Around the Bend

by Shirley Jump

  “It’s in my sleeve, for your information, not my pocket. Besides, I have to have an outline. He has this complicated routine and—”

  Georgia sighed. “Penny, let go of the lists. Let go of the pier, jump in the water.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “Live a little on the edge, or maybe let Harvey take the lead and see where that gets you. It won’t kill you to do something totally improvised, you know.”

  “I’ve done that before. It didn’t work out so well.”

  “One mistake doesn’t have to turn you into Control Cathy.” Georgia sighed. “I love you, Penny, but you’re about as spontaneous as a pickle.”

  It was time to go. I’d said goodbye to Georgia and a few minutes later, found myself herded down the temporary hall, then left to wait among the Airedales and shelties. Nervous canine and human energy filled the space.

  I could do this. And I wasn’t the only one who thought so. I sucked in some confidence, then straightened. And prayed.

  The program started, the announcer brought out the first competitor, and a shushed quiet fell over the group, broken only by the outside sounds of the announcer and the occasional burst of applause from the audience. Beside me, one man prayed, another woman popped one Tic Tac after another as if they were candy and a second woman incessantly rubbed the furry fuchsia hair of a troll doll between two fingers.

  And then, along came Cee-Cee.

  The poufy poodle and her pushover owner crowded into the waiting area, taking up more than their fair share of space. “It’ll be okay, Cee-Cee,” her owner soothed. The poodle danced in place, whining and shaking, which made her pink tutu shimmy, like a dog stripper. “Shh, shh, baby.”

  That only served to wind Cee-Cee up more. The dog wheeled around, straining against its leash, poking its pointy manicured nails into everyone within stepping distance. I scooped Harvey off the floor, yanking him out of hyper pink-bowed puffball range.

  Vinny had given me a mini tuxedo for Harvey to wear, which made him slippery in my arms. I’d thought the dog would resist, but he submitted to the little suit jacket and tie, obviously familiar with costuming. Harvey wriggled against me, nearly as worked up as the other dogs. Clearly, he sensed what was about to happen and was looking forward to it.

  At least one of us was filled with anticipation instead of the overwhelming need to flee. I tamped it down. Doing this, I knew, would be good for me. Might even be…liberating.

  After all, hadn’t I married Dave, seeking to find that side of myself? Then I’d gone and stuffed it in the cedar hope chest with my wedding dress.

  “And now, Harvey the Wonder Dog!” the announcer called, with all the drama of Rod Roddy.

  Tension double-knotted my stomach, tempered with a flush of excitement. It was too late to back out now. I glanced over my shoulder and saw Vinny standing against the wall, red faced and breathing heavily. Pink lotion dotted the eruptions on his face. He flashed me a wavery smile that spelled clear relief he wasn’t the one going out among the dogs and people.

  I could do this, I repeated in my head, over and over again. Then I moved forward, Harvey trotting along, right in step with me. A couple of Vinny’s helpers had set up Harvey’s course in the few minutes between dog acts. I glanced around, seeking a friendly face.

  Third row up sat Susan, next to Jerry. She sent me a little wave, Jerry gave me a thumbs-up. Behind them, Matt simply nodded, a confident smile on his face. For some reason, that simple gesture inspired an internal burst of can-do spirit.

  I made a simple, quick hand movement that Vinny had taught me when we had run through Harvey’s routine yesterday, working in the ballroom in two separate sessions, to give Harvey a breather in between.

  Harvey saw the signal and took a seat at my feet. “Harvey, are you ready?” The mike on my lapel broadcast the statement to the audience. I put my hands up and out, Harvey’s response cue.

  He shook his head no. The audience roared with laughter.

  “Don’t you want to work?” Hands up and out again. Harvey repeated the no.

  “Do you want to play instead?” This time, I moved one of my hands up and down, just a flicker of movement, but Harvey’s attentive eyes saw it. He responded with an emphatic nod. Now the crowd was really laughing.

  Wow. This was actually working. I, Penny Reynolds, Accountant of the Year two years running, was standing in a ring with a dog and putting on a show. I conjured up my inner Julia Roberts and moved on.

  “Too bad, Harvey,” I went on, “because we have work to do. Are you ready?”

  I made the movement again, but timed it to delay the response a moment, as if he were thinking about it. He gave a yes again, eliciting more laughter and applause as Harvey got to his feet and came along with me.

  We reached the first station set up for his routine. I picked up the first prop, a copy of Walt Whitman poems, something that seemed apropos of Dave and all his years of self-exploration.

  Harvey stood at my feet, waiting for his cue. “You’re all dressed up. Do you have a party to go to?”

  At my signal, he did his yes.

  “Then it’s time for a little training in the social graces. Get ready.” He plopped his bottom on the carpet, then waited while I balanced the book on his head. “Show me your good posture.” A quick flick of my index finger upward, and Harvey carefully raised his little body up, balancing on his hind legs, keeping the book in place. The audience clapped and whistled.

  Who knew I could become Greta Garbo with a Jack Russell terrier as my co-star? Every time he listened to me, and did what he was supposed to, I was stunned.

  I slipped Harvey a piece of kibble, then moved on to the next stop, painfully aware of the hundreds of eyes watching us. No wonder Vinny got stage fright. Between the heavy, silent anticipation and the pressure of so many spectators, it was enough to give me hives.

  A lump of nerves formed in my throat. I swallowed, but that only moved the lump to my gut. I refused to feel the nerves. I could do this. And I would. “Okay, Harv, here we go,” I whispered to him, then stood to address the audience. “Great job with your social graces. But I hear that Chihuahua you like over there—” I pointed in the direction of a dog waiting in the wings for her turn to go, adding a flourish to my movements “—wants more than a date. She needs a hero.”

  With a dramatic whoosh, I yanked a red cape off a small chair, then held it in front of me. “Let’s see how you are in the defensive arts. Time to bullfight.”

  At the last word, Harvey backed up, scraping his rear paws against the carpet, à la the fiercest bull in Pamplona. He lowered his head nearly to the carpet, swinging it left, then right. He scraped his paws again, let out a snort, then charged forward, running through the red fabric, just as I jerked it away.

  The crowd hooted and clapped. Laughter rang from the walls.

  I smiled, elation soaring inside me. This was the Penny I’d always wanted to be—a woman confident in her own skin. In that moment, I knew a part of me had been changed forever—

  And in a damned good way this time.

  Harvey spun, retook his bull position and repeated the trick. When I gave him his treat, I noticed a gleam in his eye. The dog was eating this up.

  We moved on to the banana trick, then to his obstacle course. He clambered up the A-Frame, across a skinny beam, down a set of steps and then across a zigzagged board in record time, stopping at the end to pounce on a springboard that sent a ball up a pole. It bounced against a bell at the top, ringing like a carnival game.

  He caught his dog-food reward midair, leading me nearly as much as I was leading him. His eyes were bright with excitement, clearly in his groove. I felt that way, too, more than I ever had in the office.

  We headed to the musical station, where one of Vinny’s helpers pressed the button on a CD player, sending music through the room.

  “If you want to impress the girls, Harvey, you need to learn how to dance. How about a cha-cha?”

&n
bsp; Harvey rose on his hind legs and spun around, dancing on his back feet, pawing at the air with his front feet. He dropped down as the chorus began and raised his little snout, releasing his own soulful version. I sneaked a peek at my card outlining his routine, then returned my attention to the dog. “Great job, Harvey.” I tossed him another nibble, then flicked my finger to get him to move to the next trick.

  He didn’t move even though the CD had ended. Instead, he started singing again after eating his dog snack. I tried it again, hoping he’d get the hint.

  Nothing but a badly warbled “Star-Spangled Banner.”

  “Harvey, let’s play along,” I told him, the verbal cue that was supposed to get him to move on to the toy piano.

  Harvey kept up his singing.

  “Harvey, let’s play along,” I repeated. Nervous tension twisted my intestines. It had been going so well. What was going wrong?

  Harvey dropped down, looking at me expectantly. I gestured toward the toy piano. “Play along, Harvey.”

  He leaped up onto his hind legs and did the spin again, pawing at air, letting out little yips as he did.

  Oh, hell. It was all going wrong now. I slipped my note card all the way out of my sleeve, then realized the notes for this trick were on the back. Curse me and my wordiness. I flipped it over. “Piano—Play Mozart,” I’d written.

  I’d given him the wrong command. I glanced over at the trio of judges, their faces set in frowns, all traces of humor long gone. Apparently Harvey’s singing was only amusing for the first twenty seconds.

  “Harvey,” I said, mentally praying that he would pay attention, get a clue, rescue this situation, “playing along doesn’t mean playing to the crowd, you big ham.”

  He lowered his head between his paws, doing contrite better than the best Oscar winner.

  I’d been talking to the dog, forgetting that my comments would be broadcast to the audience. Their eruption of laughter told me they saw this snafu as a joke. Even the judges stifled a grin. Harvey’s cutup reputation had saved us. And, so had my own spontaneity. Who knew I had a spontaneous side at all? “Harvey, show that little Chihuahua how you can play Mozart.”

  He let out a bark, then hurried over to the piano, plunking out a tune with his tiny nose. On the sidelines, Vinny’s helper added a concert CD for accompaniment. With his tux and serious nose playing, Harvey was a hit.

  When he finished, I gave him two treats, for saving our butts, then signaled for the next trick. “Time for you to get some rest, Harv. That way, you’ll be fresh for your date tonight. Let’s take a nap.” He raced forward to a tiny bedroom scene, pulled the dresser drawer open, yanked out a dog-bone-decorated nightshirt and delivered it to me. I slid the shirt over his tuxedo, then sent him off to climb into the tiny bed.

  “Get some shut-eye,” I told him.

  He leaned over and turned off the push-button nightstand light with his paw, then feigned sleep. The audience hooted with laughter and I saw a twitch of what could have been a smile on Harvey’s face. With every trick, Harvey’s enjoyment had increased exponentially with the audience’s response.

  He was a ham, but an adorable one.

  For me, it felt as if I had hit my stride, if that was even possible in a situation so outside my normal frame of reference. I’d found a balance between being prepared and having to improvise. In an odd way, it was liberating.

  Even fun.

  Harvey’s entertaining spirit had become a part of me. As scary as it was to change, even a little, I drew it in, and shot the dog a smile.

  Harvey reached the end of his new routine, where he was supposed to engage in a gunfight with me. It was the part that had me most worried, not because I thought I might do any harm to the dog with the unloaded toy pistol, but because it was so new to Harvey, he’d stumbled a bit in practice with Vinny.

  I slipped a cowboy hat onto his head, telling him quietly to keep it on. The dog glowered at me from under the brim, hating the head appendage. Vinny had warned me, but I hoped Harvey would at least cooperate for a short skit.

  “Oh-oh, Harvey. Seems that Chihuahua has another suitor.” I gestured again toward the miniature dog, now flanked by a poodle. “What are you going to do to be her hero?”

  The last word keyed Harvey to retrieve a small wooden box from the table, drag it over to me, then sit down and let out a woof. I picked it up, opened the lid, then lowered it to Harvey’s level. “Choose your weapon.”

  He fished one out with his mouth, then sat back again, a little woof escaping past the plastic handle. The audience chuckled. I bit back my own laughter. The dog that had seemed to be my nemesis had started to grow on me.

  I pulled the second one out and put the box to the side. “Gunfight at the OK Corral? Are you sure?” I did the finger flick again and he nodded his head, even more emphatically than before.

  The people surrounding us cheered and clapped. I couldn’t have been more proud if it had been Georgia sitting there on her haunches.

  “Okay, a duel it is.” I spun around, waited until Harvey had backed his little body up against my heels. “Five paces,” I said.

  I marked off five steps, slow and easy, hoping like heck that Harvey was doing the same behind me. “Draw!” I said, in my best Clint Eastwood, before spinning around and aiming at Harvey.

  He’d spun around and had his head tilted so the gun in his mouth was aimed in my direction. I waited for the popping sound, another technical detail added by Vinny’s helper, but heard instead only two long, drawn out syllables of disaster.

  “Cee-Cee!”

  The poodle had broken free from her owner and was racing through the room, careening off the spectators, the obstacles. I glanced over at Vinny’s helper, hoping the guy would tackle the overzealous poodle, but he was busy fumbling with the CD player, unaware of the pandemonium heading toward us. Just as he depressed the player’s button, Harvey spun toward Cee-Cee, cocked his head. The boom of a gunshot exploded from the sound system.

  Cee-Cee, startled by the sound, skidded to a stop.

  “Down!” I said to Cee-Cee, low and even, affecting as much alpha male as one widowed woman could muster.

  The poodle wavered, then slid her front paws forward and lowered her white puffball frame to the ground. Harvey trotted over, and then, in typical Harvey drama, put one paw on Cee-Cee’s back, as if he’d just nabbed himself a hell of a big white bear.

  Applause boomed from the crowd as Cee-Cee’s red-faced owner marched over, attached a rhinestone-studded leash to her matching pink collar, then dragged her recalcitrant pooch offstage.

  We’d done it. I looked down at the dog, stunned the routine had all come together and even better, been capped off by Cee-Cee’s wayward entry. Pride swelled in my heart, for the dog, for me and even, yes, for Dave. I had no doubt my husband was watching and laughing.

  For the first time since I’d stood before that casket, my grief began to ease, opening a window into a new existence.

  “Take a bow, Harvey,” I said, waving toward the crowd. Keeping his hindquarters up, Harvey put his front paws on the floor, then touched his nose to the carpet. Then he rose, pressed his body next to mine and did the same thing.

  Something hitched in my throat. Harvey was a true star, all the wonder dog he’d been made out to be—

  And yet, he didn’t mind sharing the limelight, with me, the one person who hadn’t wanted him around.

  He’d captured the hearts of every single person in the room. And now, finally, he had mine, too. I’d never expected to like, much less love, the dog.

  I flicked off the portable microphone attached to my pants, then leaned down and ruffled Harvey’s head. “You did a good job, boy. And thank you for giving Cee-Cee exactly what she deserved. You and me, boy, we make a good team.” I blew on my finger like it was a gun. At my feet, Harvey let out a woof of agreement.

  sixteen

  The applause for Harvey’s performance and first-place finish, as well as winner of Best Dog Overall,
thundered through the room, echoing off the convention center’s walls. A Miniature Pinscher in the corner began to tremble, the noise clearly too much for his pixie-size ears.

  Harvey looked up from his position beside my shoes, his brown eyes wide and intent on my face, expectant. I bent over, gave him a quick stroke on the head, then stood again, holding his trophy and blue ribbon tight. “Good boy. Good job.”

  Harvey kept staring, his tail still, his body rigid. I repeated my praise. Still, that tiny face remained fixed on mine, waiting for something. What, I had no idea.

  I praised him again, the soaring feeling of completing something I’d never thought I could do still rising within me.

  “Hey, Harvey! Good job!” Matt came up and joined me as Harvey and I exited the ballroom, making room for the other award winners to take the stage for Best in Show, Best Costume and Best Attitude.

  Cee-Cee’s owner stood to the side, glaring at me. Clearly she blamed Cee-Cee’s traumatic ordeal in the ring on Harvey. The poodle had been so shaken up by the bogus shooting, she’d thrown up on her owner’s feet.

  I couldn’t say I blamed the dog.

  “Vinny watched on the closed-captioned TV in the other room,” Susan said, coming up to join us. She was still trailed by the infatuated Jerry, though Susan hadn’t done much more than glance in the poor guy’s direction. “He said Harvey did his best performance ever and to tell you congrats. After the crowd dies down, I think Vinny will stop breathing into a paper bag and come out and tell you himself.”

  “It was phenomenal,” Matt agreed, a bemused smile on his face. “I had no idea you were such an actress.”

  I felt my face flush at his praise. “Oh, no, I’m—”

  “It’s a compliment, Penny. Don’t bounce it back like we’re volleying for serve.” He bent down, ruffled Harvey’s head, then stood again. “You both were amazing.”

  Still, I fidgeted. When was the last time I’d been complimented on anything besides the accuracy of my numbers? The odd feeling of pride that had blossomed on the stage now bloomed in my chest.