This Dog for Hire

Dash gets to make the first paw prints, terrific in spring when the perennial herbs and flowers return as if by magic, amazingly cool in summer, especially in the evening and at night, and mysterious and sad in the fall when the cycle draws to an end in a blaze of beauty, all hidden from Tenth Street and the rest of the world.
    I unlocked the door, flicked on the light, fed Dashiell, and went straight up to bed. I had the tape from Clifford Cole’s answering machine in my coat pocket, where I had put it before leaving the loft, replacing it with a new tape I found in the drawer of the table the machine sat on. I had wanted to hear it again, but suddenly the day caught up to me and I could no longer think of anything but sleep.
    There were only three messages on the tape, anyway. The National Dog Registry, someone selling home delivery of the New York Times, and a squeaky-voiced lady who wanted to mate her bitch to Magritte, that adorable little stud.
    Dashiell was already asleep. I closed my eyes and thought about Dennis’s reunion with Magritte. I had knocked on the door and when he asked who was there I had said, It’s me, Rachel, I’m ready to draw you that first picture. When he opened the door, the basenji dog had squealed. Dennis had bent down, and the little dog had kissed him al! over his face. I thought about the look in Dennis’s eyes, when he finally could take them off his dog.
    I also believed my dog to be the best thing since indoor plumbing. I had rescued Dashiell from some wrong headed, mean-spirited young entrepreneurs I had run into on a case, people who planned to make money fighting him when he grew up. I liberated him in such a fashion, let’s say, that I didn’t take the time to get his pedigree.
    Sometimes when the right dog finds you, he has papers. Sometimes he doesn’t. Hey, I have papers. My divorce document. It’s not much to cur! up against on a cold night. A dog is much better suited for that job.
    Hugging Dashiell, I fell asleep happy, but I woke up in the middle of the night with a start. Was it a dream that woke me? I couldn’t remember. All I could remember was that sign at the pier.
    Don’t be caught alone.
    I almost always was, more and more of late. I was thirty-eight, suspicious, competitive, too independent on the surface for the taste of most of the men I met, and under the surface, much too frightened to suit my own.
    Even if I could have fallen asleep again, it wouldn’t have been worth lying there and rehashing my whole life before I finally got fed up enough to sleep. I got up and went into the spare bedroom, a little two by-four job where I did my paperwork.
    Dennis’s book was on the desk where I had tossed it earlier. I took it onto the guest bed, slid under the blankets, and began to read about Antonia, who was five and who had always wanted a dog, ever since she was four and a half. When she finds Eliot, she is sure that he was meant to be hers.
    “I guess it wasn’t meant to be,” I told my sister, Lillian, after the divorce.
    “Well,” she said, meaning “bullshit,” meaning she thought I had fucked up again, “what are you going to do now?” meaning now that I had ruined my life, just as she always knew I would.
    “Move back to the city,” I said. “I never should have left. And get a dog!”
    “You’re not going back to dog training, are you? Why don’t you get a normal job, Rachel?”
    “I don’t know,” I said, thinking of how much I hated going backward.
    I had closed the school and moved to Westchester so Jack and I could have a “normal life,” whatever that was. What had I been thinking! But it was done, and now I’d have to go forward. But to what?
    “Look, maybe until you think of something else, Ted could—”
    Oh, God. I was filled with panic at the thought of working in the garment industry.
    “Well,” I said, wanting to make her as miserable as she had just made me, “I’ve always wanted to be a detective.”
    It was simply the most annoying thing I could think of on such short notice.
    “Rachel, have you completely lost your mind!”
    I had a strong suspicion it was a rhetorical question, so I didn’t bother to answer her.
    “You know, I can really see myself doing investigation work. Jack always said I was the nosiest bitch he ever met, or maybe that was just during the financial disclosure part of the divorce. Anyway, the hours would suit me, and I wouldn’t have to wear panty hose.”
    “A detective ,”