After a while, CJ and the man came back out. “Well!” CJ said with a laugh. “Good thing I turned off the burners. Hi, Max, did you have fun with Duke?” Duke and I both looked at her, hearing our names and a question. “You want to open that wine?”
The man was standing by the table, his hands in his pockets. CJ came back out of the kitchen, which was still alive with tantalizing smells. “What is it?”
“I can’t stay, baby.”
“What? You said—”
“I know, but something’s come up.”
“Something’s come up. And what exactly is that, Gregg?”
“Hey. I’ve never lied to you about my situation.”
“Your situation that you said was ending, is that the situation you mean?”
“It’s complicated,” he said.
“Well, yeah, I guess it is. Why don’t you give me an update on the ‘situation’ as it currently stands? Because I thought that in the process of ‘never lying to me’ you were pretty clear that the situation was all but over.”
CJ was angry. Duke lowered his head, frightened, but I was rigid and alert. The man’s name was Gregg and he was making my girl angry.
“I gotta go.”
“So this was what, a pit stop? Bootie call?”
“Baby.”
“Stop! I’m not a baby!”
Now Gregg was getting angry, too. The situation was spinning out of control. I darted over and snapped at Gregg’s pant leg. “Hey!” he shouted. He swung his foot, narrowly missing me.
“No!” CJ yelled. She reached down and picked me up. “Don’t you ever try to kick my dog.”
“Dog tried to bite me,” Gregg said.
“He’s just protective. He was raised in a shelter.”
“Well, you need to train him or something.”
“Okay, let’s completely change the subject, then, and talk about the dog.”
“I don’t know what you want!” Gregg shouted. “I’m late to a thing.” He strode rapidly to the door and yanked it open, turning on the threshold. “This isn’t easy for me, either. You could at least show some appreciation for that fact.”
“It certainly is one of the more appreciable facts, I’ll give you that.”
“I don’t need this,” the man said. He shut the door forcefully.
CJ sat down on the couch and buried her head in her hands. I couldn’t get up on the couch to comfort her. Duke came over and rested his gigantic head in her lap, as if that were any help.
She sobbed as she took her shoes off and threw them on the floor. They were, I decided, bad shoes.
After a few minutes, CJ went into the kitchen and brought out two pans and set them on the table and ate right out of the pans. She ate and ate and ate, while Duke watched attentively.
I felt pretty sure I knew what was going to happen next. And it did—within half an hour, she was in the bathroom, vomiting. She shut the door on me, so I sat on the floor, whimpering, wishing I could help her with her pain. It was my purpose to take care of CJ, and at that moment I felt that I was not doing a good job.
TWENTY-ONE
The next day we all went for a walk except Sneakers. I’ve seen cats outside and they don’t walk with people; they mostly just walk with themselves. Nearly always when a dog walks he walks next to a person. This is just one of many ways that dogs are better pets than cats.
Duke and I were on leashes. I was feeling more kindly disposed toward him than when we first regarded each other, because he had never been anything but submissive—when we played, he would fall to his back and let me climb on his neck and chew on his face. But walking with him was constantly irritating. He pulled left and right at the end of his leash, distracted by one smell or another, yanking CJ off balance and getting in my way. “Duke … Duke…,” CJ would say. She never once had to say, “Max … Max…,” because I trotted by her feet like a good dog. Occasionally I barked, though, because otherwise I wasn’t sure people could see me—they tended to stare at Duke, probably astounded that he was so bad at walking.
I was glad that my girl had found herself another dog after I, as Molly, left her, but clearly now that we were reunited I was going to be in charge, because Duke just didn’t know what he was doing.
Everywhere there were food smells and garbage cans and papers to sniff, but I had to work my little legs so hard to keep up that these delights passed by too quickly for me to enjoy them. We mounted some brick stairs and CJ knocked on the door. It opened and the smell of people and a dog and food came wafting out. A woman was on the other side of the door. “Oh,” she said, “is it that time already?”
I could sense an uneasiness in CJ. “Um, yeah, I’m right on time,” CJ said.
I could smell a strange dog’s scent on the flowerpot next to me and I squatted to mark over it. “My plants!” the woman cried.
“Oh!” CJ reached down and picked me up. “I’m sorry; he’s just a puppy.”
CJ was upset and it was the woman’s fault. When the woman leaned forward to peer at me, I growled at her and she jerked back. “He’s all bark and no bite,” CJ said.
“I’ll get Pepper,” the woman said. She left us standing on the doorstep for a few moments and then returned with a rust-colored female dog, much bigger than me but still way smaller than Duke, on a leash that the woman handed to CJ. The dog sniffed me and I growled at her to let her know I was there to protect CJ.
The rust-colored dog was named Pepper, I soon gathered, and as we walked we stopped at more places and soon had a brown female dog named Sally and a hairy, stocky male dog named Beevis, all on leashes in a most unnatural dog family.
This wasn’t like being with Rocky or being with Annie and Abby; this was a mix of dogs who were very tense with each other, held too closely together by the leashes that kept us from straying. For the most part we all tried to ignore each other, though Duke tried to play with Sally a little even though we were going for a walk.
More strange than the unnatural nature of the dog pack was CJ’s obsession with collecting our poops. On the Farm I’d taken to doing my business in the surrounding woods, and as Molly I generally used a corner of the backyard—a man came on a regular basis to run machines and clean up after me. Occasionally, CJ had picked up after me, usually when we were on someone else’s property, but never had it been like her behavior now. CJ methodically scooped up after all the dogs in our pack and even kept Duke’s deposits, which were huge. She would carry them with her for a time in little bags and then would leave them in containers on the street, which was even more baffling—why go through all the work of picking them up and carrying them if she wasn’t going to keep them?
There are some things people do that dogs just will never understand. Most of the time I assumed that humans, with their complex lives, were serving some greater purpose, but in this instance I wasn’t so sure.
Though I was the dog in charge, I tried to be civil to all the other canines, but Beevis did not like me and I did not like Beevis. When he sniffed me his fur went up and he thrust his chest at me. He was bigger than I, but not by a lot—if it weren’t for me he would have been the smallest dog there. CJ pulled on his leash so that his face was brought aggressively toward mine, so I snapped at him and he bit the air next to my ear.
“Stop it! Max! Beevis!”
CJ was angry. I wagged my tail at her, hoping she understood none of it was my fault.
CJ took us to a dog park. What a great place! It felt so good to be off leash that I headed off at a flat run, and Duke and Sally followed, though I could turn more quickly than they could and soon was running alone. Other dogs were in the park with their owners, some chasing balls, others wrestling, and a white dog with floppy ears joyfully joined the chase with Duke and Sally—it was so fun to race around with the dogs in pursuit!
I saw Beevis slinking down low and then he launched himself at me. I dodged and he ran after me, growling. I turned a tight circle, but he cut me off. It looked as if I would have no
choice but to snap at him, except that Duke galloped up and sort of crashed into the both of us. With Duke towering over him, Beevis was less hostile. I dashed over to CJ, who was sitting on a bench, tried to jump up next to her, but fell short. Laughing, she picked me up, and I proudly sat in her lap, watching the dogs, smelling the exotic smells, feeling her hands, loving all of it.
When we left the dog park, we retraced our route, dropping off the dogs we’d picked up along the way until it was just Duke and myself, back at CJ’s place. I was exhausted, so after a quick snack I fell asleep at CJ’s feet.
Over the course of that summer, Beevis and I learned to ignore each other, though he still growled at me when I ran. He couldn’t keep up with me, but he was pretty good at cutting me off, so I’d be in the middle of a joyous gallop with a whole pack and then he’d charge into the middle of us to challenge me and the whole procession of running dogs would pull up into a halt and mill around. I couldn’t tell if everyone found it as irritating as I did.
At home, I took on the responsibility of guiding Duke toward more polite behavior. He didn’t understand that my food bowl was off-limits, so I was forced to nip at him a few times before realization dawned in his eyes. He never really ate my dinner or even all of his own meal most of the time, but I didn’t like that huge nose descending from its height and sniffing where I ate. He was also lazy: when someone knocked, Duke didn’t think to bark until I did, even though we were the only protection CJ had in the world. I therefore had to be extravigilant and would bark at the slightest sound coming from the direction of the hallway.
I knew we were supposed to bark because CJ was always angry when someone knocked. “Hey! Stop! Quiet! Enough!” she would yell. I didn’t understand the words, but the meaning was clear: she was upset with the knocking and we should keep barking.
When Duke barked, Sneakers usually darted across the floor and scampered under the bed. Otherwise, the cat was much less fearful as the days wore on and, after several incidents of close sniffing, even began to play with me. We’d wrestle and it wasn’t exactly the same as wrestling with a dog, because Sneakers would wrap her legs around me, but it was easier than trying to play with Duke, who was ridiculously large and had to crawl on the floor so I could pin him.
The only time there was peace between Sneakers and Duke was when CJ would run a machine on the floor that made a loud noise. It terrified Duke and Sneakers cowered from it as well, though I wasn’t worried because I’d encountered similar machines in my time. After CJ put the machine away she would cuddle with us—Duke, Sneakers, and me pressed up against her on the couch, recovering from the trauma of it all.
I knew I was the favorite pet, though, and CJ proved it one evening by snapping a leash onto my collar and walking with me and only me outside in the warm, humid air. Duke followed us to the door, but CJ told him he was a good dog and to stay and then it was just the two of us.
I was now so accustomed to the roar of noise outside that I scarcely noticed it, though I still found the tantalizing odors compelling. The leaves were starting to drop off of some of the trees and swish along the sidewalk, propelled by cooling breezes. We walked several blocks as the night fell, and there were a lot of people out, plus many dogs, so I kept my guard up.
Finally we went up to some doors. CJ fiddled with something on the wall and said, “It’s CJ!” and then there was a buzzing noise and we went into the building and my girl carried me up a few flights of stairs. A door opened at the end of a hall and a man stepped out.
“Hi!” he called.
When we got closer, I smelled who it was: Trent!
I was astounded, because I had never thought we’d ever see him again. But humans can arrange for whatever they want to happen, which was how, for example, CJ always managed to find me when she needed me.
Trent and CJ hugged while I stood on my hind legs and reached up to him. Then he laughed and reached down and picked me up.
“Careful…,” CJ warned.
“Who is this?” he asked, laughing delightedly as I licked his face. I was so happy to see him! I squirmed in his arms, wanting to press in more closely.
“That’s Max. I can’t believe how he’s acting. He’s never like this. He doesn’t like most people.”
“He’s such a sweetie. Kind of dog is he?”
“A Chorkie, half Chihuahua, half Yorkie. That’s the best guess, anyway. Wow, I love what you’ve done with the place!”
Trent laughed and set me down. He lived in the best house ever: there was not a single piece of furniture anywhere. I could race around and around unimpeded.
“I’ve got stuff on order,” Trent said. “Open some wine? God, it is so great to see you!”
I explored the house while he and CJ sat and talked. There were two other rooms, equally empty. I found myself sniffing for Rocky, but there was no sign of him. My brother must no longer be alive. I wondered why Trent didn’t have a new dog; didn’t people need dogs?
“So how’s the new job?” CJ asked.
“It’s a great firm. I already was doing some work co-financing with them when I was in San Francisco, so it’s a natural fit. How about you? How’s the acting?”
“I’ve been in a couple of workshops. I love it. There’s something about being onstage, having everyone listen to me, laugh at my lines, applauding … it’s the greatest.”
“How odd that Gloria’s child would want to perform so that people would pay attention to her,” Trent said. “Who could have predicted something like that?”
“And how interesting that an investment banker wants to give me free psychotherapy.”
Trent laughed. The sound was exactly the same as I remembered. “You’re right. I’m sorry. I’ve been in therapy myself—if you live in California, it’s mandatory. It helped, though, with some stuff.”
“I’m sorry about Rocky.”
At the sound of my brother’s name, I paused, looking at them for a moment before I resumed exploring.
“Yeah. Rocky. Such a good dog. Stomach torsion—vet says it happens a lot with bigger dogs.”
I caught sadness coming off of Trent and raced across the floor and sailed into his lap. Trent caught me and kissed my head. “So how did you come to get Max?”
“My place is right down from where they had this dog adoption in Central Park.”
“Wait, you live by the park? Your acting must be going very well.”
“Well, no. I mean yes, I live in a fabulous place, but I’m house- and pet-sitting for this guy Barry. He manages some boxer dude who is training for a fight in Africa.”
“This puppy is the cutest little guy in the world,” Trent said.
“I know, isn’t he? He sure likes you.”
“Hey, let’s order food. Just looking at you is making me hungry.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” CJ said sharply. I jumped out of Trent’s lap and went over to her.
“You’re so thin, CJ.”
“I’m an actress, hello.”
“Yeah, but…”
“Leave this alone, Trent.”
He sighed. “We used to confide in each other,” he said after a moment.
“I’ve got things under control. That’s all you need to know.”
“You only let me get so close, and no closer, CJ.”
“More therapy talk?”
“Come on. I miss you. I miss our conversations.”
“Me, too,” CJ said softly. “But there are some things I don’t want to talk about with anybody.”
They were quiet for a minute. I put my feet on CJ’s knees, and she lifted me up and kissed my nose. I wagged.
After more talking, a man came and brought bags of food. I loved the generous people who sometimes arrived with warm, delicious-smelling meals and handed them over and then left so that people could eat and feed their dogs! We all sat on the floor together and CJ and Trent ate from the bags and gave me a tiny piece of chicken that I ate and a vegetable that I spat out.
&n
bsp; “What’s her name?” CJ asked at one point.
“Liesl.”
“Wait, Liesl? You’re dating one of the Von Trapps?” CJ laughed.
“She’s German. I mean, she lives in Tribeca, but she came over from Europe when she was nine.”
“Tribeca. Huh. So you’ve been coming to New York and not calling me?”
“A little,” Trent admitted.
“That’s it. Max, attack. Go for the throat.”
I heard my name but didn’t understand what I was supposed to do. CJ was gesturing toward Trent, so I padded over to him and he bent down and I licked his face, and they both laughed.
When we left, Trent and CJ stood at the door and hugged for a long time, and the love flowed between them. I realized right then that what would be best for CJ was if we left Sneakers and Duke behind and came to live here in the fun place with no furniture, where she and Trent could love each other. CJ needed a mate, the way Ethan had needed Hannah, and Trent needed a dog.
If the other two pets had to come, though, we’d need to at least get a couch so Sneakers had something to hide under.
“I’m so, so glad to see you,” Trent said.
“Me, too.”
“Okay, we’ll do this all the time, now that I’m moving here. I promise.”
“Really? Sit on the floor and have dinner?”
“Maybe the four of us can get together. Liesl and Gregg, I mean.”
“Sure,” CJ said.
Trent pulled back, looking at her. “What?”
“It’s nothing. It’s … Gregg’s not … His family situation isn’t fully resolved yet.”
“Are you kidding me?” Trent said loudly.
“Stop it.”
“You can’t seriously be saying—”