Must Love Dogs (19 page)

“So you’re looking for someone to see when your kids are with your wife?”

“Yes. Exactly. You’re so easy to talk to, Sarah.”

“And how often are your kids with your wife?”

“One weekend a month. Extra visits on birthdays and holidays.”

I started connecting the flags like the ones that flew in long strips at car dealerships and gas stations. “So, George, we’re basically talking here about dinner and/or a movie and/or….whatever….one weekend a month. No strings. No commitments. Am I right, George?”

“Yes, that would be perfect. God, you’re great, Sarah. So, how ’bout now? Right now. Are you busy?”

“Actually, George, I’m looking for someone with a tad more availability. But thanks for calling. And I hope you find the part-time love of your life.”

I hung up. This was good. I knew enough to stay away from George from Hanover. Maybe part of finding what you wanted was recognizing what you didn’t want. Maybe there was hope for me yet.

*

A week’s worth of newspapers lay piled on my kitchen table. Perhaps “piled” was a bit optimistic. I tended not to notice this sort of untidiness. I’d walk by the amassing stack without registering it, day after day, until suddenly it would catch my eye and I’d think,
Where did that come from?
I made a mental note to look for a guy who was laid back as opposed to fastidious. Either that or someone who liked to do housework.

I dug out the personal ad pages, spreading out the sections on the living room floor so I could see them all at once. Found my clipboard and pen, scissors, glue stick. Sat down cross-legged in the midst of it all and began my search again.

VERY ROMANTIC Southerner visits Massachusetts almost every month for a week. Seeking petite, rambunctious, attentive SWF 25-45 for unconditional fun/ romance.

Hmm. Even if I added this guy’s availability to George from Hanover’s, I’d still come up with too much free time. Not to mention the fact that this romantic Southerner sure sounded married to me. Besides, “petite” and “rambunctious” made me think he was looking for a small terrier instead of a woman. Maybe I’d ask John to fix him up with Clementine. If he ever called me again.

45-YEAR-OLD CARIBBEAN male, sincere, passionate, animated, fun to be with, seeks plus-sized Woman, any race, good morals.

Well, at least I could eat a lot. “Animated” made me think of Saturday-morning cartoons, though, and all I could picture was a date with the Road Runner or Daffy Duck. Then, again, my morals weren’t half bad. I kind of liked that he’d capitalized “Woman,” but maybe it was just a typo.

I picked up my pen, drew a plus-sized X across the Caribbean male. Stretched out on my back with my knees bent, did twenty-five crunches to make sure I’d still have abdominal muscles when I found someone it might matter to.

I wandered into the kitchen looking for some chocolate. Just a tiny piece. After all, it was a holiday weekend. The last chunk of a frozen Three Musketeers bar had somehow disappeared. I headed back to the living room, chocolateless.

MY WATERS RUN DEEP. Handsome professor, DWM, 48, brozvn/green, creative and passionate, fit, funny, analytical, expressive, ethical, complex, “GQ-ish,” seeking woman with legs, brains and exceptional depth. Bibliophile.

Well, better than a pedophile, I supposed. Where did these guys come from? Were they trying to be funny? Had they once been ordinary husbands snoring in their armchairs while the TV droned on and on? I’d have to remember to ask Carol. She’d know. I went into the kitchen, poured myself a glass of milk that would have been better with chocolate, drank it all as I walked back to the living room.

HOPELESSLY ROMANTIC, old-fashioned gentleman seeks lady friend who enjoys elegant dining, dancing and the slow bloom of affection. Lonely widower of a certain age misses the good ol’ days.

Dad
, I thought,
fancy running into you here
. At least he’d dropped the part about loving dogs and long meandering bicycle rides. In a lot of ways, a woman could do worse than finding my father.

Unless, of course, you were his daughter.

*

When the phone rang, I was so focused on perusing the personals that I almost didn’t answer it. I was proud of myself for actually recognizing the irony. There I’d been, scouring the personals for that needle in a haystack, a kind, handsome, funny, charming,
normal
guy. At the very same time, like one of those split- screen scenes in an old movie, an actual man, with at least some of those qualities, had been calling me.

It was John Anderson. I was so happy to hear from him that I invited him down for dinner without stopping to worry about whether it was a date or an almost-date or even if he was still mad at me for what I’d come to think of as Dolly Night. I’d even cook, I offered, hoping I’d remember how. John said he’d stop and pick up fish and wine once he got to Marshbury. I thanked him very much and hung up. Now I only had to run around and clean the house, jump in the shower, find something to wear, and run to the grocery store to buy everything besides the fish and the wine. I looked at the kitchen clock. All in under three hours.

*

I opened my door to Carol and John, and the incongruity of my sister and my dinner guest standing there together, like a couple, threw me for a minute. John had one brown bag in the crook of his arm, another in the fist of his other hand. Carol carried a plate wrapped in plastic wrap. Leftover Thanksgiving dinner.

Of course, Carol spoke first. “Guess I should have called before I came, but you forgot to pick this up from Dad’s fridge.” She smiled at John. “Hi. I’m Carol.” Still smiling, she turned back to me. “Been busy?”

I took the plate from Carol, introduced her to John. They must have just missed each other on Dolly Night. They followed me inside, and John put his bags on the kitchen counter. “Well, thanks a lot, Carol. I’ll see you around,” I said.

Carol wasn’t budging. Her up-close-and-personal interest in my dating life was getting out of hand. “So, what are you two up to?” she asked John. She turned to me. “And where did you disappear to Thanksgiving night?” You’d think if Carol was going to hang around to watch, she could at least not ask any questions.

I blushed, remembering Bob’s kiss, trying to figure out what I was doing standing here with John. Not putting all your eggs in one basket was more complicated than it sounded. “I just came home, Carol, okay? I was tired. And now I’m going to make dinner for my friend John. And if you need any more information, maybe you can fax me a list of questions.”

“Like you even have a fax machine.” She held out a hand to shake John’s. “Well, I can certainly take a hint. Nice to meet you. However briefly.”

John held her hand for a minute. “You sure you don’t want to stay for a minute? I could pour you a glass of wine….”

“No, no, no. I wouldn’t think of interrupting.” Carol was checking him out as she backed toward the door, and I was happy to see how great he looked. He was wearing well-cut jeans and a nice sweater under a hunter green fleece jacket. He looked freshly shaven, and his thick hair was nicely cut and appealingly tousled. When he smiled at Carol, I could see how much he wanted her to like him.

“Thanks again for the leftovers, Carol,” I said, trying to speed things up.

“If Sarah’s planning to cook, you might need them as a backup,” she said to John.

*

John and I were waiting for the water to boil to start the rice pilaf. The swordfish was almost marinated. We were sipping our wine, and I was looking into his eyes while he told me what he was like as an adolescent. John’s eyes were his best feature, a slightly different tawny shade every time I saw them. I noticed we were both leaning toward each other across the kitchen table, and there was something about the way he said Sarah that made me almost like the name.

“I was smart and geeky and every time I tried to talk to a girl she would run screaming in the opposite direction.”

“Oh, you poor thing. So when did things get better?”

“Well, once I got into the business world, I found out that smart and geeky had huge advantages. As far as the girls running in the other direction, I guess I’m still waiting for that to change. Sometimes I feel like I’m two completely different people. At work I’m fully grown up, confident, hardworking.” He reached out and rested his hand lightly on mine for a moment. “Practically charismatic.” He folded his arms over his chest and we smiled at each other. “But the rest of the time I feel like I’m still sitting in a circle at an eighth-grade spin the bottle game, and all the girls are just praying that when it’s their turn, the bottle doesn’t point to me.”

“Oh, my God, that’s exactly how I feel. But I never even got invited to the parties where they played spin the bottle.”

John poured a little more wine in his glass, then emptied the rest into my glass. “Maybe we should try some therapy.” He rested the bottle on its side between us. “A little regression. We could start with spin the bottle, work our way up to strip poker.”

We stared at each other. John Anderson was really starting to grow on me. “Can two people play spin the bottle?” I asked.

“It’s called upping the odds, I think.”

“Hell’s bells, so this is where you’ve been hiding out,” my father said from the doorway. He burst into my kitchen like a rescuing fireman.

“Jesus, Dad. You scared me to death. I live here. Remember.” I stood the empty wine bottle up again quickly and gave John a look that I hoped said,
Sorry
.

“That you do, Sarah. Hard to believe my little girl is old enough to have her own place, but that you do. Anyhoo, your poor old dad only wanted to be sure your turkey dinner made it over in one piece.”

“Yeah, Dad, it did. Thanks. Carol just left a little while ago.”

My father was sniffing the air. “Well, what’s cooking, good-looking? And I mean that question literally.” Oddly, he didn’t seem to have noticed John sitting at my table.

“Dad, this is John Anderson and we’re about to have dinner.”

“Billy Hurlihy,” my father said as John stood up to shake his hand. “What was that name again?”

“John.” John shook vigorously. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. Hurlihy.”

“What was it?” My father let go and curved his hand around his ear.

“John,” he said a little louder.

“Dad….” I said as I turned off the heat under the pan of water.

“What?” my father asked again.

“John!”

“What?” my father yelled in the doddering voice of his father’s father.

“PIERRE!” John yelled back.

My father sat down at the table. “You’ll do,” he said. “Now, sonny boy, how ’bout checking to see if there’s another bottle of that fancy-pants wine around anywhere. I could use a wee glass.”

*

The swordfish was completely marinated, and then some, by the time my father left. He didn’t even hint around about staying for dinner, so he must have had other plans. I started boiling the water for the rice again, turned on the broiler to preheat it for the fish, took the colander of washed salad greens from the refrigerator. “Sorry about that,” I said to John.

“Your father’s quite the character.”

I was about to tell John what an understatement that was, when we heard a knock. At least Michael didn’t barge right in, but waited until I opened the door. “These are for you,” he said, handing me a cellophane-wrapped bouquet. “Sorry about last night.”

“This is my brother Michael,” I said to John, in case the flowers were giving him the wrong idea.

“We met once before. Hi, Michael. John Anderson.” John got up from the table once again and they shook hands. I noticed that Michael still looked a little rocky from last night, but he had at least shaved and lost his hangdog expression.

“Thanks for the flowers, Michael. You didn’t have to do that.” The arrangement looked like something that was probably called “The Harvest Bouquet” at the supermarket. Long-stemmed chrysanthemums with an orange plastic horn of plenty pick stuck in the middle.

“That’s okay. I was buying some for Phoebe anyway.”

“Do me a favor and go get hers, okay?” Michael ran out to the car and did as I asked him, because that’s the kind of guy he is. I unwrapped both bouquets, threw away the cellophane and the picks, cut a couple of inches off the stems so they’d stay fresh longer. Then I found a piece of soft yellow satin ribbon and tied all the flowers together in one impressive bunch. I handed it to Michael. “Here, give her these. You might as well score some real points.”

“Are you sure? Well, thanks. And thanks for last night. And don’t worry about Phoebe and me. Everything’s going to be hunky-dory again.” He said it as if he really wanted to believe it. Other people’s denial was so easy to spot. I rarely knew what Michael and Phoebe’s fights were about, and when I did hear details, they were trivial things like Michael letting the girls watch too much TV. And they’d make up just as fast, but from where I watched, it was hard not to see that the next fight was just around the corner, and that this had become the rhythm of their lives.

“My sister would never have done that for me,” John said when Michael left. “That was sweet, giving your flowers to his wife.”

“Bitch,” I muttered under my breath.

“What?”

“Nothing. I just don’t know what Michael’s wife’s problem is. It breaks my heart. Michael turns himself inside out trying to be whatever she wants him to be.”

“Maybe that’s the problem. The doormat syndrome. I’ve been there — ‘Just tell me what you want and I’ll do it.’” He shook his head.

“Yeah, I guess I have, too, but it’s painful to watch.” John seemed to have taken over the dinner preparations. He had poured the rice pilaf mix into the boiling water and was now transferring the swordfish to a foil-covered cooking sheet. He seemed comfortable in my kitchen. I wasn’t sure what I thought about that. Maybe I liked the idea of playing spin the bottle with him better.

I took a sip of my wine and watched him dry off my wooden salad bowl. He tossed the dish towel back over his shoulder, almost like he was about to burp a baby. It was such a thoroughly domestic gesture, one that made me think of Kevin and the thousands of hours, painful and almost palpable in retrospect, that I’d spent sitting at this very kitchen table silently watching him cook.