What a Dog Knows

by Susan Wilson

  He shrugs. “I’m not sure.”

  “Get some toys. Find out. Call me in a week and let me know how she’s doing.”

  “I will.” The client fishes his wallet out of his back pocket, pulls out a hundred-dollar bill.

  “I don’t have change for that.”

  “Keep it. Please.”

  Ruby has never been one to argue a customer out of a nice tip. “Thank you. Remember: play, walk, ride. Call me.”

  It being too hot to let her sit in the van, the Hitchhiker is waiting for Ruby at Bull’s house. When she pulls into the yard, she spots Bull in his usual lawn chair, sucking down a Mountain Dew. The dogs are stretched out on either side of him. The Hitchhiker jumps up and runs to meet Ruby climbing out of the van. As always, her exuberant greeting makes Ruby feel like the queen of the world. Beloved. How could she stand to lose her?

  Ruby gets to the restaurant a little before the first guests are meant to arrive. She wants to scope out the space, see where best to hold her little readings. The wait staff are finishing up the cheese station and two young women in cocktail dresses are arranging centerpieces. Ruby guesses that they are the bridesmaids, doing the best that they can on such short notice.

  Ruby joins them. “It looks beautiful.”

  “Thanks. Thank God for Pinterest.” The blonder of the pair smiles, but Ruby can see the tension, the pressure to make this event a happy one. “You must be a sister.” No one has told her the bride has a sister, but Ruby is certain that this thirtysomething is.

  “I am. And you must be the fortune-teller.”

  “I am.”

  They agree on a spot to the left of the head table. A little discreet but not out of sight. Part of the success of the entertainment will be attracting the nervous to partake. Not unlike getting the reluctant to join in Karaoke. Suddenly it looks like fun.

  Ruby unpacks the tools of her trade, the wooden box with the set of tarot cards. The tiny teacups. The teapot. She gives it a perfunctory wipe with the soft cloth she keeps it wrapped in.

  The guests have begun to arrive. Gifts are piling up on the gift table. The signature drink is being dispensed, something pinkish and sweet and Ruby isn’t remotely tempted. She doesn’t mingle, but circulates, listens, an intelligence-gathering exercise. That one is complaining about a husband, the other one her kids. Someone else is talking about a sick mother. A new job. Finally Rachel Bergen shows up and spots Ruby. They agree that she’ll start doing readings after the toasts. Ruby thinks that’s perfect, they’ll all be loosened up with that pink drink and ready for fun.

  Not a guest, Ruby takes herself to the bar of the restaurant and orders dinner. She’ll earn back the cost of the pricey burger in her first reading. She gives the party an hour before she ducks into the ladies’ room and changes into her caftan. Undoes her hair and shakes it out. Puts on a redder lipstick. Adds a bit more mascara and eye shadow. Voilà—everyone’s idea of a fortune-teller. A few minutes after she hears the last toast, Ruby steps through the kitchen door and asks for a carafe of hot water so she can begin brewing the tea.

  Rachel makes the announcement that Ruby Heartwood, Psychic and Seer, is open for business. As usual, it takes one brave soul to venture over and within a few minutes, a line has formed. The girls, for they are mostly young women, queue up with drinks in hand and blatantly listen in on one another’s readings. Ruby fashions her insights for the maximum of entertainment for the crowd. In an hour and a half, she’s promised fortune, fun, and romance to a couple dozen now fairly inebriated girls and soothed the mother-of-the-bride’s qualms about her choice of dress for the wedding. And then there are two left. The bride and her future mother-in-law.

  As Ruby taps the deck of tarot cards into alignment, she feels a shiver run from the nape of her neck to her waist. Not the kind of shiver that suggests the air-conditioning is set too high; it is the kind that old wives used to say was the result of a goose walking over your grave. A portent of things to come. She splits the deck and shuffles the large cards again. The frisson dissipates.

  Everyone has decided that the bride must go last. So it’s the future mother-in-law who is forced into the chair next. Cynthia Mann.

  The shiver down Ruby’s spine suddenly makes sense.

  The first thing Ruby notices is that Cynthia, unlike the rest of her guests, is not the least bit softened up by the signature drink. Indeed, it looks to Ruby like Cynthia has been abstaining. She files away that bit of intel. The second thing that Ruby perceives is that Cynthia, far from being a good sport about this, is seething. And her most belligerent glance is not at Ruby, but the soon-to-be-daughter-in-law. Who is giving it right back. Okay, add a touch of family divisiveness to the blend. Sweet. The third thing Ruby gleans in the fifteen seconds before Cynthia turns her scathing attitude toward Ruby, is that Cynthia doesn’t wear any jewelry except for a tiny pair of diamonds in her ears. For her this is no celebration, but a wake.

  “Well, hello, Cynthia. Congratulations on the upcoming nuptials.” Might as well poke the tiger, get it over with, thinks Ruby Heartwood.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Cynthia hisses.

  Ruby leans over, whispers, “Don’t worry, we both know this is just for show. You don’t want to go down in family history as the mother-in-law from hell, do you?”

  “I don’t think it matters.”

  “I think it does. You want to keep your son close, be nice to his wife.”

  “Is that your idea of a fortune?”

  “No. Just a little advice from a fellow mother-in-law.” What Ruby doesn’t say is that she happens to be the mother of a daughter, who happens to also adore her son-in-law. No point in mentioning that. “They could be married a long time, and once kids come, you don’t want to be on the outside.”

  “I think it’s a little too late for that.”

  Both women sit back. The few girls still lingering around the fortune-teller’s table pause in their chatter, all eyes on the psychic, wondering what she will say, what she might reveal about this woman they all understand to be against this marriage.

  “Tea leaves or tarot?” Ruby still has a little hot water left in the carafe. “It’s Earl Grey.”

  Cynthia shrugs with a delicate gesture, signifying her utter disdain. “Tea. I suppose. Why not? But please don’t expect me to swallow your hogwash.”

  “Not in the least.”

  Ruby goes through the ritual as if she was entertaining the queen. A spoonful of tea, hot water, gentle swirl to ensure the leaves are spread, pour with care into the teacup. She hands the fragile cup to Cynthia, asks her to take a sip. Cynthia looks as if she’s been asked to drink last year’s Beaujolais. She comes away with a flake of tea on her upper lip. She seems unaware of it and Ruby doesn’t point it out. With a frigid hauteur, Cynthia puts the cup down and slides it to Ruby.

  Ruby studies the scrim of tea leaves plastered to the bottom and sides of the tiny cup. She is perfectly willing to make up a palatable plate of prognostication for this woman, but something else happens. “May I ask a couple of questions?”

  “Do I have to answer? Isn’t that how you glean enough information to make a prediction?”

  “When you go to your doctor, do you answer his questions so that he can make a proper diagnosis?”

  “She. And of course.”

  “Same here.”

  A voice from the peanut gallery: “Oh, come on, Ms. Mann, play along.”

  Cynthia doesn’t take her eyes off of Ruby’s face, doesn’t deign to respond to the soused bridesmaid in the circle.

  Ruby notices that the bride herself is standing at a distance. She’s got a lei of ribbons around her neck, the bows from her gifts. She looks to be falling down exhausted, less enthusiastic about her party than her friends, probably because she’s had to abstain from the pink drink. Ruby will give her a generic fortune and send her on her way, confident that she’s going to be all right, that her mother-in-law won’t always hate her. Although that won’t exactly be acc
urate.

  “Let’s get this over with. I’d like to get out of here.”

  Ruby studies the tea leaves, and a wash of magic floats through her. It doesn’t happen often, but when it does, it’s like a jolt of adrenaline straight to the heart. “You’ve decided something recently.”

  “Everyone makes decisions.”

  “I see a long quiet period in your life.”

  “When? I could almost look forward to that. I’m so busy. It’s wearing me out.”

  Mindful of the gathering around them, Ruby leans across the table and whispers into Cynthia’s ear, “You’ve decided not to run for reelection.”

  Cynthia blinks, sits back, says, “I haven’t told anyone that,” thus confirming Ruby’s intuition.

  “You’ve had a lot on your plate in the past year or so.”

  “It’s been harder than I thought.” Cynthia looks away, says, almost to herself, “I don’t think I could get reelected.”

  “For all its sophistication, this is really a small town and I get why you might think that you wouldn’t have the support you once enjoyed.”

  “I’ve said no too many times.”

  Ruby nods. She’s heard from her townie friends that Cynthia is known as the Queen of No, voting down pretty much everything brought to the board. It hasn’t endeared her to those who would like to see a little less gentrification and a little more affordable housing. But there is something else that the constituents of Harmony Farms aren’t keen on, the fact that her husband, albeit now ex, was convicted of animal abuse. In some minds, Cynthia is tainted by association. Particularly with her antipathy toward the animal control department, holding that tiny department responsible for the upheaval in her life.

  Ruby dribbles a little more water into the teacup. Just enough to float the dregs so that she can take another read on Cynthia’s fortunes, but the magic has passed.

  “You won’t tell anyone, will you?” This is a different Cynthia.

  “No. Like with your doctor, this conversation is confidential.”

  The bride has been pushed toward Ruby by her sister. “One more, Madame Ruby!”

  Abruptly, Cynthia regains her hauteur, stands up and flicks back her hair. “Ridiculous. All for show.” She looks at the few guests still lingering around the bride then back at Ruby. “You, like all your kind, are a fake.”

  “You make yourself sound almost racist when you put it that way. All my kind?”

  “Charlatans, frauds, preying upon the naïve and ignorant. The vulnerable.”

  “I don’t see you as the least bit vulnerable, ignorant, or naïve, Cynthia. But you are clearly taking me too seriously.”

  Cynthia turns away from the round table. As she does, her hip hits the edge and the beautiful purloined little teapot hits the floor, smashing to bits.

  23

  The Hitchhiker noses the fragments of china that Ruby has laid out on the table. A spout. A handle. This piece looks like the miniature masterpiece of a portrait of a violet. There’s the bulge of the teapot; there’s the finial from its cover. Ruby doesn’t know whether to feel sad, or maybe relieved. Has this object been the long lingering reminder of a most painful moment? Surely there have been times when she’s used it without thinking of Madame Celestine. Without thinking about the hurt inflicted when the woman she had come to think of as a mother betrayed that affection. Surely over forty years the teapot has become just a teapot. But looking at the shards of the thing, Ruby knows that a kind of spell has been broken. She collects the pieces. She has a square silk scarf she used to wear around her head, turban-style. She’s had it almost as long as she’s had the teapot. She places the pieces into the scarf and gathers the ends together to tie it. None of the shards will fall out. Done, Ruby folds back the table, climbs into the driver’s seat of the Westie. She knows just the place to ceremonially inter these remnants of her second oldest decision. If she was anywhere near the ocean, she’d given them a burial at sea where the porcelain shards would be smoothed into beach glass, eventually heaved up on the shore to be found by a delighted beachcomber. Lake Harmony will just have to do.

  The morning sky is hazy with the promise of a good hot summer day. It is still early enough that the parking lot is empty except for a yellow-vested town worker stabbing litter with a stick, stuffing his booty into a plastic trash bag. Ruby doesn’t particularly want to be observed tossing her bundle into the lake, so she makes like she’s just there to walk her dog, ostentatiously dangling a ready poop bag from the hand not grasping the silken bundle. They are quickly away from the sandy beach, following a well-trodden trail up and through the skinny woods. On this, the public side of the lake, the trail will double back, respecting the boundary with the very much private side. Ruby has been along this path enough times with the Hitchhiker that she has figured out how to boldly trespass. Just look like you belong there.

  They come to a low pier, a flotilla of tiny sailboats bobbing alongside. Ruby has seen these little craft out on the lake, children who look too young to be sailing alone piloting them in varying degrees of ability. The Harmony Farms Yacht Club learn to sail program. There is always a motorboat in the vicinity and she’s never actually witnessed a capsizing.

  Ruby strides to the end of the pier, the dog right at her heels, her little brown eyes fixed on Ruby’s face, wondering what’s going to happen next. Before she launches her bundle into the drink, Ruby reconsiders losing the scarf. It is pure silk, a pale orange sherbet struck through with threads of emerald green. No reason to heave that out of her life too. She unties the knot and begins flinging the teapot shards one by one into Lake Harmony. The water here is deep enough, she hopes, that no kid, having fallen overboard, will step on the broken pieces. In time, perhaps even without the tidal wash of the sea, these broken bits, these remnants of her fractured life, will turn harmless.

  The breeze has picked up so Ruby ties the scarf around her head to keep her hair out of her face. From her vantage point on the end of the pier Ruby sees that the town worker has left. In the distance, she hears the sound of children’s voices and she knows that she had better beat it out of there. But still she lingers. The dog presses herself against Ruby’s knees, so she scoops her up. The vibration is strong, clear, and Ruby allows herself to breathe in the scent of the dog’s thoughts.

  “This is a good place. I like it here.”

  “We can’t stay.”

  “Stay. Yes. We are home here.”

  And Ruby realizes the dog is thinking not about the pier upon which they are trespassing, but the place where they found each other, where they have become partners. And, Ruby thinks, it’s Friday and she is still nearly $1,000 shy of the $2,000 she needs to secure that partnership. Time to get to work.

  Avoidance is a skill and Ruby is displaying that skill by leaving her phone on Do Not Disturb. If Mrs. Cross has tried to call her, she’s failed. Ruby is also displaying her resistance to temptation by not checking the damn thing anyway. What was that expression? Good news will keep, and bad news won’t go away? She’s set up her round table and two chairs under an oak tree in the park, not too far from where she sets her tent up at the Faire. She’s displaying her busker’s license prominently. If her profession is somewhat suspect, her legitimacy isn’t. She’s close enough to the foot traffic exploring the shops on Main Street, now in full August sale mode, to attract the random tourist who might not be around for the Makers Faire on Saturday. Lots of people pass through Harmony Farms on their way to the Berkshires, finding it a good stopping place for a lunch break. It’s been Cynthia’s mission to get them to stay long enough to spend some money in town.

  As a final touch, Ruby unfolds the sandwich board with her menu of skills. Psychic readings: palm, tarot. She has taken a strip of masking tape and covered “tea leaves.” When she gets a chance, she’ll poke around in a thrift store and see if she can find a new teapot. But, for now, her most prominent offering is written in large letters: Animal Communicator. It is a sign of desperation
that Ruby has also modified her fees, upping the palm and tarot readings to forty dollars from twenty and animal communicator to a flat sixty bucks. It will either work or she’ll do a fire sale at the end of the day.

  The Hitchhiker is doing her bit, wagging and wriggling in joy at the approach of every stranger. She has this amazing ability to make you think that you are the most special person in her life. It would make Ruby jealous, but she knows that the dog is somewhat of an actor. True affection is the way she speaks to Ruby alone.

  Two hours, four customers later and Ruby is doing mental calculations. This must be what it felt like during World War I when success on the battlefield was measured in inches, not yards.

  * * *

  I really enjoy being a hostess, greeting passersby and asking them to join us. It feels as though that is my purpose, at least as long as we enjoy the park and the lovely heat of the day. Ruby is very pleased with my unsubtle friendliness. I know others of my sort who distrust, but I have never been one of those. It is my feeling that all human beings deserve a chance to be befriended. Sometimes two chances. As I’ve said, I don’t dwell on the past, but I will say this, the night that I bolted from my former home, it wasn’t so much that I was running away, as toward. I knew that my purpose there had ended with my elderly companion’s life. I was also crazed to get out, to run, to stretch, to burn off the anxiety that had kept me company for however long it was before other human beings came to open that door. I was less hungry and thirsty than I was bored. I don’t know how long I kept moving, except that, at some point, I knew that I needed to keep going in the direction in which I was headed. Going back wasn’t possible.

  The storm that came up had me seeking shelter under the porch of a building near the lake. As that white van pulled in, I was jolted by the certainty that it was now my new home. That inside of it I would find someone who would be mine. I knew, without knowing how, that the woman in there would be able to understand me, understand my language well beyond the common words a dog uses: eat, out, water, ball. I asked to be admitted and Ruby opened the door.