Brute Strength (20 page)

TWENTY-FIVE

M
y relief lasted throughout Thursday. In the morning, I made some phone calls and sent emails to encourage people to show up at the armory on Saturday. In the afternoon, during Sammy's play date with Ulla, Vanessa promised to bring her whole family and asked whether my family would all be there, too. As I told Vanessa, Leah would attend, and Gabrielle would be there, but my father would not. Vanessa looked disappointed and said what a charming man he was. Feeling slightly disloyal, I told her the whole story of his recent misdeeds, but far from being horrified at what Buck had done, she said, ‘He borrowed a van and stalked his own wife? And then he slugged this SOB in the jaw? Good for him! You don't find a lot of men like that anymore.' She paused and added, ‘Especially in Cambridge.'

I was tempted to reply that yes, indeed, not a single John Wayne movie had been set in Harvard Square and that the local scarcity of men who went around throwing punches was one reason I'd moved here, but I kept the remarks to myself. By now, I was beginning to feel sorry for my father, who'd suffered terribly after my mother's death, who truly was afraid of loss, and who really did have good qualities. In fact, I felt happy to hear someone say something good about Buck, who, besides having enraged his beloved wife, was not only being excluded from Steve's fishing trip to Grant's Camps but was the object of a conspiracy to keep the trip secret.

I settled for saying that Buck could be charming, as was true. Dogs, for instance, reliably responded to his fascination with them by falling under his thrall. With his fellow human beings, he was, of course, sometimes delightful and sometimes maddening, but when he felt like it, he
could
be charming. Besides, he was my father. In other words, I didn't exactly tell Vanessa a lie. Or a bad lie, anyway.

At dog training that night, everyone was optimistic about the upcoming event. In particular, all of us were happy about the forecast for dismal, rainy weather on Saturday. With luck, we'd attract people who might otherwise have gone to the beach or done yard work. Because the project had been Isaac's idea, I wanted it to be a success, as did everyone else in the club. So far as I knew, no one else had a matchmaking agenda for Saturday, but I sure did and could hardly wait to introduce Rita and Max, who were bound to have the same happy realization I did that they were made for each other.

Then, on Friday afternoon, trouble started again.

My father called.

The dogs and I were alone in the house when the phone rang. Gabrielle was in Harvard Square with Leah, whom she was treating to a shopping spree for clothes to wear at commencement activities. I didn't know and hadn't asked Gabrielle whether she and Buck had spoken since their encounter at Flood Farm, and I hadn't asked her when she planned to go home, either. She was due to leave on Sunday, but for all I knew, she intended to prolong her visit. Anyway, my first thought when I heard Buck's voice was that he was calling to announce his impending arrival.

I was wrong, as I realized within seconds. Ordinarily, instead of asking how I am or how Steve is, he booms, ‘And how's the beautiful boy?' That's Rowdy. He then asks about Kimi, Sammy, Lady, and India, and before he's even heard how the dogs are, he begins handing out advice. Typically, he advises me that I should be showing Rowdy, Sammy, or both to Judge So-and-So, who'd appreciate them. And if I'd have to drive to Ohio or Michigan or some other distant show site for the privilege of getting Judge So-and-So's opinion, so what? ‘These dogs are serious quality!' he admonishes. When he's fervently nagging me to get my dogs out on the show circuit, he quotes the Bible: ‘Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house.' He uses the same passage to urge me to enter the dogs in performance events, including those in which I already show – obedience, agility, and rally; and to try to convince me to put Bermudan championships on Rowdy and Sammy and to take out ads in our national breed club's newsletter and membership directory. No matter what I'm doing with the dogs, I should be doing more of it or doing it differently. All this to me, when in my absence, he bores and irritates people with his incessant bragging about the accomplishments of my dogs!

So, the second he began the conversation, I knew that something was wrong. ‘How are you?' he asked. For once, he sounded nothing whatsoever like a moose.

‘I'm fine.'

‘How is Steve?'

‘Steve is fine, too. All of us are fine. Gabrielle, Leah, the dogs, the cat. We are just fine. And how are you?'

‘I got something in the mail.'

I waited.

‘It's got to be . . . what do you call those programs that let you change photos? It's got to be from one of those damn things. Gabrielle's been acting . . . well, she isn't quite herself, but . . .'

Well, what would anyone assume? Yes, that someone had inexplicably sent Buck a doctored image of his wife that showed her in the nude, perhaps, or in a compromising situation. That's precisely what I thought, but as so often happens in connection with my father, I was wrong. What he'd actually received was a four-by-six photo on glossy paper that appeared to show Gabrielle hitting Molly. In the same envelope was a sheet of paper that asked, ‘Is this how you want your wife to treat a dog?'

‘Buck,' I said sternly, ‘listen to me! It's impossible. Gabrielle would never hit Molly. Or any other dog. Never! I don't know who sent this thing to you – or why – but what we're dealing with is a vile, malicious piece of mischief, and if you have even the slightest notion that what this picture seems to show actually happened, you can forget it right now. I want to see this thing. I want you to scan it and send it to me right now. And the sheet of paper that came with it. What's the postmark?'

‘Boston.'

‘Regular mail? Not . . . if there's no return address, I guess it must be. You can't use Express Mail without a return address, can you?'

‘Plain white envelope with a flag stamp. Probably just dropped in a mailbox.'

‘When did you get it?'

‘Today.'

‘Look, scan this stuff and send it to me, and we'll talk then.'

My father is an egregious and unapologetic violator of online etiquette – email in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS – but he is computer literate and has had plenty of practice in sending and receiving pictures of dogs, so he scanned and sent the photo and the message in almost no time. I opened both files and printed the images, the photo on the same kind of four-by-six glossy paper he'd described, the message on plain paper; I wanted to see exactly what he'd been sent. One glance at the photo told me that it had been taken the previous Saturday at the match where Steve and I had judged and where Molly hadn't quite passed her CGC test. That was the only occasion when Gabrielle had worn Steve's Red Sox cap. The quality of the photo was poor, maybe because the picture had been taken through a car window, maybe because this image had been cut from a larger one, or maybe both. Still, the subject and setting were unmistakable: Gabrielle, wearing the Sox cap, was standing at the back of my car, and Molly was perched on the open tailgate. Gabrielle's right arm was raised high, and her head was turned to reveal her crimson face, which bore an expression of unbridled fury. The accompanying message showed exactly what my father had reported: ‘Is this how you want your wife to treat a dog?' The font was ordinary Times New Roman, 12 cpi.

I called my father. ‘I know how it looks,' I said, ‘but things aren't always what they seem.'

Sounding like himself again, he boomed, ‘I hate Gilbert and Sullivan!'

‘It was an accidental quotation. I didn't mean skim milk masquerading as cream. What I mean is that there is a benign interpretation, and as soon as Gabrielle gets back, I'll find out what it is.'

‘There is nothing benign about sending me—'

‘Of course not! Sending this picture was vicious. But whatever Gabrielle was doing, she was not hitting Molly. I don't know what she was doing or why she had that expression on her face, but she had some innocent reason, and I'll find out what it was.'

So eager was I to hear Gabrielle's explanation that when she walked in, I had to restrain the impulse to thrust the picture in her face and blurt out the story before she'd even had a chance to say hello and put her purse down. The impulse was the result of having been raised not only
with
golden retrievers but
as
a golden: I have a tendency to go bounding up to people with my emotions written all over my face. My tongue practically hangs out, and if I had a tail, it would be wagging. Gabrielle was probably surprised that I didn't rise up and jump on her. I'd never do such a dreadful thing, of course. My mother trained me not to.

So, it was a good ten minutes after Gabrielle's arrival before I told her what had happened and showed her the photo and the vile message. I'd supplied both of us with coffee, and we were sitting in the kitchen surrounded by dogs. Molly was in Gabrielle's lap, Lady was playing up to Gabrielle in the hope of pats on the head, and Rowdy and Kimi were engaging in what it's fashionable these days to call their ‘default behavior,' namely, watching me.
Default behavior
refers to what a dog does without a cue or command whenever he has the slightest question about what he's supposed to do; it's a fallback, a favorite contingency, a behavior that's been reinforced fifty gazillion times so that it has become automatic. It is, by the way, no coincidence that my dogs and I share the same default behavior: they watch me, and I watch them. Furthermore, the act of giving and receiving synchronous positive reinforcement strengthens the identical default behavior in the dogs and in me. And there you have a dog trainer's view of love. We're a bunch of hopeless romantics. Truly, we are.

‘What a dreadful expression!' Gabrielle exclaimed. ‘That grooming spray blew right into my face, and did it sting!' As if I'd never noticed the short-term results of her laser treatment, she lowered her voice and said, ‘I was still quite raw and red from the dermatologist, you know.'

‘Why were you using grooming spray?'

‘Because when I went back to your car for Molly's liver treats, I decided to do a little work on her coat so she'd look her best. I know that grooming doesn't matter the way it does when you're showing in breed, but it matters to me, and Molly knows whether she's clean or dirty, don't you, Molly? Besides, if you remember, I was a little nervous, and I was making Molly nervous, and grooming is such a soothing activity for both of us. So, that's when this picture was taken. What you can't see is that the bottle of grooming spray flew right out of my hand when that horrible stuff hit my face, and I have to tell you, I will never buy that product again. It is supposed to be all wholesome and natural, and all it really is, is rubbing alcohol. But whatever possessed someone to take this picture?'

‘I have no idea. But one thing we can be sure of is that Eldon Flood isn't responsible for it. He'd never even heard of you until we showed up at Flood Farm on Wednesday. This picture was taken four days before that. Well, it's remotely possible that Flood could've read something I've written on the web or seen photos there, figured out who you were, and found Buck's address. And he could've seen online that I was judging on Saturday, I guess. But it's totally unlikely. It simply doesn't add up.'

‘If Flood thought that I was you? On Saturday, I mean. No. that won't work. Then why would he have sent this picture to Buck? And if he was looking online, he'd have seen pictures of you. No. We're dealing with someone else, maybe a copycat who knew about that other business or who was inspired by it, but someone different. In any case, this is someone else's mean, nasty, cruel meddling. Now if you'll excuse me, I absolutely have to talk to Buck.'

I expected Gabrielle to retreat to her bedroom to call my father. Instead, she refilled her coffee cup and settled herself on the couch in the living room, her cell phone in one hand, the other on Molly, who was curled up next to her. Far from trying to eavesdrop, I went out to the yard with Lady to work on basic obedience. Twenty minutes later, when we got back inside, Gabrielle was still on the phone and was speaking at normal volume. ‘I'll never be the trainer that she was,' said Gabrielle, obviously referring to my mother, ‘but I don't need to pay people to do
everything
with my dog. I can't trim Molly. It's just too complicated. And I can't handle her in breed. I'd never be good enough. But I wanted . . .' She listened for a minute and then said in her most husky, seductive tone, ‘Thank you. Apology accepted.'

My father had apologized? I kneeled down and silently called to Rowdy, who came to me and buried his great head in my stomach almost as if he intended to return to the womb, not that he had actually sprung from mine, except in the spiritual sense, but I guess that if the primitive longing is ardent enough, any beloved womb will do. Not be left out, Kimi trotted up and nudged me, and Lady followed her. Breathing in dog hair, I whispered, ‘Hallelujah!'

TWENTY-SIX

R
emember what Groucho Marx said about not wanting to belong to any club that would have him as a member? Gabrielle, in contrast, always assumed that she already belonged to any club in which she found herself; it almost never crossed her mind that she might want to exclude herself from a group, and anything even remotely like blackballing was foreign to her. If she were ever abducted by extraterrestrials, instead of being subjected to the gruesome medical tests commonly described by abductees, she'd soon be pitching in to tidy up the spaceship and chit-chatting with her new friends about which planet
we
should visit next. Thus at noon on Saturday, Gabrielle arrived at the armory wearing a pink Cambridge Dog Training Club sweatshirt and was enthusiastically welcomed by actual club members, all of whom acted as if she'd belonged for decades.