Year of the Dog

by Shelby Hearon

  What was his problem, I wondered. What didn’t he want to tell? His dad was in the pen? His mom ran a soup kitchen? Did any of that matter? It did, of course it did, but not like he thought. How could you get close to anybody if you didn’t talk about all your baggage? Maybe that’s why I’d never gone out with this scraggly face-hair type of guy always putting some kind of cap on his head, always having scabs on his knees, always knowing so damn much stuff. How could you get close to somebody who only sprang to life in Algebra IV or across the ocean?

  “Beulah needs to chase her ball,” I said, heaving a sigh that must have filled up his carefully bare room. “She needs to get her exercise.”

  At the sound of her name, precious puppy trotted to my side, and I called her a “good girl,” and invited her to “come.”

  We walked down the green yard to the waterfront edged in reeds and wild purple flowers. Seagulls yelled with their human screech and flew toward town. I’d brought a yellow tennis ball, having first read every scrap of writing on play toys in the Puppy Manual, in case it warned Never give a Companion Dog a ball to chase.

  “We get winter birds in South Carolina,” I said. “Do you feed the ones that stay?”

  “Uh,” James said. “I guess we will, put out birdseed this winter, me and Pete.”

  And I held my tongue and didn’t ask if this was their first winter here. Instead, I watched Beulah play catch, trotting after the tennis ball as it rolled down the grassy unfenced lawn, bringing it back in her teeth every time I gave her long leash a little tug. She had a fine time; dogs didn’t think about the past. Now being a yellow ball on a sloping yard; now being fetching the ball for your person. James played, too: he lay on his side and rolled all the way to the water’s edge with the puppy following along after him, not knowing what to think. Person on the ground!

  After a bit, he suggested, with the sun slanting low over the mountains across the lake, “We could eat at Irv’s. You passed it? When you turned off Pine? Kind of an old diner, with ten kinds of pie. They’ve got blueberry waffles and sausage from six a.m. to midnight. If you’re not some kind of vegetarian?”

  “Sure,” I said, resolved to help make it work, my first-ever date with a stranger. “Sounds fine.”

  10

  EVEN THOUGH I had read the Puppy Manual from cover to cover and knew the traits the Companions were looking for, as well as the unwelcome habits we were to avoid, I didn’t feel the least bit of apprehension the morning of our first Puppy Social. In fact, all I could think about was that Precious Dog would meet lots of other puppies about her age, all learning to be trusty affectionate companions to a blind person the same as she was. It was early July, though still cool as spring at home, and I’d brushed and groomed her creamy coat, and readied us both in a haze of almost dizzy anticipation. Putting on her working leash, as we’d been instructed, and packing her umbilical leash in my bag for playtime, I dressed myself in summertime white pants and a red-striped tee.

  For the last month, Beulah had been growing into her big padded paws, her little belly had disappeared, and now she opened her eyes wide and stood stock still at the sound of her name, to let me know I had her full attention. For the last month, too, she’d been bravely putting up with her vaccines (for dysentery, paravirus, and rabies), taking her heartworm medication, and then, as a sort of reward for us both, each evening before bedtime flopping down on our rented rug, on which I spread a clean sheet, and letting me feel all around her eyes and mouth, rub her gums, run my fingers between her toes, and stroke her smooth tummy—a gentle massage that got her used to human touch and got me used to seeing her, the way a blind person would, with my hands.

  We were meeting for the Puppy Social at what had once been the Country Day School, a daycare facility for preschoolers, and, driving south, with Beulah on the floor of the front seat where Companion puppies had to ride, I found that the turnoff was a road almost due west of PACIFIC VIEW. As I passed the gas station and then the motel, I slowed down and waved, as if at an old friend, thinking how frantic I’d been while staying there, to find a place to live, to get my puppy. Pacific View, Vermont. That seemed like years ago instead of scarcely two months.

  Getting out of my car, letting Beulah have a busy break before we went inside—over in a brushy area which one of the Companions steered us to—I expected everyone to be feeling the way I was, thinking we’d all sort of show off our dogs and say nice things about other people’s dogs. But the ones who had been to Puppy Socials before had a different attitude, one that seemed to treat the event as one more hurdle.

  We all went inside, putting the loose leashes on our dogs and taking our seats in the small kindergarten-size chairs set in a circle, in a large bright room with red vinyl floors, blue-checked curtains at the low windows, and a poster of giant yellow sunflowers facing the door. The Companion leader, Betty, a woman perhaps in her fifties, with a wonderfully easy way of greeting the puppies as if she’d raised them all, made the introductions—though I didn’t get anyone’s name at that point, not even the names of the puppies, all of whom were labs except for one golden retriever, for staring all around at what I hoped would be new friends for Beulah and me.

  She had us bring our dogs to attention, walk them around the room twice on their loose leashes, very fast the second time around, and then have them sit beside us. Then, being very friendly and casual, she went over with us why we’d been brought together, explaining it was not only to socialize, although that was the emphasis for today, but so that we could catch at an early stage any of the potential problems which had to be noted and corrected before they became real problems. Flipping through the thick paperback copy of the Puppy Manual, she reminded us to watch for those behaviors which could prevent our puppies from getting to work: building worry, growing fearful, becoming distracted, and soliciting approval.

  I guess I only half-listened, being so sure that Beulah was Perfect Dog. But perhaps all new first-time raisers started out with that idea. And I felt relaxed, at least I tried to, while Betty finished her talk, reassuring us that what she was saying would become clearer in time. Moving around the room informally, she had us take off their leashes—and let them loose! What a thrill! The dogs who had done this before seemed to know they could bound around and jump up on each other and roll on the floor and nip and chase each other, but the young puppies like Beulah and Edgar, the golden retriever, had a harder time figuring out how to romp and be rowdy, and they mostly watched.

  Betty passed out green tennis balls, yarn balls, and Nylabones, and the older puppies wrestled for them with their teeth and that seemed all right to do and reminded me of the big dogs at the Dog Park. Then, after a while, we called them to our sides and to attention, and Betty announced it was time to trade dogs.

  Trade dogs? I had trouble getting my mind around the idea. How could Beulah understand another person? How could I give commands to another dog? But I went along with it, and received a small, curious black lab named Naomi, who sniffed my shoes and tried to dig her nose into my bag. But I called her name, and told her “down,” slipping a hand under her front legs and pushing her gently, as we were supposed to do, till she rested on her stomach on the floor. Except that she wriggled away and went off to sniff the far corner, just at the very moment that Beulah came back to me and leaned her warm head against my knee. She had been assigned to a hunky guy whose big yellow lab kept trying to mount every dog that came near it, male or female, so I couldn’t exactly blame her for wandering off. But then generally the switching hadn’t gone well: a nervous lab larger and paler than Beulah stood frozen to a spot behind her person’s chair and wouldn’t move; a small black lab across the room puddled on the floor as her male raiser watched, turning red; and Edgar, the golden retriever, went looking for a tennis ball.

  Then Betty, in the very chatty, low-key way that I now found terrifying, perched on the edge of a table and pointed out to us that we had wonderful puppies who were bound to be good companions, but they
had a way to go. She told the raiser of the big aggressive lab that his dog would have to overcome his mounting problem, since companions were never neutered until after they were selected, in case they were chosen to be breeders. And explained to the person of Naomi, the curious puppy I’d had, that she needed to be taught to focus and attend, and gave her some pointers on avoiding distraction. To the heavy-set man who belonged to the black lab who puddled, she suggested that maybe he left her alone too much, that she was growing fearful—“notice how she tucks her tail under”—and that four hours a day was too long to stay away. She pointed out to the golden retriever’s person the flakes on his coat, the dander, or dandruff, a telltale sign, she said, that he was building worry. “He needs to get out more, take him with you to your children’s schools or to the supermarket.”

  All this time I’d been holding my breath. Wanting her to say that Beulah was their prize puppy and to watch how well she was doing. But, instead, and my face burned hot when I heard it, Betty walked over to me saying, “She’s soliciting approval, don’t you see? She looks to you for your responses instead of making her own.” And, to demonstrate, she called Beulah’s name, at which my puppy turned her gaze in my direction.

  After we’d put our dogs back on their leashes, Betty said to the raiser with the pale dog who still stood frozen, “Maybe she and Naomi should switch. Why don’t you two work it out, trade them for a night?” And, while my head was still buzzing, she called me over with Edgar’s person, a woman named Sylvia, and said, “We’ll let Beulah and Edgar wait a few weeks, and then we’ll work out a playdate for them. Edgar’s basically doing fine, but he needs to get out more. And you’re doing well with outings for Beulah, but you don’t want her being so solicitous of you. You don’t want her getting too attached.”

  We all went out to our cars, and everybody else drove off, leaving the two of us who remained to talk a minute by our cars. Sylvia, a dark-haired woman maybe in her forties, in a long woven skirt in eggplant and oatmeal colors, sounded discouraged. “I try to get out more with Edgar, but I’ve got kids, and my husband . . . These people think you’ve got nothing else to do.” I guess I sounded pretty down, too, when I protested, “But I thought you were supposed to get them attached to you. I thought that was the point.” Still, we shook hands, and traded phone numbers, and the dogs wagged goodbye.

  Driving home in my Honda with the Carolina plates, I consoled myself with the thought that if Good Dog didn’t get to end up a companion to some worthy and needful blind person, but got returned to me, she could ride up on the passenger’s seat beside me as we trekked all the way back to Carolina (a warm and steamy world she had never known), and at night she could sleep on the foot of my bed, and in the mornings lick the last of the scrambled eggs off my plate. Cheering myself up. Not wanting to deal with the knowledge that I needed to start learning to wean my puppy just when she’d stolen my heart.

  Building Worry

  11

  AUNT MAY CALLED me on a Monday in August to actually invite me over. “I haven’t been the most hospitable of kin,” she confessed. “I thought perhaps, Janey, if you were free some afternoon this week, we could have a proper tea.”

  “Would today be all right?” I didn’t want to seem too eager, but, as I explained to her, “This afternoon, Beulah, my dog, is visiting with a friend named Edgar. So I could come, you know, without her—.”

  “That’s thoughtful of you, dear.” Her voice picked up. “Do come this very afternoon, certainly. At four? I haven’t been entertaining, to tell the truth, since I went part-time at the library. It seems the more time one has . . .”

  “That’s good,” I said, “and thanks. This is a real treat for me. I guess I’ve been getting a little homesick, probably it’s this heat that reminds me of Peachland. I miss the pharmacy especially. You always miss your work, don’t you?”

  “Indeed,” Aunt May said.

  I didn’t intend to share with her that I’d been worrying about not doing a proper job socializing my lovable puppy, since I knew she had a blind spot about dogs. But Edgar’s person, Sylvia, and I had been helping each other out. When it was your turn to be the puppy-sitter, you took them both, but let them play together and nap inside, since we didn’t figure a blind person would be walking two dogs. And, at the start, Sylvia and I would have a cup of coffee and a short people visit, which I looked forward to. She made watercolor greeting cards of Vermont scenes which she placed in local shops. It happened, she told me, that the more people used email and cells, the more art and craft went into the ways to make paper. I’d sent a box of her notecards to my mom—purple, red, green, blue washes of the lake and mountains. I’d even enclosed stamps, because a trek to the Post Office was something my mom thought you made once a year at Christmastime to mail packages, and not worth the trip just to send off news you could say over the phone.

  This time, I resolved I was not going to screw things up with Aunt May, arriving, the way I did last time, in scruffy shorts, unannounced and empty-handed. This time, after I took Beulah to her playdate with her new friend Edgar, I stopped by the flower stall on Church Street and got eight fully-opened roses in yellow and reds, August colors. And then, freshened up and in my long white pants and a nice red tee with a little scalloping around the neckline, I left for her house in plenty of time.

  Aunt May welcomed me at the front door and took the bouquet. She had on cropped tan trousers with a fresh white shirt with deep pockets, and tan cords on the glasses that hung around her neck. The last time I’d been here, the only time, we’d sat in her rug and book-filled front room, the receiving room as my grandmama, her sister, would have said. But this time she’d spread a real cloth in the dining room with one plate of what she said were cream scones and another of tiny pimento cheese sandwiches. A real tea. I felt my eyes fill at finally being invited over in a way that I’d expected the first time. I could even smell the tea leaves, steeped way stronger than I liked, but there was a pitcher of real cream as well as lemon slices to help me out. Seeing what she’d done, the trouble she’d gone to, I did have to admit it was better I hadn’t brought Beulah and had to keep her locked a long time in the hot airless car.

  “We’ll wait a moment or two,” Aunt May said, popping my eight bright roses in a mason jar and putting them in the center of the white cloth. “I’ve invited, I hope that’s agreeable with you, Janey, a friend of mine who lives in the carriage house out back, to make it more of a party.”

  I admit I felt a rush of anticipation. Could it be that I’d actually meet Bert Greenwood? Mom would have a duck! I wanted to ask, if that was proper to do, where his bad view of dogs came from, and if he’d ever once put a good dog in a story. I’d now read two of his books—the one about the retired lady whose brother had sicced a dog on her when she was young, leaving her with lifetime scars, and the one in which a woman whose wrongly convicted husband survives being mauled by a posse of prison dogs. Both times, the judge who solves the cases, Judge Caldwell, retires to his chambers for a jelly glass of bourbon to help him get his mind over the awful event. You had to like the judge. He had big feet which resisted wingtips, and, naturally, happened to be widowed, the way most private eyes were, so they could be thinking about some female and make it clear they were not living alone by inclination. Then the librarian lady he’s seeing has to look up old cases for him to peruse so he can fit the pieces together and bring the guilty to justice.

  Then we heard the back door open, and I followed Aunt May into the kitchen, though she might not have intended me to. A small woman with tight gray curls, glasses and a flowered violet dress came in and set down a basket of fresh peaches. “This must be Janey,” she said. “The niece. You’re the niece, aren’t you? What a resemblance, you two.” And she looked across to where Aunt May and I stood, each a head taller than she was. She gestured to the basket. “I thought you might be missing peaches, being from Carolina, although I’m sorry to confess these are from New Jersey.”

  “I
know,” I said, reaching out to shake her hand. “They call them eastern peaches in the market and they’re delicious—Jersey peaches.” I laughed because that sounded such a contradiction.

  Aunt May introduced the woman, “Janey, this is Kitty Boisvert who lives in the back. Kitty is a local historian, rather, a historian of the local area.”

  “Sooner or later,” the small woman said pleasantly, her teeth slightly crooked, “historians always end up beholden to librarians.”

  “I’m glad to meet you,” I said, staring at her, trying to be friendly and not let my disappointment show.

  “Come on, Kitty,” Aunt May said, “peel a few, then, while I ready the tea.”

  “May,” Kitty talked as she slipped the fragrant fruit from their skins, “I got a call on my machine from a Mr. Levine—.”

  “Levine?” Aunt May considered. “Offhand, I’m sure I don’t—.”

  “The things I can’t remember.” Kitty wiped her hands. “I leave these messages for people and then when they call back I haven’t the foggiest. I guess I could look him up in the phone book, see what he does, anyway, where he lives. But there’ve got to be at least sixty Levines in the phone book, I’m sure.”

  “That’s nice,” I murmured, thinking as I often did up here that I hadn’t really got to know my temporary home yet.

  Aunt May stopped, teapot in hand. “What’s nice?”

  Kitty threw back her gray curls and laughed. “She thinks they’re Jewish.” She looked at me, still laughing.

  Aunt May laughed, too, shaking her head while I turned red with embarrassment. Because of course that’s exactly what I had thought. She explained, “It’s L-a-v-i-g-n-e, Luh-veen, a common French Canadian name. It means vine, grows everywhere. There’s a—.”

  “—funeral home,” Kitty interrupted. “That’s it. Lavigne’s Funeral Home. I’m doing a little research on mortuaries, those that began in the 19th century or earlier. Times have changed. That’s history, how things were. That’s it, I remembering calling him, Lavigne.”