Chapter 39 / The Devil

On a blustery Thursday in early October, Andrew rode his bicycle from his house in Schuyler to Annie's house, at dawn. In New York City Warren was dealing with his father's need for surgery and had cancelled his patients that day. In Hudson County, Andrew's research on Kathleen's opponent for state senate had panned out. He needed the car to pitch the story, beginning with the newspaper in the home city of el hombre de Neanderthal, as Annie and Jaime referred to him. There Andrew had found a curious managing editor and an ambitious young reporter. 

“If my tires get slashed, Andrew . . . you’re in the doghouse.”

"You love this." Andrew made a point of stopping at the one stop sign between Annie's house and the newspaper office, just to reassure her, even though there wasn't a car to be seen. 

"I do, because el Neanderthal is such a  . . . Neanderthal. But now I'm wishing we had told Kathleen."

"No point in it. If the papers are too timid to take it . . . no story." 

She hugged him tightly before getting out of the car. "Good luck."

"We've got it," he said, hugging her back. 

She looked at him. "Luck?"

"The story, girl. With any luck."

"You've had such a grin, plotting this man's downfall."

"He was rude to you. Just last year. Let's get to work."

They kissed again, and Annie went into the office. She wrote three news stories from the town board meeting she had covered the night before and edited more press releases than she could count. 

All the while in her mind's eye she followed Andrw up to the southern Adirondacks and back own to Albany in this, the second of his plans. Study of the drug scene in Schuyler was ongoing; the election, thirty days away, was immediate. So Annie prayed silently, frankly: if it be your will Lord, let this happen. Kathleen is the better candidate. 

At 4:30, right on schedule, she saw Andrew's head above the room divider, as he spoke to Ginny, the receptionist. Annie waved to them as Ginny escorted Andrew, with his laptop in its shoulder case, upstairs to the balcony above the newsroom, to the office of the Witches—Tina the editor and Wendy the publisher. 

At 5 o’clock, they were still in a closed-door session. Ginny, Catherine, two ad guys and the production chief sat with Annie, speculating, casting occasional glances heavenward toward the Witches. 

At 5:20 Andrew came out of the Witches’ office, walking the long flight of stairs from the balcony, his eyes down, with a sense of fatigue that made him look older than usual, fatigue that disappeared the instant he saw Annie, Catherine and one ad guy still waiting for him. Immediately, Andrew twinkled; wordless, they filed outdoors and sat at the picnic table in the front yard, out of sight of the Witches.  

“Gonna take us down, huh,” said Harry, the paper’s top ad salesman.

“Apparently,” said Andrew. 

“What! What!” said Catherine.

“Read the Post Intelligencer on Sunday.”

"You did it!" Annie kept her voice down—you could never tell where the Witches were—and leapt up to kiss Andrew. He pulled her onto his lap, his arms tight around her.

"We did it," he said.

"Did what!" said Catherine. "The PI is a hundred miles away."

“The Times Union may pick it up on Tuesday. After they do their own research. Only 50 miles away.”

“Road trip Sunday,” Harry said thoughtfully, almost to himself. 

“But not the Hudson Observer on Monday?” he asked Andrew.

“They said they’d think about it overnight.” 

“Not the Observer on Monday,” said Harry, nodding. “Hubbies’ll nix it, and Monday I’ll still have a job, with somebody to sell ads to. Sorry, guy—” he held out his hand.

Andrew shook it. “Maybe I’ll bum a ride with you Sunday.”  

“Sounds like a plan. Here are my numbers.” In one fluid move Harry swept a business card out of his pocket. 

“You on this weekend?” Andrew asked Catherine. 

She nodded, her eyes big.

“Then you’re the one to write it.” 

“You have to background me! Come over for dinner, both of you, in an hour. Cookies and water. Jim’ll want to hear this too.”

“But that’s it,” said Andrew, ”just the four of us.” 

“We’ll go to Barrington, get takeout barbecue,” said Annie. 

“Great idea,” said Catherine, “but I’ll do it. Feed the source.”

*     *    *    *    *

An hour later the four of them sat at another picnic table, smaller, indoors, off Catherine and Jim’s kitchen. They had inhaled the only takeout barbecue in the region, pulled pork and ribs, coleslaw and sweet potato, as they hashed out the marital problems of Kathleen’s opponent. 

“But she never brought charges,” said Catherine, referring to opponent’s wife. “At the Observer, we don’t run domestic abuse unless someone is transported to the hospital.” 

“OK, that’s her problem,” said Andrew. “The public problem is the lack of public record. Six times in three years—over the course of two of his two-year terms—the police were called to his home. And each time the police file looks like this . . . Closed.” 

“People have rocky marriages,” said Jim, who was divorced. 

“They do, but that doesn’t always bring the police.” 

“She reaches out,” said Annie. “Then she withdraws. Half-a-dozen times. At least.” 

“You write the feature on patterns of domestic abuse,” said Andrew. “For Monday’s paper, the question is what does this mean for public policy. That’s what I was pitching to the witches, not if ‘it bleeds it leads,’ though there’s probably that, too.” 

“Policies on . . .” Catherine was adding to her notes on a legal pad “. . . domestic abuse . . . child support . . . Family Court . . . police issues . . . what else?”

*           *         *              *             *

“What did you do?” Kathleen asked Andrew on Sunday. “The managing editor of the Times Union called me, to schedule an interview with the editorial board.”

Annie had seen Andrew grin, but never like this. “Gimme your hand, girl!” he said to Kathleen. He picked up her limp hand and slapped it. “They’re taking you seriously!” 

“What did you do?” Kathleen repeated, almost pleading.

“I did research. Here’s the start of the results.” Andrew put a copy of the Post Intelligencer on the table. “We’re lucky—slow news day, banner headline.” 

Kathleen took up the paper, looking more horrified than happy. 

“Can I read it too, Mom?” said Conor, 12, her oldest. 

“Sure. Here, let’s sit.” Another picnic table, this one on the deck, overlooking the swimming pool below. Kathleen shook out the broadsheet to its full size. She and Conor read.

“Andrew, will you play softball with us,” asked Liam, 10.

“Yes. But let me talk to your mother first.” 

Liam sighed and sat against Andrew’s leg.    

“Liam, there are plenty of chairs,” said Kathleen, turning to the story’s jump inside.  

“It’s all right,” said Andrew, “I’m just warm-blooded furniture.” 

Conor giggled, his eyes glued to the newspaper. Liam looked perplexed. 

“Are human beings warm-blooded or cold-blooded?” Andrew asked him. 

“Oh, right,” said Liam. “Warm-blooded.”

“And I’m just some ole piece of furniture, right?”

“Right! And you’re my coach. And I can’t get rusty in the off season.”

“Hang on. What do you think?” Andrew asked Kathleen.

“—I feel slimy.” Both boys stared at her. 

“No reason. You didn’t do anything. He did everything. And now this race is yours, now you direct the conversation. 

“But you still have to work for it.” Andrew moved Liam to his other leg so he could lean over and tap a photo in the newspaper. 

“See this guy?” Conor stared at the headshot of a real-estate developer in Albany who had commented for the story. Kathleen didn’t take her eyes off Andrew. “Pitch him for TV money. His comment has no substance, but he’s thinking. 

“And it’s very sweet of you to go door to door, to want every person in the district to interview you, but it’s a big district. You need TV.”

“Are you the devil?” Kathleen asked him. 

Conor raised his eyes to Andrew, while Liam stared at his mother. 

“No need for the devil,” said Andrew. “It was there. There for the taking. 

“Call this guy tomorrow. Tell him you’ll be in Albany this week, talking to the TU editorial board, and you want to meet with him afterward.”

“I have to be home when the kids get in from school.” 

“Then schedule it while they’re in school.” 

“I can do it, Mom, I can take care of everybody,” said Conor.

“And I can be here by 3:30, if Conor needs help,” said Andrew. “C’mon Liam, we have time for catch.” 

Liam didn’t move, frozen on Andrew’s knee, watching his mother, terrified of the devil. 

“C’mon, Liam,” said Conor, standing up, “we’ll both throw to you. You can’t get rusty.” 

“Are you OK Mom?” asked Liam. 

“Yes,” said Kathleen, looking into his sapphire eyes and lying. Of her four children, the two biological boys, the two adopted girls, she swore she had no favorites. But she did adore this one. 

“Turn on the outside lights,” she said “so I can watch you.”

Copyright © Debby Mayer

Chapter 38 / Food

“It’s part of the culture, Andrew.” Annie propped the phone on her shoulder and sorted press releases while they talked. “You get paid on Friday, you go to the supermarket, you buy food.”

“I thought you got paid, you got drunk.”

“That’s for 20-year-olds, sweetie . . . though you should know I never did that, even at 20.”

“I know. That’s why I’m here.” 

“—You don’t have to come. Though really, if you want me to buy food for you, it would be nice if you did.”

“I’m there. I’ll even take a shower first. Can we go to MacDonald’s afterward?”

“I was thinking Chinese. The place in the mall isn’t bad.”  

* * * *

“I’m starving.”

“Take a candy bar and save the wrapper, so that we pay for it.”  Annie pulled a shopping cart out of the row. Inside the store, she put a shopping basket into it. 

Andrew chose a Snickers bar and put the wrapper in the cart. “They’re so fucking cheerful,” he whispered. “When do people have sex?”

“They don’t.” 

“But they have all these children.”

“—I don’t know, Andrew. You’re a reporter. Ask them.”

“I’m not a reporter. I move apples. What can I do here?”

“Take this basket and get two half-gallons of milk. Two percent for me, whatever you want for you. Near there are eggs. Get two dozen. Check that none are broken. Can you do yogurt?”

“Um. Brand? Price? Flavors?”

“You’re right. I’ll do yogurt.” 

Annie pushed the cart toward produce. A short black woman in a multicolored turban, with a hospital staff ID on a red ribbon around her neck, was frowning at the bananas. 

“Look at this,” she said, “full of bad spots.” 

“I know,” said Annie. “They’re only good in winter, but I buy them all year.” 

“And 49 cents a pound! My mother told me never to pay more than 25 cents. You remember that?” She looked at Annie with a smile. They were about the same age.

“Yup. My mother told me never to pay more than 25 cents for a head of lettuce.” 

They both laughed heartily. 

“Well,” said the woman, “have a good weekend anyway.” 

“Thank you, same to you.” 

Andrew walked toward Dairy. It was almost a town square, he thought; people chatted over the food, over their carts. Have a good weekend! they said, oblivious to the camera eye above them at the end of every aisle. 

And staring at the milk shelves Andrew found his coworker Billie. 

“Hey man”—they shook hands—“sak passé?”

Billie smiled. “Where’d you learn that, Southern boy like you.” 

“In the yard. Where I learned everything else. Looking for some milk?”

Billie nodded. “Girlfriend wants it.” 

“Likewise.” 

They stared at the milk. Andrew took a two percent and decided on regular for himself, resisting the impulse to lecture Billie on the gross overabundance of American life as they faced fifty units of milk, different types, brands, sizes. Billie, tall and dark-skinned, a watcher and listener, stared at the milk. 

“Does she want two percent?” asked Andrew. “That’s what women usually drink.” 

“No, she want the milk without the milk in it.” 

“Lactaid?”

“Yeah, Lactaid, which one’s that.” 

“This one.” Andrew ran his finger under the word. “Lactaid. Half-gallon or quart?”

Billie sighed. “The small one.”

Andrew tapped a quart. 

“Thank you,” said Billie, his eyes on the milk. 

“No problem. Have a good weekend.”

At eggs, Andrew found Glaron, another coworker. 

“How you doin.’” Glaron smiled broadly. His gold teeth were in front. 

They shook hands. “Is the whole place here? Steve? The boys?”

Glaron shook his head, still smiling. “Boys ain’t got the sense. Steve’s got a wife.”

“You’ve got a wife.” 

“She works. We do this together. I better get some eggs.” 

“Me too. Look at this, Glaron, a dozen kinds of eggs.” 

Glaron nodded. “Silly, ain’t it. These are good.” He tapped a carton. 

“Thanks. Have a good weekend.” 

“Same to you.”

Andrew found Annie checking the weight on packages of chicken. 

“Don’t get Tyson’s,” he said. 

“Never. Or Purdue.” 

“The whole shop is here.” 

“No kidding!”

“Well, the nice guys. What else should I get?”

Near Gatorade, Billie introduced Andrew to “my fiancée, Tiaje,” a tall, slim woman, also dark black, with elegant cornrows and a hospital ID on a silver chain around her neck. 

“What do you do at the hospital?” Andrew peered at the ID. 

“I’m a pharmaceutical technician,” she said, speaking clearly, keeping eye contact with him.

In paper products he met Teresa, Glaron’s wife, who also wore a hospital ID and worked in the kitchen, she told him. 

“You the famous Andrew?” she asked.

“—No ma’am . . . I just move apples.” 

“And talk back to the boys. You be careful, you’ll lose your job.”

“—You think? They related to Steve?”

“They must be. Why else . . .” Teresa shrugged.

“Hey, here’s Annie.” Andrew introduced them. 

“Hi,” said Annie. “Teresa and I met in produce.”

“Are we done?”

 Annie nodded. 

“We’re done! Now we stand in line.”

“You don’t have much food there,” Teresa observed. 

“We eat out a lot,” said Annie. 

“Tch.” Teresa shook her head. 

“Teresa, mind your own,” Glaron said gently.

“I got this chicken,” said Annie. “I’ll cook chicken tomorrow night.” 

“I thought we were going dancing tomorrow night,” said Andrew. 

“Sunday then, I’ll cook the chicken Sunday.” 

“Dancing? You’re going dancing?” asked Teresa.

“Yeah, want to come?” said Andrew. 

“It’s really fun,” said Annie. 

“In your dreams,” said Teresa. “Let’s get in line, you’ll tell me about this dancing.” 

Billie and Tiaje were in the next line over, so Andrew described dancing to all of them while Annie tracked their groceries going through checkout. 

“I thought these were on sale,” she said to the cashier, tapping the two twelve-packs of seltzer that Andrew drank.

“I’ll check it when I’m done.” The cashier flipped on her “call’ light.

“Thank you.”

“What’s up?” said Andrew. 

“Nothing. She’s going to check a price. Can you pack?” 

The others were silent while the manager helped the cashier check the price and reduce the total by two dollars. 

“Well,” said Teresa, “you do run a tight ship.”

“Twenty-five cents a pound, right?” said Annie, and they both smiled. 

Andrew handed the cashier a 100-dollar bill. She raised her eyebrows just the slightest bit over her eyeglasses, took in all of them and made change for him.

Glaron was whispering to Teresa; Billie and Tiaje nodded, and Teresa said, “We’re having supper at the Chinese place. Come on and join us. We got a cooler. Glaron’ll help you put your cold food in it.” 

“Thanks,” said Annie, “but it’s not hot tonight.” 

“You put the chicken, the milk, in the cooler. Glaron’ll help you.”

*       *      *       *

“She’s appraising us,” said Annie as they leaned against the No Loitering sign near the Chinese restaurant while the others finished at the market.  

“You think?” Andrew tapped the ash on his cigarette.

“She’s going to ask us how we met.” 

“Remember, stick to the truth as much as possible. We met on an airplane. You were visiting your mother . . . I’ll think of something for me.” 

* * * *

“So this is where the cool people eat,” said Andrew, looking around him at the crowded restaurant. 

“African Americans like Chinese food,” said Teresa. “Are six dishes enough, or should we get eight?

“Eight,” said Andrew and Billie in chorus. “I’ll pay the extra,” said Andrew.

“We’ll all pay,” said Teresa. 

They were figuring out their order when the waiter came over. 

“Can I get an iced tea?” asked Andrew. 

“No ice tea, hot tea!”

“OK, how about a pitcher of water for the table.” 

“Order drinks, get water!” said the waiter. 

“Wait on tables, get tip,” snapped Andrew.

The waiter stormed away.

“Andrewwww,” said Annie, “he’s going to spit in the water.” 

“Sorry, everyone.” 

Tiaje had followed this with some consternation, but Teresa couldn’t resist a giggle. “He’s always testy, that waiter.” 

The waiter came back, slammed a plastic pitcher of water onto the table and went away. 

“I’ll try it,” said Andrew. He poured a glass. “Well, he didn’t pee in it.” They all took water. 

“OK, in my restaurant, the waiters eat first, and every table gets a pitcher of water, without they ask for it,” said Teresa. 

“You’re opening a restaurant?” asked Andy. 

“Well, the date’s not set. But I think about it.” 

“What kind of food?” 

“Barbecue. With my special sauce.” 

“I’m there.” 

“It’s a great idea,” said Annie. “There’s no barbecue around here.”

Teresa nodded. “I know. I’m watching. Anybody opens a barbecue restaurant . . .” She sighed. 

“It has a mysterious fire,” said Andrew, patting her arm. 

“Don’t even say that out loud! Where you come from, you and your attitude.” 

“New York.” 

“Should of figured. How’d you two meet?” 

“On an airplane. She picked me up.” 

“He was taking two seats!”

At this point even Tiaje giggled. 

“Tiaje,” said Andrew, “will you come dancing tomorrow?”

“It’s at a bar, right? We don’t drink,” she said firmly. 

“We don’t either,” said Annie. “Get a Coke, a ginger ale.” 

 “Colored people go there?” Billie asked, barely audible.  

“—Nnno,” said Andrew, “you’d be integrating the dance floor. But they’re nice people. No fights, no drugs.”

“I think you should go,” said Teresa. “Integrate the damn dance floor. Your age, I would.”

Copyright (c) Debby Mayer

Chapter 37 / Train Trip

“Some days”—Andrew stood up and walked around Warren’s office, in a circle past the wall of books, past the window with its skinny Venetian blinds, past the two doors, one in, one out, that prevented Warren’s famous patients from seeing one another.

“Some days I think I’ll blow this whole thing. Some days I almost do.”

Warren listened, alert.

“And some days I feel like I’m talking to God. Dammit, Warren, you know all this already, if not with me than with some other patient. How to you keep from screaming in boredom?”

“By reminding my patients not to avoid the hard stuff by expressing concern for me that while it may be genuine, isn’t helpful, to me or to them.”

“That’s the most you’ve said to me in months.”

“You’re getting good at figuring things out for yourself.”

Andrew sat down, stood up, walked around again. “I had shipped some cartons to Annie before I left, so all I had with me was a duffle bag and my laptop. That was it; all my earthly goods.

“And a huge sense of failure. I achieved nothing in New York. The radio station was glad to give me an unpaid leave. I know I’m paranoid sometimes Warren, but I also have a good sense of nuance. I think they were about to . . . give me the ax. It’s all Middle East now, with some Southeast Asia thrown in. My fluent Spanish, my dozens of contacts, don’t mean a thing."  

“Let me interrupt just to say that your achievements since you left the hospital are immense. Immense. Go on.”

“Thank you, Warren dear. Seriously. Keep reminding me, because I know there’s a story up there, and I have a contract for it.

“So I lock the door on my studio. I get a taxi. I don’t talk to the driver. He can probably see this black cloud hanging over my head and he would say God is good, God will take care of you, so we don’t talk. I give him an extra couple of bucks for shutting up.

“On the train I find a seat on the aisle. I need to walk around, the people near me with their clutter, their issues, are making me feel like I itch, even though I don’t.  

“The train is moving out of the tunnel, then out of the city, so I get up and stand between the cars because I love those old, soft-edged tenements in the late-afternoon light, and I’m still feeling black, thinking about the concrete down here spreading every day to meet the concrete up there, yet there’s some comfort in that old brick, and then the conductor comes along, so I start to give him my ticket and he says, ‘Take a seat, sir. Riding between cars is not allowed.’

“I show him my ticket and he doesn’t take it, he won’t take it until I sit down, so I do that. There are two guys talking in back of me and I think if I have to listen to them for two hours I’ll start chewing up my cigarettes, so I wait until the conductor is well into the next car, and then I stand between the cars again. 

"We’re in the Bronx now and I’m thinking, look, it’s just a pile of concrete, there are other places, you can do this, you’ve got a good idea, a good girl, you can do this. I lean against the car and try to relax to the chunk-chunk of the train.

“And the damned conductor comes back. ‘Sir, you cannot ride between the cars.’

“I look at him.

“My mind is humming like the laptop does when I’ve got too much open on it. Somewhere I’m begging him to leave. He doesn’t. We stare at each other, and I see that he is being brave. I haven’t said a word to him, my arms are at my sides, but I’m a head taller and 20 pounds heavier, and I must be giving him my black empty look, because when he says to me, ‘Sir, if you do not sit down I will have you put off the train at the next stop,’ there is fear in his eyes.

“Of me.

“We stare for another couple of seconds and then I sit down. I am taking the train to my new life. I don’t want to arrive in Yonkers to a police presence. In fact, there are two cops at the station when we get there, but I’m sitting, and I have a ticket. We go on. And every fifteen minutes for the rest of the ride, a conductor walks through the car, making sure I’m sitting.

“In Beekman all the rich people get off, leaving my end of the car to me and two women, each with a little kid. The one is your cute, practical mom, short hair, loose pants and sneakers, and every time her kid, a boy, probably about three, has shown the slightest sign of boredom, begun the slightest hint of a whine, she pulled a new toy out of a big blue bag she has. She has snacks for him, and games and puzzles and little kid books.

“I’m taking notes on my laptop, wishing I could tell her what a great mom she is, but she isn’t afraid of me, and I don’t want to take her there.

“The other girl—she is a girl—wears a white dress and three-inch white heels. And she has brought nothing for her kid, who’s smaller than the other kid, maybe a little younger. Nothing. She sits him at the window, and he runs up and down the aisle.

“I figure the good mom is taking her boy upstate to see some grandparents. Dad will drive up on Saturday. But the other one, is she going to be married in that dress? She’s already a shotgun bride whose poppa didn’t have a shotgun, and now she looks a little spacey in her short white dress, with its long tight sleeves, as if she doesn’t know quite where she is, or who this kid is. 

“When her boy comes over and stares at me I show him a file on my laptop, but he can’t read, it’s no fun. So I find a couple of sheets of paper and an old red pencil. No ink on momma’s white dress.

“He just looks at them. I sketch some stick figures, a dog like Annie’s, with a fox-like face, a cat with whiskers, and offer him the paper and pencil again. He grabs them and runs back to his seat. We haven’t exchanged a word. Annie says kids in Hudson County are like that too. They don’t talk, because no one talks to them.

“When I get off the train they all stay, taking their innocence to another place. For me, Annie is standing at the edge of the parking lot, with the Village Voice open in front of her and I think, she doesn’t read the Village Voice, and then she closes the paper, revealing a huge bouquet of flowers, all yellows and greens and blue-purples, some kind of flowers, which she offers to me.

“I put down my two little bags and pick up Annie and her flowers. I hold her, and hold onto her, I’m home.”

Copyright © Debby Mayer

Why I Let My Dog Hang Her Head Out of the Car Window

In memory of my dear Lulu, I’ve decided just to post this short personal essay about us. It’s been published in the Times Union (Albany, NY) and The Rip Van Wrinkler, the award-winning newsletter of the Rip Van Wrinkle Basenji Club, but it has never appeared on this blog. 

Some of you may have heard me read it—it’s a good short piece for open mics and group readings. 

It sums up everything I have to say; really, after this piece I could just stop writing. But I don’t. 

Adieu, Lulu 

Apu Louise Brooks

December 31, 1999 – June 4, 2015

Why I Let My Dog Hang Her Head Out of the Car Window

Because she’s beautiful. She’s red and white, a short-haired hound with a fox-like face, a tail that curls up and over her back, and a line of charcoal-brown kohl rimming each eye.

Photo by Susan Kamen-Marsicano

At 20 pounds, she fits our little car perfectly, back paws on the passenger seat, front feet on the armrest. I roll the window down just enough so she can comfortably poke her head out, and she looks left, not backward to where she’s been, or alongside to what’s passing by, but up front, to where she’s going. Hounds have a characteristic grin, but this girl is Elton John’s tiny dancer, with her pirate smile.

Because she’s smart. When the car gets up to 40 miles an hour, the wind force is too great and she pulls her head back in. She gives her one of her gravity-defying full-body shakes, which ripples from head to tail and lifts all four feet into the air. 

Because she’s tough. Her name is Lulu and most days she’s a princess in a dog suit, but in the car she’s transformed. She wears a T-shirt with the neck scissored to her collarbone. She’s rolled up the sleeves, and twisted her cigarettes—Marlboro, hard pack—into the left one, over her well-defined bicep. If she wants you, it’s on her terms.

Because we’re young. No longer two middle-aged gals in a sensible Honda, we’ve cracked the time-space continuum and we’re wild girls, in a ’67 hunter-green mustang.

No crisp CDs for us, we’ve got the radio on. We shake Jerry Lee Lewis’s nerves and we rattle his brain. Home alone, Lulu listens to classical music, but in the car, she even allows my lapses in time and taste for Neil Diamond or Phil Collins. She does this with the reluctant good grace of a bad girl who knows she’s in charge. When we pull up at the Polar Bar for ice cream, she’s the one the boys circle, sniffing to see what she’s brought them. They light her cigarette, tell her their jokes. Lulu, the practiced flirt, sits down, to maintain some privacy, and gives the boys just enough attention to lead them on. But she’s a busy dog, too; at home there’s trash to be removed from the basket, where it need not be stored, or a shoe that belongs not on the floor but on the bed, and somewhere in her walnut-sized brain, Lulu has a list. After our songs (six for a quarter) have played on the jukebox, she gives me a look, just a glance over her shoulder—for I often stand in back of her, happy just to be part of the crowd—time to move on. 

Because we’re not supposed to. If Lulu’s breeder could see her now, she’d kidnap her. But she doesn’t see her, and most days, Lulu and I are good. We eat our breakfasts, we take our walks. I brush my teeth and hers. In bed, she tucks herself behind my knees. When I wake in the ink black of a moonless night, I can’t see a thing, but I can feel Lulu breathing. 

Once, we were four in the bed.

Dan and Lulu

But our alpha-wolf was struck down by cancer at 56, and months later his canine lieutenant had gone as far as he could, twice that age in dog years.

Dan and Cooper

These days, every minute carries an element of risk, without the safety net of a quiet man with impeccable taste in music who adored his pack and never carried a balance on his credit card. When I think back to things I did in the years before I met him, I’m lucky I’m alive. But I am, and if we push life just a little, Lulu and I, our bills are still paid on time, our heads pulled inside a speeding car.

Because we’re very young. We’re not teenagers yet, we’re kids on vacation, at the lake for the summer.

We’ve done cannonballs off the dock all afternoon. Lulu’s nose is freckled, her lips stained by blueberries. At night on the porch, the adults may talk in hushed tones of Cuba and missiles. We may lie curled together in our bed above them listening, fighting sleep for fear of never waking. But we do sleep and we do wake. We’re puppies and every morning brings a brand new life. 

Copyright © Debby Mayer

Chapter 36 /Moll

I still live on a road where the women drive faster than the men. And September has brought the annual clink of political lawn signs from the back seat of my car, as we—Kathleen, Jaime, me, and our tiny band of companeros—try to inch our backwater into the 20th century before that century ends. 

And all the farm stands are again selling apples, which depresses me. 

“This depresses you?” Andrew stared at the Macoun he was about to eat.  

“End of summer. Everything is dying. Never mind renewal—the leaves go off the trees in November and we don’t see them again till May.” 

“We could fix that, you know. Go someplace warm for the winter.” 

“No, we can’t.” I have to keep reminding him. “We’re poor.”

Because other than the apples and the lawn signs and the road, everything is different. 

I’m dating a guy who looks like a biker, even though he doesn’t have a bike. 

“Damned things are dangerous,” he says, and he doesn’t wear leather, because he is poor, but by skipping two haircuts he has a little tail down the back of his neck. By pumping iron at the gym for a month he has a different body structure. And it’s amazing what you can do with slight changes in clothing . . . different T-shirts, a sleeveless vest . . .  

The first of September he began housesitting a decent house in a lousy neighborhood in Schuyler. A friend of Catherine’s bought it at a foreclosure auction and then got a teaching Fulbright in Cyprus. This house, furnished so far with a futon, a table and two chairs, allows Andrew to live rent free, which is good, because he works at an apple-processing plant for $5 a hour, which, he points out, is a full 75 cents over minimum wage. 

“Is it like dating Serpico?” asked Jaime. 

“Sort of. He hasn’t shown up as a Hasidic rabbi yet, but you never know.” 

Andrew kept a low profile in our backwater for August. He took the commuter train up the east side of the county. He stayed with me, and we drove east to the Berkshires, not west to Schuyler. We hung out at the pond, and went dancing, and on my one full weekend off I went to New York for two hot, quiet days, days that showed me that I missed New York, even, or especially, in August, and I missed being a person who went places, who did things.

“You can come down any time that newspaper will set you free,” said Andrew. “I’ll pay for Chloe’s camp.” 

We were keeping to the schedule we had set on the Cape, and this was siesta in Andrew’s air-conditioned studio. Really, I had already told him, his place was fine. Clean—he had help—and I liked the street view. 

“Do you ever think about putting something on the walls?”

He shook his head. “The blankness helps me think.” 

Myself, I like to look at things that take me beyond the walls. 

“Caroline asks that too,” he said, as if he knew what I was thinking. 

Caroline and Rosendo were in Chiapas for a couple of weeks, relieving me of the stress of meeting famous people. I met only the waiters who served Andrew breakfast and dinner every day and who seemed genuinely to care for him, calling him “boss” (breakfast) and “Mr. Logan” (dinner). 

Now I reminded him again that he was poor, he couldn’t afford to kennel my dog.  “How can you do this, Andrew, if you keep forgetting your story?”

“Once I’m in it, I won’t forget it.” He smiled at me with a twinkle that mixed deviltry with utter joy. 

 Have you done this before?”

“—Not quite. It’s a new career challenge.” 

“And you love that.” 

“I do. I love you, and a new career challenge.” 

He had taken to saying that since the Cape, that he loved me. And I adored him, but I could not quite say it back, because,

“Am I part of the story?”

“Always,” he said. “Am I part of your story?”

“—Maybe,” I said. “We’ll see, as the story unfolds.” 

“You’re tough, Annie Sullivan.” 

“Poor women have to be tough.”

“But are they. I see as many women in line for lottery tickets as men.” 

“Me too. And if you start buying lottery tickets I will follow you into the store burning dollar bills.” 

“Great story, darlin’, but let’s save it . . . put it in the hopper of ideas . . . ”

The hopper of ideas—questions, really—already includes will the radio station take him back after this unpaid leave, will Andrew be able to work weekends so he can sneak down to New York on Thursdays to see Warren, why Andrew sets up a good situation for himself—job, shrink—and then blows it out of the water, and how Andrew will extract himself from poverty once he has observed the drug scene in Schuyler and tested living on $5 per hour.

In the meantime, his girlfriend, me, needs their only car to get to her job. 

“Are you ready to sell Ed’s bicycle?” he asked. We were back at my house and he had taken the bike out to the driveway.

“—Yes. I’ll even give it to you . . . is that weird? You might as well have it." 

“I’ll buy it. At a tag sale. How much do you want for it?"

“ . . . At a tag sale . . . I’d ask twenty. It’s a good bike. I’d take ten.”

Andrew took a twenty from the stack of bills he keeps at my house.  “I paid ten,” he said. “You’re cute, but I haven’t had a job in months.”

Monday my biker set off on his bicycle for the apple processing plant with the Help Wanted sign, a distance of about 15 miles. Happily, it wasn’t raining and the bike tires had held the air we put in them on Sunday. Rain was forecast for the evening, but he would go to his house in Schuyler then, only five miles from the plant. 

I didn’t hear from him all day, but nothing came over the office scanner either, about a poor, crazy man being flattened on his bicycle. Back home, I had one hour before going out to cover a town board meeting, and Andrew called. 

“Got the job. Started today.”

“Excellent! They were impressed by Yale.”

“The application only went to high school.” 

“Choate then.”

“I said I got my GED in prison. Which I did, through an administrative oversight. Other than algebra it was OK. I sat in the back, told the guys where California was.”

“The application asked about life experience? That’s progressive.”

“He’s an ex con who hires ex cons. No fights, no drugs, no booze, do the job, he pays you. Weekly.”

“Did you know that?”

“I overheard it.”

“You haven’t been in prison for years.” 

“It follows you. Trust me. Which town are you covering tonight?”

“The Town of Lugubria.”

“Sorry.”

So Andrew spent the evening sitting on the stone steps into his house, drinking coffee, sharing his cigarettes with his neighbors, admiring their children, while I sat through a meeting chaired by an elderly town supervisor famous within my newspaper for his malapropisms; tonight he said “condescend” went he meant “consent”; at least it kept me awake.  

Having lost what meant most, I am at once braver and more fearful. I told my boss I had to bring my dog to work. On an airplane from Miami to New York, I talked to the man in the next seat. Now I’m the moll in an undercover operation, but I will not—cannot—give him my heart. 

Copyright (c) 2015 Debby Mayer

Chapter 35 / A Plan

And then it was Saturday, with their luxurious routine blown out of the water because they had to tidy up the house and be gone by 11. 

“Next year,” said Andrew, “we’re staying in a hotel.” 

“Yes, dear.” Annie was collecting towels. “Will you sweep the downstairs hall? The broom is by the door.”

But Andrew sat down, distracted. “We could stay for another month, you know, while Warren’s off. There must be a hotel around here with an empty room.”

Annie looked at him. Unable to tell if he was serious, she said the first thing that came to mind. “I’d miss Chloe.” 

“We’d send for Chloe,” said Andrew, guileless, returning Annie’s gaze. “She’d arrive in a car, wearing a hat and gloves. We’d tell her it’s not that kind of hotel.” 

“You don’t want to live in a hotel with Chloe.” 

“We’d get a family suite. One room would be Chloe’s.”

The towels in a laundry bag, Annie sat herself on Andrew’s knee, her arm over his shoulder. He wrapped his arms around her waist. 

“This is fun,” she said. “But we have to be out of here in an hour. And August at home is fun. The pond water is finally warm. The peaches are divine. The thunderstorms are fantastic. And if I don’t show up at work Monday, I’ll be fired.” 

“Then you get unemployment.” 

“The witches would fight it. All the way to the Supreme Court.”

“You think? What a story—”

“Pleeze—”

So Andrew swept, and brought the little table and chairs back indoors. Then, tumbling his clothes into his duffle bag, he had another thought.

He found Annie in the kitchen, emptying the dishwasher. “You are getting paid for this time,” he said. 

“—Most of it.” 

“Most of it?”

She could hear the italics in his voice. “I haven’t worked there for a year. So they gave me three days with pay, two without.” 

“Goddammit.” Said more in despair than anger.

Annie leaned against the sink. “And that was only because when I started, Jaime insisted that I write them a nice letter confirming the terms of my employment, and give them a copy. So last month I brought in my copy, and they pointed out that they hadn’t signed it.” 

Andrew was sitting at the table, his head in his hands. “I’m going to firebomb that place.” 

“Don’t!” Annie squatted below him so she could look him in the eye. “Don’t hand them a fabulous front page.”

*        *        *

Starting home at 6 p.m. without spending time at the beach required that they be barflies who didn’t drink. This proved easy enough; Andrew carried his laptop in its shoulder bag, keeping it out of the hot car, and as they revisited their favorite joints, the waiters, especially, were fascinated. If after the first demonstration Annie was bored, she read or took a walk. When she returned, they were still staring into its screen, talking about it.

“Save a hundred bucks a week from your tips and you’ll have one of these before next summer,” Andrew told Francisco, the grandson of a Portuguese fisherman, whose father owned the waterside café. 

And Francisco, who at sixteen had had enough fish to last him into eternity, computed this, his brown eyes deep under his brows, a half-smile aimed toward the screen. 

*     *       *      *

Six o’clock, time to head west. Annie eased the car onto Route 6. Andrew cracked open sodas and filed them in cup holders. 

“Do you want to come back?” he asked.

Here at least traffic was moving. Eastbound, the cars sat becalmed in the sun. “If we can be airlifted into Truro . . . do you?”

“Mm.” Andrew shrugged. “There are lots of places to visit. Lots of beaches to stay off of.”

In fact, New York was still the only place where he felt truly relaxed, but Schuyler was moving up, its routine not quite routine, its stories unfolding just outside the door. 

“Junk rock?” he offered.

“Sure.” 

He liked to see her out of the corner of his eye, totally focused on the driving, breathing bits and snatches of junk rock n’ roll (no Beatles—they shared a decade of fatigue with the Beatles) that she knew from the first chord. 

He should wait until he was driving to talk to her, but he wanted them to discuss this in daylight, so he held on until they’d got across the bridge, till only numbered highways stretched before them. 

Then, as soon as an ad started, he turned off the radio. 

 “Listen,” he said, “I’ve got a plan.”

End of Book One

Copyright © 2015 Debby Mayer