Must Love Dogs: New Leash on Life

by Cook, Claire

  "Ha," Michael said. "Remember when you caught Johnny smoking a cigarette when he was supposed to be at CCD and he swallowed it whole?"

  My father slapped his knee. "It was your mother's idea to convince him that smoke was still coming out of his ears at dinnertime. We found him out in the yard, drinking from the hose, at midnight."

  Carol pulled up the actual online dating site, and started scrolling through picture after picture of women. I took a quick glance. A few Gingers, a few Mary Anns. Some self-proclaimed classy ladies. A few serious cases of over-PhotoShopping.

  "Holy Toledo," my father said as he leaned forward to get a better look. "You can't find this on a Smith Corona."

  After my father and Carol left, I said goodnight to Michael and Mother Teresa and went into my bedroom to call John back.

  "Sorry I missed you earlier," I said, even though it wasn't entirely true.

  "That's okay," he said. "Tomorrow's a new day."

  "Let's hope."

  "Just so you know, I'll be in a meeting when you get there to work with the Gamiacs, but I'm heading in early so I can leave with you when you're done."

  "Thanks." Even though it was a pretty big hop, skip, and jump from where we were now to a shared life, the pattern we'd fallen into felt like we were at least moving in the right direction. If you factored out Horatio.

  "So," John said in that hazy dazy lazy way we sometimes had of continuing a phone conversation just to keep hearing each other's voices. "Where do you want to go for lunch tomorrow?"

  "I kind of like where we had it the last time," I said in my sexiest voice, which wasn't all that sexy, but it got the point across.

  "Why, Sarah Hurlihy," John said in his own sexy voice, which wasn't half bad. "Are you trying to talk me into bed again?"

  "You bet I am," I said. "And, I'm taking the Gamiacs out for an early lunch, so I can even pick up takeout for us while I'm there."

  "Sounds like a plan. And Sarah, the message I left? I think we're close. It might not seem like it, but Horatio is just on the verge of accepting you. I can feel it."

  I bit my tongue so I wouldn't say, Couldn't we have one single solitary conversation that doesn't revolve around your dog?

  "What a coincidence," I said instead. "I'm right on the verge of accepting him, too."

  Chapter

  Sixteen

  I couldn't wait to get to my session with the Gamiacs. I'd talked a restaurant right down the street into opening an hour early for lunch. We'd have the place all to ourselves. We could practice holding chairs for one another, putting napkins on our laps, choosing the right utensils and navigating them correctly, chewing with our mouths closed, waiting to speak until we'd swallowed our food.

  I'd filled a bright yellow gift bag with little slips of paper, each with a conversation starter typed on it like an oversize fortune from a fortune cookie. What is the last book you read and enjoyed? What do you wish you knew more about? What are your three favorite foods? Is that a new ____ you're wearing? They might not even need them, but it was better to be prepared, and it was important to learn that expressing interest in the other person always made for good conversation. I'd explain to the Gamiacs that once they'd internalized a few of these questions, they'd never be at a loss for words in a social situation again.

  I had the rest of the day completely worked out in my head, too. John and I would make mad, passionate love and then curl up on his bed with a nice sandwich. After that I'd challenge him to a pinball game to kill some time so we didn't pick up Horatio quite as early as last time, but still early enough to impress John with my willingness, no, my determination to win over the dog of his life. John was right—we weren't getting any younger—so the sooner we got the dog thing squared away, the sooner we could get on with the rest of our lives.

  Once Horatio was back home, I'd bribe him with the Dog Biscuit in a Bag mix I'd picked up at FooFoo's Four Footed Bakery. It came complete with a little dog bone-shaped cookie cutter and a packet of sugar free frosting mix. All I had to do was add water and then I'd bake, barefoot, with my cute dog print toes on display. I wouldn't even need peanut butter on my ankles. The smell of baking doggie treats would reel him in, and by the time they were done, Horatio would be doggy putty in my hands. It was a recipe for success, equal parts Machiavellian and Pavlovian.

  Last night my sleep was dotted with crazy, happy dreams. Running through a field of daisies with Horatio by my side. Attending a childbirth class with John and Horatio and Mother Teresa and my former husband, Kevin, and his chatty new wife, Nikki. It was hard to tell who was pregnant with what, but we were all okay with it.

  I woke up rested and newly optimistic. I jumped in the shower and managed to get ready with enough time left over to make coffee and instant oatmeal for Michael and me.

  Even though I'd fed him, Michael was grumpy and sullen the whole ride to Boston. I let him pout. I had to admit he was starting to exhaust me. Carol's dating intervention had fallen flat, too. While my father scrolled through online dating sites like a kid in a candy shop, Michael had alternated staring up at the ceiling with checking and rechecking his phone for messages.

  "It doesn't matter," he'd said whenever my father pointed out a sweet young filly or Carol asked him to consider a potential match she'd identified. "All I want is Phoebe."

  As we approached the corner where I jumped out of his car and onto the subway, I gathered my stuff together. "I know it's hard, Michael, but try to chill. The girls will be back tonight and you'll feel much better."

  Michael didn't say anything. The light turned red and we slowed to a stop.

  Call me if you need anything, I started to say. But then I just didn't. Carol and Christine had both promised to stop by my place to check on him. I was off duty. And, I mean, I had challenges of my own and it's not like Michael ever asked me how things were going in my life anymore.

  "Thanks for the ride," I said. And then I slammed the car door behind me. Even though I still had a long subway trip ahead of me, I breathed a sigh of relief that I didn't have to spend this part of my commute with my brother.

  When the elevator door opened, I pushed myself up from the upholstered bench and picked up the big blue net equipment bag again. It was a lot to lug on top of everything else I had with me, but I knew it would be worth it when I saw the Gamiacs' reactions. They'd be so excited they wouldn't be able to contain themselves. I had it all worked out. We'd stop at the little park we'd pass on the way to the restaurant and I'd introduce our first activity to them there.

  Catch Your Name was a team-building game I'd learned a few years ago when my boss had dragged all the lead teachers to a summer conference. The way it worked was that everybody stood in a big circle, wearing nametags. Then the facilitator introduced one object, usually a beanbag or a tennis ball, and called out the name of someone in the circle, say Jane, and then threw the object to Jane. Jane would catch it, call out the name of another person anywhere in the circle, say Jim, and throw the object.

  And so it would go, until everybody had a turn catching the object. Next, the facilitator would add another beanbag, and then another, all crisscrossing around the circle at the same time, requiring full engagement, enhancing coordination, and ultimately turning a circle of strangers into a cohesive team that knew everybody by name. And if instead of beanbags or balls you used a variety of crazy objects instead, you upped the fun factor by a gazillion percent.

  As an activity, it was developmentally beyond preschoolers, but I'd loved it enough to amass my own collection of flying objects. The whole thing had been a big hit at the afterschool program Bayberry ran for older students, as well as not a few Hurlihy family cookouts.

  The door to the conference room was open a crack. I couldn't see in, but the buzz of conversation trickling out was music to my ears. I juggled the equipment bag out of my way and gave the door a hip bump.

  Tim was sitting on a conference table next to one of the Caitlins, laughing as if they were well on their
way to becoming a couple. I took a moment to savor the magic I'd sparked. Instead of being glued to their computers like they usually were when I arrived, the rest of the Gamiacs were seated in chairs across from them, like an actual audience.

  I saw the legs first. Long, bronzed legs that shimmered with some kind of cream or spray or gel that I'd probably never be able to apply evenly, assuming I could even figure out where you bought something like that. I mean, my own idea of a good leg day was remembering to shave both of them.

  And the shoes. The nude leather shoes attached to those legs had sexy red spike heels so intimidatingly high I was practically getting a nosebleed just looking at them. I glanced down at my own pathetic little wedge sandals. My perky pink toenails studded with dog prints decals peeked out like I was twelve.

  "That's not bad," Keli with one l and an i said, nodding her head at Tim and Caitlin. The rest of the Gamiacs were gathered around her like a fan club, absolutely hanging on her every word. She was every popular girl who had ever upstaged me, ignored me, outshined me.

  "Lean a little closer when you say that, Tim," she continued, "and Caitlin, touch his hand lightly when you answer."

  Tim cleared his throat and looked right at Caitlin. "Would you like to go to a movie?"

  "I'd love to," Caitlin said. She touched his hand lightly and smiled. I fought an urge to take notes.

  The Gamiacs burst into applause.

  "It's a date," Keli yelled as she gave a cheerleadery fist pump. She giggled adorably and turned in my direction.

  "Is that a rubber chicken?" she asked.

  Okay, so I'd brought a rubber chicken. And a miniature toilet plunger, a stuffed green frog, a Slinky, a rubber ring, a rubber horseshoe, and a couple of Mother Teresa's toys that she hardly ever used anymore. I had nothing to be ashamed of. It was a great team building exercise, and the wildly imaginative items, whimsical if you would, added to it immensely.

  Keli stuck to us like glue, shedding her skyscraper heels and sliding into a cute pair of ballet flats for the walk to the park. The Gamiacs glommed on to her and completely ignored me.

  "I'm next, I'm next," one of the Caitlins yelled, practically skipping she was so ridiculously excited.

  "Okay," Keli said. "Cut the hair, add some highlights, play up your eyes, lose the floods."

  Caitlin looked down at her jeans. "These are floods?"

  "The floodiest," Keli said. "Total highwaters. Think of it this way: short is good in leggings or pants that grip the leg, but anything wider needs length."

  "Can you take me shopping?" both Caitlins and Megan said all at once.

  "Not a problem," Keli said. "I shop daily."

  The nose picker reached for his nose and then changed his mind just as I was about to hand him a tissue. "Can I go with you?" he asked Keli. "And are my pants okay?"

  "Of course you can." She pointed a finger at his cargo pants, which had been working their way down his hips as we walked, revealing about a third of his plaid boxer shorts. "Don't let just anybody see your underwear, Tim. Make them work for it."

  The Gamiacs burst out laughing. I swung my equipment bag over my shoulder and wiggled my way into a tiny space that had opened up next to Keli.

  "Don't you have work to do?" I said.

  She made a brushing motion with one hand. "Not really. I'm in HR. I just hire a bunch of people and then hang out until they need me to hire some more. The rest of the department does all the other stuff."

  Keli's Mom Alert sounded again. She let out a dramatic sigh.

  "You need to answer that," I said.

  "You need to get some lotion on your feet," she said. "Some lip balm wouldn't hurt either. The dry and flaky look isn't working for you."

  I looked down at my paw print-decaled toes.

  Keli's phone went to voicemail. She reached into her purse and handed me a little plastic pouch filled with an orange blossom perfume stick, organic orange essence lip balm, and a travel-size tube of pure blood orange lotion.

  "Keep it," she said. "I haven't even opened it."

  "Thanks," I said. Part of me was insulted, but the other part thought maybe she wasn't so bad after all. As I tried out the lip balm, I wondered idly whether Keli's mom looked like an older version of Keli, maybe with lower heels and a slightly longer miniskirt. Or maybe she wore jeans and T-shirts and was warm and charming and, well, motherly.

  Maybe she'd even remind me a tiny bit of my own mother in a way I couldn't quite put my finger on. Enough so that if I'd passed her on the street, she might have stayed with me like a ghost for the rest of the day as I tried to figure out the resemblance. The salt and pepper hair? The tiny overlap of her front teeth? The way she nodded her head at whomever was speaking—keep it up, you're doing just fine—like my mother used to.

  Passing a woman on the street and being reminded of my mother still happened to me fairly often. Actually, to be totally honest, it was more than just being reminded of her. It was like feeling, just for a split second, that I'd found her again. It was as if my head knew she'd died, but my heart thought she was still in reach, just around the next corner.

  I'd once casually asked my sister Carol if it ever happened to her. We were sitting in my living room, our feet on the coffee table, a few weeks after Kevin had moved out for good. A bag of Trader Joe's olive oil popcorn was all we'd been able to rustle up for dinner in my lonely little kitchen. We were washing it down with the bottle of champagne Kevin and I had planned to drink on our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary.

  "This champagne sucks," Carol said. "It's a good thing you didn't stay married just for this."

  "Funny," I said. "So funny I forgot to laugh." When I guzzled the rest of my glassful, the bubbles escaped into my nose. "Ouch."

  Carol took a more delicate sip from Kevin's honeymoon flute. "I can feel Mom cheering you on from heaven."

  I smiled. "What's she saying?"

  "It's about time you got rid of that asshole, honey."

  I coughed and swallowed at the same time. More bubbles burned my nose.

  "You are so going to get your mouth washed out with soap for that," I managed to croak.

  Carol gave me a quick pat on the back with one hand as she poured the rest of the champagne with the other. Having four kids had left her permanently incapable of doing one thing at a time.

  "Do you ever think you see her?" I whispered. "You know, think you see Mom?"

  Carol leaned back and put her feet up again. "All the time. I see her in the look Siobhan gives me when she's not buying what I'm telling her. I see her in Trevor, the way he presses the tip of his tongue into his upper lip when he's concentrating. Remember how she always used to do that when she put on her mascara?"

  I closed my eyes and tried to conjure up a picture of my mother putting on her mascara. I couldn't. It was gone, along with the all the other pieces of her I'd lost—her laugh, her sneeze, her yawn—more of her gone every day, every week, every year.

  I tilted my head back so my tears would stay where they belonged. "I meant really see her. You know, like on the street?"

  "Yeah," Carol said. "Sometimes. Once I followed this woman halfway across the mall parking garage, up and down the rows of cars, just to get a look at her face. She had Mom's hair and the same long tan belted raincoat, you know, the one Christine got."

  "What happened?"

  "She finally stopped at her car, and I was just about to yell 'excuse me' to get her to turn. Suddenly she whipped around and pointed this can of Mace at me."

  "Ha. But did she look like Mom?"

  "Not really. Mom was way better looking." Carol reached for her glass. "Come on, chug the rest and let's do this."

  I picked up my honeymoon glass for the last time, drank it dry, waited for the bubbles to stop tickling my nose.

  "One . . . two . . . three," Carol said.

  "Good riddance to bad rubbish," we yelled as Kevin's and my glasses shattered against the brick fireplace.

  After the Gamiacs headed
back to the office, Keli followed me into the ladies room.

  "Thanks again for this," I said as I unscrewed the lotion and rubbed some on my hands. "Ooh, this smells great. So orangey."

  "I'm going to call my mother," she said as she washed her hands beside me. "I promise."

  "I'm glad to hear that," I said. "My mother died a few years ago. I'd give anything to have five more minutes with her."

  "Oh, that's so sad," Keli said. "My mother's the queen of sabotage though, always trying to fatten me up. And I'm an only child so I can't even share the calories."

  "I'm one of six," I said. "I can't even imagine being an only child."

  "And my father ran off when I was three. That's why I can never stay in a relationship for more than five minutes. I'm compensating for him not being there for me."

  "Well, at least you understand it." I reached for a paper towel. "Sounds like you've had some good therapy."

  "Actually, I saw it on Dr. Phil. But I didn't want to date him, so I'm not that far gone."

  I laughed. "Sorry," I added, in case she'd been serious.

  "That's okay," she said. "I'm pretty sure I was kidding. So what about you?"

  "Have I ever dated Dr. Phil?"

  She laughed. "No, are you seeing anyone?"

  "Yeah," I said. "Actually I'm dating the big guy's owner."

  She covered her mouth with one hand and opened her eyes wide. "John Anderson? Shut the front door."

  I watched her carefully. "Why is that so surprising?"

  "Because I have this mammoth crush on him? I mean, he's kind of geeky and kind of old, but so hot."

  We looked at each other.

  She grinned. "Not anymore."

  Chapter

  Seventeen

  Neither John nor I had any condoms.

  "But you always have condoms," I said as I rifled through the contents of my shoulder bag, which I'd just finished dumping out on his double vanity. I took a short break from condom hunting to roll some of Keli's organic orange lip balm on my kiss-ravaged lips.