by Meg Rosoff
‘Each guest gets an automatic six-month membership in Privileged Pets. If you tell me their birthdays,’ Darren was saying, ‘I’ll add them to the hotel profiles and Privileged Pets sends out a special card and a bag of liver treats on the day.’ Dante’s eyes swivelled in Jonathan’s direction.
On their birthdays, Jonathan thought, they’ll be far too busy folding napkins in the shape of swans, baking profiteroles and playing musical chairs.
As the three of them stumbled out of the calm low lighting of the lobby into the glare of Second Avenue, Jonathan looked at his dogs. ‘The hotel is off,’ he said. ‘We could all stay at the George V in Paris for what that place costs.’ Dante’s ears flicked up at the thought of the George V while Sissy gazed warmly at Jonathan. As long as we’re with you, her eyes said.
Jonathan pulled the dogs aside to make way for a young woman with a large brown speckled dog headed for the hotel door.
‘Excuse me,’ he called. ‘I’m sorry but you can’t take your dog in there.’
The woman turned, and with a start he recognized Dr Clare.
‘Well,’ she said, noticing the dogs first. ‘Fancy meeting you here.’
Dr Clare looked different in real life. Her hair was messier and she wore dark jeans that ended above her ankles, with chunky boots. She was tall, nearly six foot, and looked as if she might just have rolled out of bed: no make-up, no jewellery, no bag, just a big brown speckled dog on a green leather leash. She looked at Jonathan and smiled. It wasn’t her professional smile; it was broader, warmer.
Sissy and Dante greeted her with enthusiasm. ‘Hello, you two,’ she said, kneeling down on the sidewalk to pat them.
When she stood up again, he thrust out his hand. ‘Hello, Dr Clare.’
She took his hand without embarrassment and shook it. Jonathan was slightly reluctant to let go; her hand was warm and claspy.
‘Why can’t I go in there?’ she asked. ‘Is it closed?’
‘No, not closed. Morally wrong.’
She frowned at him. ‘But I’ve heard it’s amazing. Have your dogs stayed there?’
He thought for a minute. ‘I shouldn’t presume. You might like it, I can’t be sure.’ He tilted his head and looked at her carefully. ‘But I’m guessing not.’
‘I’m going away. With my boyfriend.’ She took a step back from him, her brow furrowed. ‘Everyone says it’s the best dog hotel in town. He thought it must be good.’
‘Depends what he means by good,’ Jonathan said. ‘If by good he means the end of civilization as we know it, then yes, it’s good. If by good he means something that will give you a truly terrified feeling about the future of the human race, then yes, it’s excellent. If he means anything decent and normal and sane, then I’m afraid, no. No, it is not at all good.’
Dr Clare looked confused for a second. Then her mouth curled up ever-so-slightly at the corners and her eyes met his.
He felt a fizz of pleasure and they stood like that for just a bit too long, not wanting to break the spell.
Finally she looked away, suppressing a smile. ‘Well, I suppose, as I’m here, I’d better see for myself. But thank you for warning us.’ She paused. ‘We haven’t seen you lately. Not that I’m complaining. I’m hoping it means everyone’s healthy?’
‘They’re happier,’ Jonathan said. ‘I guess that helps.’
‘Good dogs,’ she said, and smiled at them both. ‘I’m very pleased to hear that.’
Jonathan felt a flush of pleasure. ‘And this is?’
‘Wilma,’ she said. ‘Like the Flintstones’
‘Nice to meet you, Wilma.’
At the sound of her name, Wilma lunged forward excitedly at Jonathan, pulling Dr Clare off balance. Jonathan grabbed her arm, Sissy barked and Dante tugged in the opposite direction. For a brief moment, dogs and humans teetered dangerously, re-establishing ninety-degree angles to the ground only at the last possible second. Wilma panted. Jonathan still gripped Dr Clare’s arm.
‘Are you OK?’
She smiled, a bit wildly. ‘My dog’s stronger than she looks.’
‘Actually, she looks very strong.’ He let go of her arm.
They stood almost but not quite facing each other, neither entirely willing to move away. Her eyes, which he hadn’t specifically noticed before, were large and warm and lively and reminded him of Sissy’s. Had she said she was going away with her boyfriend? Why did everyone have a boyfriend? And why did all the attractive women in New York City start smiling at him just when he decided to get married?
‘I’m getting married soon,’ he blurted out.
‘Congratulations,’ she said. ‘How lovely.’
‘Not really,’ Jonathan said.
She looked startled.
‘It’s kind of a long story.’
Dr Clare coughed, embarrassed. ‘I’m afraid I, ah, I have to go.’
‘Don’t say I didn’t warn you,’ Jonathan said, indicating the hotel. He watched as she disappeared through the door, feeling vaguely deflated, as if some pivotal moment had slipped just out of reach.
Dante watched too, looking thoughtful.
18
Julie accepted a freebie from a new B&B in southern Vermont that wanted wedding business and took dogs. All she had to do was write a few paragraphs about it for the Bridal-360 blog. Budget-wise, it was the perfect solution as neither of them really had the money for a long weekend on Sanibel.
It didn’t take Julie long to re-imagine herself as the sort of person who escaped to Vermont at regular intervals. Oh, I’m sorry, we’re doing Christmas in Vermont this year. Or I can’t believe you haven’t been to our Vermont place yet! Or It’s so annoying, I’m always leaving stuff in Vermont. Vermont-Julie had a house filled with antique chests of drawers, weathered old signs from gas stations and tractor parts used as bookends. Vermont-Julie collected antique quilts and hand-crocheted throws that someone else’s great-great-grandmother had painstakingly made during the terrible winter of 1915–16. Vermont-Julie’s unusual weathervane served as a talking point while her sourdough bread rose by the fire. Vermont-Julie knotted expensive cashmere sweaters (purchased online) around her shoulders in an offhand way.
They drove up on Friday afternoon, Vermont-Julie only slightly resentful about the backseat passengers, arriving at the inn before dinner. Their welcome consisted of a bottle of wine, a water bowl and a roaring fire in the communal living room. The couple who owned the inn, a retired investment banker and his husband, introduced Dante and Sissy to Sunny and Sally, their yellow Labs, and suggested a preprandial walk to enjoy the sunset and the quiet. After the long journey, the dogs seemed elated to be out in woodland; even Dante set aside his dignity to chase shadows and squirrels.
Jonathan put his arm around Julie, who laid her head on his shoulder. For once, she seemed truly happy. At dinner they ordered venison and duck with baby carrots, spinach and roast potatoes and shared a bottle of California Pinot Noir and both had panna cotta with figs for dessert.
‘Thank goodness I like it,’ Julie whispered as they stretched out between 400-thread-count cotton sheets under silvery silk quilts. ‘It’s a nightmare when the free stuff is awful.’ She tapped up a rave review for TripAdvisor before they went to sleep, blogged the place on Bridal-360’s blog and posted pictures on Pinterest and Tumblr. It would help the business, she knew it would, and justifiably, for it was hard to imagine a more romantic wedding venue. She thought of suggesting it to Lorenza but it wasn’t the sort of place her art director would like, what with the sticky Wi-Fi, full-fat milk and no Barneys for three hundred miles. Auster and Phil (who bought the place with Phil’s severance package from Bear Stearns) sat down with Julie in the kitchen, describing their dream of bespoke weddings for gay men and their dogs, and she promised to refer readers to their website and video diary.
‘It’s niche,’ Julie explained to Jonathan, ‘but not out-there niche.’
After a breakfast of home-laid poached eggs, homemade toast, home-baked bl
ueberry muffins, home-cured bacon and home-ground coffee, they set off for the flea market in a nearby town, which specialized in New England bric-a-brac (watering cans, old photographs, costume jewellery, books) and vintage furniture. Jonathan found Julie a silver link necklace from the 1950s, though she tried to say she didn’t need it.
The woman selling looked genuinely stymied. ‘Need it? Of course you don’t need it, honey. You don’t need that either,’ she said, pointing at Jonathan, ‘but it makes you happy.’
Which of course raised the question, and made Julie and Jonathan too embarrassed to look at each other. Jonathan asked if that price was the best she could do, feeling obliged to bargain so as not to be mistaken for a rube.
‘Sure, I can do a better price,’ the woman answered, her eyes flat. ‘If you don’t mind taking food out of the mouths of my kids.’
Jonathan smiled apologetically and handed over the tag price, while Julie pretended not to have heard the exchange. But the purchase was ruined for them both and, despite wearing the necklace for the rest of the day, Julie tugged at it unconsciously, running her thumb continually along its length in nervous irritation.
Jonathan browsed the tables of flea merchandise. Didn’t most people have enough junk without buying stuff that other people didn’t want? It felt wrong to him, paying for the patina of near-antiquity in order to suggest that they had ancient relatives with valuable old-fashioned things. But he didn’t say anything to disturb Julie’s pleasure in scanning table after table, seeking – along with hundreds of others – that elusive thing to improve the quality of her life.
The dogs experienced life at ground level, finding the occasional discarded piece of cake or unguarded sandwich. From the point of view of long walks and scavenging, the country was proving too good to be true.
Jonathan felt pleased that their weekend hadn’t turned out to be a nightmare, that Julie didn’t despise his dogs and that the whole thing had cost very little. Every once in a while he’d squint and try to imagine coming back every year to stay with Auster and Phil for a weekend of blueberry muffins and flea marketing, but it was the other Jonathan who came back in his place, the distant middle-aged product of his flawed imagination. That Jonathan had nothing in common with his current self, a crude drawing on an Etch A Sketch, stilted and ephemeral, easily and casually erased by the slightest movement of life.
Julie helped him to feel defined. He was Julie’s boyfriend. Julie’s fiancé. Julie’s provocation. He came into focus when he stood beside her, despite the fact that the person standing beside her was mostly not him.
He looked at the dogs. With them he was the Jonathan who liked to walk around town, who didn’t stop them eating hot dogs from the gutter, who worried about them, cared for them, loved them. Was a relationship with dogs the best he could expect in life? He felt disloyal even thinking of it as a limitation. To be loved by dogs; well, it was a thing. Not as big a thing as being loved by a person, perhaps, but still.
All around the open area of the flea market, men and women walked with their dogs, talking to them, holding them, adjusting dog coats and dog sweaters, asking their opinions on pieces of hopeless junk. And not a single dog made a contemptuous face and turned away muttering, ‘Waste of goddamned money if you ask me.’
Who wouldn’t prefer dogs?
Julie called him over to examine a brown and orange glazed vase of exceptional ugliness. ‘These ceramics are very collectible,’ she whispered in his ear, and he managed to arrange his features into an approximation of Sissy-like enthusiasm. Collectible? Wow! Go for it, his expression said, but when he saw the price he turned away. Charging two hundred dollars for something hideous didn’t make it nicer, did it? Did it convert the vase, in Julie’s eyes, into a thing of beauty?
‘What do you think, Jonathan? Should I buy it?’ Her eyes sparkled and he could tell that, for whatever reason, she wanted this thing. Really wanted it. He could have made her happy by saying, Yes! It’s gorgeous! You’ll love it! I’ll buy it for you!
But he didn’t.
She sighed and put it back.
The rest of the weekend passed in long walks and good meals and fine scenery. They parted from Phil and Auster as if from old friends, with invitations to future Christmases, promises to exchange pictures of the dogs and generous vacation discounts for life.
In the car on the way back to New York City, Julie looked thoughtful.
‘What?’ Jonathan asked, and she said, ‘I wish I’d bought that vase.’
He had no idea how to answer, so said nothing at all.
19
The meeting with Lorenza was set for six on Tuesday afternoon.
Jonathan arrived at five forty-five with the dogs. He’d been drinking coffee all day and developed a noticeable tremor. Julie met him in reception.
‘Are you OK?’
‘Fine,’ he said, kissing her. Dante and Sissy sat politely by his side.
Julie tutted. ‘What are we going to do with them?’
‘I thought you might take them around the block for however long the interview lasts.’ Jonathan privately thought that ten minutes would be plenty of time to get the wedding interview over and done with.
‘She wants to talk to us both. Tease out the dynamic. You know, get a feel for the whole relationship thing.’
Jonathan flinched. He wasn’t sure that the whole relationship thing bore teasing out. He had visions of it emerging from its cave like Smaug and reducing them all to cinders.
The more he thought about it, the more he just wanted this funeral over and done with.
‘Did you say funeral?’
‘No.’ Jonathan looked puzzled. ‘Why do you keep saying funeral?’
‘I’m not the one who keeps saying funeral.’
‘I’m not either, so could we just stop with the funeral?’
Julie sighed. ‘Come meet Lorenza.’
‘A pleasure,’ Lorenza said when Julie introduced them, offering her hand limply and looking Jonathan up and down like a PET scan. She grimaced. The missing link confirmed her worst fears.
They all sat down and Jonathan stared. Lorenza appeared to have arrived at the meeting straight out of a black and white copy machine. She had black hair and pale skin and wore a black jacket, white man’s dress shirt, black brogues with no socks and straight black trousers. Her hair was cut in sharp geometrics, her eyebrows black and arched. She wore charcoal nail varnish and blackish-red lipstick.
‘So,’ said Jonathan. ‘The art director. Who’d have guessed?’
Lorenza glanced at Jonathan, then at Julie. ‘Nice dogs. Were you thinking of featuring them in the ceremony?’
Jonathan suddenly imagined Julie in a simple white linen shift with lace pantaloons peeping out the bottom and a tall crook decorated with a pink bow. Dante darted back and forth, shaping groups of adorable lambs into the letters ‘I DO’ against a pale green meadow. A Bo Peep wedding. There wasn’t really a role for him in it but he didn’t mind. He would come along later, for the after party.
‘Jonathan.’ The way Julie said his name was warning enough.
‘The dogs,’ Jonathan said, recovering. ‘What do you think, Julie?’
‘No dogs.’
The dogs looked up at her – Sissy with consternation; Dante hood-eyed, blank.
‘I have no real objections to that.’ He arranged his face in a careful configuration of interest and concern but thought he might be grimacing grotesquely by mistake. Lately he’d forgotten how to form ordinary facial expressions.
Julie ignored him, smiling ingratiatingly at Lorenza. ‘Why don’t you share your vision with us.’
Lorenza looked at the ceiling and then down again. She took a deep breath and exhaled as if smoking an invisible cigarette, gazed into the middle distance, dropped one long forearm to the table and spoke.
‘I’m seeing artisanal cocktails in fresh spring tones,’ she said. ‘Infusions of mint, peach and violet. Taupe for the bridesmaids with snowdrops and white li
lac. A spring renewal feeling, soil and green shoots.’
Julie leaned forward on her chair. ‘Wow.’
Jonathan stared out the window, frantically trying to form normal responses in his head. What even was taupe?
‘And the dress?’
Lorenza paused. She turned away for a long moment. ‘Celadon,’ she said at last, opening a large coffee-table-type book to a page marked with a strip of fabric. ‘Silk jersey, after this one made for Jackie Kennedy in 1961. An Oleg Cassini classic.’ She paused and studied Julie. ‘Not everyone could carry it off, but with your colouring . . .’ She made an approving little moue.
Julie’s hands flew to her face. ‘Celadon! Oh!’
Her tone alerted Jonathan that something important had happened. ‘Celadon,’ he echoed. ‘Amazing.’ He glanced nervously from Lorenza to Julie.
Julie’s face had transformed, as if in the midst of a religious conversion. ‘I think I’m getting your vision. I think . . . I can hardly breathe.’
Lorenza looked questioningly at Jonathan, who stared back, devoid of thought.
‘Well,’ he said. ‘I’m thinking . . . yes.’ He had no idea what he was saying yes to.
‘That’s it then,’ Julie said to the art director in triumph. ‘We love your vision. We are as one.’
Jonathan was as three. Sissy had edged closer to his chair and was now curled up under it, head on paws, face anxious. Dante had angled his body slightly away from the proceedings, but the prick of his ears indicated that he was taking it all in.
Jonathan experienced a great rush of gratitude for the presence of his dogs. They were on his side, even if being on his side didn’t necessarily mean they had the best interests of his future with Julie at heart. He reached down to Dante, who gazed up at him intently.
‘. . . not black. A deep burnt chocolate.’
Julie nodded vigorously and Jonathan realized that they were talking about his suit. He tore his eyes away from Dante and wondered if the chocolate would be burnt while he was wearing it or before. In his head he added the scene to The Jonathan File: he, the bridegroom, engulfed in flames, running through the wedding screaming, fire shooting from his sleeves and collar.