Earnest

by Kristin von Kreisler

  Jeff stopped himself from saying more. In this situation no one would win, especially not Earnest. Right now what mattered most was keeping him secure. Jeff told himself, Traipse lightly on the eggshells. Don’t get Anna’s dander up any more than it is. Go along to get along. But he’d never imagined that going along would mean leaving behind his dog.

  “Fine. You keep him,” Jeff said gently. For Earnest’s sake, Jeff kept his voice calm, hardly what he felt. He hung the leash on its hook, replaced the cans on the pantry shelf, and poured the kibble into the plastic bin.

  “Bye, Buddy.” Jeff squatted down and hugged him as he had when he’d arrived, but, for both of them, the joy seemed to have drained out of the gesture. Jeff patted Earnest’s side and got a hollow, empty sound. Earnest seemed stiff, tense. He might have been holding back feelings he didn’t understand.

  Collateral damage. To my best friend. Damn. If Jeff let himself, he could be as mad at Anna as she was at him.

  But he wouldn’t let himself. Back to his plan. He smiled at Anna, who seemed to have launched a new career in glowering. “See you, Honey.” He headed toward the door with Earnest at his heels.

  “Wait a minute,” she said.

  He stopped, turned around. Please, say you don’t want me to leave. Please, let’s go back as we were. “What’s the matter?”

  She held out her hand, flat, palm up. “I can’t live here if I could come home and find you in the living room. I need the key.”

  What the hell? This was Jeff ’s condo as much as hers. He’d signed the lease with her. He’d paid most of the deposit and sometimes her half of the rent. Besides, giving her the key was too final. Being Mr. Nice Guy was getting old. Fast.

  But then he thought, Humor her. Let her keep the damned key for a few weeks. What difference does it make?

  As he worked the key off the chain she’d given him for Christmas, its four-leaf clover dangled upside down and seemed to spill out Jeff’s luck. He dropped the key onto Anna’s palm, patted Earnest, and said a pleasant good-bye. Without looking back, Jeff walked out the door.

  CHAPTER 13

  Earnest limped to the bedroom and sniffed Jeff ’s side of the bed. He examined Jeff’s empty half of the closet and plodded into the living room. He stopped at the love seat, where Jeff and Anna often cuddled under a quilt and watched TV, and he circled the wingback chair, where Jeff read his nightly Seattle Tribune. After searching for Jeff ’s drafting table in the study, Earnest checked Jeff ’s place at the kitchen table.

  Then Earnest started his restless patrol again. He would not stop pacing. His whimpers let Anna know his feelings: Where is Jeff ? I am upset and confused.

  As Anna watched him, her heart melted. It wasn’t fair for Jeff to tarnish Earnest’s shining spirit. Jeff could ruin her life, but Earnest’s? And just so Jeff could chase ambition? His professional success was not worth a louse’s toenail of the anguish he was causing their dear, sweet dog.

  Earnest came to Anna. From deep inside his cone, he looked up at her with undeniable torment that asked again, Where is he? What did you do with him?

  “Sweetie, I haven’t done anything with Jeff. He’s moved out.” There was nothing else to say. She couldn’t gloss over the truth when Earnest could decipher nuances of behavior and read minds.

  Anna wanted to point out that Jeff had been a jerk, but she stopped herself. After a breakup, parents weren’t supposed to disparage each other to their children, and surely that rule also applied to sensitive dogs.

  All she could think to do was to distract Earnest. From a ceramic cookie jar, she picked out one of the vile cow’s hooves that Jeff bought for him in spite of Anna’s guaranteed recoil. To her, there was something gruesome about his gnawing on a hoof, but, to him, it was the golden key that unlocked Nirvana’s door. Barely touching the hoof, she set it on the kitchen floor. She expected Earnest to be ebullient. He’d chomp it with abandon and forget that Jeff was gone.

  To aid the chomping, she removed Earnest’s cone. He glanced at the hoof, then up at her so the whites under his eyes looked like dejected supine crescent moons. I’m on to you. You can’t bribe me, said his pressed-back ears.

  Earnest picked up the hoof in his teeth, escorted it to the study, and dropped it where Jeff ’s drafting table had been. As Earnest walked away, he offered his unambiguous view of Anna’s method of distraction: Phooey on your hoof. I don’t want it. I want Jeff.

  Earnest limped to Jeff ’s wingback chair and curled up in his cannelloni bean position next to where Jeff normally placed his feet. Earnest could not have made plainer where he stood on the matter of Jeff ’s absence: It is terrible. Unacceptable. Cruel. Earnest closed his eyes and retreated to a dark and tangled mental forest.

  When the phone rang, a small, sad, sorry piece of Anna wished the caller might be Jeff. Because of Earnest, she was torn. Part of her felt like a huffy begrudger, who wanted Jeff banished from her life. But another part felt like a wounded lamb, who wished Jeff would come home and reassure Earnest so he’d be himself again and they could go back to being a family.

  However, Anna mentally grabbed herself by the scruff of her neck and told herself that the wounded lamb had to go. She would serve it on a platter with asparagus for Easter dinner before she would think again of getting together with Jeff. Wanting him home was out of the question.

  Anna picked up the kitchen phone.

  “Boy, have I got good news for you.” Joy laughed the low and lusty laugh of her villain Murdon when he’d snatched Penelope away from the Cornwall pub. Lately, Joy had gone back to writing, much to the relief of Anna and Lauren. When Joy was working on her novel, she sometimes acted like her characters.

  “I could use some good news.” Anna sat at the table and twirled a fork between her thumb and index finger.

  “Divine justice comes to Mrs. Scroogemore! Tee-hee! Lightning strikes the old bat!” Joy said. “I hinted that she was negligent about the wiring and we might sue her if she didn’t let us stay in the house for a third of the rent. She agreed as long as we’d move out quickly if she gives notice.”

  “What about rewiring?”

  “She said she can’t afford repairs. Can you believe that?!” Another Murdon chortle. “She said there’s a separate electrical panel in the garage that some tenant put in for his shop. If we buy those long orange extension cords at the hardware store, we can get electricity from the garage into the house.”

  “Would that work? Is it safe?”

  “Lauren called her electrician cousin. He said the setup would be weird, but okay for now,” Joy said. “The buzzard woman said she’d have her lawyer write up some paper for us to sign. She refuses to be responsible for our safety.”

  “Typical.” Anna rested her elbow on the table. “At least now we have some time before we’d have to move out.”

  “Exactly. Mission accomplished, except I want her to suffer. I want cannibals to get a crack at her. I want them to broil her in her St. John’s suit.”

  “Oh, well,” Anna said.

  “You don’t sound very happy. I thought you’d be ecstatic.”

  “Jeff just moved out. He tried to take Earnest. At least he backed off.”

  “Uh-oh. Red flag. I read in New Divorce Magazine that couples fight for custody of pets,” Joy said. “Maybe he’s playing nice before he goes to a lawyer.”

  “You think he’d actually do that?” Anna sat up straight.

  “You never know. You should line up Mad Dog Horowitz. He’s the lawyer who freed me from the Twit,” Joy said. “Here, I’ll give you the number.”

  As Anna wrote it down, conflict bit into her again, but this time in a new way. Now instead of the huffy begrudger versus the wounded lamb, she was of two minds about Earnest. He needed to live in his familiar home and come to work with her as usual. He needed Anna.

  But if she were truly honest, he also needed Jeff.

  Anna was the gentle one, Earnest’s devoted caretaker, who fussed over him, wiped his mudd
y paws, knew all his friends, fed him, walked him, and bathed and brushed him. In thunderstorms she soothed him, and on hot days she carried water in Vincent to quench Earnest’s thirst. She broiled him chicken breasts when he was sick and baked him peanut butter pupcakes every year on his “gotcha day,” when she and Jeff had adopted him.

  Jeff, on the other hand, was Earnest’s playmate, his mentor of manly pursuits, such as body surfing, fetching a Frisbee, romping through wetlands, and balancing in a canoe. Jeff played rough games with Earnest, the favorite being tug with Monty, who started life as a plump toy rabbit but became a pink fleece scrap.

  Outside in a deck chair, Jeff held out Monty, tantalizing, teasing. Earnest bit into his hind feet while Jeff grabbed his ears, and back and forth, man versus dog, they went. Earnest growled tenacious playful growls. With all his mighty eighty pounds, he yanked Jeff from his chair. Jeff jerked back and hauled Earnest by his teeth across the grass. Finally, Jeff let loose so Earnest won. He pranced around the yard with Monty in a victory lap.

  Countless times, Anna had pushed Monty’s stuffing back into his fleece suit and sewn him up. Though the rabbit was only a piece of fabric now, Earnest still adored him. He also adores Jeff, Anna thought. The tie between them is as strong as steel. It wouldn’t be fair for her to break it, but it wouldn’t be fair for Jeff to have Earnest, either.What was she supposed to do? King Solomon couldn’t slice through Earnest and give half of him to her and half to Jeff.

  She told Joy good-bye and fished out what was left of Monty from Earnest’s toy basket. She would entice him into a few tugs, even if they wouldn’t measure up to his mano-a-dientes bouts with Jeff. When she went to the living room, however, Earnest’s closed eyes put her on notice: Do not disturb. Anna turned around and set Monty back in the basket with Earnest’s balls, Frisbees, Kongs, and Nylabones—his macho toys from Jeff.

  CHAPTER 14

  Jeff was stacking papers into orderly piles on his office desk when his boss, Brian Cooper, knocked at the open doorway. “Here’s your application for the ideas competition.” He handed Jeff a folder from Seattle’s chapter of the American Institute of Architects. “Send in your drawings. Cedar Place has a great chance to win.”

  “Thanks.” Jeff set the folder on his desk next to a leather-framed photo of Anna and Earnest on a bench outside Gamble’s library.

  “The project going okay?” Brian asked.

  “I filed for the permits. Now we wait.”

  “Who’s your planner?”

  “Randy Grabowski.”

  “I’ve heard about him. Sadistic bastard, supposedly,” Brian said.

  “That’s about it.”

  Jeff covered his mouth and stifled a yawn. Last night Anna had grabbed on to his brain like a bulldog and wouldn’t let go till dawn. “Got a minute?”

  Brian checked his watch. “Meeting at eleven.” He leaned his shoulder against Jeff’s shelf of binders for products and codes. “What’s up?”

  Jeff stood and closed the door, which was nearly always open. Brian looked puzzled by the need for privacy. His bulbous nose and rolling hills of cheeks belonged on an applehead doll, but they were deceiving. Under his salt-and-pepper eyebrows, his eyes were stern.

  Jeff cleared his throat. “I’ve enjoyed working on Cedar Place. You know that. But I’d like to hand it over to someone else.”

  Brian’s thin lips parted in surprise. “That makes no sense. It’s your chance to prove yourself as a lead architect.”

  “Something’s come up.” Jeff’s gaze went to the tight chevrons in the carpeting. “Anna and two of her friends rent the Victorian house we’re tearing down on the property.”

  “So?”

  Jeff hurried through an abridged version of the women’s dreams and plans. He explained why he’d put off telling Anna about the project and how she’d found out. “She’s upset. She’s broken up with me. I moved out last night.”

  Brian pinched the bridge of his nose as he seemed to collect his thoughts. “You’ve got a great design. It’s a turning point for you, and it’s going to take you places,” he said.

  “Couldn’t somebody else here manage it?”

  “You don’t change horses midstream, Jeff. Your client—what’s her name? Blackmore? She could move to another firm.”

  “I don’t think she’d do that. She likes what I’ve done. She could finish up here with someone else,” Jeff said.

  “You know as well as I do that you have to mollycoddle clients. If you skip out on Mrs. Blackmore, she’s going to feel betrayed.”

  Jeff ’s shoulders fell. “That’s how Anna feels. ‘Betrayed’ is the word she used.”

  “She’ll get over it. Mrs. Blackmore won’t. Cedar Place is a lucrative project for us. It’s important for the firm’s success. You need to see it through.”

  Brian checked his watch again. “Look, I don’t have time today for foolish decisions. I can promise you’ll regret it if you quit your project. That’s how things work in this firm,” he said. “We value you. You’ve got a great future here. You don’t want to lose it. Bailing out would be a big professional mistake.”

  “Okay,” Jeff said, though it was unclear what he was agreeing with. He felt as if he’d shrunk from a confident six-foot-two adult to a small, chastised child.

  As Brian walked out, he told Jeff, “Think carefully about what I’ve said.”

  Thinking carefully, but bruised by Brian’s threats, Jeff slumped into his chair. He knew that a bad professional reputation would sink its claws into him and never let go. If he handed over Cedar Place to someone else, Brian would fire him without a reference, and Jeff would be blackballed in his search for a new job. He had no choice but to see Cedar Place through to the finish.

  He stared at two cacti that Anna had insisted he keep in his office—because workplace greenery was supposed to increase productivity by fifteen percent, she’d said. One cactus slumped in its pot like a dejected biscuit, and the other, a frequent source of mirth for Jeff ’s male colleagues, jutted up like a triumphant penis. The cacti pretty well sum up the dynamics between me and Brian, Jeff thought. At least he’d always know he tried to get off the project.

  On the wall above Jeff ’s desk hung his University of Washington diploma, which had always added honor to his life. Today, however, the parchment only reminded him of how hard he’d worked to support himself through school. He’d served in dining halls, mopped floors in the chemistry lab, collected tickets at the Varsity Theater, sold shoes at Murphy’s, vacuumed Renta-Wreck cars. In summers he’d worked for a contractor, who built shopping centers in Puyallup and Issaquah. Jeff nearly cut off his fingers with a table saw, and he hurt a disk in his back when helping raise a roof beam that an ox might have buckled under.

  Every day Jeff had told himself that he would wear like armor the character he was building. He would get through the University of Washington and the School of Hard Knocks. He would make something of his life, as men he’d met along the way had encouraged him to do: his high-school basketball coach; his university adviser; Uncle Fred, who’d missed his family’s alcoholic gene; Brian Cooper—before he’d threatened Jeff about his job today. They were his collective father figure, the one he’d needed, but missed growing up. Jeff ’s father had fallen in love with the bottom of a whiskey bottle and had been a rotten provider.

  When Jeff was seven, he’d been invited to a birthday party. The parents of his best friend rented an entire roller-skating rink, called Skateland, and his second-grade class would be there. Jeff had only skated in the street on his cousin’s rusty skates. To him, the rink would be a palace. He imagined flying across a gleaming wooden floor, disco music blaring, lights shining like stars from the ceiling, just as he’d seen on TV.

  On the Saturday morning of the party, Jeff barely touched his cornflakes. His stomach was already making loops and zipping around the rink. He stationed himself at his apartment window so he could spot his ride as it pulled into the parking lot. He would run down the st
airs.

  Just before nine o’clock, finally—finally!—the car arrived. Jeff leapt to his feet.

  His mother, thin from standing at a grocery store’s cash register all day, stepped in front of him. “Stay here, Jeffrey. I’ll be right back.”

  Two stories down, Jeff watched her, a miniature mother, walking to the car. She leaned toward the driver’s open window, her hands cupped over her knees. As she talked, the cold turned her words to fog that drifted away. Jeff ’s impatience scraped his stomach. His mouth tasted sour.

  The driver rolled up her window. As the wipers tossed raindrops off her windshield, she drove away. Jeff ’s mother waved. When she returned to the apartment, Jeff ’s lower lip was quivering.

  “I told her you were sick,” she said. “We couldn’t afford a birthday present.”

  Jeff went to his room, a converted walk-in closet. He stayed there all day.

  His father arrived for dinner, his face flushed, his gait unsteady. On nights like this, Jeff knew to eat in silence and disappear. But his mother needled, “Jeff missed a skating party because we couldn’t buy a present. Such a shame.”

  His father shoved a bite of tuna casserole into his big mouth and waved her away as if she were a pesky fly. “Just as well he didn’t go. He’d have fallen down and broken his ass or something. We couldn’t pay the doctor bills.”

  Anna was the only person Jeff had ever told this story. Without a word, she’d taken his hand and kissed his palm. He’d never felt so close to anyone as he had to her at that minute. He’d felt exposed and vulnerable, but she’d made it all right.

  CHAPTER 15

  All the cleaning was getting old, first purging ashes from Plant Parenthood and now purging Jeff from the condo. With the vacuum cleaner, which Anna and Jeff had bought together—so who owned it now?—she assaulted dust bunnies that had burrowed under his drafting table before he’d taken it away. In the closet she went after bits of his ferry passes, dirt from his running shoes, and paper clips from his office. An ill wind had blown all his detritus to the closet floor. Such an imposition!