Must Love Dogs (3 page)

Lorna was knocking at the door when I came out of the bathroom in jeans and a T-shirt. “Well, at least you smell better,” she said. Lorna smiled, a relentlessly optimistic smile, but a nice smile all the same. I liked Lorna. She was the one person at work who treated me exactly the same after Kevin left, as if it were a detail too unimportant to notice. “Sorry I’m late,” she said now. “Mattress Man was having a meltdown. He’s better now, all tucked in and happily clutching his remote.” Mattress Man was Lorna’s husband. I never quite dared ask her the reason for his nickname, but from what I could gather it had more to do with the time he spent watching TV in bed than with more amorous activities. Nevertheless, Lorna seemed to be crazy about him. “Okay, we can still catch the seven o’clock yoga class at the community center.”

“Do we have to?”

“You have any better ideas?”

I hated yoga. I hated groups of women, or mostly women, trying to improve themselves inside and/or out. I hated having to smile at them, make eye contact, pretend that I was still one of them. “Lorna,” I asked, “do you think we could just go buy some shampoo?”

I should have guessed fix-up. First of all, my father offered to pick me up for the Brennan Bake, something he’d never done before. Secondly, he mentioned that he had an extra ticket, and asked if I knew someone who might want it. When I said no, thinking I didn’t have enough friends left to risk putting one through the ordeal, he said not to worry; he’d come up with something.

The Brennan Bake was held every year on the second Saturday of October from noon until sunset. The event was a scholarship fund-raiser in memory of the Brennans’ youngest daughter, Lily, who died years ago in a car crash days short of graduating from high school. It took place under a green-and-white-striped tent on Rocky Beach in North Marshbury. The weather was usually crisp and warm, with the sun a shade less harsh than it would have been the month before.

Only once did the Brennan Bake have to be moved a mile down the road to the American Legion Post because of rain, but it worked out fine, since the lobsters, steamers, clam chowder and corn on the cob hadn’t actually been cooked on-site for years. Instead, they were delivered, along with sliced watermelon and fat round loaves of Irish soda bread, by a catering company called Boston Clambake.

Every year my father was handed a stack of tickets to sell, and every year he bought the whole stack and gave them all away. “And let’s have a big round of applause for Mr. Billy Hurlihy and his deep pockets,” the bandleader would say.

My father would feign modesty until the people sitting nearby made him stand. Lily’s parents, Jack and Noreen, would envelop him in a long hug, and he’d wipe tears from his eyes when it ended. He’d offer up a toast “to little Lily Brennan, eternal child of this blessed community, eternal light of her dear parents’ lives. A kinder and sweeter little girl never graced God’s green earth. May her memory live forever.” My father had never even met Lily Brennan, but nobody minded.

The bandleader would wait until the moment of silence ended and my father lifted his head from a solemn bow. He’d take the microphone back and shuffle his notes, announcing something like “Here’s to Bob and Betty Reilly, on their forty-fifth wedding anniversary. Bob and Betty, I want you to stand up now if you can stand up.”

It was understood in our family that if you were living in New England, you either went to the Brennan Bake or you had a damn good excuse. I didn’t, so when my father picked me up, I was ready. Two strangers were in the car with him. The woman in the front seat was wearing a straw hat with a flat top and round brim, with two long tails of red ribbon dangling off the back end. The ribbon matched the trim on her dress, which seemed to be a sort of sailor suit. The collar began in the front as two understated white triangles, only to turn into one big Popeye square in the back. My father introduced her as Marlene. I was relieved when she turned forward again and leaned back against the seat, hiding at least part of her outfit.

Her younger brother’s name was Mark, and I guess I should have been thankful he wasn’t wearing a sailor suit. I had a quick impression of close-set eyes and sprouting nostril hair. “Nicetameetya” he said in a nasally voice I hated immediately. I checked out his tight striped golf shirt, the soft little bulge of his belly. His jeans looked new, with a slight crease traveling down the front of each leg. He wore dark brown socks, shiny penny loafers and a kind of fisherman’s hat. Mark slid his body a little closer to the center of the seat. I glared at him. He slid back. I scowled at my father in the rearview mirror. He winked.

*

“New boyfriend?” Christine asked. I kissed her on the cheek and whispered, “Fuck you,” softly enough that my nieces and nephews wouldn’t hear. I worked my way around the table, quick kisses for Michael, Johnny, Carol and their families. Only Billy Jr. was lucky enough to have escaped the Brennan Bake this year.

I grabbed Sean, my nephew, by the hand because I wanted to dance.

“Me, too,” said my niece Maeve.

“Me, too,” said my niece Sydney. We found a place on the patch of sand that served as the dance floor. The Irish Troubadours were playing a baffling medley of “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling,” “The Marine Corps Hymn” and “The Caissons Go Rolling Along.” We all held hands and danced in our own little circle.

Marlene and her brother stayed at their table, but my father joined us just in time for “The Unicorn.” His grandchildren, half a dozen clustered around him by now, imitated him delightedly as he opened and closed his hands for the green alligators and flapped his bent arms for the long-necked geese. By the time he was scratching under his armpits while the singer sang about the chimpanzees, four or five women had joined the circle. Two wore Kelly-green T-shirts that said “Brennan Bake Babe.”

Even though Carol used a calendar-making program on her computer to update the whole family every year, it was still almost impossible to keep everybody’s ages straight. Ian and Trevor, Carol’s middle two, were born the requisite ten months apart to qualify as Irish twins. I was pretty sure they were nine and ten now. They stood together on the edge of the dance floor, not really dancing but not really not dancing. Their just-turned-sixteen sister, Siobhan, slumped nearby in a beach chair, while their two-year-old sister, Maeve, began to dance hand-in-hand with her grandpa and her two-year- old cousin Sydney.

Sydney’s brother, Sean, probably three, possibly already four, which would mean I’d forgotten his birthday, let go of my hands and moved over by Ian and Trevor. He adjusted his dancing, imitating their restrained motion. He grinned at them in unbridled adoration. “Hi, Sean,” Ian said. “What’s your favorite truck?”

“Firefuck,” Sean said. Ian and Trevor giggled loudly.

I tried to get to Ian and Trevor before Christine did. “Wanna ice cream, Sean?” Trevor was asking. “What’s your favorite kind of ice cream, Sean? Vanilla?”

“No. Fockit,” Sean answered just as his mother and I arrived.

“What? What’d we do?” Trevor asked.

“I’ll kill them for you,” I assured Christine as I steered Ian and Trevor away by the backs of their necks. Christine, I was sure, would be on her way to tell Carol how badly behaved her boys were. I looked over to see Marlene and Mark getting up from the table and heading our way. “Consider yourself lectured,” I said, “and next time pick on somebody bigger. Maybe even that guy in the funny hat walking toward us.”

I escaped to the rest rooms. The smell of salt air and water only partially masked the odor of urine and damp cement, so I didn’t stay as long as I might have otherwise. I returned just as the band was starting to play a light jig. Michael’s daughters, Annie and Lainie, finished lacing up their ghillies and joined the rest of the Irish step dancers, some also wearing their soft shoes, others barefoot.

I sat down beside Siobhan. “You going up?” I asked. Siobhan was the family’s most talented step dancer, competing at every feis and feile within driving distance for as long as anyone could remember. Carol had turned their den into a shrine, filling the shelves with her trophies and medals.

Siobhan twisted one of the three earrings in her left earlobe. “Oh, puh-lease.”

We watched the dancers perform their rocks and clicks, kicks and leaps. My muscles still knew the steps, still wanted to dance them. Lainie and Annie smiled big winning smiles, and I remembered hanging on to my own smile dance after dance, despite blisters and burning thighs. I remembered dancing with Carol and Christine so clearly, clutching pennies in our fists to keep our hands neat, putting strips of duct tape on the bottom of our ghillies to make them less slippery. And waking up with a stiff neck from sleeping in hard plastic curlers the night before a feis, then combing the hair spray out of each other’s banana curls in the car on the way home. Wide-tooth comb, working from the bottom up, small sections at a time. I could feel the pull on my scalp.

“I still miss it. Isn’t it hard to just sit here?” I asked Siobhan.

“Yeah, right.”

The dancers were replaced by a six-year-old named Bridget who began to sing. Badly. She was tentative at first, but when the audience joined in, Bridget unfortunately let loose, mouth pressed to the microphone, belting out “Too-wah-loo-wah-loo-wah” for all she was worth. Her red ringlets danced around her shoulders as her big green eyes gazed across the stage to her parents. Bridget’s father began rocking side to side. Bridget responded to the reminder with an obedient sway of her own little shoulders.

I was so busy watching the bandleader try to wrestle the microphone away from Bridget that I didn’t see Mark sneak up on me. “How’boutadancewithyourdate?”

I separated his words enough to understand them. “No, thank you. And, by the way, I am
not
your date.”

“Fuckyouthen.”

“No. But thanks for asking.” I turned back to Siobhan.

It was easy to avoid Mark after that. I sauntered away from Siobhan and joined my brothers and sisters at their table. “Nice loafers on that guy,” said Michael. “Hope they don’t get all scratched up from the sand.”

“Yeah, I wonder what kind of fish he catches in that hat,” said Johnny. “Sushi?” He combed brown hair out of brown eyes with his fingers, looking like a younger version of our father. “Geez, Dad’s probably starting to look pretty good to you, Sarah.” Damn, even Johnny knew.

“Come on, you guys,” said Carol. “Leave her alone. Anyway, I can tell it’s the sister who’s the real ocean buff. How’d ya like to float on her boat?” Everybody looked over at Marlene, who had taken off her hat in order to dance cheek to cheek with our father. She was holding it pressed to his back with one hand. The ribbons fluttered in the wind. The buckles on her shoes were large brass anchors.

We were still laughing when the band began their final song of the day. Everyone who could stood for “God Bless America.” People with names like Murphy and O’Brien and Callahan, intertwined by marriage with an occasional Smith or Rosen or Angelo. More than a few wiped tears, flowing freely after several hours of watery beer. I was dry-eyed and sober, although by the time the whole crowd sang the home-sweet-home part, I was wishing I’d cultivated more of a taste for bad beer. Passing out early might be the high point of my day.

When the final round of applause died down, I threw myself on the mercy of my siblings for a ride home.

Siobhan kept turning the key in the ignition. “Uh, I’m pretty sure it’s started now,” I said carefully. I waited a couple of seconds, then added, “So you can, uh, let go of the key now. Good. Now give it some gas. Um, not quite that much. Good. Now just, uh, move your foot to the brake and put it into drive. Nice.”

Siobhan hiked up the right leg of her oversized jeans so her sneaker could make direct contact with the brake pedal. “God, you’re so much better at this than my mother is. And my father sucks even more than she does.”

“Okay, okay. Slow down a little. With the brake. No, we’re fine, that’s okay, next time just touch it lightly. Yeah, a little gas, just a little. That’s it. Good.” I tried to remember the safety ratings for Dodge Caravans. Siobhan had tried to hold out for her father’s Mustang, but instead Carol and Dennis had switched Maeve’s car seat over, piled the kids in and driven away from the Brennan Bake with a
beep beep a beep beep, beep beep
.

“So when did you get your learner’s permit?”

“Yesterday.”

“Wow. That recently.”

“Yeah. Thanks for the birthday present. Gift certificates are so perfect.”

“Glad you liked it,” I said with relief. I was so bad at presents. Siobhan was particularly hard to buy for because her tastes changed so quickly. In the hair category alone, I could count her recent trials like the rings of a tree trunk. Shiny brown hair up by the roots faded into a summer application of Sun-In streaks an inch or so down. These overlapped an experiment with Jolen Creme Bleach and cherry Kool-Aid, which Carol had described to me in horrified detail over the phone, and which had grown down to about cheek level. Finally, the ends of Siobhan’s once thick and healthy hair split and frizzed around her shoulders, permanent victims of over-the-counter overprocessing.

Siobhan drove along the winding Marshbury coastal roads. I kept myself from air-braking obviously on the curves. When she took one hand off the steering wheel to pull at an earring, I tried to will it back on. Looking straight ahead, for which I was grateful, she asked, “So, you have any boyfriends yet?”

“Hundreds. You?”

“About the same.”

We drove for a while, past manicured lawns with water views. I glanced casually at the speedometer. “I’m pretty sure the speed limit’s thirty-five here.”

“My father goes fifty,” Siobhan said as she slowed down. “So why did Kevin leave you, anyway?”

“Leave me?”

“Yeah. I mean, like, wasn’t the sex any good?”

“Sex?”

“Yeah. I mean, like, my parents are still disgusting. You’d think they’d be sick of doing it by now.” We stopped abruptly at a yellow light, then drove through. “And Maeve could be mine practically. That’s my mother, though. Just keep having babies and then ignoring them when they’re not kittens anymore.”