The Goodbye Summer (6 page)

She was huddled in her wheelchair by the elevator. She had her mouth covered with the fingertips of both hands and she was wide-eyed, pressing back into the vinyl seat. Caddie hurried over to her.

“Nana? Hey, it’s okay. It’s over, everything’s fine.”

“Are they going to put him to sleep?”

“Finney?
No.
”

“They have to kill them to look at their brains.”

“They what?” Caddie touched her, tried to take her hands from her face, but Nana was frozen. Her fear infected Caddie—she’d never seen her like this before.

Caddie felt a hand on her back. It was Mrs. Barnes. “Hi,” she said to Nana. Somebody had wrapped a handkerchief around her finger; she folded her arms to keep it out of Nana’s sight. “I’m Thea. Thea Barnes. How are you?”

Nana couldn’t speak, only stare at her with round, worried eyes.

“You know what, I think I just scared him. I bent down too fast, that’s what happened. He’s a lovely dog.”

Nana took her hands away. “He is. A lovely dog. I don’t know why that happened—he’s never done it before.”

“Well,” said Caddie. No point in going overboard.

Mrs. Barnes held out her good hand.

Nana took it. “I’m Frances Winger,” she said cordially.

“Hello, Frances.”

“Nice to meet you.”

“It’s nice to meet you.”

Nana’s relieved smile turned crafty. “Did you bring anything old?”

The offices of CAT, Creative Animal Therapy, turned out to be one room over a candle and incense shop on a one-way downtown street. Finney was afraid of the slippery wooden steps; Caddie had to pick him up and carry him to the second floor. She could hear talking on the other side of the frosted glass in a door at the end of the hallway, so she opened the door and peeked in. A man at a desk heaped high with scattered papers, files, and folders swiveled in his chair and gestured for her to come in.

He was on the phone. “No, we’re nationwide, we’ve got over eight hundred CAT teams around the country, but the training for the volunteers is always local. Through workshops with licensed instructors in each…that’s right, and then at headquarters they coordinate the volunteers with facilities in their own communities. No, this is just a regional office. Small. Um…well, me.” He put his hand over the phone, said “Hi, have a seat, I’ll just be a minute,” and went back to his conversation.

There wasn’t a seat, not unless she moved a basketball, a pair of running shoes, and a bag of kitty litter from the only other chair in the small, cluttered office. Finney was pulling her around to all the corners anyway, sniffing everything, as nervous as if he were at the vet’s. He must smell other animals. He dragged her over to where several plaques and certificates in frames were tacked to the wall. Service awards, outstanding citizen citations, training certificates. All for Christopher Dalton Fox, except for the ones for Christopher Dalton Fox’s dog, King, who had several
plaques of his own for animal citizenship and community service. Christopher was the man behind the desk—she recognized him from all the photographs of him and King in chummy poses with various groups of people and other dogs.

One caught Caddie’s eye in particular because it was obviously taken in a nursing home. A real one, not like Wake House; the residents were feeble and old, many in wheelchairs. King, a large, beautiful dog, maybe a shepherd except he was fluffier, sat on a long sofa between two frail old ladies, and all three were beaming into the camera with the same calm, gentle, beatific expression.
There,
thought Caddie.
That’s
what she’d wanted, that kind of animal-human bonding. It looked almost spiritual. Why couldn’t Finney be like King?

Christopher Fox got off the phone. “Hi. Sorry about that.” He stood up and came around his desk. “You must be…uh…”

“Caddie Winger.”

“Good to meet you. And this must be Finnegan.” He went down on one knee and patted the other. Caddie looked down at his bent head, admiring the clean part in his streaky blond hair, lighter than hers and almost as long. It fell around the sides of his face in bright, tawny waves. She thought of a golden retriever, that russet-yellow color, the fur just bathed and brushed.

Finney came to him instantly, nubby tail vibrating, sniffing his hands, his shoes, his crotch. “Sit,” Christopher said in a firm voice, and Finney did. It wasn’t exactly a miracle; he’d heard the command before. Heard but rarely obeyed it, especially if no dog biscuit reward was involved. “Lie down,” Christopher said next, but Finney had reached his limit. “Sit” was all he could do, and he was tired of doing that. He jumped up and licked Christopher on the nose.

“He’s being very good, actually,” Caddie said. “He wasn’t this good on Tuesday.”

“You said he bit someone.”

“Nipped. Bit, yes. He bit her.”

“A stranger, someone he didn’t know?” Under Christopher’s slow, petting hands Finney flopped over on his back and stuck his feet in the air.

“Wow, he really likes you. Yes, it was a woman he’d never met before, a nice older lady, she wasn’t doing anything except trying to pet him. Do you know Wake House? It’s a sort of assisted-living place on Calvert Street.”

“Wake House.” He shook his head. “That’s one I don’t know.”

“It’s not a real nursing home, and it’s very small, only about a dozen people live there. I was hoping they would like Finney and he could become their sort of, you know, therapy dog.”

When Christopher Fox smiled, a small crease deepened at the left side of his mouth. He had greenish eyes behind rimless glasses, and they twinkled, as if she’d said something funny. “Jack Russells are great little dogs, but most don’t have the temperament to be companion or therapy animals. Too much energy. And they’re a little on the stubborn side. Unless you find a way to make it worth their while, they’ll always do what they want to do.”

“Oh, gosh, that’s true.” It felt natural to kneel down across from him on the other side of Finney. “That’s exactly what he’s like. He loves to sit in my lap when I’m reading or something, but if I
call
him to come sit in my lap, he just looks at me.”

“That’s a J.R.”

“And if I’m playing the piano and I
don’t
want him to sit in my lap, that’s the only place he wants to be.”

“You play the piano?”

“I’m a teacher. Piano and violin.”

“Really.” He sat down, folding his long legs and resting his hands on his knees. “I can play ‘Für Elise’ and ‘Chopsticks.’ ”

She laughed. “How long did you study?”

“Four years, and I hated every second.”

“Your parents made you,” she guessed.

“No, my sisters played, so I wanted to, too, not taking into account that they had
talent.
My folks were saints to put up with it for so long. Money down the drain.”

“At least you wanted to. I have students who’d rather peel their skin off than take music lessons.”

“That must be a drag.”

“It’s when I really hate my job.”

“When do you love it?”

“Oh, when they master something and go on to the next level, a new book or a new piece. When they’re excited and proud of themselves.”

“What do you do when you get a kid who’s completely hopeless, no aptitude for music whatsoever?”

“I’ve never had one. Well, a couple of times I’ve had kids with learning disabilities.”

“Do you tell them to find another outlet for their creativity?”

“No, I wouldn’t, that would be—I’d never discourage anyone who really loves music.”

“You must be a good teacher.”

“I’m…yes, I think I am.”

He combed his hair back with his fingers and smiled at her, as if he agreed. He had the kind of good looks you didn’t notice so much at first, but gradually his perfectly shaped nose came into focus, and the way his eyebrows tapered together in the middle in a neat line of golden-brown hairs. He wore a plaid flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up to show the long stretch of muscles and tendons in his forearms and the gracefulness of his wrists. His long, strong hands.

She was going to think about him after today, Caddie realized. When they said goodbye and she went on her way—assuming he couldn’t help her turn Finney into a therapy dog, a hope she was coming more and more to see as deluded—Christopher Fox would stay in her mind for a while, maybe a long while, as an example of the kind of man she was never going to have. She didn’t resent it—she certainly didn’t resent him. People fell into classes, and you were allowed to pick who you wanted to be with from certain categories but not from others. Men like Christopher Fox were not in Caddie’s selection range.

“Has Finnegan ever had any obedience training?” he asked.

“Not that I know of.”

Christopher’s face changed when he turned his attention to Finney, went from friendly and open to serious and searching; his professional face, Caddie assumed. He held the dog’s chin in his hand and looked into
his huge, almond-shaped brown eyes, and she wondered what he could see, how deeply he could go. All she ever saw there was the most deceptive innocence.

“Is there any hope?” she asked humorously.

“Always.” He gave Finney a pat on the neck and stood up. How graceful he was. Caddie scrambled to her feet, feeling silly for the second or two she was on the floor without him. He was taller than she was; in fact, standing up, her eyes were on a level with his mouth. “Would you be interested,” he asked, “in taking the training to become one of our volunteers?”

“Oh! Really? With Finney?”

“Probably not with Finney. For him I’d recommend some enlightened obedience training, but to be certified as a therapy or visitation animal he’d need much more than that. Even if he had the temperament for it, and I’m afraid he doesn’t, you’d be looking at at least six months of training with one of our teams.”

“Oh. Well, then, I guess that’s that.”

“Not necessarily. CAT always has more animals than volunteers. If you’re interested, you could enroll in a training program and borrow one of our dogs. Or cats, or guinea pigs. Cockatoos. We even have a chicken.”

“A
chicken.
” Her mind raced while Christopher told her about the chicken, Estelle, how gentle she was, what wonderful companions chickens could make. Did she want to do this? Did she have time? She tried to imagine herself in a cancer ward or a rehab center, a hospice, ministering to the ill or the dying with a borrowed golden retriever. Was she the sort of person who could do that? What if she wasn’t and she had to pretend she was?

“It’s a big decision,” Christopher said, nodding his big, handsome head with understanding, and she liked him better than ever—if she wanted to say no, he had already forgiven her. “Shall we talk about it some more? Do you want to find out what’s involved?”

“I’d like to do that, yes. Definitely.”

“Good. Would you be free for dinner?”

“Dinner?” She was only partly successful in keeping her voice within a low, unamazed range. “Tonight, you mean?”

“If you’re free.” He took off his glasses, an intimate gesture in the small room, or so it seemed to her. “I’ll tell you about the work we do, and you can decide if it might interest you.”

“I’d like—yes, I’m free. I think, I’m almost positive. No—I forgot, I’ve got a lesson at seven. Oh, I’m sorry.” Too good to be true. She’d known it all along.

“How long does it last?”

“An hour.”

“Eight o’clock, then. Or would that be too late for you?”

Was this a date? He had such an open, interested face, and he’d been nice to her since she’d walked in the door. He wasn’t being any nicer now, and his warm, handsome smile didn’t look any more interested. Maybe it wasn’t a date.

“Eight’s perfect.” She said it brightly and casually, as if being invited to dinner by gorgeous men on short acquaintance happened to her every day. “Where shall we meet?”

Christopher snapped his fingers, and Finney, who’d been exploring along the baseboard behind his desk, came trotting over, bright-eyed and attentive, ears cocked. Christopher bent down to retrieve his leash and pressed it into Caddie’s hand. “Anywhere you like. Or I’ll pick you up—would that be all right?”

She was cautious about men, as a rule. But she only gave Christopher Fox’s question a second’s consideration. “I’ll write down my address for you.”

He took her to a German restaurant in the east end, the only end of Michaelstown that could remotely be called trendy. He must have called ahead; the hostess seated them at one of the window tables, screened from the view of sidewalk pedestrians by red-and-white-checked café curtains. They both ordered beer instead of wine, Caddie because she liked beer, and also because she thought it made her seem more like a fun person, somebody who was easy to please. She’d spent much too much time deciding what to wear—a white T-shirt under her long khaki jumper—and
she’d felt a little disappointed, actually a little silly, when Christopher had picked her up wearing the same clothes he’d had on this afternoon.

“I come here fairly often,” he told her. “It’s pretty good, and it’s only a couple of blocks from my apartment.” He lived on the first floor of a three-story converted town house, and it was a good deal because he had the whole fenced-in backyard to himself. He and his staff used it to train the dogs and volunteers for the visitation teams.

“How many people are on the staff?”

He smiled down at the beer stein he was rotating in circles on the tablecloth. “
Staff
might be a slight exaggeration. I don’t even have an assistant. What I have is team leaders, and the number fluctuates as people come and go. The organization’s very spread out, and of course the real work goes on out in the field. I could probably operate from a laptop in my living room, but don’t tell headquarters that.”

“Where’s headquarters?”

“Ohio.”

The waitress came. Caddie ordered Wiener schnitzel. Christopher took his time deciding, asking the server how the broccoli was prepared tonight, if the sausage was homemade. He ended up ordering four appetizers, all with specific instructions for their preparation, including how much tarragon he wanted on his new potatoes. She would’ve worried that he was too finicky, that he was going to be a prissy, difficult man, except for the way he jollied the waitress into enjoying herself while he made his selections, charming her into a real investment in how much he was going to like his dinner.

She still didn’t know if this was a date, and it made her nervous. Except for music, every subject she knew anything about sounded silly or boring when she framed an introductory sentence in her head. She hadn’t been on a real date in so long, she’d forgotten how to talk, that was the problem. She’d gotten used to thinking of her life as flat and straight, not metaphorical; everything just was what it was, nothing stood for anything else. While Christopher talked, she tried to think of her life as a series of stories, looking for one that might make an interesting topic of conversation. She had a new student, a middle-aged widower who wanted to learn
show tunes on the piano because he thought that would make him more popular in the singles club he’d just joined. Was that a good story? Or was it just gossip, trivial people-news that wouldn’t interest Christopher because his conversation was on a higher plane?

“Most people know on some instinctive level that animals are good for our health, but it’s only in the last twenty-five years or so that we’ve been studying it, proving the phenomenon scientifically. We know that loneliness is at the root of a lot of illnesses, and we know that people over sixty-five who have pets go to the doctor a lot less often than people without pets.”