Three Dogs in a Row

by Neil S. Plakcy

  There was something strange in her voice. I sat up and even Rochester raised his head. “What’s the matter?”

  “I’d rather talk in person.”

  “Sure, come over. I’ll call the gate and let them know you’re on your way.”

  “Okay. I’m not far—a couple of miles up the river.”

  I hung up, then dialed the guard house and gave them Lili’s name. I wondered if it was time to put her name on my permanent guest list.

  But then I had a terrible thought. What if Van was right? He had said that Lili wouldn’t stay out in the middle of nowhere for long, that she had big dreams and she was determined to see them fulfilled. What if she was coming over to break up with me?

  It was the end of the academic year, and maybe she’d gotten a better offer, either from a bigger college, or from a magazine or newspaper. Suppose she’d been driving around trying to figure out how to tell me she was leaving. I sat back, and Rochester crawled over to put his head on my lap.

  Then I took a couple of deep breaths. I was letting my imagination get away from me, as I often did. For all I knew, Lili was upset about failing a student, or a leaky roof, or something else totally unrelated to our relationship.

  Whatever it was, I was going to need some coffee to deal with it, because I was exhausted. I went downstairs and started the cappuccino machine, and by the time Rochester heard Lili’s car pull up in the driveway and started barking, I had the espresso ready, chocolate syrup already mixed in, and was steaming the milk.

  “Hi, sweetie,” I said, greeting her at the door with a kiss.

  “Something smells heavenly,” she said, after she kissed me back.

  Well, that was a relief. Whatever was bothering her probably was not about me.

  She reached down and petted the dog as I walked back into the kitchen to finish the coffee. “Must be Rochester’s new shampoo,” I called behind me.

  She followed me into the kitchen, the dog on her heels. “Have anything to go with that coffee?” she asked. “Suddenly I’m starving.”

  “Cookies in the cabinet.” I poured the foam over the espresso, then whipped cream, more syrup, and chocolate shavings. I had been massing my chocolate artillery in case Lili wanted to break up with me, because I wasn’t going down without a fight. Now I could just enjoy the coffee.

  She opened up a package of chocolate thumbprint cookies and brought them to the kitchen table. Rochester sprawled at her feet as I carried the cups and joined her.

  “So what’s up?”

  “I spoke to Van. Something he said really upset me.”

  “Let me guess.” I stirred my café mocha. “He said you’d never be happy out here in the middle of nowhere. That you needed a life of action and adventure.”

  Her eyes widened with surprise. “How did you know?”

  “He said the same thing to me. I hung up on him.”

  “I should have done the same thing. You don’t think it’s true?”

  I took her hand. “I hardly know you, Lili. We’ve only been dating for a couple of months. But I’ve seen some things that matter to you.” I used my other hand to hold up my thumb. “Your students. You genuinely seem to care about them and about helping them explore their talent.”

  She smiled, then picked up her coffee and sipped.

  I held up my index finger. “Your talent. You look at the world as an artist, and you bring that vision to everything you touch—your clothes, your apartment, the things you create with your camera and your computer.”

  My third finger went up as she ate a cookie. “Your heart. You have the ability to open yourself up to love—from me, from Rochester. You care about people—look at the way you stood up for Felae.”

  I let go of her hand and picked up a cookie. “You’ve already been around the world. I know you enjoyed it, that you learned from what you saw, and that you were moved by it. Do you need that kind of stimulation on a constant basis? Only you can say that.”

  I bit into the cookie. It was Lili’s turn to talk.

  “You’re a smooth talker, Steve Levitan,” she said. “I didn’t realize you had gotten to know me so well so quickly.” She reached down and petted Rochester. “And obviously, in a way that Van never did. You’re right. Those are the things that matter to me the most. And I have them all right here.”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know why I let that jerk get under my skin.”

  “He has a talent for that. He said some things about me, too.” I picked up another cookie and ate it. The caffeine and the sugar were working their magic, and I felt more alive. If we were delving into Lili’s psyche, it was time she got a look at mine as well. “He said he knew me. That he knew what I’d done.”

  “The hacking? That’s old news.” Lili picked up her mocha again and sipped.

  “Not exactly.”

  She cocked her head a bit, almost the way Rochester does. I resisted the urge to smile. “You know I’m on parole, right? That if I do anything illegal I could go back to prison in California.”

  “But you wouldn’t do anything like that? Would you?”

  She looked at my face and then took my hand. “Steve?”

  “I don’t know how to explain it,” I said. “I could say it’s an addiction, like drugs or alcohol. But that would be a cop-out. I could put the blame on Rick Stempler and say he knows what I do, and he doesn’t stop me. But it’s not his problem, it’s mine.” I took a deep breath. “I could justify myself by saying I only do things for a good cause, like to help figure out who killed Rita. But that’s just sad.”

  I slumped back in my chair. Even Rochester stayed by Lili’s side. “I won’t blame you if you walk out now.”

  “I don’t understand,” Lili said. “What did you do?”

  I told her.

  “You can do that?” she asked, when I was finished. “Break into someone’s e-mail account?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That’s amazing. But you don’t do it to steal anything or get people in trouble?”

  I shook my head. “Absolutely not. And since I’ve been out of prison I’ve only hacked a few times, to help Rick with investigations.”

  “And he knows about it?”

  “It’s kind of like that program the military used to have. Don’t ask, don’t tell,” I said. “I pass the information on to him, or give him leads, and he doesn’t ask me where I get the information.”

  “Did you tell him this stuff, about this insider information?”

  “I gave him a sort of back-handed hint that he should subpoena Rita’s email records. But he understood what I was saying.”

  I was still waiting for Lili to chastise me, to back away, at least to say that knowing I couldn’t suppress those criminal instincts made her want to reconsider our relationship. I felt like that guy in the comic strip, the one with the cloud that always follows him. Instead, Lili reached over and took both my hands in hers.

  “You showed me tonight that you’ve gotten to know who I am over the past few months,” Lili said. “Well, I’ve gotten to know you, too. I know that you’re smart, and funny, and you’re good with words. That you have the ability to love and care about people, too. Tonight you’ve shown me one more of the things you can do. That doesn’t change anything else that I feel about you.”

  She pulled me close, and her kiss left me no doubt about what those feelings were.

  29 – Class Consciousness

  Lili didn’t stay the night, but we did go upstairs together after we finished our coffee. Rochester dozed on the kitchen floor until Lili left, when he returned to his customary place beside my bed.

  As I got ready for work on Friday morning, the day of Eastern’s graduation and the kickoff of reunion weekend, I remembered I wasn’t just an employee—I was an alumnus, and I had to dress the part.

  Every Eastern class came up with a clever clothing item so that classmates could identify each other at reunions—which was important, as the years passed and we all looked le
ss and less like those skinny, fresh-faced undergrads we’d once been. Some chose ball caps, some windbreakers, some T-shirts. If you came to a graduation, you wore your item, even if wasn’t your reunion year.

  For our my class’s twentieth reunion, we’d hired a graphic designer to create a white polo shirt with the slogan “Class of 89: We’re Just Fine!” splashed across the back in Eastern’s sky blue. I’d worn it to work a couple of times since then, and had to dig through the closet to find it.

  I debated leaving Rochester at home. It was going to be a wild and busy day and I wouldn’t have much chance to check in on him. But knowing him, he’d be better off in my office than home alone all day. I tied a blue-and-white Eastern bandanna around his neck so that the rising sun logo rested on his shoulders. The colors looked jaunty against his golden fur.

  I tried to take him for a quick walk before leaving home, but he was very agitated, tugging me left and right, chasing a squirrel and a duck and trying to eat a crushed can of Red Bull. There was a horrifying thought: Rochester on an energy drink.

  I managed to drag him home and into the car for the drive upriver. When I got to work, Mike MacCormac was pacing around the reception area that led to our offices. His navy suit hugged his broad shoulders, and his white shirt looked uncomfortably tight around the neck. His Eastern college tie, light blue with a pattern of yellow sunrises, wasn’t long enough to reach all the way to his waist.

  “There must be something we forgot,” he said. “What is it?”

  His secretary said, “If we knew what we forgot, it wouldn’t be forgotten.”

  “Get everybody in my office for a meeting,” he said. “Everybody except Rochester, that is.”

  He leaned down and scratched the scruff of Rochester’s neck, and his tie dangled in front of the dog’s face. “You’re the only one who can relax today, boy.”

  I wanted to check my email and voice mail, but I had to spend the next hour in Mike’s office as he obsessed about everything that could go wrong with the graduation festivities. It wasn’t even his responsibility—but any screw-up could lead to a dip in alumni contributions, and reunions were one of the best times to solicit donations.

  I got back to my office at ten. Rick called while I was struggling to answer at least a few email messages before the graduation festivities began. “Hey, I know that Matthew Durkheim is an Eastern alum,” he said. “You think there’s any chance he’ll show at the college this weekend?”

  “No idea,” I said. “But if you hold on I can see if it’s his reunion year.” I checked his record in the college database, then returned to the call. “It’s not. But I remember him saying something about getting together with his buddies at reunions.”

  “I’ll head up there, just in case.”

  “All right. I’ll keep an eye out for him, but I’m going to be pretty busy.”

  I hung up, and spent the next hour scrambling to finish whatever I could before I had to leave the office. Just before eleven, I took Rochester out to pee. I had to keep him on a short leash because there were so many people milling around outside Fields Hall, and he was acting wild—he wanted to go up to every person and say hello and I kept having to rein him in. I was grateful to get back through the french doors into my office, pull off his leash and toss him a rawhide chew. “Stay out of trouble, boy,” I said. I realized that was becoming my mantra with him.

  The campus was jammed with students and their family groups. Beaming parents, elderly grandparents, younger brothers and sisters in their special-occasion best. Eastern’s colors were everywhere, white and the light blue of a summer sky. Graduates wore custom gowns in slate blue, and many of them had decorated their black mortarboards with the letters of their fraternity or clever messages in masking tape. Loudspeakers placed throughout the campus were playing a brass-band version of Eastern’s fight song, complete with the “rah, rah, rise up Suns” chorus.

  Had I ever been that young? That enthusiastic about the future?

  I recalled my own graduation. My father took a million pictures—most of which my mother and I never saw. I did remember a photo of my mother adjusting the hood of my gown, showing off the rising sun crest imprinted on the fabric. My mom had it printed and framed, along with my diploma, with matting in light blue and white. I wondered where that picture was—probably in one of the boxes of my parents’ stuff I had never unpacked, still in my garage.

  As I hurried toward the tent area, I started to sweat in the heat. There was no breeze to speak of and I felt sorry for the graduates in their heavy gowns, and the college administrators, like Mike, in their coats and ties. I only escaped the formal attire because I could wear my reunion shirt.

  I paused for a moment in front of a roped-off play area where slim, pony-tailed moms in Eastern polo shirts gossiped and watched their kids play with future classmates. As I did, I felt a sharp pain in my side. Was I still so hurt by Mary’s miscarriages that seeing little kids playing was painful? By the thought that I probably wouldn’t ever have kids of my own?

  Then I realized it was a physical rather than metaphorical pain. “Ow!” I said, rubbing my flank. My skin hadn’t been pierced, but an ache radiated just above my waist.

  A boy no older than twelve or thirteen, holding his pants up with one hand, had poked me in the side with a long pointed stick he carried in the other. A congratulatory banner hung from the end of it, the bottom dragging in the grass.

  A gym-toned blonde whose taut skin belied a face lift rushed up behind him. “I told you to wear a belt, Justin!” she said. “And to watch where you’re going with that thing!”

  She looked at me. “I’m so sorry. Are you okay?”

  Rubbing my side, I tried to smile. “It’s all right.” Justin trooped on ahead, followed by a legion of family members. “Try and hold the point up, Justin,” I called after them, as his mother hurried to catch them.

  I threaded my way past red-faced alums already hoisting beers, alert for any more errant jousters. Every class seemed to be playing music from the era when it had gone to school; Jan and Dean competed with Nirvana, The Who with Katy Perry. It was enough to give you a headache if you listened too closely.

  A group of twenty-something former lacrosse players tossed a ball back and forth as I passed. Then I heard a loud bark and looked to my right. There were my people, I thought. A group of dog lovers had thrown together their own makeshift puppy park, using one wall of Harrow Hall, a couple of folding tables laid sideways, and a row of picket fencing it looked like someone had been carrying in their trunk. I wished I had Rochester with me; he’d love to be there. But he was locked up back in my office.

  A rhythmic knocking sound drew my attention to the left. Another group of alums, this one from a class a few years before mine, had obviously been on the crew team together. As they beat their paddles against each other they began to chant. Right in the middle of them was Matthew Durkheim.

  Like many of his former teammates, he was wearing a class outfit of running shoes, cargo shorts and a muscle shirt with the Eastern logo. Even from that distance, I could see they all had matching tattoos on their upper arms. I flashed back to that moment at Rita’s farm when I had first noticed Matthew’s. If only I’d been able to have Rick arrest him then, Rita would still be alive.

  But he hadn’t committed a crime then, so there was nothing to arrest him for. Such are the questions philosophers obsess over.

  The sound of the chanting and knocking grew in intensity and volume, drowning out everything else. I had to keep walking backwards, glancing around me to avoid knocking into anyone, yet keeping Matthew and his buddies in sight, until I got somewhere quiet enough to call Rick.

  “I knew it,” Rick said, when I told him I’d spotted Matthew. “I knew he’d be there. God damn it.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Still in Stewart’s Crossing. Bethea’s tying up traffic again. I was supposed to be out of here a half hour ago but I just hit River Road.”

  �
�Get here as fast as you can,” I said. “The parade of classes starts in an hour. I’ll bet he cuts out before then.”

  “The parade of what?”

  I explained that groups of alumni organized to march into the stadium for graduation. “I’ll do my best,” Rick said. “Keep an eye on him.”

  He hung up and I looked around. Though there were plenty of people in the area, they were all with their class groups. Mine, unfortunately, was too far away, and since I was wearing a shirt with my class slogan on the back, I couldn’t easily fit in with any other.

  Matthew and his pals mercifully stopped banging their paddles and I could hear the rest of the crowd again, including the barking dogs. I realized the puppy park had a perfect view of his class tent. I’d have to get Rochester and use him as camouflage.

  But I didn’t want to leave Matthew unattended. What if he slipped out while I was gone? What could I do? Call Lili? Someone else from my office?

  Then I spotted Yudame, my tech writing student, wandering aimlessly through the crowd. He was hard to miss, with his huge dandelion puff of curly blondish-brown hair. Today’s T-shirt was a flag in the shape of the island of Puerto Rico, with its single white star against a blue pennant, with a little tree frog, called a coqui, perched in the corner of a field of red and white stripes. Underneath was the slogan, “Hire me, I’m a Boricua!”

  Don’t ask me how I know all this stuff. Years of trivia quizzes, watching Jeopardy! on TV, and reading student papers. I waved him over to me. “Can you do me a huge favor?” I asked.

  “No probs, my Prof. What you be needing?”

  “See that guy over there?” I pointed to Matthew. Because his classmates were dressed so much alike, it was hard to identify him. I had to wait until he picked up a plastic beer mug, tilted his head back, and drained it. “There,” I said. “That guy, pounding back the brew.”

  Yudame laughed. “You old guys talk funny, my Prof. Yeah, I got eyes on him.”

  I filed the ‘old guy’ comment away, in case Yudame was ever in my class again. “I’ve got to run back to my office for a minute. If he starts to leave, will you give me a call?”