What the Dog Ate (29 page)

“No; never gonna happen. You are
totally out of sight, out of mind to him, and I’m not going to let you confuse
him. Get another dog. You replaced me easily enough; I’m sure it will be just
as easy for you to replace Kona. You’d better go; there’s a Musketeer after
your maid.”

She turned and stormed off to find
Brian.
What nerve. I can’t believe him. God, I could use a
drink. Why did I offer to be the designated driver?
She headed down a
dark hallway and had just rounded the corner when she heard Jens’ German accent
through a half open door.

“It doesn’t worry you that your
girlfriend is dressed as a bride?” he asked.

She stopped short.

“Why should that worry me?” Brian’s
voice asked.

“She is maybe sending you some sort
of signal, yes?”

“No, I don’t think... It’s her
favorite painting. Do you think it’s a signal?”

Oh God, why did
I wear this?

On cue, God walked up behind her.
“Eavesdropping is a sin, my child,” he whispered. She glared at his back as he
swept past her on down the hall.

Better bust
this conversation up
. “Brian,” she called out as she pushed the door
open and walked in. “I’ve been looking for you. Thought I heard your voice in
here.”

“Sorry. Jens was showing me a piece
he just bought, and I lost track of time. Let’s go back out to the party.” He
put his hand gently at her elbow, careful to not smear makeup on her.

When they were in the hallway, she
stopped him. “I have to warn you; my ex is here.”

“Oh, I need to get a look at the
idiot who was stupid enough to walk out on you.”

“Aww. I’d kiss you if you weren’t
covered in makeup.”

“I’ll take a rain check. Come on.”

From a corner of the great room,
Brian pretended to casually check out the other guests.

“Let me guess, the jock and the
tramp in the fishnets skulking over by the stereo,” he said. When she nodded he
added, “He does look like an idiot. Especially dressed like that in this
crowd.”

Damn right. He
is
an idiot!
She put her arm around Brian’s waist,
leaned into him and said, “You’re good at making me feel better. I’m glad I’m
here with you.” He beamed at her, his white smile incongruous in his orange and
gray face.
That darn makeup. Oh, what the hell. He’s earned
it. She gave him a slow, tender kiss
.

“That was nice,” he said. “But now
your lips are all black.”

Maggie excused herself to go find
the bathroom. On her way, she saw the Degas ballerina feeding the poker-playing
dog an olive from her drink. He pretended to snap at it ferociously as she
pulled her delicate fingers away, then giggled and scratched his belly.

“Shit, shit, shit.” Maggie sat up
straight in Brian’s bed. Peaches ran in and looked around, perhaps hoping to
catch Kona getting in trouble again. But Maggie wasn’t cursing at Kona. She was
alone.

The party had progressed on. She’d
wanted to leave after her run-in with Dave, but Jens had insisted Brian meet
some people, so they’d stayed. The four of them had left at one o’clock, minus one hound dog who said he wasn’t ready to leave yet and would get a ride home
with a certain ballerina.

They’d driven back to Maggie’s to
drop Helen and Raul at their car, picked up Kona and headed to Brian’s. When
they got to the condo, Maggie had planned to carefully bring up the subject of
her costume. She’d wanted to make sure Brian was clear about her anti-bride
stance behind it, but then he’d dragged her into the shower with him, saying he
needed someone for quality control to make sure he got all the paint off, and
one thing had led to another and the subject of her costume never came up.

That morning, Maggie awoke to Brian
leaving a breakfast tray by the bed. No croissants this time, but juice, whole
wheat toast, coffee and the paper. He’d said he hadn’t meant to wake her; he
was going for a quick run with Kona and, after, would she be willing to whip
him up a smoothie before heading out for her bike ride. She’d said she needed
to check her messages and make sure Russell would even be there, but, yes,
she’d love to make him a smoothie.

After he left, she’d sat back
against the pillows sipping her juice, then dug the Business section out of the
big Sunday paper. There on page one, below the fold, the headline read:
BioHealth CEO Remains Positive as FDA Pulls Plug
.

The headline had caused her to sit
up straight, spilling some of her juice on Brian’s T-shirt that she had slept
in, and swear like a teenager who just learned how.

She scanned the article—an
interview with BioHealth’s Chief Executive Officer, Ian Camfield. It said it
was a follow-up to Friday’s news that the FDA was not going to approve the
company’s heretofore “promising” drug, as clinical trial patients had displayed
a “significantly higher” incidence of heart attacks than the general populace.

“What article?” She hadn’t read the
paper on Friday or Saturday. Busy working on her costume, she’d tossed the
papers in the recycling untouched. She’d figured if she missed any big news
she’d find out soon enough. And soon enough had arrived this morning on a
silver tray.

The stock had tanked on Friday and
was down to $3.10. The CEO was trying to save his company and his investors’
confidence; he hyped other drugs in BioHealth’s pipeline, claiming this one
drug wasn’t the only “trick in our bag.” But a Wall Street analyst was quoted,
saying, “The other therapies BioHealth is working on are in the earliest
stages, and it could be almost a decade before they’re ready for commercial
release.” He added that his firm had downgraded the stock from “hold” to
“sell,” and acknowledged rumored news that a large pharmaceutical firm might
try to acquire BioHealth at a deep discount for its technology.

“Holy crap. How can this be
happening?” Maggie said aloud.
$3.10. A possible buy-out by
a pharma company. For what, maybe $4 a share? Maybe $4 and change?
She
did the math—$200,000 sounded like a nice chunk of money, until taking out
Dave’s half and the IRS’s... what? A third? She’d be lucky to have $75,000 left
over. Not exactly the stuff comfortable, cushy nest eggs are built of.

She crumpled the paper and threw it
on the floor. She felt bone-tired and a little nauseous, hung over except for
the fact that she hadn’t had a single drink at the party.

“Craaaaaaappppp!” She got up and
paced the bedroom. Peaches, prancing back and forth behind her, darted out of
the way each time Maggie headed the opposite direction.

There goes my
grand plan. Again. First Dave screws it up and now BioHealth. Damn Dave. Damn
Ian. Damn researchers who had everyone convinced the drug was the best thing
since Prozac
.

She stopped in her tracks.
Wait a minute. On the plus side, this means no big windfall for
Dave and Stupid Slut. Hah! No early retirement for
them.
No dream vacation to some romantic tropical beach. No diamond
ring paid for on the back of my hard work
.

“Hah,” she said aloud.

The dull silver lining to her big,
black BioHealth cloud didn’t help.

She walked in circles around the
condo thinking, thinking, thinking. Realizing that Peaches seemed upset and
confused, following close at Maggie’s heels, she finally sat cross-legged on
the living room rug and pulled the little dog into her lap. She stroked
Peaches’ head while she thought some more from a stationary position.

When Brian and Kona came home, they
found her sitting on the rug. She didn’t look up. Kona trotted over, excited to
have her at face-licking level and more than happy to sponge up her tears with
his thick wet tongue.

“Oh, Buddy,” she said. She put her
arms around his neck and hugged him.

“What’s wrong?” Brian asked.

She told him about the article.
He’d known about her plan and had been a sounding board when she’d take
different professions out for a theoretical spin. He was good at helping her
list the pros and cons of various positions.

“I’m going to be stuck doing
accounting forever,” she was still holding on to Kona and rested her forehead
against his. Peaches stood in Maggie’s lap and gave her delicate artist’s
paint-brush kisses on her chin. “Thank you, sweeties,” Maggie said to the dogs.

She wondered if she should get to a
mirror to stop the crying. Dark thoughts circled her mind, like vultures. The
idea of sticking with a job she didn’t love—and never would—made her feel wrapped
in chains. Weighed down. Rooted to the spot. Although even that wasn’t right,
she realized. Roots implied growth and there was no growth for her in
accounting. Sure there was
career
growth. She was on
a track that was easy for her to run. Certain and steady and lucrative. And
since she was on her own, she needed to make the most of that. From a practical
standpoint, it made no sense to quit. She didn’t have anyone else to rely on.
She had to save for retirement; she needed decent benefits. What if she got
sick or became disabled? She didn’t have kids who could take care of her
someday like Mom did. She needed her job. She needed accounting. But why did it
have to make her feel so empty? It fed her bank account, but starved her soul.

Brian held out his hands and pulled
her up off the floor. “Come here.” She let him hug her, even though sweat
soaked his shirt. “You’ll be fine.” He stroked her hair. “Lots of people hate
their jobs. I read an article about it the other day. I was going to email it
to you. It said something like just under half of all Americans aren’t
satisfied with their jobs.”

“Oh. Right.”
Does
he think I’m just being a big whiner? After all, he’s right; I’m in good
company. Probably hard for him to relate. He’s lucky enough to love his job
.

She thought of all the people just
scraping by. People who couldn’t afford to even think of anything else other
than the job they hated, but still felt lucky to have. Plenty of people were
getting by paycheck to paycheck and hoping that someday, somehow, their savings
and Social Security would be enough once they finally stopped punching the
clock; that satisfying, final swift punch in the face of that damned clock.

Her misery, however, was not loving
the company at the moment. In fact, her misery didn’t even like the company.
Her misery just wanted to get out of there and be alone for a while.

She pulled away and said she was
going to get dressed.

“Hey, you OK?” Brian called after
her.

“Yeah, fine.” She tried to make her
voice sound normal. “Look, I’ll make you a smoothie, but then I’ve got to run
and meet Russell.”

She wanted to get out on her bike.
She hadn’t checked her messages yet, but she hoped Russell wouldn’t show up.
She wanted to be alone with her pumping legs and heart. Just ride and think. Or
ride and forget.

~~~

She rounded the corner to their
agreed meeting spot and saw Russell waiting for her. He waved and called out an
entirely too hearty, “Good morning.”

She was tempted to ask what was
good about it; it was cold and the sky was as gray as the skin on a corpse.
Instead she just said, “I wasn’t sure you’d be here. Thought you might have a
private dance lesson this morning.”

“No. Not me. Not much of a dancer.
And I look terrible in tights.” He zipped his cycling jacket up to his chin.

“Seriously, what happened with your
Tiny Dancer?” They pulled out and began slowly pedaling side by side along
their standard route.

“Nuthin’. We counted the headlights
on the roadway, she dropped me off and that was that.”

“Highway,” Maggie said.

“You want to ride on the highway?”

“No, the lyrics. It’s not
‘roadway,’ it’s ‘
high
way.’”

“OK. Sorry, Mr. Lennon. Didn’t mean
to screw up your lyrics.”

“
Lennon?
It’s Elton freaking John.”

“OK. Good grief. That’s who I
meant. Boy, somebody got up on the wrong side of her boyfriend’s bed this
morning.”

Maggie coasted and reached down to
yank the Velcro strap tighter on her cycling shoe. “Let’s get going. I feel
like riding hard.” Without waiting for a reply, she changed gears and pulled
out ahead of him, stamping down on her pedals.

“Works for me.” Russell whipped in
behind her to draft off her back wheel.

When they got to Torrey Pines she
beat him up the hill by a good thirty seconds. They reached their resting spot
overlooking the ocean ten minutes quicker than usual.

“Alright, what’s wrong?” Russell
asked.

“What makes you think something’s
wrong?” She fought with the slick foil wrapper on her PowerBar, supplied by
Russell. “Why do they make these things so goddamn hard to open?”

“Give it here.” He took it, found
the notch in the wrapper and pulled it apart. “Obviously you are not yourself
today.” He handed the nutritious-but-not-so-very-delicious brick back to her
and pulled another out of the back pocket of his jersey. “You and Brian have a
fight?”

“No, we didn’t have a fight.” She
worked over the chunk she tore off the bar with her molars. “It’s my damn BioHealth
shares. And my damn job.” She told him about the stock.

“Oh, wow. I didn’t see today’s
paper yet. I know you were counting on those shares. I’m really sorry, Maggie.”

“Thanks.” She looked out toward the
churning ocean, a steely blue under the gray sky.

“Have you had time to think about
Plan B yet?”

“Sort of. Wouldn’t you think I’d be
the type to already have a Plan B all mapped out? But
no
;
I believed the story they were selling at BioHealth. I really thought that was
going to be my golden ticket. I was so stupid.” She shook her head. “Anyway,
I’m thinking I’m pretty much stuck with accounting now. I’m not really at an
age where you can take a lot risks, you know? I mean, I need health insurance.
I need a steady paycheck.” Maggie thought of her mother, who had some savings,
but also counted on Medicare and Social Security. Maggie knew it was possible
Mom might outlive her money, but if it came to that, she could count on her
kids for help. But who did Maggie have?