What the Dog Ate (4 page)

~~~

Four hours later (having ignored
the majority of the ninety-six unread emails in her inbox), Maggie had spoken
to Janice, twice, as well as to the CEO of Clean N’ Green, a pleasant-sounding
man with a British accent named Stephen. Some quick research showed the company
had launched a line of environmentally friendly cleaning products. Stephen told
her they needed someone with good business acumen, but couldn’t afford someone
full time yet as they were only selling online. But, if things went well and
they liked her (Maggie knew they would; she worked hard and knew her stuff), it
could become full time later. For now, the hours were flexible and she’d get
health benefits. She told Janice she’d think about it and call her back.

Backup plan in place, Maggie went
into William’s office and shut the door. She asked if he had a minute.

“Oh crap.” He threw his pen down on
the papers scattered across his desk. “Don’t tell me. You’re pregnant. We don’t
have time for you to be pregnant.”

“I’m not pregnant.”
Total ass. True to form
.

“Thank God. All of sudden, I
thought maybe that was why you called in sick. But, come to think of it, you’re
too old to be getting pregnant.”

“I’m only forty-one, William.” Why
did she never carry a tape recorder when she dealt with him? “I need to talk to
you about my hours, about cutting back.”

“Cutting back? You can’t. This
couldn’t possibly come at a worse time. Uh, hello? We’re going after our first
acquisition. We need everyone giving a hundred and ten percent right now.”

Maggie hated when William said
that. It was so illogical. Why not a hundred and twenty percent? Or thirty? Why
not one thousand percent? It was one of the many trite phrases he thought
motivated the team, but which they all made fun of behind his back.

“Look, it’s personal. I need to get
my life back.”

“Get your life back?” He chuckled
and shook his head. “Maggie, you’re just like me. People like us don’t have
lives. We have work.”

Ohmygod, I am
not like you
. An image of William getting home late to his empty condo
flashed into her head: she saw him on the sofa in his work clothes, eating an
Angry Man dinner while watching ESPN. He often complained about his alimony and
child support payments, but she’d never heard him talk about hobbies, a
girlfriend, siblings, a goldfish, anything. He didn’t display pictures of his
kids in his office—only his Masters degree and accounting certificate. The only
things he seemed interested in were his job and his nightly fix of sports news.

She thought about her own life.
What did she have now besides her job and her dog?
No. I am
not like him. I have hobbies. I mean, I used to have hobbies. And I have my
family. I... have other options
. She had brought Janice’s business card
along for strength. She put her hand in her pocket and fingered its dog-eared
corner. Her heart began to pound.

“If I can’t work fewer hours,
then... I quit.”

“You’re not quitting.” He said it
as if he’d handed out any other assignment.

“Yes, I am.”

“No, I don’t think you are.”

“Yes, William. I am.”

William stood and began to pace.
“No. You can’t leave now. We have an acquisition coming up. How can you do this
to us? To me?” He stopped and yelled at her over the top of his desk. “After
everything I’ve done for you. I got you that promotion!”

He’s taking
credit for my promotion? I am so outta here
.

“Hey,” he sat back down, “I know
what this is about: money. I can give you a five percent raise, but no more.
OK, maybe seven and a half. Eight tops.”

“No, money’s not the issue at all.”

He put his head in his hands. “I
can’t believe this. I can’t believe you are leaving now, when we really need
you. When
I
need you. You women. You always know how to kick a guy where it hurts. You’re
just like my ex.”

Ohmygod, please
tell me he is not going to cry
. As Maggie looked around for a box of
tissues, he suddenly sat up. He dug out a legal pad and began drawing boxes
connected with lines; he scribbled names into the squares. “If I move Tom into
your job, and promote Yukiko into his job. Yeah, that could work.”

Maggie watched him hit himself
repeatedly in the head with his ballpoint pen.
Did he just
go through the five stages of grief, in like one minute flat? Denial, anger,
bargaining... I’m pretty sure they were all there. I think he’s even forgotten
I’m still here
.

He put pen to paper again. “Then
split Yukiko’s job in two and give Treasury to Carlo and Tax to... what’s that
girl’s name in accounts payable?” He snapped his fingers at Maggie. “The one
with the glasses and the black hair down to her butt?”

“Are you referring to Bindira?”
Oh yeah, he’s in trouble without me. He doesn’t even know their
names
.

“That’s the one!”

“She’s actually in accounts
receivable.”
Doesn’t know their positions either. And
that’s way too big of a jump for Bindi. And Carlo doesn’t want to do treasury.
Oh well, it’s William’s problem now
. “OK then. I’m officially giving you
my two weeks’ notice.” She walked out.

Once on the other side of the door,
she found that the hallway had become an anti-gravity chamber. Her feet seemed
to barely touch the worn gray carpet as she floated back to her office.

She thought about what Dave would
say when she told him she’d quit. She’d done it—the thing he’d been begging her
to do for so long. And it felt good. She decided to call him.

It was lunch time, so she tried his
cell since he almost never worked through lunch. Instead, he’d go out to eat
with people from work or to the gym. After several rings, she heard the call
connect and, then, rustling.

“This isn’t the best time,” Dave
said, without even saying hello. A woman giggled in the background. “Is it
Kona; is he recovering OK?”

“He’s fine,” she heard herself
answer.

“Thought you might be calling about
him. Uh, is this urgent, or can I call you later?”

“Don’t bother.”

Gravity flooded back in a rush; it
pounded her against her chair. It was an effort just to get the phone in the
cradle.

~~~

The rest of the week, Maggie went
to work on autopilot. She was committed to fulfilling her notice period, but
she put in half her usual hours. What could they do; fire her? Mornings, she
came in late, wearing the same khakis she dragged from the heap she’d left them
in the day before. At lunch time, her staff offered to take her out, but one
day she used Kona’s appointment to have his stitches taken out as an excuse to
not go. The other days, she’d claim a doctor’s or dentist’s appointment. She’d
drive to the beach and stare out her closed car window. She didn’t want to feel
the sand under her feet; be rejuvenated by the fresh sea air. She just wanted
to be away from the office, away from everyone. At five each night, she headed
home while her staff looked up from their desks like prisoners watching a
fellow inmate being paroled.

The few minutes when she first got
home were the highlight of each day. Kona, happy to see her and even happier to
be free of his cone, would wiggle his way to her and cover her with kisses.
After she fed him and changed into sweats, they’d squeeze onto the sofa
together. She channel surfed; tennis matches, disasters, talking heads, people
selling diet aids, car chases—it all passed by in a disjointed blur.

One evening she lay there,
marveling at the fact that while her world imploded in slow-mo, someone
somewhere was engrossed in a rerun of
The Golden Girls
.
She studied Kona, sitting, staring at the door. He leaned against the sofa,
near where her bare foot dangled off the edge. His nostrils flared as he let
out a loud exhalation.

Wonder if he’s
thinking about Daddy; wondering why he doesn’t come home
.

Kona lifted his back leg and began
to lick his crotch.

“Kona, stop it. You kiss your
mother with that mouth?”
Well, maybe that’s not what he’s
thinking. But really, where is Daddy? I can’t believe he didn’t even fight for Kona.
I mean, he wouldn’t have a leg to stand on; Kona was
my
birthday present. Still, I thought he loved Kona. But then, I
thought he loved me, too. What the hell do I know?
She snorted in
disgust and changed the channel.

~~~

Her second weekend without Dave
paralleled the first, but with the addition of pasta bowls full of ice cream.
The phone rang Sunday and Maggie lifted her head from the sofa to hear if it
was Shannon. She listened to the outgoing greeting, which she’d let revert back
to the computerized “leave-a-message,” after deleting the cheerful hello she
and Dave had recorded.

“Mags?” Kevin again. “I know you’re
alive, cuz I talked to Shay. In fact, I bet you’re standing right there.”
Ha, shows what you know. I’m lying here
. “Could you pick
up? Or call me? Thinking I’ll swing by tonight with In-N-Out burgers and we can
stuff our faces. Unless I hear from you, I’ll assume we’re on for inner-day.”
How come I can train my brother about the trigger words, but not
my dog?

Maggie waited an hour, then emailed
to say she’d been out walking Kona when he called and wouldn’t be home tonight;
thanks anyway.

~~~

Maggie tried to finalize her
remaining projects during her last week at BioHealth, but she found it hard to
concentrate—or care. Wednesday afternoon she claimed a migraine and left early
holding her hand to her temple for effect, thinking:
Just
two more days of this place
.

She wanted to go straight home, but
knew the refrigerator held nothing more than a half-eaten jar of kosher dills
and some marmalade. She didn’t need much. She planned to whip through the
store, grab some cereal, milk and ice cream, and then zip home to her dog and
pajamas. This would be so much easier if someone would just invent Human Chow,
she thought as she grabbed a cart and pushed it, with its rattling wheel, into
the store.

She’d already hit the dairy section
and stood in the cereal aisle analyzing all the different options. Oat Squares
were on sale. The cost-per-ounce was less than her favorite granola, so she
opted for two boxes. She flung them into the cart, contemplating the simplicity
of a product named for its main flavor and shape. She tried to think of other
examples; pineapple rings came to mind.
What else? Orange
Slices. Those sugarcoated jelly candies Dad used to buy
. She hadn’t had
one in forever. Her mouth watered as she imagined sinking her teeth into one,
the burst of orange flavor, the crunch of the sugar crystals. Orange Slices
would be the perfect snack for the ride home. She started to swing the cart
back toward the candy, when she glanced up and saw Dave with
That Woman
at the end of the aisle.

She stared in horror and
fascination. She flip-flopped between the urge to run the opposite direction,
or to get a good look at That Woman who stole her husband. It was like watching
a slasher film. She couldn’t look away, even though it made her feel sick to
see Dave and the easy, comfortable way he stood with That Woman, his hand
resting at the small of her back. The way he used to stand with Maggie.

They were heading down the back
aisle and hadn’t seen her. The lighting was bad, with only every other
florescent strip light on, and Dave had his back to Maggie, but after so many
years together she would have recognized the back, side, top of the man’s head
at fifty paces in any light. That Woman stood in front of Dave, next to the
meat case, so Maggie could only see a sliver of her long wavy hair, jeans and
sweater.

They had stopped in front of the
bacon.

Dave doesn’t
eat bacon
.

They had shifted now; Dave still
had his back to Maggie, but she could see That Woman’s face. She danced a bacon
package back and forth in front of Dave, as if to entice him with it. She was
not at all what Maggie had envisioned in her tortured thoughts.

When she’d seen the lavender thong
panties, less substantial than the pink velvet cord Gram used to keep her
reading glasses around her neck, she’d known That Woman was small. Impossibly
petite. Maggie pictured a slim comic-book vixen with long legs, no hips and a
flat stomach beneath Zeppelin breasts. She’d also imagined thick blond hair and
too much makeup. But
This
Woman was skinny—boyishly
so. Her figure looked like she could act the part of a slice of bacon in a
school play on agricultural products; it didn’t look like she ever ate bacon.
She didn’t seem to wear any makeup. She wasn’t plain, but she certainly was not
gorgeous. Her hair was long and thick, but frizzy and a mousy brown color. She
was... normal.

They laughed as That Woman flipped
the package over to read to him. They huddled together as she pointed at the
words, and Dave appeared to read along.

He won’t eat
that. It has too many nitrates
.

Dave took the package out of That
Woman’s hand and tossed it in the cart. She giggled, bumped him with her
twelve-year-old boy’s hip, and they moved on.

Maggie stood rooted to the spot.
Her brain shouted:
Dave doesn’t eat bacon
. But her
gut whispered:
He’s not coming back
.

She drove home, barely noticing
where she was going. She shoved the groceries into the fridge, still in the
canvas bag, even the cereal. Her wedding band caught her eye. She fingered it
with her right thumb and index finger. She yanked it off and pulled open the
junk drawer. She dropped the ring into an old Altoids tin that still smelled of
mint and held a few paperclips. She slammed the drawer shut.