Must Love Dogs: (Book 1)

by Claire Cook

  Carol wasn't budging. Her up-close-and-personal interest in my dating life was getting out of hand. "So, what are you two up to?" she asked John. She turned to me. "And where did you disappear to Thanksgiving night?" You'd think if Carol was going to hang around to watch, she could at least not ask any questions.

  I blushed, remembering Bob's kiss, trying to figure out what I was doing standing here with John. Not putting all your eggs in one basket was more complicated than it sounded. "I just came home, Carol, okay? I was tired. And now I'm going to make dinner for my friend John. And if you need any more information, maybe you can fax me a list of questions."

  "Like you even have a fax machine." She held out a hand to shake John's. "Well, I can certainly take a hint. Nice to meet you. However briefly."

  John held her hand for a minute. "You sure you don't want to stay for a minute? I could pour you a glass of wine . . ."

  "No, no, no. I wouldn't think of interrupting." Carol was checking him out as she backed toward the door, and I was happy to see how great he looked. He was wearing well-cut jeans and a nice sweater under a hunter green fleece jacket. He looked freshly shaven, and his thick hair was nicely cut and appealingly tousled. When he smiled at Carol, I could see how much he wanted her to like him.

  "Thanks again for the leftovers, Carol," I said, trying to speed things up.

  "If Sarah's planning to cook, you might need them as a backup," she said to John.

  . . . . .

  John and I were waiting for the water to boil to start the rice pilaf. The swordfish was almost marinated. We were sipping our wine, and I was looking into his eyes while he told me what he was like as an adolescent. John's eyes were his best feature, a slightly different tawny shade every time I saw them. I noticed we were both leaning toward each other across the kitchen table, and there was something about the way he said Sarah that made me almost like the name.

  "I was smart and geeky and every time I tried to talk to a girl she would run screaming in the opposite direction."

  "Oh, you poor thing. So when did things get better?"

  "Well, once I got into the business world, I found out that smart and geeky had huge advantages. As far as the girls running in the other direction, I guess I'm still waiting for that to change. Sometimes I feel like I'm two completely different people. At work I'm fully grown up, confident, hardworking." He reached out and rested his hand lightly on mine for a moment. "Practically charismatic." He folded his arms over his chest and we smiled at each other. "But the rest of the time I feel like I'm still sitting in a circle at an eighth-grade spin the bottle game, and all the girls are just praying that when it's their turn, the bottle doesn't point to me."

  "Oh, my God, that's exactly how I feel. But I never even got invited to the parties where they played spin the bottle."

  John poured a little more wine in his glass, then emptied the rest into my glass. "Maybe we should try some therapy." He rested the bottle on its side between us. "A little regression. We could start with spin the bottle, work our way up to strip poker."

  We stared at each other. John Anderson was really starting to grow on me. "Can two people play spin the bottle?" I asked.

  "It's called upping the odds, I think."

  "Hell's bells, so this is where you've been hiding out," my father said from the doorway. He burst into my kitchen like a rescuing fireman.

  "Jesus, Dad. You scared me to death. I live here. Remember." I stood the empty wine bottle up again quickly and gave John a look that I hoped said, Sorry.

  "That you do, Sarah. Hard to believe my little girl is old enough to have her own place, but that you do. Anyhoo, your poor old dad only wanted to be sure your turkey dinner made it over in one piece."

  "Yeah, Dad, it did. Thanks. Carol just left a little while ago."

  My father was sniffing the air. "Well, what's cooking, good-looking? And I mean that question literally." Oddly, he didn't seem to have noticed John sitting at my table.

  "Dad, this is John Anderson and we're about to have dinner."

  "Billy Hurlihy," my father said as John stood up to shake his hand. "What was that name again?"

  "John." John shook vigorously. "It's nice to meet you, Mr. Hurlihy."

  "What was it?" My father let go and curved his hand around his ear.

  "John," he said a little louder.

  "Dad . . ." I said as I turned off the heat under the pan of water.

  "What?" my father asked again.

  "John!"

  "What?" my father yelled in the doddering voice of his father's father.

  "PIERRE!" John yelled back.

  My father sat down at the table. "You'll do," he said. "Now, sonny boy, how 'bout checking to see if there's another bottle of that fancy-pants wine around anywhere. I could use a wee glass."

  . . . . .

  The swordfish was completely marinated, and then some, by the time my father left. He didn't even hint around about staying for dinner, so he must have had other plans. I started boiling the water for the rice again, turned on the broiler to preheat it for the fish, took the colander of washed salad greens from the refrigerator. "Sorry about that," I said to John.

  "Your father's quite the character."

  I was about to tell John what an understatement that was, when we heard a knock. At least Michael didn't barge right in, but waited until I opened the door. "These are for you," he said, handing me a cellophane-wrapped bouquet. "Sorry about last night."

  "This is my brother Michael," I said to John, in case the flowers were giving him the wrong idea.

  "We met once before. Hi, Michael. John Anderson." John got up from the table once again and they shook hands. I noticed that Michael still looked a little rocky from last night, but he had at least shaved and lost his hangdog expression.

  "Thanks for the flowers, Michael. You didn't have to do that." The arrangement looked like something that was probably called "The Harvest Bouquet" at the supermarket. Long-stemmed chrysanthemums with an orange plastic horn of plenty pick stuck in the middle.

  "That's okay. I was buying some for Phoebe anyway."

  "Do me a favor and go get hers, okay?" Michael ran out to the car and did as I asked him, because that's the kind of guy he is. I unwrapped both bouquets, threw away the cellophane and the picks, cut a couple of inches off the stems so they'd stay fresh longer. Then I found a piece of soft yellow satin ribbon and tied all the flowers together in one impressive bunch. I handed it to Michael. "Here, give her these. You might as well score some real points."

  "Are you sure? Well, thanks. And thanks for last night. And don't worry about Phoebe and me. Everything's going to be hunky-dory again." He said it as if he really wanted to believe it. Other people's denial was so easy to spot. I rarely knew what Michael and Phoebe's fights were about, and when I did hear details, they were trivial things like Michael letting the girls watch too much TV. And they'd make up just as fast, but from where I watched, it was hard not to see that the next fight was just around the corner, and that this had become the rhythm of their lives.

  "My sister would never have done that for me," John said when Michael left. "That was sweet, giving your flowers to his wife."

  "Bitch," I muttered under my breath.

  "What?"

  "Nothing. I just don't know what Michael's wife's problem is. It breaks my heart. Michael turns himself inside out trying to be whatever she wants him to be."

  "Maybe that's the problem. The doormat syndrome. I've been there—'Just tell me what you want and I'll do it.'" He shook his head.

  "Yeah, I guess I have, too, but it's painful to watch." John seemed to have taken over the dinner preparations. He had poured the rice pilaf mix into the boiling water and was now transferring the swordfish to a foil-covered cooking sheet. He seemed comfortable in my kitchen. I wasn't sure what I thought about that. Maybe I liked the idea of playing spin the bottle with him better.

  I took a sip of my wine and watched him dry off my wooden salad bowl. He t
ossed the dish towel back over his shoulder, almost like he was about to burp a baby. It was such a thoroughly domestic gesture, one that made me think of Kevin and the thousands of hours, painful and almost palpable in retrospect, that I'd spent sitting at this very kitchen table silently watching him cook.

  I didn't know how I'd missed it before. There was something entirely too familiar here. If I got involved with John, it was probably only a matter of time until I ended up back where I'd been with Kevin. It wouldn't be long before John and I were sitting at this table together night after night after night, our eyes glassy with indifference. I couldn't go back to that.

  John and I took turns complimenting the meal. But the evening had gone flat for me, like when you poured yourself a glass of ginger ale from a bottle you'd opened earlier, and with one sip you can tell that the bubbles have all escaped. "Sorry," I said finally.

  "For what?"

  "For everything. My family. How late we're eating. The fact that it's almost winter. Global warming."

  He smiled. "I had fun. Really. Your family's a lot more interesting than mine. My parents eat meals at his-and-her TV tables while they watch their favorite shows and ask each other what just happened. And I hardly ever see my sister."

  I stood up and started clearing the table. John stood up, too. "Here, let me help," he said, walking over to the stove and picking up the rice pan.

  "No, don't bother. It'll give me something to do later."

  "Does that mean we're not going to play spin the bottle?" John asked, the remnants of his adolescent vulnerability all over his face.

  I guess I hesitated too long. I made some coffee, and John got ready to leave as soon as we finished drinking it. We kissed each other a little tentatively at the door. Then we hugged for a moment or two; he broke the embrace first. I wasn't sure how that made me feel. My stomach ached but probably it was only my cooking.

  Chapter

  Twenty-three

  I tossed and turned. I kneaded my pillow, trying to prod it into a shape that would lull me to sleep. I kicked off the covers, then yanked them back up. I looked over at my clock radio at least a dozen times, surprised again and again at how slowly the digital numbers were changing.

  Finally, at 3:12 A.M., I climbed out of bed, unfurled the T-shirt that had worked its way up under my armpits, pulled on the flannel pajama bottoms that lay crumpled on the floor. The floor was cold, so I rooted around in my closet looking for my slippers. The closest things I could come up with were my silver mules. I clomped my way down the hallway and turned on the light in the bedroom that used to be Kevin's and mine.

  The room certainly seemed happier as an office than it had been in its last years as a master bedroom. The shelves that Kevin and I had partially filled with assorted stuff—his golf trophies, knickknacks from our vacations—were now packed with school stuff. Like most teachers, I had more books, games and materials, much of it bought with my own money, than I could ever fit into my classroom. And the bed was gone, thank God. When Kevin didn't want it either, I'd called Goodwill to come take it away. A big, cozy reading chair and a computer-topped desk were the only furniture in the room. A poster of a peace lotus, which I'd bring in soon to give the kids something new to look at, lent a primitive cheerfulness to the walls.

  I tried to remember the good times with Kevin. Funny how hard it was to think of any. I know we had them, but maybe the painful memories obscured the happy ones, and they were just too heavy to move out of the way. What I remembered most was that our marriage wasn't fun. We didn't laugh, we didn't talk much, we'd gradually lost contact with our couples friends. We didn't have children, we didn't have pets, we didn't have anything for our marriage to be about. In hindsight, I thought that some of that was Kevin's fault and some of it was mine.

  As for what I'd hoped for from my marriage, it was anybody's guess. I was just so relieved to have someone actually want me, that I didn't give it much thought. I'd mostly tried not to make any waves.

  I reached for a large roll of white paper that I'd bought to make things for my classroom. Once, a few years ago, I'd cut a sheet the length of my largest bulletin board and covered it with drawings of flags from all over the world. Another time I'd cut a life-sized piece for each child. Working on the floor in the center of the classroom, I traced their bodies on the paper and let them draw their own clothes and hair and faces. I'd cut out the shapes when they were done, and taped them in rows, hands overlapping just a bit, all around the classroom. Paper dolls, we'd called it.

  I unrolled the paper, cut off a sheet a few inches taller than I was. Pushed the rag rug out of the way, laid out the paper in the empty space. I opened a desk drawer, pulled out my markers. Found a nice shade of tan. I drew the outline of a man, from the back so I could give him a cute little butt. Made the shoulders broad, but not too wide. Gave him a narrow torso, added a bit of a roll just above the hips to make him human. Made his calves bulge a little, like he exercised, but wasn't obsessed with it. Found a brown marker and gave him some hair. A bit long in the back because it was thinning on top. Added some yellow and silver and black because hair color didn't matter.

  I squeezed my eyes shut. When I opened them, I saw that, except for the cute butt, the paper figure looked an awful lot like Kevin. I found my scissors, cut him out carefully. Scooped him up under his paper shoulders, and pulled him close to me. His head kept flopping backward, so I creased it slightly until it rested on top of mine.

  We danced around our old bedroom the way we had so many times before we made love. Old standards always, slow and romantic. Diana Krall singing "I've Got You Under My Skin" or Eva Cassidy's version of "Cheek to Cheek." My face was wet against the paper Kevin. The marker would probably run and make a big mess. But I kept us dancing anyway, and mourned a marriage that ate up years of my life and never really got off the ground.

  After I finished dancing with him, I burned paper Kevin in my fireplace. The flames licked the edges of the thin white paper, and he was dust in minutes. I went back to bed and slept like a newborn.

  . . . . .

  I woke up eager to start my new life. I probably should have worn a better outfit, but I couldn't wait another second. I jumped in the shower, threw on some jeans that would definitely need to be washed after this wearing. Added a turtleneck and an old green sweatshirt on top of that. Shook my head upside down while I aimed the blow dryer in the general direction of my hair. Left the bathroom without looking in the mirror. Grabbed a handful of dry Cheerios and a ten-dollar bill on my way out the door.

  I started walking toward Morning Glories. It was about two miles, and I figured I'd have a blueberry scone and a cup of coffee, use the bathroom. Then I'd walk back. After that, things were a little vague.

  I swung my arms, picked up my pace, stretching out my legs until I felt alive. Not many cars were on the road in Marshbury on the Sunday after Thanksgiving. But extra cars seemed to be clumped in the driveways I passed, signs of grown-up children visiting their parents for the weekend. Gold and burgundy chrysanthemums were still clustered outside a few doorways and tucked into some of the window boxes. By the end of the week, they'd all be replaced with greenery—pine and boxwood and spruce. And Marshbury would twinkle with Christmas lights, most a tasteful white.

  . . . . .

  A normal-looking man of around forty was handing a leash to a gray-haired woman holding a cup of coffee. I noticed as I got closer that he was actually slightly better looking than normal. Big mustached smile and lumberjack shoulders. He held up one finger, nodded thanks. Wrinkles, June's puppy that I'd met at Bob Connor's house, was on the other end of the leash. That figured, the guy was probably June's new boyfriend. Just my luck.

  I stopped anyway, smiled at the woman, bent down to give Wrinkles a pat. Realized it wasn't Wrinkles. This puppy was bigger, more Lab than shar-pei. "What's its name?" I asked the woman.

  "Oh, she's not mine. I'm just holding the leash for another customer. I think he said its name is Crackle. Or
Crispy. Oh dear, now what was it? Something unusual." She took a sip of her coffee. The puppy stretched out and started licking a spot on the pavement where someone had dropped something. "A nice man. He said he lives down the street. He didn't want to leave the puppy all by herself while he went in because she might be lonely."

  She might be lonely. Only a nice, sensitive guy would worry about a puppy being lonely. "He does sound nice. Did he happen to mention if he was married?"

  The woman laughed. I blushed. "No, honey, he didn't. But I'll ask him when he comes out if you'd like me to. Are you looking for a boyfriend?"

  Oh, God. What was I thinking? It occurred to me that my hair was probably sticking out all over the place. There were grease spots on my sweatshirt and green was definitely not one of my colors. I wasn't even wearing any mascara and now this sweet old woman was going to tell what could very well be the only normal man living in Marshbury that I was looking for a boyfriend.

  Amazingly, a plan came to me. A real plan, just like Carol would have come up with. Maybe even better. The first part of it was to run before he saw me looking like this.

  Chapter

  Twenty-four

  I circled around to the back of Morning Glories, waited until the coast was clear. I hated to miss the coffee and scone, but maybe I could come back afterward if he didn't live too far away. I followed the man and his puppy at a safe distance, hoping he hadn't been warned about a sloppy woman looking for a boyfriend.

  About halfway between my house and Morning Glories, they walked into an old white Victorian that looked as if it had been divided into two apartments. Two mailboxes by the road. Driveway on each side, only one car on his side. No sign of anything feminine, no decorations on the door, no wife leaning out to kiss him while he trilled, like Ricky Ricardo to Lucy, Honey, I'm home.