Gizelle's Bucket List

by Lauren Fern Watt

  Needless to say, despite lovable, our third roommate was not an asset to the search.

  “How much does your dog weigh again? You said she was bigger, right?” Allie asked, leading us to potential new home number seventeen, another “total steal.”

  I didn’t want to tell the real estate agent how big Gizelle actually was. I even left her weight blank on the paperwork. Like a lot of girls, Gizelle’s weight fluctuated. She was a little bigger than usual at this point—the biggest she’d ever be. This may have been partly because when I left to study abroad Gizelle was left doing lots of studying the couch and not getting quite as much exercise as she had with me. So when I returned, myself with puffy pain-au-chocolat cheeks, another chin, and a new Nutella crepe belly, I was not alone in newfound surface area. Gizelle’s voluptuous curves were no longer, and she had entered what Tripp called “Gizelle’s Bathtub Phase.” My girl was about 180 pounds.

  “Umm. She’s just over a hundred pounds,” I told Allie when she asked directly. Sorry, but everyone has to lie about her weight at some point. Allie’s eyes widened, her nostrils flared, and she shook her head. “Oh, well, a dog that size is really going to limit you,” she warned in a parental tone, shuffling through the papers on her clipboard. She didn’t know the half of it. Truly, there was a whole other half of Gizelle that Pencil Skirt didn’t know existed. I didn’t feel that bad lying to Allie about Gizelle’s weight. Allie kept lying to us, too. Allie kept telling us her apartments were affordable and large and sunny. These apartments were none of those things.

  I began to despair. I was trying not to be picky. I didn’t need a big, sprawling house, and neither did Kimmy. Neither did Gizelle, come to think of it. A small apartment would probably be Gizelle’s dream, as my lap still seemed to be her most desired residence.

  So Kimmy and I kept looking for a small but livable apartment. And just as I was about to decide this New York City apartment hunt was one terrible tragedy, we followed Allie into an apartment on Forty-Third between Eighth and Ninth Avenues.

  She flipped on the light.

  My mouth fell open in amazement. I couldn’t believe my eyes. There was room for a couch and a chair and a TV and a large dog, and there was a separate kitchen. We didn’t own furniture, but it was nice to know that if we did, there would be a place to put it. There were two bedrooms, and a private wooden patio out back with a fence around it. It was a miraculous discovery. Allie kept looking down at her clipboard then back up at the apartment in shock, and I worried she’d made a mistake and shown us a place that wasn’t in our price range. But there was no mistake.

  One of the rooms was significantly bigger than the other, and I thought Kimmy and I might fight over it. “You can have the bigger one,” Kimmy said, totally unconcerned. “You have the pup!” There was even a tree on this back patio. Yes, a tree. Okay, the tree was growing from somewhere underneath the back bedroom, and the roots did push that bedroom floor into a slope, and sometimes when it was windy I was scared the tree would fall and uproot the entire place and we’d fly away like Dorothy. But there was a tree! A tree to remind me of Tennessee. The last tenant had even left white Christmas lights strung across the fence, a couple of lanterns, and flower pots for a garden. I could put a hammock back there. There was enough room for Gizelle to lie in the sun. A license plate that said RIO hung on the wooden fence from some twine. And, just like that, our first apartment in New York City had a name.

  * * *

  Kimmy and I decorated Rio by browsing the sidewalks of Hell’s Kitchen. Our apartment was like a shelter for stray and abandoned furniture. We took it all: poor, tired, broken chairs, a countertop down on its luck that we painted black and used as a bar, a rolling side table in need of a new home. Kimmy’s dad even found a couch on the street by their house in Hartford after a rainstorm. It was nothing short of hideous—olive green and still damp. We didn’t care. We took that, too. We marched it to the back of Rio’s patio and it became affectionately known as Swamp Thang. In the kitchen, Kimmy hung the corkboard we’d bought from Jack’s 99 Cent Store. “Nothing cheesy,” she said. “None of that Live, Laugh, Love crap in this apartment.”

  We splurged on chalkboard paint so that we could color and write important stuff on the walls. Lists. “Buy shower curtain,” I wrote. It took us about a week to get that done; in the meantime water just spilled to the floor and you took your steps carefully after getting out of the shower. “Get grown-up jobs,” we wrote. We both already had restaurant jobs. My older cousin had hooked me up with a job at a bar on the Upper West Side before I’d even arrived in New York so that I could have an immediate source of income, and Kimmy was a waitress at a gastropub in Murray Hill. In a few weeks we would write the best message of all: “Welcome to New York, Gizelle!”

  * * *

  It seemed like a good omen: an empty parking spot for Mom right in front of my apartment. Mom was out of rehab and living in a town house in Nashville and seemed to be doing well. Lately, when she and I spoke on the phone, her voice was crisper and more clear. She called to check up on me more often, and I told her all about my new Times Square apartment. She asked if she could please drive Gizelle to me, so we could have “Mommy-Lauren” time. She missed me. Still, it was never easy to figure out how she was really doing, but her wanting to visit me seemed like a great sign. She asked if I could email her a list of the things I wanted from my old room and she would drive them to me. My mom is back! I hoped, feeling lucky that I had a mother who would offer to do these things for me.

  Gizelle jumped out of my mom’s SUV, first dropping her front paws on the sidewalk, then lugging her hefty second half out of the car. She wasn’t always the fastest-moving dog, but when she saw me, her ears perked forward, her eyes widened, and she started jumping up and down with her front paws. I did not keep it cool, either. “Gizelle!” I gasped, “Hi! Hi, my girl! Hi!” I wrapped my arms around her neck as she nibbled my nose on the sidewalk of Forty-Third. “I missed you!” She did a few more excited circles in front of me, then kept jumping her front paws in the air while I swatted them with my hands.

  “Hi, Mom!” I said, running to hug her next, a little nervous to see her. What if her eyes are foggy? What if she’s slurring her words? I trusted her to drive Gizelle all the way to New York, but my biggest fear was still Mom driving under the influence. Sure, a part of me knew if she wasn’t doing well, she probably wouldn’t have offered to make the long trip to New York in the first place. When she wasn’t doing well, she seemed to try to avoid seeing us. But when I saw my mother rush toward me, her eyes brightening as she opened her arms to hug me and her face breaking into an enormous smile, my shoulders relaxed. Mom squeezed me tight. Her car was filled with my things—my big map of the world, Gizelle’s dog bed, my little Buddha statue, a suitcase stuffed with books.

  I pointed out our building. “Oh my gosh, I love your home, sweetie!” Mom gasped, pinching my hand as she smiled and looked up at the apartment. The building had a cracked front door, which had been duct-taped and graffitied, and a buzzer that buzzed at random without being pressed. The hallway had blinking fluorescent lights that gave it a horror-movie murder-scene feel. “I’m so happy for you!” Mom said. “It’s magical.”

  And that was also how I knew my mother was doing well: she thought my rundown apartment across from the Port Authority Bus Terminal was magical. When she was sober, I swear the woman could find the beauty in anything. Seeing Gizelle, my mom, and my stuff sitting in laundry baskets on the sidewalk made me realize that this move was real and permanent . . . at least as permanent as things get for a twenty-three-year-old.

  I couldn’t believe it—Gizelle and I were living in the middle of Manhattan, a little over a block away from Madame Tussauds wax museum, and (most conveniently) right next to the Times Square 99 Cent Express Pizza joint. Our local Walgreens pharmacy sign flickered in flashy, impressive red neon. And I needed no reminder that INYC, because it was written all over thousands of knickknacks in tourist s
hops that lined Eighth Avenue. Mom and I gathered up the laundry baskets and we all trekked into Rio.

  * * *

  Mom stayed for a couple of days. She took Kimmy and me to Anthony Bourdain’s restaurant, Les Halles. I was pleased when my mother ordered water but insisted Kimmy and I order a celebratory glass of champagne. The next day Mom drove us to Ikea, where Kimmy and I were entirely too ambitious in thinking that our apartment was a palace and bought a shelf that was way too big for the living room. We attempted putting it together, piece by piece, blocking Gizelle into the hallway until we finally realized this shelf was never going to fit. “No worries, girls.” Mom smiled as she helped us take the shelf apart. Then she drove us right back to Ikea the next day.

  Arm in arm, Mom and I walked Gizelle briefly around the block. “Let’s not overdo it with her, sweetie,” she warned, explaining that since we didn’t want gentle Gizelle to go into sensory overload, we should introduce her to city life slowly. I agreed. On my mom’s last night in New York, Gizelle and I walked her to her hotel a couple of blocks away. “Thanks for everything, Mommy,” I said, hugging her tight. I released my grasp and her eyes lingered for a moment on the lights behind me. “Mom?” Then she shifted her eyes to me. “You okay?” I asked. She paused for a moment.

  “Of course.” She kissed my cheek again and disappeared into the hotel. I couldn’t help but wonder what my mother was going to do when she got upstairs to her hotel room, or worse, back to her apartment in Nashville where she was all alone.

  5

  Times Scare

  Journaling on Rio’s rooftop; New York, New York

  Regardless of Mom’s state of recovery or lack thereof, it was incredible she had brought me Gizelle. Plus, Gizelle and I were city girls now. We were on our own. Maybe it was time to put aside the addiction concerns I had with my mother. I was in New York City! I had my best friend with me now. It was November. Time to explore.

  I wrapped Gizelle’s pink leather leash around my hand to keep her close to my knee, praying she wouldn’t tuck her tail and crouch toward the sidewalk, pulling away from the honking taxies, loud subway grates, and high-speed rolling Nuts 4 Nuts carts that I occasionally found myself ducking away from. “You got this, girl,” I coached. We walked across town on Forty-Third Street to Bryant Park, and much to my surprise, Gizelle did have this. Gizelle didn’t duck away from Manhattan; she merged onto the sidewalk, which was more of a freeway of people, and remained by my side. Her hips shifted as she walked. She didn’t stop and stand in place. She wasn’t distracted by the motion and noise around us. Gizelle walked on casually, not paying attention to anything or anyone, like a true New Yorker. Gizelle? How are you doing this? I thought, wishing she’d give me pointers on how to look more city girl. So far it seemed as though Gizelle could handle Manhattan, but it didn’t take long for me to start wondering if Manhattan could handle Gizelle.

  When we crossed Forty-Third and Broadway at Times Square, Gizelle scared Batman. As we approached, Bruce Wayne pulled his bat cape around him and tucked his pillow-stuffed muscle chest behind a guy dressed as his thug rival, Bane. “Aw, shit! That’s a big-ass dog!” Batman cursed. Gotham was in serious trouble.

  Gizelle and I parted a sea of cartoon characters—Hello Kitty, Elmo, Buzz Lightyear, the Pink Power Ranger, Mario and Luigi, all of whom marched around the busy pedestrian walkway much like Batman did, in costumes that looked a little like they came from Party City. And much like Batman did, the cartoons would all step back and point, sometimes lifting their masks, sweaty red faces exposed, watching Gizelle in wonder as if she were a superpower they hadn’t yet contended with.

  Longtime local the Naked Cowboy, known for busking in nothing but tighty-whities and cowboy boots, looked down at my huge brindle and then back up at me, dumbfounded, as though I were the crazy one. Sir, it’s November, I wanted to point out. You’re standing in Times Square in your skivvies playing guitar. She’s only a dog.

  * * *

  I always envisioned New Yorkers rushing past one another on the streets. I pictured them in black business suits, focused, serious, and oblivious to everything but their own agenda. Well, that was not our experience. When people saw Gizelle on the sidewalks of Hell’s Kitchen, they seemed to lose control over their emotions. They’d broadcast whatever came to mind.

  “That is not a dog, that’s Jumanji.”

  “Cujo!”

  “Holy shit!”

  “YOU CRAZY!”

  “Lion!”

  “Tiger!”

  “Whoa!”

  It was almost as though guessing Gizelle’s species were a parlor game, like charades or celebrity, in which passersby had to blurt out an answer as fast as they could.

  “The Beast!”

  “Mufasssaaaaaa!”

  “Godzilla!”

  “Sandlot!”

  “Beowulf!” (Grendel?)

  “A bear!”

  “Whoa!”

  People loved telling me that Gizelle was anything but a dog. One guy outside a deli on Eighth Avenue tapped me with one finger to let me know, politely, carefully and with utter assurance, “I would like to let you know, that is not a dog. That is a Tyrannosaurus Rex.” It was clear that he was trying to help me out. He wanted to make sure I knew I was actually walking a fierce carnivorous lizard from the late Cretaceous Period so that I would take the necessary precautions.

  Sometimes people also took the trouble to point out to me that Gizelle was, indeed, a dog. But in this scenario, it was usually sandwiched somewhere in the middle of the words, “Holy shit! That’s a big fuckin’ dog!”

  It was as if no one had ever seen a dog before, which was bizarre because this neighborhood had a lot of them. “How do you have that dog in the city?” “Where do you live?” “How big is your apartment?” people asked, paparazzi style. Sometimes people with bigger dogs, like Labs or golden retrievers, would stop and ask the same thing, “Oh my god! How on earth do you fit that in an apartment?” And this was always very funny to me because, as I looked down, it was their lab that was practically doing a River Dance, running in circles, tangled up in the leash or jumping up and down on two legs for a ball in the owner’s hand, while Gizelle, who got sick of standing in one place, was usually lying on the sidewalk by that time. She was impossible to keep clean. A layer of city grime clung to her beautiful brindle coat every time we left the house. This layer of grime sometimes found its way to my bedsheets. Needless to say, bath time became more of a priority than ever before. Gizelle being allowed on the sheets also became much more regulated with that bath-time schedule.

  Gizelle’s poo situation didn’t help with any efforts to blend in. They brought her more attention than I ever would have wished. I’d watch the small-dog owners plucking, with two fingers, their pup’s tiny number twos in what I could only assume were pink watermelon-scented bags, while I used produce bags I’d hijacked from Trader Joe’s, hoping two would be enough and praying for no plastic malfunctions. There were sometimes malfunctions. Maybe a shovel would have been easier. In Tennessee, Gizelle droppings didn’t have an audience. I’d clean it up from a quiet green park, plunk it in a trash bin, and no big deal. “It’s like it didn’t even happen, girl,” I’d assure her.

  Now that Gizelle had to go on Manhattan’s busy sidewalks in front of large crowds, there was nowhere to hide. People held their noses as they passed and someone, without fail, would always wind up calling out, “Gross!”

  Perhaps this is why it took Gizelle a week to work up the courage to go in Manhattan in the first place. On walks, Gizelle stared at me like I was crazy for actually thinking she was going to use the busy, scent-filled sidewalk as a potty, like all the other city dogs. I imagined she felt like girls do when they need to go at a new boyfriend’s, or in a Bonnaroo porta potty—you’re most likely just not going to do it. You can’t. You’ll wait. But I don’t think Gizelle got that she couldn’t just wait. Bonnaroo was home now.

  A week passed. I grew worried. I ca
lled her vet. I googled “My dog won’t shit” and “How to make your dog go on concrete.” We’d walk around Hell’s Kitchen to Bryant Park, to private parking lots where she could be shielded by cars, to the waterfront by the West Side Highway, but Gizelle only sniffed. I had a strong urge to let her consecrate the no-dogs Bryant Park lawn if exclusivity was what she needed, but we refrained. Then, one day, the job fell to Kimmy.

  Kimmy and Gizelle were on Forty-Third Street and Tenth Avenue near a Dunkin’ Donuts, a favorite spot of Kimmy’s, being from Boston and all. In a hurry, Kimmy had chosen to tempt fate and not bring a Trader Joe’s doggy poop bag with her, a monumentally bad decision. Gizelle had waited long enough. All of a sudden, she halted on the busy sidewalk and squatted. After a week of not going, Kimmy said it was so big it could have shaken the Empire State Building. People dodged the massive pile with horror as Kimmy stood there, empty-handed, arms out like a soccer goalie trying to stop people from stepping in it, unsure what to do. So, she held her breath, dug out an extra-large, bucket-sized Dunkin’ Donuts iced coffee cup from a pile of trash to scoop it up and then placed Gizelle’s copious work on an already overflowing trash bin. Then she immediately texted: “OMG! Gizelle pooped! And holy shit! Giz’s shits are huge.” I sent her back poo emojis and celebration confetti emojis and we both wondered if this was how it felt when your toddler grew up to win the Nobel Prize.

  * * *

  There is a reason Times Square is called the Crossroads of the World. Over 300,000 pedestrians walk through it every day. There seemed to be every type of human in one place, and Gizelle and I lived among them, in what sometimes felt like living in a combination of Las Vegas and Disney World. Sometimes it felt like we’d tumbled down a well and woken up in this strange land filled with the sounds of taxi horns and jackhammers and a whole lotta people. Which was ironic, because that’s exactly what happens in Enchanted, the movie whose protagonist Gizelle is named for. Naive Princess Giselle (Amy Adams) is pushed down a well by an evil queen and falls from her perfect, cartoon fairy-tale world and ends up trapped in real life. In Times Square, actually.