The Dog Park Read online

  I hustled to the door and opened it for Sebastian. I started to tell him Gavin was there, but something about the look he was giving me stopped me.

  “I missed you,” Sebastian said.

  “Oh,” I said, taken aback. “Thanks...”

  I was saved by Baxter tearing into the room, giving a high, happy bark.

  “Dogger!” Sebastian said, kneeling to pet him briefly before standing back up.

  The features of his face, his jaw, his neck seemed softer than usual. His gaze was unguarded, maybe sentimental.

  “How was your trip?” I asked, not to bug him, but really because he looked a little upset.

  He exhaled. “Okay.” He shook his head a little, opening his eyes wider, as if trying not to see some image in his head.

  “Really. Are you okay?” I asked.

  Something tensed in him. “Sure. Of course.”

  “Okay.” I paused. “I just wanted to tell you that I have a friend over.”

  “Oh.”

  “And we’re heading to dinner when you leave...when you and Bax are gone, so...” Why was I having such a hard time coming up with words? “I just wanted to give you a heads-up that he’s here.”

  “He?”

  I heard footsteps behind me. “Hey, man,” Gavin said. He crossed the kitchen, appearing at my side, and held out a hand.

  “Sebastian, this is Gavin Medlin,” I said. “Gavin, Sebastian Hess.” I sounded exactly like my dutiful seven-year-old self when my mom used to make me practice introductions before the annual Travers Stakes festivities where I would meet many adults. And I felt as if I was about seven right then with Gavin and Sebastian. Despite the fact that I had shared some of the most intimate (physically and otherwise) moments with these two men, I wanted to both hide in a closet and giggle inappropriately.

  “Yeah, man, I’ve read some of your stuff and I love it,” Gavin said.

  A pause before I heard Sebastian say, “Thanks.”

  “You’re a great writer.”

  “Thanks a lot,” Sebastian said, sounding only vaguely genuine. “Are you a writer?”

  “No, I’m in sales.”

  “Ah,” Sebastian said. It sounded haughty, though I knew that didn’t mean he meant to sound that way. Sebastian had always been flummoxed by people with vague-sounding jobs. A consultant? he would say to me as we discussed people we met at a party. What does that mean? They could be a consultant for any company! How about a little detail? The writer in Sebastian was always on the hunt for good details.

  Sebastian murmured something to Gavin, something that sounded like, “Good for you,” which sounded even more haughty, although I knew he was just trying to back out of the conversation. He was saved by Baxter who yelped again and jumped at Sebastian’s feet until he picked him up, exactly as Gavin had earlier.

  “Gavin is in ad sales,” I said, which drew a glare from Gavin. I closed my mouth to make sure I didn’t add that Gavin worked for an a celebrity-driven magazine.

  Silence.

  The conversation was going nowhere fast.

  Sebastian turned to the brass pegs hanging on the wall. “I’ll just grab a leash,” he said, reaching out for the brown one with a practiced hand. The gold-starred leash hung there, too. Sebastian seemed to pause and grimace at it, but I could have imagined that.

  “Anything else I need for this one?” he said, his head nodding toward the dog.

  “Oh, he’s got that eye infection again. Let me get the drops.” I turned to the pantry and opened it, but as I rooted around, unable to find them, I felt the need to attempt easier conversation. “The vet said it probably keeps coming back because he meets so many people now.”

  “Yeah. He never gets those infections except when he’s with you.”

  I turned to see Sebastian looking not at me, but at Gavin.

  “Um...” I said, no good reply.

  Sebastian glanced at me then. “The drops?”

  “One second.”

  I took off toward my bathroom at a clip, straining my ears. Nothing. No sounds from the kitchen. I snagged the drops from the drawer.

  “Look, man,” Gavin was saying when I was nearly in the kitchen. A low voice. I stopped.

  “Would you quit calling me ‘man’?” Sebastian said.

  “Look, I’m just saying it would be nice if you gave her a little heads-up. I know what she needs.”

  “What who needs?” I said, stepping into the room.

  “You,” Gavin answered fast. “I was telling him to give you more time when he’s picking up the dog.”

  “And I told him,” Sebastian said, “that he could butt out of my marriage.”

  Sebastian and I looked at each other, all of us silent. Did he just say, “My marriage”? As in present tense?

  I’ve never been able to stand the alpha male thing that some guys did—She’s my girl; I’ll protect her. But hell if it wasn’t kinda sexy the way Gavin’s chest grew higher, straining toward Sebastian. And oddly, I felt a kind of pride at Sebastian’s word-slip.

  But none of us seemed to want to address it. I wasn’t even positive that Sebastian noticed he’d said it.

  Then Baxter barked. We all looked down.

  My muse, my partner, my friend, the dog stood at my feet, his back to me in protection, barking at the two men and showing them who the alpha was around here.

  20

  The next TV piece on Baxter was on a national news magazine, and it started like most personal-interest news stories, showing the video that had gotten so much attention. Then they talked about Baxter, then about Clara and how the little girl was thriving. Next, the piece reviewed me as Baxter’s owner and the one who’d sewn the stars on his collar and leash.

  Jessica Champlin, the voice-over said, had been a stylist for many years before her dog, Baxter, struck fame. The video showed me crouching, feeding Baxter a treat, then kissing him on the head. She had built a successful business in Manhattan before relocating to Chicago. She styles not only entertainment and news personalities (a still photo of Pamela at the news desk) but socialites and politicians, as well (video of me considering a purple suit on Victory).

  Champlin will even make clothes for clients when she can’t find what she wants commercially (cue video of me at my sewing machine). But it wasn’t until her dog was caught on video with his Superdog collar and leash, which Champlin had created, that she realized there was a market for dog styling and products, or, as she calls it, “dogwear.”

  A segment followed with an interview with me, the background showing my kitchen windows and a choppy, gray-blue Lake Michigan beyond. “If there’s womenswear and menswear,” I said in the video, “why not dogwear?”

  The next few shots were of me and Baxter walking outside, then of my studio, where Baxter went right to his side of the worktable to eat from his bowl.

  They showed a clip of me talking about how the Superdog collar had started as a way to rib my ex.

  And then my ex was in the video. In the video. There were Sebastian and I outside my building under sunny skies, Sebastian handing me Baxy’s leash, smiling at me.

  The shot appeared an easygoing one. But it had not, in any way, been simple to get Sebastian to agree.

  I’d finally broached the subject of him being on camera a few nights later when I met him outside to hand Baxy over to him. He was late for a dinner at his mom’s house in Roger’s Park.

  “Ha. Sorry, babe,” he’d said when I finally asked if he would be in the video. He scoffed.

  That scoff. It made me not want to back down. It made me want to squeeze him into doing what I wanted.

  “C’mon,” I said, my voice tight. “The producers of the show like the ‘joint custody’ thing.”

  “What joint custody thing?”<
br />
  “Our thing.” I cleared my throat. “You were the one that first called it that. Now they say it’s a trend.”

  “Oh, Jesus. We’re trending?”

  “Joint custody of pets is trending. It won’t be forever. This whole thing will be over soon. But right now it’s bringing me business. That I happen to love. So do me a freaking favor!”

  I wondered how he would react to the anger that had bubbled up with that last sentence. Outbursts, even short ones, weren’t usually in my nature.

  The summer weather seemed to envelop our little pocket of silence. The sun was slipping over the city to the west. You could tell it was deep in the summer, too, because the zing-zing of cicadas could be heard.

  Then Sebastian stepped forward and tucked a piece of hair behind my right ear. I froze. That was what he used to do. When we were married. When we were happy.

  Did he smell Gavin on me? I suddenly wondered. I’d showered since last night, but in more ways than one Gavin had become a part of me over the past few weeks, and I wondered if maybe he’d gotten in my pores a little, if Sebastian could detect him somehow.

  My loyalty to Gavin was there, making me want to pull away from my ex. But I sensed opportunity. And I also wanted Sebastian to want to do something. So I stayed there. I moved in a little closer. “Do this for me,” I said, “okay?”

  “No way, Jess.”

  But he hadn’t moved away.

  A couple from my building (formerly our building) passed us with cheery hellos. Although we shared the same address, we obviously kept different schedules because I hadn’t seen them in forever, which was even more self-evident when they invited Sebastian and me over for “drinks sometime,” clearly thinking we were still together.

  When they’d left, neither of us trying to explain our vague responses, Sebastian looked at me.

  “Seriously, Jess,” he said, “I will not be on camera.”

  “Why not?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Won’t.”

  “Can’t.”

  “Says who?”

  “This is ridiculous. We’ve been over this.”

  I didn’t respond. I moved in a little closer again, and then I added in a small voice, “Please.”

  He exhaled with irritation. “No.”

  “Please.”

  “No.”

  “This is the last time I’ll ask, the last time I’ll try to talk you into something. This is for my business.” I didn’t add that his business had caused the end of us. We both knew that script well enough.

  “Okay,” he said into my ear then, his breath hot. Surprisingly, it sent tingles down my insides, through my limbs.

  I turned my head a little, and now I could smell his jaw and his neck—the slightly lavender shaving cream, the Sebastian smell, deep and woodsy yet clean.

  “Okay?” I said into his ear.

  “I’ll do it,” Sebastian said.

  Then we both stepped back.

  And so the shooting of the video went well, and the arrangement between Sebastian and me came up at the end of the piece.

  Joint custody of the dog? the reporter’s voice-over said in closing. It may not be for everyone but these two are making it work. For themselves and for Superdog. (Per Sebastian’s insistence, they didn’t use his name or his occupation.)

  My parents saw the news piece and called me the next day.

  “So you and Sebastian might be getting back together?” my mom asked. “That’s what it looked like from the video.”

  The video had not, in any way that I could see, made it appear as if reconciliation was an option. So I quickly denied, and then moved on by telling my parents about the Wells Street studio. My father whooped, and my mother gave her delighted bird laugh.

  They asked me question after question about my dogwear, eventually moving on to questions about design. “Are your designs inspired by art?” they asked me. “Or a particular designer?”

  I thought hard about what to say. Were they hoping I’d name a piece of art of theirs? They often asked this question and naming one of their creations was a favored answer. But they always pushed for more, as if they knew it couldn’t only be them who influenced me. I don’t think they realized they influenced me much more than they knew.

  I thought about it.

  “Well, there’s one girl dog collar that’s made up of tiny red butterflies. I drew from Alexander McQueen.”

  “Oh?” my father said.

  “Tell us more,” my mom said.

  I talked about how I loved the headdress McQueen had made with red butterflies.

  “I can see that,” my mother said. “I see you aligned with McQueen, God rest his soul. You’re both artists.”

  That was how my parents talked. I didn’t always like that, but now my heart puffed with pride and love.

  And yet I didn’t give Baxter credit for being my muse. I felt bad for that later in the day when the worst happened. Then I felt like I had betrayed him. But I loved being close to my parents in that way on the phone—talking creatively, bonding (however slightly), that I didn’t want to miss a minute of it.

  21

  A quietly bouncing ball can change everything. That’s what I learned that day.

  I’d Rather Sleep with the Dog had gotten into the ball business via Brent, the sourcing consultant at the Michigan manufacturing plant. I was happy about it since it involved no design for me, just deciding where to put the I’d Rather Sleep with the Dog logo. But even better, Baxter—my muse, my test subject—loved not just chasing balls, but retrieving them and racing back to drop them at your feet. If he misjudged and the drop of his ball hit a foot away from your foot, he’d pick it up and readjust so you wouldn’t have to move your feet to throw it.

  And so as the boxes of sample dog balls continued to arrive at my condo and studio, Baxter was in canine nirvana. He got to try each—a tennis ball that was purple and more durable, a metallic silver one that seemed entirely too big for Baxter’s mouth, a red one that had holes all over its hard, rubbery surface. There were many with bells, many more that emanated squeaks—from dainty cooing ones to screeching death metal.

  His favorite, the one he liked to hold in his mouth and trot with around our neighborhood, was one that a rubber company had forwarded to Brent. It was lime-green with rubber spikes. And Baxter liked to mouth it even more than the one with the holes.

  Baxter loved to hold that ball up high as he walked, showing it to people as he passed. People often laughed, pointed. Even when they recognized and shouted “Superdog” they rarely approached when he held the ball like that, as if they could tell from Baxter’s posture and countenance that he wasn’t to be interrupted. It was hysterical. It was always a mood picker-upper for me.

  But then that day.

  That day. That day. That’s how I would refer to it later. Just a vague description of one twenty-four-hour period.

  That day it was blazing hot by the time Baxter and I got outside. That day, we set out on a walk, Baxter holding his green ball. That day, a Newfoundland suddenly appeared, full bark, at the fence of a grand house on East Scott Street, startling Baxter. That day, the ball bounced from his mouth, just a small bounce. That day, Baxter yanked away from me, his DNA taking over, a dog dashing for his favorite ball.

  “Baxter!” I yelled. “Stay!”

  But he went.

  “Baxter!”

  That moment froze and then I wasn’t there; instead I was in a field of black and I saw flashes, tiny pockets of memories exploding all at once—pop, pop, pop, pop, pop. Each flash was like a camera burst on the red carpet, but each flash was its own microburst of a world.

  And like a photograph or a video, I could see each one of them—Baxy at different stages of his life: Baxter as
a ragamuffin puppy with adoring eyes who almost never got to walk because Sebastian and I couldn’t stop carrying him; later, Baxter streaking across the park, looking over one shoulder while Sebastian yelled, Go long! to his dog-son; Baxter, the good sport, finding joy in a squeaky toy he hadn’t seen for a week because he’d been at Sebastian’s, shuffled back and forth because we both loved him so much; Baxter on TV; Baxter making people happy on the street; Baxter in our studio, twisted up in a coil of yellow collar leather.

  And then the real moment was back.

  “Baxter!”

  It was rush hour, and I heard other pedestrians on the street yelling, too. Then a car was barreling toward Baxter, who was in the middle of the street. The squeal of brakes as the car swerved, almost hitting a biker.

  I shrieked his name over and over.

  A leash streamed behind Baxter, but not the one with the golden stars. He was not Superdog, not anymore. He wore only a plain navy collar and leash. He was just a dog....

  The first car had missed Bax, but now an SUV—wham!

  Then quiet.

  Then screaming.

  22

  At the pet hospital, a reality show played, loud, in the waiting room.

  Me. Just me.

  I hadn’t taken my phone with me on our walk because I was only going a few blocks.

  That was one of the things I said over and over to everyone—we were just on a walk, needed a break. he was carrying his ball, it’s not a crowded street, I don’t have my phone. I wound through and repeated those points to the receptionist at the front desk, then the next receptionist who took over from her, then the nurse who took him away, then the vet who came out to look for a different dog owner, then the same vet when she came out to tell me she had no news (and who grimaced and touched my shoulder), then to myself because they felt like “normal” sentences now, and I could think of nothing else.

  I wanted to think about things from the weeks before the accident. I wanted to think about the Superdog video and the press and the new studio and Gavin and “dogwear” and the mayor. That time, though chaotic in its own way, had developed into a particular status quo, one that now seemed normal, innocent, sweet.