer or love or admire
my dogs,
men
meaning fellow human beings, of course. Mark Twain,” I said to Steve. “Pascal. Frederick the Great, Madame de Sévigné, and a few dozen other people. I’ve seen it attributed to all of them, probably because all of them said it. Or something to that effect. But if you want to quote me, the statement right now is that the more I see of
myself
, the more I prefer my dogs. Our dogs. All dogs. Any dogs. Even Dolfo was better behaved than I was! I am completely disgusted with myself.”

That was on Sunday afternoon during our hike, which was not entirely ruined by my self-recriminations, but only because of Steve. He patiently pointed out that it was perfectly all right to stop someone from teasing a dog with food. Among other things, he said, the behavior was dangerous: Dolfo could have bitten Wyeth. Steve also said that it was probably high time that someone spoke bluntly to Ted. My only big mistake, in Steve’s view, was telling the brutal truth in front of Wyeth. I agreed.

“You were trying to protect everyone,” he said. “Dolfo, Caprice, and Wyeth. There’s nothing wrong with kindness to animals and children.”

“Oh, my impulses were admirable. But in front of Wyeth! He is so pitiful. And at the same time, he’s so cruel. My temper just snapped.”

“You lost it,” Steve agreed. “It happens.”

“It doesn’t happen to you,” I said.

“It does. Go easy on yourself. Look, Holly, it was a one-shot deal. You don’t go around making scenes all the time. It’s not like you make a habit of it. Let it go.”

And I did, at least for the moment. Even the weather seemed determined to lift my spirits. The New England climate is notoriously changeable: it typically changes for the worse by making abrupt leaps from freezing to sweltering and back to freezing again. The temperature that afternoon was, for once, seventy degrees. As if to compensate for my uncivilized conduct and my consequent shame and guilt, the dogs were at their best during the hike through the wilds of Dogtown, a large wooded area in Gloucester that Steve and I both liked. Kimi refrained from growling at India, and not once did she crowd Lady or loom over her. Kimi, Rowdy, and Sammy wore their red two-piece Wenaha packs, and Sammy managed not to detach the saddlebags that were Velcro-fastened to the yoke. When we stopped to give water to the dogs, no one tried to steal anyone else’s folding bowl. On wet stretches of the trail, Rowdy kept his head up instead of indulging his revolting appetite for mud. Lady moved with a bounce in her step that showed, we thought, unusual self-confidence. When we got back to the van and were loading in all the dogs, India, whose dignity usually prevented her from begging for treats, paused for a moment to nuzzle my pocket, and I had the pleasure of slipping her a piece of cheddar. We arrived home to find a note from Leah and Caprice to say that they’d gone to a concert at a nearby church and were going to hang out with friends afterward. Our house and our evening were ours.

Sunday’s hike and the evening with Steve restored my equilibrium. Monday morning started off well. After finishing my usual chores, I took a shower and, contrary to the instructions on the CD that Eumie had given me, listened to the guided imagery while I shampooed my hair and bathed. Just as promised, I ended up feeling strong and relaxed. Better yet, I felt hopeful that showing my dogs could become fun again. That afternoon, I decided, Rowdy and I would go to a park to work on rally obedience. When we got to the park, I’d keep taking deep, smooth breaths in and out, and Rowdy and I would play. The happy thought came to me that the cure for my ring nerves wasn’t so much guided imagery as it was Rowdy, whose performance of the required exercises in obedience had always been maddeningly unpredictable, but who, I now realized, had reliably enjoyed every second in the ring and who was more than willing to allow his joy to replace my fun-killing pride and competitiveness.

Writers are dreadful opportunists, and malamute-owning writers are the worst. Having experienced renewed optimism about my ring nerves for all of twenty minutes, I sat at the kitchen table with my notebook computer and rapidly drafted a column about the cure that I felt certain was going to work. The first half of the column, I must point out, was about methods that had failed or had made me more anxious than ever. For example, bursting into song to make sure I kept breathing had been dandy during practice sessions, but what was I supposed to do as I stood just outside the ring? Make a spectacle of myself by loudly caroling an off-key “Happy Birthday” or “Amazing Grace”? Or sing to myself under my breath when I was too terrified to have a breath to sing under? So, the first half of the column was based on experience, and only the second half was derived largely from my imagination. After all, a draft was a draft. I’d eventually do a few reality-based revisions.

Caprice, I might mention, had roused herself at what was for her the early hour of nine o’clock. She’d eaten a nutritious breakfast of fruit and yogurt, taken Lady for a walk, and cleaned her room before going to see her therapist. After her therapy hour, she was going to Rita’s office to help Rita with her computer. As I hope I’ve suggested, Rita was a brilliant therapist—despite never having trained a dog. Rita’s present dog, Willie, a Scottish terrier, was no one’s idea of a promising candidate for competition obedience, but Rita had refused to take him to Canine Good Citizen classes or basic pet obedience. He walked politely on leash because he’d known how when she’d adopted him. He was house-trained. I had made notable progress in teaching him to quit yapping during her absence and to stop flying at my ankles. Rita was fully satisfied with him, as she’d been with her previous dog, Groucho, an amiable dachshund who, by virtue of walking pleasantly on leash and never using the indoors for outdoor purposes, was as educated as Rita expected a dog to be. Rita always argued that she spent her professional life helping people to change and that the last thing she wanted to do when she got home was to start again with her dog. I, on the other hand, said that anyone setting up in the therapy business should be required to have spent a minimum of two preparatory years training a dog; a clinician who lacked the prerequisite was merely
practicing
, whereas someone who’d learned first on a dog might actually be able to
do
human therapy. Rita excepted. But when it came to computers, she exemplified yet another radical difference between dog trainers and shrinks: dog trainers, who are fully accustomed to exchanging clear, unambiguous messages with intelligent beings different from themselves, easily transfer their skills and attitudes toward computers, whereas a lot of shrinks get irritated at computers on the grounds that computers fail to have deep feelings, never appreciate the complex nuances of anyone’s life history, and are aggravatingly reminiscent of unsatisfactory parents. Leah had tried to convince Rita that just as dogs were companion animals, computers were companion machines, but instead of buying the argument, Rita had hired Leah to help her. Leah, who was endlessly patient with dogs, hated the job and did it only out of pity for Rita. Leah was, however, working all day, so the pressing task of transferring Rita’s files from her computer to a CD that she could bring home, and deleting the sensitive material from her computer, had fallen to Caprice. Rita had taken Kevin’s warning seriously. She’d be right there as Caprice copied and deleted, and there’d be no need to open files, so there was no concern about access to anyone’s secrets.

So, while Caprice was presumably at Rita’s office, when I’d finished my work, I gathered together the rally obedience signs I’d printed out from the Web, selected the ones I wanted, packed some dog treats, and made a shopping list. I intended to take Rowdy to the big park behind the Fresh Pond Mall and to buy food for dinner on the way home. By my malamute standards, the day was even better than the previous one—sixty degrees and overcast—so Rowdy would be safe in the car with the windows lowered and a padlock on his crate.

Sammy was at work with Steve. Before leaving, I needed to make sure that the dogs left at home would be comfortable. I gave Kimi a turn in the fenced yard, then India and Lady. While they were still wandering around, I picked up the pooper-scooper and was engaged in what Leah calls “the unaesthetic task” when India suddenly began to growl. The German shepherd dog is, of course, supposed to be a watchdog. Fortunately, India recognized the background noise of our neighborhood as just that and never sounded pointless alarms. Indeed, her watchdog vocalizations often struck me as primarily expressive rather than communicative: when India barked, she sometimes seemed less interested in frightening off intruders or in warning us of potential dangers than in voicing her observations of changes in the environment.
I’ve noticed something new,
she seemed to say.
And I’m curious about it!
If she perceived a threat, especially a threat to Steve, she sounded serious and even menacing rather than simply alert.

But on the rare occasions when India growled, she meant business. A few seconds earlier, she’d been meandering around our little yard. Now, she faced the driveway and was approaching the wooden gate with slow, deliberate steps. Lady cowered next to her. I was less concerned about India than I was about Lady, who was clearly caught between the desire to flee and the equally strong wish to plaster herself to India, her powerful protector: Lady’s entire body trembled as if set in motion by the almost inaudible rumble emerging from India’s throat.

“That will do,” I told India. “Enough. Whatever it is, it’s my job and not yours.” As I moved ahead of India to reach the gate, she obediently stopped growling, but I could now see that her lip was lifted and that her dark eyes were ablaze.

It was typical of Steve’s horrible ex-wife to reply with an accusation: “You aren’t answering your phone!”

“I have nothing to say to you,” I told Anita in what I hoped was a tone of calm control. I didn’t care what Anita thought of me, but I wanted to assure India and Lady that I had the power to keep the Fiend out of their lives. Although India had obeyed me, her intelligent face wore an expression of what I am forced to describe as skepticism.

“We need to talk,” Anita said loudly.

“Go away.” I took pride in keeping my voice firm and quiet.

“I don’t like yelling through this gate.”

“Then don’t yell. Just go away.” If I’d been alone, I’d simply have gone into the house and ignored Anita, but I couldn’t bear to sink in India’s opinion. Ludicrous though it may sound, I wanted India—and Lady, too—to see that I could make Anita turn tail.

“I have to undo the wrongs I’ve done,” said Anita, a sliver of whose face was now visible through the narrow gap between the gate and the fence. The statement sounded rehearsed.

Peering at Anita, I realized with sudden and foolish embarrassment that the pooper-scooper was still in my hand. Indeed, my fingers were gripping its handle tightly, as if my body intended me to use it as a weapon. With as much dignity as I could summon, I rested the implement against the fence. “Down,” I told India. “Stay.” Then I unlatched the gate, slipped out, and latched the gate again.

Anita looked as beautiful as ever: tall, slim, and elegant, with even features and long, silky blond hair. She wore a beige trouser outfit and simple gold jewelry.

“Make it quick,” I said. “India and Lady are on the other side of that gate, and your presence is bothering them.”

“I need to make up for hurting people,” she said.

“And dogs?”

“What?”

“Dogs.”

“You must be joking.”

“How do you intend to make amends to Lady?”

Anita nearly spat. Truly, I’m sure that her mouth filled with saliva. She settled for saying, “If I knew of some way to undo the pain I’ve caused you…”

“You haven’t,” I said. “I don’t know why you’re targeting me, but it doesn’t matter. I’ve seen what you did to Steve. To Gabrielle. And to Lady, who couldn’t defend herself. I hope you rot in hell. I never want to see you near me or near our dogs again. If you aren’t off my property in exactly sixty seconds, I am calling the police.”

As I’d hoped, Anita retreated. I returned to the yard and led India and Lady up the stairs to the house. To my surprise, Caprice was in the kitchen.

“I couldn’t help overhearing some of that,” she said. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Yes. If she shows up again, don’t let her in. That’s Steve’s ex-wife.”

“Anita Fairley,” Caprice said.

“Please sit down.” I pointed to a chair, took one directly across from it, rested my elbows on the table, and put my chin in my hands. For once, I didn’t offer coffee, tea, or food. Caprice was now directly across from me. I looked her straight in the eye. “Fairley,” I said. “No one here ever calls her Anita Fairley. We seldom mention her. When we do, we use her first name.”

“Leah must’ve used her last name. It stuck with me.” Caprice wasn’t gazing at the ceiling or shifting around. Her eyes continued to meet mine.

“Or possibly you looked her up. On Google? Or somewhere else. On one of the Deep Web sites? Let me guess something else. You looked me up, too. And Steve.”

The facade broke. Tears ran down Caprice’s face.

“Hey,” I said, “it’s okay! I’m sorry! Caprice, I don’t care. What’s there to find out about Steve and me? Nothing!” I got up, found a box of tissues, and handed it to Caprice. “If you looked me up, all you found was more than any sane human being has ever wanted to know about dogs.”

A smile crossed her face.

“It’s okay. I mean that. What’s getting to me isn’t that you checked us out. I use Google, too, you know. What’s making me uneasy is this feeling of secrecy. Not that I expect you to come right out and say, ‘Hey, I see that you’ve published forty thousand articles about flea control, and they all say the same thing.’ It’s—”

“It’s that I was sneaky.”

“We would’ve told you, you know. All you had to do was ask. But for all you knew, we had something to hide. I did. Or Steve did.”