Must Love Dogs

by Claire Cook

  We grouped around the doorway to the kitchen and peered inside. A crocheted potholder with a Halloween motif hung from each handle of the wood-grained Formica cabinets. The reassuring smell of roast came from the oven. “Wow,” said Carol. “Great potholders. Where did you manage to find them?”

  My father put his arm around Dolly’s shoulders and pulled her toward him. His fingers disappeared in the pink fabric covering her upper arm. “Everything you see is handmade by Dolly. She’s very creative.”

  “Our mother used to sew all of our clothes when we were younger,” I said before I could stop myself. Christine rolled her eyes at me.

  “Daddy’s told me all about your mother, honey.” I glared at him, but he wasn’t looking. I mean, what a traitor he was to talk about our mother outside the family. We all leaned back in the narrow hallway and held in our stomachs as Dolly turned and walked past us, her fingertips grazing Dad’s belt buckle as she slid by him.

  We clustered outside the tiny bathroom, its sliding wooden door tucked inside the wall to expose the view within. A satiny black-and-silver shower curtain hid the tub, and an ornate gold mirror took up most of the wall space above the smallest sink I’d ever seen. Three Barbie-sized dolls, whose flouncy crocheted skirts concealed rolls of toilet paper, kept each other company atop the toilet tank. In a split second, Maeve managed to dash inside and fill her doll-free hand with one of them. Pulling it away from her, Dolly said, “If you’re a good, good girl and Mommy’s Daddy’s a good, good boy to Dolly, I’ll make you one someday, sweetie.” We looked at Dad expectantly, thinking he might object to the bribe, but he seemed unfazed.

  Dolly led us to a closed door. “When my third husband died, I decided the house was simply too much. Ten enormous rooms and just little Dolly to fill them.” She leaned in and kissed my father energetically. By the time I noticed Ian pointing to my watch, it was too late to get an accurate count.

  Maeve rescued us from the bedroom tour. “Dolly, dolly, dolly,” she screamed furiously, trying to pull away from Carol’s restraining hand and reenter the bathroom.

  “Isn’t that cute,” Dolly said. “She knows my name already.”

  *

  Carol and I sat in her minivan. Christine and Siobhan would kill us for leaving them with all the kids, but that was later. Maeve had curled up in her car seat. She was sucking her thumb, her own doll clutched in her other hand, recovering from Dolly’s lack of sharing. Turning the key in the ignition, Carol said, “Hand me the tape.” I did, and she pushed the play button immediately.

  To hear your messages, press one. Carol must have done just that because, after a slight pause, the taped messages began.

  Friday, October 15,6:53 p.m. Hi. I’m really good-looking and, uh, if you want to see for yourself, call me at this number. 508-555-1221.

  Friday, October 15, 7:48 p.m. Hello. This is in response to your ad in the newspaper. Exactly what do you mean by voluptuous? Do you mean big breasts or do you mean fat? Direct your answer to my box number, which is 99865.

  Friday, October 15, 9:52 p.m. Woof. Woof, woof. I love dogs, too, and I have a great sense of humor. You can probably tell that already, huh? My box number is 99743.

  Friday, October 15, 11:04 a.m. Good morning. This is Simon. I happened to see your ad in the Globe and it caught my eye, so to speak. I must say that your verbal presentation was quite enticing as well….

  I leaned forward and pushed the eject button. “Jesus, Carol. What a bunch of losers. What did my message say? Gimme the phone.” I dialed the 800 number, pressed in the password to hear all eighteen free words of my ad:

  Voluptuous, sensuous, alluring and fun. Barely 40 DWF

  seeks special man to share starlit nights. Must love dogs.

  I told Carol how horrified I was by her ad, how I would never let her meddle in my life again and, by the way, how cheap did it look to have exactly eighteen words?! She told me that technically she couldn’t meddle in my life because I didn’t have one. The responses, she insisted, got better, and there were actually a couple of promising ones if I’d just be patient long enough to get to them. And, by the way, did I know that one of my biggest faults, along with my passivity, was my impatience, and my refusal to cooperate with things that were in my best interest, not to mention my total lack of gratitude.

  By this point, we had gotten out of the car to lean up against Carol’s minivan so we wouldn’t disturb Maeve. We were both talking at once, creating a kind of discordant sibling rivalry with our competing voices. Faint strains of predinner organ music from inside the trailer accompanied us.

  A new voice made us both jump. “Look, Dad, it’s Ms. Hurlihy. Ms. Hurlihy, what are you doing yelling in Whispering Pines Park?” It was a child’s voice, and a familiar one at that. I turned to see that it belonged to Austin Connor.

  Chapter 7

  “My father said you’re nicely attractive,” Austin announced the next morning at circle time.

  “He did?” I asked. June noticed my slip. Her expression changed slightly, a little wrinkle appearing between her eyebrows. Blushing, I redirected the conversation. “Who wants to tell us about something fun they did over the weekend?”

  “We walked by your trailer three more times while you were inside with Dracula Dolly,” Austin continued. “Real slow.”

  I was dying to ask Austin if his father had said anything else about me, but I was a professional. I waited no more than a couple of seconds to see if he volunteered anything on his own.

  I hoped June saw how easily I moved on. “Can you say ‘tinikling dance’?” I asked the children.

  “Tinikling dance,” they repeated in unison.

  “Tickling dance,” Jenny Browning yelled. “Tickling, tickling, tickling dance!” The children laughed hysterically at this perfect preschool joke. Molly Greene started the actual tickling. Within seconds, a tangle of giggling bodies rolled around the center of the circle. I let it go briefly while I grabbed the globe, long enough to let them expend some energy, but not so long that someone got hurt.

  June and I pulled the kids off each other and directed them back to their places on the circle. I found the Philippine Islands on the vinyl globe and passed it around. We measured the distance to the Denmark of our last dance and to the United States. While the children watched spellbound, I started the tape in the tape deck and grabbed the tinikling poles from the storage closet.

  Filipino music filled the classroom, the indecipherable lyrics clearly announcing party time. June and I each held one end of the two tinikling poles, six-foot lengths of real bamboo. Facing each other in a kneeling position, we tapped the poles together to the strong beat, then opened them wide and tapped them on the ground. “In, in, out, out,” we chanted together. The children joined in.

  I let Amanda McAlpine take my end, reminding June to be careful to keep the poles under control. I lined up the other students and, one by one, helped them dance over the shifting poles, and then sent them circling around to the end of the line.

  After his second time over, Austin decided it was his turn to hold the poles. Before I could react, he leaned to take them from Amanda, just as she was lifting up on the thick bamboo. Blood spurted from Austin’s nose. Amanda screamed. Austin covered his nose, then took his hand away and looked at it. While June ran to get latex gloves and tissues, he said calmly, “Good Lord, it’s a gusher.”

  I stayed a safe distance away from Austin while we waited for the tissues. When a child is hurt, all a teacher wants to do is put her arm around his shoulders and comfort him, but in this day and age you have to be gloved before you make contact. “Pinch your nostrils together, honey,” I directed, demonstrating on my own nose the way the teachers were taught every year during our Blood Spill Protocol/AIDS Awareness Inservice. Austin obeyed, squeezing his pudgy nose with stubby fingers. His eyes began to bulge. “Breathe, honey,” I urged. “Breathe through your mouth.” I blew air slowly out through my rounded lips. My hands were restless and I finally settled on cro
ssing my arms and holding my elbows.

  June was back in a flash, first dropping the box of tissues on the floor within Austin’s reach, then quickly sliding her hands into latex gloves. “You’re going to be fine, Austin. It’s just a little nosebleed,” she said gently, grabbing a handful of tissues and mopping at Austin’s face. Rivulets of blood were already beginning to cake along his chin and neck. I made a mental note to remember to tell his father to wash his shirt in cold water. If he was staying with his father.

  Austin’s voice was muffled behind the wad of tissues. “You’re damn tootin’ it’s a nosebleed. Call 911. Call an ambulance. Call a lawyer. Call….” Austin looked around for inspiration, his eyes peeking over the cloud of white tissue. They rested on the tinikling poles. “You should buy softer poles.” He took a long breath in and started to cry.

  I resisted the urge to put on my own pair of gloves so I could give Austin a hug. Instead, I led the other children to the reading area. They huddled close while I read a worn copy of Judith Viorst’s Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day. Jack Kaplan put his thumb in his mouth and twirled a lock of Molly Greene’s silky brown hair with the fingers of his other hand. Molly was holding hands with Max Meehan, who had his other hand on my knee. Amanda was curled up against me on the other side, helping me turn the pages.

  We were halfway through the book when Austin, scrubbed clean and wearing a wrinkled T-shirt from his change-of-clothes bag, joined the group. Max Meehan let him wiggle in beside me. Finally I could give him a hug. “All better?” I asked. He nodded, temporarily silent. As I continued reading, June sprayed a bleach-and-water solution on all contaminated surfaces. The sponge she used to wipe would be added to a plastic bag along with the tissues and her gloves, and all would be disposed of carefully.

  I closed the book when I finished. “Some days,” Austin said, “you just can’t win for losin’.”

  *

  Austin’s dad was the last to arrive at dismissal time. “Hey, sport, what happened to you?”

  “The tinikling pole hurt me, Dad.”

  He scooped Austin up in a bear hug, then turned to me. He had nice green eyes, long lashes.

  “Austin collided with a bamboo pole we were using for a dance from the Philippines,” I explained. “He got a bloody nose, but he’s fine now. You should wash his shirt in cold water. Or your wife ….”

  “Thanks. If that’s a choice, I think I’ll pick the shirt. My wife probably wouldn’t appreciate being washed by me in any temperature water.”

  I laughed. I’d never really thought about how unattractive my laugh sounded, kind of high and nervous. “What I meant was — ”

  “Kidding. Sorry. I know what you meant. And I will. Wash it in cold water …. as soon as I figure out which one is the washing machine.” He grinned. I grinned back. He had a great smile, too, broad and boyish. One of his front teeth was twisted slightly, which added to his childlike quality, as if he were still too young for braces. “So, Ms. Hurlihy.”

  “Sarah.”

  “I know that. What’s my name?”

  “Mr. Connor?”

  “Bob. Well, actually everyone calls me Bobby, but I’ve been vigilantly trying to change it to Bob since the third grade.”

  I laughed again, trying to make it start lower in my throat. I wished I could think of something witty to say about calling him Bob. Instead, I was thinking about what a sucker I’ve always been for Bobbys, ever since my first boyfriend, Bobby Healey.

  Bobby Healey was so bad that the nuns hated him with thoroughly unchristian zeal. He hated them back and was crazy about me. I memorized commandments and spit them back politely for the nuns, winning rosary beads and lace mantillas for my efforts. And I silently cheered Bobby, my hero, for having the guts not to bother.

  On the day I loved him most he swore at Sister Mary Catherine, a mortal sin punished by guaranteed rotting in hell. Because Saint Stephen’s didn’t have a cafeteria, we ate lunch at our desks. The dark wooden desks were bolted securely to the darker wooden floor, and we jammed lukewarm cartons of milk into the inkwells. The nuns sold the milk and also penny candy. They said the money went to the poor, but the kids all knew it went to buy whiskey to drink with the priests on the weekends.

  Sister Mary Catherine left the room during lunch for a minute one day. When she came back, a piece of red licorice was missing from her desk. Bobby had stolen it, taken a bite and given the rest to me. I was in love so I ate it.

  Thou shalt not steal was a big one, so Sister lined up the entire class, forty-five or so fifth-graders. One by one she made us kneel before the crucifix that graced the wall at the front of the classroom and swear to God that we hadn’t taken the piece of licorice.

  Forty-five kids knelt before Jesus and swore they hadn’t stolen a piece of penny candy. When it was my turn, I lied bravely, not wanting to implicate Bobby. Even if she believed my confession, Sister would know I had a coconspirator. I was too good a girl to sin alone. Temporarily defeated, Sister Mary Catherine took the wooden paddle off the wall, went down the line, whacked us one by one on our bottoms. Made us take another turn kneeling before God. I looked at Bobby. He shook his head no, so I didn’t confess. I pictured us in hell together one day, and his company made the eternal flames not matter so much.

  When it was Bobby’s turn, he looked Sister in the eye and said, “You are damn stupid to keep doing this.” Nobody moved, nobody dared even breathe. The licorice was forgotten. As Sister Mary Catherine escorted Bobby to Mother Superior’s office, I wondered if I would see him again before hell. He emerged just before dismissal, and I worshiped him with my eyes as he strolled back to his seat. He ignored me, however, because he’d just fallen in love with Eileen Sullivan. Somehow I blamed his defection on the nuns, as if I’d been a subject of discussion in Mother Superior’s office. Sarah Hurlihy, the nuns might have said to Bobby, surely you can do better than that, Mr. Healey.

  Austin’s father was saying something, but I’d missed it. Austin had gone to the other side of the room. He uncapped a dry erase marker and began drawing on the white board. It looked like a picture of Dolly’s trailer. Maybe it was his father’s trailer.

  “Do you live in a trailer?” I asked the new Bobby. Bob.

  “I prefer to think of it as temporary asylum.” His hair was curly like Austin’s, darker though, and streaked with occasional coarse strands of white. His chinos bagged at the knees and looked as if they might have been slept in, but he wore them with a fresh- from-the-cleaners shirt the color of raspberry sherbet. Unbuttoned at the neck, sleeves rolled up to just below the elbow, curly hair peeking out from his chest, twirling around on his forearms.

  I hoped I wasn’t checking him out too obviously, but I’d never really noticed just how good-looking he was. Nice, too. And potentially single. Eventually. I stood up a little straighter and pretended to rearrange a display of autumn leaves thumbtacked to a bulletin board.

  “So what has Austin told you?” he asked. His eyes focused on mine as if I were about to say something interesting. I tried to rise to the occasion.

  “About you? That you’re incorrigible. And taking a break from your marriage.”

  “I think that particular phrasing came from his mother. You must hear a lot. I never thought about what kids tell their teachers.” He looked down and then back into my eyes.

  “In one ear and out the other,” I assured him. I resisted the urge to take a step closer to see if he smelled like soap or cologne or just himself. It was so amazing the way the next part of your life might have been standing right in front of you all along.

  “Yeah, right.” He smiled. “By the way, how do you know the infamous, man-eating Dolly?”

  “My father’s dating her.” I felt myself start to blush at the mention of dating. Of course, I wouldn’t be comfortable actually dating Bob Connor until his son was no longer in my class. But if we started a friendship now, it could develop at a leisurely pace and blossom into romance right ar
ound the end of the school year. Much better than risking the personal ads, where you never knew who you might meet.

  “Oops. Uh, brave man.” He turned his head as June entered the classroom. She looked especially beautiful, dazed and sleepy-eyed. She must have found a new place to meditate. Smiling as she passed us, she walked over to Austin, knelt down beside him and picked up a marker. She began to draw little yellow flowers around the trailer. As soon as she finished each one, Austin colored the stem and leaves green.

  Bob Connor and I watched them. We stood close together and our elbows were almost touching. Finally he turned to me and whispered, “Isn’t she gorgeous?”

  I smiled and bobbed my head like one of those motion-sensitive animals people put on the dashboards of their cars. With each bounce, little bits of self-esteem drained down my body and out through the ends of my toes. Somehow I managed to say good-bye to the parents and students, even to June and her gorgeous-ness.

  When the classroom was empty, I sat in one of the kiddie chairs. I automatically reached down to feel how much of my hips and thighs were spilling over the sides of the seat, a little test I always did to make sure I’d notice if they started to spread at an alarming rate. It hadn’t occurred to me to start checking for signs of invisibility. Maybe I was fading away, as my bones shrank and my eggs shriveled, and soon if not already men like Bob Connor, maybe all men, would only practice their eye contact on me as a warm-up for someone younger, prettier, perkier, gorgeouser.

  *

  The swing dance teacher had broken her foot. I didn’t ask how. Certainly K-3s were developmentally too young for swing dancing anyway, but the parents loved the idea, and she’d come highly recommended by someone who worked in my sister Christine’s office. As usual, Christine was feeling abandoned. “I can’t believe you left me in the trailer by myself for so long,” she’d said.