Frenemies(28)
Thanksgiving week also meant that Amy Lee was consumed with her usual holiday rage over her mother-in-law’s historic inability to say what she wanted, which inevitably resulted in her not getting it, which led directly to tears and recriminations when Amy Lee just wanted to eat turkey. Neither one of them had time to parse Helen’s visit for clues. I had to pretend to be gracious about it.
The fact that it was Thanksgiving week also meant that I would have to wait until December—next week, sure, but it felt like forever—to see Nate at one of the many holiday parties I knew were coming. He couldn’t actually call me, of course, not after everything that had happened, so I had to try to be patient and wait for a party. Once there, I was gleefully sure, things would fall back into place, Helen could chase someone else’s boyfriend, and everything would be fine again.
I barely slept Tuesday night, because I had to go home and issue the usual holiday press releases about my life to my family. It wasn’t that I felt I had to lie to them about anything—I’d simply learned over long years that it was better to wrap up the bullet points of my existence into easily digested sound bites. The more positive, the better. I usually spent most of November crafting the appropriate little nuggets of information to share when I headed home. Thanks to Nate, Helen, and Henry in equal measure, I’d left the crafting until too late, and had to cram it all in at the very last minute.
Which was another way of saying I had some wicked insomnia Tuesday night as I lay awake, coming up with perky nuggets to fling around the Thanksgiving table.
Examples: Work is great! I’m so lucky to have such an advanced position so early in my career. Minerva’s a dream to work for—I have complete autonomy to conduct whatever research I want and to organize the collection the way I like. Or, because I hadn’t told them about dating Nate in the first place, so I hadn’t told them about his defection, either: No, I’m not seeing anyone special, but you know I have other things on my mind. Minerva’s thinking of expanding the entire library …
Toward dawn, I gave up my frustrated attempts to sleep and moved into the living room, where I sat with a comforter wrapped around me and channel-surfed until the clock hit nine and I could take Linus to the kennel. My sister had requested that Linus not join the family this year, since her youngest son was working on a fear of dogs—possibly the fear Linus had instilled in him the previous year with his version of “kisses.” I’d reluctantly agreed, since Linus was a walking failure of obedience classes. He was also kind of psychic—wherever you least wanted him to go (like the baby’s face), that was where he would head immediately. Like some kind of hairy homing missile.
Getting Linus to the kennel was a process. It involved tricking him into thinking he was going on an innocent morning walk, and then coercing him through the door to the vet’s office with various bribes: bacon, pleading, and assorted dog biscuits. Or anyway, that was the plan.
Linus was no fool. He was having none of it.
He took one look at the vet’s front door and hurled himself onto the ground where, every five seconds or so, he would twitch impressively as if undergoing electroshock therapy. No amount of tugging on his choke collar could move him—unless I wanted to actually hurt him, which I really didn’t.
At least not at first.
“Come on, Linus,” I tried to croon, as suspicious citizens hurried by on their way to work, no doubt planning to call the ASPCA from the next block to report the obvious cruelty I was inflicting upon my poor, defenseless dog.
Yeah, right. I glared down at him. His gray-and-tan fur stuck out in all directions, making him look like a surly, canine Einstein. Linus was so ugly that he became cute—or at least, I’d always thought so—but one thing he wasn’t was defenseless. I could see that cunning, defiant look in his eyes even if no one else could.
After about a half hour of this nonsense, when I was just about ready to hire the nearby, bemused homeless guy to lift Linus up and cart him inside for me, Linus condescended to rise from his protest position—which was completely prone, across the sidewalk, feigning death. And not because of anything I did, but because he was probably either cold or bored. I dragged him inside—ignoring his jaunty little trot, which was his version of flipping me the doggy bird—and filled out the necessary paperwork.
“Oh no,” I assured the anxious-looking receptionist. “He’s actually fine. That wasn’t a seizure. He just likes to act up.”
“Dogs aren’t people, you know,” she told me with a sniff. “They don’t actually perform unless trained to do so.”
You must be a bird person, I thought, or possibly a fish person, whoever they are. I showed her my teeth in an approximation of a smile.
“You don’t know Linus,” I told her.
“I know dogs,” she retorted, crossing her arms over her scrubs. “They don’t have agendas. They’re pets.”
I wanted to vent my spleen in the worst way possible, but I was already late for work, so I was forced to smile instead, and fume about her all the way to the Museum, where Minerva insisted upon celebrating her Puritan ancestors by dressing in period costume and forcing me to eat “harvest stew.” (About which I refused to think, as I had some serious concerns about the ingredients.) Afterward, she served pumpkin muffins from the local bakery, which were at least edible.
After work, I raced home and commenced shoving things into a bag. Jeans—but only the pair without any tears or distressed patches, as my mother had made her feelings plain about torn clothing back in the eighties. (Not a fashion choice she’d supported, let’s just say.) I piled in a few sweaters and was digging into the terrifying back of my closet for my ancient pair of Timberland boots when my buzzer rang. Early, as usual.