The Dog Park Page 5

  “Wow,” Sebastian said. “That’s amazing.”

  “Thanks. It’s not technically that hard. The tough part is keeping track of everything and responding to everyone and then getting it shipped. But it’s fun and creative, and now I’m starting to get all these ideas about designs for other dogwear and accessories.”

  “Dogwear?”

  “I’m coining a new term. And no, I don’t want your opinion on it.”

  He smiled, but barely. “Can I sit down?”

  I waved my arm at the room and slightly shrugged like, I can’t stop you.

  Sebastian took the order sheet and sat on a light blue chair that had been his grandmother’s. He’d never liked it, so I got to keep it. He didn’t look at the order form, though. At first, his eyes roamed the office, maybe taking note of the loss of him in that room. The rest of his family’s handed-down furniture was in his new apartment in Roscoe Village. Whenever I visited him there, I felt a little jealous, because the neighborhood was charming. There were wine shops and restaurants and boutiques of all kinds, and people strolled happily with their kids or their partners.

  As Sebastian kept assessing the office, I wondered if he was noticing the things I’d added—like a painting of a ballerina I bought in New York when I was twenty-four and which Sebastian had found too feminine. It now hung in the spot that had once held Sebastian’s framed map of Colonial America.

  Suddenly, there was a crack of thunder, and a summer storm started pounding the windows, the room darkening. But strangely, neither of us moved. Sebastian’s eyes kept sweeping the room, quickly taking stock the way he always did, taking mental notes. His eyes stopped when they reached mine, and again neither of us moved. An energy seemed to hold us there, one that felt both powerful and calm, no anger bubbling around the edges.

  We were, I felt in that instant, observing a marriage that once was.

  He uncrossed his leg and nodded at his lap.

  A mix of surprise and longing arose within me. That nod was what Sebastian used to do when he wanted me to sit on his lap. Often the reason was to discuss something, other times it was because he wanted to kiss me. I didn’t know which reason was applicable here. I hesitated.

  “Jess,” he said in a voice that was tired but caring.

  I walked across the room and perched on his legs, a movement that felt so familiar it caused an ache. Sebastian felt warm. He smelled faintly of the fragrance he wore that was part leather, part something like lavender. That scent alone had made me swoon many a time. I leaned back a little.

  “You know what this reminds me of?” he said. “Block Island.”

  I took a breath, emotions coursing through me. Block Island was where I first told him I loved him.

  I had actually known that I loved him just a few months after meeting him, but I kept quiet. Turns out I didn’t have to wait long. Just a few weeks after my realization, we were at a party and he stopped me when I came out of the bathroom, no one else in the hallway. “I love you, you know. So much.”

  I pretended to ruminate upon that revelation, said I needed to warm up to the idea of love. Technically, it was true. Because I knew—all too well—the destruction that could result from love.

  But then one summer night, I returned the sentiment. We were lying in a rented room in Block Island—sandy sheets, candles in hurricane lamps—and I said it into his chest. “I love you, too.”

  He was so happy. He squeezed me hard. He kissed me on the top of my head, then pulled me up and kissed my forehead, then my eyes, then my mouth. We murmured the words to each other over and over.

  Soon after, he fell asleep quickly, as if hearing those words from me had finally allowed him to relax. I watched as his sable brown eyelashes fluttered with dreams, and it hit me. I will lose him.

  I understood, in that moment, or maybe I should say that I remembered, that all things end, especially good things. At some point, either Sebastian would die or I would or we would break up. At some point, I would lose him. That recognition cut sharply through me, so exquisitely painful.

  Tears sprang from my eyes that night on Block Island. I choked on a quick-rising sob.

  “What?” Sebastian said, waking fast. A confused look around, his journalist eyes taking in and registering the details of where, what, who and when.

  His eyes had looked at me, those eyes the same chestnuty-sable color as his lashes. “What is it, baby?” he said.

  I took a deep breath, let it fly. I explained what I was thinking, feeling, realizing, about the eventual end of us.

  He pulled me tight to him again. He brushed my bangs off my forehead and kissed my temples, my eyes. “You won’t lose me,” he said.

  I knew that Sebastian meant what he’d said. I also knew that, unintentionally, he’d been lying.

  “Block Island was great,” I said now, in my apartment. I stood up.

  Block Island is over. And I am alive without you.

  After a moment, Sebastian stood, too. He walked to the end of the folding table and fingered the various collars, leashes, embellishments.

  He held up a pink string of flowers that would be placed on a white collar for a teacup poodle. “Promise me,” he said, “that you won’t put this on Baxy’s collar.”

  “I promise.”

  “So you like doing this?” Sebastian gestured with his hand at the dog accoutrements across the table.

  “I don’t like it,” I said.

  He looked at me, raised his eyebrows.

  “I love it.”

  Sebastian sighed. “I thought you were going to say that.”

  “Why the disappointment?”

  He breathed out heavily—not as weary as his sigh, but close.

  “Seriously, Sebastian, what’s your problem with this?”

  He shook his head.

  “Really,” I said, “what is it?”

  “No problem,” he said. He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “I’m going to call Paul, the producer, and I’m going to tell him to run the show.”

  10

  Later I would think about how my showing Sebastian my dogwear business convinced him to call his friend the news producer. Therefore, I realized, I had essentially started my own demise—the outing of the past Jess behind the present one.

  But it wasn’t that first national news piece that did it. Destruction takes a little while.

  The night Baxter was on the national news, a few days after the phone call, Sebastian dropped Baxter off because I needed him to try on dogwear.

  “I’ll get him tomorrow afternoon,” Sebastian said.

  “Sure. Thanks for doing this.”

  “Sure,” he echoed.

  Awkward silence seemed to course through the kitchen.

  “So Baxter is on the news tonight.” I figured he’d remember, but I wanted to see his reaction.

  His face was neutral. “Yeah. I’m going to be at my mom’s.”

  “Tell her hi.”

  Sebastian nodded.

  I looked at my watch. “Damn, it’s on soon.”

  He glanced at his phone then. “Shit.” He sighed. “My mom has all her sisters coming over.” Sebastian loved his four aunts, but they could be a lot to take when they were all together.

  “That’ll be fun,” I said.

  He groaned. “I’m so tired from writing all day. I just don’t know if I can handle the coven.” His mom had the maiden name of Carey, so the sisters called themselves Carey’s Coven.

  “You can watch it here,” I said.

  Pause. “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  And so Sebastian and I watched the news piece together at my place, the place that had once been ours.

  The last time we’d shared an evening in the condo, or at least
attempted to share, was the night we got divorced. Neither of us wanted to be alone, but we didn’t want to be with anyone else, either. Our attorney had said it would be a simple matter. You’ll just step up to the bench and answer, “Yes.”

  But the lawyer hadn’t told us, or maybe he hadn’t understood, how painful it was to hear a judge, in a bored tone, say, The spouses’ irreconcilable differences have caused an irretrievable breakdown of their marriage.

  From the corner of my eye I’d seen something like a wince from Sebastian when the judge had said that. I’d looked over and saw he was squeezing his eyes shut. Sebastian, the man who didn’t close his eyes to combat and war and gruesome situations, had clamped his eyes shut, as if to ward off tears or pain.

  But the anguish had kept coming as the judge had intoned, The court determines that efforts at reconciliation have failed.

  I’d closed my eyes then, too, trying to stop the questions in my own voice streaming through my head—Did I make the best effort possible? Could we put it back together? Did we fail? Did I fail?

  We’d both been shocked at how simple the proceedings ended up being, when nothing about our marriage had been simple.

  But that night when Baxter was on the news, everything was just...lighter. Sebastian’s latest article, a piece on militias in Libya, had just released, and the story garnered raves and much attention, making him relaxed, open. And I was certainly in a much better mood than the night we got divorced. And then there was our little boy—our Baxy—on TV, bounding across a street and saving a little girl in a yellow dress.

  Clara’s mom was interviewed, holding Clara on her lap.

  “Oh, watch this,” I said, nudging Sebastian on the couch next to me. I lifted one of Baxter’s paws and pointed it at the TV. “Watch, Baxy. They’re talking about you.”

  As usual, Baxter registered little through the television.

  The correspondent had arranged, toward the end of Clara’s interview, for Baxter to surprise her and her mom. When the door opened and Baxter bounded through it to Clara, she shrieked happily and laughed with delight, wrapping her arms around Baxy. I couldn’t imagine any viewer being unmoved. “Look at you, good dog!” Sebastian said, as Baxter bounced from my lap to his, panting with apparent delight at his parents sitting next to each other, happy.

  “And hey, Jess, there you are,” Sebastian said. He looked at me. “You didn’t tell me they interviewed you.”

  “I wasn’t sure you’d like it.”

  “As long as they don’t ask to interview me.”

  He looked back at the TV, listening to the correspondent’s voice-over. Jessica Champlin, Baxter’s owner, was surprised the star-studded collar she created for her dog would get such attention.

  Then my voice on TV saying, “I’ve gotten orders from around the country for the collars and leashes.”

  Sebastian held his hand up for me to high-five.

  The news segment ended with a shot of Clara and Baxter, as she kissed his head. Then the screen flashed to that moment when Baxy tackled her, when the truck swerved around the corner.

  “Well,” the newscaster said. “That’s something you don’t see every day.”

  “Although we wish we did,” his co-anchor said.

  Sebastian patted my leg as the news rolled into a segment about taxes. I muted the TV and almost immediately a series of low ding, ding, ding sounds came from my phone. I picked it up.

  “I have thirty-four new emails,” I said. Ding, ding, ding. “And fifteen texts.”

  “Really?” Sebastian moved closer to me. “Since when?”

  In my in-box, there was a bevy of emails with similar subject lines—Want to buy a Collar. How can I place order? Saw your dog on the news. Want Superdog collar. Need Superdog Leash.

  “A few minutes ago.”

  Then it kept going—ding, ding, ding.

  “There’s more,” I said, holding out the phone to show Sebastian. “A lot more.”

  11

  It was Victory, the politician, who really kicked my business of dog styling into gear. She’d seen the news, too. She texted me the next morning, saying that she was being photographed that very afternoon for a women’s magazine. Because the magazine hired a stylist, she hadn’t needed to call me.

  What’s the angle of the article? I wrote.

  The piece dealt with fashionable, powerful women in state government. They wanted to shoot her in her office.

  But since I saw your dog on the news, she wrote, I’m thinking we need a shot w/me and dog.

  Projects authority, I wrote.

  Right.

  If you can master dog, you can master the country.

  Exactly!

  But also shows warmth.

  I need warmth! Victory wrote. We’ve pushed ballbuster image pretty far.

  A few minutes went by, then Victory texted, The magazine loves the idea of the dog in the shoot! Calling you...

  “You know, it’s hard being a black politician,” Victory said when I answered. She rarely made use of hellos, something I liked about her, and she nearly always said something random without explanation. “Do you think DeeDee needs a bath?” she asked.

  “Everyone needs a blow out,” I said. “When was the last time she was groomed?”

  “Two months.”

  “Then for a photo shoot? It’s time.”

  “Any chance I can hire you to style her?” Victory asked.

  I thought about the work in the office, much of it buried under boxes of materials that had arrived just an hour before. Still, this was exactly the kind of thing I wanted to stay open to. It was, I realized, the exact kind of work I wanted to expand into. Dog styling—probably not much work out there but even less competition.

  “Absolutely,” I said to Victory. “I’ll find a grooming appointment. And I’ll pick her up.”

  “God love you. And however you want her fur to look is good for me,” Victory said. “I’ll pay you your usual.”

  “Sounds good,” I said. “What is Dee wearing?”

  “Wearing? Like her collar? It’s the same one you saw last year.”

  “The olive green one?”

  “Yeah. It’s cute, right?”

  “I think you want her to show a little sass.”

  “Good point,” Victory said. “What’s your thought?”

  I’d been sitting at the kitchen table, but I stood and headed for the office. “Do you see her in a baby-pink?”

  “No,” Victory said. “I can’t look like a socialite with a purse dog.”

  “One that’s already called DeeDee.”

  “Precisely,” she said.

  “Got it.” I picked up a few more things. “I’ll have options.”

  We hung up, and I lifted a purple canvas strap with lime-green trim.

  By the time I got to the photo shoot that afternoon, I’d made a few other collars and harnesses. As they were styling Victory’s office, I showed her the various collars I’d made or brought.

  Melody, Victory’s thirteen-year-old, came home from school and helped us narrow the collars down further to the preppy purple-and-green one and a playful lavender one with white suns. We put both of them on DeeDee.

  “Notice what you’re wearing?” I pointed to Victory’s own wrist, where she wore a watch and a bracelet. “The two at once?”

  Victory looked down. “They look good together.”

  “Right,” I said. “So do hers. Let’s leave her in both collars.”

  “Yeah!” Victory’s daughter said, and snapped a photo. “I’m posting this.”

  “You know she has more followers than I do?” Victory said as we walked DeeDee to the set.

  “Your daughter? How is that possible?”

  “She’s in
this youth choir that has played all over the country. She drives traffic to me.”

  The photographer liked the two collars, liked the texture and color it leant the photo.

  Victory’s daughter took another picture during the photo shoot.

  My dog, Dee Dee, is so cool, the Tweet said. She’s Superdog #2, then just #Superdog.

  That photo and the comments were reTweeted by Melody’s friends and Victory and her followers, and then the hashtag Superdog started getting repeated, which just fueled the story. Pet owners raced to post a pic of their own pup so they could claim to be something like Superdog #87. Or Superdog #114. Always they ended it simply #Superdog. Quickly the race ramped up and people were bragging that their dog was in the top thousand, then the top ten thousand. Soon, #Superdog was trending again.

  It multiplied and multiplied. And multiplied. And, at least for a while, I felt very, very alive.

  12

  “You really don’t have a great throw,” I heard.

  Baxter and I were at the dog park a few days after Victory’s photo shoot, and I was using a Chuckit! stick to throw his green ball. We hadn’t been out there enough lately, and in trying to fill all my orders, we kept missing our usual crew of dogs and owners.

  Today, as always, Baxter had tore into the park as soon as I’d unhooked his leash. But when he didn’t see his dog friends, he’d raced back to me, plunked the ball at my feet and had taken off again, looking over his shoulder as he’d run. I could almost hear him saying, Go long, go long.

  But now someone else’s voice. “You really don’t have a great throw.”

  I turned to see a guy laughing. He wore a pink button-down shirt, cuffed at the arms with shorts and brown loafers. “Former prepster gone casual”—the loafers weren’t fussy, the guy’s blond hair was a little shaggy.

  I looked at Baxter, who stood panting at the base of a tree, his eyes trained upward to the branches where the ball had traveled.