by Jane Heller
“Should we have that after-dinner drink at your house or mine?” he repeated.
“Mine,” I heard myself say. “Mine.”
He smiled and placed his hand on the small of my back.
“I’m looking forward to being alone with you, Barbara,” he said. “All alone.”
Chapter 8
When we pulled into my driveway, David and I discovered that we would not be alone after all. Pete was back.
The minute we got out of the car, he came bounding over to us, barking and jumping and wagging his tail. He was not a pleasant surprise, let me tell you.
“What are you doing here?” I said as he slobbered all over my nice new dress. “You’re supposed to be at Benjamin’s.”
“Is he yours?” David asked warily. He seemed even less enthusiastic about dogs than I was.
“No. Yes. Well, what I mean is, he used to be mine, briefly, but I gave him to my brother,” I said.
“Do you think he ran away?” David asked, reaching out to pet Pete. In response, Pete turned nasty, baring his teeth and growling at David.
“Hey! Cut that out!” I yelled at Pete.
“He doesn’t seem to like me,” said David.
“It’s probably your cologne,” I suggested. “They always say that dogs either like your scent or they don’t.”
“Clearly, he doesn’t like mine,” said David as Pete continued to growl at him.
I grabbed the dog by the collar and pulled him away from David.
“I can’t figure out what he’s doing here,” I said. “My brother lives a good fifteen minutes away. Pete couldn’t have found his way back. He just couldn’t have.” I paused. “Maybe Ben changed his mind about taking him and dumped him on my doorstep.”
“Would your brother do that without telling you?” David asked.
“Probably not,” I said. “Unless there was a good reason.”
“Look, why don’t we leave the dog here and go inside and have that after-dinner drink,” said David. “You can decide what to do about him tomorrow.”
David attempted to reach for my hand but Pete growled at him so ferociously that it took both of us by surprise. David quickly retreated.
“Why don’t you go first,” I said, handing David the key to my front door. “I’ll hold on to him until you’re inside. Then I’ll follow you in. The bar’s to the right, just before the dining room. Pour yourself a drink, make yourself comfortable, and I’ll be there in a flash.”
“You’re sure? It’s not very chivalrous of me to duck inside while you’re out here.”
“I’ll forgive you. I can see that you’re not a dog person. Now go ahead,” I urged.
He nodded, opened the door to the house, and let himself in. When he was safely inside, I bent down, took Pete’s face in my hand, and looked him straight in the eye.
“You’re a nuisance, do you know that?” I said. “And your timing stinks.”
He replied by licking my nose.
I reached inside my purse for a tissue and wiped the saliva off. “I have a very special evening planned,” I went on. “A quiet, romantic evening with David. Just the two of us. No dogs allowed. Get it?”
Pete began to whine.
“Okay. I’ll put it another way,” I said to him. “The day before yesterday my husband tells me he’s leaving me. Then, out of the blue, I meet this incredible guy and he seems to like me. Now he’s waiting for me to come inside so we can get to know each other better. Let me have a little fun, huh? Be a good doggie and go on home, wherever that is.”
The request provoked more whining.
“Fine. Be that way,” I snapped, then let go of Pete and turned to go into the house.
I was about to open the front door when a car tore into the driveway and came to a screeching halt, sending gravel flying in all directions. It was Jeremy in his battered old pickup truck. Gregg Allman’s “I’m No Angel” was blaring on the radio and Jeremy was wailing right along with the music, sounding like a cat in heat. So much for my quiet, romantic evening.
“You could have called first,” I said when he finally climbed out of the truck. He was wearing his usual blue jeans and T-shirt and carrying an opened can of Bud Lite. He took a long swallow of beer, some of which leaked out the side of his mouth and dribbled down his neck, and then he belched. Every woman’s fantasy, right?
“I did call, BS, but you weren’t home,” he said as he walked over to David’s Mercedes and ran his hand over the shiny black hood. Then he peered into the car and checked out its creamy “palomino” leather interior. Pete, who had ceased barking the minute Jeremy appeared, wriggled out of my grasp and trotted over to him. Jeremy bent down to pet Pete and the two of them had a little love fest. I found it odd that the dog preferred a beer-guzzling slug like Jeremy to a suave and sophisticated hunk like David, but then what did I know about dogs’ tastes?
“I’m home now,” I said with my hands on my hips.
Jeremy looked up at me and grinned. “So I see,” he said and moved his eyes up and down my body, not unlike the way he had inspected the Mercedes. I felt naked in front of him, the way you feel with someone you’ve known since childhood, someone who remembers you when you weren’t blond and thin and glamorous, someone who suspects that you’re a fraud.
Neither of us spoke for several seconds. Jeremy stared at me, while I stared at the ground. Then he took another sip of beer and belched again. He did not ask to be excused.
“Nice wheels,” he said, returning his attention to the Mercedes. “Yours?”
“Hardly.”
“No? I thought maybe they went with the new hair and boobs.”
“Then you thought wrong. They belong to a friend.”
“A male friend?”
“Yes.”
“Anyone I know?”
“I doubt it.”
“What’s his name?”
“Trust me, you don’t know him, Jeremy. He’s new in town. I met him through business.”
“Oh, so you’re his realtor?”
“You guessed it.”
He digested the information, then said, “If you’re his realtor, what’s he doin’ at your house at ten o’clock on a Saturday night?”
“What are you doing at my house at ten o’clock on a Saturday night?”
“I came lookin’ for the dog. No other reason. I figured that since I was the one who took him to Ben’s yesterday, I ought to be the one to bring him back there.”
“So he ran away?”
“Yup. He took off late this afternoon when Ben let him out to piss.”
“But how did he get here? And why did he come here? Ben and I don’t exactly live around the corner from each other.”
“Pete’s a boy dog, BS. Maybe he’s got a thing for you and couldn’t stay away.”
“Sure, just like you can’t stay away. Come to think of it, isn’t Saturday night your big night? With your band, I mean?” Jeremy’s band, The Fire Ants, usually played at one of the local clubs on Saturday nights.
“We kind of take it easy in the summer. Only one or two gigs a month.”
“Your fans must be bereft.”
He smiled. “I think I liked you better when you weren’t such a wiseass.”
“I thought you didn’t like me—period.”
“Let’s get back to Pete. Do you want me to take him over to Ben’s or not?”
I considered the question. On one hand, I wanted Jeremy to take Pete back to Ben’s in the worst way. The very thought of Pete drooling and shedding and hurling hair balls all over my nice clean house made me sick. On the other hand, I had this uneasy feeling that Pete was a canine version of a boomerang; that no matter how I tried to get rid of him, he’d keep coming back; that I should just let him stay with me, where I could keep an eye on him and figure out what the hell was going on.
“Yes? No?” Jeremy prompted.
I shrugged. “I don’t know what to do,” I confessed. “The thing is, Pete isn’t really my dog.”
“I thought you said—”
“His tag says he’s my dog, but he isn’t. There’s been some kind of mistake. A clerical error or whatever.”
“Then why did he run twenty miles to come back here?” asked Jeremy.
“I have no idea,” I said. “All I know is that he keeps showing up at my door, like a Jehovah’s Witness.”
Jeremy laughed. “Sounds like you’re stuck with him. For now, anyway.”
“But I don’t know the first thing about taking care of a dog. I can’t even take care of my plants. They all have spider mites.”
“Ask your new boyfriend to help you.”
“He’s not my—”
I stopped in mid-sentence when I saw that David had emerged from the house.
“I thought you’d forgotten about me,” he said, nodding at Jeremy and keeping his distance from Pete, who started growling the minute he saw David.
“Not at all,” I said. “I just had an unexpected visitor. David, this is Jeremy Cook, a friend of my brother’s.”
“Pleasure to meet you,” said David.
“Same,” said Jeremy.
They shook hands in that overly enthusiastic way men have when they want to appear as if they’re not sizing each other up, as if they don’t view the other guy as competition.
“Jeremy says the dog ran away from my brother’s,” I explained to David. “He came over to see if Pete had turned up here by any chance.”
“So he did run away,” David said. “What are you going to do now?”
“I guess I’ll keep him for tonight,” I said. “I’ll figure out what to do with him in the morning.”
“Sounds sensible,” said David, who turned to Jeremy and said, “It was very thoughtful of you to try to help Barbara.”
“Oh, I’m a very thoughtful kind of guy, right, BS?” he smirked.
“Very. But I wouldn’t want to take up any more of your time, Jeremy,” I said. “You’re probably expected somewhere, aren’t you?”
I was dying for him to leave so that David and I could resume our date. I had visions of us sitting close together on the sofa, sipping our nightcaps, exchanging endearing little anecdotes about our pasts, sharing confidences. Then David would draw his face next to mine and murmur something flattering, and I would smile and say something flattering back. He would be so powerless to resist his attraction to me that he would lower his mouth onto mine and kiss me, tenderly at first, then with greater urgency. He would prove to be an exquisitely gifted lover, igniting my long-dormant capacity for real passion. I would become a tigress, inspiring him to new heights of ecstasy. We would—
“No, I’m not expected anywhere,” Jeremy said casually, interrupting my descent into pornography. “I’m free as the wind tonight.”
Speaking of wind, Pete picked that very moment to pass some. Talk about timing. There was an uncomfortable silence as the three of us stood there looking at the sky.
“David and I were about to have an after-dinner drink,” I finally explained to Jeremy.
“Sounds good to me,” said Jeremy, clearly enjoying his irritating little game. “Got any of that Randy Martin stuff around the house, BS?”
I couldn’t believe it. The man refused to take the hint.
“If you mean Remy Martin, no, I don’t have any,” I said angrily.
“Then I’ll settle for another Bud Lite,” Jeremy said, draining the can he’d been holding and then belching once again. Louder this time.
“I don’t have any Bud Lite either,” I said. “Actually, Jeremy, David and I have a lot to talk about. He’s just bought a house on Pelican Circle and he wants to—”
“Pelican Circle? No shit,” said Jeremy. “One of the guys I fish with lives on that street.”
“Really? What’s his name?” David asked with genuine interest.
“Sam Akins. He lives at 44 Pelican Circle,” said Jeremy. “He’s a pistol. Salt of the earth. You’ll like him.”
“Good. He’ll be my next-door neighbor,” said David. “I’m buying number 46.”
“Hey, that’s great. I’ll have to get you guys together,” said Jeremy.
He brushed by me and moved next to David, who seemed not to mind his presence nearly as much as I did.
“I’m looking forward to meeting people in Banyan Beach,” David said. “I don’t have many friends here yet.”
“No problem. I’ve lived here all my life. Know just about everybody in town. Right, BS?”
I nodded dully and watched the two men bond with each other. It was maddening.
“I can introduce you to plenty of people,” Jeremy said to my date, as they began to chat like long-lost fraternity brothers.
Before I knew it they had gone inside the house—my house—without me. I stood there with Pete, feeling like I was the uninvited guest. Some romantic evening. And all because of Jeremy, who deliberately set out to ruin my good time. Why, I couldn’t fathom.
“I hope he gets a flat tire,” I muttered as I glanced over at his pickup and stuck my tongue out.
No sooner did the words pass my lips than the left rear tire on the pickup suddenly deflated—right in front of my eyes! One minute, it was full of air. The next minute, it was totally flat!
My God, I thought. I did it! I wanted the tire to go flat and then it did! Just like I had wanted Mitchell and Chrissy to burn and they had! I had caused both events, I was sure of it. I had had negative thoughts and seconds later they had come true.
I felt an ice-cold shiver pass through my body. Pete seemed to sense my terror, judging by the almost-compassionate look in his hazel eyes.
“What is going on with me?” I said out loud.
I’d read about the power of positive thinking, but not about the power of negative thinking—except in Stephen King’s books. Was that it? Had I turned into some ghoulish character from a horror novel?
Of course not, I told myself. No matter how dramatically my physical appearance had changed since the morning after Mitchell left, I was still Barbara Chessner, your average, garden-variety person. I was probably suffering from some rare disease that had yet to be written up in the New England Journal of Medicine—a disease where the patient thinks he’s causing events to happen but doesn’t. Either that or I was having a good old-fashioned nervous breakdown.
I began to tremble as I stared at Jeremy’s flat tire, wondering if whatever was wrong with me was fatal. Something was going on inside me, all right. Something very wrong. Something I couldn’t control. Something that, whether I liked it or not, could put me and everyone around me at risk.
“I don’t know, Pete,” I said, as I shivered again. “If I were you, I’d get the hell out of here.”
Chapter 9
I spent most of Sunday trying to learn how to take care of a dog, seeing as pets don’t come with an operating manual.
First, there was the matter of getting to know Pete’s palate. Silly me, I had assumed that all dog food was created equal; that you simply stuck a bowl of mystery meat in front of an animal and he’d eat it. So I went to the supermarket and bought several cans of Alpo. Pete, it turned out, didn’t like Alpo. I went back to the supermarket and bought a bag of Gravy Train. Pete didn’t care for Gravy Train either. I went back to the supermarket a third time and bought some Kibbles and Bits. Pete wouldn’t touch the stuff. Utterly frustrated, I opened the freezer, nuked a Lean Cuisine and said, “Here. Try this.”
Pete ate every morsel of the frozen dinner. I was relieved that I had finally found something that pleased him.
The second thing I learned about Pete was that he was a klutz. I mean, the dog was incapable of watching where he was going, particularly when it came to his tail. After a mere twenty minutes in the house, he had knocked over knickknacks, toppled lamps, sent plants to the ground, you name it. He also had a habit of running into me. I’d be standing in the kitchen, minding my own business, when he’d come barreling into me, like a football player making a tackle. I sensed that he didn�
�t mean me any harm; he was just exuberant in a way that I had always longed to be.
Most bizarre was his clingyness. He seemed hopelessly attached to me, as if I’d been his master for years instead of thirty-six hours, and would follow me from room to room, sniffing and scratching and begging to be played with. If I went to the bathroom, he’d sit there guarding the door, and when I’d come out, he’d rush at me, curling himself around my legs and nuzzling me. It was oddly flattering. I had never inspired that sort of devotion in anyone and wondered what I had done to deserve Pete’s.
On Monday morning I made a doctor’s appointment. No, not for Pete, for me. I was hoping against all hope that my “condition” (what else could I call it?) was physical, not metaphysical. So I called the office of Dr. Henry Messersmith, my internist, and asked if I could see him right away.
“What seems to be the problem?” asked his nurse.
“I might have a brain tumor,” I said.
Well, what was I supposed to say? I’d heard that people with brain tumors go through personality changes. Maybe they also take on strange powers, I thought. Like being able to make a tire go flat just by wishing it.
The brain tumor thing got the nurse’s attention because she didn’t even put me on hold the way she always did; she said I could come and see the normally booked-solid Dr. Messersmith that very afternoon.
But first I had to sit through Charlotte Reed’s ritual Monday morning meeting at Home Sweet Home. Yes, once a week, from nine until ten, Charlotte held us all hostage in her corner office, which was decorated in early shabby gentility and reeked of her scent: stale Nina Ricci. I know. Nobody wore Nina Ricci anymore. But, as I already told you, Charlotte was an anachronism. If something was over, she was just discovering it. She still called suitcases “valises” and stereos “Victrolas” and thought a microwave was a type of home permanent.
On that particular Monday morning, we were all gathered in her office, sipping tea and filling each other in on new listings, sales, or closings. In addition to Charlotte, there was Althea Dicks, the sourpuss; Deirdre Wyatt, the beauty queen; Frances Lutz, the ranch specialist; and my best friend, Suzanne Munson, the menopause expert. There was also June Bellsey, a part-time agent at Home Sweet Home. June’s husband, Lloyd, was a famous defense attorney who regularly and with obvious zeal represented celebrities—movie stars, sports legends, business tycoons, etc.—accused of heinous crimes, usually murder. What’s more, Lloyd Bellsey often appeared on network news broadcasts as a “legal analyst,” and had even written a best-seller in which he recounted his most celebrated cases. Needless to say, June didn’t have to work, as she never ceased to remind us. She could have stayed home eating bonbons all day long. But no. June wanted to be independent, have her own career, earn her own money. I don’t think she sold a single house in the nine years that I’d worked at Home Sweet Home, but she never missed one of Charlotte’s Monday morning meetings. They were her chance to drop the name of some celebrity she’d just met through her husband. I always pretended to be impressed. And why not? The only celebrity my husband knew was Chrissy Hemplewhite.