Brute Strength (28 page)

At last, Steve broke his silence. Rita'd have been pleased to hear how forcefully and colorfully he expressed his feelings. Having done so, he apologized and said that we don't get to choose our parents.

‘We don't get to choose where they go, either,' I pointed out. ‘Or where they don't go. But damn it! Your fishing trip! Steve, you work so hard! You deserve a vacation!' I should've known better. A fishing trip is not a vacation; it is a pilgrimage.

Sounding freakishly – and unintentionally – like my father, he growled, ‘This isn't a vacation. It's a fishing trip.'

‘I understand the distinction. I really do.'

I couldn't tell whether he'd heard me or not. We began to lose the connection and then lost it altogether. Symbolic, huh?

When the phone rang a minute later, I thought that Steve must be calling back on a landline, but the caller was Rita. Willie was asking to go out. Was my offer still open? It was.

‘I've cancelled our reservation,' Rita said. ‘We'll reschedule. But that leaves you with no dinner. Do you—'

‘I have tons of food. Don't worry about it. I'll be up for Willie in five minutes. Unless he's frantic?'

He wasn't. Consequently, I took the time to change out of my good clothes and into jeans, a T-shirt, and a raincoat before going up to Rita's apartment. When she opened the door, I could see that she and Quinn had both been crying. He stood behind her with a hand resting on her shoulder. Interestingly, he was in his stocking feet. His controversial hiking boots lay on the floor near the door. Willie was on his best behavior, either because he was responding to the emotional atmosphere, which was almost visible and palpable, or because he saw me as his welcome means to the outdoors.

‘Just a quick trip out,' Rita said. ‘Thank you.'

For all of Willie's high spirits, he was capable of great seriousness. As he and I trotted down the stairs, he wore an expression of the utmost gravity, and he moved in a purposeful, determined manner. Although I'm supposed to know a bit about dogs, I couldn't interpret his mood. As someone who truly does know a bit about dogs, I'll venture a guess, however, that in the heart and mind of the dog, the perception of a beloved person's strong emotions may not differ all that radically from the sense of an urgent bodily need and the simultaneous wish to control that need before reaching the proper place to satisfy it. In other words, if I understand anything about dogs, what I grasp is their oneness with themselves, a canine unity that we human beings are doomed to lack.

THIRTY-FOUR

W
alking Willie around the block did nothing to enhance my power to fathom the mysteries of his species, nor did Willie enlighten me about himself as an individual except to prove that he had, in fact, needed to go out. Accustomed to Rita's high-heeled pace, he moved his short legs much more slowly than my own dogs moved their long ones, but he kept his leash loose, didn't keep stopping to sniff or mark everything, and showed no sign of objecting to the rain. Also, he was such a handsome fellow that he was a pleasure to watch. We took Concord Avenue to Walden Street, followed Vassal Lane to Huron, and turned onto our block of Appleton Street. As we were heading down Appleton toward home, Vanessa hailed me.

‘That's a funny-looking malamute you've got there,' she called.

‘Very.' Although I kept moving, she caught up with me, and I came to a halt.

‘Steve got off OK?'

‘Yes. He's there. At Grant's Camps. I talked to him.' My father's unexpected presence there was none of her business, I decided.

‘Any chance that you're free for dinner? I'm on my own. Hatch is at the hospital, and Avery's out, and Tom's with Elizabeth. I've got a chicken in the oven.'

‘Thanks, but I've already eaten.' In case she issued an invitation to have dessert or watch a movie, I said, ‘I'm in a mood for dog walking. I'm going to trade in this funny-looking malamute for the real thing and get some exercise.'

I'd lied about having eaten, but as soon as I said that I felt like walking dogs, I realized that it was true. Perhaps because of the chicken in the oven, Vanessa did not invite herself along.

Eager to get my own dogs and get going, I hurriedly returned Willie to the still-tearful Rita, ate a quick sandwich, and forced my water-hating Rowdy to endure a brief trip out to the muddy yard. As if expressing his sentiments about the rain, he limited himself to lifting his leg on the high ladder, which lay on the ground next to foundation. My usual rule about where my dogs are allowed to relieve themselves is that man-made objects are verboten. I make an exception in the case of fire hydrants, which by tradition belong to dogs. Tonight, I decided to forget the rule. The ladder was preferable to the picnic table, and in any case, the rain would wash everything off. As I put on my rain gear and snapped on Sammy's and Kimi's leashes, I moved as quickly as possible, mainly because I didn't want to deal with phone calls. Or people! Even Steve. If he called, I'd feel obliged to answer, and I had no desire to listen to him complain about Buck and less desire to hear a report of how Buck had responded to the discovery that Steve was at Grant's Camps. I deliberately left my cell phone at home.

It must have been about quarter of eight when Sammy, Kimi, and I set off. The sky was still somewhat light, and the rain was a mere drizzle. A tremendous advantage of having big dogs is that if you have a powerful, furry brute at your side, there are no bad neighborhoods; you can safely choose any route you please. If the big dogs happen to be malamutes, however, the same takes-your-breath-away appearance that deters would-be assailants also attracts friendly admirers, so unless I'm in a mood to linger and to answer questions, I avoid crowds. If the dogs chose our destinations, we'd never go anywhere except Harvard Square, where students homesick for their own dogs fall all over mine; where the dogs have to be prevented from gobbling up heaven-knows-what dropped in the streets and on the sidewalks; and where in spite of million-dollar educations, the ill-informed brightest and best persist in telling me, ‘Beautiful huskies!' So, I headed down Concord Avenue toward the square, but when we reached Garden Street and then the Cambridge Common, we turned left and ended up wandering through Harvard Law School and along Oxford Street and Kirkland Street as far as Divinity Avenue, where, because of the e.e. cummings poem, ‘she being Brand', I always enjoy turning the corner. After that, we went back to the Cambridge Common, cut across, and took Appian Way past the Ed. School to Brattle, where we turned right. By then, it was dark, and the drizzle had become hard rain. My hands were cold, my jeans were wet between the tops of my boots and the bottom of my raincoat, and in spite of their water-repellent guard coats, the dogs were drenched. Consequently, we picked up our pace, sped along Brattle, turned onto Sparks Street, ran to Huron, and almost sprinted along Huron to Appleton.

As we turned onto Appleton, I slowed way down, in part because I suddenly realized that I'd stupidly picked a route that would take us past Vanessa's house and in part because I found myself dreading our return. Yes, home would be dry and cozy, but there'd probably be messages or calls from Steve and maybe from Buck. Worse, Rita might be alone and in great distress about a failure to reconcile with Quinn, who wasn't the man I'd have chosen for her – Max was – but who was her choice. Preoccupied though I was with imagining what I'd say to Steve, Buck, and Rita, I nonetheless avoided Vanessa's side of the street. By now, I told myself, her chicken was out of the oven, and she dining on it while reading Jane Austen or watching Emma Thompson in
Sense and Sensibility
. With her big fenced yard, she had no need to walk Ulla on this increasingly nasty night.

The thought had barely crossed my mind when Vanessa came dashing across the street almost as if she'd been waiting for me. Sammy, who was always happy to see almost anyone, shook himself all over, thus sending the water retained by his coat flying all over Kimi, Vanessa, and me. It was then that I realized that Vanessa might, in fact, have been waiting for me: she wore a long, dark waterproof poncho and Wellies.

‘I've just talked to Pippy Neff,' she said with no preamble. ‘I called her about getting Ulla's papers, and she told me about your inquiries.'

‘About Buster?'

‘Who?'

‘Buster. The puppy she sold to some people named Snell. They called me, and I called Pippy. She told me that the Snells were going to give it another week and that if things still weren't working, she'd take Buster back. Did she tell you otherwise?' Knowing Pippy as I did, I considered it entirely possible that in her conversation with me, she'd totally misrepresented what she'd said to the Snells. In any case, it seemed likely that Pippy had offered Buster to Vanessa if the Snells decided not to keep him. The arrangement sounded reasonable. Vanessa already had one malamute of Pippy's breeding, and Pippy might well have asked whether Vanessa wanted the young male. Reflecting on my experience with Pippy, I asked, ‘Does Pippy want to sell him to you? How much does she want for him?'

‘I have no idea what you're talking about.'

‘I called Pippy because she's Buster's breeder. The Snells said that she'd refused to take him back, and they wanted rescue to take him. That's why I called her. I asked her about the Snells and Buster.'

‘You asked her about Olympia. About Ulla's first owner. On top of your sudden refusal to eat with me? And your jumpiness. Holly, I am so sorry. I thought we were friends.' She paused. ‘All I am is an opportunist, you know. Really, I'm just what you are – half malamute.'

After an artificial little laugh, I said, ‘Of course we're friends.' I couldn't tell whether my false assurance had fooled Vanessa, but it hadn't fooled my brilliant Kimi, who was now standing at my left side, her head tilted slightly upward, her body pressing against my knee and thigh so firmly that I felt the tension in her muscles. ‘Look, could we discuss this some other time?' My tone was light. ‘There's been some misunderstanding, but right now, the dogs and I are soaked. I need to get home and get us dried off.'

‘Oh, you
are
going home. You are going to walk quietly home. But not into the house. Into the yard.'

I played dumb. ‘It isn't exactly a great evening for sitting out in the yard, but you're welcome to come back and have a drink.'

‘That's not quite what I have in mind. Walk!'

‘Vanessa, I have no idea what's up, but—'

‘What's
up
, as you phrase it, is that I have a revolver in my pocket, and it is pointed at
you
. Now, walk!'

‘There's been some misunderstanding,' I said again. But I obeyed. Dog obedience training, I should mention, has a paradoxical effect on the trainers: we are the least blindly obedient people I know. We're thoughtful, clever, and manipulative, always seeking new perspectives and fresh approaches. But that's when we don't have guns pointed at us. I started moving. Did Vanessa actually have a revolver? If so, would she fire it right here on this peaceful block of Appleton Street? As I walked, Kimi leaned into me. In obedience, the fault of heeling much too close to the handler is called ‘crowding'. But Kimi wasn't crowding; at the moment, it would've been impossible for her to get too close for my comfort. And if Kimi took Vanessa's threat seriously, so did I.

When we reached my driveway, I saw Rita's car and mine, but Quinn's car was no longer there. In the futile hope that Kevin had decided to visit his mother, I scanned the driveway next to ours, but only Mrs Dennehy's car was parked in it and not Kevin's. Had Quinn left without Rita? Or was she at home? I couldn't tell. There were lights in the third-floor windows, but Rita paid her own electric bills and was sometimes careless about wasting energy. I wished that before setting out, I'd been profligate. Frugal and energy-conscious, I had turned on the light over the back door and had left all of the other outside lights off. My cell phone was, of course, inside the house, where I'd deliberately decided to leave it.

I automatically headed for the back steps, but Vanessa stopped me. ‘Open the gate,' she said.

‘It's locked.'

‘You have the key,' she said. ‘Use it.'

It seemed pointless to stall for time by lying. I'd lost track of the time, but it had to be at least nine o'clock, maybe later, too late for Kevin to pop in on his mother. I fished in my pocket, found the key ring, unlocked the gate, returned the keys to my pocket, and led the dogs in. Vanessa followed. What in God's name was she going to do? She couldn't intend to shoot me! Not here, anyway, not in my own yard in our thickly settled neighborhood. Yes, cars and trucks occasionally backfired on Concord Avenue. Even so, the sound of a gunshot would attract immediate attention. By now, it was all too obvious that she did, in fact, have a revolver, and there was enough light for me to see that she really was pointing it at me. Or trying, anyway. She held it awkwardly in one hand, as if her lessons in firearms had consisted of watching old movies.

‘Pull the gate closed,' she said. ‘Don't lock it.'

I complied.

‘Take the leashes off the dogs.'

I obeyed. Since she'd given no orders about what to do with the leather leads, I clung to them; they were as close to a potential means of self-defense as I had. Sammy, innocence personified, sniffed around and then ambled to the steps to the house. Kimi remained where she'd been, glued to my left side.

‘The ladder,' Vanessa said. ‘Those gutters and downspouts need work, don't they? It's just like you to climb up and play do-it-yourselfer in heavy rain.'