Traveling Light

by Thalasinos, Andrea

  He licked the clerk’s face as she tested the new red collar around his neck.

  “He’s so good-natured,” the groomer remarked.

  Taking a pair of pliers out from a drawer, she removed the rabies tag from the fraying old collar and transferred it onto the new one.

  “There. Now you’re all set,” she said to the dog, and then looked at Paula.

  “Shall we toss these?” The clerk held the old collar and leash between her thumb and index finger, the end of the rope curled and spiraled like a piece of rotini pasta.

  “No,” Paula said a little too emphatically. “I’ll take those.”

  The clerk’s eyebrows arched in surprise. Paula reached for Theo’s two earthly remains. Without a word, the woman lowered each into a large ziplock bag, sealed it and handed it over.

  Paula added it to the shopping bag.

  “Now there,” the woman said as Fotis’ eyes brightened at the tone of her voice. “Look what a pretty boy you are.”

  The clerk snapped on the matching lead and handed it to Paula. “Good luck.”

  CHAPTER 3

  Paula brought Fotis to her office because she didn’t know what else to do. Though it was going on seven, she hoped Guillermo would still be there. Maybe he’d take the dog to Brooklyn for a day or so until she could figure out what to do, but no such luck.

  There were several missed calls from Roger that she hadn’t picked up. Unease burned like indigestion under her collarbones each time his incoming call lit the display. It felt like she was cheating. Her sense of obligation pressured her to offer up a full account of Theo and the day’s events. She settled down into her office chair and worked up the nerve to call.

  Roger answered immediately.

  “Where are you? I’ve been calling.”

  “Yeah, sorry.”

  “Why didn’t you answer?”

  “I was busy.”

  “With what?”

  “I uhh … kind of … uhh … got a dog.”

  “Yeah, right, and I just signed with the Yankees.” He laughed darkly.

  “Roger, I’m not kidding.”

  “We’re meeting Arnie and Sophie at seven. Remember? Their place?” He paused. “I suppose you forgot again.”

  She had. Fotis looked up at her as if sensing the need for moral support. She touched the top of his head. It was so soft; she smiled without realizing it.

  “I told you I, eh, I got this dog.”

  Roger was silent except for the sound of his mind ticking through a litany of theoretical possibilities.

  “Paula, what are you up to?” He chuckled with ridicule. She slouched as if ready to guard her midriff.

  “I have this dog,” she stated as if she couldn’t believe it herself. “I’m waiting for Celeste.”

  There was a long silence.

  “I, uhh, I don’t know what to say.” His snort was incredulous.

  She didn’t answer.

  His inflection made her think of Jimmy Baldacci, the kid who broke up with her in seventh grade. How strange to think of Jimmy after all this time. That Friday afternoon when she knew just by his posture as he approached he’d wanted his silver ID bracelet back.

  “It’s a very long story,” she said.

  “Why didn’t you answer?”

  “Like I said, I got this dog.”

  “You’ve said that three times.”

  Her heart sank at the mocking edge of his voice. An even longer silence enveloped them.

  “Paula, what are you doing?” He’d asked that exact question during their second week of married life after she’d marched into his bedroom, climbed under the covers and declared, “I’m not leaving. I didn’t get married to sleep alone on a couch for the rest of my life,” to which he’d asked, “Paula, what are you doing?” with the same quiet, belittling tone. With that she’d dug her nails into her forearm. Her heart sank as she got back up, left the room and headed downstairs.

  Paula ignored Roger’s question.

  “I might have to bring him home for now—”

  “My allergies—,” he interrupted her.

  “Nothing a little prednisone won’t fix—,” the words shot out before she could soften their meanness, their fodder being eight years doped up on powerful allergy medications to combat the mold and dust of his brownstone. Her allergist once looked questioningly at her, puzzled. “Tell me about how you live; what’s your house like?” That simple enough question uncorked a torrent of blubbering, snotty confessions. The doctor had reached to grab tissues from the counter. Slowly shaking his head, he’d watched as she blew her nose, looking directly to catch her eye. “Paula—find a better husband.”

  “Now’s not the time, Paula,” Roger said. Maybe the time would be right, as Eleni used to say, when “Aiyia Pote,” or St. Never’s Day, came .

  “My phone’s beeping,” Roger interrupted. “Just a minute. It’s Arnie,” he said. “Probably wondering where we are.” Roger exhaled with an impatience reserved for those he termed the “lesser gifted.”

  “I’ve got the dog.”

  “So leave it somewhere, Paula,” he raised his voice, more aggravated, less suspicious.

  “Leave him where?”

  “Wherever you found it; I don’t care what you do.”

  “Yeah, you really don’t…,” she said, meaning something else.

  “I’m leaving.” His voice became cool. “I trust you’ll find your way there.” It was a tone he used with disagreeable colleagues.

  She had nothing to say. The stone wall of his frustration was like a fist, getting in the last punch.

  Fotis settled down to lie on her foot, panting as he looked up at her. Damp warmth from his belly fur felt good.

  “I don’t know what else to say,” Roger concluded.

  “Yeah, well, I guess I don’t either,” she said.

  Paula ended the call and set the phone down, leaning back in the desk chair. She’d never mutinied against Roger before, not like this. Though the day was a blur of exhausting emotion, both her hands were relaxed and not clenched into balled fists like usual. It felt like the riddle of the last ten years had come down to one brief conversation.

  Fotis’ body shook in time with his panting. The conviction that prompted his rescue from the shelter was fresh and true despite the ridicule. But dread flooded through her. The red message light pulsed on her desk phone—probably Christoff with another slew of complaints.

  “Well,” she sighed, and stood.

  The dog stood, too.

  “Come on, Fotis.”

  His ears moved ever so slightly at his name.

  “Let’s go find a room; I’m beat.”

  She grabbed the Pets du Jour shopping bags and tucked the dog bed under her arm. Here she was, homeless, armed with shopping bags and a leashed dog, in search of a place to sleep. Tears burned her eyes. With the irony of Theo rose the sticky feel of the ocean’s salt air, the scratchiness of his black coat blanketing them. It was eerie but comforting. Maybe love was that simple, could be that simple.

  The dog followed her toward the door. The top of his head looked downy and puffy from the bath, like some of the younger birds on her window ledge.

  “Let’s go.” She mimicked the pet shop woman’s baby-talk doggie voice.

  Fotis stared deadpan at the fraudulent attempt.

  “Okay.” Paula snickered, respecting his lack of enthusiasm. Setting the packages down, she squatted to look squarely at him.

  “Hey, look—I never said I was fun, okay?”

  Paula was an adult who’d managed to escape childhood without learning to play. Vassili and Eleni didn’t play; they worked. While other kids played in the street, Celeste would try coaxing Paula into a game of either jump rope or potsy—but Paula, perpetually plagued with the fear of being no good, would shy away. “Celeste,” voices from the street would beckon. “Forget about her; come and play.”

  She declined department invitations to “Wednesday Night Scrabble.” Rog
er was always good for a ready-made excuse: “Oh, sorry, but my husband’s already made plans,” when in fact he spent most nights cloistered on the third floor in a dark room wearing a food-encrusted sweatshirt that looked riddled with bullet holes. The fabric was so thin you could read a newspaper through it. He sat squarely behind a computer screen, his face illuminated by colorful three-dimensional mathematical models of the time-space continuum of black holes.

  She walked toward West Broadway with the dog, heading toward a hotel where she’d frequently book rooms for visiting professors and scholars. She remembered the hotel’s Pet Friendly signs.

  In front of the hotel entrance, Fotis stopped, lifted his leg and drenched the entire side of the metal news box with a long stream of urine. Shit. Maybe the pet shop clerk had been right about getting a crate.

  The lobby was quiet; business looked slow as Paula approached the front desk.

  “Hi, would you happen to have a room for the night?”

  “How many?”

  “Me and a dog.”

  “How many nights?” He looked at her.

  “Ummm, I’m not sure. One, maybe two.”

  “I put you in for two nights,” the young East Indian–looking man speaking perfect Brooklyn English confirmed. It was a week before the onslaught of parents, before Labor Day and the start of the fall semester.

  “Perfect.”

  “A deposit of one-fifty is required for pets on top of the room charge of three-fifty per night,” he explained in an unbroken sentence while reading from a computer monitor.

  “Fine.” She leaned across the desk to try to peek at the screen.

  “If there’s no damage upon inspection,” he continued, “we’ll refund your deposit.”

  The desk clerk looked at her, shifting his weight onto another foot as he waited.

  “Damage?”

  He turned back to the screen. “Chewing, soiling, ripping up sofa cushions.” He paused as if having lost his place. “You can exercise your dog two blocks down at the dog park furnished by the City near the NYU campus.”

  They’d just passed it on their way to the hotel. She walked past the park every day.

  “Your pet is not to be left unattended in the room at any time.”

  “What if I’m in the shower?”

  He looked at her.

  She placed her debit card on the counter.

  As the elevator doors opened, Fotis shirked backward. As per the advice of her mentor the cabbie, she picked Fotis up and placed him in the elevator before she dragged in the shopping bags. As it lifted to the third floor, Fotis hit the floor splayed out from the sensation of increased gravity.

  The hotel room smelled like cloves and vanilla. The décor was contemporary shades of white and beige, like a high-end spa.

  Fotis was panting, his eyes wide.

  “I bet you’re thirsty,” she said. Crouching down, she rifled through the bags, searching out the Bubble-Wrapped ceramic French bowls. Busting open the plastic of the first one, she carried it into the spa-like bathroom, turned on the faucet and waited, testing the water’s coolness before filling the bowl.

  Fotis watched.

  She tottered out with a topped-off bowl, careful not to spill as the water sloshed dangerously close to the rim. She placed the bowl onto the carpet by the bed.

  The dog began drinking furiously. Water cascaded over the rim, splashed over the sides from his tongue, drenching the sand-colored carpet.

  “Shit, shit, shit.” She scurried into the bathroom and grabbed a plush white hand towel and began blotting the floor.

  He emptied the bowl and looked at her.

  “More?” His ears twitched, brow furrowed in confusion.

  She lifted the bowl—realizing she’d used the one marked “food” in French—but shrugged and stepped in to refill it. This time she lowered it down onto the travertine bathroom floor. Fotis sniffed the bowl again and then, after several more healthy slurps, looked up at her, water spilling profusely from his mouth as he walked out into the carpeted suite to explore.

  “Jesus Christ.” She followed with the towel, trying to catch water dripping from his whiskers, lips. Who would have thought drinking water would be such a sloppy enterprise?

  “You hungry?”

  Fotis watched as she peeled the Bubble Wrap off the second bowl. Tearing open the dog food bag, she poured in kibble to the rim. She lifted the bowl to entice him. “Yum.” She raised her eyebrows. Fotis didn’t seem impressed. “Here.” She placed it down next to the water on the bathroom floor.

  He didn’t move.

  “Aren’t you hungry?”

  Fotis looked right and left as if checking for cars and then strolled over to the bowl. With a cursory sniff, he looked back at her with an expression that made her laugh out loud.

  “What?” She lifted both hands. “You don’t like it?”

  He glanced at the bowl again and then turned away.

  “Okay, so spanakopita it ain’t.”

  He barked sharply. It echoed off the bathroom’s stone walls.

  Paula startled.

  Fotis stared at her with bright eyes, limbs stiffened as if ready to jump.

  Her skin prickled.

  She was a little frightened of this strange excitement. He didn’t even blink. Alone with a large-toothed furry creature she didn’t understand; maybe this wasn’t such a great idea. Such an intense stare, primed to pounce.

  “Spanakopita?” she asked sheepishly.

  He barked again.

  “Okay, okay. Shhhh.” She held a finger up to her lips.

  His ears stood up, even the floppy one.

  “Kathe se,” she told him to sit in Greek.

  His butt hit the floor, face alert as if he was proud of showing off his skills. She turned and began rummaging through the shopping bag to grab the package of hamburger-shaped treats. Ripping it open, she handed one over.

  Fotis gently took it.

  “Kalo skilo [good dog].”

  His tail thumped the carpet.

  It stunned her how obvious this was: Fotis understood Greek.

  “Pa me exo?” she asked if he wanted to go out.

  Fotis woofed softly and hurried excitedly to the door, rubbing the latch with his muzzle.

  “Okay, okay, okay.” She chuckled. “Tha paou [let’s go].” There was a Greek food cart near the dog park. She suspected the owners were Albanian, however, since whenever she spoke Greek to them they’d stare. She often ate there when working late since the stand was open past midnight.

  Grabbing Fotis’ leash, she rifled through the bags for the pooper-scooper. As she took it out of the bag, she chuckled at the dangling tag that illustrated a three-step process of how to bend down and pick up dog shit.

  Armed with the scooper in her purse, they raced down two flights of stairs to the lobby and over toward the square. As they neared the food stand Fotis started pacing, excited by the smell; a thread-like line of drool seeped out of his lips. Paula ordered two rounds of souvlaki and a double spanakopita. Fotis stood tall as the food was being assembled, watching as Paula paid and the paper dishes were handed over. She quickly pried lamb chunks off the wooden skewers and set them along with half the spanakopita pie into the paper dish. He quivered as he watched her. She chuckled at how sincere he looked, like a man vying for a first kiss.

  She set down the paper dish. Fotis wolfed the pie down in seconds and looked up at her. She was amazed. He’d eaten in the shelter, but then again he’d vomited in the cab. She set the rest of her food down and Fotis finished it off. She went back and bought another souvlaki. He eyed it as she started to eat.

  “Hey, I need to eat, too,” she said, but then conceded, “okay, okay.” Yanking off half of the lamb cubes, she arranged them in her palm. Cautiously, she lowered her hand.

  Gently he vacuumed up each cube and then licked her palm.

  After, they walked a block down to the dog park. She’d never had a reason to enter before but would see dogs
chasing and playing in the grass, their owners congregating and chatting as they seemed to enjoy watching. She looked around. There was one other person and dog in the park. Paula sat down on the bench. Fotis watched the other dog. The owner waved from the other side of the park and started to approach.

  “Hi,” he said. “Haven’t seen you here before.”

  “Yeah, it’s my first time,” she said. Fotis pulled to the e nd of the leash, sniffing toward the other dog.

  “Cool dog. What is he?”

  “Don’t know. Just got him today.”

  “You’re kidding,” he said. “He seems so comfortable, like you belong together. That’s a good sign.” He gave a thumbs-up.

  “Thanks.” She didn’t know what to say.

  “You can let him loose. Minnie’s a Lab. Totally friendly, is he?” he said as the two dogs sniffed each other.

  “Not sure,” Paula said. Looking at the owner, she unclipped the leash,

  “She’s an old girl, going on fourteen. Old for a Lab. Think we’re heading home now; she’s tired.”

  After sniffing Fotis, the man’s dog squatted to poop. Paula watched as the owner skillfully used one of the plastic bags furnished by the park.

  “You make that look easy,” she said after he dropped the bag in the waste container.

  He winked. “You’ll get the hang of it.”

  He gave a little whistle and clipped on his dog’s leash. “Good luck with your dog.”

  Paula watched as Fotis explored the park. He sniffed carefully around the bases of several trees and then would look over in her direction, searching out her figure on the park bench. Once reassured, he’d dash off. At one point he rolled over onto the grass, wriggling with such delight it made her laugh.

  Then he stood and circled before assuming the position the other dog had assumed to poop. Paula looked toward the wastebasket, weighing the option of using the scooper or using the bag like the previous owner had. “Please clean up after your dog!” the sign said in four languages. She pulled out the scooper and walked over. Flies had already discovered the pile; holding her breath, she squatted and reached for the load, shoving the turd onto the spoon before gingerly carrying it over to the waste container. Stepping on the pedal, she lifted the lid and shook off the spoon. Most of it just fell off. But then she looked at the plastic scooper. How would she clean it off before bringing it back to the hotel room? She hadn’t thought this through.