Dog Crazy

by Meg Donohue

  He’s leaving, I warn myself with every kiss. He’s leaving. He’s leaving. He’s leaving.

  But I can’t stop him. I can’t look away. I can barely breathe, can barely even blink until he slides his hands into my hair and I close my eyes and we kiss.

  I have no idea how much time has passed when Henry pulls back slightly and says, as though he is picking up some thread of conversation that we dropped only a moment earlier, “You know, there are a lot of dog-friendly restaurants in San Francisco. There are all sorts of places we could go together. It doesn’t have to be the movies.”

  I smile. He runs his thumb lightly over my lips, his fingers resting under my jaw.

  “You have the most beautiful smile,” he says.

  And so we kiss some more.

  Chapter 16

  Anya doesn’t text or call all week, and she doesn’t respond to my e-mails. I force myself to continue taking Giselle over to pick up Seymour for walks around the neighborhood. I know how easy it would be, without the mission of helping Anya, to slip back into days followed by weeks of not leaving the apartment, so I make myself think of Seymour, and how I’m helping him.

  In the late afternoon on Thursday, after my last appointment of the day and long after I’ve returned Seymour and Giselle to their homes, Sybil calls. She almost never calls, preferring e-mail, and so when I see her name on my phone’s caller ID I pick up right away. She is frantic.

  “Oh, Maggie, thank God you’re there! I’m all the way up in Tahoe—long story—and I just got a call about a dog tied up outside of the Whole Foods near you. One of the parking attendants says the dog was there when he arrived early this morning and she’s been there all day. She’s a pit bull and I guess no one wants to get too close to her. She’s probably a total sweetie, but you know how people get with their raging pit-bull profiling. The attendant was going to call the police, but then someone else who works at the store told him to try us first.”

  Sybil pauses, out of breath. “I can’t get back to the city for hours. Do you think there’s any way you could swing by and check out the situation? If you can’t keep the dog overnight, that’s fine. I already know of a foster home for her, this couple that loves pit bulls, and I can have them pick the dog up from your place tonight. I just want her off the street and out of the System.”

  “The System” is Sybil’s term for the San Francisco SPCA. The System isn’t a bad place for a dog—it’s certainly better than the streets and it’s a no-kill shelter, so as long as a dog is considered “adoptable” he’ll remain there until someone takes him home. But the quieter, more hands-on care of a foster family is a gentler pit stop for a dog on her way to finding her forever home.

  “And is it raining there?” Sybil continues breathlessly. “The guy from Whole Foods said it’s raining. That poor dog.”

  I glance out the window. The rain looks light—the dog is likely cold and wet, but at least the driving rain I’d heard pounding the house the night before has stopped. Or has the dog been tied up outside all night? I listen upstairs for Giselle and hear her nails clacking lazily across the hardwood floor.

  “It’s drizzling a little,” I tell Sybil. “But don’t worry, I can walk over right now and pick up the dog.”

  “Oh, Maggie, thank you. I’m so relieved. I’ll call Ty—that’s the parking attendant—right now and let him know you’re on your way. How quickly can you be there?”

  “Fifteen minutes or so. It’s not far from my apartment.”

  “Do you want me to arrange for her foster family to pick her up from your place tonight?”

  “Yes,” I say. “I think that would be best.”

  I KNOCK AGAIN on Lourdes’s door, harder this time, my heart sinking. It’s the third time I’ve knocked. I pull out my phone and try calling both her cell and home phone again, but she doesn’t answer. Mentally, I’m kicking myself. Why did I just assume that someone would be home with Giselle? It was a stupid, stupid mistake. Lourdes had been talking for months about giving me a key to her house for use in case of emergencies, but we’d somehow never gotten around to it. I cup my hand above my eyes and peer through the window beside the door. Giselle sits in the darkened hallway, gazing up at me, her tail swishing slowly behind her. Her brow is furrowed in confusion. I don’t want to knock again and agitate her; she’s clearly the only one home, and as clever as she is, she’s not going to unlock the door for me.

  My heart sinks another notch when I call Sybil back and her voice mail picks up. I decide not to leave a message. What would I tell her? So sorry, Sybil, but that abandoned, soaking-wet dog will just have to go into the System because I can’t walk the fifteen blocks to the supermarket by myself.

  No. I’m not going to let a forsaken dog sit out in the rain any more than I could have let Anya walk out of my life without at least trying to help her all those weeks ago. Some things are bigger than my own problems, and people and dogs in desperate need are among them. I pull the hood of my coat over my head and step off Lourdes’s front stairs and into the rain.

  If only it could be so easy. If only I could just summon up the necessary determination, and do it. Instead, when I open the gate and step onto the sidewalk, the pavement tilts below my feet. I feel my throat tighten, the terrible squeezing sensation in my chest. I grab hold of the gatepost, gasping for breath, holding on so tight that splinters cut into my skin.

  One.

  Two.

  I try to fool myself into believing that Giselle is right there beside me, steadying me, urging me to walk forward, but it’s no use. I’m going to pass out right there on the sidewalk. It doesn’t seem possible that my heart can go on beating so quickly. I manage to stumble back through the gate, slamming it shut behind me. Lourdes’s house is a blur in the gray afternoon mist. I hurry toward it, slipping on the wet stones of the path, thumping my feet hard against the front steps until I hit the dry landing below the underhang. I sink down and pull my knees into my chest and breathe, breathe, breathe, but my whole body seethes with panic and shame.

  Inside the house, Giselle barks. I shake my head, trying to clear it.

  Who can I call? Henry. Maybe he’ll agree to pick up the dog for me. But when I try his number, he doesn’t answer. I try Lourdes again, but she doesn’t answer either.

  “Where is everyone?” I say aloud, slapping the phone against my palm.

  Who else can I call? Not a patient, obviously. I scroll through the contacts in my phone, realizing that nearly all of them live in Philadelphia. My world here in San Francisco is pitifully small.

  In the end, I’m left with only one name: Anya Ravenhurst.

  I’m sure that if I dial her number, she won’t pick up. Henry promised that he would try to get her to call me so we could talk about everything that happened, but my expectations remain low. She thinks I betrayed her, that I lied to her about believing her. She isn’t going to forgive me anytime soon, if ever. I’d e-mailed her to explain that she was right about me, that I was agoraphobic and couldn’t go outside my apartment without Giselle, and that I didn’t blame her for feeling the way she did about me. I told her that I still hoped she would be reunited with Billy, and that I would love to help her keep looking for him if she’d let me come along again. She never responded.

  And now she is my last hope. I text her, hoping the message will pop up on her phone screen and she’ll read it before she has a chance to stop herself.

  Urgent. Abandoned dog in front of Whole Foods in the Haight. Can’t pick up dog myself. Foster family lined up if we get dog to my apartment. Can you help? Please call ASAP.

  A moment later, my phone rings. I stare at it, frozen with shock and relief, but when I pick up, Anya’s voice is brisk. “I’ll help,” she says, “but you’re coming with me. I’m going to walk to your apartment and then we can pick up the dog together.”

  “Oh, Anya,” I say quickly. “Thank you for helping, but . . . I can’t go with you. Did you get my e-mail? You were right. Everything you said. I
have this disorder that makes it impossible for me to go anywhere. I panic. Giselle is locked inside her house, and I’m not ready to go outside by myself. I can’t do it.”

  Anya is impatient, dismissive. “You won’t be by yourself. You can put a leash on me if you need to. I’ll be there soon.”

  “No! No, Anya, you don’t understand—” I look down at my phone and realize she has hung up.

  I sit there, leaning against the door, shivering. I’d like to go down to my apartment, put on some dry clothes, turn on the fire, and swallow a bucket of vitamin C. But I’m too tired. When I release a series of sneezes, Giselle smashes her nose into the window beside the door, angling for a better look at me, her expression curious and questioning. Even though I’m pretty sure I now have a cold, maybe even a full-blown case of the flu, even though I know Anya is going to burst through the gate any minute and attempt to drag me out into the city, I can’t help smiling a bit when I see Giselle’s peachy cotton-candy pouf of fur flattened against the window.

  Dogs.

  Ten minutes later, Anya strides through the gate at her usual freight-train speed. Her face is flushed and underneath an Indiana Jones–type hat, a thick swath of her dark auburn hair is stuck, either by sweat or rain or grease, to her forehead. A leash and a collar hang from one of her hands. I rise to my feet as she bounds up the stairs toward me.

  “Here,” she says, holding out the leash. “Let’s go.”

  I stare at her. “Anya, I’m not going to put a leash on you.”

  “It’s for the dog, Maggie. The one we’re going to rescue?”

  Even to my ears, my laugh sounds a little hysterical. “Oh. Right. Good thinking.”

  “You really thought I was going to let you put a leash on me?”

  “No! I . . . I don’t know. Maybe. I’m not thinking clearly. What you’re asking of me, I can’t—”

  Anya folds her arms across her chest. “You’re coming with me.”

  “Please just listen to me. I know I’m not your favorite person right now, but please find another way to punish me. I can’t walk out there. I . . . I’ll have a panic attack. I lose my breath and my heart rate goes crazy and I get dizzy. I might pass out, hit my head. I don’t know. I never know what’s going to happen.”

  Anya’s expression remains hard.

  “You’re angry with me,” I say, trying again, “but it’s that dog we need to think about right now. Can’t you just get her and be mad at me later? There’s no one else I can call. I really need your help.”

  “I’m here, aren’t I? I am helping you. It may not be exactly how you want to be helped, but we don’t always get to choose, do we?”

  Behind me, I hear Giselle’s breath as she snorts in our scents through the crack below the door. I look beyond Anya, toward the gate. A wave of the usual pre-panic symptoms washes over me. The throbbing flutter in my chest. The shaking fingers. The tightening throat. I squeeze my hands into fists and release them.

  Anya watches me. “Listen, I’ve made up my mind. I’m not going without you. We’ll rescue that dog together or not at all.” When I don’t answer, her tone shifts, softening ever so slightly.

  “I really don’t care,” she says, “if you cry or you shake or you faint or you crap your pants or you look like a fucking crazy person. You’ve seen me scream Billy’s name from the top of practically every peak in the city, and did I care that you were watching me? Did it stop me from doing what I needed to do? No. So, whatever, Maggie. Do what you need to do. If you fall on the ground convulsing, I’m going to pick you up. I’m stronger that anyone gives me credit for. I’ll be with you the whole time. We’ll walk to the supermarket and we’ll walk back, and before you know it we’re going to be in your apartment and you’re going to have rescued a dog who needs your help and that will make all of the shit you’re going to go through in the next thirty minutes worth it. That’s what I tell myself when I’m up there screaming for Billy. I’m going to find him and it’s all going to be worth it.”

  The whole time she speaks, I stare at the gate. How will I live with myself if I don’t help that dog? If I can’t push my irrational fears aside and walk fifteen blocks? I nod. “Okay,” I say.

  Anya immediately grasps my elbow and steers me down the stairs, along the path, and through the gate.

  “Slow down,” I gasp, but already we’re on the sidewalk.

  “Nope,” she says. “Let’s just do this. One foot in front of the other. Forward, forward, forward. That dog’s been out in this rain long enough.”

  I wish I could walk with my eyes closed. Instead, I stare at my feet. We make it past a couple of houses before I trip. The sudden stumble makes my throat feel so tight that I’m sure I’m suffocating. I yank my hood from my head, sucking in long, wheezing breaths. The rain is falling harder now, and cold. It snakes its way under my shirt and runs down the length of my back.

  “Okay,” comes Anya’s clipped, purposeful voice beside me. “What do you usually do when this happens?”

  “I . . . count . . . my . . . breath.”

  “You count your breath?”

  I shoot her a look.

  “Fine. You count your breath. Are you doing it? You don’t seem like you’re doing it. Do it.”

  I close my eyes and try to ignore the impulse to hightail it back to my apartment. The ground shifts below my feet. I could be through my door in less than a minute. Someone else will rescue the dog, won’t they? The rain isn’t that cold. She’ll be fine in the System. She’ll survive. She’ll be okay.

  I press back these thoughts, disgusted.

  One.

  Two.

  Three.

  Four.

  My vision clears. The ground solidifies. I straighten. Anya takes my elbow again and we hurry forward, moving ever farther from my apartment. Sutro Tower is behind us. When I glance back, it’s immersed in rain clouds, gone.

  Anya drags me along. She seems to decide that talking will distract me. Not talking, actually—listening. Anya does all the talking. She tells me that she has photographed two other dogs for the SuperMutt fund-raiser since we last saw each other. Huan went with her. He wasn’t much help, but she thinks there is a chance he might end up adopting one of the dogs they shot—a “funny little brindle hot dog” that had taken a shine to him (Richard Nixon, I think, remembering the dog from the website)—if he could ever get himself to move out of his parents’ home. Not that she should throw stones, she realizes, though she does think there is a significant difference between living with your elderly, ailing grandmother and living with your parents who cook dinner for you every night and leave your laundry folded on your bed on Tuesdays. Still, she sounds impressed that he’s considering this small act of rebellion—adopting a dog.

  Anya tells me that Rosie seems weaker now than she had even last weekend. Henry and Clive and Terrence have started talking about putting her into hospice care. Anya hates the idea, but she isn’t blind. She knows her grandmother is not getting better. And Rosie probably won’t even care that much about leaving home—she’s never been attached to that house.

  “It seems like everything is changing at once,” Anya says. She thinks that whenever they finally talk to Rosie about the hospice plan, her grandmother will probably laugh at her for being so resistant to the idea. Rosie has always embraced change. “She’s a real rolling stone,” Anya says. “ ‘This house is just a thing,’ she used to tell me all the time. ‘It’s not like it can love you back. On your love list, always put the beating hearts at the top.’ ”

  This phrase—“the beating hearts”—pierces through the dull jumble of my thoughts as I hurry along, eyes pinned to my feet.

  “Oh, and,” Anya continues, jumping from subject to subject like they are rocks that lead the way across a river, “I e-mailed with Sybil about putting together a photography session packet for the SuperMutt auction. She’s really cool, by the way, just like you said. She wants me to bring a bunch of business cards and hand them out to people
. I think I’m going to do it. The whole photography-business thing. Anya Ravenhurst Photography. I’m going to sign up for a small-business class at City College next semester. I’ll have to go back to working at the frame shop, too, because I know it’ll take a while before I make any money with photography. Maybe I’ll never make any money with it. But it’ll keep the framing job from sucking the life out of me. We’re here.”

  I glance up from the sidewalk, blinking. “What?”

  “We’re here. We’re at the store.”

  I look around and laugh. I actually laugh. I can’t believe it. I must have fallen into a kind of trance listening to Anya talk. I made it the whole way to the market without having a full-blown panic attack.

  Anya releases my elbow and we hurry through the parking lot side by side. Lying on the wet sidewalk, her white-and-brown fur slick with rain, is a thin pit-bull mix. A red, prickly-looking rope runs the short distance from her neck to a bike rack. Someone has placed a bowl of water just within her reach; it’s overflowing with rainwater. The dog watches our progress across the parking lot as though she knows we’re there for her. Every few seconds, she shivers, her bony ribs moving below her fur, her dark eyes never leaving mine. I see her wide jaw tighten as we approach. Her white, slightly folded ears stick straight out on either side of her head, negating some of her intimidation factor. She looks a little like the Flying Nun.

  Suddenly the dog leaps to her feet and begins barking, straining against the red rope, but when I stop a few feet away from her she immediately quiets and begins furiously wagging her tail. Her winglike ears press back against her head and she sticks out her tongue a few times as though trying to lick me even from three feet away.

  “Hey there, sweetheart,” I say softly. I start walking again, murmuring gently. When I reach her, I hold out the back of my hand. She sniffs it and then licks it, her whole body shimmying in greeting. “You’re not so tough, are you?” I say, petting her cold, wet head. I turn to Anya. “I should have brought a towel. She’s soaked.”