“No. Poopypie likes to have me all to himself.” Penny let the dog lick her lips. Maggie almost expected her to lick him back.
“Have you had any visitors? Moved any furniture?”
Penny considered. “Janet Vining came by, but she does every week. Poopypie loves her, don’t you, sweetie pie? We have lunch, you know. Poopypie gets his own plate. He has his doggie food, while we have our people food.” She paused. “Let’s see. I paid the paperboy yesterday, but he didn’t come in. A man from the cable company came by a few days ago. But he was only there a few minutes and didn’t pay any attention to Poopypie. Dr. Maewood, maybe Poopy’s upset because he didn’t pet him?”
“I doubt it.” Maggie turned over the dog’s problem in her mind, her thoughts briefly going to Will’s avian attack. What had upset those birds? And she’d seen several other apparently healthy but anxious animals herself today, too. Recently, she realized, she’d probably seen at least two every day—not an alarming number, certainly, but more than usual. From long experience, she knew that there were flurries of anxiety among animals, sometimes preceding an earthquake, but more often for reasons that never revealed themselves, though Maggie thought it was likely they had to do with natural disturbances undetectable by humans. Hopefully, that would be the case this time. No one needed an out-and-out earthquake.
“Doctor?” Annette Neal, her assistant, stuck her head through the doorway.
“Yes?”
“The urine’s clear.”
“Thanks. Well, Mrs. Spender, we can run some blood tests if you like, but, uh, Poopypie—How could anyone give a helpless animal such an awful name?—just had his annual checkup a few weeks ago, so I suggest we wait a day or two and see if the problem goes away by itself. I suspect it will.”
“Oh, I hope so. Can I get some tranquilizers for him in case he can’t sleep?”
“Sure, but please don’t use them constantly. On the off-chance there’s an illness, we don’t want to mask the symptoms. Annette?” The young woman peeked in and Maggie gave her a prescription to fill then turned back to Penny Spender. “Take him home and if you go out without him, you might try turning on the radio—a talk station, or soft music. Nothing noisy. That always helps anxious pets. And check around your house—you may have used a new air freshener or cleaner. Even something like that could cause a problem.” She paused. “You don’t let him drink out of the toilet, do you?”
The woman gasped. “Of course not. He drinks bottled water. Just like I do. The water delivery man came by, too, but Poopypie was outside.”
“I’m sure that wasn’t a problem,” Maggie soothed. “But what about you, Mrs. Spender? If you’re upset about anything, your dog could be picking up on your emotions.” Normally she called animals by their names, but Poopypie was one she just couldn’t get out twice in one conversation.
“Oh, no, everything’s fine.” She hesitated. “I’ve been dreaming about my husband. He’s dead, you know.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay, he’s been dead for five years.”
“Does your dog sleep with you? If you’re having nightmares, he may be sensing your fear.”
Penny smiled. “They’re not nightmares.”
Frenzied barking in the waiting room reminded Maggie that time was getting away from her. “Call me in a few days and let me know how he’s doing. We’ll decide if we need to do anything else at that point.” She led her to the door, followed her out into the waiting room, and left her at the counter.
It was four-thirty and she had a full house. Several birds, which was unusual and a little intimidating since her partner, who really knew birds, was on vacation, two people with cat carriers, three with leashed dogs, one of which was madly barking at Kevin Bass, who stood against a wall, looking as nervous as Poopypie. He held a white plastic grocery sack. The barking dog stared fixedly at it.
Maggie crossed to Kevin. “Is that the bird?” she asked softly.
“I brought you two,” he murmured, grinning sickly. “I mean, we had plenty to spare.”
She took the sack. “Thanks. Is Will still at the office?”
“No. He’s working at home.”
“Okay.” She studied his pale face. “Pretty bad, huh?”
He nodded. “Disgusting. I’m going to go home and shower for an hour.”
“Say hello to Gabe for me.”
Kevin’s smile was tentative but genuine. “I will.”
“Do you want me to call you two after I check out the birds?”
“No. Just Will. Gabe and I are celebrating tonight.”
“Of course.” She smiled, too. “That’s so romantic.”
“Yeah. And really naughty. I bought a new DVD just for tonight. You can borrow it later. You’ll love it. The guys are so much better looking than in straight porn.”
She stifled a laugh. “See you later, Kevin.”
“Yeah. Saturday night.”
“Saturday night?”
“Will’s cooking. He didn’t tell you yet?”
“Not yet. But he was a little preoccupied when we spoke.”
“He’ll ask. You say yes.” Kevin looked concerned. “You don’t have a date or anything?”
She smiled. “Me? Who’d have me?”
Kevin looked her up and down. “If I wasn’t taken, I’d be all over you, babe.” He made a tiger growl. “See you Saturday night. Wear something sexy.”
“Why? Are you thinking of switch-hitting?”
“You know me better than that, lover. Give Will a thrill and leave your bra at home. Poor guy needs something nice to look at.”
“Then invite Nurse Boobies.” She spoke quickly, aware that her face was on fire. “You know I don’t like you to joke about that.”
Kevin’s eyes locked on hers for a long moment. “Ever wonder why you don’t like it, Maggie?” An impish eyebrow shot up as he added, “Maybe you should discuss it with a therapist.”
Furiously blushing, she said, “See you,” turned and took the bag into the lab and tossed it in a refrigerator, where it joined a few other items no one would ever want to eat. She washed up and returned to the exam room, then signaled Annette that she was ready for her next patient.
A moment later, a man with a caged cockatiel entered. “I think my bird is having palpitations.”
It was going to be a long afternoon.
5
Will’s office was his favorite room in the modest ranch house situated on a rolling hill on the western edge of town. The room was light and airy despite the walls of overloaded bookshelves, and his desk sat before a long picture window. From it, the Pacific Coast Highway remained out of sight, giving him an unsullied view of the narrow, forested coastal crescent of Caledonia, home to fragrant juniper and fir, squirrels, rabbits, deer, a rocky shore, and a few expensive restaurants and B&Bs, which were wonderfully invisible from Will’s angle. Beyond the trees, he could even see a ribbon of ocean, and with the window open as it was now, feel the breeze and smell the salt sea. The blue sky wore wispy white clouds low on the horizon and as sunset approached, they would turn shades of salmon and lemon and lavender, and later, fiery reds and bruised purples. Will never tired of the view, day or night, but most of all he loved the sunsets.
He had watched them through good times and bad, and they had always seen him through. He bought this house only three and a half years ago, after the failure of his third—and final—attempt at marriage. It wasn’t as big as his previous place (though the ocean view was far superior), nor was it in the same elegantly price-bloated neighborhood, but it was far more to his taste than the big old successful-psychologist showplace, that house of dead marriages. This home, my home, all mine, was less than 2000 square feet, which was still far more room than one man and three cats really needed. It contained no brocade draperies, no uncomfortable furniture, no meaningless modern art or ugly hunks of alleged sculptures. When he’d bought the place, he’d had the wall-to-wall carpeting removed, the wood floors st
ripped and stained and polished to a warm golden sheen, and the walls painted what Kevin, his volunteer decorating consultant, called “a pale shade of just-ripened apricots.” He put up art of his own choosing for the first time since pubescence when he’d pinned up a Farrah poster. Although he still had a soft spot for his first pin-up girl, what he chose now ran toward serene sea- and landscapes, pictures of places that inspired tranquility, the kind of paintings that made you feel as if you could walk into them and escape the real world. The furniture was comfortable and overstuffed, warm earth-patterned colors that camouflaged cat fur, the tables solid oak, the lamps Mission-style. Kevin had tried to talk him into colorful Tiffany shades, but Will chose plain, mellow-yellowish glass shades. He actually liked the stained-glass stuff, but flowers and dragonflies were just too much for a straight male who had sworn off women.
In Will’s home, you could put your feet on the coffee table, and the nubby woven drapes easily withstood the felines who occasionally mistook them for tree trunks. Maggie’s housewarming gift, a catpost extravagantly built to resemble a tree with brown carpet trunk and branches and green carpet ovals of foliage, occupied space not far from the massive entertainment center. The cats liked to climb the post and leap onto the big armoire, draping themselves so that their feet and tails drooped down to brush the tops of the TV people’s heads. Will smiled. None of his wives would have approved. Screw you all!
Back then, during all those various marital disasters, when he wanted an animal fix, he visited Maggie, and although their relationship was purely platonic—they’d known each other since the summer before kindergarten, for Christ’s sake—those visits cost him one of his marriages. Barbara didn’t believe Will was visiting Maggie’s pussycats, just her pussy. Barbara’s words, not his. He shook his head, amused, and wondered what might have been if he and Mags had met when they were adults, sexual organs all plumped up and ready for use. Maybe something, maybe nothing, but it was a moot point. They were best friends, like brother and sister only better, and that thought always made him shut off the wondering because it felt much too taboo. Maggie felt the same way. It was, after all, human nature.
In his office with its real-life escapist view, he needed no landscapes, but he had two other pieces of art. One was a print of M.C. Escher’s hands drawing each other, an old present from Maggie that he’d kept in his home office even in the other house despite the fact that all three wives thought it was cheap and tacky. Will loved it, and loved Maggie for knowing that, for giving him things he wanted; the exes always presented him with gifts they wanted, or thought a man in his position should possess. The other artwork was an original Kevin Bass. When not greeting patients, Kevin painted, and he was one talented puppy. This painting, just to the right of the window, where he could easily look at it, was of Freud, Jung, and Rorschach, at about nine months of age, when they were part kitten, part cat.
A tall, less extravagant climbing post stood to the left of the desk. Jung was sleeping on his back on the middle platform, only a few feet from Will’s face. The huge buff-orange puffball was splayed out, legs in the air, paws twitching with dreams, his head hanging over the edge, exposing his throat with the kind of trust that a king showed only his most beloved old nanny. Freud lay on the top shelf, alertly staring down at Will, waiting for eye contact. His tail swished. Will knew cat body language almost as well as human: It meant indecision. Should I stay up here or jump on his keyboard? Or maybe his shoulder? Eye contact would result in a leap of some sort.
Will refused to look at him, and turned back to the computer screen. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Freud sit up and begin cleaning his ass. He smiled, wondering, as usual, what the feline’s namesake would think of that ability. He’d love it. He turned a page of session notes and lifted his hands to the keyboard, but the phone rang, saving him from work in the nick of time. “Hello.”
“Hey, Will! How are you, buddy?”
Will, Pavlovian as always, flinched at his older brother’s voice, even though it held none of the old meanness—hadn’t since Pete had returned to Caledonia after a long Navy stint. His brother had come home a new man, dressed for success, armed with a grin and a manner that melted old ladies and charmed most children. He’d charmed the pants right off Candy, Will’s second badly chosen wife. Funny thing was, though he didn’t like his brother, he hadn’t really blamed him for that because he instinctively knew Pete lacked the morals necessary to keep him from screwing his brother’s wife—in fact, he probably was incapable of understanding them. Candy understood but didn’t care. She’d been a high-end real estate broker, and by the time his brother came looking for house-hunting help, Will was already fairly sure she was polishing knobs to increase sales possibilities and sealing the deals with all the lips she possessed. Pete was just another sales conquest to her, more fun because he was even more forbidden than her usual fruit.
It was ancient history now, and these days, Pete Banning, successful businessman, was full of good cheer, and almost everybody bought it. Will, unconvinced, pushed back an inch or two from the desk and sat up straighter, phone to his ear. Rorschach, stretched out next to the computer, looked up, annoyed, and reached one big white-socked paw toward the keyboard. “Hello, Pete.” Will nudged the keyboard out of the cat’s reach. “I wasn’t expecting to hear from you.”
Behind Pete’s hearty chuckle, Rorschach trilled, sure Will was talking to him. The cat yawned then began to rise in slow, slow motion.
“How’s the shrink business, baby brother?”
There it was, the flaw in the mask, the sneer in the cheer. Some of Will’s friends and acquaintances called him a shrink, but he never sensed any derision in it. It was shorthand, like cop for police officer. But with Pete, it was passive aggression. Malice oozed from beneath that candy coating.
Or did it? Psychologist, heal thyself. Maybe he was overreacting. All his training and natural talent for seeing into people’s motives was pretty useless when it came to knowing himself. That was why shrinks had shrinks, but his advisor, a beloved old professor, had retired and headed for Florida two years before. Maybe it was time to find a new one.
Rorschach trilled again and head-butted Will’s hand. He and his two brothers were good listeners, but a little short on advice. Still, Will didn’t relish the idea of looking elsewhere, testing strangers with tales of his inner life. Maybe he should talk to Gabe, or just shoot the breeze with Kevin. Beneath his assistant’s display of frivolity, he was a keen judge of character, lessons learned hard in late childhood when the boy refused to keep his gayer traits safely in the closet.
Maggie, his oldest, most trusted friend, would have been the logical choice—she’d seen him through the bad marriages and worse—but she hated Pete for reasons she never wanted to discuss. Old stuff, kid stuff, from when he was a bully, was what she always pleaded. She said he was just one of those people she simply didn’t like. Maggie was long on loyalty, and whatever else was going on there, Will knew part of her abhorrence stemmed from the way Pete had treated him when they were little; Maggie had appointed herself his guard dog when they were ten years old. After Michael died.
“Willy?” Pete said again, using the name Will hated more than any other. “Cat got your tongue?”
He scratched behind Rorschach’s ears. Pets lowered your blood pressure, that was medical fact. He scratched some more. “Business is fine.”
“That’s great, Willy. Just great.”
Pete would have said that if Will told him he’d gone deaf and blind; the guy didn’t care, it was all bullshit by rote. “Why do you ask, Petey?”
His brother chuckled. “Okay, Will. Still hate that name, huh? Think there’s some deep dark reason for that?”
Willy is slang for penis and you are fully aware of that. Will said nothing, wondering if he was being too suspicious.
“I know you’re about to ask me about my business,” Pete said as if he really believed it. “Caledonia Cable’s doing great. You’ve seen the ne
w ads?”
“Uh, yes, I think so.” That was Pete’s company, Caledonia Cable, a dozen years old and thriving. Having undercut the competition, he’d taken over television in Caledonia and was planning to extend feeder roots down into Candle Bay and Red Cay. If you wanted to watch TV and didn’t have a satellite here in the hills, you had Pete Banning and his trusty cable box in your house. Will even had it—a comp from his brother he hadn’t known how to refuse. When he brought up disconnecting in favor of a satellite dish to his friends, even Maggie thought it was a foolish idea. She suggested the free cable was some kind of penance for long-ago cruelties.
“There are lots more stations available on our new digital cable,” Pete bragged. “Just as many as a satellite system offers. We’ve run most of the new cable already, too.”
“That’s great.” Will wondered how Pete, who never could save a dime as a kid, had managed to turn into a successful businessman. Same way he turned from a sour creep into everbody’s buddy, probably. “I have a huge load of work to get back to, but thanks for telling me the good news, Pete. I’m happy for you.”
“Wait, wait, baby brother. Don’t hang up yet. Don’t you know all that hard work will kill you?”
This from a man who never seemed to stop working, who was always pitching and schmoozing, who lived in Will’s former high-status neighborhood, who owned a Mercedes SUV, a Jaguar, and a Harley? “It doesn’t seem to be killing you.”
“I thrive on it, you know that, little bro. Action’s my middle name.”
Asshole’s your middle name.
“You’re the sensitive type. Always have been. You need more downtime than I do.”
He thinks I’m backsliding because I moved into a smaller house and drive an Outback. Will quelled the thought. When you assume . . . Rorschach stood on his hind legs, put his paws on Will’s shoulders and shoved his nose against his, swiping one side, then the other. A cat kiss, marking him with friendly feline phermerones. He trilled again, the sound going up the scale like a question.
The Forgotten Page 3