When we arrived, Baxter was strangely aloof with Gavin, maybe sensing my unease. When we sat Baxter didn’t seek out his usual spot under the table. Instead, he tucked himself under my chair, almost behind me.
“I cannot take not knowing you,” Gavin blurted, as if he’d been holding in the words.
I finally allowed myself to focus on those brown eyes, but the sight of them made me wince. Not only were they full of pain, but the love that I’d started to feel when I saw those eyes was still there. It felt like a punch to the gut.
“You are the best thing that’s ever happened to me,” he said. He kept talking, and I couldn’t look at his eyes. I only watched his mouth move.
“I can’t believe you!” I finally said, interrupting his rambling, my words biting and hard, so laden with emotion they surprised me. “All the time we spent together... That was...fake? Were you just trying to get a story?” Had my instincts turned so bad?
“Of course not.”
I remembered the time we met. “Were you looking for me that day we met at the park? Were you targeting me?”
“What? No!”
“Right, of course not,” I said sarcastically.
“I saw you in the park. I thought you were hot. And then I came a little closer, watching you and Baxy.”
I wanted to smack him for using Baxter’s nickname.
“And then I knew you were hot,” he continued. “And then those guys came up to us and then I realized who you were.”
“And then you exploited me. Because you wanted to be a writer. Like Sebastian.” Somehow I knew this would hurt Gavin, and I was right.
He gritted his teeth. “Yes, at first I was fishing for a story that would get me working on the other side of the magazine. Yes.” He breathed out hard. “But I fell for you.”
“Sure you did.” I choked back a sudden sob. I shook my head. “All that we did together, the sex we had, all the time you spent with Baxter...” I put my hand over my eyes. I had a whole new shame now. “That was all for the story. It was all bullshit.”
Some child’s voice inside my head said, I knew it. I knew it. I knew this would happen.
“Not true,” he said. “I love Baxter. And I think I love you.”
I half laughed and half choked. “You ‘think.’ That’s priceless.” I rewound to the day in the park. “Did you really have a dog named Wrigley that died?”
“Yes,” he answered fast, a little irritated. “I did not make up Wrigley.”
“So then what did you make up?”
Silence.
“That first night we spent together,” I said, remembering. “The next day you made me French toast. How did you know my dad used to make French toast?”
“I didn’t! You told me.”
I scoffed, although he was right.
“I don’t know how to explain this,” he said, sighing. “But yes, after that first night at my place, after you left, I fished around, just curious for information about you, and I was curious about Sebastian, too. But it seemed like nothing was there, not in terms of any good stories.”
“And so?”
“And then we started dating and I dropped it. Then, out of curiosity because I was into you, I fished around some more. And then I found the story of your marriage to Billy McGowan and your arrest. I didn’t do anything at first, but after the accident, after seeing you and Sebastian, I gave them to the editor. But by that point I really had fallen for you.”
“Uh-huh. Well, that’s a funny way to show it.”
He winced.
“And you didn’t ask me about it? You just gave the story to your editor? Even though you had ‘fallen’ for me?”
“I told the editor, then I regretted it.” Another sigh. “I told her drop to it. But she wouldn’t. Too hot a story.”
“I’m not talking about the editor—your editor now—I’m talking about decisions you made. You.”
I looked around the restaurant, populated with either couples or groups of people, many of whom had clearly been out the night before and were still living through the fun of it—laughing over omelets the size of basketballs. God, I so wished I was them.
“Did you try to stop it? Did you even try?” I heard the incredulousness in my own voice.
He shook his head. “I didn’t,” he said. “I really couldn’t. And even if I could...”
“Even if you could, what?”
“I was too afraid to lose my job.”
I felt almost as if he had shot me. Baxter even flinched, cowered for a second and then looked around, suspicious, as if he, too, had felt a jolt.
He seemed so weak to me then. He looked, to my eyes, pale, and even his chocolate-brown eyes had dimmed, gone gray. I could feel Sebastian then, in part because I viewed him as a strong man, one with integrity. Unlike the one before me. But also, I couldn’t ignore that I was losing another man to his profession.
I reached under the table and stroked Baxter’s head. This was the end of something for him, too—of having another dad. That thought tore through me, as well. Poor Baxy.
“Well, I’m glad you didn’t lose your job,” I said to Gavin, standing. “The job you hated so much. But you’ve lost me.”
34
I thought I was Baxter’s bodyguard, but after the article came out, I noticed it was the other way around. Or at least I noticed that the bodyguard business works both ways.
By 4:00 p.m. two days after Gavin told me about the article, I had forty-seven unanswered phone calls, seventy unchecked messages and fifty-two texts I hadn’t looked at. And that was even with the message directing people to Toni. And they were growing. It was time to shake off the doldrums.
I called the temp service that I’d been using for assistants and hired one, agreeing to pay the agency what seemed an exorbitant fee to respond to all calls and emails. I called the graphic design people for my website and updated them on the situation.
Then I started tackling the messages. A number of them were from Toni herself. I pulled up everything from her and read them all.
They started with energized texts—No publicity is bad publicity! Let’s use this and go from here!—and progressed to messages of concern—You okay? Call me?
I didn’t call Toni back yet. I couldn’t decide how to handle this. As if seeing my blank stare, Baxter ran toward the door and barked. Let’s go out! He’d been doing this for the past day, even though I’d taken him out a few times since our last meal with Gavin the day before. It was as if he were testing me, and if I didn’t respond, he would find a ball and toss it at my feet. He’d pant, looking from the ball to me and back again. You all right? You all right?
When we went outside, we stuck to the alleys in the Gold Coast. They tended to be surprisingly (relatively) clean (unless you were behind one of the bars on Division Street). Trash and recycling bins had, for the most part, been emptied, and there was only minimal detritus along the back of condo buildings and homes.
Of course, we still passed people sometimes. Like the good security detail he was, Baxter wouldn’t respond right away. If someone stopped and yelled “Superdog!” he sometimes let himself be scratched on the head for a minute, but always he was looking at me. He seemed to be saying, Is this okay? And again, I thought I could hear him ask, You all right?
Meanwhile, I felt relieved that it was Superdog they were interested in, not Superdog’s mom and her troubling past.
And then Baxter would cut it short. He would not go into his social mode, dropping the ball at someone’s feet, letting them scratch his back now or kiss his black nose. Often he would duck down a side alley or a street if he saw people coming.
It was as if he picked up something strange about me, about us. And whenever I got up in the middle of the night, which was often, Bax was there for
me. I could see him in the streetlight that seeped through my drapes. He’d look at me with a heavy-lidded expression that said, What? What is it?
“It’s nothing, Baxy,” I’d say, rubbing one of his ears, the way he liked.
But still he’d look at me, concerned.
“Go back to sleep,” I’d say.
If I didn’t fall back asleep, I’d get up to try and shake the mental noise, rather than wrestle with it alone in the dark. Sometimes I headed for the kitchen. I made tea and looked out the window. Other times I went to my office, sat on the couch and read a book, something light, hoping it lifted my mood and sent me back to bed. But wherever my mind was in the midnight ramblings or afternoon walks or the one brief visit to the studio, Bax insisted he be there—sitting at my feet when I was drinking tea, lying with his head on my lap when I read, and often, maybe always, he’d look up and study my face.
Every time, I’d say again, It’s nothing, Bax.
Such a lie.
35
On the fifth day, I picked up Toni’s call. “We have to get a statement out there or we lose it,” she said.
I paused, waiting. But she didn’t chastise me for not returning her texts and messages.
“We lose what?” I said.
“The publicity.”
“Good,” I said, “let’s lose it.”
“The thing is if we don’t speak now...”
I loved how Toni spoke as if we’d been having the same conversation for days. She hadn’t yet asked any questions about the arrest, or my marriage to Billy. She hadn’t asked if I was okay which I deeply, deeply appreciated.
“...if we don’t speak now, the story is out there, and it’s the last bit of information out there for you, and that means it’s the only thing out there for you. We need something else.”
I didn’t say anything.
“Hey,” Toni said, and even though she’d spoken only one word I could hear her voice was low, kind. “You have to think of I’d Rather Sleep with the Dog. We’ve put too much into this.”
It was the “we” that made me stand.
I stood for a second more, then as Toni continued to talk about how much she loved the business and how much she wanted it to succeed, I felt a charge. I crossed my living room, picking up the studio keys from the side table where I’d left them days ago. What I need is to get to work, not simply hire people to push it around. What I need is to be alive again. I need to get back to what I love.
And I realized in that instant that I did truly love what I was doing with Baxter—I loved designing dogwear, I loved working with my dog. These were the things that had been mainly responsible for me feeling alive. That alive feeling wasn’t all Gavin.
“You’re right,” I said to Toni. “Let’s get on it, issue a statement, whatever you want to do.”
“Yeah?
“Yeah.”
“That a girl! Meet me at my favorite new place—” she named a cross street “—and we’ll hammer it out.”
Toni’s favorite new place was, conveniently, a block from my house, something I was sure Toni had orchestrated so as not to overwhelm me. But it was a true find—a hole-in-the-wall piano bar. Because they didn’t serve food, she told me, I could bring the dog.
When we got there, Toni hugged me, kissed Baxter, then launched into explanations about branding and about “owning your shit.”
We sat, she waved away a waiter, then typed on her laptop, fingers clacking. “Let’s just get to the point with the press release,” she said.
“Please,” I said.
“What about something like this? ‘I have made some mistakes in my personal life, and for those I am sorry.’” She looked up at me.
I nodded. “Should we add something about whether I did drugs?”
Toni blinked a few times. “Well...what would you say?”
“I’d say, ‘I have never taken drugs in my life, nor do I condone the usage of them.’”
“I love it.” More clacking of her fingers. “Although let’s take out the condoning part. Sounds a little judgy.”
“Great.”
Toni wrote more, read it to me, I’d comment and then we’d revise. Sentence by sentence we worked.
“Almost done,” Toni said.
Something about being with Toni and her efficient strength gave me some strength.
My phone lit up. I looked at the display—it was the front desk of my condo building.
I scrolled through my phone and saw that they had called three times since Bax and I had left the building. Occasionally, the doormen called just to say a package had arrived, especially once they knew I was working on the dogwear and often waiting for materials to arrive. But most of the supplies went to the studio or the plant now.
“Hello?”
“There’s a William here for you,” the doorman said, skipping his usual introduction.
“William?” I repeated. “I don’t know a William.”
“He says his name is William,” the doorman said, voice lower. “But he’s...you know...?”
“I don’t know.”
“He’s...”
I think my mind caught up with the doorman almost at the same time. But he beat me to the words.
“Bill,” the doorman said. Then he murmured, “Billy.”
I opened my mouth and closed it. Then, like I’d seen Baxter do so many times, I cocked my head to the side.
“Billy McGowan,” the doorman said, a now emphatic whisper. “I think he’s trying to fly under the radar, but I figured it out.”
I looked at Baxter.
I looked at Toni.
“Billy McGowan is in my lobby,” I said to fill her in, to confirm.
Her eyes widened.
“Yes!” the doorman said.
“Well, what does he want?”
“He simply asked for you.”
“He simply asked for me,” I repeated. I would have loved to hear those words from Billy if they’d been delivered at a different time in my life.
But it was too late.
“Tell him I’m not home and can’t see him,” I said.
Toni shook her head no and grasped her hands around her neck as if choking herself. I closed my eyes so I couldn’t see her.
A pause, then the doorman said, “Ma’am?”
I repeated myself.
I heard the doorman speaking away from the phone. Then a muffled question and reply.
“Sir!” I heard the doorman say, and then muffled sounds as the phone shifted hands.
Then...
Then...
His voice when he came on the phone was the same. “Please, Jess,” he said. “Please.”
36
When I got back to my building I changed my mind ten times about whether I wanted to see Billy. I came in the garage exit, then just stood there, letting Baxy sniff around someone’s bike. I was there for at least fifteen minutes trying to think, then trying to silence my thoughts, but my mind just ran like a hamster wheel.
I finally entered the building, bypassing the lobby, and went upstairs. I let Baxter inside the condo, rushed around trying to spruce up my lank hair, threw on a shortish skirt and wedge heels. I changed my mind again and again about whether to go downstairs. The doorman had texted me twice and called once to say that Billy was in the lobby. The same doorman hadn’t let friends wait for me in the lobby when I was five minutes away from the place, but Billy’s star power had apparently done the trick.
Finally it seemed silly to ignore him—he was, after all, the reason for the hundreds of messages and emails we’d gotten, the trending, again, of the Superdog video because of Superdog’s mom’s troubles.
The elevator ride down was an interminable pr
ocess. I entered the lobby, but I stopped short. I inhaled deeply and then I saw him on the other side of the room. I only needed that brief second to take in the dirty-blond hair, shorter now than it used to be, to recognize Billy. I stepped behind a tall plant.
Why is he here? In this city? At my place?
I had never imagined a situation where I would see him again, no matter how small the world got, or how big. No matter how many friends we had in common on some social network, there was no way our worlds would coincide again. I had to believe that was true in order to believe I could live without him. When he’d begun to slip away, it had been terrifying. After I got arrested and Billy announced we were done, I had to get my head around the fact that no one would understand me like he had. My shot for having what my parents had was gone. He was gone.
I squeezed my eyes shut. I made myself open them, allowing shock to register again at the image of Billy. Billy McGowan. I expected him to be, decades after I’d known him, well...puffy. But although he was broader across the chest than he used to be, he looked to be in great shape. I closed my eyes again.
And right when I did so, bam! I was hit, simultaneously, with so many memories of him and me. Life quickly flipped through a stack of snapshots—each lighting my brain for an instant, then flashing away, another bursting into its place.
I saw me and Billy in his parents’ basement, could actually feel how his hands felt on my hips, that first time he drew me to him. He was so slim then, our hip bones touched.
I saw us walking through the halls of our high school, hands clasped.
I saw us in his first car, one of the few items in his life that wasn’t a hand-me-down, hadn’t been filtered through his brothers or family. I saw us in that car, hands clasped between the seats, remembering the thrill of his flesh, rougher than mine.
I saw the backstage, after one of the first real gigs I attended—Billy coming through the stage door, his face lit with wonder, happiness. And when he saw me, the marvel and joy on his face somehow increased. I knew it, and I saw it and I didn’t doubt it.
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