Dog's Green Earth

by Neil S. Plakcy

  “Honestly, I haven’t looked. My boss gave me a directive yesterday afternoon that freaked me out, that I need to increase the revenue at Friar Lake, and I’ve been focused on that.”

  When we returned to the farm stand with our baskets, I noticed that a woman in a pretty flowered apron was giving a lesson on how to make baked apples. I looked at Lili and knew she had the same thought. “You have a kitchen at Friar Lake,” she said.

  “It’s not quite set up for lessons, but I bet we could manage,” I said. “Great minds think alike.”

  We bought a big pumpkin for our yard, and a sheaf of Indian corn for the front door, as well as our apples, and I bought red delicious candy apples for Rick, Justin and myself that glowed with a tooth-cracking sheen. I would have bought for Lili and Tamsen, too, but they declined, Tamsen because she had to drive, and Lili because she found them too sweet.

  Well, she’d have to have other memories of us, then.

  12: High Five

  When I took Rochester out for his walk that afternoon, just before dusk, a few clouds were gray smudges against the light blue canopy of the sky. On Minsk Court, we passed a young mom with an infant in a stroller and a boy of four or five on foot. I’d spoken to her before, because the boy got excited whenever he saw a dog. He was not even as tall as my golden, but he was fearless in his approach.

  He cried, “Yay!” and Rochester pulled us toward him. The boy’s mom, on the phone, tried to rein him in, without success, but it didn’t matter, because Rochester met him halfway. The boy grabbed a hunk of Rochester’s fur and kissed him on the side of his head.

  I knelt to his level and took his hand gently in mine. “Let me show you the best way to come up to a dog.” I held out his palm for Rochester to sniff, and then lick, and the boy giggled.

  “See, that way the dog gets to know you. Otherwise he might get scared by a big, strong boy like you.”

  I heard the mom finish her call. “Sorry, I have to go. I’ll work on finding a location for the meeting, I promise.”

  I stood up. “I hope you don’t mind that I spoke to your son,” I said. “But you know there are some dogs in the community that get skittish when someone rushes up to them.”

  “Oh, no, I appreciate it,” she said. “I’m Epiphania Kosta, and this is Giorgios, and his brother in the stroller is Alexander.”

  “Yassou,” I said, remembering to accent the first syllable, the way I’d been taught.

  “You speak Greek?” she asked.

  “Just a couple of words. My next-door-neighbors growing up were Greek. I figured with a name like Epiphania you had to be Greek. I’m Steve, by the way.”

  We shook hands. “You figured right. Named for my grandmother. I could have been a Helen or a Diana, like my sisters, but I was first born.”

  I decided to embrace my run of luck in coming up with ideas for Friar Lake. And maybe Rochester had tugged me over there because he had a sixth sense Epiphania could be helpful to me. I’d learned to trust his instincts.

  “I couldn’t help overhearing you were looking for a meeting place,” I said. “I run a conference center for Eastern College, upriver just north of Bowman’s Tower, and we host events there all the time.”

  “We do have a kind of educational mission,” she said, considering.

  “What’s your group?”

  “The La Leche League. We encourage women to breast feed, and we have regular meeting with speakers who talk about the benefits of human milk for babies.”

  “Does our location work for you?”

  “Sure. We have members all the way from Bristol to Easton, so somewhere halfway between would be terrific. Do you have a card?”

  I shook my head. “Never think of bringing them when I walk. But I have my phone—can you share your contact with me?”

  It was easier for her to just call me, and then after I ended the call we each created a contact on our respective phones. “I’ll email you a package that includes all the details,” I said. Then I squatted down to Giorgios, who was busy examining a stone on the pavement. “Can you show me what you learned today?”

  He looked up and nodded eagerly and held his hand out to Rochester the way I’d showed him. “Good job, dude.” I high-fived him, getting some of Rochester’s saliva on my palm, and then we turned for home.

  “That was sweet,” I said to Rochester as we walked. “I hope that’ll work out.”

  § § § §

  Sunday morning Rochester woke up at the same time as every day for his walk, but at least because it was Sunday I could stumble back into bed for another hour. After a breakfast of bagels, lox and cream cheese, Lili delegated me to start peeling and slicing apples so she could get to work on the sour cream apple pie recipe Tamsen had given her.

  “You’ve never been much of a baker,” I commented, as we worked. “Did your mom bake?”

  Lili shook her head. “She wasn’t big on desserts. She’d bake us cakes for our birthdays because it was an American custom, but they weren’t very good. When my father wasn’t traveling for work, he’d buy us the kind of Jewish desserts he grew up with – strudel and black and white cookies and rugelach. He made a big deal of finding us hamantashen for Purim wherever we were.”

  She looked up. “My mom used to criticize his sweet tooth and complain that he was going to make us fat.”

  “Your mom certainly had some charming moments,” I said. “My mother’s mother was a terrific baker and my mom always said she didn’t want to compete. And then after my Nana died my mother claimed not to have any of her recipes.”

  We worked smoothly together until the pie was in the oven. Then we took Rochester down to a mini-park by the Delaware and let him run loose, though instead of romping through the piles of autumn leaves he wanted to pee on each one.

  I had to leave for Friar Lake soon after that. Though it was a Sunday, we’d arranged with a community soccer team from Washington’s Crossing to practice drills on one of our hillside fields. We weren’t charging them anything, but the event met one of the criteria President Babson had established when we opened the center, that we serve the neighboring community. Joey and I usually alternated weekend duty, taking comp time during the week in exchange, and even if his father hadn’t been sick, it was my turn.

  Between drills, I chatted up the coach, who ran an interior design store in the center of town and who might be interested in running a series of design workshops. I was proud of myself that I was pushing forward on any idea.

  After they left, Rochester and I did a quick run around the area to make sure none of the kids had left any gear behind. That is, I looked around, and he settled by a tree to chew something. When I finished I tried to call him, but he wouldn’t come. I had to walk over and pry his jaws open.

  At first, I was horrified—it looked like he was chewing part of someone’s mouth. Then I realized it was a kid’s dental retainer, a plastic horseshoe with the imprint of teeth all around it. “Yuck,” I said, as I held it with the tip of two fingers. “You find the grossest stuff to chew, dog.”

  On our way home, I called the soccer coach and let him know that I’d found a retainer, and he said he’d check with his kids to see who might have lost one.

  After dinner, Lili served up slices of the pie. It was terrific, the crust flaky, the apples meltingly tender, the sour cream and walnut topping a perfect accompaniment. “Tamsen and I promised each other we would put aside a piece so we could taste-test both of them.”

  “Why would you want to compete like that?” I asked.

  She just looked at me and shook her head.

  As Lili and I were cleaning up, my phone blipped with a text from Mark Figueroa, Joey Capodilupo’s partner. “I’m worried about Joey,” he wrote. “He’s so stressed between his dad and his job. Can you help?”

  I texted back and agreed to meet Mark the next morning at the Chocolate Ear, which was only a few blocks from his antique store, though I warned him I needed to get to Friar Lake early to make su
re Joey’s guys were doing their work.

  Monday morning had all the hallmarks of a glorious Indian summer day. Sunshine glimmered off the morning dew resting on the last of the petunia blossoms in window boxes along Main Street. There was a pleasant chill in the air, but it wasn’t too cold to sit outside.

  I tied Rochester’s leash around the base of one of the wrought-iron tables. I went inside, where the walls were painted a mellow yellow and decorated with Art Deco posters of French food products like Gautier cognac and Chocolat Carpentier. I ordered a hot chocolate and a ham and cheese croissant for breakfast. Gail baked special dog biscuits, shaped like a bone and iced in pretty colors, and I bought one for Rochester.

  I was sipping my hot chocolate, flavored with raspberry, when Mark Figueroa came hurrying down the sidewalk. He was a tall guy, nearly six-six, and when I first met him he’d been scarecrow-skinny. Since living with Joey, he’d filled out a bit, though his polo shirt was still loose on him and his jeans barely reached to the tops of his loafers. His hair dark was tousled, and he looked like he’d just woken up.

  “Sorry I’m late,” he said. “Joey’s been with his parents and I had to do all the Brody care this morning.” Brody was their pure-white golden retriever, and he was a handful. Even Rochester had trouble keeping him in line.

  “No worries,” I said, as Rochester jumped up to greet Mark and sniff for traces of Brody. “The hound and I are enjoying the Indian summer sun.”

  After letting Rochester sniff his legs and his hand, Mark went into the café, and Rochester slumped back to the sidewalk beside me, though he was keeping his eye on a squirrel in the oak tree beside us.

  Mark came out a couple of minutes later with a steaming cappuccino and a chocolate croissant. He slid into the seat across from me. “Thanks for coming to meet me. I’m getting really worried about all the stress Joey is under, at work and now with his father, and you’re the only person I can think of who could help.”

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Joey has always been this easy-going, happy guy. But lately he’s been very stressed, starting even before his dad got sick.”

  He gulped some of his coffee, then put the cup down on the saucer. “You know he got a new boss after his dad retired? Walter Gibbs?”

  “Yeah.” Joe Capodilupo senior had retired about six months before, replaced by an executive who’d come to us from one of the big colleges in Philadelphia. Though Joey and I were co-managers at Friar Lake, we hadn’t discussed the new guy. “Has that been a problem?”

  “It’s hard to tell if it’s all on Joey, or if it’s his boss. I don’t think Walter likes the fact that Joey used to work for his dad, and he’s cracking down on him. Joey’s been stressed about that. Lots of new forms to fill out and meetings to go to. He’s in a weird position because he’s the only guy with his own facility to take care of—everyone else works on the main campus.”

  A pickup truck boosted on huge wheels cruised slowly past us, blasting Tiffany’s “I Think We’re Alone Now,” and I had a momentary impulse to jump up and dance the way the members of the Umbrella Academy did in what I thought was a classic sequence. But I restrained myself and focused on Mark.

  “And now with this stuff with his dad,” he continued, when the music trailed away. “Joey’s taking off to be with his family and I’m worried Walter won’t like that.”

  “If Joey’s taking personal leave, his boss can’t complain. But I understand Joey wants to do a good job. I’ve already been helping – I got the landscape guys going yesterday and dealt with a plumber Joey had scheduled.”

  “That’s great, and I’m sure he appreciates it. But his parents have been on him non-stop,” Mark said. “They think that because his brothers both have families they can’t ask them for anything. Joey’s the one who has to talk to the doctors, and run his mother around, and sit with his dad and keep him company.” His body sagged. “Even though it’s only been a couple of days, it’s taking a toll on both of us.”

  “What can I do to help?”

  “Can you make sure everything’s going smoothly at work without him? And let him know that? That would make him feel better.”

  “Sure. And I know Joe Senior, so one day I can go over and sit with him for a while, give Joey a break.”

  Mark smiled broadly. “That would be awesome.”

  Too bad I couldn’t take Rochester to the hospital – he was enough to cheer anybody up. I hoped I’d be able to stand in his paws.

  13: Bathroom Break

  I had to hustle up the River Road after I finished with Mark, because I didn’t want Juan and Rigoberto to hang around too long with nothing to do. Joey had promised to be back at work Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on his dad’s condition, so I reminded myself these very early mornings were only a temporary issue.

  I gave Rigoberto and Juan their marching orders for the morning, then prepared for the mission I’d promised to help Joey with, counting bathrooms on the Eastern campus. I didn’t want to leave Rochester alone in the gatehouse, so shortly after nine o’clock I bundled him back in the car with me. “You want to spend some time with Mama Lili?” I asked him, as I backed out of the parking space. “Just promise not to eat any of her student art projects.”

  That reminded me of the retainer, and I noted that the soccer coach hadn’t gotten back to me.

  Friar Lake wasn’t far from Eastern as the crow flies, but the crow didn’t lay out Bucks County’s country roads. I had to do a lot of zigzagging, up and down hills, in order to arrive in Leighville, a small town of old stone and Carpenter Gothic buildings a few miles farther upriver.

  Eastern College sat atop a hill that overlooked the town, leading to a few town-and-gown crises in the past, as people complained the college looked down its nose at the town. President Babson had made some progress in that area, creating after-school programs for kids, staffed by education majors, and inviting high schoolers up to the campus for tours and seminars on applying to college and getting financial aid.

  Nineteenth-century administrators eager to attach their own reputations to those who preceded them had emulated the style of Oxford and Cambridge by nineteenth century administrators eager. Therefore, most of the buildings were designed in the collegiate Gothic style, gray stone with arched doorways and crenellated towers.

  Technically, only service dogs were allowed on the Eastern campus, but I’d gotten an exception for Rochester years before when Babson was eager to hire me for a project in the alumni relations department, and willing to break a rule or two on my behalf. I knew most of the college security officers, so no one ever complained.

  I parked in the lot behind Granger Hall, one of the more unique structures on campus. Donated by a pharmaceutical magnate, it was designed to resemble a pill capsule, white glass on the lower half, maroon glass on the upper half, with a brown band around the fourth floor. The building housed communications and fine arts, and we walked up to Lili’s second floor office on a central curving staircase, through an atrium lit by the glass dome above.

  Lili’s office had big windows that looked out on the campus, golden in the fall light. Most of the photos on the walls of her office were student work, though there were a couple of her own, including one of a Sudanese mother and child, their somber faces bathed in the ethereal glow of a sunbeam shooting down from a cloudy sky.

  “Thanks for watching the hound,” I said. Lili was behind her desk, working at her computer, and he hurried over to say hello to her.

  “How long do you think you’ll be? I have a meeting of all the academic deans at one o’clock.”

  “Why don’t I plan to finish by noon and we’ll have lunch at the Cafette?” I walked over and gave her a peck on the cheek.

  “Sounds like a plan,” she said, and returned to her work.

  Granger Hall was one of the newer buildings on campus, and according to the schedule Joey had given me, all the restrooms were either designated for men or women, though there was a single “famil
y” restroom on the first floor that was suitable for use by anyone.

  I checked it out. Single toilet, sink, hand dryer and fold-down changing table. I made a note on my list that I had verified it and decided to continue with the oldest building at Eastern, Fields Hall, the Victorian stone mansion that had once been the home of Eastern’s founder.

  My first full-time job at Eastern had been with the alumni relations department, where I maintained the records database, pulled out groups of alums to approach for various fund-raising possibilities and updated new addresses, new jobs, and death records. My office was a small room that had been carved out of a much larger one, fortunately with big French doors that led out to the gardens, and I had great memories of working there.

  I navigated the labyrinthine corridors of the repurposed mansion, saying hello to old friends and colleagues, as I surveyed each of the bathrooms. As expected, there hadn’t been enough room to create big single-sex facilities, so each of the ones I checked was a single stall, though a few had urinals as well as toilets.

  I found one more bathroom, on the third floor, that the work-study student had missed, and marked it on my map. I kept going, working through other older buildings on campus, until noon, when I walked over to the Cafette, an on-campus sandwich shop in an old carriage house behind Fields Hall. It was a worn, homey-looking place, with scarred wooden picnic tables and benches and the remains of a brick chimney.

  I ordered for both of us, verified that the two bathrooms in the back were both single-use, and snagged a table outside, under the red and gold canopy of a spreading maple tree. A pair of students sat at a table nearby, the young woman in a crop top, shorts and cat’s ear barrettes, the boy in a Philadelphia Eagles shirt and jeans. How easy life had been back then, I thought. I’d fallen in and out of love with a couple of different girls, going to on-campus movies, dances, and to hear visiting poets. I’d never considered all the complications that would come with becoming an adult.