Emily & Einstein (12 page)

Did this cliché of an old man expect me to figure out a way to communicate so I could talk some sense into her? Tell her to buck up so I could get on with my life?

I doubted even I, with my superior mind, could learn how to write or speak given this dog’s body had not evolved beyond marginal vision, limited memory, quadrupedal stature, and an unwieldy tongue. Moreover, I doubted a talking, writing dog was going to help anyone. I’d be turned into a freak. A circus display. While I could use a bit more attention, I had no interest in becoming a sideshow.

So I narrowed in on what exactly I had to do. Namely, help Emily so that I could live up to my end of this so-called bargain and get my body back, since let’s face it, who wants to fade away to nothing?

Squinting my eyes, I tried to remember exactly what the old man had said. Fulfill bargain so I wouldn’t fade away, yes? And get my body back, right?

I didn’t quite remember that part, but surely that’s what he meant.

Unfortunately, by the next morning when I found Emily slouched in the library window seat wearing a hideous pair of warm-ups, a cup of tea forgotten in her hand, I hadn’t come up with any ideas about how to get this done. Her manic edge from yesterday was gone, but it was clear she wasn’t on the verge of dashing off to Caldecote.

I managed to get her to take me out, but when I tried to pull her toward Central Park she flatly refused. I had no interest in seeing the ill-mannered poodle, but I wouldn’t have minded a few bracing gulps of fresh park air.

We returned to the building and were buzzed through the inner gate to the courtyard, my nails clicking on the paving bricks. There wasn’t so much as a weed or dust ball to provide interest. I knew the staff hosed down all outdoor common space, even scrubbing the basement floor until you could practically eat off it. The Dakota reeked of history, but everything was exceedingly well-kept, making it seem like I stood in the 1880s when the building was new.

The fountains were lined with glass blocks that allowed sunlight into the basement. Once upon a time the basement had housed the stables. When you walked down and found wide open space instead of the maze of hallways and machine rooms as in most buildings, it was easy to imagine the area filled with horses and hay.

I inhaled deeply, at least for a dog, my low wide chest expanding. I had always loved this place. In a way, the Dakota had felt the same as my beginnings with Emily: both the building and this woman had had the ability to make me feel anything was possible, not just the type of things that I could make happen with the help of my money. With Emily, at the Dakota, I had
believed
I could be great.

I sat down on the cool brick paving stones, sitting with as much dignity as this body could manage, and I didn’t budge. Emily looked back and just when she started to tug me, she stopped. She took me in, then glanced up and took in the high, café au lait walls overlooking the courtyard, the multipaned windows in their black casings peering down on us like windows into the past. Her head tipped back and she took in the tall rooftops and the blue sky beyond. Then she glanced back and forth from me to the building, her eyes narrowed.

“Oh, my God! Yes, yes, it’s me!” I barked, leaping up like a circus performer.

A smile fluttered on her mouth, but just for a second. “I know. This place is special.”

She leaned back against the wall and closed her eyes. Then she looked at me.

“This place is mine,” she said softly, “Sandy promised. No matter what Althea says, I will not lose it.”

I’m not sure who she was trying to convince. Me or herself.

According to the prenuptial agreement, if I died the apartment went to the Portman Family Trust. But the pesky little truth was, after we were married I
had
promised it to Emily. It had been a sentimental gesture, no question, unheard of in me. But it was during our second Christmas together, and after she had spent weeks beforehand decorating and shopping, vowing to bring together what was left of her family with mine, I had gotten swept up in the moment.

Truth was, I couldn’t imagine that Christmas with our families would be anything but a disaster. While once upon a time I might have wished for an old-fashioned train set circling an old-fashioned Christmas tree, I had come around to my parents’ preference for Christmas in Paris or on the high seas. More than that, from the beginning my mother had sworn Emily was not suitable to be my wife.
“She’s not one of us, darling.”
By that second Christmas, Althea Portman’s campaign against my wife was in full, if subtle, swing, and Emily’s sister and I got along about as well as partisan commentators on CNN.

Needless to say, my hopes weren’t high for any sort of truce over a turkey dinner, though I felt pleased with myself for letting Emily have her way. Afterward, I reasoned, when all that mutual dislike spilled over like red wine on the fine linen tablecloth, I wouldn’t gloat. I would take Emily in my arms and tell her how sorry I was that it had been a disaster.

I wondered now if I hadn’t wanted it to go awry.

At the thought, my wiry head came back, my buggy little eyes narrowing. Had I wanted Emily’s Christmas to fail?

I shook the thought away because quite frankly, it was ridiculous.

Christmas day had arrived, and much to my surprise, overnight Emily had put finishing touches on the apartment. There were partially eaten cookies by the tree, a half-full glass of milk. Boot steps in fake snow coming in from the chimney. And presents. Lots of presents.

That afternoon with Christmas carols playing on my sound system, my wife managed to circle her mutinous sister Jordan and my condescending parents around the massive dining table with a unity that I still find hard to believe. The meal was amazing, the conversation surprisingly plentiful. By the time my parents left with their presents “from me,” I felt young again, just as I had when I met Emily.

More than that, I felt badly. The week before Christmas I had been so rushed with a deal I was trying to close that I had gotten my assistant to pick something up at Bergdorf Goodman for Emily.

The assistant had chosen an outfit from Bergdorf’s trendy fifth floor, one more suited to a nightclub-going twenty-something than the wife of a Wall Street banker. I had been as surprised as everyone else when Emily pulled the skinny jeans and halter top from the tissue paper. I might have cringed when my mother gasped and my wife’s mouth fell open. It felt even worse when Emily recovered and squeezed my hand. “Thank you, I love it.”

Later when we were alone, Emily sat next to me on the sofa in front of the tree, feet tucked beneath her. I had never seen her so content. I took her into my arms, and kissed her with all the complicated emotions I felt for her in that moment. “You move me.”

She touched my lips with her fingertips, then smiled at me with anticipation. “Close your eyes.”

“There’s more?”

She laughed and slipped away.

“What are you up to?” I expected some sexual romp to top off the evening. Emily dressed as one of Santa’s helpers, perhaps, straddling Santa next to the Christmas tree? After all the good of the holiday, I nearly laughed out loud at the thought that Emily was going to be a little bit bad.

But as was my habit, I underestimated my wife.

I took in the scent of pine and cranberry candles. Then I heard the sound, faint at first, slowly growing distinct. A chug, then another, until the whistle blew and I opened my eyes.

Emily sat on the floor. She had removed the velvet tree skirt from around the Christmas tree, and underneath there was track waiting for her to place the train on to run.

“Do you like it?”

I could only stare.

“I got you lots more track, and a bunch of different cars. You can fill the whole library with track and train.”

Still I just sat there.

“You hate it. It’s childish.”

I could hear the disappointment in her voice, but I was frozen.

She scrunched her shoulders. “It’s just that when you told me how much you wanted a train when you were young, one around a Christmas tree…”

I looked at her, my throat working hard to swallow back what I hadn’t at first understood. I felt choked by emotion, amazement mixed with a foreign sense of embarrassment that I had given next to no thought to my wife’s Christmas gift.

We made love that night with an intensity I hadn’t known existed. When she lay in my arms afterward, I stroked her hair. “You turned this apartment into a home,” I said. “You belong here. It should always be yours.”

“It will be,” she said, kissing me. “We are going to grow old and gray here, with rocking chairs side by side.”

I held her tight, something jarring me at the words. I hated the strange feeling, a strange fear of death I had always felt, but refused to examine.

“No matter what happens to me,” I said, “I am deeding the apartment to you.”

She went very still, then rose up on her elbow, her long hair sweeping my bare chest. “What do you mean?”

“I’m giving you the apartment.”

“Sandy, you don’t—”

“Shhh,” I said, kissing her. “Merry Christmas, Emily. The apartment is my gift to you.”

That was over two years ago now, and a lot had changed during that time. For one, I never got around to altering the deed. It was my feelings that had changed when I found I no longer wanted my wife.

I was yanked out of my reverie, literally. All of a sudden, I heard Emily gasp, then yank my leash and bolt for the door.

“What in tarnation?” I barked.

“Quick, E!”

I followed her, my little legs doing their best to keep pace, and just as we charged up the stone steps and inside, I caught the tiniest whiff of what I realized was the same human scent she had brought home with her the night before. But when I glanced back to see who it was, who she was clearly trying to avoid, the door had already swung shut.

Back in the apartment, I went straight for the kitchen and lapped up water from the bowl on the floor. It was impossible not to make a mess with the tongue flailing about. I got nearly as much water on the floor and streaming down the front of me as in my mouth. But finally I was sated. In my towel bed in the corner, all I wanted was to sleep. But then there was Emily, making no effort to go to work as she returned to her station at the window and stared out.

Heavy sigh.

I dragged myself up and went to her.

“Hey,” she said, her voice strained. She sank to the floor next to me, pulling me close despite my resistance. Her breath came in deep, gasping pulls, her face buried in my collar. She wanted something from me, but I hadn’t any idea what it was. Or perhaps if I am truthful, it was nothing I was willing to give.

This went on for a good three days. Surreptitious inspection of hallways and courtyard on the way out, before dashing outside for obligatory walks, followed by rote distribution of my food and water. That, or quick jaunts to the Pioneer market a block away, from which she returned with everything needed to produce a staggering assortment of baked goods as if she planned to open her very own bakery. She made fruit pies and chocolate croissants, cupcakes and layer cakes with thick buttercream icing that piled up on counters and filled the pantry faster than she could eat them. There was not even a hint that she remembered she was actually employed at Caldecote Press.

But if the days were bad, the nights were worse. When she first brought me home as Einstein, both of us had slept soundly. Since she found the journals, each night Emily woke up screaming. This was bad enough, but now something worse was happening, something harder to take.

It was the scent that hit me the first time, bringing me out of a deep, dream-filled sleep. When I opened my eyes Emily was sound asleep on the floor next to me, wrapped in a thick comforter. Unsettled by her nearness and what it made me feel, I went to the library chair and slept there.

The next night I wasn’t surprised when I found her on the floor next to me sound asleep, her eyelashes and cheeks wet, her hand holding my paw as if needing physical reassurance that she wasn’t alone. This time she was so close that if I had gotten up it would have woken her.

I told myself I didn’t feel anything other than impatience that all the courage I admired had deserted her. Though really, whatever I felt hardly mattered. The situation gave me an idea as to how to help my wife, and in doing so, help myself.

The next morning I rubbed against her leg, gave her puppy dog eyes, and even leaned against her like a lovelorn schoolboy. “Cheer up, woman,” I barked.

She gave me a smile, distant, distracted, but she made no attempt to clean up and head for the subway.

She wasn’t making my job easy.

I huffed my frustration and started to leave her to her own devices, but yet again I had to ask, what good did that do me? I groaned. It was time to pull out the big guns. For all of the next day, then through the weekend, I did my best to charm her. I pranced on my hind feet, rolled over, sat close to her. But nothing helped. I even nudged her toward the kitchen counter and all those baked goods. When I turned back into a man, I still planned to divorce her. What did I care if she got fat?

Sue me.

On Monday morning, with no progress, I decided to take a different tack. I trotted into her bedroom, nosed into her closet, and started pulling out clothes. The shoes were easy; they were on the floor. The dress was harder, but after using my teeth to tug at the hem, it finally fell off the hanger.

One way or another, the woman was going back to work.

emily

We are all imprinted by our mothers, that imprint luring us in like a friend or sometimes an enemy, causing us to become a carbon copy or a determinedly made original. We either embrace or reject, though the luckiest among us never realize there is an imprint at all.

—
EXCERPT FROM
My Mother’s Daughter

chapter thirteen

“What in the world?” I managed.

Einstein stood over a pile of my clothes, a pair of shoes, and my work satchel that he had dragged into the kitchen.