Dog Crazy

by Meg Donohue

  When we arrive at Anya’s house, she’s sitting out on the front steps and her face looks drawn. Giselle runs to her, tail wagging, and Seymour, I’m pleased to see, follows suit, but Anya only pets them for a moment before standing.

  “What’s the matter?” I ask.

  “Rosie’s sleeping in the living room. I didn’t want the doorbell to wake her, so I thought I’d just wait outside.”

  “How’s she doing?”

  Anya blinks and looks away. “She hasn’t really been the same since she got home from the hospital. She sleeps a lot.”

  “Her doctor says it’s okay for her to be home?”

  “As long as we have a nurse here full-time. June’s been sleeping on a mat on the floor next to Rosie’s bed.”

  A full-time nurse must be expensive. It’s no wonder that Henry is adamant about going to Los Angeles. “And how are you doing?” I ask. “How are you holding up?”

  Now Anya’s eyes brim with tears. She swipes at them with the back of her hand. “Like crap,” she says, staring at the ground. “I feel like I’m losing everyone at once.”

  It’s the kind of genuine, forthright, self-aware admission that she would never have made to me when we first met. Giselle nudges her thin snout below Anya’s hand and Anya begins petting her again.

  “I’m so sorry,” I say. “Even though it might feel like you’re alone, you’re not. Henry is moving away, but he’s not leaving your life. He’ll always be here for you. You can count on him. And I’m sure your other brothers will support you as well. And I’m here for you, Anya. I’m not going anywhere. Unless you want me to.”

  “You’re okay,” Anya mumbles. Giselle starts wagging her tail faster, encouraged. “And we’re going to find Billy soon. That will help.”

  I smile, but don’t say anything.

  Anya looks up, scanning the sidewalk behind me. “Henry is coming again today,” she says. “He called yesterday to ask if he could join us.” On the word “us” her eyes move to meet mine, and I immediately wonder if he told her about visiting me at my apartment.

  “That’s nice of him. Maybe you two should go on your own.” I don’t want to intrude if Henry is trying to spend some quality time with his sister before he leaves for Los Angeles, but even as I suggest the idea I realize I’m hoping Anya will shoot it down.

  “Nah,” she says. “Here he is now.”

  We meet Henry halfway up the path. “Morning,” he says, smiling at me. “Is it just me, or do you have an extra dog today?”

  I tell him that Seymour is the dog that Anya photographed for SuperMutt. “I’m hoping if he gets more accustomed to city walks, it will increase his odds of being adopted.”

  “But,” Henry says, kneeling down in front of Seymour and smoothing back his large ears, “who could say no to you? Just as you are?” Seymour’s long pink tongue laps him on the side of his face and he stumbles backward, laughing.

  I’m afraid I might be beaming at Henry now. I know I’m struggling to restrain myself from pulling him to his feet and kissing him. Instead, I ask, “Any chance your apartment in L.A. is dog-friendly?”

  Henry stands and shakes his head, smiling sadly.

  We’ve just turned onto the sidewalk when the door of the neighboring house opens and Huan steps outside. “Good morning!” he calls. “Can I come?”

  Anya shrugs.

  Henry nods, waving him over.

  Huan’s face breaks into a grin and he jogs toward us. He stops beside Anya, flicking his hair out of his eyes. He’s wearing a black T-shirt with a logo of a skateboard on the chest, but the overall impression isn’t that different than if he were wearing an oxford. There’s something so polite and earnest and good-natured about the kid that it’s hard to resist the impulse to reach out and ruffle his shaggy black hair.

  “Let’s go find Billy,” he says in a determined voice. “I love that dog.” He turns to me. “My parents never let me have any pets. My dad says he’s allergic, but I don’t believe him. I think he just thought a dog would distract me from school.”

  “Your dad’s a jerk,” Anya says.

  Henry gives her a look. “Anya!”

  Huan laughs. “It’s okay. It’s kind of true.” Then his face flushes. “He’s a well-meaning jerk.”

  Anya rolls her eyes. “I’ve been looking for Billy for weeks. Why are you jumping on the bandwagon now, Huan?”

  “Filter, Anya,” Henry says quietly.

  “What?”

  “You don’t need to say every single thought in your head.”

  “Are you advocating self-censorship?”

  “Yes,” Henry says. “But I’m calling it human decency.”

  Anya shrugs, but I can see she feels bad. Actually, when she glances toward Huan, she seems almost shy. “Fine. I would be positively delighted if you would join us, Huan. We’re going to Tank Hill.” She turns to me and holds out her palm. I try to give her Seymour’s leash, hoping they’ll do a little bonding, but she snatches Giselle’s instead and strides off.

  “Sweet,” Huan says, hurrying after her. “I love Tank Hill.” He falls into step at her side and Henry and I trail a few steps behind.

  I realize it’s the first time I’ve been outside without Giselle at my side. Recondition! I think, and begin plying Seymour with bite after bite of salmon in the hope that it will distract both of us from the fact that Giselle is getting farther ahead.

  “I wanted to help you from the beginning,” I hear Huan telling Anya. “But I didn’t know you were letting people come with you.”

  Poor kid. He’s probably been watching her set off on these walks for weeks, gathering his courage to ask if he can help her. The crush he has on her is as touching as it is painfully obvious.

  “Kite Hill, Tank Hill . . . How many hills are there in this city?” I ask Henry, glad to have him nearby as another distraction.

  “Technically seven, but those are the really big ones that don’t even include Kite Hill and Tank Hill. All together, there has to be close to fifty.”

  I hurry to open the bag of cold cuts now that Seymour has made his way through the salmon. It’s hard to believe that I used to enjoy the meditative aspect of walking. Did you get lost? John used to joke when Toby and I returned from a particularly long walk. Nope, I’d answer. Just untangling the knots. That’s how walking with Toby always felt—like I was working loose the kinks of the day.

  I miss that sense of freedom, and peace. When I’m better, I think, I’m going to walk these hills every day—with or without a dog by my side. I’m surprised by the sudden intensity of my desire to do this, to be myself again.

  “He’ll be happy when he sees where we’re going,” Anya says, looking back toward Seymour, who, despite a belly full of food, still has tucked his tail securely between his legs. “Dogs love this park.”

  Tank Hill is only a couple of blocks from my apartment, but I’d never made it up there with Toby because Lourdes had warned me that he might not be up for the climb. We head up a series of steeply twisting streets, making our way out of Cole Valley, and eventually the street ends and a dirt path begins, winding up through the bare, grassy park. The air feels damp and heavy with fog. If I were in Philadelphia, I would have said it was about to rain; but in San Francisco, I’ve learned, you just never knew. By the time we reach the top of the hill, we’ll probably have entered another microclimate entirely.

  I have to admit that these strange, wild little parks that dot the city are sort of magical. One minute you’re on a street lined with tight rows of homes, and the next minute you’re on an open, exposed patch of grass and rock with views in one direction or another or sometimes, to my dismay, every direction at once. Tank Hill is a particularly hidden one, tucked into the slope that leads up to Twin Peaks, skirted by roads that seem to protect rather than reveal the secret park around which they curve.

  “There used to be a water tank up here,” Henry tells me when we reach the flat area at the top of the hill. “According to Rosie
, it was dismantled in the fifties.”

  We’re all huffing and puffing from the climb—even Seymour seems momentarily winded, plopping himself down at my feet and panting as the cool breeze ruffles his ears. He lifts his nose and sniffs the air, catching some scent.

  “Look,” Henry says, pointing over my shoulder.

  The direction he points, out toward the city, is exactly where I’ve been trying not to look. I take a deep breath and turn slowly. We’re standing on a huge, craggy, reddish boulder, the edge of which hangs over a hill so steep it isn’t even visible from where we stand. I can see the wooded silhouette of Buena Vista Park to the east, the long, verdant expanse of Golden Gate Park to the northwest. A hard wind blows toward us from the coast, which has been devoured by the fog. The fog hides most of the Golden Gate Bridge, too, though pieces of the bridge suddenly appear and disappear as the silvery clouds race and tumble through the sky. The land on the other side of the bay is completely hidden behind a dreary expanse of sky.

  Just as the vertigo threatens to knock out my knees and send me tumbling off the rock, I hear Henry’s voice near my ear. “Do you see it?” He points toward the stretch of Cole Valley just below us. I peer down, but the city is growing blurry—partly from my own vision, and partly from the thickening stream of fog. My throat tightens, something in my chest twisting, pinching. I feel as though I might be sick.

  One.

  Two.

  Henry is close behind me; he puts one hand on my upper arm and levels his other arm over my shoulder, still pointing down toward the city. “Right there,” he says. “The white house four up from that intersection, across from the big palm tree.”

  I manage to gaze blearily along the line of his arm to his finger and beyond, down toward the streets of Cole Valley, which suddenly, miraculously, come into focus.

  “Oh,” I say, surprised.

  It’s Lourdes’s house. My blue door is hidden, but there is the fence at the sidewalk, the small plot of green that surrounds the house, the garden boxes in the rear yard, the thread of gray that is the stone path. My little oasis. The house feels so snug, so private, from inside, but from up here I see that it’s packed in with the neighboring houses, the crowded city of streets and sidewalks and houses and people and life pressing right up against it.

  Way up here on Tank Hill, exposed to the elements, I realize, looking down, is probably more of an oasis than my apartment.

  Still, one long look is plenty. I’d like to turn back around, but Henry has his hand on my arm and the pleasant feeling of its pressure and warmth is enough to keep me there a moment or two longer. Seymour lies at my feet, gazing out at the horizon. He doesn’t look worried.

  Henry and I both hear a muffled noise and turn at the same time. Anya and Huan are walking along a far edge of the scrubby hilltop. Anya cups her hands around her mouth and yells out over the city. Her words are lost in the wind, but I know she’s calling for Billy. Huan stares at her. Anya yells a few more times, and then they head back to where we stand on the boulder.

  “See anything?” I ask.

  Anya shakes her head. She seems to have fallen into a dark mood, her eyes still roaming over the streets below. I decide it’s as good a time as any to tell her about Sybil’s idea for the fund-raiser; maybe it will cheer her up—or at least distract her.

  “The woman who runs SuperMutt was really impressed with your photo of Seymour,” I tell her, explaining that Sybil hopes she’ll be willing to take photos of the dogs that will be auctioned off at the fund-raiser. “She wants to blow up all of the photos and decorate the event space with them. It should be good publicity.”

  “Publicity for what?”

  “Welllll.” I flash her a quick, guilty smile, feeling Henry and Huan’s eyes on me, too. “I might have let Sybil believe that you were a professional photographer . . . but only because there’s no reason you shouldn’t be. I saw you in action myself—you were fantastic. Totally in control. You took an anxious, tough-to-photograph dog and made him look happy and confident. As Sybil says, you made Seymour look like a real SuperMutt.

  “So, I’ve been thinking,” I continue, “that you should consider starting your own business. And if you were interested in doing that, the gala would be a great way to get your name out there. Maybe you could even donate a pet photography session as an auction item—it would be good publicity, and I bet the referrals would roll in once people saw your work.”

  Henry and Huan are both smiling encouragingly at Anya, but the look on her face is harder to read, so I just keep talking. “If you’d like, I could help you set up a business website. That’s really all you’d need to get started. You seem to have all the equipment already.”

  Anya kicks at the ground with one of her huge boots. “Yeah,” she mumbles. “Maybe.”

  I decide to ignore her hesitation. “The only catch is that we’d need you to get started right away. The gala is three weeks away and there are six dogs that are being fostered around the city that need to be photographed.”

  Anya shrugs. “I have some time on my hands. It shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “Anya, you’re a lifesaver. Really. Sybil is going to be thrilled, and more importantly, you’re going to make a huge impact in getting these dogs into their forever homes as quickly as possible.” I glance at Huan, who is giving Anya one of his not-so-subtle looks of adoration. “It seemed like you were lugging a lot of equipment when you photographed Seymour, so if you have a friend who could help you carry stuff when you take the dogs’ photos, you definitely should bring him along.”

  “I’ll be fine,” Anya says. “It’s not that much.”

  “Well, also, it might be helpful to have someone who can assist in wrangling the dogs—some of them might be more energetic than Seymour. You know, someone who could squeeze a squeaky toy over your head so the dog actually looks toward the camera, that sort of thing . . .” I trail off, looking pointedly at Huan, willing him to speak up. Come on! Here’s your shot, lover boy!

  Huan catches my look and his eyes widen. “Oh! I, um . . . I could do that. I could help you, Anya.”

  “I really don’t need any help.”

  Huan glances at me and I give him a little nod of encouragement. “Oh, I know you don’t. But it sounds fun. And my school schedule is kind of light the next few weeks.”

  Anya snorts. “Yeah, double majoring in computer science and economics sounds really light.” She shrugs. “But, whatever. You can help if you want. Maybe you’ll wind up adopting a dog. Give your old dad a conniption. Fight the power.”

  Huan laughs. For some reason, Giselle barks, startling all of us, and then we’re all smiling, even Anya. Even without looking over, I can feel Henry’s eyes on me.

  Then it begins to rain.

  “Crap,” Anya says.

  None of us move. My eyes blur, my eyelashes growing damp. I lift my palms and watch the raindrops bounce off of them. When was the last time I stood outside in the rain, just stood there and let it wash over me? Maybe when I was a kid. Maybe never; my mom was always worried I’d get sick. Anya and Huan and Henry jog toward the path but I stand there at the top of Tank Hill a moment longer. Henry stops and looks back at me.

  “Maggie, are you coming?”

  I shrug, grinning, and point my face up to the sky. Henry laughs. I shake the water from my hair like a dog and jog toward him.

  The path is already turning slick with mud. Ahead of Anya, Giselle seems distraught, hopping from one side of the path to the other, trying to keep her paws out of the mud. Seymour lopes obliviously through the puddles, his fat paws spattering mud with each step. There’s something carefree about his gait; his grin, tongue lolling from the side of his mouth, verges on ecstatic. My eyes blur again, watching him. Toby would have loved this, too, running down a grassy hill in the rain. I feel happy and sad and happy again. We’re all slipping and jogging and wiping the rain from our eyes. Henry stumbles and I catch his elbow and then we’re just sort of holding each oth
er, shuffling and sliding and hurrying down the path. My heart races, but not in an unpleasant way. Below us, the city is a watercolor, all of its sharp edges softened.

  We jog all the way down to Cole Street, and fall into seats at a table under the awning of the French bakery on the corner. Henry ducks inside and returns a few minutes later with a tray of hot chocolates and a stack of napkins. We pat our faces dry and watch the rain pour off the awning and the steam rise from our drinks. Giselle curls into a ball under the table and Seymour follows suit. As he wedges himself between my feet and Giselle, he releases an old-man groan that makes me laugh.

  When Huan and Anya head back inside to pick out some pastries to bring home for Rosie, the atmosphere—our little table, sheltered from the rain by the orange awning, the car tires whispering over the wet street as they pass, the soft, blurred lights of nearby shops—turns irrepressibly romantic. Henry and I exchange smiles. My shirt is still damp, clinging to me. I should be cold, but I’m not.

  “So, I was wondering,” Henry says, “if maybe I could take you out to dinner sometime.”

  I bite the inside of my mouth, trying to summon a response that won’t make me seem like a crazy person, which rules out explaining to him that if we went to dinner there’s a very good chance that I would start shaking, stop breathing, or feel the overpowering, irresistible urge to sprint home.

  “Or the movies,” he adds when I don’t respond right away. “Or . . . just a drink?”

  “Maybe we shouldn’t make this any more complicated,” I say. “Because of my relationship with Anya.”