Max stood, his smile strained. “Thanks for the help, Howard. And thank Bert for me.”
“Hey, sorry, man. I wasn’t trying to push. Hell, you’re not going to tell Mary? She’ll kick my butt from here to Brooklyn if she thinks I was pushing you.”
“Believe me,” Max said, “not a word to Mary.”
We were out on the street in record time, Howard having promised that Bert would get in touch as soon as he’d had a chance to review the agreement.
The day was bright and sunny. Max’s fingers circled my arm and didn’t let go as we walked steadily, bypassing every subway station we came to.
“Max?”
“I just need a second.”
If someone had told me when I first met him that he had worked at Goldman Sachs I would have laughed. But now, seeing him dressed in the blazer and button-down, his hair brushed back, I could see him as a hot young Wall Street investment guy.
We didn’t slow down until we came to Tribeca, as if we’d crossed a line of demarcation where he could breathe again.
“Are you okay?” I asked.
“Damn,” he said, then gave a huff of hollow laughter. “I haven’t been down there since nine-eleven.”
“What? Oh my gosh. You should have told me. You definitely didn’t need to go with me.”
He had slowed our pace, and he let go of my arm. I was surprised when he took my hand. “I had to go back sometime, and I guess I thought by going with you it’d be better.”
Whether it was wise or not, I curled my fingers around his. “I take it that wasn’t the case.”
He glanced over at me as we walked along a narrow road lined with shops and restaurants. “You definitely made it easier.”
“Were you working for Goldman when the planes hit the towers?”
“Yep.” He squinted as if the sun’s glare was too intense.
We walked another block without a word. After we crossed Canal Street, I couldn’t help myself. “Were you in the office when it happened?”
For a second I didn’t think he would answer, but after pulling me back when a cab cut a corner too close, he spoke. “I had just come up from the subway when all hell broke lose. People running and screaming, that cloud of ash and crap and who knows what else rushing down the street.”
He hesitated again, and we made it another block. This time I didn’t push.
“There was this woman,” he finally said. “I don’t know, middle-aged or older. Not sure. Not that it matters, she was dazed. I grabbed for her, had her hand in mine. Then that surge hit. You can’t believe the force of that thing. One second I could see the woman, then I couldn’t. I held on, tried to pull her to me, but I felt her let go and she slipped out of my hand. Someone else grabbed me and pulled me inside a deli.”
Having lived through 9/11 in New York, I had gotten used to the numb disconnect of the way people told their stories, as if putting too much emotion into the equation would make it unbearable for those who had lived through it. Max told his story with that same numb distance, and the pieces of this man came together like hitting the right combination of a lock. “You enlisted because you felt useless and needed to help. That’s how you became the Navy SEAL guy.”
This promising young man had witnessed the destruction, no doubt lost friends, and had to do something about it.
“Yeah, what can I say?”
“Your father must have been proud.”
He scoffed and swore. “He was furious. Tried to talk me out of it.”
“The Navy captain?”
“He told me I was going off half-cocked. But I couldn’t sit back and let other guys like my father do all the hard work. When he realized he couldn’t talk me out of it, he talked me into the SEAL program.”
Another piece fell into place.
“The day I was shipping out, he was still pissed off, could hardly speak to me. We shook hands like strangers. Mom was crying. I hated making them so unhappy. But all I could think about was that woman’s hand slipping out of mine.”
Max’s hard jawline was taut, his control fragile. “I was going to be late if I didn’t head out, so I backed away. But my dad didn’t let go. My old man, military to the bone, just looked at me for a second, then yanked me close and hugged me, said all that mattered was that I come back in one piece.” Max blew out a breath, the cords standing taut on his neck. “Hell.”
My heart broke for him and I squeezed his hand. “But just as with people you knew and worked with on nine-eleven, not all of your friends got out or came back alive. Survivor’s guilt. Easy enough to understand.” This time I hesitated. “But easy to understand isn’t the same as easy to deal with, though even that isn’t the hardest part for you.”
He glanced over at me, wary.
“You simply having a hard time with it makes you feel weak. And because of your dad, or because of how you were raised, or who knows what, you don’t know how to deal with feeling weak.”
We walked in silence, Max staring straight ahead, holding on to my hand, the cobbled street making it feel like a small European village. Then suddenly he eased, like a breath sighing out of him, and he hooked his arm over my shoulders.
“You’re perceptive, I’ll give you that.”
“I’m a book editor. I might as well be a shrink for all the crazy agents, authors, and publicists—not to mention certain other editors—I deal with.”
He laughed, finally, with that boyishly gruff sound I had grown to recognize in such a short time. When we hit Houston Street, he pulled me down into the subway. Without the rush hour crowds, the train wasn’t crowded, the last car nearly empty.
We didn’t talk as we headed uptown, just sat side by side, the car rocking and clattering over the tracks. When we neared the Fifty-ninth Street station, I stood. “I get out here.”
When the train stopped he got up, pulling me close. “Thank you,” he said against my temple.
I started to lean into him, but he pressed his lips into my hair, then gently pushed me out onto the platform as the doors slid closed.
einstein
chapter twenty-five
While Emily was doing whatever it was she did at work, I spent hours brainstorming ideas. At the end of the day, engrossed in Runner’s World, I yelped in surprise when I heard Emily come in behind me. Based on the look of shock on her face I deduced that had she been a dog she would have yelped too.
“You were reading,” she said, her tone accusing.
“Not exactly reading,” I lamented.
“Or something like reading!”
As usual, she understood. I would have chuckled if I could.
“You’re a dog, and dogs don’t read magazines! You were turning pages. With your nose and paw. I saw it.”
Since the old man’s last appearance, I had finally accepted the fact that I had to get serious about helping Emily get her life back together. Really help her this time. More importantly, when I did help her I would finally move on and achieve the greatness for which I had always known I was destined.
Sure, it would have been better to be guaranteed greatness in some sort of human variety. But at this point I was willing to take what I could get. That disconcerting lake episode had turned the tide.
To that end, and not wanting another replay of the Lucky Charms Incident, I knew I had to get control of my world. After getting the copy of Runner’s World, and after Emily had gone to work, I knew I had to come up with a schedule, a way to occupy my mind so the ridiculous animal instincts didn’t have the ability to commandeer my good sense.
Once upon a time, I had worked out regularly. Now that I was in this dog’s body, I realized I needed a new kind of workout routine. For cardio: march through the apartment. For the core: I invented a form of push-ups utilizing all four of my legs. But for the life of me, as Einstein, I couldn’t do anything close to a sit-up. Determined, I resorted to “rollovers.” Drop down, roll over, pop back up on the other side. Then repeat.
For an odd-looki
ng old dog, I felt certain that in no time at all I would be looking better and better. I was half tempted to coerce Emily into taking me to one of those dog salons, but in the park one hears stories. The last thing I wanted was to be at the mercy of some evil dog groomer with a pair of clippers and toenail trimmers. I still had nightmares about Vinny from the clinic.
The other thing I decided would help was reading. Okay, not exactly reading, but as with the maintenance late notice, I employed my cock-and-squint maneuver for decent results. The hardest part of my venture into this quasi-literate state was getting something down on the floor to peruse. And don’t get me started on how difficult it was to turn the pages. But by the time Emily arrived home that evening, I had managed a system of climbing up on tables, countertops, and bookshelves to retrieve things. The kitchen episode might have been a disaster, but it taught me how to climb. Beyond which I became something of a master of what I liked to call the “paw and muzzle manipulation.” A little descriptive, a little alliteration, all and all a fine turn of phrase that, well, helped me turn the page.
But now, I’d been caught.
“Okay, this is bizarre,” Emily said, closing her eyes.
When she opened them again, I could tell she expected to find me curled up asleep, the magazine closed, maybe even eaten, the books back on the shelf.
No such luck.
I tried to smile at her, tilting my head in that way that I knew made me look adorable, or more specifically, adorably ugly.
She screeched and marched straight for the refrigerator and what I knew would turn into another round of baking.
Damn it all to hell.
Another of my habits as Sandy was that I had always done my best thinking while running. I would head out to Central Park, take the bridle path around the reservoir under the canopy of trees, and somehow something that had been a muddle when I set out would become clear. It had been this line of thought that had reminded me of running, and the fact that one of the best ways to deal with whatever it was that was wrong with my wife was exercise.
As a result, I had decided I would get her to run up to the reservoir and back on the bridle path. Which, in yet another turn, had led me to the magazine store and the purchase of Runner’s World.
Yep, I was a genius.
Granted, I had two concerns. One, the dog walker and even Jordan had kept to the paved walkways when taking me out, so I had yet to experience the wide, cinder path where horses were still allowed. Just the thought of the gigantic four-legged beasts sent a thrill of anticipation through this little dog’s body. But my superior mind tamped it down, because I had bigger worries than chasing down a horse. Namely, as far as I knew, my wife had never worked out a day in her life, and more than once I had noted that she got winded taking a mere flight of stairs. I wasn’t sure how she would run anywhere without dropping dead from a heart attack. Then where would I be? Certainly not with the win-win I was hoping for.
The long and short? I had to get my wife in shape.
Insane, I know. Not only was I a dog, but let’s face it, my wife had recently become enamored of desserts laced with more fat and sugar than an opera singer stuffed in a cannoli shell. Not a great combination for the superior health needed by an athlete.
Given this, my first order of business should be no shocker. I had to keep her from making another cake.
I scrambled around her, planting myself in front of the refrigerator.
“Out of the way,” she said.
I growled.
“Einstein, move.”
She started to brush me aside, so I did the only thing I could. “Step away from the butter, fat girl,” I growled.
Yes, that might have been a little much, even for me.
Her jaw dropped. “I am not fat!”
“Not yet, maybe. But at the rate you’re going, sooner rather than later you’re going to expand like a dirigible in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.”
She gasped, and we didn’t speak for the rest of the evening. But can I just say, I might not have been sweet or kind, and certainly not charming, but didn’t I deserve points for keeping her from another round of baked goods?
*
After dinner, we still weren’t speaking and Emily didn’t bother to enlighten me as to why every time a noise sounded in the building, she leapt up and ran to the gallery. Since I couldn’t seem to make myself do anything else, I scampered after her, my nails scrambling on my poor hardwood floors, barks and yelps erupting from my chest.
Once in the gallery, Emily would pause, as if waiting for the door to open. When nothing happened, she glanced into the outer hallway and sighed.
“Jordan, where are you?”
Later that night I was curled up in the kitchen trying to sleep when my sister-in-law showed up at two in the morning. She had a male with her, twenty-four, twenty-five at the oldest.
“Shh,” she hushed the fellow, laughing.
It didn’t take a dog’s sensory abilities to know she was drunk. If the staggeringly potent smell of tequila and margarita mix hadn’t given her away, the actual staggering would have.
The guy wasn’t nearly as bad off. He’d been drinking … my nose twitched in assessment … beer, and several of them, and his body reeked of pheromones. Jordan’s guest wanted sex, and he wanted it bad.
I snuck up on them and gave them my scariest growl.
The guy stiffened, and a spurt of fear hormones mixed with the pheromones.
“Ignore him,” Jordan said, running her hands down the guy’s chest.
I growled again, crouching low, my hackles rising.
The guy backed up a step. I might not be that big, but everyone knows small dogs can do some serious damage if they get their teeth into it.
“Geez, don’t let him scare you. He’s all bark.”
“He doesn’t sound like he’s all bark. Look at those teeth.”
I bared my less-than-pearly whites for effect. It was the most fun I’d had, well, since becoming a dog.
“Damn it, Einstein, shut up.”
I growled at her.
She scoffed. “Like I care what you think of me.”
“Wench,” I barked.
“Ass,” she retaliated.
The guy backed up another step. “This is too weird. I’ve gotta go.”
“Good boy,” I barked.
“Jordan?”
The three of us froze at the sound of Emily’s voice. I could hear my wife pulling on her robe. Jordan sensed it too.
“You’ve got to get out of here.” She pushed the guy to the door.
I pitched in and gave a fierce growl to get him going faster. Not that I didn’t want Jordan to get in trouble, but why not take one last moment of pleasure in making him squirm? Who did he think he was to come into my house and have sex on one of my beds?
As soon as the door shut, Jordan bolted for her room.
“Good night, Emily!”
She careened into the guest bedroom, closing and locking the door just as Emily emerged.
“Jordan, we need to talk.”
“In the morning, Em. Sorry I woke you!”
“But I have good news.”
“Really, Emily, tomorrow. I’m exhausted.”
And drunk, I wanted to add, not to mention smart enough to know that her big sister wouldn’t take kindly to the slightest of staggers.
The sound of the shower coming on cut off whatever else Emily would have said.
“What’s that smell?” she asked.
“Your drunken sister,” I barked with great seriousness.
I ask, was that not helpful?
Emily glanced from the closed guest room door to me. “Don’t be a tattletale.”
Then she went back to her own room and shut the door on me.
Women.
*
When I woke the next morning, it was to the smell of coffee. Ah, how I missed morning coffee, the rising sun, and a crisp copy of the New York Times. For a second I started to feel
sorry for myself again, missing my old life, but then I focused. I was going to be great. After which I felt the flare of excitement and anticipation. What would that greatness look like? I wondered. What form would it take? I could hardly wait to find out what this new greatness entailed. And let me just say, if I was destined to be a triage specialist, I would make a hell of a lot better one than the old man.
I opened my eyes and was surprised to find Emily sitting at the counter reading Runner’s World.
Interesting.
Pushing myself up, I stretched, my head low over my front legs, my rump stretching up in the back, the muscles and sinew extending. When I stood, I shook, my dog tags jingling.
“Good morning,” she said.
Lost in thought, she gathered the leash and took me out. Once I was done at the curb and she had cleaned up, she straightened and stared at the park. This was interesting, but I wasn’t sure what she was thinking. “Use your words!” I barked.
“So you think running would help me, huh? That’s why you made me get the magazine.”
Am I impressive or what?
“Yes!” I barked.
Instead of returning indoors, we headed to the park, walking under the wisteria-covered arbor that arched over the entrance. While I could use a little dog group interaction, the dog group wasn’t there. Besides, Emily surprised me yet again when she led us to the bridle path.
“Okay, E, you’re getting what you wanted. We’re going to run.”
“Run? Already?” I squeaked.
Sure I wanted her to run, and no question I needed her to get into shape, but I wasn’t ready to start today. I had only just started my own workout routine, and was certainly in no shape to run. But she didn’t bother to ask me. She took off with me on the end of the lead.
Good God almighty. What had I been thinking when I thought running was the solution to my dilemma? As a man, yes, I had loved running. As a dog, so low to the ground and practically a hundred years old, every step was pure torture. I tried to pick my paws up high like some demented Clydesdale, because really, those cinders and rocks on my delicate pads felt … well, dirty. Did they even make hand wipes for dogs?
Emily and Einstein Page 19