by Susan Conant
Asleep in an armchair, Uncle Oscar was physically present but mentally absent. I was reminded of Ogden Nash’s “Reflections on Ice-Breaking”: liquor would have been quicker, but couldn’t Rita at least have offered candy? Everything about the scene was barren and cold. New furniture had been ordered but not yet delivered, and Rita’s leather couch and cherry coffee table were still in her old apartment, so the room was sparsely furnished. The walls were still bare, and like the window shades, they were white. The temperature was frigid. I felt as if we were entering a walk-in refrigerator.
Ah, but Ogden Nash ignored the quickest and dandiest ice-breaker of all: a big, friendly dog. In no time, Izzy had awakened Uncle Oscar by poking at his pockets, she’d offered her paw to MaryJo Youngman, and she’d even managed to get the reluctant Monty Youngman to shake her proffered paw. As a service dog, she performed specific tasks for Zara, I’d been told, but as I watched her play the little crowd, it occurred to me that her great gift was her infectious happiness.
In almost no time, the atmosphere was warm, and if we’d had tails, they’d have been wagging to the beat of Izzy’s. All of a sudden, everyone was talking at once. En masse, we moved to the kitchen, where Rita belatedly served drinks and put out cheese and crackers. The Youngmans asked for ginger ale. To make Rita’s abstemiousness seem normal, I joined her in drinking orange juice, as did Zara, but Steve had single-malt scotch. Quinn, Rita told me, was on his way back from the airport with Zara’s mother. Quinn, I thought, would also have scotch, and from everything I’d heard about Vicky, she’d seek alcoholic beverages as assiduously as the Youngmans avoided them.
When we arrived, Willie had been in his crate in what I reminded myself not to call the playroom. Although Rita was very protective of him, once all of us were in the kitchen, she agreed to let him out, and the whole group moved to the not-playroom. MaryJo and Monty were clearly more interested in the wedding presents than they were in Willie. As Rita opened the door of his wire crate, Steve, Zara, and I hovered, but the Youngmans examined some silver spoons and other presents that lay on the table. As I’d observed for myself when the Youngmans had first arrived from Montana, before they’d left for Maine, they weren’t dog people, and my father had complained about their lack of interest in dogs, but when it comes to dogs, I’m definitely my father’s daughter: by interested in dogs, we mean totally obsessed.
“Zara,” Rita said, “could you keep Izzy away? She won’t hurt him, but I don’t want him roughhousing.”
At a signal from Zara, Izzy dropped to the floor.
Willie was a subdued version of his usual fiery self. The shaved patches on his forepaws gave him a wounded look, and although his handsome dark eyes shone, they didn’t sizzle. Instead of bursting out his crate and barking at everyone, he emerged quietly and almost reluctantly. In fact, I felt worried until Steve knelt next to him and said softly, “Still under the weather, buddy?” At the sound of Steve’s voice, Willie perked up and wagged his tail.
“Steve, is this normal?” Rita asked.
“Low-key is the way to go. It’s an adaptive response.”
“He won’t make eye contact,” Rita said. “He thinks it was my fault he was in the hospital.”
Almost tripping over one another’s words, Zara, Steve, and I told her that Willie thought no such thing and that, in any case, he’d belonged in the hospital.
“That’s not how dogs think,” Zara said.
In an effort to speak Rita’s language, I said, “Willie is mildly traumatized. He’s been in the hospital with strange people and strange dogs and scary smells. He’s been hooked up to IVs. Besides, a lot of dogs are standoffish when they’ve just been boarded for a few days.”
“Willie, I am so sorry,” Rita said.
Steve put his arm around her and murmured softly. Anyone observing them from a distance would’ve assumed that he was whispering sweet nothings. In fact, he asked, “Would you like me to check him over?” Ah, veterinary love!
She burst into tears. “Yes!”
Throughout this minor drama, Izzy held her solid down-stay. I reminded myself to urge Zara to train Izzy for formal obedience competition. Like every other true competitor, I hate to see flawless behavior wasted in real life when it could be put to good use scoring points and earning titles and awards in totally artificial situations.
Kneeling down, Steve stroked Willie and muttered inaudible but sympathetic-sounding questions in his basso profundo rumble. The thought crossed my mind that if someone talked to me like that, I’d happily roll over for him. Then I realized that I already had. Often.
Soon after Steve had palpated Willie’s abdomen and informed Rita that everything felt fine, the back door banged open and from the kitchen, a woman shrieked, “Rita! Your house has such possibilities! Such a darling little fixer-upper! I can hardly wait to see what you’re going to do with it.”
Zara’s immediate response to her mother’s arrival was to use one of her phones to take a picture of Willie and Steve. Covering her ears, Rita murmured under her breath, “Fixer-upper! God grant me patience.” Aloud, she said, “Hi, Aunt Vicky!”
Vicky’s age? She was a generation ahead of me and a generation behind the Youngmans, which is to say that she was about Quinn’s age, but her look of calculated sophistication made her seem older than Quinn. Vicky was so New York that by comparison, Rita and Zara were provincial. Her long hair, artfully tinted in dozens of shades of blonde, was swept dramatically back from a face in debt to dermatology and cosmetology. She had no wrinkles, no pouches, no laugh lines, and, as a result, no expression at all.
In makeup, she did not favor the natural look. The contrast between the pale background color and the variously shiny, matte, whitish, creamy, and peach zones suggested the application of products intended exclusively for the forehead, the eyelids, the under-eye areas, the cheekbones, and the hollows beneath them. Her lips were oddly puffy and bright metallic pink. She wore a short, tight jersey dress with black-and-white horizontal stripes and white sandals with three-inch heels. Her perfume was so powerful that I pitied Willie and Izzy; for once, I didn’t envy canines their preternaturally acute sense of smell. Everyone, I thought, would have been happy to breathe through a mask.
But Vicky’s looks and scent were the least of it. The most was her voice, which was so high in pitch and volume that she could have been imitating an annoying child. “Quinn, a martini, please! Sapphire Bombay, and simply open the vermouth in its vicinity. Uncle Oscar!” She threw her bony arms around him. “My favorite uncle! Zara, does that animal have to be here? I hope you’ve given up all thought of taking it to the wedding.”
“We’re a dog-friendly household,” Quinn said lightly. He reached down and rested a hand on Willie.
“Oh, god, another one. What’s wrong with it? It looks sick.”
“Willie is recovering, but he’s been in the hospital,” Rita explained.
“I can imagine what that cost,” Vicky said. “Wouldn’t it have been better to start over with a puppy?”
As Quinn supplied Vicky with the martini and himself with a small glass of scotch, Rita said, “Let’s introduce you to everyone. This is—”
Vicky interrupted her. “No, let me guess! Pointing at me, she said, “This is the dog lady.”
I made the inevitable reply: “Woof.”
“Holly Winter,” Quinn said. “And—”
Again interrupting, she jabbed a finger at MaryJo and Monty. “And you’re Quinn’s grandparents! All the way from Idaho.”
“Montana,” said MaryJo. “We’re Quinn’s parents.”
“MaryJo and Monty,” Rita said. “And this is Steve Delaney, Holly’s husband.”
Holding out his hand, Steve said, “How do you do.”
Instead of returning the routine greeting, she grasped his hand, clung to it, and bounced up to give him a peck right on the lips. “Whoo! A special pleasure to meet you, Steve.”
I cringed. If I’d had Vicky for a mother, I’d have ne
eded a hundred psychiatric service dogs. As it was, Zara’s dog did the work of a thousand. Sitting at Zara’s left side, Izzy leaned into Zara and trained loving eyes on Zara’s face. I’ve had emotional transfusions from dogs, too. I knew what I was seeing.
As if by unspoken agreement, Steve, Rita, Quinn, Zara, and I divided up the task of managing Vicky. Sharing my sense that MaryJo and Monty deserved protection from her, Steve asked them about their trip to Maine and effectively drew them out. From what I overheard, I gathered that my father, as their guide, had, as usual, applied a principle derived from life with dogs—namely, that a tired dog is a good dog. In other words, he’d force-marched them all over Acadia National Park. Still, they’d enjoyed themselves, and in telling Steve about their adventures as well as about lobster dinners, they were engaged with him and isolated from Vicky.
Rita and Quinn concentrated on removing Vicky, Quinn by picking up her two suitcases and offering to show her to her room, and Rita by asking her whether she wanted to freshen up before we left for the restaurant.
“Now?” Vicky demanded.
“We have a seven-thirty reservation,” Rita said. “The restaurant is just around the corner, but we need to get going soon.”
Grumbling about the early dinner hour, Vicky turned to Uncle Oscar. “You’re not dressed to go out,” she told him. “You can’t go like that. Can’t you at least wear a sport coat?”
“Vertex isn’t that kind of restaurant,” Rita said quietly. “It’s informal, but it’s right nearby, it’s open on Mondays, and the food is good. But Uncle Oscar prefers to stay home, don’t you, Uncle Oscar? You’ve already eaten, but if you get hungry, there’s ice cream in the freezer, and I’ve left a bowl on the counter.”
“Vortex? What kind of name is that?” Vicky demanded. “It’s very unappetizing. And this business about leaving Uncle Oscar all by himself is ridiculous.” In a stage whisper, she added, “He’s not safe alone!”
Quinn and Rita moved in on her. Rita went so far as to take her by the arm and propel her after Quinn, who was heading toward the stairs. “We’ll show you to your room,” Rita said firmly.
Once Vicky had left the kitchen, Uncle Oscar said that he was going to his room to watch television. As he passed by me, he said, “Al got off easy when he married Erica instead of that one. Erica’s a nice girl.”
I wondered whether Rita knew that her father, Al, had even thought about marrying Vicky. Had Al dated one sister first and then the other? First Vicky and then Erica. Had Rita’s mother stolen Vicky’s boyfriend?
“Rita got off easy, too,” Zara murmured. “I didn’t.”
chapter seven
Because of subsequent events, I wish that I’d paid close attention to the precise times when everything happened during the next few hours, but I had no reason to clock-watch and I didn’t. When Vicky and Quinn came back downstairs, Rita was crating Willie. Vicky, I remember, complained that it was cruel to lock an animal in a cage, and I noticed MaryJo and Monty nodding in agreement. As Zara and I were putting the drinking glasses in the dishwasher and tidying the kitchen, Vicky reverted to the topic of Uncle Oscar’s safety.
Why had he been given a room all the way up on the third floor? And shouldn’t someone make sure that he was all right before we left? When she volunteered, Quinn insisted that he’d do it. Quinn, I felt sure, was seizing the chance to get a break from Vicky, whom he’d had to endure throughout the ride from the airport.
To the best of my recollection, all of us except Quinn left for Vertex at about twenty minutes after seven. The walk was uneventful. MaryJo, I remember, clutched her big black purse to her middle and kept looking around anxiously. Vicky devoted herself to chastising Zara for taking Izzy along and for planning to take Izzy to the wedding.
“A dog at a wedding is totally unacceptable,” she said. “And if you’re hell-bent on having it with you tonight, you could at least get rid of that damned coat it’s wearing. It’s not as if it’s a Seeing Eye dog, Zara, and there’s no use pretending it is.”
By the time we arrived at Vertex, I’d resolved to serve as a buffer between Zara and Vicky, but Vicky foiled me by moving from her original seat and insisting that Zara sit there next to her. To my relief, Vicky initially withheld negative comments about Vertex, possibly because it was a charming little bistro with French lace panels across its big windows and lots of crisp white linen and fresh flowers on the tables. Because of Vicky’s maneuvering, Zara was next to me, with Izzy under the table between us, and Vicky on Zara’s other side. Steve, however, nobly took a seat next to Vicky, so it seemed to me that he and I were decently positioned to protect Zara. Monty sat across from me, with Rita on his right and MaryJo on hers.
The chair at the end of the table, between MaryJo and Steve, was temporarily empty because Quinn hadn’t yet arrived. As if to reserve the chair for her son, MaryJo placed her big black patent-leather purse on it.
Zara, a dedicated user of location apps, pulled out a phone and checked in to Vertex. Vicky shook her head and made a playful bat at the phone, but she said nothing. A server appeared to take orders for drinks. When Rita ordered two large bottles of San Pellegrino for the table, MaryJo said, “That’s water. We aren’t used to buying water!” She paused. “But it’s very nice.”
Predictably, Vicky was put out to discover that Vertex served wine and beer but no hard liquor. After studying the wine list, she took it upon herself to order a bottle of sauvignon blanc and another of Brunello di Montalcino. “Two should be enough to start with,” she said. “Except, of course, Rita—”
I cut in. “Those sound lovely.” I paused. “Don’t they, Steve?”
As we ordered appetizers, Monty and MaryJo shifted the topic of conversation to the menu, and everyone pitched in to translate. I said that ramps were wild onions. Looking up from her phone, or one of her phones, Zara said that aioli was garlic mayonnaise.
When Steve explained that calamari were squid, Monty said, “Octopus?” In reply, Steve gave an unnecessarily detailed and biological explanation of the relationship between the squid and the octopus.
When Quinn finally showed up at about quarter of eight, he said that he’d been checking on both Uncle Oscar and Willie.
“All this fuss over a dog!” Vicky exclaimed. To Steve of all people, she said, “I think it’s ridiculous, don’t you?”
He had the grace just to smile.
Vicky wiggled all over. To me, she said, “He’s gorgeous! How did you manage to catch him?”
“I’m the fisherman,” Steve said. “I caught her.”
Welcome distractions followed. Zara used a phone to take pictures of all of us for Facebook and three or four other social-media sites. The bottles of water and wine appeared and, soon thereafter, our appetizers. We ordered main courses. Because Vicky had been grabbing the attention that belonged to the bride and groom, I was happy when Steve set a precedent by proposing a toast to Rita and Quinn. Others followed Steve’s lead.
“To my dearest cousin and my newest cousin,” Zara said.
I said something about losing one tenant but gaining two wonderful neighbors.
“Wishing health and joy to the new family!” Vicky exclaimed.
“To our son and our new daughter,” Monty said, and MaryJo added, “And to everyone who’s welcomed us here.”
Rita made a toast to Quinn, and he replied with a long toast to her that strung together quotations from Bob Dylan about chaos, death, and eternal youth.
After Quinn had finished but before the arrival of our main courses, at maybe eight o’clock, Izzy, who was on my left, got quietly to her feet and gently but repeatedly pawed at Zara’s leg. In what I took to be a response, Zara made a show of fishing through her oversized purse.
“My camera,” she said. “I thought I had my Nikon, but I don’t. I want a good picture of everyone. I’ll run and get it.”
The Nikon had been in Zara’s bag when she, Steve, and I had been walking to Rita and Quinn’s; when Zara had s
hown me how capacious the bag was, I’d noticed the camera. She’d subsequently used a phone to take a picture of Steve and Willie. I didn’t remember seeing her use the Nikon. I assumed that she was inventing an excuse to leave. As she’d explained to me, one of Izzy’s most important tasks was to monitor Zara’s state and to alert her to leave a situation, to take medication, or both. Izzy’s pawing? The alert.
Steve got to his feet and offered to go with Zara, and although I doubted that anyone had actually tried to steal Izzy, I offered, too. Still, darkness was falling, and Cambridge is a city.
She refused: “No, thanks. Really, we’ll be back in no time.”
Vicky said, “Preferably, you will be. By yourself.”
Soon after Zara and Izzy’s departure, Monty asked Steve an inaudible question, excused himself, and headed for the back of the restaurant, presumably in search of the restroom. During what proved to be Monty’s rather prolonged absence and Zara’s near disappearance, the atmosphere at the table improved. The main courses not only tasted good but also gave the diverse group a shared topic of conversation.
When Monty returned, Vicky referred to him as Marty, and she called his wife Mary Ellen, but in Zara’s absence, we were spared having to listen to her take cracks at her daughter. She cross-questioned Rita and Quinn about the wedding.
As she’d have known if she’d read the invitation, the wedding was to take place at Harvard’s Appleton Chapel, and the reception at the nearby Harvard Faculty Club. So many of Rita’s and Quinn’s friends were on vacation in August that they’d decided on the chapel instead the Memorial Church sanctuary; it was to be a small wedding for family and close friends. Rita was to wear a Vera Wang gown. Her “something new,” as she called it, was a gift from Quinn, a pair of diamond stud earrings.
“From Tiffany,” added Quinn, the fan of brand names. Yes, there would be champagne. “Dom Pérignon,” Quinn specified.
When Zara and Izzy finally returned, Vicky demanded to know whether she’d checked on Uncle Oscar.
