Mind the Gap, Dash and Lily

by Rachel Cohn

  “Fair,” I conceded. “Totally fair.”

  “You’re not the judge! Of anything!”

  “Of anything?”

  “No. Because your opinion matters too much to me!”

  When you hit quadruple wrong, you basically have two options: You can dig in until you end up buried … or you can put your shoulder to the wrong and try to move it in the other direction.

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “Nothing is coming out right. I’m trying to confess something to you; it isn’t meant to come out as an accusation. What I’m trying to say is that this part of your life that was abstract to me before is now full of specifics. Your life has flashed before my eyes and it’s not a view that I’m used to. I am a private person. I have always been a private person. You are the only person I have ever let wholly into my privacy. And I guess my way of seeing that, of getting used to that, was to think that you’d come into the privacy with me. That we were there together. But that required a very selective blindness on my part. Because this whole time, you were building something out in public. I knew it was there. I love talking to you about it. But it hadn’t occurred to me that I was able to see it from afar.”

  “It’s just pictures, Dash. Pictures of me and my dogs.”

  “I know, I know. That’s what social media is: the fronts of the postcards, rarely what’s written on the backs. I wanted the full postcard, Lily. But as a result, I missed out on seeing where you were. Because that’s what the front of the postcard says, even if it isn’t personal.”

  “I wasn’t sending you messages on my Instagram. I know you’re not on there. I know that’s not how we communicate.”

  “But it’s a part of your life, isn’t it? And it would be easier for me to see if I were on there. If I were a good boyfriend, who checked his girlfriend’s posts.”

  “Stop. Really. If you thought that was what I wanted, do you think I ever would’ve started dating you?”

  I was about to say Fair, totally fair, but I stopped myself.

  Lily smiled. “It’s okay. You can say it.”

  “Nope. Not gonna say it.”

  “Did you follow me?”

  “I’d follow you anywhere.”

  “Not true. And I meant on Instagram.”

  “I don’t have a profile anymore. Thus, cannot follow you. I’m content to be your number one lurker.”

  “Be sure you sign all your valentines that way.”

  “Maybe I can buy my valentines at Lily-the-Dogwalker-dot-com. I recall seeing something heart-shaped.”

  “Those were treats.”

  “I can get them engraved. A special treat from your number one lurker.”

  “If you do that, I’m getting you a collar for Christmas.”

  “Kinky.”

  “Ew.”

  “Look, why don’t I go buy these, and then we can venture out. London awaits!”

  “I thought you wanted to be back in New York?”

  “I want to be with you. And since you’re here and I’m here, let’s make the most of our temporary city and the wild and precious day.”

  I knew Lily would love Covent Garden, with its ornament stalls and ever-present carolers. Gem’s vinyl safely in a bag under my arm, we turned into the area around Seven Dials, stopping for ice cream at a place called Udderlicious. It was only as we were sitting at the table, licking the salted caramel (her) and the black cherry (me), that the sheer ordinariness of what we were doing hit me, as well as how it hadn’t been ordinary in what felt like ages.

  Lily saw me pause.

  “What?” she asked.

  “You’re here,” I said. “You’re really here.”

  “Where else would I be?” she replied.

  But I knew she had plenty of other places to be. I knew so well all the things she brought to my life—calm and sweetness, nerve and verve. But what did I bring to her?

  I could feel myself start to stress.

  No, I counseled myself. Enjoy it. She’s here. This can be the rest of your life.

  “You’re quiet,” Lily observed.

  “Not in my head,” I told her. “Never in my head.”

  “Let me in. I want to hear it.”

  “That’s not the voice I want to be using to talk right now,” I said. “Yours is truly the only voice I want to hear. Tell me about your day.”

  She told me about the dog-handler Harvard she’d visited; I bristled at the sound of the word Harvard but could tell the program had made a good impression.

  “But it’s not like you need to go to dog-walker grad school,” I said. “I mean, you’re like the Megan Rapinoe of dog-walkers. I’ve known that about you since the week we met. And it seems like the secret is more than out, if the testimonials in your Instagram comments are to be believed. And since they were all impeccably spelled, I am inclined to believe them.”

  “There’s always something else to learn,” Lily said.

  “I think you mean there’s always too much to learn,” I countered. “Or at least that’s true for me.”

  Once our cones were licked and eaten, we decided to take the side alleys rather than the main streets. It was only as we neared Covent Garden that we stopped with some alarm.

  From around the corner of our somewhat narrow mew, we heard a terrifying bark. It sounded like a basset hound was auditioning to play all the young girls in The Crucible and had just spotted a trio of witches cavorting in a cauldron. It was pain and euphoria in a single howl, mangled with bursts of ferocity and contention.

  “Oh, no!” Lily cried. Then she broke into a run.

  Most people go running in the other direction when they hear a rabid cry. Not my girlfriend.

  I rounded the corner close at her heels. It suddenly felt like all the streetlights had been turned on and aimed into our faces. I moved my arm up to block my eyes, but Lily kept going.

  “It’s okay,” she started saying. “C’mere, it’s okay.”

  “CUT!” a human voice yelled.

  I took my arm down from my eyes. I saw Lily in front of me comforting a mega–German shepherd. And behind her there was … a camera. And a crew of about a hundred people. And a very irate director.

  “WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?” He didn’t need a bullhorn to sound like a bullhorn. “WHO LET YOU—”

  Then he stopped. Looked at the mega–German shepherd docile in Lily’s arms.

  “How did you … ?”

  A young man with a headset slid next to me. “We’ve been trying to calm that dog down for days,” he confided. “Her trainer is worthless. This is the miracle we’ve been praying for.”

  Lily looked a little flustered when she realized what she’d interrupted. But mostly she was concerned about the dog.

  “What’s her name?” she asked the director.

  “Daisy.”

  The name had meant nothing to me. But Lily looked gobsmacked.

  “Like … the Daisy who starred in the movie version of A Dog’s Porpoise.”

  “One hundred percent that bitch,” the director confirmed. It was clear that his leading lady had chewed his bones for too long.

  Three very glamorous people gathered around.

  “This is unreal,” one of them said. The other two nodded.

  “Co–executive producers,” Headset Guy whispered to me.

  “What does that mean?” I whispered back.

  “I don’t know. It’s like having silver status on an airline. Gets you a slightly better seat, but it’s not, like, a major accomplishment.”

  “Are you a professional?” one of them asked Lily.

  Lily didn’t hesitate. “Yes.”

  “Are you free for the next two hours?”

  Lily looked at me and I nodded.

  “Yes,” she answered.

  The movie was called The Thames of Our Lives and apparently told five interconnected stories of Londoners falling in various forms of love as New Year’s approached. In this particular vignette, Daisy was playing a hapless romantic
who’d died in a freak disco ball accident … only to be reincarnated as a dog who manages to insinuate herself into the household of the hapless romantic’s equally hapless sister. Now the dog was trying to set the sister up with the man she’d loved all along but had never had the courage to ask out. (The sister was being played by Serena Forrest, an American actress with a winsome range and a fulsome accent. The love interest was being played by Rupert Jest, an actor from the Royal Shakespeare Company no doubt looking to subsidize his husband’s touring production of Matilda.)

  The scene they were shooting was not, to my understanding of the plot (such as it was), an important one. The sister and the suitor had just suffered a street-corner spat, and had exited in different directions. Now the dog needed to choose which of them to follow.

  This won’t take long, I thought. All they had to do was film a dog looking both ways, and then eventually going right. Lily was expert at coaxing such a performance with neither howl nor umbrage. Twenty minutes tops, I believed.

  But no. The director thought Daisy didn’t have enough conviction … and then she had “two shades too many.” Between each take, the dog’s fur had to be recalibrated. When there was finally a take that the director and producers found satisfactory … they would try again, just in case they could get it better. And then, after ten or eleven shots like this, they took twenty minutes to set up the cameras to face the dog from a different angle.

  I turned to Headset Guy, who’d told me he was a “PA”—I wasn’t sure whether this was in some way related to the state of Pennsylvania or an indirect way of saying “pa.” I asked him, “Wouldn’t it be easier to move the dog?”

  “Do you need me to get you some water?” he replied.

  Passersby kept craning at the barricades that had been erected, trying to witness some of the action. But the action was minimal, and they soon retreated as boredom pushed them away. I had no such luxury—when Lily stepped away for a second to take some tea, Daisy protested with a snarl that made Big Ben wet his pants a little. Lily hurried back, and the talent licked her joyfully.

  I tried to ingratiate myself with the crew. It apparently took two hundred people to film a single dog, so I had many crew members to choose from.

  I sidled over to the guy holding the long pole that led to the microphone over Daisy’s head. He kept it aloft for a superhuman amount of time, his arms unwavering, with the solemn, determined expression of a Buckingham Palace guard.

  “I imagine people must come up and tickle you all the time,” I said to make conversation. He somehow managed to shift away from me without moving the microphone an inch. This led me to believe that people did not, in fact, come up to him all the time to do that.

  I spotted a woman who was wearing an apron covered with tools and wires.

  “Got any Twizzlers in there?” I inquired. Then, realizing my mistake, I added, “Red Vines?”

  She, too, shied away.

  “Do you have any idea how much longer this will take?” I asked the PA once we crossed the two-hour mark and the director was trying to explain to Daisy her motivation for looking right.

  “Are you sure I can’t get you some water?” the PA replied, then walked away.

  Eventually I wandered far enough to get to the craft services tent. The shoot had clearly run its course, because all I found were a few distaff stumps of celery, a smudge of hummus at the bottom of a bowl, and a dozen servings of chamomile tea.

  I wandered back to the set. Lily was having to stay just out of frame … but still close enough for Daisy to find her there.

  The trio of co–executive producers came over.

  “Are you her manager?” one of them asked me.

  “I’m her boyfriend,” I explained.

  The second co–executive producer sighed. “You should never hire your boyfriend to be a manager.”

  “Better than your mother,” the first co–executive producer said.

  “Yeah, I guess it’s better to hire your boyfriend than your mother.”

  “Oh, I wasn’t using that generically. I meant your mother specifically.”

  “Holy cow!” the third co–executive producer cried, holding out his phone. “Take a look at this!”

  It was a picture of Lily and Daisy, looking like lifelong friends.

  “Serena tweeted this out—” the third co–executive producer said.

  “She knows she’s not supposed to post any images!” the first co–executive producer lamented.

  “Shush!” the second co–executive producer countered. “Look at those comments! Apparently, our dog whisperer has quite a following herself. And Daisy’s and Serena’s respective fans are in love.”

  The third co–executive producer broke into a wide grin. “Ladies, gentlemen, and those who defy such categories, I’m happy to announce … we’re trending.”

  He said this like it was a good thing. The best thing.

  But I wasn’t sure it was a good thing at all.

  nine

  December 22nd

  I didn’t even know his name and he was propositioning me.

  “Do you want to work on The Thames of Our Lives?” asked the same fast-talking producer with the American accent who’d just announced that we were trending. But he was also on a phone call. To someone on the other end of the call, he barked, “Have her circle back to me ASAP.” He tapped the AirPod in his ear and looked at me, like, Well?

  I have two second cousins and one third cousin once removed who work as film crew, and two former aunts who are actresses (that uncle who married them has a type), and so I happen to know a person does not get randomly hired on a big movie or TV production without a lot of layers of decision-making, paperwork … and a union. I don’t belong to a union and I’m not a scab.

  I told the producer, “No, I don’t want to work on your movie. I want you to take responsible care of your show animals! Whose dog is this? The trainer’s who ran off?”

  The producer shrugged. Another producer of unknown rank appeared from nowhere, this one with a British accent. “Daisy’s my dog,” she said.

  I said, “The trainer you hired to work with Daisy was obviously not prepared for the job.”

  “Ya think?” said the American producer with the AirPod in his ear.

  Dash leaned into me and whispered, “Is he talking to you or someone on his phone?”

  I had no idea.

  Daisy’s producer human said, “Job’s yours. And we’ll throw you on-screen to add social media appeal. We can only offer scale but with bumps based on engagement on your socials.”

  “No, thank you,” I said, before I remembered a better, less polite industry term I could have used: hard pass. Then I called out to the dog who would have been my set charge and could have been my scene partner. “Daisy!” Daisy bounded toward me. “Sit,” I commanded her. She looked reluctant and confused. Who wouldn’t be with dozens of film crew and strobe lights that could power a skyscraper directing all their attention at her? Luckily, I was wearing my Lily Dogcrafts coat with the treat pocket sewn into the inner liner. I pulled out a baggie from the treat pocket. “Sit,” I repeated to Daisy.

  She sat. I gave her a handful of treats and then I got down on my knees so that she and I could have a heart-to-heart, head-to-head.

  “Is it time for the Vulcan mind meld?” Dash asked me.

  I still wasn’t sure exactly what the Vulcan mind meld was, but I knew it involved some TV show Dash’s mother loved, and that it was what Dash called my solemn talks with dogs whose humans I perceived to be less than responsible owners. “Yes,” I said to Dash. Then, to Daisy, I said, “Shake.” She held out her paw to me and I shook it with one hand and then, with the other, delivered a few more treats to her. I stroked her sweet head and then gently spoke into her ear. “Daisy, I need you to behave. You’re a big girl and a mighty force. I need you to harness that energy for the good. Not for the chaos. I recognize that your human is less than competent in helping you in this area, so I’m
going to need you to do the work. Be a responsible citizen, Daisy. Can you do that? Shake if you agree.”

  Daisy slobbered a kiss onto my cheek and then raised her paw for another shake. I shook her paw again, delivered a final round of treats, and then kissed her wet nose. “Good girl, Daisy.” Daisy’s producer human was holding an iPad. To her, I said, “I know someone in Twickenham who could probably help you find a good trainer. Would you like me to put her email address into your iPad?” The British producer nodded.

  I typed Jane Douglas’s contact information into the iPad and returned it to the British producer. “Aren’t you a macher,” said the American producer to me, then walked off as if we’d never met.

  I turned to Dash. Sometimes when I look at him, it’s like I want to melt. He wears my heart on his face. “Show me London? Finally?”

  He grinned and made a pocket of his arm for mine to latch into. “M’lady,” he said.

  We had started to walk off the set when one of the main actors, Rupert Jest, came rushing toward us. “Lily Dogcrafts, is it?” he asked me. “I’ve seen your IG. Marvelous!” He had the kind of posh accent like maybe his cousins worked at Buckingham Palace. It wasn’t a clipped royal accent from The Crown, but like one of those characters on the show who are always coming into the Queen’s private quarters to deliver solemn news and address her as Majesty. Dash and I stopped walking and Rupert Jest handed me a large brown envelope. “If you’re not too busy tomorrow night, I’d be honored if you and any friends you want to invite were my guests at my husband’s production of Happy Chrimbo, Dick Whittington.” To Dash’s and my bewildered faces, he explained, “It’s a pantomime. A theatrical performance that’s a British tradition at Christmas, often based on fairy tales or historical figures. Dick Whittington was a legendary London mayor and also a popular subject in British mythology. We’ve taken some liberties with the story, given it some modern gravitas, but still good fun. Please come.”