“What’s going on today?” she asked Rex.
Peter answered for Rex, as the dog was busy sniffing the table. “He’s had a persistent lameness, left front leg, usually mild, on and off for maybe a few months. It seems to be getting worse lately, and yesterday, he actually refused to run after a few minutes on the trail.”
Andrea did a physical exam and found nothing of any note, although she suggested performing a few X-rays to be sure. She was able to fit Rex in right away since he was the kind of mild-mannered dog who could hold still without any sedation. Andrea took Rex in the back and came out fifteen minutes later. As expected, Rex had been a “very good boy” but it would be best to keep him on a short leash until she had the X-ray results.
Rex bounded back to the car and jumped in the back. He loved the car. Peter took him home. He seemed fine.
On Wednesday morning, Peter called Lisa’s office and asked the “ever-helpful” Shelly for Lisa’s e-mail address. Then he sent off the now 1,700-word, “murder-by-sniper” methodology he had written, hoping that Lisa would have time to read it before their next session on Monday. Peter thought his opening paragraph was especially strong and would hook her:
“He triggered the big .308 tactical rifle, sending the 168-grain Sierra MatchKing bullet on its deadly mission at nearly three times the speed of sound. The smell of burning cordite stung his nostrils as the crack of the big gun assaulted his ears. His target had been standing stock still some 300 meters away …”
Once he’d sent the e-mail, Peter called Frannie again, the first time since Sunday since he didn’t want to appear desperate. BEEP. “Hi, Frannie, it’s Peter. I hope you’re well. Give me a call; maybe I could buy you a drink this weekend.” Peter loved being alone but still got lonely sometimes - especially for the company of women.
Then he tried Marty. BEEP. “Hi, Marty, uh … just call me later, okay?”
The hours went by and neither one returned his call. So as usual lately, Peter turned to Rex. Faking cheerfulness, he said, “Well, Rexy, it’s just you and me and a DVD tonight. What will it be: When Harry Met Sally or Sleepless in Seattle?” Peter had a secret fondness for chick flicks. He watched them alone even before the separation, and considered them a harmless form of self-indulgence. Kathryn had no use for “nonsense” like romantic comedies and preferred travel documentaries. Rex, on the other hand, expressed no particular preference.
“Rex, go get me a beer.” Rex stood and looked at the refrigerator, probably thinking about Brie and sardines. Peter got up to get it and motioned for Rex to join him on the big sofa, where the dog promptly fell asleep and stayed that way for the duration of the movie.
Peter’s dreams that night centered on the previous administration. Kathryn came back to the house, not just once but over and over again. She appeared to Peter as a grey and bruise-yellow cloud that swirled around like a cyclone. He both saw her and felt the wind. It was one of those phenomena that only occur in dreams, something that is and isn’t at the same time. Although Peter couldn’t see her clearly, he knew somehow - the way you “know” things in dreams - that she was naked. He also knew that if he could expose her nakedness, he could stop her from stealing his things. But no matter how hard he looked, she eluded him.
Instead, he watched helplessly as this demonic woman whose nakedness he could not see removed every stick of furniture from the house. She mocked him about things he had no control over, like his finances and his hairline, all the while laughing maniacally. She took whatever she wanted of his personal property and came back for more until the house was empty. She even took Rex with her and left Peter a battered tube-type radio that was supposed to replace him. It was cordless but somehow, Peter knew it was broken.
Peter woke up with the persistent need to pee, but first had to reassure himself that Rex was where he should be - by his feet at the end of the sofa. He hadn’t been replaced by an old broken radio. Instead, he lay there sleeping as soundly as a puppy. Peter had his beer piss and went back to bed but couldn’t get back to sleep. He lay awake for a few hours, thinking of Kathryn. He hated her, and now more than ever, he feared her.
When he got up, Rex got up too and Peter took him out on a leash for a bathroom break. When Peter brought Rex back in the house, the dog fell back asleep. Peter decided to go for a run on his own and give Rex’s limp a day off.
Chapter 13
On Thursday, Peter remembered that he had yet to make an appointment with Wilbur’s two-time-loser divorce lawyer. Molly had given him her name and cellphone number in an e-mail last week. Peter wondered why he hadn’t done this earlier. Was depression screwing with his memory, or did he have an unconscious desire to stay married to Kathryn? He knew he had already lost her, but maybe part of him didn’t want to make it official. Peter was beginning to think like a shrink, further evidenced by the fact that he didn’t know if thinking like a shrink was a good thing or not.
“Elaine Madison speaking.”
“Are you really a lawyer? You answered your own phone.”
“Yes and yes. Who is this?”
“Peter, Peter S. Broviak, a longtime friend of Wilbur Dupuis. I need advice.”
“My advice to you is not to tell anyone you’re a friend of Wilbur Dupuis. He doesn’t have any friends. He’s a user. You can tell him I told you that. Maybe he’ll want to get into a good defamation fight with me. I’ll beat the pants off him if he does. Sorry. You pushed one of my buttons. Let’s try this again. How may I help you, Mr. Broviak?”
“Divorce. Separation. An appointment would be nice.”
“Open your planner, Mr. Broviak. I have a client waiting, and time is money in the legal game.”
They settled on an appointment for the next day, an amazingly short waiting time for a lawyer. Peter liked this no-nonsense woman immediately. She had answered her own phone and had a next-day appointment available, even if it was only for 25 minutes early in the morning. What more could he ask for in a lawyer, apart from competence? There was something oddly familiar about her manner that made her seem, well, familiar.
Peter wondered why Elaine had only done well in the first of Wilbur’s three divorces. It could be because Wilbur was a high-risk client. Almost everyone in town knew that despite his self-proclaimed brilliance in the criminal courts, Dupuis was a boozer, gambler and womanizer. No one but Stella, the office dog, and Molly, his faithful secretary, seemed to think he was a “nice guy.” Wilbur was really an asshole. Peter imagined that the judges presiding over the wishy-washy world of family court had based their judgments as much on feeling as the letter of the law, and ruled accordingly.
Chapter 14
The next day, Peter dressed for his appointment with Elaine in a sober pair of black pants and the expensive dove-gray shirt he reserved for formal occasions. He wore simple shiny black oxfords instead of his usual old tooled-leather cowboy boots. Peter thought he looked good, and he did.
Peter arrived on time at the plain and practical-looking office of Elaine Madison. She worked in a room that was efficient and tastefully decorated in a minimalist sort of way. There weren’t any diplomas or photos on the wall, just one abstract painting. The room gave off neither a masculine nor a feminine message. It wasn’t neat, it wasn’t messy. The floors were bare polished hardwood without a carpet or even a throw rug as a nod to comfort. The room was modest in size.
Its sole occupant was not the usual paralegal or secretary but Elaine herself, a woman whose sculpturally angular facial architecture was evolving from the beauty of youth into a strong handsomeness in her fifth decade. She had let her hair go gray, but on her it looked youthful and even sexy. She was built to draw attention; even when she was sitting down, her chest put a real strain on the buttons of her crisp white blouse. Peter knew, as a longtime connoisseur of such things, that her breasts could not be real. As she stood, he observed that the rest of her body was slender and gym-tight. Peter no longer cared about her competence. He saw why Wilbur seemed to think so highly of
Elaine. Most of Peter’s mind retreated to the place where his sexual fetishes lived.
When the lawyer saw him enter, she smiled, and the smile had within it the seeds of a goofy grin. She had a gap between her front teeth that would melt the heart of a wolverine. Elaine didn’t seem anything like her direct, no-nonsense persona on the phone. Peter thought she had a playful look. He wanted to play with her.
“If you’re not Peter S. Broviak, you can get out. I’m busy.”
Peter’s fantasy about her “playfulness” quickly evaporated. She was a real hard case behind the gap-toothed grin.
“I am Peter Broviak.” Peter thought all of a sudden - “Kathryn! She reminds me of Kathryn. All business and no bluster. Shit, another bossy bitch. I attract them like flies to … On the other hand, she has fake tits and is irresistible …”
“Good, so now I’m busy with you. Sit down and answer a few standard questions, then you can give me the Reader’s Digest version of your sad story. You can quit staring at my tits while we do this. I never date clients who are still married, so you’re just torturing yourself by looking. Let me guess; you got caught screwing around? You have that look.”
“I guess I can leave now. You know more about me than my dear departed mother ever did.”
“Oh, a mama’s boy too! This is going to be fun. Now, start answering questions, Broviak.”
Elaine fired questions at Peter, and he fielded them to the best of his ability. Then he told her his “sad story,” with three minutes to spare before the 25-minute appointment was up.
“Good. I’ll handle your separation and divorce. I need a $5,000 retainer before I’ll even pick up the phone to talk to you again.”
“Do you take VISA?”
“If I didn’t take VISA, I’d starve, and my goldfish along with me. I’ll run your card right now, and then you can get out. I’m going to like working with you. You’re a spunky one and articulate - two qualities lacking in most of my clients. Welcome aboard. You are cute, Mr. Broviak. I like cute men, but you’re a veteran cheater.”
“I have two questions for you before I hand you my VISA card. The first one is, are you sure you don’t date clients before the divorce?”
“I’m sure, Mr. Broviak. And your second question?”
“Why did you do such a poor job on Wilbur’s second and third divorces?”
“I did a ‘poor job’ - I assume that’s what Wilbur told you, the bastard - because Mr. Dupuis insisted I follow his every notion about strategy and tactics, and he doesn’t have a clue how the family law system works. If this is a breach of confidentiality, I don’t give a rat’s ass. Also, his second and third wives had some very strong reasoning and evidence to back up their claims. His files in both cases needed a more deft touch than I was allowed to use by my learned client. You can tell Mr. Dupuis I said that, too. I’m itching for a fight with him.”
“I won’t tell him anything, but thank you for your answer anyway. Here’s my VISA card. I imagine there’s still enough credit left on it for a nice dinner.” Peter didn’t intend to give up without a fight. This one was just his type, for better or worse: a hard case with hard tits.
Peter left Elaine Madison’s office in a fetishist’s fog of lust. He was determined to keep asking her out until she either relented or gave him back his retainer and fired him as a client.
Chapter 15
Peter checked his messages on the way to the car. There was one from the vet’s office and he called back immediately. Andrea’s assistant booked him an appointment, leaving enough time for Peter to get back to the village and pick up Rex.
When they arrived, they were shown into the consulting room right away. Peter had a cold feeling of dread in his stomach. Maybe there was something really wrong with his Rexy, despite the fact that Andrea’s exam the other day hadn’t turned anything up.
Andrea said in her soft and firm voice, “Peter, I think I know what is causing Rex’s limp. The X-rays show a classic example of a type of bone cancer in his shoulder. The shoulder is full of lytic bone lesions in a pattern that is unmistakable. But I want to be sure, so I’m sending the X-rays to a former professor of mine at the university for a second opinion. I’d also like to send him some pictures of Rex’s lungs and some other views of that shoulder.”
“Cancer? Can you do a biopsy to make sure?”
“We don’t normally do a biopsy unless we strongly suspect a bacterial infection or a very, very rare type of fungal infection. But I have no good reason to suspect either. I wouldn’t do one anyway, in Rex’s case, because that shoulder is so eaten away it is on the verge of a major fracture. A biopsy would be too risky.”
Peter got very calm and analytical, which he was occasionally capable of doing in a crisis. “What are the treatment options?”
“If it is cancer, we should amputate the limb immediately to provide pain relief. Amputation won’t cure the cancer, but it will help with the pain. Some types of chemotherapy are thought to provide a further reprieve and some additional lifespan after amputation, but that’s more anecdotal than scientific. Even with amputation and chemo, I wouldn’t hope for more than six months.”
“Is he in a lot of pain now?”
“I don’t doubt he’s in a lot of pain, but dogs are generally stoic, and field-bred hunting dogs especially so. He’s not anxious about the pain like a human would be and not worried about the future like we are. He adapts to it and maybe sleeps more and eats less, but he bears it. Dogs are marvelous creatures. I’m going to put him on a few types of pain medication right now to give him as much relief as possible without knocking him out or making him sick. And I’ll get those pictures done for my guy at the university. I think we can help with the pain, at least, no matter what the diagnosis turns out to be.”
“Okay. Should I leave him here?”
“No, I can get the new X-rays done while you’re here. He’s such a good boy that I’ll be back in a jiffy. We’ll do the best we can for him.”
Peter blinked back the tears that were gathering at the corners of his eyes and returned to the waiting room. He sat stiffly and tried to imagine a life without Rex and was unable to do so.
Andrea returned from the X-ray suite with Rex. She gave Peter a three-day supply of pills in two small bottles and told him how to administer them, and when. She said she had given Rex a shot of a multiple-action pain medication that would be good for four hours, after which Peter could begin giving Rex the other pills.
“Thank you, Andrea.”
“I’ll call you after I study the new X-rays and when my guy at the university gets back to me; he’s a real expert with this sort of thing and I want to hear what he has to say about Rex. Okay? You take it easy. Rex is tough and we’re treating his pain, so he should be all right for now. I’ll call you.”
Peter had to consciously will his lips to move and his voice to utter the words “Thank you.” He didn’t want to start blubbering in front of Andrea. He wanted to run out of the office, but his feet seemed glued to the floor. Andrea hugged him impulsively.
“Peter, Rex isn’t afraid. He’s okay about this. No matter how much we love our dogs, we usually outlive them. You and I have to do what’s right for our friends, no matter how much it hurts us. It’s how we pay them back for all the joy they give us. Look at Rex - does he look worried? Go home and have some fun with him. I’ll be in touch soon.”
Peter and Rex went home and played a gentle game of fetch in the house. Peter felt like crying the whole time. Rex seemed happy.
Chapter 16
The phone rang and Peter jumped out of his skin, even though it couldn’t possibly be Andrea with the results of the latest X-rays. Instead, it was Wilbur.
“Wilbur? You never call me. What’s up?” Peter put on his best business voice.
“Peter, Peter! You sound suspicious and you sound like you have a cold. Can’t a guy phone a friend without being cross-examined?”
“No, Wilbur, not when that friend is you. You neve
r call out of the blue. You always have an agenda.”
“Having an agenda should not always be construed in a pejorative fashion. It is my profession as well as my simple duty as a human being, in this increasingly sad world, to help others. It is in this regard that I telephone you now. If that is ‘having an agenda,’ I plead guilty as charged, M’Lord.”
“Okay, go ahead. I’m listening.”
“You came to me seeking advice and I failed you.”
“You must have to say that a lot.”
“Peter, this abusive language does not befit a person of your quality and station. I can only conjecture that your tone and choice thereof are the result of the multiplicity of stresses you have encountered as of late in your sojourn through this veil of tears.”
“Jesus, save it for the jury. What do you want?"
“I, myself? Nothing but to be of service and to apologize.”
“You? Apologize?”
“In actual point of fact, I wish to apologize on behalf of my long-suffering and faithful assistant who may, in good faith, have steered you in the wrong direction regarding a divorce lawyer.”
“Too late.”
“Have you already seen her?”
“Yes, I have seen her. Will you let me get off the phone now? I’m playing fetch with Rex. Send me a bill.”
Wilbur was already gone. It was obvious to Peter that their conversation had a subtext. Knowing Wilbur, Peter figured he had had an affair with the comely Elaine, or tried to, and didn’t want Peter to succeed where he had failed.
Peter turned his attention back to Rex, who had curled up at his feet and gone to sleep. The doggie dope had probably only added to his increasing fatigue. Peter quietly rose from his chair and tiptoed to his computer to do some overdue design work. Maybe that would distract him from this latest chapter of woe in his increasingly woeful life. But it didn’t work. Peter could only mourn the dog who would soon sleep forever.
How to Kill Your Wife Page 6