I let myself out of the Jeep and close the door before any of them try to escape. When I open the passenger side door, I’m expecting an exodus, but Daisy stays put, allowing me to get a hold of her lead. When I pull, she comes. Good dog. I get my hand on Byrd’s lead, and she only needs some tugging before she worms her way between the seats and comes out. Now there’s just Tank, who’s sitting all splayed out on the backseat in a pile of stinking blankets. He looks miserable.
“C’mon, Tank, you can get out of the car now,” I tell him. He looks at me with his under-bite in full protrusion. “C’mon, boy, it’s all over, we’re here.” I check myself. I know that animals often don’t like the vet, and Tank has shown no signs of liking much of anything today. I reach in and pull out his lead, but he won’t budge. I try his collar, but he still refuses to come.
I have to tie the leashes to the car door handle and lift Tank out. He’s smelly and drooling and I have to try very hard not to be repulsed. Once I lift him onto the pavement he gives his body a head to toe shiver, sneezes, and pees once again.
“Perfect,” I say to myself. I’d like to remain aloof to Tank, but he butts his face into my leg and rubs me there. “Good boy,” I say, scratching him behind the ears. He shivers again and it’s time to go in.
The office is pristine and light. A nice place. It smells faintly of the animals that come through, but other than that there’s an antiseptic odor that I always equate with a doctor’s office. There are two receptionists. One is a young brunette whose nametag reads ‘Tiffany’ and the other is an older woman with a bleached out, modified crew cut named ‘Roxanne’. The Tiffany says ‘hello’, Roxanne is on the phone.
“Hi, I’m bringing in Mr. McLean’s dogs,” I say.
“Yes, he called. Fleas?”
“Yes, fleas. And anything else you can think of, I suppose while you have them here you could give them the once over, if it’s not too much trouble.”
“No, they’re due. We haven’t seen these guys in a while,” she says, and she comes out from behind her desk to greet the dogs. “Hi, babies, how are you? How are YOU?” she asks, roughing each dog around the neck and rubbing their coats. “We’ll fix them up fine.”
“Mr. McLean said you would have some information for me, about clearing the house from infestation.”
“Is it that bad? They don’t look infested,” she says, taking a closer look at their coats.
“To me, one flea is an infestation,” I say, and I can’t suppress a slight laugh. Thankfully, the girl laughs with me.
“I gotcha. Yes, we have plenty of information. When you come to pick them up, we’ll have some equipment for you, too. Let’s get these guys back in the office. You don’t need to stay, and Roxanne can give you the paperwork,” she says, nodding her head in the direction of the older woman behind the desk. “Say good-bye, guys.”
I find myself bending down on one knee and taking a good look at the dogs. They’re not the best looking bunch, these three, but I’ve grown accustomed to having them around. I think it will be strange not to see them in the house, or in the yard. I give each of them a pat, and send them on their way. By now Roxanne is off the phone and gathering a small packet of flyers together for me. She’s also put a clipboard out for me to sign on the dotted line for the dogs. I write my signature out, and she turns the board around to have a look.
“What an interesting name,” she says, and in a small instant, I don’t like this woman. Just a feeling, just one of those odd feelings you can get about a person. “How do you pronounce it?” she asks me.
“Murray,” I say, intentionally being obtuse in lieu of being rude.
“No, your first name,” she says with a laugh that it anything but a laugh.
“Shuh-VAHN,” I tell her.
“Scottish?”
“Irish.” I smile at her, and I know it’s not my nicest smile. She wants me to feel uncomfortable and I don’t know why. Maybe it’s because she’s noticed my lack of enthusiasm for the dogs. Well, if that’s the case, too damn bad. I’m not a pet owner, not really a pet lover. I would never do anything intentional to harm one, and I certainly wouldn’t do anything unkind to Mr. McLean’s dogs, but I’m not about to go all soft for a tail, four paws, and a slobbering mouth. And if this lady has a problem with it, tough.
“Will that be cash, credit card, or check?” she asks.
“Just bill it to the account,” I say, “it’s McLean.” And I give her the account number that Mr. M gave me.
“I need some identification, because you’re name’s not on this account,” she says, after pulling up the information on her screen.
“Of course.” I pull out the platinum card that has my name and Mr. McLean’s on it, as well as my Ohio driver’s license. She’s giving me a hard time. I know when someone is doing it on purpose, it’s happened to me enough times. She takes an imprint of the card and a copy of my license, then staples them together, and lays the copies in a folder. When she hands my identification back to me, I automatically say, “thank you”, but I don’t really mean it. In fact, Mr. M’s most favorite invective is on the tip of my tongue. “When can I come for the dogs?” I ask instead.
“The office will contact you.”
The phone rings and I’m glad, because I no longer have to stand here dealing with this person. It’s as if there’s one person like this in every town. They work somewhere where you can’t avoid them, like the DMV, or the local school, and it’s their personal pleasure to make you feel small, or inadequate in some way. I recognize it, I’m used to it, but I don’t like it.
Well, the day is another beauty, so what does it matter that some sour old cow at the vet’s has a bone up her behind? I ditch the soiled blankets and head off to a nice car wash I passed. I’m going to have them give the Jeep the works while I sit at a nearby Starbucks and buy myself an extra large latte courtesy of Mr. M and look over this paperwork on fleas. Then I’m going to hit up the Krispy Kreme that I passed and buy Mr. M a dozen glazed. We might as well get a little joy out of the day, I get the feeling Mr. M will be missing his friends today.
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My cellphone vibrates while I’m putting the twelfth green. It throws me off my game, and I miss an easy hole. Now I’m losing another bad game of golf to Rene, and I’m pissed off that I even brought the damn phone with me. I’m so pissed that I go beyond ignoring it, I take the phone and jam it into my golf bag.
I hate being disturbed out here. If it’s a life and death situation, well, you’re fucked because I’m out here in the middle of nowhere on the course without a cart and I can’t get to you. If it’s just a casual call, fine, I’ll catch you later. If it’s someone calling to bust my ass over something, I’m glad I missed the fucking call anyway.
But thinking about the phone makes me think about Summer. I never called her. I didn’t feel right about it. I mean, we got along and everything, and she didn’t seem annoyed or weird about me not being able to ‘deliver’ that night, which is pretty cool, when you think about it. But I don’t know, the whole thing left me feeling sort of pathetic, so I just never phoned her. And she didn’t phone me, either. That could have been her. She said she programmed her number into my phone, but I do remember giving her mine earlier in the evening. And she’s busy, real busy, she’s always somewhere, doin’ something. I see her at the Playboy Mansion all the time, and there’s a thing goin’ on there tonight, hell, there’s always something goin’ on there, or somewhere in LA with their name plastered all over it. Maybe she want’s to know if I’m goin’. I hadn’t planned on it. I could. I could call her and ask her the same thing.
She’s probably goin’ anyway. Probably with someone else.
I slice my tee shot.
Fuck it.
I pull the phone out and look at the face.
It’s not Summer. It’s Sarah. For a moment I just stare at the phone, then I put it back in the bag.
Sarah has phoned me exactly three times since January. One time was to chew me a new one about everything. Another time was to confirm this interview we did, what I think of as the last bit of public humilation I’m ever putting myself through. The article was originally supposed to be an exclusive for US Weekly about the final countdown to the wedding. Pictures of the rings, the gown; the whole shebang. Instead, it turned into me doing a true confessions type thing, with Sarah sitting there the whole time, still wearing the ring, and as if she still gave me the time of day. She even came up to the house for it, acted like she still lived there, told them that we were ‘working it out’. Did pictures, everything. She even had me convinced there for a minute that she meant it. As soon as the people from the magazine were gone, so was she.
The last time she called me was to rip me up about being out without her, she found out that I went to some party and she went ballistic. So did I. It was like, my last straw. She won’t forgive me, which I get, sort of, but she won’t talk to me either, and I’m supposed to sit home every night like the bad little boy and take my punishment. I went raving nuts. On the street no less. Right outside of a store. People watching me. I didn’t care. I really did not care. Because I WAS trying to be good, and I WAS behaving, I just went to a fucking party at Playboy for fucking Valentine’s Day which was the FUCKING day we were supposed to get married, for fuck’s sake. I wanted to be in a place where I wouldn’t be thinking about it, and it wasn’t EVEN Valentine’s Day it was days before so I don’t know what her problem was.
No. That’s not true. I know what her problem was. Her problem was that we weren’t getting married, that I had been cheating on her, and that I was goin’ out without her. Her problem was that I didn’t look sorry enough for the whole mess.
You know what MY problem is? That she never looked close enough.
Not ever.
Not once.
She never saw anything I was going through. Not when she was right there with me. Not before rehab, not after rehab. And I never got on her about that. I mean, I was the one with the problems. I was goin’ to the meetings, that was something I HAD to do, something required. I had to promise to do that just to get my sorry ass out on the road again. And I had to go to them after, because not drinking and not doing drugs is HARD. But I never expected her to go with me, to get involved like that, no, I just wanted her to be there every night when I got done, to be my rock, to anchor me to something that was steady.
But you know, it would have been nice if she had.
She goes now. That’s what I hear. Not from her, from Juliette. Through Juliette. Juliette is still doin’ some things for Sarah. I don’t have a problem with that. Much. I don’t pay for that, Sarah does. From that waitressing job she took. Whatever. It’s just that NOW she goes to meetings, too. NOW. It doesn’t matter now. It mattered then.
But she never saw that it mattered to me. I’m sure that’s my fault, too, the way everything else is. I should have TOLD her what I wanted. I thought I had. I thought that tellin’ her that I wanted her in my life, forever, sealed the deal.
I guess not.
Now I’m just wondering what she wants, and if I’m gonna return this call, and if I do, what have I done wrong now.
Shit. I should have left the phone home.
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© 2003 Chandrah, Inc.
© 2003 (*> Baby Bird Productions, Inc.
