Stepdog

by Nicole Galland

  When I got home that evening, exhausted but excited, my darling wife had soup and a sandwich waiting for me. After I gulped it down, we put all the paperwork together, threw in affidavits from friends, my last entry visa, certificates from a doctor and a fingerprinter, a copy of our marriage certificate, our birth certificates, passport photos, and filing fees of about $1,400 in a check made payable to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

  Chucked it in the mail.

  And then we waited.

  And continued to play house.

  With the dog.

  Chapter 8

  My unemployed status was somewhat ameliorated by getting cast (as I did most years) as Bob Cratchit in New Boston Theater’s Christmas Carol—a creaky old chestnut I knew by heart, but Sara gave her okay, I loved the cast, especially the kids, it was easy money, a four-week contract (conveniently, they assumed my performance visa was still valid and didn’t even ask about it). Best of all, except for a few days right before opening, I was only ever called to rehearsals in the late afternoon, so my arboretum routine with the Three Musketeers was barely interrupted.

  Sara and I became increasingly matrimonial as the weeks passed, sometimes truly forgetting the marriage was for a green card. Several times a week I even stopped thinking about my LP collection for hours at a stretch. The Three Musketeers continued to cross my path—and Cody’s path—and there was also a constant stream of people seeing the dog for the first time, which allowed me to practice referring to my wife until I could do it without a hesitation.

  In fact it became a bit of a running joke. One day, when a new mother told me what a lovely dog I had, Alto immediately declared, sullenly, “It’s not his dog,” and then Marie said, heartily, “It’s his wife’s dog,” and then Jay concluded, like a tired professor, “It’s his stepdog.” It was as if they’d rehearsed it. We all cracked up, except the woman who had complimented Cody; she looked at us, a little leery, and then headed back down the hill.

  “You should take that act on the road,” I told them.

  Alto looked genuinely tickled, possibly for the first time ever; Marie was cracking up, and even Jay seemed, despite his sad eyes, almost mirthful.

  Meanwhile: my wife, my wife’s dog, and I had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner with Elliot and Steve, and after my triumphant run as Bob Cratchit (seen by Marie and her son Nick, who thereafter idolized me), we also had a lovely Christmas up in Maine with Danny. Dog in tow, of course. She loved the snow. Born for winter, she was. Never seen her so lively. It was great crack taking her out on a frozen lake and watching her try to run without traction.

  Mid-January, the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services wrote, summoning us to show up for our green card interview on March 1.

  The next six weeks, with one amazing exception, were a fuzzy blur of unexpected normalcy and occasional quibbling about the dog. Because really—to be honest—everything was really about the dog. If we ignored her, she moped. If we went out for dinner and a movie, we had to get home straightaway to let her out. If we had a lie-in in the morning, and I was feeling turned on, the dog started to whimper and Sara would scramble to let her out and the mood was ruined, even if she (Sara) returned and crawled under the covers with me.

  Otherwise it was all surprisingly cool. Maybe we were still in a honeymoon bubble, maybe we were both buoyed by the reassurance that we would not actually have to keep this up forever . . . but somehow, the six weeks of breakfasts and quotidian chores and private jokes led mysteriously to a sense of our simply being a couple who lived together. Memories of my bachelor life grew as distant as memories of puberty. I still didn’t like her doing my laundry; I still wanted to leave my shaving kit in easy reach. I still thought she was getting taken to the cleaners with all her little skin-care products, which she tried to hide from me so I would not expound on the topic of what a rip-off they were. But even when I tried to feel panicked or trapped, it seemed increasingly normal that I lived with Sara.

  And her dog.

  The one stellar deviation from normal was the phone call from Dougie telling me I’d made the network callbacks. Fighting heart palpitations, I hopped on the bus to New York. This time some executive types were present, some of whose names I actually recognized from the telly, which made it all suddenly very intimidating and very real. I managed to be charming and witty, despite my pounding pulse. One of the blokes said it seemed on the tapes that I played well enough for them to easily overdub a real violinist.

  “Excuse me,” I said, “my character is not a bloody violinist. I play the fiddle, damn it, and I promise you, nobody in Hollywood will sound as authentic as this here fucker.” Then I played “The Wind That Shakes the Barley,” and as soon as they exchanged delighted looks, I segued quickly into an acoustic version of the Velvet Underground’s “Heroin,” just to show my range. At this, they grew quiet and exchanged heavier, more meaningful looks. I had them! It was great crack.

  All I needed was the green card.

  Then there followed weeks on tenterhooks, waiting for news of the callback as well as waiting for the immigration interview. I heard nothing from Dougie and there was no sense in my calling him because I knew he’d call me as soon as he had news.

  There was absolutely no correlation between my irritation with not hearing anything and my irritation with the dog. But in fairness, the dog was getting under foot more than usual, and shedding all over the place, and Sara was spending more time than ever talking gibberish to her and getting distracted by her demands for attention.

  THE NIGHT BEFORE the green-card interview, Lena threw a good-luck dinner party for us at her house in Belmont, which was gracious of her—evidence that she was not going to incarcerate me in Queen Hatshepsut’s sarcophagus. As we were preparing to head out the door for that, Sara reached for Cody’s leash and called her.

  “You’re bringing the dog?” I asked, in a more appalled voice than I intended.

  “Of course I am. She didn’t get to see me all day,” she said, “and she knows everyone there and they all love her.” As I continued to stare at her with rumpled brow, she hooked the leash onto Cody’s collar and said patiently, “We do it all the time, Rory. We took her with us to Thanksgiving and for all of Christmas week.”

  “They were special occasions,” I said. “You don’t have to take the dog with you on every social outing.”

  “I do,” said Sara offhandedly. “They’ll be expecting her.”

  “Fair enough,” I said, not wanting to ruin the mood, so made no more fuss about it . . .

  . . . UNTIL AFTER DINNER.

  When we’d arrived in the candlelit foyer, Cody had flung herself toward the guests coming into the foyer to greet us. Happy chaos ensued for a moment around her: as we unbuttoned ourselves from several layers of warmth, Cody dashed to all the guests in turn, whining with urgent happiness, her nails clacking on the polished wooden floor, her backside wagging wildly, her silky ears flopping like the tresses of an unkempt child, making it clear that seeing them again was the best thing that had ever happened in her whole life. Everyone swarmed around her and made high-pitched noises not associated with normal adults. It was a feeding frenzy of mutual affection, but mercifully it was brief, and soon she’d settled in a corner to stare at everyone all night.

  The party was lovely, Lena’s home was gorgeous and cultured, mostly candlelit, the food was terrific—saffron-scented paella, suman (sticky rice!), lumpiang ubod (a banana-leaf spring-roll specialty from her hometown, dipped in the most mouthwatering tangy peanut sauce)—the company charming, and lots of photos taken and immediately posted to Facebook per Sara’s instructions.

  My mate Danny (whose idea of dressing up was to wash his jeans) and, of all people, Elliot (whose idea of dressing down was to loosen his tie) had developed an improbable mutual admiration society over the past couple of months, and our disparate groups of friends were really coming to enjoy one another. I didn’t drink, but others did, and there had been a warm, f
uzzy, optimistic buzz to the evening. And so, as things were wrapping up, and Elliot and Danny suggested we all head out for a nightcap in a pub in Cambridge, I agreed instantly.

  I found Sara helping Lena load the dishwasher. The dog was sitting beside them, helpfully offering to take care of any table scraps, wondering why the loud monster in Lena’s sink got to eat them instead.

  “The lads want to go for a drink to celebrate,” I said cheerily.

  Sara wiped her hands on a dishtowel and gave me a questioning look. “What about Cody? It’s too far to drive her home and then come all the way back out this way.”

  “. . . She can stay in the car,” I said, trying to make it sound as if I’d already thought this out.

  Sara gave me her Princess Diana look. “It’s twenty degrees out, Rory.”

  In this instance, I did not respond well to the Princess Diana look. “Are you saying we can’t go out with friends because you insisted on bringing the dog to dinner?”

  Lena closed the dishwasher door and then discreetly excused herself to the pantry on some pretext, summoning the dog to follow her. But the pantry was just a step or so away, and so, with an unwonted stiffness between us, Sara and I moved into the candlelit corridor for more privacy. Closer to the front door, in the foyer, the rest of them were sorting out whose coat was whose in the porch light from the transom.

  “Look, we’ve got to be able to go out for a normal evening with friends,” I said in a quiet voice. “We shouldn’t be prevented because you decide to bring the dog to a dinner party.”

  “I do it all the time,” said Sara, not even bothering to sound defensive. “That’s how I live my life, and all my friends know it.”

  “Well, it’s not how I live my life,” I said. “I shouldn’t have to live my life the way you happen to live yours.”

  She shrugged agreeably. “Fine. Go out with the guys and I’ll see you when you get home.”

  “They want to take us both out,” I said impatiently. “That’s sort of the point.”

  She shrugged again. “Then let’s take a rain check. We can go out with them tomorrow night, when there’s actually something to celebrate. Tomorrow’s a workday for some people, you know, so it’s getting sort of late for a drink anyhow.”

  “I would be working if I could!” I said hotly. “You’re the one not wanting me to work, and now you’re telling me I don’t get to do what I want because I’m not pulling my weight financially?”

  She gave me a strange look. “I wasn’t even thinking that. I meant Elliot and Steve have to work tomorrow. And doesn’t Danny? And we have the interview! It just doesn’t make sense to go out now.”

  “You’re making excuses because of the dog.”

  “I’m explaining what the situation is—”

  “Because of the dog!” I nearly shouted. Down the corridor, a hush descended, and demure glances were tossed in our direction. I took a deep breath and sighed it slowly out to calm myself.

  She shrugged. “Fine, if you like, because of the dog. The dog is a big part of my life. You know that. I don’t need to apologize for how I handle one of my central relationships.”

  Her smugness incensed me. “It’s more central than your relationship with me?”

  “No,” she said patiently, “but it’s more important than going out for a drink on a worknight, hours before the green-card interview.”

  I could not abide her self-righteousness. “So you’re saying you’re fine with making the dog a priority over our friends wanting to do something nice for us?” I could feel the pulse beating in my neck.

  “I feel fine about making Cody’s well-being a higher priority than hanging out in a bar with my husband who doesn’t drink,” she said. “If you disagree, go on out with them. Give them my best.”

  She was calm, and sounded matter-of-fact—in fact she sounded infuriatingly smug—but I could tell that she was seething just as much as I was.

  “If you must make that dog the deciding factor in all your priorities,” I hissed, now painfully aware of the other guests’ interest in our argument, “this is never going to work. After the interview, I’m going to take my apartment back, and I’m going to stop bending over backward trying to accommodate your warped relationship with your fucking dog.”

  She looked flabbergasted. “That’s your reaction to my not going out for a drink? My God, I had no idea you were that childish.” She said the last word as a fiercely whispered condemnation, and turned on her heels to march back into the kitchen. Where she greeted her dog with her usual cooing affection, which affected me in that moment like fingernails scraping down a chalkboard.

  Elliot, Steve, and Danny cautiously approached me in the hallway. All I could manage to do was smile and tell them that of course I was coming out with them, but Sara wasn’t feeling well and wanted to head home. I was planning to have a cranberry and soda, of course.

  HOURS LATER, RIGHTEOUSLY pissed, I settled clumsily into the bed beside a stone-still Sara. She made an unpleasant sound in her sleep, woke up long enough to say, in a disgusted voice, “My God, you reek,” then moved as far to her side of the bed as she could get without falling off, and fell asleep again. It was the first time she’d ever gratuitously insulted me.

  AFTER A BRIEF but very deep sleep, consciousness gradually returned, and with it, acute awareness of my first hangover in years. It was brutal. Just horrible. I was sick as a small hospital. My eyes were cemented shut, my lids too dry to slide over the eyeballs; my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth, trapping my own sour breath where I could not escape smelling and then swallowing it. My head felt stuffed with wool right off the sheep, complete with all the little twigs and brambles, so that there was a global sense of fogginess pierced by twinges of pain. While trying to get up the courage to force open my eyes, I heard banging outside the bedroom door; each new bang made my head throb. Sara was making a lot of noise to make sure I noticed that I had a hangover.

  She was gone by the time I rose. There was a terse note on the counter: Kennedy Building, Government Center, Room E-160, 11 am. She thought me too irresponsible to remember when my own fucking green-card interview was.

  I looked at the dog, curled up delicately in the bed to which I’d exiled her the very first night, her chin resting on her two crossed paws, the long silk of her ears draping over the side of the dog bed. She looked freakishly human in that pose. We made eye contact, and she raised her head a little as her tail thumped the wall, once.

  “Do you have any idea the trouble you have caused me?” I sighed.

  Her eyebrows lifted hopefully, and her tail thumped the wall again.

  “Of course you don’t,” I said.

  BECAUSE MY HEAD was fuzzy and my eyes refused to focus, buttoning the oxford shirt took ages. I’d planned to iron the suit coat but did not trust myself to manage without burning it. I had shaved before the dinner party last night, thank God; I could not have safely handled any sharp object now. No amount of cold water could make my eyes less bloodshot, my face less puffy, or my brain less clouded. Finally, bundled insufficiently against foul weather, I waddled to Centre Street, bought a large coffee at Fiore’s, dragged my sorry arse to the Forest Hills T stop, and rode in to Downtown Crossing. My head was pounding without mercy; the roar of the T made it worse.

  It was a grey late-winter morning, spitting down a chilled precipitation too wet to be snow. I had forgotten my hat and the rain felt both cooling and wretched on my ears and neck as I crossed the brick plaza toward the Kennedy Building. I arrived early, but Sara had arrived earlier. She was waiting outside for me: of course, under the circumstances, she would go out of her way to make me appear to be the laggard. Her short dark hair was waving wildly above her pink cheeks in the drizzle, making her look like some deranged pixie, out of place in a concrete jungle. Seeing the cold look she gave me as I approached, I craved a cigarette more than I ever had in my life. We stared at each other for a moment in silence.

  “Truce?” I finally
said, and held out my hand.

  When you are gazed at scornfully by a beautiful woman you’re in love with, especially when you deserve some of the scorn but most definitely not all of it . . . that’s just rotten. Especially when you also have a headache and your mouth tastes like sour beer and you know you look like shite. And most especially when you are dependent on her immediate cooperation for something you have been striving to attain for fifteen years.

  She glanced from my outstretched hand to my eyes and back to my hand. Then back to my eyes. “It’s not okay,” she said.

  “I know that,” I said miserably. “But please, can we get through the next hour, don’t make me beg.”

  “I’m not making you beg,” she said, affronted. “Who do you think I am?” A pause. With a grimace, she shook my hand. “All right,” she said, “let’s get this over with.”

  We reached together grimly for the door.

  Chapter 9

  As soon as we were inside the lobby, my cell phone rang. Sara looked at me as if I’d just farted in public.

  “I’ll turn it off,” I said, and reached for it.

  But out of habit I looked at the screen. “It’s Dougie,” I said in a stage whisper. “I can’t believe the timing.”

  “We’re going to be late,” she said. “Call him back.”

  I stared at the buzzing screen knowing she was right, but still my stomach clenched with each new vibration. Finally it went to voice mail. Sara had already started off down the hall without me, looking washed out, even from the back, under the merciless fluorescent lights. The lights were buzzing at precisely the right pitch to make my swollen brain vibrate painfully within my skull.

  Sara was standing inside the waiting room with her back to the door. It was a large room with glazed windows high on one wall and more fluorescent light panels flush in the asbestos-tile ceiling. Rows and rows of moderately comfortable, padded chairs were arranged as if this were a cheap airport lobby. At the far end was a bank of clerks, like hospital admitters or vendors at a train station. Everything was beige—the carpet, the paint on the wall, the clerks’ dress, the clerks themselves.