Teaching the Dog to Read (5 page)

The ingredients at his disposal were his life. The goal? To use some of them to create the perfect setting and circumstances for a second meeting with this woman who appeared to embody everything he loved. But where should that meeting take place, and what should the circumstances be? Some romantic spot in Europe perhaps—a seaside
taverna
on a remote Greek island, or a 19th century mountaintop hotel in Switzerland with a panoramic view of the Eiger or Matterhorn? Tony Day had been to places like these in real life. Their majesty and beauty wrote their signatures on his soul, but were they the right backdrop for this meeting with Alice? Eventually he decided no because he didn’t want the ‘frame’ to be more beautiful or interesting than a picture that had yet to be painted. Plus what if she spent the whole time they were together staring at the surroundings and paid little attention to him?

He knew it was possible to create any dream right down to the smallest most insignificant detail. If he wanted, he could even script exactly what Alice would say and do when they met, but what would be the point of that? If he knew what the outcome would be, why even create the dream at all? Best to set the scene, then step back and let things take their course.

Is it a treasure or torment to have every single past moment of your life at your disposal when creating the ultimate romantic dream? The heavenly smells of cinnamon, oranges or cloves, the unexpected smile of a stranger, the paralyzing cold of a mountain stream on hot bare July skin, the whistle of a distant train, the sky ballet of a flock of birds… Millions,
billions,
of things, details, memories, mind-photos…to sift through and then choose only a few to create the landscape and mood Tony Day wanted to wrap around this Alice when they met again.

“But you ended up back
here
on this fucked up bench in the middle of nowhere. How’d
that
happen?” Tony Night asked, genuinely interested. “With all that material to choose from, you decided
this
was the best place to rendezvous with her? You are a strange fellow.” He took out of his pocket and lit up one of those awful little Indian
beedi
cigarettes that smell like burnt pocket lint.

“When did you start smoking
those
?”
Tony Day said disdainfully when they met for only the second time.

“Today. Someone in the office offered one to me and I kind of liked it, so I bought a pack.”

“Those things are horrible! Smoking’s bad enough, but now you’re into
them
?”

Tony Night took a puff and waved his hand for the other to continue his story. “So why
did
you want to meet Miss Perfect here again? You obviously weren’t trying to impress her.”

Ashamed, Tony Day looked at his feet and rubbed his knees. He wanted to say one thing but knew it was a lie, and on this subject he didn’t want to lie. “Fear, I guess. Plain old fear.”

Tony Night barked a loud laugh and shook his head ruefully. “Shit! I know exactly what you mean. You didn’t want to make a mistake with her, right? So you opted for something that had already worked once. When in doubt, play it safe. God, you and I are such cowards! I totally understand why you did it.” He chuckled again and took another hit off the stinky cigarette. “But then again, it
was
a pretty great dream, I have to admit.”

Tony Day straightened up and rubbed his knees again. “You think so? I’m glad. I didn’t know how you’d react.”

Tony Night nodded. “Personally I like a rendezvous that’s more down and dirty. Like those dreams you had about Lena a while ago?
Those
were hot stuff. But hey, you’re in charge of this department now and I’m only here to deliver the raw material.

“Anyway, I thought your dream was very Zen, stripped down and basic but in the best way. You guys met here, walked on the beach with the dog again and ate burgers: simple and sweet.

“But you know what part I liked best? How at the end of the meal she reached over and took that last French fry off your plate. That’s a
very
intimate gesture. You gotta have something good going with another person to feel free to take their last fry.”

Tony Day grinned. “Yes, wasn’t that cool!”

“It was. You didn’t make it happen?”

“Nope. The whole dream was unscripted; that was the best part. Only where I drove up in the Aston and she and Tuna were already waiting here—I made
that
up. But afterwards it was all free style.”

“Then hat-tip to you, Brother. I think she’s hooked. Wait a minute—do you hear something?”

A familiar rumbling came from far down the road. The two men looked at each other and shook their heads simultaneously—neither knew what was happening and certainly hadn’t summoned whatever was coming their way.

The noise grew but oddly nothing appeared.

Tony Night finally asked, “Is this something you cooked up?”

“No, I have no idea what it is.”

Louder and louder until the colossal sound felt like it was right on top of them but still they saw nothing.

Then as quickly the noise subsided—much faster than it did the time the rhinos and bullterriers raced by them.

Tony Night slapped his forehead “Ah, I know what that was—the
ants
. How could I forget? Jeez, I live in your world only a few weeks and already I’m forgetting things.”

“
What
ants? What are you talking about?”

“The ants in big shoes.”

Tony Day stared blankly at the other man, completely lost.

“You don’t remember?”

“Remember
what
?”

“Your ant nightmares.”

Another
huh
? look from Tony Day.

“
Really
, you don’t remember? Wow, that’s incredible. When we were a boy you saw an old black and white cartoon about a picnic overrun by ants. I thought it was funny and harmless, but for some reason you latched onto the idea and many of the worst nightmares of our whole childhood were centered around ants wearing big shoes kidnapping you and taking you prisoner inside an anthill as big as a Disneyland ride.”

“No way! I don’t remember any of that.”

“It’s the truth, Buddy: You were scared shitless of a bunch of ants wearing brown wingtip shoes on their feet. I thought it was only a dopey cartoon, but you sure didn’t; you used to wake up screaming and brushing your arms crazily like they were climbing all over you.” Tony Night pointed to the empty road in front of them. “Ergo I think we witnessed the return of the biggest boogey men of our youth—ants in big shoes. Welcome back to Tony Dreamland.”

The real trouble began when both men fell in love. In one case it was entirely predictable, but in the other not so. Much to his surprise, Lena Schabort made Tony Night a better man. That sounds like an old bromide but in this case it was true. Almost more interesting was the fact he made Lena a better woman.

It began with the sex, which was fireworks between them from the start and more than enough to make Tony Night happy and content. Lena seemed happy too and for those first few weeks they spent most of their time together in bed.

But one day at work she walked by his desk and dropped a note on it. He was surprised to see she didn’t stop to watch while he read it as she’d done before when her first note to him at the office said “I want your tongue in my mouth right now.” This time she almost flung her second note onto his desk and hurried away without even glancing at him. He thought that was sort of odd, but Lena had her own way of doing things and so far he was okay with it.

Unlike the first note which had been carefully folded in two, this piece of paper was crumpled up into a tight ball like something to throw away. Only later did he learn Lena almost
did
throw the note away because she was afraid of how he would react to its message. That explained the crumple.

“Thank you for last night. It was tender and wild and beautiful. Like rearranging the clouds.”

Tony read the note, blinked, re-read it and then read it
again
in rising wonder.
Lena
had written this? He looked up quickly but of course she was nowhere to be seen. In fact she was back at her desk far across the office hunched over some papers, pretending to work, but really only cowering in angst-y anticipation of what he’d think and say about what she had written to him. Or
not
say which would be even worse.

Writing sexy notes to lovers was a breeze for Lena. She’d done it regularly in the past and the men loved them—yummy junk food for the mind; Doritos for the libido. But this note was dead-honest, like nothing she’d written before to any man she was involved with. It let her heart’s guard down and told Tony Areal the truth about how she felt. That was awfully scary stuff. Especially for someone like Lena who could wrap most of Earth’s male population around her finger simply by slinking into a room wearing too much eye shadow and attitude. Yet that morning while sitting on the toilet of all places, something in both her head and heart unexpectedly went
clunk
, like two railroad freight cars being joined together. Eyes wide with startled awe, Lena instantly knew that whatever fondness, fervor, or fuckiness she had previously felt for her new lover was way way back in her rearview mirror now and she realized for the first time she had crossed the border into a whole new state of mind re: Mr. Anthony Areal.

How
does
it happen? What is the tipping point from fond to fervor? Surprisingly often it can be as simple as a gesture, their hand dropped onto your knee while riding together in a train, or the way they so seriously but sloppily brush their teeth in the morning. A small detail, trivial, that blossoms in an instant into the most important thing in your life. That innocent hand on the knee sealed the deal. Our mistake is to think love makes sense when much of the time it is, for better or worse, the most irrational thing we experience. Sometimes the biggest loves rise out of the shadows of our emotions like ghosts right in our face, but instead of hooting
Boo!
they say
Now! Them!

Sitting on the toilet that morning, the only thing Lena could think to say upon realizing she had fallen in love with Tony Areal was “uh oh.”

Sometime later she took the note she’d written and re-read four times out of the wastebasket where she’d tossed it. She fretted out loud “Damn you—
give
it to him. It’s nice. He’ll like it.” But what if he
didn’t
? For Lena Schabort it was a large act of moxie and courage later that morning to actually drop the squashed ball of paper on his desk and hurry away so she didn’t have to see him read it.

For the next awful hour Tony didn’t respond. Not an email, not a note, a drive-by smile on his way to the office coffee machine—nada. She didn’t even see him which was strange because their office wasn’t that big. Oh God, was he avoiding her? Lena’s inner weather roiled crazily in that hour. Maybe he read her note, thought it was sweet but nothing special. No response required. That made sense. She hadn’t said anything especially mushy or over the top—sweetly romantic and a little poetic, right? So, no response=no problem.

But maybe he had read it and was
horrified
by what it said—“tender and wild and beautiful.” Why had she used those loaded words when she could so easily have written something typical like “Last night was so
hot
with you.” And top off that mundanity with a silly photo of, like, a wolf howling at the moon.

Maybe his silence meant nothing…or everything. She was miserable.

Lena Schabort was not used to these kinds of feelings for a man, any man. In the past several had loved her, but she only liked or lusted them back—never more. Until she got involved with Tony she was fine with that. She liked being squired and admired,
really
liked sex, and one of the few rock solid beliefs she’d carried all through life was a genuine faith in the idea that one day she
would
meet a man she’d want to wake up next to for the rest of her life. Lena was not a religious person but believed that religiously. And she was willing to wait however long it took, not for some unrealistic Prince Charming or Mr. Right-movie star-zillionaire, but a man she could honestly say “You are my home” to and mean it.

Another half hour passed and still no sign of him. By then, Lena had nervously drunk so much coffee her bladder was the size of a ripe coconut and warned if she didn’t go to the bathroom soon she’d burst.

To her surprise as soon as she sat down on the toilet, her eyes tear’d up and she started to cry. Because she remembered the big revelation about her feelings for Tony occured on a toilet a few hours before. But now look what was happening—for the first time in her life she’d put a whole foot in the deep end of love’s pool but from all (silent) indications, a shark was in the midst of biting it off.

When she finished peeing, she took a while in front of the bathroom mirror bringing her face back to a semblance of normal before going back out and confronting the office world again. Then, to add insult to injury, who should be perched on a corner of her desk looking smug as an African dictator but the horrible Rick Olivier. She was so disgusted he was there at a moment when her heart was a nervous wreck, that she felt like clonking him over the head with a wastebasket.