Emily and Einstein

by Linda Francis Lee

  He ignored me, herding us back to the racks. When he didn’t find anything on the second floor, he guided us up a level. There he found a beautifully simple Ralph Lauren dress. I loved it. But …

  “No way,” I said when I looked at the price tag.

  Einstein and Jordan ignored me, pulled the dress out and herded me to the tiny dressing room in the Ralph Lauren section.

  I pulled it on despite my better judgment. When I came out and looked at myself in the mirror I saw the woman I used to be. More than that, I realized something else. “You have the same exact taste as Sandy,” I said to my dog.

  Einstein leapt up and barked.

  Jordan laughed and I smiled.

  “The Barlow sisters are going to be the talk of the publishing world,” Jordan said as we walked out the door.

  Einstein held his head high with what I could only call a smug sort of pride. When he glanced at me, I couldn’t help but smile. “Yes, you really are the man.”

  *

  Jordan and I walked into Michael’s just after twelve-thirty the next day. It was all I could do not to squeeze her hand when the room full of power players turned around to look at us.

  “Here goes,” I whispered.

  The hostess was a tall, beautiful woman.

  “I’m Emily Barlow from Caldecote Press. I have a reservation for two.”

  The woman looked us over, glanced down at her reservations, then considered the table options. We were led down to a table visible to just about everyone.

  “They’re all staring at us,” Jordan noted.

  “They want to know who we are.”

  “Creepy.”

  “Not creepy. This is the launch of your literary career.”

  A waitress took our order. A Cobb salad for me, which got a raised eyebrow from Jordan. “Dieting?” A hamburger with Gruyère cheese and fries for her. “Not dieting?” I countered.

  “Life’s too short,” she added.

  “That’s probably true.”

  We hadn’t taken more than a few bites of our meal when Hedda Vendome appeared at the entrance like a 1920s film diva stepping onto a silent stage. She wore a black suit that looked like it cost more than I made in a month and her signature heavy makeup with penciled-on eyebrows. She surveyed the room as she headed for her table, the assistant I remembered from before hurrying along in her wake.

  Hedda nodded here, waved there, then stopped dead in her tracks when she saw me.

  “Emily, darling!”

  “Hello, Hedda. How are you?”

  “I’m terrible, terrible. I just did a round of cosmetic filler, and while I look fabulous, I hurt like hell! But really, you look amazing. Tell me what you’re doing. Dieting? Lipo? Purging?”

  Jordan looked aghast. “She’s running.”

  Hedda glanced over at my sister. “Running, bah. I say purge. It’s easier on the body. You can imagine what running does to one’s knees. I should know. I watch that quivering, sweating mass of humanity scurrying up First Avenue every year during that horrid New York City Marathon. You’ve never seen so many knee braces on gasping people too old to be wearing short shorts and tank tops. Promise me, Emily, that you are not going to turn into one of those obsessives!”

  I could only smile at Hedda. “I’m hardly in shape to run any distance, much less a marathon.”

  Jordan considered me. “I have a friend who ran it after only three months of training. When’s the race?”

  “I haven’t a clue, but forget it. I am not running a marathon.”

  I had read about Sandy’s dream of running the New York City Marathon, how he started to train, running through the park, the power it made him feel. Even more than when he had started writing about other women, the writing about his running had brought him to life.

  Was it possible to be more jealous of a race than the women?

  Hedda’s assistant paused in her typing on the BlackBerry. “You should totally do the marathon. You can’t live in New York, run, and not do it!”

  “Don’t listen to her,” Hedda interjected. She put her hand up to her mouth as if to tell a secret, though her voice was loud enough for just about everyone to hear. “She’s a vegan.” The older woman shuddered, then looked at her assistant. “What is that again?” Before the girl could answer, Hedda waved the question away.

  The assistant rolled her eyes and added, “The marathon’s the first Sunday in November. I’m sure you can get in using some corporate connection, and really, all you have to do is finish. Heck, Hedda could probably get you in.”

  Hedda scoffed at her assistant. “Go back to doing whatever it is you do on that contraption.” She refocused on my sister. “So enough about you, Emily. Who is this vision sitting next to you?” She glanced between the two of us. “Don’t tell me this is that squalling second child your mother gave birth to?”

  My sister looked shell-shocked.

  “Hedda, this is my sister, Jordan. Caldecote is publishing her book next spring.”

  If Tatiana wanted word out that we were publishing a book about my mother, Hedda would be a better vehicle than a full-page ad in USA Today.

  “You are?” Hedda arched one of her penciled-on brows. “What kind of book?”

  “A memoir,” I said. “It’s called My Mother’s Daughter.”

  She glanced from me to Jordan, then back, putting two and two together. “A book about the mother, written by one daughter, edited by the other.” Her eyes narrowed in assessment. “Brilliant. As soon as you have an advance copy, I want to see it. Though remember, just because you’re making even more headway in adult publishing doesn’t mean that you aren’t still meant to be in the children’s world.”

  I smiled and shook my head at her.

  Hedda blew air kisses my way, told Jordan it was divine to meet her, then continued on to her table.

  “My burger is cold,” Jordan complained.

  I was too busy watching my mother’s old friend stop at this table, then that. Was she spreading the news about the project?

  My excitement was still there, but I was also nervous. Could I really make this work?

  Sure enough, before lunch was over, more than half a dozen people stopped at our table to introduce themselves and ask about the book. Afterward, I sent Jordan home in a cab. Back at the office, I ran into Birdie outside the elevator.

  “It’s already all over the Internet! Lunch at Michael’s. New talent. You’ve got to love bloggers! At least when they’re being nice.” Birdie shivered with pleasure. “This is so exciting, Emily. A big book. A big push. This is going to make you famous!”

  I shouldn’t have gotten caught up in her excitement. There was so much work to do before the book ever saw the light of day. Nonetheless, I floated to my office and got to work in a way I hadn’t in months. Without realizing what I was doing, I sorted through old e-mail, even older regular mail, and started getting a mental picture of all I had to do. When I sat back and noticed that I had written up a list without even realizing it, I couldn’t help but smile. I was doing my job. It felt great. I felt great.

  That evening, I surprised even myself when I tied the laces on my running shoes and headed up the bridle path without a nudge from Einstein. A sense of hope I hardly remembered pushed me on as I made it to the Seventy-seventh Street tunnel, then started up the rise to the maintenance facility. When I saw the Marionette Cottage I knew that while I hadn’t run that far in the scheme of things, it was farther than I had gone before, and my excitement grew.

  Hedda’s assistant’s words echoed in my ears, as did Jordan’s story about her friend who had only trained for three months.

  When I headed back to the apartment I thought maybe, just maybe, I could run the New York City Marathon.

  einstein

  chapter twenty-eight

  After the infamous lunch at Michael’s, my wife was over the moon. My sister-in-law was not nearly as excited. Not that my wife realized this. I had begun to think Emily, for all her empathy
and intelligence, was somewhat blind to Jordan. She seemed to see a version of a sister she was either afraid she had or a sister she needed.

  Insight from me, Alexander “Sandy” Portman.

  I hung my head, and why not? Insight is overrated. Living a life of oblivion and self-centered satisfaction is far easier. But I was fast learning that as Einstein I wasn’t trying to be insightful, I just was.

  It had started out slowly without me realizing what it was, until bam, the realization that I was being suffused with deeper meaning hit me like a two-by-four to the face. I could no more turn off the trying ability than I could shed my white wiry fur on demand. Worse still, I might have come to accept my new circumstances, and I might even have looked forward to learning where all my “helping” would lead, but truth to tell, I was having a hard time staying enthused about all the work that I had to do in order to achieve this greatness. Simply put, “helping” took a lot out of me. There was all that thinking and planning, not to mention the doing. But the other option—fading away to nothing—wasn’t appealing.

  In the evenings after work, Emily would waltz in, give me a kiss on my muzzle, then head back to check on Jordan.

  “Hey, Jordie, how’s the book going?”

  “Great!”

  A blatant lie. I knew for a fact that no book was getting typed into a computer or written on a page. If there was a book, it was still in Jordan’s head.

  “Can I read the new pages?” Emily would ask.

  “Ah, not yet. They’re still really rough. But soon!”

  “Okay. But remember. It has to be done at the end of August.”

  “Absolutely!”

  My wife could be so gullible.

  At dinner one evening about a month later, Emily talked incessantly, excitement coloring her voice.

  Jordan’s demeanor, on the other hand, screamed that she hated the entire situation. Not that she said a word to this effect. She simply oozed unhappiness. She oozed stress. I had to wonder if something that had seemed so simple in its inception was now going against everything she thought she believed in. Namely, crass commercialism butting heads with an idealist’s hope that one woman’s story could make a difference to other women who came after.

  At one point, she even sank down on the floor in front of me. “I’m pretty much screwed, huh?”

  Had I cared one whit for Jordan Barlow, I would have felt badly for her. But as has been established, I didn’t like my sister-in-law, and that night I made no bones about it. I just growled and snapped at her, almost relishing her misery, not caring how Jordan’s problems would affect my wife.

  Which is when it began to happen in earnest. The fading.

  No sooner did I turn my back on Jordan than I felt the strange fading sensation combined with a stomach-roiling dizziness, as if I’d had a bad batch of Chinese food.

  Call me stubborn. I wrote it off to the flu. But I got no better and later that night I woke up confused about which I was. A dog? A man? It took a second before I remembered I was Sandy Portman in the body of Einstein the Dog.

  Squeezing my eyes shut, I thought the word Emily, but couldn’t pull up an image to match the name. When I finally managed to put it together, panic made it hard to breathe. I panted, that drool I had only recently mastered starting up again.

  I was fading, I realized, to nothing, just as the old man had warned me, one memory at a time.

  Old man! I wailed.

  Not that he answered. Not that I thought he would. Had he popped in, I would have told him in no uncertain terms that adding Jordan to my list of concerns was beyond the call of duty, not to mention hardly worthwhile.

  But even having the derogatory thought made my stomach give another shuddering heave. Jordan was Emily’s sister; they were connected. I couldn’t let the sister fall apart for fear of what it would do to my wife.

  More insight.

  I muttered something decidedly profane, then resigned myself to the reality that I had to set my thoughts to Jordan. I couldn’t let myself become nothing.

  The minute I made the decision to deal with the sister two things happened. First, I felt better—my thoughts cleared, my memories came back, my body felt more solid. Second, my finely tuned ears picked up a noise in the foyer.

  It was the middle of the night, I’d had a rough day, and all I wanted was to sleep. I’d deal with the sister-in-law in the morning. But I was quickly learning that whoever was in charge didn’t particularly care how I felt. That strange dizziness returned and made my stomach do a decidedly unpleasant dance. I glowered into the dark, then pushed up from my bed with more inventive profanity and headed toward the gallery.

  No surprise when I found Jordan sneaking out of the apartment. I swallowed back the, Be gone, scourge and pestilence, good riddance.

  For half a second I thought I must have spoken the words out loud because no sooner did I tiptoe into the gallery than she whirled around.

  “Go back to bed, Einstein.”

  Oh, how I wish I could.

  With no help for it, I walked over and stood between her and the front door. A similar tack had worked with my wife and baking.

  “Move,” she said.

  I mustered up a halfhearted growl in response. I even managed to show some teeth.

  Jordan rolled her eyes and tried to sidestep me.

  Fortunately I was too fast for her. When she went right I was there. To the left, ditto. Back and forth we went, like silent dance partners in my hundred-and-twenty-year-old apartment. Only it wasn’t the 1800s. It was the twenty-first century and as I thought about my sister-in-law’s actions since she arrived, I had to wonder what exactly was wrong with her.

  I thought about the string of one-night stands, the fight that she and Emily had over the book—the book that Jordan wasn’t writing. I even thought of the story about her breakup with that Serge fellow.

  While I hadn’t a clue what to do about any of this, I did understand that if I didn’t want to fade, I had to do my part to keep Jordan from yet another nocturnal coupling, something she was doing in a misguided attempt to … what?

  Truthfully, even as Einstein, I wasn’t smart enough to figure this one out. Why would Jordan sleep around so determinedly without seeming to enjoy it? Why was she drinking so much? Why was she hugging Emily one day, then furious at her the next?

  I was so busy thinking this through that she took me by surprise, springing for the door. I had to sink my teeth into her pant’s hem to keep her in place.

  The commotion made her freeze.

  “Stop,” she hissed, shaking her leg. “Let go.”

  I clamped on tighter, gave a good shake of my own, and added some heartfelt growling.

  “Freakin’ A, E, shut up,” she hissed. “You’re going to wake Emily.”

  I did let go this time, but only because she stopping trying to escape. I could feel her trying to regain her calm. After a second, her face softened and she smiled a big fake smile at me.

  “Good boy, Einstein.”

  Like she was one of those clueless human dog owners straight out of an episode of The Dog Whisperer.

  Her smile remained, but her energy shifted. As the saying goes, trick me once, shame on you, trick me twice … well, shame on you again.

  I was ready for her when she lunged. I blocked her escape, and bared my teeth. The threat did quite the job to herd her out of the gallery and down the hall. Not that this calmed her. Her frustration grew, seeming to take up the space around her until it surrounded me too.

  Once corralled inside her bedroom, she started kicking the pillows and discarded clothes that littered the floor, jabbing the air as she hissed the sort of profanity one might hear in a barroom brawl. Who exactly she was fighting in that imaginary world of hers I couldn’t say, but her lip quivered, veins on her temples pulsing. Had she been seventy-five and male, I might have worried. Neither as man nor beast could I have performed CPR.

  Not to put too fine a point on it, while I was trying to ac
t cool about the ordeal, the effort was exhausting, and I barely held back a shudder of relief when I felt Jordan’s frustration turn to something else. Anguish, I realized.

  While this new emotion was taking its toll on her, it was far less taxing on me. She made one last halfhearted kick at a pillow, got her legs snarled up in a heap of jeans and shirts, then staggered trying to right herself and tumbled to the floor.

  Thank God.

  Though no sooner did she land than she started fighting to untangle herself, her impatience only making it worse.

  When I determined it would be a while before she was untangled, I flopped down in front of the bedroom door with a relieved sigh.

  She looked over at me and glared. “Jerk.”

  Excuse me? What did I do?

  “You don’t know what it’s like,” she hissed. “I am trying! I am trying to get it right!”

  I lay perched on my stomach, muzzle on my paws, watching her. I was no fool. If she managed to get unsnarled and made a run for it I needed to be ready. I would lie there the rest of the night if that was what it took to ensure I didn’t fade away. But surely no one expected me to listen to her.

  I might have yawned.

  Jordan whipped her head back around. “You’re just like him. Just like that dickhead Sandy. And let me tell you, he was a major jerk, especially to my sister.”

  Great. More about how horrible Sandy was.

  She arched her back and punched one of the decorative pillows that lay scattered beside her on the floor. “But Emily loved him anyway! I don’t get it. She wasn’t worried about being hurt. She wasn’t worried that he’d screw her.”

  She grabbed the pillow and hugged it to her face, screaming into it. A little more pressure, I wanted to instruct her, and you just might manage to suffocate yourself.

  Instantly, my head spun like I had thrown back a double shot of poor-grade whiskey.

  Great, just great. With a weary sigh, I crawled forward and tugged the pillow away from her. Sure enough, my head cleared.

  However when I revealed her face I caught a glimmer of tears. Never in my life had I felt such a physical need to flee. I could take the anger. I could take the frustration. I could even take the Sandy bashing. But I wanted out before there was any serious waterworks.