by Sheila Agnew
‘He’s a Westiepoo.’
‘A what?’
‘Westiepoo,’ repeated Nikki, ‘a West Highland White Terrier/Poodle mix. I’m pretty much obsessed with poos.’
‘We have plenty of that round here,’ I said, ‘so you’ve come to the right place.’
‘You might have worded that better, Nikki,’ said Max and she laughed.
‘I’m obsessed with poodle hybrids,’ Nikki explained. ‘When Max and I were looking for a dog, we checked out Pekeapoos, Pomapoos, Cockapoos, Bossi-Poos, Airedoodles, Boonoodles, a Foxhoodle and two Double Doodles.’
‘Yeah,’ said Max, ‘and don’t forget the Pinny-Poo, the Poogle, the Pomapoo and the Woodle.’
‘A Woodle? I said.
‘Yep,’ said Nikki, ‘it’s a cross between a Soft Coated Wheaten Terrier and a Poodle, and we also got the train to Rhode Island to visit a Bolonoodle and a Cadoodle’.
‘You guys are making this up!’ I said.
They both grinned.
‘Nope,’ said Max, ‘there’s a whole words of poos and doodles out there. We’re going to get a Schnoodle next to keep Eddie company.’
The conversation was so interesting that I temporarily forgot about Scott being trapped with Mrs Rubenstein preaching to him about her makey-uppy theories on cat illnesses.
‘Yikes’ I said, when I noticed the time. I was just about to scream ‘fire,’ and run into the examining room when Scott appeared in the doorway practically pushing Mrs Rubenstein in front of him, a dazed expression on his face.
Mrs Rubenstein had a bunch of fliers in her hands.
‘I will leave my brochures for my upcoming seminar at your reception,’ she said, handing them to me.
‘How very kind,’ said Scott.
I glanced at the brochures advertising Mrs Rubenstein’s workshop for kitty lovers whose partners are not of the same persuasion. They seemed to advocate divorce as the most practical solution.
‘Leave them with us, Mrs Rubenstein, Good-bye,’ Scott added firmly.
‘Who do we have next, Evie?
‘Eddie the Westiepoo,’ I said.
It turned out that Eddie just had kennel cough, which is highly contagious. Scott reckoned Eddie had picked it up from another dog when he was boarded in a kennel last week while Max and Nikki were in Vegas attending a convention for tattoo artists. Scott said the cough should disappear in about three weeks and he reminded Nikki and Max about keeping Eddie’s vaccinations up to date.
When she was paying the fee, Nikki insisted on giving Scott a voucher for a free tattoo at their parlour in the East Village.
Ben trotted into the waiting room.
‘Your dog is super cute,’ said Nikki, ‘we could do a life-size tattoo of him on your chest. We’d have to shave your chest first.’
‘Thanks,’ said Scott, ‘but I’m not sure that will do wonders for my romantic life and I see enough of Ben as it is without having him in the shower with me.’
Nikki smiled. ‘We have plenty of other animal tattoos. A lot of our customers ask for tattoos of their pets. Unicorn tattoos are probably the most popular.’
‘We don’t see a lot of unicorns in this practice,’ said Scott, ‘I guess we’re too far uptown.’
Max laughed and picked Eddie up, ‘Come on, Nikki, bye, Dr Brooks, if you change your mind about getting a tattoo, come see us. I’ve also been getting into taxidermy lately. Did a great job for a customer whose cat died. His stuffed cat now resides on top of his TV.’
My mouth dropped open. I didn’t like the thought of dead stuffed animals on top of the TV or anywhere else.
After they had gone, I asked Scott,
‘Could we use the voucher to get me a tiny tattoo of a barn owl on my ankle?’
‘No,’ said Scott, and he didn’t say it in a no but maybe if you push, I will change my mind, kind of way, it was a no of the unequivocal kind, a non-negotiable one. I shrugged. Tattoos aren’t that cool. Most of the adults I know have at least one. I told Scott about Megan, a girl in my geography class, who has her name tattooed on her wrist although they spelt it wrong so it says ‘Megen.’ Scott said that if you need to look at your wrist to be reminded of your name, you have real problems to worry about.
Chapter 14
Marcy called to suggest that I get a haircut before we had to go to court.
Bewildered, I asked her, ‘What difference does it make to the judge what my hair looks like?’
‘Appearances matter,’ she said airily, ‘Ask the hairdressers to do something. Think less wild child, more Laura Ingalls.’
‘Who?’ I asked.
‘Never mind,’ she said.
But I think Marcy had made a fair point on the wild-child hair. Kylie, more considerately, refers to it as my uniquely-relaxed style.
Kylie’s Mom, Rachel, took us to a hair salon on West 83rd Street. It was my first haircut in Manhattan, not counting the time last year Scott cruelly chopped a great big lump out of my hair when I had a massive knot. Kylie had very specific ideas about what kind of style she wanted. Her hairdresser, Shoshanna, looked a little overwhelmed when Kylie handed her a detailed sketch plus three different pictures cut out from magazines. But she was a professional. She circled Kylie, lifting up locks of her hair and said, thoughtfully, ‘Yes, I can work within the general parameters of the sketch and these pictures but perhaps keeping the middle parting.’
‘No, no,’ said Kylie, looking very distressed. ‘I’m not doing a good job of explaining – the sketch and the pictures are examples of what I DON’T want my hair to turn out like.’
‘Feel free to adopt her’ said Rachel to Shoshanna before she left to return to her gallery.
The atmosphere in the salon reminded me of the theatre. There were lots of glamorous people wearing cool clothes, rushing around, looking important and gossiping. I felt the thrill of the impending rise of the curtain, like a play was about to be performed. The clean, fresh smell of expensive shampoo and anticipation wafted through the salon. It smelled much better than the theatre, which usually reeks of sweaty old tights and nervousness.
They sat Kylie and me in high adjustable red leather chairs with a chair between us. A hairdresser was hard at work on highlights for the customer who sat between us. I couldn’t stop staring because the customer was particularly unusual; it was just the head of a mannequin with a long wig of honey blond hair. I thought that the hairdresser must be training. Kylie said it might be a wig for a cancer victim and I felt bad. My hairdresser, a guy from Estonia called André, who wore black and red boots with very high heels, explained that a lot of the salon’s customers were Hasidic Jews.
‘Nobody is allowed to see their real hair except their husbands,’ he said.
‘Like Muslim women who wear veils,’ said Kylie.
‘I suppose so,’ said André, looking surprised.
‘Why do they wear wigs?’ I asked.
André shrugged. ‘I think it has something to do with modesty – avoiding vanity.’
‘But that wig is gorgeous,’ I said.
‘Celebrity level,’ Andre agreed in a worshipful voice. ‘The customers are very fussy and proud of their wigs. They spend thousands of dollars on them. You wouldn’t believe how competitive they can be about them.’
I found the wig a little creepy.
After we had our hair cut, we had to wait a few minutes for blow-drys. (They call them blowouts, which I found appropriate, considering how expensive everything was). It was cheap of me but I felt bad about having three people to tip instead of one – the woman who washed my hair, André who cut it, and, now someone new would come along to dry it. I whispered to Kylie about my dilemma and she pointed out, ‘and, there’s the woman who took our coats, she’ll be expecting a tip as well.’
‘Scott would be able to buy a new Jeep for the cost of my haircut,’ I moaned dramatically to Kylie but she was absorbed with her phone.
‘Look, Akono just texted me a picture of a baby riding a scooter, it’s th
e cutest thing.’
She leaned over to pass her phone to me. As I fumbled to reach it, the folds of my overlong black gown knocked against the freshly-wigged mannequin head sending it crashing to the floor. The wig fell off and the head rolled like a ball in a bowling alley halfway across the salon until it lodged between the ankles of an elderly woman having her hair washed. She didn’t seem to notice.
Kylie and I stared in horror and we both jumped to pick up the wig. In the process, one of us stepped on it. I strongly suspect that was me because a wad of grey gooey chewing gum stuck to the bottom of my shoe somehow got entangled in the wig. The more Kylie and I tried to extract the gum, the more entangled it became. It was a total nightmare.
‘Perhaps the woman who owns the wig could wear a lot of hats; they are really in this season,’ said Kylie.
I glared at her.
André sauntering by our chairs, spotted the wig and screamed, a horrible high-pitched scream of pure panic, like a starlet in the opening scene of a horror film. Still screaming, he ran off and returned a few minutes later with the manager, Dmitri, a squat, muscular man with a gleaming, oiled bald head and bulging black eyes. I don’t know if his eyes normally bulged or if that was just a reaction to the situation.
I placed the wig on a chair, and, rather hopelessly, patted some of the gooey strands.
‘I’m very, very sorry,’ I said, ‘it was an accident.’
‘An accident,’ repeated Dmitri, ‘an accident! That’s a ten thousand dollar wig!’
Gulp. ‘Ten THOUSAND dollars! For a wig? Just a wig, not a pair of kidneys thrown in?’ I asked, and I wasn’t being sarcastic. Not completely.
In a hoarse, rasping voice, Dmitri moaned.
‘How am I going to explain this to Serena?’
Kylie patted Dmitri comfortingly on his arm.
‘What about insurance?’ she said, ‘the wig is probably covered by her home insurance. My Mom’s necklace got robbed three years ago and Mom said that we could have gotten money for it on our home insurance – if we had had home insurance, which we didn’t at the time, but we do now. Nothing has been stolen since we got the insurance, which is pretty maddening.’
Dmitri shot her a murderous look. But it takes a lot to silence Kylie.
‘Or you could just cut the gum out. It’s mainly on the bottom and you could create a new style for Serena, maybe an Anna Wintour bob, they are always chic and timeless.’
André and Dmitri exchanged glances.
‘I could try that,’ said Andre.
‘I’ll help you,’ I offered.
‘NO,’ shouted Dmitri, ‘you kids have done enough. If this gets out, the reputation of my salon will be ruined forever. Just, get out of here, immediately, before you set the place on fire!’
‘But we have to pay the tips,’ I protested.
Another bloodcurdling scream ripped through the air. The elderly woman at the washbasin had become conscious that what she thought was a footrest was, in fact, a human head. I suppose she didn’t realise it was a mannequin. They are incredibly lifelike.
We took that scream as our cue to make a fast exit.
Once outside, Kylie pointed out that now, I didn’t have to worry about tipping. She deserves some kind of medal for always looking on the bright side. I could see a bright side too. I looked older with my new haircut. I could probably pass for fifteen in daylight now.
Chapter 15
Getting out of having to go to school on a weekday is obviously a cause for celebration. On the downside, I’d prefer to be in school than heading to my first day in court. I was scared. So was Scott. I could tell from the way he made scrambled eggs for breakfast, but forgot to scramble them so they turned out more like eggy pancakes. That reminded me so much of Mum it hurt. That’s exactly the kind of thing she did when she was nervous or scared. Scott, however, pretended that he wasn’t nervous or scared at all; he kept singing snatches of rock songs and acting like it’s normal for us to go to court. I pretended it was normal too.
Scott’s lawyer told him to wear a dark conservative suit with a tie. So he wore the black Hugo Boss suit that he had worn to Mum’s funeral. He smelled of tea-tree shower gel and aftershave.
Marcy called last night to tell me that I should look as old as I could because the older I look, the more the judge will be inclined to give ‘weight’ to my wishes. But she also told to not wear shoes with heels or a short skirt or make-up or anything revealing. I was glad she hadn’t noticed I don’t have much of anything to reveal yet.
I was happy with my new, more sophisticated haircut but the rest of my efforts were pretty much epic fail. I tried my best but when I looked in the mirror, I realised I had only succeeded in making myself look younger. The freckles on my nose were the main problem. Marcy had warned me not to chew gum or wear a baseball cap. I thought that was ridiculous.
I asked, ‘What kind of person would do those things in court?’
Marcy said, ‘Plenty! You’d be surprised!’
While Scott was yakking on the phone about a cat with cataracts, I discreetly slid my egg pancake into Ben’s food bowl. Just as we are about to leave, Joanna came upstairs from the clinic to wish us luck. She hugged me and then turned to Scott. She stepped towards him and for a second or two, I thought she was about to hug him as well but she busied herself with adjusting one of his cuff links. They were in the shape of tiny silver motorbikes, a present from her to him the Christmas before last. Her hair looked even redder against the crisp whiteness of his shirt. There was an awkward hard-to-miss tension in the air that made me feel like slinking out of the room.
Scott broke it.
‘So what cause is speaking to Jeffrey today?’ he asked in what I think he meant to be a cheery casual tone but it sounded brittle and fake.
I rolled my eyes. Joanna stepped back, looking annoyed. She ignored his question.
‘Good luck, guys!’ she said briskly, ‘I have to get back to the clinic.’
We watched her go back downstairs in silence.
‘Don’t say a word!’ Scott groaned to me, ‘Let’s go.’
‘Ok,’ I said.
I wished Joanna was coming with us. So did Scott but he was too stubborn to say so.
With a final pat for Ben, we left. We didn’t head for the Family Court on Lafayette Street because last month, the case was transferred to the Supreme Court of the State of New York. I don’t know why. Everyone else just says the ‘court’, but I like saying the full title. I like the ringing sound of it; it sounds solid and like something the founding fathers would have approved of – not just any old court but the Supreme Court, and not just any ole Hicksville, nobody-can-remember-its-capital state, but the Empire State, THE STATE OF NEW YORK. Rob, Scott’s lawyer, said that the case being transferred to the Supreme Court was a good thing because it’s faster than the Family Court and the judges are smarter and they even sometimes know the law and apply it. Scott said he hasn’t seen any evidence of this so far. But I thought any judge we got must be better than Psycho Suzie.
The courthouse sits at the top of the steps at 60 Centre Street, close to City Hall. It is huge and grey and commanding and resembles one of those ancient buildings you see in history books. I’d seen the stone steps plenty of times on T.V. It felt strange to be walking up them myself, like I had a part as an extra in a Law and Order episode.
There were two long lines at security, one for the lawyers and the judges and the clerks and the other for everyone else. Our line took much longer. When we finally cleared security, we found ourselves in a nearly empty, round, light-filled room with a high domed roof. It felt like being in a museum, but not MOMA, more like the Metropolitan. We wandered around the outer circumference of the circle looking for the right bank of elevators. A nice security guard showed us and pressed the button.
We met our lawyers, Marcy and Rob, outside the judge’s courtroom on the fifth floor. They signed in with some security lady at a desk and then we walked through a pair of heav
y wooden double doors. The courtroom looked pretty much like it does on TV. It was large and spacious with the US flag hanging limply on a brass flagpole on a raised platform beside the enormous desk where the judge sits. In front of the judge’s desk, there was a smaller desk, where a young woman with blonde hair typed on a computer. She never looked up. Nearby, a young man with round glasses, sat in front of a weird looking tin box machine that had a thin ream of paper coming out of it.
‘Who’s that guy?’ I asked Marcy.
‘The stenographer,’ she said.
‘Huh?’
‘The court reporter. He records everything anyone says.’
We crowded around a list on a wall called the Court calendar. There, at number seven in the list, was our case, ‘Michael Carey v. Scott Brooks.’ My name wasn’t mentioned. Marcy motioned for Scott and me to sit in one of the wooden pews. The bench was very hard and uncomfortable. More and more people filed into the room, talking and carrying stacks of papers. Lawyers kept coming in and out of the room, some of them wheeling suitcase type bags filled with velobound bundles of paper. The atmosphere was different than I expected. It was quite calm. There was none of that resigned hopelessness in the air that made Family Court so horrible. I asked Marcy if I had time to go to the bathroom and she said yes, but to hurry up because the nearest ladies’ bathroom was a long way away, two floors below.
I got a bit lost going to the bathroom and it was on my way back when I rounded the corner closest to our courtroom that I saw him. I only saw his back at first but the second I saw him, I knew who it was. He had the same shade of boot polish-black hair as I do except with streaks of grey at the temples. Michael turned around and saw me. It was super strange to see my own light grey eyes in his face. He looked like me or I looked like him, whatever. I felt mad that I looked like him and not like Mum; it felt like a betrayal of her in a weird way. He hesitated for a second and then he smiled tentatively at me. It was such a warm real kind of smile with crinkles at his eyes that I very nearly smiled back. But I pulled myself together and marched right past him with my head in the air. I hope he didn’t notice that my left leg was shaking.