Good Riddance(68)

“Is this a joke?” I asked, upon meeting my first client, a huge slobbering English Mastiff.

“He’s a cream puff,” Sara said, caressing the big wrinkly forehead. “Right, boy? You two are going to fall in love. Don’t wear anything too good, though.”

His name was Elton John, nicknamed E. J., and his poops were the size of a hardcover book. We had bonded early—attributable to the mere sight of a human carrying a leash, the smell of fresh air clinging to her coat and treats in her pocket. His mom told me that by my third visit he’d planted himself at the front door a half hour before I was due. Was that not both brilliant and flattering, plus reassuring to an owner? I allowed a modest “My last job was as a Montessori teacher.”

When my trial period ended, Sara asked if I wanted to switch to another client. I said, “Not on your life,” despite the nightly ibuprofen I needed for muscles wrenched whenever a squirrel crossed our path.

My dad was, in his own words, pleased as punch.

“I told you,” he said.

“Yup. The famed unconditional love.”

“And the nicest possible company to work with. Did I tell you they sent me a Starbucks gift certificate at Christmas? You’ll get one, too.”

“Real benefits would be nice,” I said.

“You’ll get there.”

“Where?”

“I meant a figurative ‘there’—a job with health insurance and membership in something like a guild.”

I laughed. “Guild! Like I’ll become a mason or a candlemaker?”

He claimed not to know why he used that term, then conceded it might be Kathi’s membership in a musicians’ guild of some sort. She was eligible because she’d played in an orchestra pit for a whole week, subbing for the regular pianist who had bronchitis. “Isn’t that New York for you? Everyone is involved with something creative—whether it’s music or theater or television or publishing or art or designing skyscrapers.”

“Everyone except me,” I said.



Less than a week later, I received a birthday card, two and half months early, from my dad and Kathi. Folded inside was a brochure and acceptance letter announcing ten weeks of acting lessons starting almost immediately.

Acting lessons? Weren’t those for actors? I checked the envelope to see if I’d opened someone else’s mail. No, it was addressed to me in my dad’s handwriting. I reread the enclosed letter, still puzzled. Was the Drama Factory the lowest hanging fruit on the drama-school tree since I didn’t have to apply or audition? At the bottom of the card, Dad had written, “NB: The hours will not interfere with your day job.” And next to that, he’d penciled a paw print and a heart.

I called him, offered thanks that must have sounded anemic because his follow-up was “I did check whether I could get a refund if you hated the idea. But I thought it would be fun. And you’d be good at it. Jeremy thought so, too. In fact, it was his idea.”

“Wait. Jeremy? When? At my dinner party?”

“No, recently. I ran into him buying bagels.”

“And the topic of my June birthday came up?”

There was a silence I could read: How to negotiate with Daphne when she’s like this? “Not exactly. I got the idea after Jeremy told me you enjoyed going over lines with him.”

“But that was me hamming it up! What’s easier than playing a drunk stepmother in the privacy of your then-boyfriend’s boudoir? And how long a conversation did you have before it got around to my alleged acting ability?”

“Not long. He was on his way to work. I said, ‘Remind me what you do,’ and one thing led to another.”

“Does he know you signed me up?”

“I thought you might tell him. I guess not; I guess that would require a modicum of enthusiasm.”

Now I felt bad. “Let’s start over,” I said. “So this is me thanking you profusely for such an . . . original gift.”

“You’re welcome.”

Elton John was taking a noisy snooze under the customers-only bench provided by a barber shop I didn’t patronize. When I reached down to stroke his gigantic head, his rheumy eyes asked, How about if I turn over and you rub my belly?

“C’mon, you couch potato. Wanna go to school?” He loved walking by Sacred Heart of Jesus and PS 111 on West Fifty-second, or so I projected. I timed our visit to coincide with recess when his sheer immensity drew a delighted crowd behind the chain-link fence. I did some showing off: I’d throw whatever stick I’d harvested from Central Park, causing him to move not an inch or even turn his head to follow the stick’s trajectory. Instead, he took it for his cue to perform his only trick, offering me his paw, which I’d shake like I was cranking the handle of a pump. That earned us the cheers and mittened applause of our pint-size onlookers.

Acting potential? I doubted it. But who didn’t like an audience?



“I won’t keep you,” I told Kathi, who picked up after one ring. “Just calling with my thanks.”

“No hurry; no student until eleven. Thanking me for . . . ?”

“The gift certificate? Great present!” That was step one of my plan: express heartfelt gratitude, then work my way toward the who/what/where/why of such a present. Since hearing how Kathi saved my father from Geneva’s evil output, I’d been viewing her as the inside track. I said as casually as I could, “Dad told me he got the idea from Jeremy. You remember Jeremy—he was at my chicken dinner but left before we ate?”