Out of Sorts (14 page)

Chapter Forty-One

Two of a Kind

Ferdinand musters all his courage and opens the door. He finds a familiar face, smiling.

“Well, hello, Mr. Brun. I have your mail. A letter from Normandy, notably.”

Mr. Suarez, even shorter than his wife, happily discovers the playful pup nibbling at his shoes and strokes him tenderly in return.

“Ah, I see you’ve gotten another dog. You did the right thing! I liked your Daisy so much. I shouldn’t be telling you that, my wife must be spinning in her grave . . . It’s just that it was a difficult year for us. You can’t always choose what happens to you. I’ve finished my rounds, and you’re the only one who isn’t away for the holidays. How’d you like to make the most of the sunshine and drink a little port in the courtyard? It’s a bit brisk but we can introduce Rocco and . . .”

“Sherlock. Well, I won’t say no. I really need it. I just had an emotional week and it’s not about to stop. Because the dog is one thing, but I just learned the family’s coming. My daughter and her son. If you only knew! My poor grandson . . .”

“Oh, I forgot, I also have this for you.” Mr. Suarez hands a little black book to Ferdinand. “My wife’s book of grievances. There’s a whole chapter about you. I don’t have any use for it. Keep it or throw it out. I don’t feel right about saving the thing.”

The two men descend the thirteen steps leading to the courtyard. While Mr. Suarez goes back to his loge for Rocco, Ferdinand heads toward the trash area. For the first time he discovers there are simple explanations for the sorting. Paper: yellow bin. The last voyage of the little black book! In the distance, he hears canaries singing, ignoring the happy sounds of Rocco and Sherlock squabbling over a piece of kibble.

Mr. Suarez calls to Ferdinand, “You want a little slice of kings’ cake?”

A bit of paper has just flown out of the black book and fallen at Ferdinand’s feet. Proudly, he moves to put it in the appropriate bin, when suddenly a word attracts his attention.
Daisy
. Ferdinand freezes. He sets his glasses on his nose and reads, on what looks to be a business card:
Long-Term Kennel
. There’s an address and a telephone number. Someone has hand-written the name of his dog. Ferdinand feels as though his heart will give out. A year, nearly a year since his dog died. Died and was cremated before his eyes. What can this scrap of paper change about that? He doesn’t dare hope anything. Impossible to hold his legs back, he rushes over to Mr. Suarez, who’s pointing to where Juliette’s father should install a beehive for the complex. Ferdinand cuts him off.

“Do you know this kennel?”

Mr. Suarez grabs the card, holds it out to bring it into focus. “Yes, that’s where we put Rocco when we go to Portugal in the summer. If my wife contacted the kennel when she was looking for Daisy, she’ll surely have dealt with José,” he adds, reading the dog’s name on the card.

“Do you have one of those portable contraptions I can borrow?”

“My cell phone? Of course. These things are useful, especially for emergencies.”

Ferdinand types frantically on the keys, but nothing happens. He gets annoyed.

“Wait, you didn’t unlock it. I’ll put the number in for you and when it starts ringing I’ll hand it over.” Mr. Suarez taps away on the screen and hands the phone to a feverish Ferdinand.

Ferdinand steps away when a woman’s voice answers, “Long-Term Kennel, hello.”

“Hello, ma’am. Would you happen to have in your kennel a female Great Dane, gray in color? Her name is Daisy.”

“No, I don’t think so. Are we watching her right now? I only joined the team last summer . . .”

“Could you ask José if he remembers my dog? A certain Mrs. Suarez would have asked him about keeping Daisy.”

“Hang on. He’s out with the dogs. I’ll ask if that means anything to him. Stay on the line.”

The woman leaves for two minutes and twenty seconds (that’s what the cell phone says). Ferdinand jumps up and down. He’s anxious and upset, hoping for something that can’t be. Three minutes and forty seconds. This will cost Mr. Suarez, too. Ferdinand can’t stand this torture anymore and is about to hang up, when the voice comes through again.

“All right, it’s complicated. Yes, Mrs. Suarez inquired with us about a long-term stay for a female Great Dane. We did indeed keep her for several months, but we had to part with her.”

Ferdinand remains speechless. “Several months.” How is that possible? He saw her lifeless body. He cremated her. She didn’t have her collar anymore and what remained wasn’t pretty. But there was no doubt. You can’t replace one dog with another so easily. Daisy was dead: how could she simultaneously be in a kennel? And if she was alive, what did “we had to part with her” mean?

“I’m not sure I understand. ‘Part with her’? What do you mean by that, exactly?”

“According to what José told me, the Great Dane, Daisy, came to us at the beginning of spring. There weren’t many dogs at the time but she wasn’t very sociable. She seemed lost, she barked all the time. With summer and the number of dogs in the kennel, it wasn’t possible to keep her anymore.”

“Could you tell me, please, where Daisy is now?”

“José said he sent her to the neighborhood veterinarian, Dr. Durand. I have his number, if you want.”

Ferdinand plunges his arm into the yellow bin to retrieve the notebook. For once he’s in luck—he finds a pencil inside. He jots down the number, trembling, and hangs up, forgetting to thank the woman. He presses the buttons. Nothing happens. He turns to Mr. Suarez, who shouts, “The green button!” Three rings later, a deep voice on the prerecorded message announces that Ferdinand has indeed reached the veterinarian, but the office is closed during lunch hours. Ferdinand looks at his watch. It’s already 12:10.

He’ll never be able to wait for two o’clock. And then Marion and Alexandre will be here, and he can’t let them down by running to the vet if . . . Ferdinand stops himself from finishing his thought. He returns to the middle of the little garden and sits down next to Mr. Suarez. A glass of port is waiting for him. He looks at it for a moment then asks, “Do you know a veterinarian? A certain Dr. Durand?”

“Yes, quite well. He’s Rocco’s vet. He works miracles. Our poor baby had a problem with his throat. When he barked he sounded like Rocky. He was ordered not to leave the house to avoid pollution, basically a dog’s life. And, well, the doctor’s operation changed his life. He barks normally, can walk around town and not even scare the canaries. The poor things, they were hearing a monstrous groan, but didn’t see anything coming. They had the jitters! Dr. Durand has even become a friend, at least to my wife. Why do you ask?”

Ferdinand hesitates to share his theory. One, because he doesn’t know the end of the story yet. And two, the poor man has just lost his wife—he doesn’t need to know how diabolical she was.

“The people at the kennel didn’t know much, but they directed me to Dr. Durand. I just tried to call him, but I got his answering machine. Lunch break, apparently. I’m going to have to grin and bear it,” says Ferdinand, picking up the glass in front of him.

“I can call him if you like. I have his cell phone number. He’ll surely pick up.” Mr. Suarez searches through his contact list and nods. “I’m calling him. It’s ringing! Yes, Dr. Durand, it’s Mr. Suarez. I’m sorry to bother you at lunch but I have a friend who’d like to ask you an important question. Here he is.”

Ferdinand seizes the phone, moves some distance away, and explains as calmly as possible how the clues led him there.

From afar, Mr. Suarez follows the conversation: a shrug of the shoulder there, a surprised hand gesture there. All of a sudden, the old man seems ill and collapses onto the wall surrounding the courtyard’s roses. Ferdinand spasms. He’s shaking all over. Mr. Suarez rushes over and asks him what’s going on. The old man answers in such a weak voice that the concierge can’t understand at first. Then, he manages to read the few words on Ferdinand’s lips: “Daisy is alive.”

Epilogue

Happy-Go-Lucky

The scene is surreal. Ferdinand’s house is crowded, overflowing. Suitcases, bags, noises, words shouted from one room to another, yapping, closet doors banging. From the kitchen where he’s cutting a zucchini into slices, which he’ll season with a mustard and balsamic vinaigrette (a new recipe from Beatrice), he’s trying to get a handle on his emotions. His heart is always pounding. It would really be his luck to pop off now . . . It’s decided, he’ll buy cod liver oil. He read it’s excellent for the heart. Or the memory. He doesn’t remember anymore. And then he’ll take advantage of his morning at the hospital with Alexandre to visit Dr. Labrousse. A little checkup, just to make sure everything’s OK.

While he’s dumping the slices into the salad bowl, two pieces escape and fall on the kitchen floor. It doesn’t take more than a second for Sherlock, crouching underneath the Formica table, to dart out and gulp it all down. Tail wagging gaily with the regularity of a metronome, he goes back as if nothing had happened, thereby avoiding any scolding. In the living room, he licks his chops in front of a reclining Daisy—queenly, unmoved. Ferdinand can’t stop rubbing his eyes. He still doesn’t believe it. Daisy is there. So beautiful! So beautiful that some scoundrel got her pregnant. So beautiful that Dr. Durand had wanted to keep her, after she finished nursing her litter of puppies.

That Mrs. Suarez drove him up the wall right until the end. Lying to him to make him fly off the handle. Lying to the kennel by telling them an older gentleman in her complex had suddenly gone for a long stay in the hospital. Lying to her husband. All that just to die without achieving what she really wanted: Ferdinand’s departure. As Mr. Suarez concedes, “She wasn’t fundamentally evil, just a little pigheaded, sometimes.”

Ferdinand decides to visit her grave. It’ll be a walk for the dogs. And then it’ll be the perfect place to dump the contents of the urn filled with the ashes of a poor Great Dane that Dr. Durand had given to Mrs. Suarez in order to stage her horrible ruse. Why had the veterinarian agreed to such a thing? Ferdinand will never know. He didn’t think to ask for explanations when he went to the vet’s with Mr. Suarez to implore him to give back his dog. He didn’t have to make too many arguments. Daisy’s joyous barks and frantic jumping as soon as she heard her old master’s voice were sufficient.

Ferdinand takes new plates out from under their protective cloths. He doesn’t even have three matching plates. This will do for today, but he’ll have to invest in new dishes. He’ll ask Madeleine to help him, it being a given that Juliette eats over at his house as often as his daughter and grandson. Oh, Madeleine . . . Ferdinand can’t wait to see her again. Even if their relationship is platonic, just being with her, laughing with her, holding her hand, sitting side by side on a bench, does him a world of good.

The caramelized aroma emanating from the oven brings Ferdinand back to reality. He checks on his gratin dauphinois and finds it’s crusty on top and well browned, ready for the table. In the kitchen, they’re a little cramped. The three occupants are more tired than hungry, and the conversation barely follows any kind of logic. Each is lost in his or her own thoughts: you could hear a fly buzz if Sherlock weren’t teasing Daisy.

Alexandre, staring off into space, sees the little beagle nibbling at the big dog’s dangling ear. His eyelids are drooping; it’s time for him to go to bed. Marion is looking over every nook and cranny in the room. This kitchen, now dated, was her favorite room, always perfumed with the fragrance of flan, warm French toast, or rice pudding. She even surprises herself by noticing the place’s undeniable cleanliness.

As for Ferdinand, he’s thinking about the long day waiting for him tomorrow. The compatibility test. Even though for him there’s nothing worse than medical tests, he’s not afraid. He’s even serene. He’d really like to do this for his grandson, not out of competition or jealousy. Just because his family needs him, and because, for the first time in his life, he can be useful—he, Ferdinand Brun. He can do something good. For someone else.

Acknowledgments

Although
Out of Sorts
ends here on these pages, the adventure began a little over a year ago, in a café in Milan.

The journey was unusual for a first novel, since it followed the path of self-publication. On a whim, I placed the fate of my manuscript in the hands of unknown readers, to get an honest opinion, but also out of fear—fear of a negative response from established publishers. And that was the book’s first step out into the world. All of a sudden, Ferdinand met his audience. Some, touched by the story, wrote to me; they’d laughed, been moved, or had changed their lives somehow after reading, by reaching out to a grumpy loved one, for example. These messages turned my life upside-down more than I’d ever imagined.

Therefore, I’d like to start by addressing my sincerest thanks to the first, anonymous readers of
Out of Sorts
. Without you, these pages could have remained nothing but forgotten sheets covered with inconsequential black lines. I can’t mention each person by name, because Ferdinand charmed thousands of readers, but each message I received brought me immense joy and drove me to finish my second novel.

This incredible buzz surrounding a self-published novel attracted the attention of major publishing houses, the same ones I hadn’t dared send my manuscript to. With the unwavering support of Anne-Laure Vial and Eric Bergaglia from Amazon KDP France, whose coaching for young self-published authors is invaluable,
Out of Sorts
encountered a fantastic editor, Gabriella Page-Fort, from Amazon Publishing. My thanks to her for her enthusiasm from the very first read-through, for her confidence, and for giving me this magnificent opportunity to achieve a childhood dream. Thanks to Wendeline Hardenberg for her faithful translation—not easy to do with all those “Frenchy” idioms—which will allow the novel to be read in all four corners of the globe, far beyond what I could have imagined. And an enormous thank-you to the whole Amazon Publishing team for their expertise and immeasurable support. You’ve given another life to our crotchety old Ferdinand.

Finally, the following people have accompanied me throughout this incredible adventure, reading the first drafts full of typos, searching for resemblance to their loved ones, fretting with me over the first few weeks of self-publication as well as at every launch in a new country. Their support means everything to me, and I would be nothing without them: my incredible husband, Olivier; my adorable son, Jules; my best friend and first reader, Chinda; my parents, Corinne and Michel; my family and friends! From the bottom of my heart,
merci
.