Dog People

by Jennifer Weiner

  “No,” Michael said, trying to sound stern. “No, Lady. Your bed is down there.”

  He’d looked at her. Lady had looked right back. While he wondered if she was going to growl, or even bite him, she’d strolled to the end of the bed, curled up at his feet, and rested her muzzle on his ankle. Not only did Michael not move her, but he barely moved himself, not wanting to disrupt the dog’s slumber.

  “Oh, that’s it,” Tina had said. “Game, set, and match to Lady.”

  “You’re being ridiculous,” Michael said… but, as the days went on, it became clear that Lady liked his wife well enough, but she was Michael’s girl. When both of them were in the house, Lady would stay with him, curling up underneath his desk when he was playing solitaire on his computer, following him around the kitchen when he cooked (he’d toss her little bits of cheese or deli turkey when Tina wasn’t looking). At night, when they watched TV, Lady would curl up between Tina and Michael, but, as the night progressed, she’d relocate to Michael’s lap, a warm, comforting weight against his legs. He’d found all of her favorite places to be scratched; he’d discovered the especially silky patch of fur, right at the base of her ears.

  “She’s got you wrapped around her little paw,” Tina would say, and Michael couldn’t deny it.

  Lady was smart, with a repertoire of tricks. Sometimes at night, Lady would hop off the bed and stand by Michael’s side and give herself a shake, repeating the move until he was awake.

  “Do you need to go out?” he’d ask. Yawning, he’d get himself out of bed and grope around on the floor for his slippers… at which point Lady would hop into the warm spot he’d vacated and curl up, looking almost smug.

  “That’s sneaky,” he’d say, although he couldn’t help but admire the little dog’s resourcefulness. “Scooch over, you bed-hog,” he’d tell her, and she’d obligingly make room. He’d put his arm around her, and she’d rest her head on his shoulder, and they’d fall asleep like that, usually waking up in the morning with Lady’s muzzle on his chest and Tina asking, “Hot date, you two?”

  “Do you ever wonder where Lady came from?” Tina asked. “She’s so well-behaved. I bet she had a family before us.” Looking at the dog, she said, “Hey, Lady, did you have a family?”

  Normally, Michael let Tina take charge of Lady’s made-up life. That day, he spoke up, and found that there was something exciting and subversive about inventing Lady’s story. “I bet she ran away from home and joined the circus.” Which, of course, was the thing he’d dreamed of doing when he’d been a boy.

  Over the next months and then years, they came up with a history, about how Lady had run away from a cruel father to join the circus, how she’d done a high-wire act with another dog named Levon, and how they’d fallen in love, and Levon had left once Lady discovered she was pregnant. (“Seduced and abandoned!” Tina would say in her Lady voice. “Heartbroken and betrayed! Lady.”) Lady had left the circus, and given birth, and seen each of her pups off to a good home, only no one had wanted her (“Women of a certain age! Invisible! Disposable! Not right! Lady,” Tina would say). She’d been living rough when a dog catcher had scooped her up (“Police overreach!”) and taken her first to a shelter, then to the dog store, from which she had finally made her way to them.

  “Like it here. Good situation. Nice man. Lady,” Tina-as-Lady would say. Lady’s ears would swivel as she followed the conversation, her wise dark eyes seeming to take it all in.

  Michael had promised himself that he wasn’t going to be one of those people: the ones who pushed their dogs in carriages and called them their fur babies. The ones who posted eulogies on Facebook when their pets crossed the “Rainbow Bridge,” and spent too much money on food or treats or—ugh—pet clothing. “You have your fur, and that’s enough, right?” he’d ask Lady. Tina had just laughed. By the time Lady had been with them for six months, she was eating a premium salmon-and-whole-grain-blend kibble that cost fifty dollars per bag. She had little rubber snow boots for wintry days and a fleece jacket with faux-fur trim. She had a jaunty yellow rain slicker and a small Eagles jersey to match the one Michael wore on game days. She had beds in every room of the house and a basket full of rawhide chews and Nylabones. She had friends: Larry, the elderly basset hound; Lincoln, a rescued West Highland terrier; Moochie, a rat terrier, who lived in the building and had an especially jaunty walk. On the weekends, Michael would Google pet-friendly places to take her. They walked along Forbidden Drive in Fairmount Park and drove out to the Pine Barrens, where Lady could go for an off-leash romp.

  For the next eleven years it was just the three of them. When Tina volunteered at the local elementary school, Michael would sit at his desk, and Lady would curl by his feet. When Michael went shopping, or attended the painting class he took every week, Lady would stand on the arm of the sofa with her front legs on the windowsill, staring forlornly down at the street. Tina loved to send him pictures of Lady in that pose. She looks like a WWII wife waiting for her husband to come back from the front, she’d say. Sometimes, teasingly, she’d say, “You love that dog more than you love me.” No, no, Michael would protest. He didn’t love Lady more. He loved her differently. And he loved her very, very much.

  The summer after her seventy-fifth birthday, Tina found a lump in her breast. “I’m sure it’s fine,” she said, after making an appointment for an MRI. “I’ll be a-okay. Right, Lady?”

  “Sure thing,” she replied in her Lady voice. “Whatever you say. But if you die, I’ll have your man all to myself. Lady.”

  Michael shook his head, feeling a cold finger press against his heart. “She doesn’t think that.”

  “Lady,” Tina said, “am I competition?”

  “No competition,” Tina-as-Lady said. “Patchy fur. No snout. Lady.”

  “Lady, Tina’s going to be fine,” Michael said. To his wife, he said, “We’ll walk you to your appointment.”

  The MRI was on a Monday morning. The news wasn’t good. By that afternoon, Tina’s doctor had called with the names of two oncologists. Tina had gone in for a mastectomy six weeks later and had started radiation and chemo as soon as she was well enough, but by then the cancer had spread. After six months, when the doctor suggested another round of chemo, Tina had asked, “Is it going to cure me?”

  The doctor had sighed.

  “If I were your mom, what would you tell me to do?” Tina asked.

  “I would tell you to go home, and be with your husband and your family, and enjoy yourself as much as you could,” said the doctor.

  That was what Tina had done. Four months after that, she’d been dead, and then it was just Michael and Lady, all alone.

  * * *

  His son and his daughter both came; Chris for two weeks, Chloe for a month. By the time Chloe finally left, Michael was relieved. He appreciated that his daughter wanted to be a comfort and that she intended his grandchildren to be a distraction, but the truth was, spending his days with a weepy young woman daughter, a bored four-year-old who kept whining, “When can we go home?” and a preverbal toddler who had to be watched every second, lest he pull poor Lady’s tail or try to eat her kibble, was exhausting.

  “We’ll be okay, won’t we, Lady?” he’d asked as he began putting his house back in order, washing the sheets from the guest bedroom, sweeping crumbs off the kitchen floor. Then there’d been a knock on the door. Lady’s ears had swiveled, and she’d gotten to her feet.

  Michael opened the door to find a small, determined-looking woman standing there, a baking dish in her hands and a hopeful look on her face. “Michael? I’m Suzanne. Your down-the-hall neighbor?”

  Michael nodded. He knew Suzanne, to say hello to at the mailbox or to chat about the weather in the elevator. She’d sent a card after Tina’s funeral.

  “I’m sure you were flooded with food last month, but I thought that maybe you’d appreciate something now.” She handed him the dish, which smelled of meat and cheese and oregano.

  “Oh! And this is for Lady.
” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a rawhide bone. Lady sniffed at it delicately, but when Suzanne bent down to extend it toward her, Lady turned away.

  “Sorry. She’s a little shy,” Michael said.

  “Oh, don’t apologize. I completely understand.” Suzanne pressed her hands against the skirt of her dress and said, “I hope you like the lasagna. Just bring the dish back when you’re done.” She’d cocked her thumb toward the opposite end of the hall. “I’m 7-J.”

  “Would you like to come in and have some with me?” asked Michael.

  “Well, if you’re sure I’m not intruding,” she’d said.

  “Of course not,” he said, and held the door. Between her smile and the whiff of her perfume, he almost didn’t hear Lady give a low, warning growl.

  * * *

  If she had reminded him of Tina at all, it would have been strange, but Suzanne Nelson couldn’t have been any more different from Michael’s wife. Where Tina had been tall and broad-shouldered, Suzanne was petite, with narrow wrists and tiny hands and feet. Tina had dark hair, with skin that tanned easily and maintained a healthy flush, even in winter. Suzanne was pale, with silvery hair, round blue eyes, and freckles. She had worked as a paralegal, had married one of the lawyers in the firm that had employed her, and had been a stay-at-home mother—“and, now, itinerant grandma”—after that. Her husband had died four years previously, and Suzanne had sold their house and bought the condo down the hall, as well as a small place in Florida. “I winter in Miami,” she told him, smiling. “I always wanted to say that, and now I can.”

  Suzanne was smart, witty, well traveled, with a list of countries she wanted to visit and sights she wanted to see. She was a good cook and an even better sous-chef and dishwasher. While Tina had not been the least bit athletic, Suzanne played golf and tennis, and she and Michael joined a pickleball group that played in the mornings at Seger Park. A year after she’d brought him lasagna, Suzanne had put her condo on the market and moved her things into Michael’s place. They’d swapped some of his furniture for her antiques and made room on the bookshelf for her framed pictures and souvenirs from her travel books.

  Chris had liked her immediately. Chloe had not. “I’m glad you’re not alone,” Chloe had told him. “I know it’s not what Mom would have wanted for you. But didn’t Suzanne swoop in awfully fast?”

  Michael had shrugged. “I guess single gentlemen who still have their own teeth and a driver’s license are a hot commodity.”

  Chloe scooped her hair into a bun, then let it fall around her cheeks. “I guess it’s just the idea that my kids won’t even remember Mom. They’ll think Suzanne is their grandmother.”

  “Oh, honey.” Michael had put his arm around Chloe, drawing her close. Remembering how, when she’d been a baby, at first he’d been afraid to hold her, worried that he’d drop her, but once Tina had basically shoved her into his arms and said, “I need to use the bathroom,” he’d held her against his chest, a tiny, warm weight making delicate snuffling sounds, and he’d never wanted to let her go. “We’ll make sure they know about your mom. We’ll show them pictures, and tell them stories. We’ll do our best.”

  Chloe went quiet. “Lady doesn’t like her,” she finally said.

  “Lady will get used to her,” Michael said, and Chloe had shrugged. “Just be careful,” she’d said, sounding not unlike his mother.

  He missed Tina. Of course he did. He missed her for who she’d been—her looks, her quick wit, her way of seeing things; he missed her because she’d been the one with whom he’d shared his own life’s history. Suzanne seemed to understand. “I’m not trying to replace her, because I know I never could. You had a life with her, the way I had a life with my Ed. But we’ve both got some good years left.” She’d given him her frank, sunny smile. “And I think we’re good together.”

  Michael thought so, too. He knew that Chloe would come around, in time. The only problem, the glitch in the system, was Lady.

  It wasn’t that Lady didn’t like Suzanne. She hadn’t growled since the first time, hadn’t chewed up her shoes or peed on her handbag. Occasionally, she’d even sit at Suzanne’s feet and permit Suzanne to scratch between her ears.

  Nor was the problem Suzanne not liking Lady. Suzanne doted on the dog, bringing her home a treat every time she went to the market, scraping table scraps into her food dish when she thought Michael wasn’t looking.

  The problem was the voice Suzanne used when she talked as the dog.

  Over the years, Michael and Tina had established Lady’s voice as low and playfully gruff. It was the voice of a woman who’d known hard times and seen bad things, a little cynical, wised-up and knowing.

  Suzanne’s Lady-voice was a lisping, babyish falsetto that was strange and so jarring that Michael had almost laughed the first time he’d heard it.

  “Dada, me not want to go out in the rwain,” she’d said, as Michael was coaxing Lady into her raincoat.

  “What?” he’d asked. “Oh, no, really, she’s fine.”

  “No, Dada, me don’t want to get my pwetty fur wet!” Suzanne had said.

  Michael had looked at Lady, who looked back at him with an expression that seemed to say What the hell?

  “I promise, she’s fine,” he’d said, and grabbed his umbrella and hurried out into the hall. He’d walked Lady twice around Washington Square Park, trying to figure out what to say. You’re doing it wrong? Lady doesn’t sound like that? And also, I’m not her father, and I’m certainly not her dada, I’m her secret boyfriend?

  On the third lap, he’d decided on a course of action. Back in the apartment, he’d hung up his wet things and Lady’s raincoat and used a towel to dry off her undercarriage. He’d found Suzanne in the living room, paging through an issue of The New Yorker.

  “Listen,” he said. She’d looked up at him, her blue eyes round and guileless. “I know this is going to sound ridiculous. But Tina used to talk for Lady. And—”

  Before he could go on, Suzanne had winced and grabbed his hand. “Oh, God, I’m so sorry!” she’d cried. “You don’t have to explain. I completely understand. I won’t do it again.”

  Except she had.

  “Dada, cawwy me!” she’d said two days later, when they were walking into the elevator. He’d looked at her, and she’d pressed her hand against her mouth. “Sorry, sorry!”

  But that night, at bedtime, when Michael had patted the bed, giving Lady her cue to hop up beside him, Suzanne had said, “Are you sure this is a good idea?”

  “Is what a good idea?”

  “Having Lady in the bed.” Suzanne looked down, rubbing her fingers on the comforter. “It’s just… well, I once heard a terrible story about a rescue dog that slept with its owner. The woman rolled over onto the dog, and the dog just freaked out and bit her. She had to see a plastic surgeon.”

  Stiffly, Michael said, “Nothing like that has happened in the twelve years Lady’s lived here.”

  “Fine,” Suzanne had said, smiling. “But is it okay if I put a pillow between us?”

  So if Lady freaks out she’ll bite me and not you? Michael thought.

  “Of course,” he’d said. “Whatever you need to be comfortable.”

  “And I promise I’ll stop using a voice for her. I know it was your thing with Tina.”

  “I’d appreciate that,” said Michael, and Suzanne had scooched over to kiss him, eventually picking up the pillow between them and tossing it to the floor. He could feel Lady’s eyes on the two of them, dark and solemn, like she was taking it all in, reserving judgment until she had all the evidence in hand.

  After that, Michael and Suzanne slept with a pillow laid between them. And, despite her promises, Suzanne kept using the babyish lisp for Lady. “Look, here’s the thing,” Michael finally said, one morning at breakfast, when Suzanne, as Lady, had said, “I wuv snausages! Dada give me some?”

  “This is probably going to sound crazy, but Tina and I had a whole backstory worked out for Lady.”
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br />   Suzanne raised her eyebrows. “Oh?”

  He gave her the brief version—the circus, the pregnancy, the heartbreak, the homelessness, Lady’s eventual arrival in their lives. Suzanne gave him a blank stare. Then, in the Lady-voice she’d adopted, she said, “Dada finks I’m a woman of woose virtue! But I’m a good girl!”

  Ugh.

  Meanwhile, Suzanne was glaring at him indignantly. “How can you think those terrible things about your sweet little dog?” Turning to Lady, she said, “How can he think those bad things about you?”

  “They’re not bad things,” he said, hoping his voice wasn’t as loud as it sounded in his own ears. Besides, you’re the one who thinks she’s going to bite us. “Look, we know she was pregnant and that she had a litter right before we got her.”

  “Maybe she was widowed. Maybe she was in love. Why does it have to be that she was abandoned by some dog playboy?”

  Michael forced himself to take a deep breath. “Okay. Maybe we can just forget her whole history. But the voice… maybe it could sound a little bit more, like…” He did his best approximation of how Tina-as-Lady had sounded. “I’ve been around. I’ve seen some things.”

  Suzanne giggled.

  “What?”

  “Sorry,” she’d said, “but you sound like that actor, the one from Hairspray—Harvey Fierstein? And actually,” she’d said, before he could respond to that, “I read this book by a dog trainer once, and he said that dogs respond best to high-pitched voices. I’ve talked with all my dogs like this! And you like it, don’t you, Lady?”

  Lady had wagged her tail. Not very enthusiastically, in Michael’s opinion.

  “See? Lady says it’s just fine. Lady says”—Michael braced himself as Suzanne raised her voice to that hateful warble—“Dada needs to stop being such a meanie!”

  Michael had taken several deep breaths.