Stepdog

by Nicole Galland

  First came my presents, to Nick and myself. We geared up as twin pirates and yarrrrr’d at each other, brandishing plastic cutlasses, while Marie, holding her giggling toddler Ryan, took photos on her smartphone (or, as they say in Boston, her smaht-phone). A few folks on the hillside stared, giggled, clustered to watch. When we took a breather, I tried to dress up Cody with the hat and eye patch, but she was having none of it; she elegantly shook the hat off her head, removed the eye patch with one graceful swat of her back paw, and then trotted over to lean against Alto, whose languid body language as he smoked promised the least danger of frivolity. She looked up adoringly at him as if he would have treats for her.

  Then Jay—seated as usual on his chiseled rock—held the platter with the chocolate cake as Marie set Ryan in the pram and lit the candles. We all sang “Happy Birthday” to Nick, and after the official verse, I kept crooning, so he could be serenaded with the most important verse: “Happy Birthday to you, you live in the zoo, you look like a monkey, and you smell like one, too.” This was delivered in a grand, yarrrring Pirates of Penzance manner, and judging by his cascade of giggles, he was pleased.

  I’m going to make a damn fine da one day, I thought. And the kids will be gorgeous with Sara as their ma. Although in the good-cop-bad-cop scheme of parenting, she would definitely be the bad cop. That would be fine, though. More playtime for me. Cody could be the nanny.

  Nick blew out the candles on the cake, and I sliced pieces for everyone as Jay held the tray—which, by the way, was enormous. Curious regulars who had never had the good taste to bond with our unlikely clique hovered near, watching, whispering, chuckling with appreciation . . . and with anticipation, those chancers. There were maybe ten of them. Marie, no doubt anticipating we’d attract attention (even before she knew what dashing pirates we would make) had baked a cake to feed a small army, so after obligatory Large Pieces for Celebrants, I cut the rest into wee squares, and there was your man Alto with the paper plates and plastic forks, which meant no cigarette for fully half an hour, score one for lung capacity. Soon we were feeding the hilltop, with half the cake still left over.

  I have to say, it was pretty cool. I felt, for the first time since I gave up drinking, like I was becoming part of a social scene.

  “Good man, Jay,” I said. “This was your idea.”

  “It takes a village,” he said with a peaceable shrug, setting the platter down beside himself on the rock so he could have a slice himself.

  Nick had inhaled his cake while I was cutting and serving everyone else, and he approached me again, chocolate frosting and dark chocolate crumbs all over his face, even on his eyelashes. “Yarrr!” he declared, brandishing his cutlass with the blade upside down. “I’m Pirate Nicholas and I’m taking you prisoner! Yarrr!”

  Cody was on board with this. Her tail was wagging the rest of her body, and she was half bouncing and half bowing beside me, looking up at me earnestly, begging me to engage the enemy. Her eyes were shining and I swear she nearly barked.

  “Yarrr!” I answered Nick, at which Cody leapt up like a Lippizaner, or a kangaroo, springing straight into the air, and then took off around the circle of people, making sure they all knew that Great Stuff was about to happen. I pulled my eye patch back down over my eye, and brandished the cake knife. “You are not taking me prisoner without a fight. Let me get my cutlass. Squire!” I handed off the knife to Squire Alto, and received my cutlass and hat, which I tapped firmly onto my head. I hopped backward from Jay’s boulder, to give us more sparring room. Nick excitedly hopped after me. I thought Cody might join in the hop-fest but she now hung back beside Marie, watching, although she looked very excited and approving and, may I even say, proud of her dog walker for looking so dashing and fierce.

  “En garde!” I commanded, and lunged.

  “On God!” Nick thought he echoed, lunging back. I tapped his cutlass blade with mine and stuck my tongue out at him. He gave me a fierce grimace, and growled like a good pirate. He was adorable. I made a mental note to buy a plastic cutlass for Sara—cutlasses were definitely the way to resolve future disputes.

  “Take that!” I said, poking my cutlass at him repeatedly as I jumped backward so that he had to chase me in a circle. Our audience was crying with laughter now.

  “Wait!” Nick said, very seriously. He stopped chasing me and frowned. “I need my eye patch,” he declared.

  “Time out for eye patch,” I called out, lowering my weapon and glancing expectantly around the circle. “Anyone have an extra eye patch for this little sea—oh no!”

  I said it at the same moment Marie cried out and even Jay gave a gasp of distress: just beyond the perimeter of the circle, Cody was eagerly licking clean the platter on which Marie had brought the cake.

  Moments earlier, there had been half of a very large chocolate cake sitting on that platter. Cody’s muzzle was creamy with dark frosting.

  I had just poisoned Sara’s dog.

  Chapter 13

  Oh Jesus,” I said, and before I could stop myself, added, for clarity: “Fuck!” I dropped the cutlass and sprang toward the dog. “Cody! Cody, leave it! Drop it!”

  Cody didn’t mind leaving it, since there was nothing left. She turned to me with a crafty look in her eye, rapidly and energetically licking her chops. Her expression seemed to say: Everything is going to be different now. I’m never listening to you again unless there’s chocolate cake.

  In the background, like a movie sound track, I heard the slow-motion mutterings of concerned voices, with every possible variant of “chocolate is toxic to dogs” uttered in a range of tones—blaming, shaming, fearful, blaming, mournful, angry, sad, resigned, blaming, pedantic, and some blaming, too.

  “Cody!” I cried again. It took forever to reach her, like I was running through molasses, and once I actually had my hands on her, I didn’t know what to do. My mind went blank with panic. I grabbed her collar and tried to open her jaws with my free hand, as if I could reach down her throat and pull the cake back out.

  I felt as if I were surrounded by the entire morning population of the park. Nick wasn’t crying, thank God; that relieved the tiny corner of my mind still aware of him and his birthday celebration. But he was definitely mimicking the concern of his mum and all the other grown-ups. All the grown-ups who were responsible enough not to poison their spouse’s dog.

  From the chaos came one clear, strong, calm voice: Jay’s. “Let’s get her to my house,” he said, a hand on my shoulder. “It’s right there.”

  “What do we do?” I said in a shaken voice. “We have to call a vet. Sara is going to kill me.”

  “No, it’ll be fine,” he said. “We have to make her vomit up the cake, and as long as she does it right away, she’ll be fine.”

  “I don’t know how to do that,” I said, staring at her while her tongue kept working industriously to get every last bit of scrumptious chocolaty poison off her muzzle. “How do you make a dog vomit?”

  “Hydrogen peroxide,” said Calm Jay. “You force it down their throat and they puke it up immediately along with everything else in their stomach. I promise you, Rory, it’s simple and straightforward, we just need to do it quickly.”

  “He’s right,” said Alto, looking spooked. “I saw that on the Animal Channel. The chocolate won’t kill her, but it could make her pretty sick.”

  “Oh God,” I said. “Sara will never forgive me.”

  “She doesn’t even need to know,” said Jay.

  “It seems very harsh on the stomach,” said Marie.

  “Not as harsh as chocolate,” I said, hating myself. “Okay, let’s go. Thank you, Jay, I’m in your debt, mate.” I was shaking. I grabbed for her leash, which I usually tied around my waist. But I had taken it off to duel with Nick and had no idea where I’d left it.

  “Here,” said Alto, magically materializing with it.

  With an anxious sigh, I clipped the leash onto Cody’s collar. She seemed slightly subdued already, but that was probably becau
se her stomach was distended from the amount of cake she’d just swallowed. I don’t think I could have eaten that much cake in the course of a whole afternoon.

  “This way,” said Jay with parental firmness, raising me up and gesturing down the path. He paused, turned around, and addressed the concerned little gathering: “The dog’s going to be fine, everyone, please don’t worry about it.” Then apologized quietly to Marie and Nick for the interruption of the party—taking the blame on himself, in fact, as he was the one who had put the platter down to eat his own slice. Nick ran over to Cody and gave her a huge hug, which she liked because it allowed her to lick the chocolate frosting off his face.

  “Cody, don’t be such a pig next time,” he told her. “You get sick if you eat too much cake, didn’t Rory ever tell you that?” He kissed her between the eyes and ran back to his mother to collect his pirate uniform. I wanted to die.

  We started walking briskly toward Jay’s and I realized Squire Alto was walking with us. “It’s okay, man,” said Alto, patting my elbow. “Want a cigarette?”

  “I am a fuckup,” I said irritably.

  “I’m the one who set the tray down,” said Jay.

  “But the dog wasn’t your responsibility,” I said. “I’m the one who should have noticed and kept her from it. Sara’s going to kill me. She’s going to say I subconsciously wanted to kill the dog—”

  “I’m sure that’s nonsense,” said Jay, so indulgently that for a moment I thought, in my distress, that he suspected this himself.

  “She can never know about this,” I said. “If you ever meet her, or”—to Alto—“if you ever see her again. She can never know.”

  “Whatever you say,” said Jay as he removed one glove and reached into his coat pocket. “It’s really not a big deal.”

  We came down onto the main paved walkway and then Jay kept walking—across the blacktop, and straight toward the edge of the park, which here was some eight feet higher than the houses abutting it. There were, I saw now, several locked gates rising from the parapet-like park boundary, with subtle footpaths leading to them.

  Jay had been softly humming (as usual) Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah.” “Down here,” he said, and led us toward one such path. He pushed the gate, which opened onto a set of wooden stairs down into the yard of the nearest triple-decker. It was a handsome building, painted darkish green with gold and russet trim . . . a staid Victorian look that suited him. If he hadn’t an American accent, I really would have suspected he was a down-on-his-luck baron.

  “Nice,” I said.

  “Thank you. I just bought it about a year ago.”

  “When you sold your thing?” Alto asked.

  He nodded. “When I sold my thing.”

  “What thing?” I asked. I vaguely remembered something about this from an earlier conversation but was too stressed now to recall the details. “I wouldn’t mind selling a thing if it meant I could buy a nice house.”

  Jay huffed self-deprecatingly. “I designed a little program Merck pharmaceuticals bought. Doesn’t put me in the one percent, but it bought me a home and a Get Out of Jail Free card from my day job, for a few years anyhow, until I get bored. Here we are. I live in the middle unit. I’ve got tenants upstairs and down.” He pulled out his keys. The fob on his key chain (really, who but a ruined baron would have a fob?) was a little metal figure.

  “Is that a dog?” I asked.

  “Oh,” said Jay, glancing down absently at it before inserting the key. “Yes. I like dogs. Part of why I enjoy going to the hill every day.”

  “Why don’t you have one of your own?” Alto asked.

  “I lost one recently,” he said. “Still recovering. Nothing in the world says contentment like your dog curled up asleep at your feet. You get incredibly attached.”

  “You have no idea,” I said while Alto, who was nicer than I, said, “Sorry for your loss.”

  Jay’s home, unsurprisingly, was classy and somewhat dark and old-world-ish, with overstuffed leather chairs facing a fireplace and several book-lined walls. “Make yourselves comfortable,” he said, “over by the fire. I’ll collect what I need and be right back.” As he vanished down the hall he called back: “It looks real but it’s gas. The switch is on the right if you want to turn it on.”

  Alto looked delighted. “Well, yeah,” he said, and began to hunt for the switch.

  I looked worriedly at Cody. “Oh, you.” I sighed. Her tail thumped the floor, once, languidly. She seemed droopy—I hoped that was from eating so much so fast, and not because she would soon be dead of chocolate toxicity. She rested her chin on my leg hard, pressing down, and looked up at me with those heart-melting dark eyes, asking me to make her feel better. She was so completely dependent upon me and I felt so completely useless.

  About a minute later, as the “fire” was starting to warm, Jay came in with a brown bottle of hydrogen peroxide, several towels, and a small stack of New York Times under his arm.

  “All right, let’s set up for triage,” he said. “Alto, if you can spread the newspaper on top of the towel, in front of the fire.”

  “Let me get the rug out of the way,” I said, desperate to feel useful. I lifted the heavy leather chair enough to roll back the corner of the very nice, plush, silk Turkish carpet that covered much of this room.

  “Thank you,” said Jay. “If you’re squeamish you might not want to watch this.”

  “I better force myself,” I said, already feeling my gorge rise.

  “I think I’ll step away,” said Alto.

  “There’s a bowl of water in the kitchen, can you just bring that in first?” Jay asked, with an encouraging smile. Alto did, then stepped outside for a smoke. God, how I wanted to join him.

  I don’t see the need to go into the details, but in all fairness, on a purely mechanical level, it was pretty amazing. In went a small bottle’s worth of hydrogen peroxide, out came large blobs of chocolate cake, deposited obediently on the newspaper, which Jay deftly covered, lifted, and moved out of sight. He held Cody firmly but gently throughout. She was trembling, and gave him a B-movie starlet’s look of despair, but did not try to escape from him. She was resigned to her fate, and even seemed to consider him the boss of her now.

  He pulled the dish of water closer to her. “Drink,” he said. “Cody, drink.”

  She stared up at him pleadingly.

  “Maybe a treat,” he said, considering her. Then, to me, “Hamburger okay?”

  “Better than chocolate cake,” I said.

  For about a quarter hour, we all sat hunkered down in front of the (pretty realistic-looking) gas fireplace, waiting for Cody to perk up and drink some water. Jay claimed the towels were headed for the trash heap anyhow, and took them—neatly packed—outside to put them straight into the bin. We chatted about this and that—Alto’s applying for a job as a waiter at an upscale restaurant (he actually wanted to be a community activist, but was too shy), Jay’s contemplated trip to Peru, my upcoming phone call with my agent to sort out the ensuing move to L.A. I was still too freaked out about Cody to get all that excited about talking shop, but I answered questions the other two politely put to me.

  Eventually, Cody got interested in the water dish, and drank a lot of it, all at once. We all three quietly cheered her.

  “That calls for a celebration,” said Jay. “Is it too early to bring out the scotch?”

  “None for me, thanks,” I said. “Those days are behind me.”

  “Duly noted,” he said, without judgment.

  “I’ve got a shift starting soon,” said Alto, but I could see he marked it as a rite of passage that he’d just been invited to drink with the grown-ups. In Dublin, when I was his age, I was long past such initiations.

  “Well, no fun drinking alone,” said Jay peaceably. “Perhaps another time.”

  Within another quarter hour, Cody seemed like a slightly tired version of herself, and was declared entirely fine by Jay. Alto excused himself to work, and I plied Jay with endle
ss gratitude, which he deflected with a certain noblesse oblige.

  “Come by for tea sometime,” he said as I clipped the leash onto Cody’s collar at the door. “I’d hate for your only association of my home to be of your wife’s dog vomiting.”

  We smiled, shook hands, and then because I am an affectionate sort, I gave him a big hug. He really was very tall. I often forgot that because he was usually sitting down, the quiet patriarch on his boulder throne on Peters Hill.

  Chapter 14

  Back home, with “Hallelujah” stuck in my head, I found myself pacing the apartment anxiously watching Cody as intently as she usually watched me (ironic, as in her subdued state she seemed nearly indifferent to my existence). I couldn’t get a thing done. I was afraid to even shop for dinner lest Cody keel over whilst I was at the co-op.

  In the end I did something I would normally never, ever have done.

  I sat on the couch and said, “Cody.” She glanced over as if bored. I patted the space right beside me on the couch. Her expression changed immediately, almost human, unmistakable: You’ve got to be kidding me. You never let me near the couch.

  “Cody,” I repeated, nodding, and patting the cushion more insistently. “C’mon, girl. Up! Up on the couch, Cody.”

  She gave me an appraising look, then trotted toward me and sat, politely, her gaze switching between my face and my hand, which was still patting the couch. “Yes! Yes, Cody,” I kept promising. “C’mon up!”

  She leapt lightly onto the couch and sat, very upright and proper, and looked at me. There was an awkward moment between us, almost like a first date that wasn’t going well.

  “You can lie down, Cody,” I said, patting the cushions again. “Lie down.”

  She looked down her nose at me as if to say, What is this lie down you are referring to? But after a moment, she relented, and carefully—staring at me—lowered herself to the sofa cushions, her head near my knee.

  “Good girl,” I said.

  In response she raised her head, shifted her weight forward slightly, and rested her chin on my knee. That’s an adorable feeling even if you don’t like dogs, really it is, because it feels like you’re being claimed, and who doesn’t want to be wanted? So I smiled at her.