Giant George

by Dave Nasser

  This wasn’t the house that Christie had grown up in—her parents had moved farther along the street when the children had grown up—but it was still very much a big family residence. It was bedecked, as were most of the other houses on the street, with all the stuff you’d expect for a Christmas in California. When the sun shines so brightly on your holiday decorations, you tend to up the ante by doing it fairly large. And like almost any other street in Southern California over the holidays, Christie’s parents’ street had gone whole hog. There were numerous giant Santas, any number of reindeer, a bunch of sleighs parked on roofs and lawns—mostly piled high with heaps of pretend presents—plus lots of different types of snowfolk and a smattering of jolly elves. There were also enough strings of brightly colored lights to nearly circumnavigate the planet. Though, as it was still daytime when we pulled up at Christie’s parents’, we’d have to wait till nightfall to get the full twinkling effect—us and, I didn’t doubt, the good folk on Mars.

  The whole house, by the time we arrived, was full to bursting with Christie’s family. There were Christie’s parents, plus her brother, Kevin, and his wife, and their children, plus Christie’s mom’s siblings, of whom there were many: Christie’s mom was one of seven—five sisters and two brothers. And to finish up, there were a whole bunch of grandparents, both Christie’s mom’s mom and pop and also her father’s mom and his sister.

  I don’t think George had ever seen so many people of all ages and sizes assembled indoors at once. And like any dog with a fondness for mass adoration (which is most dogs, let’s face it), he just loved being there from the start. He could hardly stir without someone wanting to come up and pet him or sneak him treats to eat. He particularly loved the attention of the children, who, once they’d gotten over the immediate size-shock, did what all children did with a big friendly dog: they recruited him right away as part of their team, which he lapped up. He was completely in his element.

  The other downside, apart from the Bathroom Anxiety, was that it was a bit of a tight fit getting the three of us into the small guest room (us on the pullout, and him on the floor, on a bunch of blankets, beside us) without a hopeless entanglement of limbs. We also hated the fact that we had to leave him in the dark garage, all alone, when we went to church or out to eat.

  Christmas Day, however, saw him rise to the occasion, perhaps a bit too much, given just how big he was now. The main action on Christmas morning took place in the living room, and considering the number of people and the size of the room, there was a very real prospect that he would not only step on some delicate and precious Christmas gift, but—more worryingly—accidentally topple over one of Christie’s grandmas. Though, to be fair, she’d already survived George’s party at the dog park, and was therefore pretty savvy and stayed mostly sitting safely in her seat.

  But even if he didn’t take out any seniors directly, there was the constant worry of one of them accidentally being buried under the Christmas tree instead. George being George, i.e., obsessive about being in the middle of things, couldn’t bear to sit still for an instant. He was also, of course, absolutely smitten with paper, and there was more here, at one time, than he’d ever seen in his life—lovely, brightly colored, crackly, snappy, chewable paper. Forget choc drops, this was Christmas euphoria for George. Consequently, there was no chance of anybody opening a present without him wanting to be right in there, getting involved.

  At first we thought the wrapping paper would be a useful distraction from all the other potential hazards; maybe we could shunt him to a corner and leave him to chew. But just as soon as we’d think he was happily occupied with one piece, there came the irresistible sound of another piece being torn up. That noise was just like the doorbell to George—it sent him wild with delight. It soon became evident that we were in a potentially disastrous situation: one flick of his tail, or one overenthusiastic bound to the source, and we would see that tree, all ten twinkling feet of the thing, come crashing down in the middle of the living room.

  But California being kind, weatherwise, even at Christmas, we could spend a large part of the day out in the backyard. Christie’s parents’ backyard was beautiful, with a big patio and lots of flowers, but best of all, for George, it had grass. George had hardly ever seen grass. Back in Tucson, it being desert, he was used to playing on gravel. So grass got a paws-up right away. He entertained everyone by running around the lawn in mad circles all afternoon, trying to pick up great chunks in his mouth. He didn’t have much success, so the grass survived the onslaught—which was a relief—as did the huge avocado tree they had, which was dropping avocados on the grass all the time. He did try one—George would readily try any sort of new foodstuff—but, happily, they weren’t to his liking.

  “Just as well,” I think it was Christie’s uncle Terry who observed, “or you might find your journey back to Tucson is memorable too—for the same, though entirely opposite, reason…”

  The day after Christmas, the main event over, Christie and I snuck away and took George down to the dog beach for a couple of hours to give him his first experience of the ocean. The weather was glorious, the sugar-fine sand sparkled underfoot, while swathes of diamonds danced and glittered on the water.

  For George, this new underfoot experience was also brilliant. He seemed to love sand as much, maybe even more, than he loved grass, and I wondered what it must be like to be a dog, to feel life—all those sensations—in such a simple, joyous way. He wasn’t the only Great Dane on the beach either—we met several others—as well as plenty of other breeds of dog, playing both in and out of the water, and right away George was bounding around happily, making friends. Christie, however, seemed in a more reflective mood.

  “You seem quiet,” I told her, as we strolled barefoot along the beach. We’d brought swimwear and towels; the ocean was just so inviting. It was something neither of us had seen in a good while—a whole year now. And it appeared that her mind was on the same thing as mine.

  “I was just thinking,” she said, “how beautiful all this is.” She stopped and looked around, casting an arm in an arc in front of her. “There’s something about the ocean, isn’t there? It just pulls you in. Pulls you back to it.”

  I’d grown up in Tucson, so I guess I didn’t get that. I didn’t have that same visceral attachment to the coastline that you do if it’s where you spent your childhood. But I’d gone there to college, and its allure had certainly managed to keep me where I was—for almost two decades, in fact. I nodded. “And now that you’re seeing it, you’re already imagining missing it when we leave, huh?”

  She grinned. “Kind of. It’s just that days like these, you have to wonder why you ever wanted to leave it, you know?” She turned. “Which doesn’t mean I’m not happy living in Tucson. Not at all. It’s just on a day like this, you think there’s really nowhere nicer to be on the planet than here. You get that?”

  “ ’Course, I get that. Who wouldn’t? And it’s Christmas, of course. And we’re on vacation…”

  “And there’s a million reasons why doing what we did was absolutely right. And you’re right: we’re on vacation, and we should make the most of it. Shall we go in for a swim?”

  “Absolutely,” I said. “Hey, and maybe we’ll be able to persuade Georgie to, as well.”

  “You are kidding me?”

  “I’m not. Look at it, it’s lovely in there! And look how many other dogs are in swimming. Maybe now that he’s seen them, he’ll give it another go. It’s not the same thing as the pool, after all, is it?”

  She laughed out loud. “Dave, you know, you really have to quit this. This dog of ours hates water. Period.”

  “Correction. Hates our pool.”

  “Because you pushed him in it.”

  I tried my best to look indignant. “No, I didn’t!”

  She laughed again. She clearly found this hilarious. “Yeah, you did.” She put her arms around me. “Dave, you are like a dad with a kid here, worrying that he doesn’t make t
he first team.”

  Now I felt indignant. “I am not! Anyway, we should at least take him down and encourage him. At least that.”

  “Well.” She laughed again. “Good luck with that!”

  Typically, Christie was right. We already knew how strong our dog’s will was. There was no way I could coax George into the ocean. Maybe he would’ve given it a shot—who knew?—but Christie had called that right too: since my misguided attempt to desensitize him to water, he was having none of it, no way, no how. Yes, he still remembered “Poolgate,” as we would come to not-so-fondly call it, and he definitely bore the scars. It didn’t matter that the shoreline was crowded with dripping animals, that there were dogs swimming and paddling, splashing around, catching sticks. George’s reaction to us stripping down to our swimming things and joining them was first one of bewilderment—where the heck did we think we were going?—then anxiety, very voluble anxiety. “Not in there!”

  We’d go in, and he’d start barking, an unbroken barrage of noise, till one of us got out and went and told him to quit fussing. But then, as soon as we went in again, he’d start up again too, till the whole thing became such a major embarrassment (not to mention noise pollutant) that we had to give up on the idea. Indeed, the last time Christie sloshed back to shore to try and quiet him, he actually stepped an inch into the water and got his paws wet, so determined was he to get behind her, herd her to safety and make sure she didn’t mess with the wretched stuff again.

  “Do you think it’s contagious?” Christie asked me, apropos of nothing, about twenty winks short of the forty I’d planned on before heading back to her parents’ place and a big family supper. We’d been drying off nicely in the Californian sunshine, and I could feel George’s warm heavy bulk against the soles of my feet. A little light lifeguarding had obviously tired him out too.

  I opened one eye, squinting against the late-afternoon rays. Christie was sitting up, arms clasped around her knees, looking up the beach toward the pier. I pulled myself up onto one elbow. I was still half asleep. “Is what contagious?”

  “I was just thinking. You know, there are how many kids at Mom and Dad’s right now? A dozen or so, is it? Not all staying, of course. But, you know, yesterday, for supper. You know—Kevin and Kate’s two, Mary’s teenagers, Peggy and Mark’s kids, Patty’s…”

  “And?”

  “And I’ve been sitting here now, and look around you. There are kids, like, everywhere, aren’t there?”

  I swiveled my head to look. I’d been lying in a funny position and now I had a crick in my neck. I sat up and rubbed at it. “And? I still don’t get what you mean. Contagious?”

  She flapped a hand, which woke George, though not for long. “I’m getting to that,” she said. “I was just thinking—”

  “You already said that.”

  “About right now, in our lives, and how something just occurred to me—do we ever see any children? You know, back in Tucson?”

  I thought for a second. She was right. “I guess not.”

  “Exactly. We never do, do we? We don’t know any children. And you don’t see them out because it’s way too hot for them to be out. You know, like this, out and about, in the daytime. They can’t be out in the daytime, not in the summer, or they’d fry.”

  “I’m sure they do go out in Tucson.” I laughed. “They’re not vampire children, are they?”

  “Yes, but we don’t see them, do we?”

  I shook my head. “But that’s only because we don’t know any, like you said.”

  “Or know anyone who has any.”

  “And your point is?”

  She looked down now, then turned to me and smiled. Except I couldn’t read her, as she was wearing her sunglasses.

  She carried on. “And I was thinking, this trip… you know, sitting here, now. I was just thinking I might have, well, picked something up.”

  “What, like a virus?” I knew she was fooling with me now, but so what? I was happy enough to play along.

  She nodded. “Like a virus. Exactly.” She smiled again, poked her finger in the sand and then stirred it. “Or something like that. Because there has to be a reason.”

  “A reason for what?”

  “For all the thoughts I’ve been having.”

  “Which are what exactly? What kind of thoughts have you been having?”

  “Thoughts about all the children here.”

  “Well? What about them?”

  She pushed her sunglasses into her hair now, so I could see the whites of her eyes. “I was just thinking how much I’d like one.”

  CHAPTER 9

  Maybe, Baby

  I looked at my wife without speaking for a second, and she looked back, clearly eager to gauge my expression. She must have been interested, because she lowered her sunglasses down her nose and peered at me over them professorially.

  “A baby,” she explained, in her no-nonsense manner, presumably in case the long-winded nature of her announcement might have left me in any degree of doubt.

  It hadn’t—not at all. She’d had my full attention from the start.

  “I mean, look at him,” she continued, poking a gentle toe against George’s slumbering form. “Look at how good he is with children. He’s been amazing with the kids, hasn’t he?” I nodded. He had; he was a real natural. “That dog is just made to be part of a big family,” she went on, warming to her theme. “He loves kids. He’d love it if we had a baby—I know it. He’d just love it. And he would so enjoy the company.”

  I pondered this somewhat novel concept. I thought, “There’s a thing: someone asks you the question, ‘Why d’you decide to have a kid?’ and your answer is: ‘To keep our dog company.’ Bit of a conversation stopper.”

  I didn’t share this flippant insight with Christie, however, because, the truth was, even though this was a shot out of left field, I was already kind of warming to the idea. After all, to quote another, more regularly quoted truism, neither of us was getting any younger. Christie was thirty-four now and I had turned forty, so it wasn’t like we had all the time in the world to think about it. And she was absolutely right about George.

  “Hey, Georgie,” I said, nudging him fully awake now. “What d’you think about all this? How d’you feel about your mom and pop becoming a mom and pop?”

  Christie leaned in against me. “More importantly, honey, how do you?”

  I put my arm around her. “You know what? I feel great about it.”

  “You do?” she said. “Really? You’re sure you’re not just saying that?”

  I grinned at her. “No,” I answered. “I am definitely not just saying that. Ask me in a month, when the reality kicks in, and yes, it’s true, you might get a slightly different answer, but—”

  She grinned and put a finger to my lips. “In which case, I’ll make a note in my cell right away.”

  “A note? About what?”

  “D’oh, Dave! To remind me not to ask you.”

  Once we’d made the decision, Christie didn’t waste any time. She went about the business of trying for a baby with the same drive and sense of purpose with which she’d approached getting George. So the new year began with a flurry of activity, and not just in the ways that might immediately spring to mind.

  Getting pregnant, it seemed, involved absolute military precision. Not only did Christie want to have a baby, she wanted to have a baby right away. And Christie, though excited, wasn’t at all naive. Our chats changed, over dinner, from what we might do on the weekend to all the facts about fertility at her “advanced maternal age.” I don’t know who coined the term “advanced maternal age” or, indeed, who thought it would be a good idea to point it out to her so forcefully, but it suddenly became the number one topic of the moment. And, soon after, a new ritual became established in our house: the daily task of Christie taking her temperature and recording it on a little chart.

  She’d been to the store and bought herself an ovulation predictor kit and a thermometer—the
better, she explained, for us to maximize our chances. After all, she told me (she was impressively well-informed now), there was only a small window of opportunity in every cycle, and with us both being such busy people with such extremely tight schedules, it was in our interest to know when that window was coming up so we could make sure our respective work diaries were in tune.

  Like any man, I guess, I viewed this sudden change in lifestyle with equal amounts of pleasure and trepidation. While it was good for all the obvious reasons, it also signaled—potentially—a much greater change; one that was as radical as it would be permanent.

  Still, I did as instructed, was willing and obeyed orders. And for all her anxieties about it taking months, if not years, by the end of February, Christie announced that she was pregnant.

  Funny, isn’t it, how some things can concentrate the mind? You wouldn’t think there would be much difference between the business of trying for a baby and actually expecting one, yet as soon as Christie told me her news, there definitely was.

  Perhaps I’d been living in cloud-cuckoo-land, but all the while we were trying it didn’t seem real to me. It was just another plan, another project bubbling under the surface, like the various ambitions and ideas I had for real estate. We would have a baby “one day” in the same sort of way as I would “one day” create the beautiful home of our dreams, in which we could stay put and raise a family.

  However, this “one day” had a date, and it suddenly seemed terrifyingly close. I realized right away that I was going to have to speed up our house remodeling schedule. There was no way I could let this baby come into a home that still, in places at least, looked more like a building site. I wasn’t able to experience Christie’s pregnancy hormones, obviously, but from that point on I worked a double shift almost every day of the week. I gave myself very little in the way of time off; I’d work all day on my current development property and then all night fixing up our house.