What the Dog Ate (2 page)

At least that’s what she kept
telling him. But Dave no longer sat aboard the little boat sailing them into
the sunset. He wasn’t even hanging on to the edge or dog-paddling alongside.
No, he’d swum for shore and yelled at her to bail out too. He’d asked her
repeatedly to quit and find something else; she countered that there was no
point. High-level accounting jobs always involved long hours and pressure from
the constant deadlines. As stressful as it was, she might as well stay with the
devil she knew. The pay was good, and it was only a couple more years.

As Maggie inched along in traffic,
too distracted to enjoy the tall sycamore and eucalyptus trees standing
sentinel over the 163 like she usually did, she turned the pages of an
imaginary calendar. It was easy to conjure memories of their various fights,
since they’d fallen on major holidays or events. A particularly bad one raged on
Dave’s forty-first birthday last July, when she’d been an hour late for their
dinner reservation. Another hit on their seventeenth wedding anniversary in
September. She’d tried to tell him they should wait and celebrate on the
weekend, but he was “sick of living on the weekends.” On New Year’s Day, he
couldn’t believe she had to go to the office and called it a “bad omen” for the
year ahead. She’d told him she couldn’t ask her staff to work and then not show
up, and that he didn’t understand. She realized now she might have made it
sound like her VP position carried greater responsibilities than his job as
Marketing Director, which of course it did, but she’d never say that to him.
Valentine’s Day there’d been no fight, but it had come and gone with barely an
acknowledgement. Maggie had worked late, eating pastel-colored antacid tablets
in place of candy hearts.

I’ve been so
stressed at work; I come home tired and crabby. I guess I could see how he
might look for some... fun, some attention... from someone else. But I’m doing
this for us. How could he do this to me? To us? I’m gonna kill him
.

She turned the car off the freeway
toward her North Park neighborhood as she turned her mind from the past and
imagined the imminent scene at home. She practiced opening lines in her head:
“Your lover must have left these behind.” No, that’s no good. I
should at least give him a chance to explain. Maybe: “Exactly when were you
planning to let me in on this little secret of yours?” Too accusatory? It’s
possible this is just a crazy misunderstanding, right?
She wanted to try
to stay calm. Not lose it until she knew what had happened. After all, it
wasn’t outside the realm of possibility that he’d bought the panties for her,
maybe as a let’s-spice-things-up present. (“I must have bought the wrong size, Mags.
I mean, I know
now
that they’re three sizes too
small, but honestly, honey, this is how I picture you in my mind.”)

But, no, that didn’t add up. Kona
wouldn’t eat a new pair of panties, with that fresh-from-the-factory chemical
smell. As disgusting as it was to contemplate, Kona liked things that were
lived in... sweaty... soiled.

Please, please,
please let there be some explanation. Maybe a neighbor flung the panties over
our fence? Yeah, that could have happened
...

But she knew, by the twisted, vice
grip squeezing her gut, that there was only one explanation. And she knew that,
in the end, Dave would have to break down and confess.

She imagined him kneeling and
sobbing uncontrollably into the hem of her skirt. (She wore slacks, but in her
mental staging of the scene, sobbing into her khakis didn’t look right.) He’d
tell her he lost his mind; it was a stupid affair that didn’t mean anything. He
would explain that when she put her work above his needs, he’d turned to this
other woman in a moment of total insanity and spineless weakness. Then he’d beg
for forgiveness.

She pulled into the driveway as she
tried to decide whether she should let him stay or throw him out for a time.
She leaned towards throwing him out, for what, a week?

Is that enough?

She hadn’t decided how long was
appropriate, when she walked into the house. Kona gingerly followed behind,
bumping the wall with his cone. Dave stood at the kitchen counter, sorting the
day’s mail.

He’d still been in his T-shirt and
boxers when she left that morning, so she hadn’t seen that he’d worn her
favorite shirt to work, the pale pink one. The color complemented his olive
skin, dark eyes and black hair. His temples seemed grayer than she remembered.
Although Maggie knew Dave felt self-conscious about his ever-growing bald spot,
she thought he was gorgeous. How could she find him so painfully handsome when
she was so upset with him?

Worse still, she knew she looked
like hell. The heavy marine layer had blanketed everything that morning,
including her hair, as she walked from her car to the office. It had exploded
into even wilder curls than usual. Total clown hair day. And she knew what she
looked like when she got angry; her fair complexion turned to splotchy pinks
and reds. She knew bright, ugly patches spanned her forehead, surrounded her
nostrils. Perfect.

Dave’s eyebrows wrinkled at the
sight of the forlorn dog in the cone. “Hey, Buddy,” he said in a soft voice. He
crouched down. “Hey,” he added as he glanced at Maggie. “How’s Daddy’s big
boy?” He scratched the spot between the dog’s eyes. Kona leaned into the
rubbing, then eased himself down onto the floor with a groan.

Dave shook his head. “Kona. Back in
the cone. He’s in one of these so often we should have named him Cone-head.”

Maggie did not speak. The specimen
bag hung at her elbow, under her crossed arms. The lines she’d practiced in the
car vanished. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth.

Dave stood up. “So, what was it
this time?” he asked, pointing at the bag. “A dish cloth again? Remember the
time he ate that cassette tape and we were pulling it out of his mouth like a
ticker tape machine?” He waited for her reply, but she still did not say a
word. “Remember?”

At five-nine, Maggie stood one inch
shorter than Dave. She blinked, then drew herself up to her full height, looked
into his eyes, and placed the bag on the counter, in amongst the junk mail:
pizza delivery ads and beachwear catalogues, and the daily detritus of life: a
dry cleaning ticket, a grocery store receipt.

Dave stared at the panties for what
must have been five seconds but felt like five minutes. He licked his lips,
swallowed and said, “Those are Jessica’s.” He paused a moment, a lifetime, and
added, “Maggie, there’s no easy way to say this. I’m...,” he glanced in Kona’s
direction and lowered his voice, “eaving-lay... ou-yay.”

“What?”
Did he
say... leaving?

Maggie fainted once as a child. She
remembered the sensation. It was not her body that fell, but instead, the angry
ground yanked itself out from under her and rushed up to hit her in the face.
Now, it was not the ground, but her whole world that tilted on end. She grabbed
at the kitchen counter and anchored herself to its cold, granite surface.

“Wait... What?” she said again.
“You’re telling me this in... Pig Latin?”

“I didn’t want to upset Kona. His
stitches—” Dave gestured toward the dog, concern etched in the lines around his
eyes.

“I can’t believe you. You’re more
worried about the goddamn dog’s reaction than mine.”

“I didn’t want him to hurt himself.
You know how he gets. And, I am concerned about you. I’ve been trying for weeks
to think of how I could tell you that... that I want a divorce.”

“For
weeks
? And this is how...” With a sob,
she shoved the panties and junk mail onto the floor. Her head fell down onto
her arms, outstretched across the counter. Kona, startled, jerked his head up.

“It’s OK, boy.” Dave knelt by the
dog and stroked his side. He looked at Kona, and back up at Maggie. He sighed.
His voice wavered. “Of course, Kona can stay here.”

“Of course he will,” Maggie swung
on him. “And you... Get the hell out of here. Now.”

Dave lowered his head; put his hand
over his eyes.

“Jesus, Dave. You don’t get to
cry.” She knew, then, that she was right. He was more concerned about Kona;
sadder about leaving his dog than his wife.

“I’ll pack a bag.” He walked out.
He didn’t look at her.

Maggie couldn’t reconcile any of
this in her head. The man she’d loved for twenty-two years had cheated on her;
no longer loved her; was walking out on her.
Sure, things
haven’t been great lately, but... leaving? Uckin-fay eaving-lay?

Now tears came. Maggie made no
effort to wipe them away; just stood and sobbed. Kona lifted his head, again,
at the strange animal sounds she made. She dropped to the floor, her head in
her hands. He poked her elbow with his nose; the edge of the cone jabbed
Maggie’s arm. He tried to get up, but whimpered.

“No, Buddy.” She pushed him back
down. When he’d settled, she cupped his chin and looked into his soft, sad
eyes.

From their bedroom, she heard the
clattering of hangers, drawers being pulled open and thrust shut. She took
several deep, shuddering breaths and wiped her face on her sleeve. She changed
her mind; she didn’t want Dave to leave until she had some answers.

He tossed clothes onto the bed—a
few pairs of dress slacks and some shirts, his workout clothes, a stack of
T-shirts.

“I’ll come back later for the rest
of my things.” He pulled his suitcase from under the bed and shoved clothes
into it. “We’re going to need to talk about how we want to handle everything. I
don’t care about the furniture or the art or any of that, but we’ll need to
figure out what to do about the house.”

She realized he’d given this a lot
of thought. He was trying to talk future practicalities, but Maggie wanted past
details.

“Who is she?”

“I met her at the gym.”

“How long have you been seeing
her?”

“About four months.” He did not
slow his packing as he spoke.

She did the math: January. For New
Year’s, he’d resolved to go to the gym more often. Chicken or egg, she
wondered. “How did it happen?”

“We were just friends at first, but
then—”

“But
what
? You couldn’t help yourself? You
accidentally started having sex with her?”

“It wasn’t like that. I can talk to
her.”

“I don’t want to hear it.” Maggie
closed her eyes. She held up her hands as if he threw things at her, rather
than into his bag.

“You asked me.”

“I changed my mind.”

She opened her eyes as he added his
Nikes to the suitcase. The bottoms, sandy from runs on the beach, landed on top
of his best slacks.

She focused on random details: a
thread poked out of the shoulder seam of his dress shirt; Kona’s once-stuffed
Humpty Dumpty lay eviscerated next to the dresser, his braided-rope arms and
legs spread-eagle; her white cardigan hung over the footboard covered in dog
hair—it must have fallen on the floor and Dave had thrown it there. It
registered in a dark corner of her brain that he’d pulled the bag from under
the bed. Normally they stored their luggage on the top shelf of the closet.
This was no spur-of-the-moment act.

“Has she been pressuring you? Did
she leave her... underwear” (the word “panties” now too intimate, too horrible)
“here on purpose? She hoped I’d find them, didn’t she?”

“No, she’s not like that. I’m sure
it was an accident.”

“What kind of slut accidentally
forgets her underwear?”

“She’s not—” Dave glanced at
Maggie, took a deep breath and started again. “Look, she stayed here for a few
days. I guess she missed that pair when she left.”

Now his behavior while she was at
the conference added up. How he’d rushed her off the phone each night; his
interest in finding out exactly what time she’d be home. He’d asked for her
flight information, even though she’d told him she’d just catch a cab.

Maggie tried to process everything.
Her husband, her best friend, was leaving. What about the house? Would she lose
it too? They’d lived here twelve years. Even if she could make the payments
herself, she couldn’t afford to buy out his half. She felt like Kona’s Humpty Dumpty,
her insides ripped out.

“What does she do? How old is she?”

“Thirty-three. She teaches second
grade.”

“A home-wrecker influencing young
minds. That’s
lovely
.”

Dave moved to his underwear drawer
and threw two handfuls of briefs into his bag. He yanked the zipper shut and
hefted the suitcase.

Maggie watched as if through a
fogged window but still noticed he had not packed any socks. She did not intend
to tell him.

Maggie followed as Dave headed for
the door. He looked back at Kona and chewed his bottom lip. “Goodbye, boy.” His
voice cracked.

“He’s not your boy anymore. Just
get the hell out.” She wanted to be cruel, to hurt him, but her voice wavered,
knowing she couldn’t cause him anything like the crushing pain she felt.

As soon as Dave drove away, Maggie
called her younger sister, Shannon. Although she lived on the other side of the
country in Connecticut, she was Maggie’s closest confidant.

Maggie hoped Shannon would pick up
instead of her husband, Michael. When she answered, the news rushed from Maggie
in a hiccupping flood.

“Slow down.” She heard the concern
in Shannon’s voice. “Dave did
what
?”

Maggie paced the house while they
talked. She hashed through every detail, everything Dave had said or done, or not
said or done, for the past few months. She searched for the signs she’d missed
or hadn’t wanted to see.

“Do you want me to come out? I can
be on a plane tomorrow.”