by Susan Conant
I thanked her. Rowdy backed up and shook himself all over. “He blew coat in July,” I said. “He’s just starting to look like himself again.”
“Haven’t I seen you in the ring?” Mrs. Abbott asked. She wore a heavily shirred, pastel-print bathing suit with those low-cut leg openings that the L.L. Bean catalog always promises will “provide good coverage in the seat.” It’s so interesting to see people undressed or even half undressed. At the edge of the lake in her good-coverage maillot with her admirable Pomeranians bouncing around her small feet, Mrs. Abbott remained one of the fancy’s perfect types: the great big woman with little tiny dogs. It could truly be said, as the expression goes, that she was “big in toys.”
“I stewarded for you a couple of years ago,” I replied. “At Cambridge.” The Cambridge Dog Training Club’s annual trial. Mrs. Abbott knew that. “And I used to have goldens.” Before Mrs. Abbott could start encouraging me to train Rowdy, I said, “I still show a little in obedience. Rowdy just got his CDX.”
“A CDX malamute!” Although I always try to memorize the heeling pattern a judge is using, I still like to hear the commands ring out clearly. Mrs. Abbott’s New York accent somehow helped to project her voice.
His attention drawn to Rowdy, Eric Grimaldi gave me a nod of congratulations, took a second look at Rowdy, and said, “Good-looking dog.”
Eric, I might point out, was a conformation judge, and he didn’t judge just one or two breeds, either. As I’d learned from Cam and Ginny, he was a Sporting Group judge. Admiring my dog. Brag, brag. That the Alaskan malamute belongs to the Working Group is incidental.
I returned Eric’s compliment. “Beautiful Chesapeake. I love watching her in the water.”
The Adam and Eve of the breed, Sailor and Canton, arrived in this country in 1807 when an English brig went aground on the shores of Maryland. The American ship Canton rescued the passengers, the drunken crew, and the two presumably sober puppies. Ever since, the Chesapeake Bay retriever has been striving to return to the oceanic womb from which it sprang. A good all-around hunting dog and handsome, versatile companion, the Chesapeake is the ultimate breed for hunting waterfowl, and a unitary breed, not split into bench and field lines.
Eric’s face showed pride and chagrin. “Once Elsa hits the water, she doesn’t come out until she’s good and ready.” He paused before finishing the Chesapeake-person joke that must date from the arrival of Sailor and Canton. “And,” he said, “she’s never ready.”
When I’d seen Eric at the meeting earlier that day, he’d reminded me vaguely of some old-time Hollywood leading man. Now that he was knee-deep in the lake, I realized that the association wasn’t vague at all: Eric Grimaldi looked like an age-ripened Johnnie Weissmuller, Olympic swimmer turned movie star. Weissmuller wasn’t much of an actor, but it didn’t matter because as Tarzan he usually appeared either half-submerged or swimming a silver-screen version of what my grandmother still calls “the Australian crawl.” Like Weissmuller, Eric was a strapping guy with hard, prominent lats, traps, and pecs, and he had Weissmuller’s healthy, friendly face and big features, too.
“I could watch her forever,” I told him.
Phyllis Abbott’s face lit up. “Oh, Eric has!” she commented. “Frequently.”
Eva Spitteler had been standing in the shallow water a few yards away from the rest of us. She was alone. Moored to a tree on the bank above the cove, Bingo was barking and yelping. Next to Eva on the edge of the dock lay one of the resort’s thick red towels and what I assumed was a bottle of sunscreen. Beach towels were one luxury that we campers were expected to provide ourselves; we’d been asked to bring them, and a politely worded sign in my bathroom had reminded me that the towels there were not for use in the swimming area. I’d complied. So had almost everyone else. The red towel on the dock was the only one in sight. Eva Spitteler reached toward it, picked up the plastic bottle, and poured liquid into the palm of one hand. Instead of spreading the stuff on her skin, she rubbed it on her head and lathered her hair. When she dunked, the clear lake water turned cloudy. Bingo silenced himself. Foam rose, followed by Eva’s bulk. She took a deep breath and plunged back in.
“That’s disgusting,” someone muttered.
“I saw her carrying that bottle of shampoo,” someone else reported, “and I wondered if I should say something.…”
“Well, you should’ve.”
“Wouldn’t you think anyone’d know better?”
“And right here where the dogs are! I mean, it could get in their eyes, and they could all get conjunctivitis!”
Canine ecology.
When Eva surfaced, no one said a word to her. She grabbed the towel, blotted her face, and directed at me what felt like the evil eye. “You ought to just haul that dog right in,” she decreed. “I wouldn’t put up with that for a minute.”
Stimulated perhaps by the sight and sound of Eva, Bingo had resumed his barking. I was tempted to tell Eva that I wouldn’t tolerate that for a minute. I really wouldn’t have put up with Bingo’s noise; I’d have taken him into the lake.
As placidly as I could, I said, “Rowdy’s happy doing what he’s doing.” Assured that I wasn’t going to drag him in, Rowdy was investigating pebbles, pawing at the water, watching people and dogs, eyeing the swimmers, and probably marveling at what fools they were.
“It’s very dangerous to allow one of them to defy you like that.” Eva had swung onto the dock and was dabbing at herself with the red towel.
During our exchange, Eric had used the water toy to lure Elsa toward the shore. I had the impression that the handsome man and his beautiful dog were playing a game that both enjoyed. Moving purposefully, one eye on Elsa, Eric climbed onto the dock, begged Eva’s pardon, politely warned her to make way, and called to Elsa. When he reached the end of the dock, he bent down to rap his fist on the wood. Elsa got the message. Her eyes glinting, she veered toward the dock, swam fast, sprang out, and shook off. A Chesapeake has a coat like a duck’s feathers, insulating, oily, and water-repellent. In seconds, Elsa looked dry. With a final shake, she became a chocolate-colored streak that sped down the dock past Eva and toward Eric, who was swinging the rubber water toy by a short piece of attached rope. “Elsa, go get it!” he called. He spun the toy and sent it sailing out into the lake. Seconds later, Elsa flew past him and made a spectacular water entry.
Applause broke out.
“Fantastic!” I yelled.
“Any retriever’ll do that,” Eva grumbled. “You just aren’t used to them.”
I nearly choked. Not used to them? My parents raised the golden retrievers who raised me. I all but am one. “Oh?” I said. “Well, I haven’t seen any of the other dogs dive like that.”
Fully initiated member of the Order? Here’s a test. What’s the one true diving breed? Got it. PWD, especially for deep-water retrieves. But camp didn’t boast a single Portuguese Water Dog.
“Can’t keep Bingo out,” Eva told me.
You’re keeping him out right now, I thought.
“You wanna see?” Eva asked.
The last thing I wanted to see was Bingo off leash in Rowdy’s vicinity. Before I could respond, Eva clambered up the nearby slope, set Bingo loose, then lumbered back to the lake and along the length of the dock. To my relief, Bingo trailed after her. To inspire Elsa’s dive, Eric had hurled a toy. To motivate Bingo, Eva shoved Eric aside and, standing at the end of the dock, gave a powerful upward and outward leap, curled her legs under her, held her nose, and executed a cannonball. Her heavy body hit the water as one solid mass that made a loud boom and sent water shooting high in the air. Despite the drama of Eva’s cannonball, Bingo stood at the end of the dock placidly regarding Eric Grimaldi and aimlessly wagging his tail.
Cannonballers usually resurface quickly. I watched the water. Maine is not a place where it’s safe to dive into unknown water. Submerged rocks hold still. Logs move. “Did someone check that area?” I asked Mrs. Abbott.
Entering the water feet fi
rst, Eva would have been unlikely to hit her head on a rock or a log. Still, I felt uncomfortable.
“Eric checked,” Mrs. Abbott said. “Before you got here.”
But Eva was fine. Instead of bobbing up immediately, she’d swum some distance underwater. Her head now appeared about twenty feet out from the dock. “Bingo!” she called sharply. She was treading water. The surface around her bubbled.
The big yellow Lab continued to stand where he was. In case he headed in, spotted Rowdy, and started trouble, I gathered up Rowdy’s lead, edged away from the lake, and prepared to bolt for my cabin. But Bingo just kept standing there.
“Bingo!” Eva yelled hoarsely.
The dog continued to do nothing at all.
I could make excuses for what Eva did next. She’d listened to Judge Phyllis Abbott and Judge Eric Grimaldi admire Rowdy. Bingo had been right nearby, and no one had said a word about him. When Eva had ridiculed Rowdy, Mrs. Abbott had defended him, and, in so doing, she’d given Eva a sharp correction. More excuses? It must be hideously painful to go through life looking exactly like a bulldog, unless, of course, you happen to be one, in which case, it’s delightful. But Eva wasn’t a bulldog. And Bingo had let her down, or that’s how she must have felt. Pride in a dog doesn’t have to be justified to be genuine. Eva had bragged about Bingo. She’d wanted him to show off. Treading water harder than ever, she forced her shoulders to break the surface and again shouted the dog’s name.
Bingo remained where he was.
Desperate to rouse him, I suppose, Eva kicked wildly, splashed, flailed her arms, and cried, “Bingo, help! Help! I’m drowning! Bingo, come save me!” With that, Eva disappeared beneath the surface. Her feet thrashed and vanished. A waving hand rose and sank. Planted on the dock with his tail drifting back and forth, Bingo regarded the performance with complaisant curiosity.
As I saw it, Eva wasn’t playing. Play is joyous. Eva was grim. Eva wasn’t practicing water rescue, either. She was lying to her dog. Maybe Bingo thought so, too. Maybe not. In either case, the impression the dog created was unmistakable. Several people commented. I noticed it myself. Bingo looked oddly content to watch Eva go under.
I HATE TO SEE anyone lose face, even someone cursed with a countenance like Eva Spitteler’s. To avoid the inevitable sight, I took Rowdy to our cabin, crated him with a chew toy, and, on returning to the pebble beach, headed directly into the lake. My entry was slow. Pebble is a bit of a euphemism, but I’ve avoided the blunt (or more accurately, the sharp) truth for fear of discouraging tourism. The beach consisted of toe-stubbing rocks and sole-jabbing stones. Wincing with every step, I made my way into the lake until the water came up almost to my waist. At that point, the prospect of the cold lake assaulting my bony rib cage seemed better than the present pain in the soles of my feet. I filled my lungs, plunged, and swam along the bottom. Snorkeling in turquoise waters among coral reefs might spoil me, but on a dog writer’s income, I’ll continue to love a yellow-green underwater haze seen through unmasked eyes. I even like the familiar shock of passing through the frigid springs that feed a Maine lake. Greater Boston suffers from a summer climate so tropical that displaced Haitians complain about the inescapable heat and humidity. Submerged in the lake, my body felt like an overcharged heat-storage unit mercifully draining itself cell by cell. When the need for air forced me up, I faced the trees on the far shore. As on countless previous occasions, I tried to float. As always, I ended up having to kick my feet and wave my hands to keep from sinking. I used to be irrationally ashamed of my body’s rocklike refusal to hover effortlessly at the surface. Then a diver told me that my condition was so ordinary that it even had a name: negative buoyancy. Since I learned that happy phrase, I’m not ashamed anymore. I’d still like to float, of course, and I keep checking up to find out whether my valence has changed, but, until it does, I make the best of my negativity, which is to say that I swim almost exclusively underwater.
Far away, the kind of little outboard favored by fishermen put-putted. Then a Jet Ski whizzed along, drowned it out, and probably scared the fish, too. Or maybe not. In late August, the fish had probably descended to the icy depths, where they could ignore the surface noise and avoid being caught by any method except deep trolling. Deep trolling, I might mention, is perfectly legal but not quite respectable. My father, a Salmo salar snob, regards most lake fishing with the eye of Jacques Pepin contemplating a Fluffernutter. Because of some quirky loophole embedded in the arcane laws that regulate social hierarchies among Maine anglers, however, he makes an exception in the case of salmon and trout fishing in the Rangeley lakes, provided, as should go without saying, that it is fly fishing only, preferably for Salmo sebago, landlocked salmon, but also for trout, especially if the angler is accompanied by young children. Nothing could persuade Buck to stoop to bass fishing, and he harbors a terrible prejudice against anyone who uses a minnowlike lure in fresh water. The buzz of the Jet Ski faded, and I heard the little put-put motor again. It occurred to me that if Eva Spitteler took up fishing, she’d favor the unspeakable: live bait.
After my swim, I fought off incipient hypothermia by taking a hot shower and drying my hair. Then, for once, I worried about what to wear. Ordinarily, I rely on the L.L. Bean catalog’s autocratic decrees about what may appropriately be worn when, where, and for what purpose. Unfortunately, I couldn’t recall any specific recommendations for dining at a luxury dog camp. Floundering around on my own, I chose khaki pants (“casual” comfort, one Bean-step up from “at-home”) and a short-sleeved cotton sweater described, I thought, as “versatile.” Neither item, if I remembered correctly, would shame me by having been Bean-relegated to suitability for some ignominious task like cleaning the barn on a cool fall afternoon.
By the time I was dressed, Rowdy was dancing in circles and bounding up and down, and when I opened the closet where I’d stashed his bowl of moistened kibble, he’d reached a state of salivating frenzy. Ever watched a malamute eat? Magic. Truly, ladies and gentlemen, the jaw is quicker than the eye. Nanoseconds after that dish hit the floor, it was empty. Then I took Rowdy for the kind of brief postprandial outing politely known as “exercise.” After dutifully cleaning up after him and depositing what I guess ought to be called his aerobic benefit in one of the trash cans, I returned to the cabin, checked my watch, and realized that I had ten minutes in which to look over the material in my registration packet. I upended the big manila envelope over the bed. With the exception of the calendar of events at Waggin’ Tail, the contents that tumbled out consisted of a map of the region, brochures advertising local attractions, fliers for restaurants, and other printed matter that Maxine McGuire must have seized in a raid on the Rangeley tourist bureau. The collection bewildered me. Why welcome people who’d just shelled out for Waggin’ Tail by hinting that they spend most of the week and a ton of extra money elsewhere? Missing from the packet were what I’d been told were the usual souvenirs and favors provided by Dog Days and the other competing camps: no penknife embossed with the camp name, no gift certificate for the camp store, no Waggin’ Tail ID tag for Rowdy’s collar, not even a bumper sticker.
With only a few minutes left before dinner, I skimmed the red legal-size sheet that showed the schedule of activities and quickly picked out agility, advanced obedience, and a workshop on flawless heeling for the competition dog. I intended to take the course on canine first aid and CPR, and I thought I’d let Rowdy try flyball and maybe lure coursing, too. He’d hate nothing more than the daily swimming lessons and the workshop on water rescue, and I’d keep him as far away as possible from herding, which would obviously involve sheep, live sheep, of course, unless Rowdy got them first. Hunting was also out. If there’d been any seals around, Rowdy might have located their blow holes, but I couldn’t imagine his learning to point to birds for someone else to kill or bringing them back for someone else to eat. Doggy square dancing? Breed handling? Dog tricks? Carting, yes. And definitely the Friday workshop on sled-dogging. No tattoo, though. Row
dy had his AKC registration number on one inner thigh and my social security number on the other. Even my protectiveness had limits.
I’d lost track of the time. I hustled Rowdy into his crate, took off for the lodge, and had the bad luck to arrive at the stairs just behind Eva Spitteler, to whom Joy was babbling about Lucky. “He swam! And he really loved it! I held him, and then Craig called to him, and he swam right to Craig!” Joy’s dainty hands mimed the Cairn’s accomplishment. Her childish face glowed. “And you could tell Lucky was kind of scared at first, because he wasn’t used to it, but he went right ahead! And he was so proud of himself! Wasn’t he, Craig?” At Joy’s side, beaming at his wife exactly as she had beamed at her dog, was Craig, who had the general appearance that Hollywood has persuaded me to associate with F.B.I. agents: the crew-cut blond hair, the cheeks slightly reddened from over-close shaving, the babyish features, and a body that looked artificially enlarged by persistent work with free weights. Craig’s head seemed to have been grafted to a big man’s neck, and the neck to a giant’s body. Joy wore a skirt and her husband wore pants, but their blue-and-rose-red madras plaid shirts were identical. On second thought, maybe it wasn’t a razor that explained Craig’s red face.
The upper half of Eva Spitteler’s compact bulk was shrouded in an unironed man’s dress shirt, and as she lumbered up the stairs, I got a close-up opportunity to realize why no one who weighs well over a hundred and fifty pounds should ever wear Bermuda shorts. On her feet were clunky leather sandals evidently fashioned from recycled bits of harness or dog leash.
“Well,” Eva told Joy loudly, “at Dog Days, you’d’ve got a tag for his collar for that. The first time your dog swims, you get a tag. It’s got a picture on it, and it says he’s a certified swimmer, and it’s really cute. You didn’t get one, did you?”
Joy’s face fell. “No. Should we have?”