Ruffly Speaking

by Conant, Susan

  “Say Your Prayers.”

  We were friends again.

  11

  My determination to meet the rector, whose name was Stephanie Benson, had as much to do with Rita as it did with mortgages, kibble, and cars.

  Rita’s initial agitation about the hearing aids lasted only a few days. What followed was a shift that I found alarming. I saw less of Rita than ever before. She quit dropping in and never felt like hanging out. After a couple of rebuffs, I asked directly whether I’d done anything to offend her, and what happened made me regret raising the issue. Tears spilled out of her eyes. She threw her arms around me and sobbed. But she refused to talk about her hearing loss or the aids, except to insist that she was adapting. She wouldn’t even talk about her analysis, and if you know Rita, you’ll realize that that was the worst sign of all. Her face and body took on the tight, steely look of grim determination. She kept her teeth locked together and her lips immobile, like someone waiting for novocaine to wear off. Her eyes were huge with raw feeling.

  What Rita lacked, it seemed to me, was a positive vision of the possible, in other words, if you’ll pardon the expression, a positive role model. Yuck. But I’m serious. Try to name a single attractive or appealing character in anything—book, movie, TV show—who’s anywhere near Rita’s age who wears hearing aids. Name a celebrity who does. The few who’ve come out are a million times better than no one at all, but can you imagine going to Rita and telling her that the aids were no big deal because, gee whiz, look at Ronald Reagan? So I hoped that Matthew’s mother was brilliant, charming, and gorgeous. I hoped her dog was, too.

  I didn’t have a chance to learn anything about Stephanie Benson until Rowdy and I returned from Thursday night services at the religious institution of our choice, the Cambridge Dog Training Club, to which, like Hasidic Jews on Shabbat, we’d made our way on foot. We arrived home to find a note from Leah that read, “Kimi with me. Back soon. Lava you. L.” Leah actually can spell love. “I lava you” was the punch line of a joke she’d learned from one of her students at Avon Hill, a nine-year-old boy named Ivan—pronounced EE-vahn, Cambridge being Cambridge—who was the terror of the group led by Leah and Matthew. Cambridge being Cambridge, this group, a sort of summer-camp version of homeroom, was called a “core cluster,” but, just to prove that they were human, Leah and Matthew both referred to EE-vahn as Ivan the Terrible.

  The students had started the program the previous day, and Leah had arrived home with the joke and had repeated it nonstop all the previous evening and throughout breakfast. I was hoping that the terrible Ivan had supplied her with a replacement today, but soon after Rowdy and I got home from dog training, when Leah and Kimi burst into the kitchen, the first thing Leah did was sink her fingers into Rowdy’s thick ruff, stare into his eyes, and ask for the millionth time, “Hey, Rowdy, what did the mommy volcano say to the baby volcano?” He dropped to the floor, and while Leah administered a vigorous tummy scratching, she gleefully delivered the inevitable “I lava you!”

  “He lavas you, too,” I said sourly. “So does Kimi, who also lavas to go to dog training, where you were supposed to take her tonight. Where were you?”

  “Roz is away,” my cousin said dismissively.

  “Funny,” I said, “that if Roz happens to be away and there’s no advanced class, then Rowdy and I go right ahead and—”

  “Bernie Brown says—”

  “Bernie Brown says that if you’re training a malamute, you need all the help you can get.” Principally in the form of a golden retriever.

  By then, Kimi had joined Rowdy on the floor, and despite the masses of undercoat that were rapidly turning Leah’s black spandex tights and miscellaneous layers of funereal tops a woolly white, the three of them made a beautiful if somewhat sentimental girl-and-her-dogs portrait. Leah’s contribution to the charming scene was, it seemed to me, entirely contrived. I’d been successfully set up. Instead of taking Leah to task for failing to do what she’d promised, and instead of getting her to answer my initial question about where she’d been, here I was enjoying the picture of my lovely cousin cozily at home with my beautiful dogs.

  As if to confirm my sense of being shamelessly manipulated, Leah changed the subject. It’s even possible that Bernie Brown recommends the tactic. “Matthew’s mother says she’ll be glad to talk to you,” Leah announced, “and her dog is so cute. His name is Ruffly. He’s a little mixed-breed, and he has great big ears, and he’s really adorable, and you should see him work. He’s amazing-”

  Another thing about the Bernie Brown method: It’s very effective. Leah had my attention. “So what’s she like?”

  “The rector?” Leah gave a wry grin.

  “Stephanie Benson.”

  “This is totally unlike you.”

  “What is?”

  “I start telling you about Ruffly, and you’re asking about the rector? Are you all right?”

  “Yes,” I said. “But Rita isn’t.”

  While I outlined what Rita herself would probably have called my “treatment plan,” Leah rummaged around in the cupboards, which were no longer a sort of dog lover’s twist on Old Mother Hubbard’s. On Tuesday night, Leah and I had gone to the Mount Auburn Star Market, where she’d filled our cart with hardtack rye crackers, edible seaweed, canned beans, balsamic vinegar, red cabbage, fruit-flavored water, and enough packages of ramen noodle soup to provide the first course at a banquet for the entire population of Greater Tokyo. The package she selected that night was pink. Pink is shrimp.

  By the time two cups of water had come to a boil, I was saying, “So what Rita needs is an encounter with a possibility that’s become a reality, because this whole thing is totally alien to her. There’s no reason why it shouldn’t be, because if you grow up the way most of us grew up, the whole thing is strictly theoretical. Like creatures from outer space, okay? Maybe in theory you might agree that there could exist intelligent life on other planets, and maybe all along you would’ve agreed that there could exist a successful, attractive professional woman your age who wears hearing aids, but you’re about as likely to meet someone like that as you are to run into a space woman. Only what’s really happened, I think, is that Rita feels as if, all of a sudden, she’s become one of these aliens, and, before, she wasn’t even sure they existed.”

  “With the rector, it’s no big deal.” Leah peered at the pan and poked a fork into what looked like a rectangle of freeze-dried curly white worms. “She wears her hair pulled back; you can see her hearing aids. Besides, Ruffly’s leash has ‘hearing dog’ printed in big letters, and his tag says he’s a hearing dog, which is how she gets to take him to restaurants and stuff, where dogs aren’t allowed.”

  I caught the glint in her eye. “Don’t even think about it,” I ordered her.

  Leah indignantly plopped a bowl of noodles on the table in front of me.

  “So what is Stephanie like?” I asked. “Or, really, would Rita...?”

  “Oh, yes. Definitely.”

  “Great,” I said. “And is she going to come to your course?”

  Leah nodded. “But not next week. Maybe the week after. Ruffly’s having problems. He isn’t used to the new house yet. But the rector said to tell you to call her.” Ramen noodles taste better than you might imagine, kind of like spaghetti in oversalted bouillon. “This isn’t bad,” I said. “She said to call her?”

  “So you can—”

  “I know why.” I drank some broth. “I just...”

  “Holly, is something bothering you?”

  “Can she hear enough to... It’s okay to call?”

  “They have an amplifying phone. Matthew hates it because his mother always forgets to turn down the volume, so when he answers the phone, it blasts in his ear. But it rings really softly, because they don’t need to hear it, because no matter how soft it is, Ruffly does. You should see, when the phone rings? That’s one of Ruffly’s sounds, and he goes berserk.”

  “And, uh... Stephanie. You can, uh, ha
ve a conversation with her?”

  Leah looked disgusted with me. “How could she be a rector if you couldn’t talk to her? And she sounds just like everyone else. Actually, she sounds like Rita. She’s from New York.”

  Having finally put it all together, I addressed Leah sternly. “You were there tonight, weren’t you! At the Bensons’? You knew there was a hearing dog there, and you took Kimi with you? Leah, I’m not positive, but I don’t think—”

  “They got along great,” Leah assured me. “Ruffly even let Kimi eat out of his dish.”

  “And if Kimi had gone for his food, and he’d tried to defend it?”

  The Alaskan malamute has jaws that can crush the muzzles and backbones of canine adversaries, but if Ruffly had decided to defend his food and Kimi had accepted his challenge, she probably wouldn’t have left a mark on him. With one quick shake, she’d have broken his neck. “They liked each other,” Leah said defiantly.

  “Even so, Leah. A hearing dog isn’t a pet. Or isn’t just a pet. Those dogs have work to do.”

  “Kimi didn’t stop him. I told you. When the phone rang, Ruffly went crazy.”

  “And what did Kimi do?”

  “She helped,” Leah bragged. “She ran right after him.”

  “Leah, at a minimum, you should’ve asked first, or better yet, why didn’t you leave Kimi here?”

  “I didn’t even know Ruffly would be there. How was I supposed to know the rector was home?” Leah leaves few pauses in a conversation, but a heavy silence fell. “I didn’t know if anyone would be there,” she added. Her expression was serious and practical. “You want me going all alone to empty rectories with guys I just met?”

  “Leah, really. It isn’t a rectory. It was Morris Lamb’s house, and take it from me, Morris was no rector.” j Undeterred, Leah picked up an imaginary book and held it dramatically at arm’s length. “Her delicate, sensitive heart pitter-pattering in her moist and ivory-skinned yet richly ample and curvaceous bosom, our heroine raps timidly yet boldly upon the massive oaken portal of the somber rectory.” She cleared her throat and continued. “The hollow ring of manly footsteps thuds from within the manse and reaches the tender and quivering drums of her shell-like pale pink ears. The ancient door creaks inward upon hinges unoiled for countless generations.”

  “Morris’s house was probably built about 1955,” I said, “and—”

  “And in the dim light of the single votive candle that casts mysterious yet oddly thrilling rays of flickering illumination in the vast cavern of the great hall, our heroine descries—”

  “What?”

  “You’re interrupting!” Leah resumed her narrative. “Descries that it is HE—Matthew! the noble rector’s noble son—who languidly intones, ‘Enter, my pretty! So you have not forgotten our assignation.’ ”

  “Enough! I get—”

  “Stop interrupting! You’re breaking the flow. We’re just getting to the good part.” Leah continued: “Languidly stretching forth all twelve highly inbred yet unmistakably aristocratic digits, he seizes...”

  “Twelve?”

  “Twelve,” she repeated. “Inbred.”

  “Twelve.”

  “With all twelve inbred digits, the better to bodice-rip, my dear, he seizes the lacy and demure yet—”

  “Yet again?”

  “Yet again tantalizing bodice of her pale green watered silk, puff-sleeved, shimmering gown and petrify' ingly but thrillingly rips it to passionate shreds.” With a gasp, Leah put a protective hand across the intact black jersey that stretched across her own ample and curvaceous bosom. “But wait! Hark!”

  “Hark isn’t romance, is it? It’s—”

  “Hark! Out of the deep and looming blackness that hovers o’er the rectory, and up its steep and winding steps, thunder the massive paws of a gigantic hound of hell. Slavering at the mouth, the great beast springs and leaps. Within mere nanoseconds, the would-be rapacious Matthew lies pinned to the time-worn timbers he so recently trod, all thoughts of present and future bodice-ripping forever banished by the righteous fangs of canine justice. So the moral of the story is—”

  “Romances don’t have morals,” I said. “The romance is the moral.”

  “This one does.” Leah closed the imaginary book and set it firmly on the table. “When keeping assignations with sons of rectors, always remember your own bitch.”

  12

  Late on Monday afternoon, I rang what still felt like Morris Lamb’s bell. To make sure that Dog’s Life hadn’t scheduled a competing story about some other dog-assisted member of the clergy, I’d phoned Bonnie, my editor, who called the idea “fresh and novel.” For obvious reasons, fastidious dog journalists avoid the word scoop.

  Where Morris Lamb had found the door chimes, I can’t imagine. There can’t be much call for the theme from Canadian Love Song anymore. You always knew when Morris was approaching the door. He sang along. So did his older Bedlington, Nelson. That last time I was there, his young bitch, Jennie, hadn’t yet learned to join in, but Morris felt optimistic about her progress. Terriers have little aptitude for singing tricks, but even if Jennie had spent years without producing so much as a little yowl, Morris would have maintained his faith in her. I once overheard someone—it must have been Doug Winer—accuse Morris of always thinking that the glass was half full. I remember Morris’s rejoinder. Yes, indeed, he replied, half full of Sapphire Bombay gin.

  The high-pitched barking that now accompanied the chimes was loud and intent, if not melodic. The little dog who produced it proved to be what the vernacular styles a Heinz. At a guess, Ruffly had some Papillon, Chihuahua, foxhound, toy Manchester terrier, and beagle, possibly mixed with some basenji. But if you want a clear picture of him, imagine a Sheltie-size smooth fox terrier body; a black-and-tan coat; and the bright, intelligent dark brown eyes of a Pomeranian. Ruffly’s most striking features, though, were his rounded, stand-up Cardigan Welsh corgi ears, one perfectly upright, the other folded slightly at the tip, both utterly immense in proportion to his head and body, like two gigantic flexible satellite dish antennas on a tiny cottage, one mounted solidly on the roof, the other listing as if fixed in the act of clutching some invisible signal. Oddly enough, Ruffly’s serious expression and those mammoth, improbable puppy ears gave him the distinctive beauty of a dog perfectly suited to fulfill his purpose. Fifty-seven varieties and all, Ruffly was an unmistakable purebred, A.K.C.—All Kinds Combined—the perfect prototype of the all-American hearing dog.

  When I’d rung the bell, Ruffly’s prancing and yapping had been audible, but by the time Stephanie Benson opened the door and welcomed me, the dog was frozen in a sit-stay with nothing moving except his bright eyes and those sound-grabbing ears. Leah had said that he was having problems. I saw no sign of them at all.

  Like almost everyone else who lacks a major physical °r sensory disability, I practically don’t notice those of other people and am immediately relaxed and comfortable with anyone who has one. Furthermore, all my friends will testify that if, instead of being someone with hearing aids, the woman who greeted me had had no head or if she’d been a ringer for my deceased mother or even an obvious clone of me, I’d still have looked at the dog first. Having studied the dog, Ruffly, I did not then stare rudely at Stephanie Benson’s hearing aids, which were larger than Rita’s but had the same kinds of little switches and dials. Their color was the same, too, what Rita vilified as “prosthetic pink.” But, as I’ve said, nothing about disability makes me in the least bit ill at ease, apprehensive, or self-conscious. I’m never afraid that I’ll do or say the wrong thing. What happened as I followed Stephanie Benson across the foyer of Morris’s house was a meaningless accident. That I have executed thousands of about-turns in obedience rings covered with tom, taped, curly-edged rubber mats without once falling on my face is irrelevant. I just plain tripped.

  I’ve liberated myself from stereotypes about priests, too. It’s thus unnecessary to point out that when Stephanie Benson kindly knelt down to make
sure that I hadn’t broken anything, I did not imagine that she would chant prayers over my bruised and recumbent body. I was, however, a little surprised to hear her say, “These bare floors are just hell on rubber soles.” Rita would have made something of it, of course. Hell and soles in a single sentence? But, then, Rita makes something of anything. “I’ve got to put a rug down here,” Stephanie Benson added. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

  I scrambled to my feet. “Fine,” I said.

  Stephanie Benson smiled. She was a tall woman with a large frame and substantial muscles, bosomy, too, but not heavy. She had strong features and unusually square, widely spaced teeth that looked as if she’d just brushed them. Her face looked freshly washed, too. Her skin was thick and leathery, something like the insides of Ruffly’s ears. She wore no makeup, but, in its stead, a heavy coat of shiny moisturizer. Each of her hands was about the size of the dog’s head, and on the fingers of both, she wore silver and turquoise rings that were nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to the heavy Navajo squash blossom necklace that almost covered the top half of her white jersey dress. Her eyes were almost as turquoise as the stones. Her hair was black, with only a few strands of white, pulled straight back into a knot at the nape of her neck.

  As I gaped at Stephanie Benson’s jewelry, struggled to regain my composure, and checked out my camera and tape recorder, she covered my awkwardness by telling me how happy she was to help with the article. “They tell us we’re pioneers,” she said. “Everyone knows about guide dogs, but hearing dogs are equally remarkable, and part of our job is to get the word out about them.”

  Before long, Stephanie Benson had supplied coffee and settled me in Morris Lamb’s big living room, which still, of course, had its same old floor-to-ceiling windows and sliding glass doors, open today to let in leaf-filtered sunshine. The room now held a collection of formal furniture that honestly seemed better suited to a rectory than to Morris’s cube: maple tables, pale yellow wing chairs, an ottoman, two upholstered couches with no fireplace to flank, a museum-quality highboy with shiny hardware. Stephanie Benson’s Oriental rug was too small for the living room floor; and in the adjoining dining room, the ladder-back chairs jutted up discordantly, and the long, wide oval table created the impression of a dance floor so elevated that would-be waltzers would need a step stool to reach it. Morris had furnished the place in stark wood and vivid colors, but he was such a hopelessly pndulgent dog owner that, in his day, every piece of furniture not actually occupied by a Bedlington at least bore the marks of one, puppy-chewed legs or telltale splotches where a stain remover had reneged on its manufacturer's