Must Love Dogs: New Leash on Life

by Cook, Claire

  Must Love Dogs

  New Leash on Life

  (Book 2 of the Must Love Dogs series)

  Claire Cook

  Marshbury Beach Books

  ©Claire Cook, 2014. All rights reserved.

  For Gary David Goldberg

  Rest in peace, my friend

  Chapter

  One

  My brother Michael was staying with me until his marriage got back on track.

  "Don't you molly coddle him, Sarah," my father said. "Just give him three squares a day and make sure he has a starched white shirt to wear to the office."

  "If he so much as looks at a beer bottle, hide his cell phone," my sister Carol said. "Do not, under any circumstances, let him drunk dial Phoebe. She was a witch with a capital B when he married her, and she'll be a witch with a capital B when we find her replacement."

  "Why does Michael have to stay at your house?" my sister Christine said. "We have plenty of room, and no offense, but it's so not fair the way you always have to hog him."

  After months, maybe years, of trying to hold his marriage together while he lived at home, Michael hoped that absence would, in fact, make Phoebe's heart grow fonder. So he moved out and now he drove his daughters, Annie and Lainie, to Irish step dancing on Wednesdays after school and took them out to dinner afterward. They also spent every weekend with him.

  With us.

  At my house.

  "How much longer do you think it will be?" John Anderson finally asked. This seemed a reasonable question from the man who had become my significant other.

  "Does until hell freezes over seem too pessimistic?" I answered.

  After a bumpy start to our relationship, John and I had shared six months of dating bliss. We were now basically on hold. I wondered sometimes in the middle of the night if we'd accrued enough bliss points to get through this. And did bliss have a shelf life? Would it expire of neglect before we could fan the flames again on a regular basis?

  Tonight, my brother Michael and I were kicked back on my couch. A week's worth of starched white shirts in dry cleaning bags were draped over my treadmill. Two empty Sam Adams beer bottles flanked a half-eaten cheese pizza on the coffee table. I was a good sister.

  I burped.

  "Nice," Michael said.

  "Thanks," I said.

  Over the weekend, Michael and Annie and Lainie and I had pulled down my rickety old attic stairs and gone on a hunt for toys. My nieces weren't overly impressed with the relics of my childhood and were back downstairs and lost in cell phone games in no time. Apparently my brother felt otherwise, because right now he was playing with my Growing Up Skipper doll.

  "She's two dolls in one, for twice as much fun!" I recited in my peppiest imitation of the 1970s commercial.

  Skipper was Barbie's little sister. Like the Doublemint of our childhood that had been touted as two, two, two mints in one, this version of Skipper really was two dolls in one. When you first saw her, she appeared to be a sweet little blond elementary school student. But if you rotated her left arm back, she actually grew breasts right before your very eyes.

  As if Barbie's impossible body hadn't screwed me up enough in my formative years. Thanks to Growing Up Skipper, I'd spent at least a year of my prepubescent life circling my left arm backward like a one-armed backstroker while I knelt beside my bed saying my nightly prayers. After asking God to bless Mom and Dad and my three brothers and two sisters and all the starving children in China, I prayed for boobs, bigger than my sister Carol's, who was two years older and, please God, arriving before my seventeen-months younger sister Christine's showed up.

  "We must, we must, we must increase our bust," Michael said beside me all these years later as he pumped Growing Up Skipper's left arm up and down. Her breasts appeared and disappeared in perfect time to his chant.

  "Knock it off," I said. I reached for my old doll.

  Michael yanked her away. "Who's gonna make me?"

  "Give her to me," I yelled as I lunged for Skipper. Old habits die hard and all that, but it was truly amazing the way my brothers and sisters and I could revert to our childhood selves in a nanosecond.

  A loud bark made me jump. Mother Teresa, Michael's humongous St. Bernard, who was also staying with me until Phoebe missed her or until hell froze over, grabbed Growing Up Skipper.

  I screamed.

  Michael jumped to his feet. "Mother Teresa, drop it."

  Mother Teresa held Skipper's left arm between her teeth as she shook her head in some ancient prey-killing ritual she hadn't quite evolved beyond. The doll's breasts appeared and disappeared with each shake.

  I ran to the kitchen and grabbed the doggie treat jar. I held out a bone-shaped biscuit.

  Mother Teresa appeared to raise one eyebrow.

  I put the first treat on the floor and took a second one from the jar.

  She gave Growing Up Skipper another shake.

  "Fine," I said. "But fair warning, I'm drawing the line at three."

  Mother Teresa placed Growing Up Skipper gently on the floor and collected her three treats.

  "Good girl," Michael said.

  "That's debatable," I said. I picked up my drool-covered doll and started wiping her on my jeans. I reconsidered and grabbed a pizza napkin.

  "Here, I'll get that," Michael said.

  I handed over Growing Up Skipper and the napkin and plopped down on the couch.

  Michael finished grooming Growing Up Skipper and was back to rhythmically pumping her left arm.

  I knew it was a cry for help. I recognized my sisterly duty. I'd get his mind off Growing up Skipper, then I'd get his mind off Phoebe. I'd help him realize his marriage was over and assist him in navigating his divorce while striving to keep the negative impact on Annie and Lainie to a bare minimum. And then I'd find him a more suitable match. As soon as I got that all squared away, John Anderson and I would ride off into the blissful sunset together.

  "I think I'll pack it in," Michael said. "Do you want me to take Mother Teresa out one more time, or can you get her before you head off to bed?"

  Mother Teresa leaned over and lapped my cheek. I sighed. "I'll take her."

  Michael gave a sad half-wave. "G'night, Sarah. Night, Mother Teresa."

  He took an unhappy step toward the guestroom.

  "Michael," I said.

  He turned around. Growing Up Skipper was cradled in his arms.

  I held out my hand. "Give me the doll, Michael."

  I sat there for a while, scratching Mother Teresa in her new favorite place, right behind her left ear. Then I got up and tiptoed to my former master bedroom, which I'd turned into an office and where I worked on projects and stored extra things for my classroom.

  I rummaged through a pile of scrapbooks on the bottom shelf. I pulled out my wedding album, dusted it off with one hand, held it for a moment. I closed my eyes and tried to picture Kevin, my former husband. All I could conjure was a vague image of a man sitting on a toilet seat, his head hidden behind the newspaper, his pants around his ankles, the bathroom door open. I wondered if Kevin read his morning news on an iPad now.

  Finally, I found the notebook I'd kept while I was navigating the dating scene. A page for each of my dates, rated with hand-drawn stars and flags. So many red flags billowed across the tops of the pages that it looked like a sale at a car dealership. George from Hanover, who was looking for a relationship one day a month, no strings, no commitments. Ben, who grew his own alfalfa sprouts. The guy looking for a plus-sized Woman, whom I'd briefly considered partly because I liked the way he capitalized Woman, but mostly because I could eat a lot. Ray Santia, the former almost hockey star I'd almost slept with. Bob Connor, a student's father I shou
ldn't have slept with.

  It was a jungle out there. Poor Michael. But if I didn't get him out of my house and on his merry way, before I knew it I might be back out there myself.

  I took a moment to shudder at the thought. Then I found the personal ad my sister Carol had placed for me, taped into the center of a page.

  Voluptuous, sensuous, alluring and fun. Barely 40 DWF seeks special man to share starlit nights. Must love dogs.

  I carried my dating notebook out to the living room, along with my favorite red pencil. I turned to a fresh college-lined page and tapped the eraser against my teeth while I tweaked the ad to suit my brother.

  Buff, brilliant, broken but not beyond repair. Handsome soon to be DWM with all his hair seeks special woman who meets his daughters' high standards. Must love big slobbery dogs.

  Chapter

  Two

  "No, no, no," my sister Carol said. "He's not even close to being ready to date. He's not over his ball buster of a wife yet."

  "Plus, if it got out there he could get totally screwed in the alimony department," my brother Johnny said.

  I turned to Carol. "Just curious, but can you explain why you have to say witch with a capital B instead of bitch, but you can say ball buster?"

  She gave me the look she'd been giving me since we were kids, the one that said What is your problem? "Obviously because one's a swear and one isn't."

  "Screwed is okay," Johnny said.

  "Of course it is," I said. "I think it's even on the kids' spelling list at my preschool."

  My father adjusted his cap over his mane of white hair. "'In all the world, 'tis nothing better for a broken man's soul than a rebound relationship," he said as he slid on his driving gloves. Even with a breeze off the water, it had to be at least seventy degrees out already.

  "Maybe we can find him a female lawyer who's single and kill two birds with one stone," my sister Christine said.

  "Hel-lo," my brother, Michael, said. "I'm right here."

  My father flung an arm around his shoulder and gave him a leather-cloaked pat with one hand. "That you are, Mikey boy, that you are. And we're right here for you, too, wrapping you in the warm embrace of your ever-lovin' family." He tilted his head to rest it against Michael's. "Let me check my Rolodex when I get home, son. It could be I've got a spare number or two."

  Michael opened his eyes wide. "That's okay, Dad. I'm good." Mother Teresa barked her agreement from the other end of the leash.

  "Sailor's Bonnet" filled the air and we turned our attention to the bandstand. Annie and Lainie had finished lacing up their ghillies and were standing with the rest of the Irish step dancers, ready to perform.

  Michael and I had worked hard on their banana curls last night, winding long brown hair around soft pink foam rollers, but I had to admit Phoebe did a better job of it. I glanced over my shoulder to see if I could spot her. Michael and Phoebe had yet to master the dance of attending the girls' activities as separated parents. Whichever parent Annie and Lainie were staying with at the time took them, while the other lurked at a safe distance.

  Relief that Kevin and I hadn't had even a single child to drag through a divorce washed over me for the umpteenth time. And once again that relief was followed by a wave of sadness so powerful that it almost bowled me over. How had my life conspired to leave me, of all people, childless? And Kevin, who for the ten years we'd been married had never been quite ready, was now pushing a double stroller, courtesy of a much younger woman named Nikki, on the other side of town.

  Even as my very last eggs were reaching their expiration date. Fast.

  "Hey, sorry I'm late." John Anderson kissed me on the cheek and I breathed in the scent of him. "Horatio wanted to come with me, so it took a while to get him settled in at puppy play care."

  Horatio was John's puppy, a cross between a Yorkie mom and a greyhound dad who somehow managed to look oddly like a scruffy dachshund. In the first blush of love Horatio was supposed to be our shared puppy, maybe even our practice child, or at least a stand-in.

  But, my life being my life, Horatio hated my guts. With a passion.

  "Jack, my boy, a top o' the morning to you," my father said as he reached for a handshake.

  "Dad," I said. "His name is John."

  My father glanced skyward, as if summoning the patience of a saint, and shook his head. "We've been through all that rigmarole, Sarry girl. This family already has one John and, truth be told, our Johnny boy got there first."

  My brother Johnny shrugged. He grinned and extended his hand to John.

  "I think I can work with that," John said. "Jack's a great name. I might even prefer it."

  "Done," my father said. "Now on to the dog. What kind of an Eye-talian name is Horatio? Seamus has a far better ring to it."

  "Bonnie Isle O'whalsay" segued seamlessly into an Irish fiddle reel and we all turned our attention to the bandstand. Annie and Lainie danced their way out on the stage along with the other girls, all long legs and knobby knees and big smiles, arms pressed to their sides, upper bodies stiff, hands neat. They did their rocks and clicks, kicks and leaps, and it brought me back, as it always did, to my own step dancing days.

  "They're really getting good," my sister Carol said beside me. "Even better than Siobhan was, I think."

  "Where is she today anyway?" I asked. Carol's husband, Dennis, was holding their youngest daughter, Maeve, in his arms, and their middle two, Ian and Trevor, were leaning up against the railing that surrounded the inner harbor, pretending to watch the boats while they took turns spitting into the water.

  Carol pointed. Siobhan and three friends were sitting in beach chairs on the parking lot. Their chairs were positioned off to the side of the bandstand, a careful distance from the sun-blocking crowd, and they were wearing ear buds and bathing suits. Siobhan's belly button ring glittered as they all worked on their tans.

  Through my T-shirt, I touched my own pierced navel, a souvenir from my most memorable outing with my niece, which now displayed a tasteful ring decorated with a single diamond, a gift from John. I flashed back to my long ago sunbathing days—an opened double album cover wrapped in aluminum foil, angled beneath my chin just so to send the rays directly to my face, a slick coat of baby oil covering every inch of me. Not that I ever once tanned. My siblings and I went immediately from Irish white to lobster red, and spent the evening dabbing vinegar on one another's shoulders to ease the pain, and then peeling long strips of skin from the same shoulders a few days later.

  I glanced over at John. He was watching a little boy sitting cross-legged on the ground in front of us, playing a plastic pinball game. When we first met, John was winding down a financially unproductive stint as a vintage pinball machine restorer. "It seems," he said on one of our early dates, "that I have the soul of a pinball wizard but the brain of an accountant. Essentially, it's the existential struggle of my life." Even though I already had it memorized, I wrote that down in my college-lined dating notebook when I got home. I wondered if part of what was wrong with me was that I didn't know what the existential struggle of my own life was.

  I still didn't know. But John was now head of the accounting department for a big Boston technology and gaming company. He'd held on to two beautiful vintage pinball machines. A framed Peace, Love and Pinball poster graced the space over his fireplace. When he was bored, he played Retro Pinball on his cell phone.

  The first time I went home with John, we stood in front of a pinball machine in his dining room-turned-game room. "This," John said, "is an authentic Addams Family model, the most popular pinball machine of all time."

  It was clearly made to look like the haunted mansion, with all the spooky stairways, Uncle Fester's electric chair, and even the box Thing slept in.

  "These are the flipper buttons." John stood behind me and put one of my hands on each button, placed his hands over mine. It was sexy, in a geeky kind of way.

  He pushed a button and lights flashed. John explained plunger lanes and ramps and
tubes and nudging and trapping and how points were earned. He released a ball and we went through a practice run. I did pretty well as long as his hands were on mine. Then I tried alone and lost the ball down the drain almost immediately.

  "So, this is fun," I said, trying to convince myself. "You know, I appreciate that it's a piece of history and it means a lot to you, but I'm not sure I quite understand the whole pinball attraction. I mean, why pinball and not, say, ping pong?"

  "You never know what you're going to get with a pinball game," John said. "It's a lot like life. You can't control it, so you have to just roll with it and do the best you can. And if you do well enough, sometimes you get a bonus play."

  "You mean like a do-over?" I said.

  "Exactly," he said.

  I still didn't quite get pinball, but the lure of a do-over was something I could completely comprehend.

  My nieces' step dance ended and we all clapped and hooted as loudly as we could.

  My father took off one leather glove, put two fingers in his mouth, and let out a long whistle as the dancers took their final bow.

  "That would be my cue," he said. He slid his glove back on and turned to the boyfriend he'd just renamed. "Did my darlin' daughter tell you I've been appointed this year's one and only Grand Marshall of the Marshbury Blessing of the Fleet?"

  "Yeah," my brother Johnny said. "And he only bribed three priests to get it."

  "No," my sister Carol said. "One of them was a monsignor."

  I felt John/Jack's hand on the small of my back and imagined us back at my house. Or his condo. Or anywhere with a bed.

  I leaned into him. "Did I tell you my father is the Grand Marshall this year?"

  He cleared his throat. "Congratulations, Mr. Hurlihy. And what an interesting tradition. I just finished reading up on it this morning. Apparently it was started by the Portuguese—"

  "Bite your tongue," my father said as he walked away.