What the Dog Ate (9 page)

Kevin, unfortunately, did not share
her opinion and objected when she told him her plan.

“Tough,” she said. “You promised
you’d come along wherever I wanted.”

He tried to convince her they
should go somewhere else. “Shopping? Get pedicures? Anything but that. Modern
art’s weird. It looks like something a kid could do. An annoying kid.”

She sweetened the deal by offering
to buy lunch, and on Friday morning, they headed out. It was a perfect
cornflower-blue-sky June day. Maggie flashed back to waking up as a kid on the
first glorious day of summer vacation.

As they stepped into the
light-filled, soaring entryway, a faint smell of sawdust hinted at the recent
renovations.

Leaving Kevin flirting with the
woman at the information desk, pretending he was oh-so-very interested in
contemporary art, Maggie strolled through every quiet corner of the museum.

She had the main exhibit room to
herself: a huge space with white walls, twenty foot ceilings and pale bamboo
flooring. Massive, somber canvases in blue and gray oil paints covered the
walls. They raged around her like winter storms at sea.

The sound of her sandals striking
the wood floors reminded her of going with Mom to help clean the church when
she was a girl. They’d be the only ones there; every step echoed off the walls.
Only, where the church was dark and gloomy, this room was open and bright. And
whereas she always felt guilty in church (she didn’t go often enough, didn’t
pray with enough conviction, wasn’t good or pious enough), here she felt
peaceful and calm. It occurred to Maggie that perhaps this was what people who
enjoyed going to church felt.

She lingered in the last room. It
was filled with tall sculptures, tilted at odd angles, defying gravity, made
out of everyday objects: buttons, snaps and zippers on one, another with
kitchen gadgets. Old, rusty measuring spoons, whisks and worn wooden rolling
pins were mixed in with brand new gleaming ones. Her favorite, called “Busy
Work,” featured office supplies: thousands of paper clips, rows of shiny new
staples and binder clips painstakingly fused together in a column that teetered
over her head.

She walked out thinking, is it over
already? She wanted to come back as soon as possible.

“Come on, I’m starving,” Kevin
said, waiting for her in the foyer. He tapped his watch.

On the way out, she picked up a
pamphlet about volunteering.

That afternoon she went into her
home office and picked up the phone, Kona by her side. She looked at the flyer,
the phone, the dog.

“I know you think Momma’s brave,”
she said. Kona tilted his head as if hanging on her every word. “But, really,
I’m a big chicken like you.” He put his head in her lap.

She stroked his head while she
dialed. The volunteer coordinator set up an appointment for her to come in the
following week for an interview.

Smiling, Maggie marked the appointment
in ink on her calendar.

“Did I wake you up? I didn’t think
it was too early to call.”
Dave. Swell
. At nine in
the morning, Maggie still lay in bed.
Talk about your rude
awakenings
.

“It is too early,” she yawned
loudly into the phone. “What do you want?”

“I decided I want to come get my
TV—today.”

“Oh,
you
decided. Just like you decided to cheat? You decided to leave? I’m sick of your
decisions, Dave. Know what?
I
decided to sell the
stupid TV on craigslist.” She looked over her shoulder at the behemoth in
question.
Need to get on that
.

“You can’t just sell the TV. Come
on. That was my TV.”

“No, it was our TV.”
And you left it behind, just like everything else that was ours.
Our life, our plans
...

“Look, I just want what’s
rightfully mine. I didn’t even take any of the furniture, for Pete’s sake. And
I’m not trying to take advantage of the fact you made more money than me, but I
think you owe me—”

“Owe you? I don’t owe you anything.
You’ll hear from my lawyer.” She hung up.
Stupid portable
phones; can’t even slam the damn thing down. And what an ass. You want what’s
yours?
I
was yours, you idiot
. She threw the
blankets off.
I’ve gotta ask Helen about her lawyer
.

There was no point staying in bed.
She got up and decided to take Kona for his walk, try to “exercise” her demons.

As a kid, when Maggie heard people
mention exorcising demons, she thought they were talking about exercising them;
make them so tired they’d leave you alone. Even now, she liked to picture the
demons, miniature red men with black eyebrows and horns, dressed in bright
’80s-style Lycra leotards soaked with sweat as they slogged through a grueling
aerobics class. She still thought her phrasing made more sense, since she
usually felt better after a workout.

When she called for Kona, he didn’t
come. She found Kevin in the kitchen making coffee. He said he’d let the dog
out to pee and hadn’t seen him since. She ran to the front window; the gate was
open. It must not have been latched properly last night. She knew where he’d
be.

She marched out to the sidewalk in
her bare feet. Sure enough, he was there, rooting in the neighbor’s flowerbed,
hunting for cat poop snacks left behind by their tabby.

“Kona.” She made her voice as deep
as she could. “Bad boy. Go home.”

He yanked his head up, then let it
hang low as he slunk toward her. When he reached her, head still down, he
lifted his eyes up to her.

“I mean it. Get inside.” She
pointed at the house. He trudged past her, then picked up his pace and skipped
through the gate.

She went in and found him waiting
for her with a broad smile on his face. She shook her head.
No guilt. What must that be like?
She knew she should
probably ignore him as punishment, but wanted to get his walk over with so they
set off.

She hoped she’d feel better after a
long march, but the walk began with a full view of the crack of Mr. Freedman’s
ass as he picked up his paper. Not a good start. And it was close enough to
July that there was no June gloom; it was even oddly muggy. By the time they
got home, she felt hot and cranky. But her demons remained cool and
comfortable, settled in for the long haul.

“Let’s paint the office today.”
Kevin emerged from the kitchen and handed her a cup of coffee. He’d already
tackled several projects on her To Do list for the house, either while she was
at work or lay on the sofa watching him. “It won’t take that long if we do it
together.”

“Wouldn’t you rather be out golfing
or something?” Kevin had not seemed at all stressed about his lack of
employment. He’d dedicated himself to improving his putting.

“No. Come on. We can blast some Bob
Marley and get into a groove.”

“Wow. You make it sound like you
think this could actually be fun.”

“It will be, and think how much
better you’ll feel when you scratch it off the list.”

She wasn’t in the mood, but she
didn’t even have the energy to try to dissuade him, so she handed him two
fifties and a list and sent him to Home Depot.

After he left, Maggie pulled books
off the shelves and stacked them in the hallway so they could move the
furniture. On the top shelf, she found a volume of classic love poems Dave had
given her. She’d missed it in her previous purging.

The slim volume seemed heavy as a
stone. She dropped it on the desk. She stared at it. She didn’t need to open
the cover; she remembered what Dave had written. She could see his crabbed
handwriting in her mind’s eye. It said:

“Poetry is
painting that is felt rather than seen.” Leonardo da Vinci

Maggie, I hope
these poems will show you how I feel about you. I love you. Dave
.

She remembered the flush of joy
she’d felt when he’d given it to her after Dad’s funeral.

She’d met Dave the first week after
she moved into the dorms at San Diego State. They’d only been dating a few
months when she got the call from home that Dad had had a heart attack. Dave
had been great; taking care of her; driving her home to L.A. Mom had been in a
daze and barely said two words to Dave, until it was time for him to drive
Maggie back to school. Mom had hugged Dave that morning and Maggie had
overheard her ask him to “take care of my girl.”

“I promise, Mrs. O’Connell,” he’d
said.

Maggie had realized as she watched
him drive, at the end of that exhausting week that had been like wading
knee-deep through mud, that she loved Dave and wanted to spend the rest of her
life with him. She’d cried a new batch of tears, realizing her dad would never
meet him.

A few days later, while she tried
to find a new sense of normalcy, Dave had given her the book of poetry and told
her he loved her.

Maggie blinked, returning to the
present. While she clearly remembered the first time Dave said he loved her,
she could not remember the last time. And now he loved someone else.

She flung back the cover of the
book and tore at the pages. She crumpled them and threw them to the floor,
crying. At one point she grabbed too many pages at once and struggled in a rage
to rend the pages from the binding. She let out a half-scream, half-groan of
frustration and dropped the book; her legs folded under her and she sat heavily
on the floor next to it. She picked it up and threw it across the room, then
held her head in her hands and sobbed.

As she calmed down, she heard Kona
bark at the sound of Kevin’s car. She scooped the paper trail of her meltdown
into a trash bag and ran to splash cold water on her face. She heard Kevin walk
to the back of the house. Her skin was blotchy. It would be a while before it
was back to normal. Could she paint in her biggest, darkest sunglasses?

“Hey, you’re not even done clearing
everything out of here,” Kevin called from the office. “Were you dorking around
while I was gone?”

“I started,” she yelled back. She
dabbed powder around her eyes. She pulled her pony-tail holder out and fluffed
her hair, hoping her wild curls would hide some of her face.

“Come on. I need you to help me
move the desk out from the wall.”

“OK. I’m coming.” She knew they’d
be face-to-face over the desktop.

She walked into the office and bent
over to examine the paint, under the pretense of making sure he’d gotten the
semi-gloss like she’d asked.

“It’s everything on the list. I got
the rollers and the stupid tape.”

“It’s not stupid. You can’t paint
without taping off the windows and ceiling.”

“Uh, you can. And I do. But
whatever; it’s your house, your rules.” He stood by the desk, ready to hoist
his end. “Come on.”

She went to the opposite end of the
desk. His usual omnipresent grin faded.

“Are you—” he started to ask, but
she looked down and cut him off.

“Yes, I’m strong enough.” She
hefted her end. “Let’s move this stupid thing.”

All afternoon they taped, prepped,
primed and painted. Ready for the second coat, Maggie stood waiting with her
roller as Kevin cut in along the ceiling. She marveled at her brother. He was
always so calm. He didn’t seem to have a single tense muscle in his whole body,
whereas she could feel her own stresses piling up like a topographical map of
the Rockies.

“I envy you, ya’ know?”

Kevin scoffed. “Yeah? My good
looks? Or you mean my status as an unemployed, single, homeless person?”

“No, really. I mean the whole
unemployed thing. How you quit, and you don’t have anything else in the
works—and you don’t even seem concerned about it.”

“I think most people wouldn’t see
that as enviable.”

She worked her roller in the
prescribed W pattern. “Maybe not, but that’s what’s so great about you. You
don’t care what other people think. You didn’t like the job anymore, so you
left. Cut and dried. No stressing or whining. I think Dad would be impressed
with that.”

“I dunno; I can’t see Dad being
impressed by my quitting. Remember how mad he got when I quit soccer? Always
felt bad about that. He’d just given me the Soccer Smurf.”

“The way I remember it, it was
mostly Mom who was mad, and that was only because they’d just bought you new
cleats. Dad just said, ‘For a ten-year-old, the kid knows his mind.’”

“Really?” Kevin paused in his
painting. As much as Maggie had felt cheated by their father’s death at such a
young age, she felt worse for Kevin. He’d had five less years with Dad than she
did.

“Yeah, really,” she said. They both
turned back to their painting in silence.

After many hours, and a stack of
rock and reggae CDs, they finished. With Bob Marley still ringing in her ears,
and with the room looking so much brighter, Maggie did feel better. Being a bit
high on paint fumes didn’t hurt either.

They were pulling the painter’s tape
off of the window casings when the phone rang. She’d been unable to convince
Kevin to agree to her screening policy, so he grabbed the phone and answered it
before she could say anything.

“Hi, Mom,” he said, turning to look
at Maggie. She slumped her shoulders and held up her hands to wave him off.

“I’m not here,” she mouthed.

As she wadded the tape into a big
blue sticky ball, she listened to Kevin’s side of small talk about the weather.
She heard him say, “Yeah, she’s right here.”

He held the phone out to her and
she glared at him. She grabbed it and held her hand over the mouth piece.
“Kevin. I told you I didn’t want to talk to her.”

“Hey, no worries, mon,” he said in
the same fake Jamaican accent he’d been talking in since they started playing
the first Bob Marley CD. He grinned, picked up the trash bag, and left.