Joint Custody

by Lauren Baratz-Logsted

  I always knew The Redhead was one sharp cookie.

  The Redhead followed The Woman into the kitchen, and I hopped up, following The Redhead.

  Hey, Redhead see, Gatz do.

  The Redhead perched herself on the island, which I supposed was just barely OK since the food portion of the evening was finished, as The Woman played with the cork of a wine bottle, either not noticing or ignoring the way The Redhead was looking at her.

  “What do you think of the new mail system at work?” The Woman said, finally breaking the silence.

  “The new mail system?” The Redhead echoed, with a light mocking tone that could’ve easily made the leap across the aisle to scathing.

  “Sure,” The Woman said. “The reading has me thinking about the intensity of that civic duty. We can be so oblivious to the people who play essential roles in our lives—the man who runs the bodega, the conductor on the train, and, yes, the mail carrier—but when you think about it, really think, it’s astounding that—”

  “Are we really not going to talk about what happened out there?”

  “What happened out where?”

  When she’d spoken that last, The Woman met her eyes as the cork popped free. Then a smile spread across her face, almost involuntarily, it seemed, and she quickly returned her attention to the bottle.

  “Come on,” The Redhead said. “We’re really not going to address the elephant in the room?” Pause. “Or should I say, the objectively handsome man in your living room?”

  The corners of The Woman’s smile spread even wider, if possible, as she kept her gaze downward. For my part, I continued looking anxiously between the two of them.

  “Still not knowing what you’re talking about here,” The Woman said, suppressing the smile, trying to hide it.

  “Don’t be that way with me,” The Redhead said. “I can see what you’re like with him.”

  “I’m not any way with him,” The Woman objected. But still, there was that smile. “He’s my author.”

  “Our publishing house’s author,” The Redhead corrected. “And, oh, by the way . . . you so totally are!”

  “So totally? What are we, twelve now?”

  “Hey, don’t knock twelve. When you’re twelve, the world is still hopefully new and ideas are hopefully fresh.”

  “Be that as it may, and as romantic a notion of youth as it is, one I’m not sure I wholly agree with, there’s still no need to—”

  “You really like him!” The Redhead crowed.

  “Shh!” The Woman shushed, warning finger to lips as she cast an anxious look between The Redhead and the doorway what with all it led to . . . beyond.

  I gotta tell you, I was feeling anxious too, but my eyes were fixed in one place, squarely on The Woman.

  “No, I don’t,” The Woman whispered, so low even I could barely hear her. “I can’t.”

  But I could tell that the “don’t” was a lie. Maybe she was even lying to herself about it, but it was still a lie.

  I was crestfallen, for once struck mentally speechless.

  Had I known this? Kinda? Sorta? It was one thing to kinda-sorta suspect a thing and quite another to have it confirmed during girl-to-girl talk.

  “And even if I did, which I don’t,” The Woman said, “I can’t do anything about it.”

  “Come on,” The Redhead said. “You can find a way to work around this.”

  “No,” The Woman insisted, “I really can’t. I really like him, but I can’t date him. It wouldn’t be ethical. It wouldn’t be right.”

  “But what if he turns out to be the love of your life? Does ethics demand you not explore the possibility with someone who could turn out to be the love of your life?”

  Hey, now! That was The Brunette’s line before! Whose side was The Redhead on here?

  “I’m on the side of love,” The Redhead said. “I’m always going to be on the side of love.”

  “Who said anything about love?” The Woman said. “I barely know him.”

  “And you should get to know him better,” The Redhead insisted. “You owe it to yourself.”

  Just then, The Blonde sailed in, stopped, turned around, and sailed right back out again. Was she being socially sensitive? Was it that she noted that they were deep in private conversation? Was it because she was blazing drunk and forgot what she came in for in the first place?

  “There’s your answer,” The Redhead said, indicating the space The Blonde had briefly occupied.

  “I don’t follow.”

  “She’s not the editor you are, but she’s still a decent editor.”

  I didn’t entirely understand what The Redhead meant by this, but apparently The Woman got it.

  “But I love working with him,” The Woman objected.

  “But you also don’t feel like you can do both,” The Redhead countered, “and I get it. So you have to choose. If she were to become his editor, your ethical dilemma would be solved.”

  “Maybe . . .”

  “You’d probably still want to keep it on the down low for a while, but it’s not like it would be forever,” The Redhead went on. “I know we’re fast-tracking his book. And you and he can always still talk about craft or whatever, but officially, she’d be his editor. Problem solved.”

  I gotta admit, I was a little confused at this point. She was his editor, she wouldn’t be his editor, maybe she’d still be his editor? Honestly, it was all publishing to me.

  The Woman cleared her throat, raised the bottle high, and sailed out to the living room.

  “Who needs a top-up?” I heard her offer.

  I hurried back to the living room, arriving just in time to see The Brunette thrust her empty glass forward.

  “Yes, please and thank you,” she said.

  I watched New Man watching The Woman pour without her knowledge of his eyes or mine. In his now was a naked admiration. It was something I recognized because I shared that naked admiration. And you know who else shared it? The Man. The Man was the only non-canine allowed to admire her nakedly.

  If I was mildly annoyed with this guy in the past, a little miffed maybe, now a fully formed anger was stewing inside.

  But I had to, I knew, bide my time.

  It was thus much later, the nacho platter vastly diminished, the group still laughing over their wine, when I saw my opportunity.

  I’d been guarding the door, my eyes intently stabbing into New Man, who was starting to become aware of those stabs. Hastily, he got up, grabbing the platter.

  “I’ll go refill this,” he offered.

  Hey, hadn’t he gotten the memo? The food portion of the evening was over, which was why it’d been OK for The Redhead to park her butt on the island.

  Oh, wait. What was I objecting to? This was the moment I’d been waiting for.

  “OK!” The Blonde said.

  “Hurry back!” The Brunette said.

  New Man strode toward the kitchen with a confidence that struck me as false, and I slunk after him.

  In the kitchen, back to me, he popped open another bag of chips and carefully poured the contents out, spreading them around evenly on the platter. So wrapped up was he in arranging his chips just right, it wasn’t until he pivoted to the fridge for the cheese that he found something blocking his path.

  Me.

  I glared up at New Man.

  New Man nervously smiled down at me.

  “Hey, buddy—”

  I barked aggressively. But not so loud that the group in the living room could hear me, however. Think of it more as a series of low growls, but invested with all the menace and threat I had in me.

  New Man took an inelegant little hop backward, eyes frantically looking toward the living room for assistance.

  But if I could help it, there would be no help coming.

  “I
t’s OK,” New Man said, both hands out in an easy does it gesture of placation.

  As if I could ever be placated. As if.

  “All I need to do is get past you,” New Man said, “and get to the fridge, and get some more cheese for the nachos for—”

  A part of me half admired him. He’d promised The Woman he’d make more nachos, and he’d deliver unto her more nachos, even if it meant negotiating his way around Hellboy, aka me.

  Eh. Screw half admiration.

  I barked even more vociferously, still keeping it quiet enough so the group couldn’t possibly hear.

  Then I saw a shift. New Man’s nervousness appeared to subside, replaced by a slight annoyance.

  “I need you to let me pass,” New Man said. “This is unacceptable, maladaptive behavior.”

  Shift, schmift. I knew feigned bravery when I saw it, and this was as feigned as bravery comes.

  No longer even attempting to contain myself, I let out a string of loud barks, drawing The Woman to us.

  “Gatz?” she said, her voice filled with concern.

  It occurred to me, then, that this was the first attention she’d shown to me all night. I might have been offended by this fact, but I was so relieved to have her kneel down beside me, rubbing behind my ears as I lapped happily at her face, I decided to shelve my pissed-off feeling for the time being.

  “I, uh, accidentally stepped on his tail,” New Man fibbed.

  So, he was capable of telling a fib, huh? Fibbing may not be up there on the Ten Commandments, but maybe it should be. See, I knew this guy couldn’t be as perfect as he seemed.

  “Oh, is that all?” The Woman said.

  All? ALL?

  “I’ve done that too,” The Woman said, waving a blithely forgiving hand. “Dogs and their tails, right?”

  New Man smiled widely at this slightly odd thing to say, but that smile froze when he caught my glare, unseen by The Woman. His grin decreased yet further as The Woman nodded, bringing me back toward the living room with her.

  New Man cleared his throat, and I turned back to catch him pulling open the fridge, which he could do now that I was no longer blocking it.

  His eyes met mine, and I gazed steadily back, sphinxlike now, before turning tail.

  In the living room, once the stepping-on-the-tail incident was related, an incident that hadn’t actually happened, I received the soothing affections of the group, as was only my due.

  I hoped that, from the kitchen, New Man could hear it all.

  I hoped New Man realized who was really king of this castle.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Three weeks later . . .

  The Woman brought me back much earlier than usual, but The Man was ready for us since she’d called ahead.

  After the usual exchange of formal pleasantries, she was about to take her leave when he stopped her with a:

  “STAY!”

  He barked it so loud, no one could have blamed her if she assumed he was administering a command to me. Except he never yelled at me like that, no matter how bad I’d been. And his tone now wasn’t admonitory so much as it was just plain loud.

  “Stay?” she said.

  “Or,” he said, “go?”

  “Do you want me to stay or go?” she said, understandably confused.

  I was confused too. This was the moment I’d been hoping for, for so long; the moment when he’d do something to stop her from going out that door again. And yet now that he was doing it, I sensed he might be flubbing the whole thing.

  “No,” he said. “I mean, yes. Go. Go OUT!”

  She sighed but not without a benevolent level of patient tolerance. “I think you’re going to have to give me a little more to go on here.”

  “GATZ’S OFFICIAL BIRTHDAY!” was the little more that he came out with.

  Her expression completely softened then as she said with a gentle wistfulness, “Gatz’s Official Birthday.”

  And here’s where I need to explain the one thing, outside of a regal bearing, that I share with Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II. QEII, as I like to think of her familiarly, was born on April 21, so that’s her Real Birthday. But in England, her Official Birthday, the date the country celebrates it, is the second Saturday in June. I’m not really sure why, but if you asked me, I’d have to guess it has to do with the British weather. An April celebration would likely involve a high probability of precipitation. But have it in June, and at least you stand a chance at a good day.

  In my case, no one really knows when my Real Birthday is. The obvious deduction is that it’s sometime early in winter, but no one knows the exact date. So, after The Man adopted me and later The Man and The Woman became a couple, they put their heads together and decided that, like QEII, I would be given an Official Birthday. But unlike her, I wasn’t given a specific Saturday in June. Rather, my Official Birthday was decreed as being “the first really amazingly gorgeous day that we’re all home together.”

  And that Sunday, it was amazingly gorgeous out.

  Now that The Man had shouted like a loon several times, he calmed down enough to explain, “I’d just been figuring that, when you said you were bringing him back early, it’s so amazingly gorgeous a day today, this should be Gatz’s Official Birthday this year. But then I thought that maybe you’d like to join us. You know, to make it extra special for him? But you probably have other plans, so—”

  “I do,” The Woman cut him off. “But I agree, it would be nice for us all to mark the occasion together. Let me just . . .” She pulled out her phone, punched some buttons, sent a text.

  “So,” she said brightly once she was finished texting, “where shall we go?” Not waiting for an answer, she added with a gleam in her eye, “As if I have to ask.”

  I gotta say, the walk to our favorite park was torture—torture in terms of staying focused, that is. When you think about it, the preponderance of food trucks in the city is totally unfair to dogs. Who doesn’t want to stop at every purveyor of hot dogs, hoping for a little questionable meat to hit the pavement? Who doesn’t want to preen for the falafel vendor, hoping he’ll be charmed enough to toss over just one spicy ball? The aromas were killing me! But . . .

  Gotta stay focused, Gatz. You’re going to the park with your people, the moment you’ve dreamed of but feared might never come again. Gotta stay focused!

  What can I say? I did my best.

  And being back at the park, our park, with the both of them—Both. At. The. Same. Time.—it was every bit as good as I’d dreamed it would be.

  On that day, it was no mere repetitive game of stick. Oh no. There was a stick. There was a ball. And there was a Frisbee.

  They took turns throwing all three for me, and no one said, not even once, “That’s enough, Gatz. It’s time to go.”

  They just played and played with me, even laughing together over my antics. It made me remember how happy we’d been once, and I hoped with all my might that it would remind them how happy we could still be again.

  I loved hearing them so generously say, “No, after you”; “Really, I insist, after you,” as each throwing implement was introduced. There was such a feeling of love in the air, I wished it could go on forever.

  But even I can’t run forever, and eventually, I got tired out.

  Still, no one told me it was time to go, but they did ask if I wanted to.

  “We could get ice cream,” The Man suggested.

  “It is your Official Birthday, Gatz,” The Woman agreed.

  I could not fault their logic.

  Nor could I fault that they both held on to my leash, their fingers touching as we walked for our ice cream, me between them. Just like old times.

  So, ice cream we had, but we had vanilla, as opposed to the chocolate we all knew could kill me. That was really great too. And seeing The Man reach out to gently da
b at some ice cream on her cheek, and hearing her laughingly accept that dabbing—oh, the beauty of that tinkling laugh—that was the best thing. These two just had to get back together!

  But the bittersweet thing about ice cream is that you can’t keep eating it forever. If you don’t eat it with a reasonable level of speed, it becomes a whole other experience entirely. And while I have a high tolerance for messes, not everyone else feels the same.

  “Time to go, Gatz?” The Woman said, popping the last of her cone in her mouth and wiping her fingers on one of those crappy little ineffectual napkins they always give you.

  She’d framed it as a question, but I knew that this time it was a statement.

  So she walked us back to our apartment, and as great of an Official Birthday as it had been, she still left afterward.

  The Man went to his room to don a fresh flannel, since he’d dribbled ice cream on the other one. When he returned, the sun was setting outside the window, and I wagged my tail at his feet.

  “Gatz, no.”

  Aw, come on. Please?

  I wagged my tail harder.

  But it’s my Official Birthday!

  “I said no, Gatz.”

  Do you think QEII has to beg to get her own way on her Official Birthday? Or ever?

  “You know I hate to dance,” The Man said.

  I thrashed my tail against the floor, my tongue practically falling out of my mouth.

  The Man sighed.

  I knew that sigh.

  “Well, it is still your Official Birthday . . .”

  YES!

  “OK,” The Man said, “but only for you, buddy.”

  I hurried to the other side of the room, waiting as patiently as I could, while The Man stripped down to his boxers and put on a pair of white gym socks.

  Then, we slid across the hardwood floor toward each other à la Tom Cruise in Risky Business, and The Man sang “Old Time Rock and Roll” aloud, while I bounced along in time.

  Yeah, I know. The dog being able to dance might be a suspension-of-disbelief bridge too far for some people. That’s OK. Go look up “border collie line dancing” on YouTube. I’ll wait here. Oh, and that border collie? He can play Jenga too! Hey, I’m working on it.