When Harry Met Minnie

by Martha Teichner

  Hers:

  He has roadies that store them for him.

  Me:

  And a rock star bus, no doubt, parked in NJ near Bruce Springsteen’s house.

  Carol:

  Oh yes, they are friends.

  Supposedly, when I went to Rite Aid, I would be able to pick up a five-day emergency supply of phenobarbital under the name Harry Fertig. When the pharmacist received a hard copy of Harry’s prescription, I could pick up a month’s worth.

  It was pouring rain when I got off the bus a little after seven, really coming down, cold and windy. I didn’t have an umbrella. Stephen had said he would show up at my apartment with Harry at eight. I thought, fine, it’s an easy walk. It’s just across the street from the bus stop to Rite Aid, and then not even a block home. I’ll have plenty of time. Stephen’s always late anyway. I won’t get too wet.

  At Rite Aid, the pharmacist said there had been some sort of mix-up. “I told the vet’s office when someone called, I can’t, by law, fill Harry’s prescription without a hard copy. Phenobarbital is a controlled substance. And anyway, I don’t have any in stock and won’t be able to get any till at least tomorrow, maybe the day after that.”

  As I stood at the counter, dripping, swear words were going off in my head like fireworks. I called the vet and asked whether anybody knew of any other pharmacies anywhere in walking distance where I could get some that night. I knew that skipping doses was a bad idea. Harry could go a little crazy without his medication. I called Stephen and told him what was happening.

  “I doubt I’ll be able to get home by eight.”

  The vet’s office called five different drugstores before finding one that had phenobarbital in stock. It was maybe a quarter mile walk away, a very wet walk. I stood in line at the pharmacy and waited my turn, only to be told that, yes, the prescription had been called in, but without a hard copy it couldn’t be filled. I would have to go to the vet’s office, pick it up, and come back. No, it couldn’t be faxed. That was the law.

  By then it was 7:45 P.M. The vet’s office closed at eight. I called and said I was on my way. Rain streaming down my face, in my eyes, I raced to get there in time. I made it with five minutes to spare. One of the receptionists handed me the prescription. I slopped through the rain back to the pharmacy, hoping I’d get waited on before the pharmacist left at 8:30 P.M.

  At least five people were ahead of me dropping off or collecting prescriptions. As I stood in line, I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror on one of those revolving columns displaying reading glasses that always seem to be right next to the pharmacy area. I looked awful. My hair was soaking wet. I had black smudges around my eyes where my mascara had run. My clothes were drenched. I called Stephen again and told him what had happened and that I wouldn’t be home for at least half an hour.

  “I’ll pick you up there,” he said. “Right now, I’m ten minutes away. Just look for me out front.”

  It was nearly nine o’clock when we unloaded Harry and led him inside my apartment. Stephen brought in Harry’s street-vendor bag, which was fuller than ever. Harry and Minnie immediately started playing. I sent Carol a picture of the two of them lying side by side staring at me, imploring me to feed them.

  She wrote, “They know from whence their bread is buttered.” I wrote, “And their chicken is shredded, and their sweet potatoes roasted.”

  Harry refused to sleep with me that night. He slept in the living room on an upholstered chaise longue near the door to the garden. The following day my au pair showed me a pair of what had been tassel loafers, except the tassels were gone, chewed nubs all that were left where they’d been. “Harry chewed up my new shoes.” My au pair was angry.

  Carol emailed to ask, “How goes it on 22nd St.?” I told her about the shoes, explaining how my au pair “tends to creep in very late, take them off, and leave them by the dining table so he won’t make noise on the hardwood floors.… Maybe Harry is feeling insecure and confused.”

  Carol replied:

  OMG, I am mortified about the shoes!!!!!! He never does stuff like that. He MUST be feeling insecure and confused. Please tell [him] to email with cost of shoes, and I will pay him.… I hope he has it in him not to hold it against HARRY. I think he is going through a difficult time. I am saddened about this.…

  Then I did a little checking and discovered the truth.

  From: Martha Teichner

  To: Carol Fertig

  [He] said it was Harry who ate the tassels off his shoes, but when I asked him when he discovered the damage, he said, “Yesterday morning.” That means it couldn’t have been Harry. He wasn’t here to do any damage. It had to have been Minnie. Please forgive us.… I hope Harry accepts my apology.… Minnie likes eating bra clasps, so I guess shoe tassels are equally appealing. Minnie is sneaky. She wants you to think she’s very, very good, but isn’t always.…

  From: Carol Fertig

  To: Martha Teichner

  That Minnie! She has a double life. I hope she doesn’t lead HARRY down the road to ruin!! Xc

  * * *

  A FEW DAYS later, on Saturday, I was at work when Stephen called, apologetic to be delivering more bad news. “I’m so sorry this seems to be happening sooner than anticipated. Carol says she feels that she can’t take care of Harry properly anymore, and maybe she should turn him over to you now.” It was always Stephen who called, never Carol. I could only guess that she was too sick to talk, or maybe that she couldn’t bring herself to say out loud, to say to me, that her cancer was overtaking her.

  I was busy. My story had to get done for air the next day. No, this couldn’t be happening, not yet. I felt a little faint. I felt as if I were falling. I could hear Stephen breathing into the phone. Seconds passed before I could answer.

  “No, it’s fine.” I replayed in my head what Carol had said about hanging on to Harry till the very end and about lying on the floor with him as her way of following doctor’s orders to do one joyful thing a day. I couldn’t imagine what it took to make the decision. She knew that giving up Harry was giving up on Life, and then she would get on with the business of dying.

  Stephen said, “She told me she’s trying to see it as if Harry’s going off to college, leaving her an empty nester.”

  Humor takes courage, I thought.

  ten

  RED JELL-O AND HALLOWEEN

  “She doesn’t have to make that decision now,” I said. “It doesn’t have to be final.” Stephen and I were in his car the next day, driving to Carol’s. “No, I know,” he replied, “but she said it was final. She’s really worried that she can’t take care of him.” I suggested the obvious. “We could take Harry to visit her. She could have the pleasure of being with her dog without worrying about feeding him or taking him out.” Stephen nodded. “Maybe we can convince her. I hope so.” I did, too.

  When we walked into Carol’s building, we found ourselves wading into a sea of little kids in costume carrying buckets of candy and plates of cupcakes, darting this way and that, changing direction like startled fish, their moms and dads with plastic swords in hand or a discarded tiara, trying to keep track of them. We got in the elevator with a swarm of superheroes and princesses. The building was having its annual Halloween party.

  Carol’s door was unlocked. She was propped up in bed, chalky gray, her skin waxy, her hair messy, stuck flat against the back of her head where she’d been leaning back against her pillows. She wasn’t wearing makeup, but she was wearing a beautiful black-and-white silk kimono. Fashion, always fashion, I thought.

  “I’m tired all the time,” she said, “just exhausted. My stomach bothers me. Look in the refrigerator. People have brought me a regular chicken coop full of rotisserie chickens. I can’t even look at them.”

  She had asked Stephen to buy her red Jell-O. He had hunted all over his neighborhood. He couldn’t find the glistening, ruby-red kind kids take in their school lunches or hospitals put on meal trays. The best he could do was something reddish that said
“healthy” and “vegan” on the label. He pulled an individual serving cup off one of the two six-packs of the stuff he had brought and handed it to Carol along with a spoon. Carol peered at it. She didn’t have her glasses on, so she held it three inches from her nose and turned it over, scowling at the color. She tried it, stared at Stephen, then handed the spoon and the cup back to him. “It’s disgusting,” she announced.

  Stephen stared back and then finished it off. “What’s wrong with it?” he asked, pretending to be put out.

  “Real Jell-O is totally artificial, artificial flavor, artificial color, and it’s loaded with sugar,” she said, fully aware of what she was saying, her voice full of mock sarcasm. “My favorite is cherry. This isn’t cherry. I don’t know what it is.” Carol was starting to perk up. She and Stephen were enjoying this game.

  He continued, “So if it isn’t bad for you, you don’t like it.…”

  “No.” She grinned. “If it isn’t bad, it isn’t good.”

  Stephen changed the subject. “What’s that?” He pointed to what looked like a cross between the top half of an armchair and the abominable snowman parked on a chest of drawers. It was covered in some sort of thick, scraggly white shag. “That’s bizarre,” I said.

  She sighed. “Isn’t it.…” We all considered its ugliness. “A friend of mine gave it to me thinking I could use it to sit up in bed.” She regarded it with the same contempt she had shown the vegan Jell-O. “I like soft pillows. I can arrange them.” She turned and punched her pillows. “I guess I’ll have to get it out whenever she comes over.”

  The apartment door opened. A cheery voice called out hello. Carol smiled. “It’s Lissa and my young friend.”

  I would come to know Lissa Hussian well in the next few weeks. Tall, slim, young looking but probably fortyish, she approached Carol’s bedside wearing a black dress, black tights, big black sunglasses, a blond wig styled in a bob, spike heels, and a mink wrap. She was supposed to be Anna Wintour, the editor of Vogue.

  She put her arms around the shoulders of her six-year-old daughter, Annabelle, who was dressed up in a Rockettes costume, the red toy-soldier suit slightly large. Her plumed hat was tilted sassily. A teasing comma of chin-length brown hair framed her jawline below it. She wore sparkly red knee-high boots. She was sucking on a lollipop, holding the handles of a paper bag filled with trick-or-treat candy, looking shy. Her eyes were serious. The flirtiness of her outfit exaggerated the innocent, childlike roundness of her face. The two of them lived in the building and had been to the Halloween party.

  Carol beamed and asked Annabelle questions about the party and school.

  Stephen had a funny look in his eye, a combination of malice and mischief as he glanced first at Carol, then at Annabelle. “Do you like Jell-O?” he asked. She nodded a cautious yes. He tore off another little cup from the six-pack and handed it to her. Lissa got her a spoon. She took a bite and another and then ate the whole container. Stephen watched, a grin slowly stretching across his face so wide that the twirled ends of his mustache turned up. “Good?” he asked. She smiled and nodded again. He gave Carol a look of exaggerated triumph. “Why don’t you take these home,” he said, handing over the rest of the Jell-O to Annabelle. Carol ignored him.

  “Go get the picture.” Carol motioned to Lissa, who retrieved a framed photograph and brought it over to show me.

  Carol, Lissa, and four other women stood side by side, smiling at the camera. At first I couldn’t quite make out what was going on in the photo. They were all wearing nightgown-like, white garments, cord wrapped around their waists two or three times, spray-painted gold laurel wreaths on their heads. Bigger and older than the others in the photo, wearing her huge black glasses, Carol stood out.

  “Togas?” I asked. Carol explained, “Togas, yes. Our mah-jongg group. We don’t really know how to play mah-jongg very well, so we sometimes dress up or go shopping. We’ve been known to go to the cosmetic department at Duane Reade and look at nail polish colors, for instance.”

  “Carol made the laurel wreaths,” Lissa said.

  “I used to belong to a book club that prided itself on not reading the books. We just sat around and talked,” I said. “Like that?”

  “Exactly.” Carol laughed.

  The mah-jongg group had become much more than a few friends pretending to play mah-jongg, putting on costumes, or going on giggly girls’ outings with Carol as ringleader, instigator. Lissa, Kate, and Cecilia were particularly close to Carol. Once, they were her posse, her eager acolytes, happy to join in the little adventures she concocted, to laugh and be silly and revert to girl talk. Mothers, wives, or ex-wives, professionals, women with complicated lives, they all gladly fell under Carol’s slightly madcap spell, which gave them the comic relief and camaraderie they needed. As Carol got sicker, they turned into her women’s brigade, her support team. They divided up responsibilities. Cecilia got over her fear of dogs and took care of Harry. Kate cleaned, did Carol’s laundry, changed her sheets, assisted with her legal affairs, badgered the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund about her claim. Lissa looked after Carol herself, spending time with her, going with her to doctors’ visits, organizing hospice care. The three of them got her to eat, ran errands for her, made her laugh, listened. They were goddesses in the picture and for real. I gave them a name, the Three Graces.

  When Lissa took Annabelle home, with her bag of Halloween candy and the vegan Jell-O, Carol groaned as she pulled herself up to a sitting position. It was as if the show was over, and she could stop acting. She swung her legs slowly to the floor and struggled to stand. Her feet were swollen, even more swollen than the last time I’d been to see her. Her Gucci loafer slippers were parked by her toes, but she shuffled barefoot across the room, and I saw how slowly she was moving. At her kitchen counter, she poured glasses of water for the three of us. Her fingers were shakier than the last time I’d seen her. The glasses wobbled dangerously. Stephen took them from her and we sat down at the table.

  As we drank our water, the conversation turned to Harry. Carol told me that Stephen had driven her to the breeder’s home in New Jersey eleven years before, during the summer of 2005, to pick out a puppy. She originally selected the one she thought was the handsomest, but was informed he wasn’t for sale. He was “show quality, not pet quality,” she said, so she chose Harry instead. Not long after getting him home, she went on, she sent Stephen a picture of herself with Harry. “You know what Stephen said? ‘He’s got your eyes.’” We all laughed. They looked at each other, remembering.

  Eventually, Carol braced her palms against the tabletop, support she needed all the time now, I realized, and heaved herself out of her chair. She was breathing heavily and coughing when she reached her kitchen counter, a few feet away, and rested her elbows on it. “I’m getting really tired. This is the rest of Harry’s medicine.” She reached out an arm and raked at least a dozen pill bottles toward her. So many. “Sertraline and trazodone for his anxiety disorders, Rimadyl for arthritis. You know all that. Metronidazole for diarrhea, heartworm medication, flea-and-tick-prevention tablets, some old antibiotics.” She gathered up eardrops and ointments and allergy shampoos and dog toenail clippers and then pushed an orange-and-brown Hermès box toward me. The capsule-making kit. How many times had she said she would give me a lesson? She was handing it over to me along with the bag of capsule shells and tubs of Tylan powder. I understood there would be no lesson.

  Carol made her way across the room, coughing some more, her pain visible in every step. She opened a closet and strained to pick up two overflowing shopping bags. Stephen rushed over to her. “I can do that.” He took the bags and set them on the table. “Go get in bed.” She didn’t. Carol wanted to show me Harry’s wardrobe.

  Out of the bags, she pulled a shiny black patent-leather raincoat and then a red plaid fleece-lined winter jacket with black and silver biker patches stitched on all over it: HARLEY-DAVIDSON, THE SONS OF ANARCHY, ORIGINAL UNHOLY ONES, LIVE TO RIDE. There were skulls
and skeletons, a Maltese cross, and a strange tan patch with two words in Greek letters. To go with the jacket, he had a turtleneck sweater with a white skull and crossbones knitted into it. Next, Carol produced a black down-filled varsity jacket lined in red, covered with pins. For example: DAVID BOWIE IS TURNING US ALL INTO VOYEURS, I DID IT, C’EST LA VIE, I BEAUTY, RAMONES, CHER IS MY MOM, I’M WITH STUPID, I HAVE SEEN THE FUTURE, JUST SAY NO TO DRUGS. One had a picture of a skateboarder on it, another the British flag. There was an owl pin, a duckling, and a Bakelite bull terrier head that looked like Harry’s. A walking social statement, that dog. “It’s a good thing he doesn’t vent on the internet,” I said. Carol smiled. I smiled. I admired the cleverness of the clothes, her playfulness, her creativity. I commented on what a fashionable fellow Harry was, very cool. I didn’t say that I found her composure excruciating to witness. I didn’t ask how she could bear this show-and-tell without breaking down. These clothes represented how much she loved him. Did she feel a physical ache? Knowing this moment was coming, had she cried … alone? Or had someone been there to see her through her anguish?

  Last, she laid out a white plush unicorn costume, with pink ears, a lavender satin horn, and a purplish mane and tail. “Lissa and Annabelle bought this for Harry to wear to the Halloween party. Normally, I make his costume, but not this year.” She sighed. “He didn’t get to wear it.”

  Stephen said, “Carol won the Halloween costume contest for dogs downtown so many times, she was told she wouldn’t be allowed to win anymore.”

  We heard a noise, a splat against the windows. We looked out into the darkness and saw that it was raining, hard, as if the wind were flinging buckets of water against the glass. Time to leave. Stephen stuffed Harry’s clothes back in the shopping bags as well as his medicines and the capsule kit.

  “Carol, we can bring Harry to visit you.” I had to say it. “You can enjoy him without having to worry about anything. He’s fine with going back and forth. He’s already done it a lot. You need him.”