Picture This (20 page)

Chapter 35

Melissa

“T
he woman said Cooper was an unlikely candidate for dog therapy school,” said Rocky. She had stopped by Melissa's house and stood in the doorway. “She had two major questions for Cooper, and I have to say, he did not fare well.”

Melissa braced for disappointment. She didn't say what was most obvious to her and what she'd like to tell the therapy dog lady, which was that Cooper had nudged her back into food when food had become her enemy. He had done it with his soft black Lab smile, his oily scent, and the scratch of his black claws on the floor. But that was all between Melissa and Cooper.

Now Rocky said Cooper was an unlikely candidate to be a therapy dog.

Melissa backed up and gave Rocky room to enter. She mimicked her mother's gestures of hospitality for guests and hoped that she got it right. Rocky was not entirely a guest, but it was less confusing to avoid exceptions. “What were the questions that he flunked?” asked Melissa.

Rocky walked into the kitchen and helped herself to a glass of water from the tap. “First she asked if he has ever been violent, aggressive. She wanted to know if he's ever bitten someone.”

Melissa jumped to his defense. “He only
wanted
to bite someone. He never actually bit the guy. And he protected you—that's different. What was he supposed to do?”

Rocky noticed a tray of brownies on the butcher block. She lifted her eyebrows at Melissa and turned her palm up at the moist chocolate squares.

“Help yourself. I made them,” said Melissa.

Rocky slid a butter knife under the backside of one of the brownies and bit half of it. “The second question was even harder. She asked if he's predictable. Cooper has done some very weird shit, and I could never in a million years say that he is predictable.” Rocky inserted the remaining hunk of brownie into her mouth and rolled her eyes in ecstasy.

Melissa frowned. “Who is totally predictable? That's an unfair question. He's a dog, not a machine. You're not predictable. I'm not predictable.”

“Slow down, cowgirl. Cooper gave her the look—you know, his irresistible look—and I was as honest as I could be with her. She said that he'll be on probation, but that she'd try him out in therapy dog training. I wonder if we should really think about this. She may be after some über-calm dog that wouldn't blink if a tree fell on the house.”

Rocky lifted another brownie square from the pan and ate it in two bites. A crumb lingered on her bottom lip. “Would you happen to have any milk to wash down these brownies?”

Melissa opened the dish cabinet and pulled out a sturdy glass. She filled it with milk and set it on the counter in front of Rocky. She marveled at the way Rocky had churned through food since the moment she had stepped into the house.

“I guess you didn't hear what I just said. You and Cooper are signed up for therapy dog classes in Portland. It's all set. The first class is this Wednesday, day after tomorrow. Do you think you can fit it into your schedule?” Rocky drank the glass of milk in a series of gulps that left her small Adam's apple bobbing.

“What? We're in? That is so great!”

After Rocky left, Melissa's entire body filled with the juice of something sweet, like pears or tangerines. Rocky really did care about her. And for the first time in weeks, Rocky hadn't mentioned Natalie's name, not even once.

T
ess had been asking Melissa for weeks to photograph her granddaughter Danielle, so of course when a day finally worked for Melissa and she arrived with the ancient Pentax K1000 that Mr. Clarke insisted she use, Natalie was there, slinking her way into every crevice on Peaks Island. If this kept up, Melissa was going to go live with her father in Portland.

Just yesterday, Natalie had whispered to Melissa, leaning in close as she passed her on the street to the ferry, “Off to see your lesbian friend?” She had hissed it, licking the words off her tongue like a snake. Sure, Melissa's friend Chris was gay, but that wasn't what Natalie meant and she knew it. It was only a matter of time before Natalie dropped an innocent comment to Rocky like, “I know this couldn't be true, but do you think Melissa is gay and she just doesn't know it?” And then it would go viral in an instant. Those kinds of things always went viral. Melissa didn't know what she was, but she wanted to find out in her own time.

Tess had asked and asked. “Come on, Melissa. You're on your way to becoming a top photographer. I don't have a good picture of Danielle, and before you know it, she'll be in college. This is a good summer for us. I want it documented.”

She had finally agreed to 7:00
P.M.
on the back shore. The light would be good in that time and place for the special golden tones that Mr. Clarke told them all to grab. Melissa stiffened as soon as she arrived. Why was Natalie here? She had already taken Rocky—did she have to steal Tess too?

“Over here,” shouted Danielle. “I have on a princess dress.” Danielle stood on tiptoe, twirling on a rock, in one hand a garden stick transformed into a magic wand. Tess held a sheer scarf aloft, the cheap kind sold in the tourist shops, splashed with maroon and yellow. The wind grabbed the scarf and splashed it over the child's red hair.

Melissa began shooting, bracing the camera, releasing a breath. Natalie stood in the background like the misery that she was, which apparently only Melissa could see.

“I am the wind, Princess Razzle-dazzle,” intoned Tess, her long white hair rising, prancing like a filly. Once these two got going, Melissa knew, they could be out on the rocks for hours. What would it be like to have a grandmother like Tess?

Melissa heard a laugh slit through Natalie's veneer, and it made Melissa turn a few degrees, enough to get Natalie, the forlorn foundling, into the viewfinder; she clicked and clicked before turning back to Tess in her fluttering scarf and the child in her princess costume. The two of them danced to inner songs grooved into their weird genetic pool.

With the old SLR camera, Melissa had to either develop the film herself in the high school lab or send it out to be developed, making sure to check the box requesting a CD version, which was just what Melissa did with the roll of Tess and Danielle. As she scrolled through the photos several days later, the photos of Natalie emerged on her screen. Melissa had forgotten that she had even taken them. The shots quickly etched a scar in what she knew about the girl: bitch, skank, liar.

“This can't be true,” said Melissa, clicking on an image on her laptop. She didn't care what Mr. Clarke said about the camera's unbiased eye. He didn't know Natalie.

How could there have been such longing on Natalie's face as she watched the old woman and the girl dancing over the rocks? No, it couldn't be true. She didn't want to see one cell of Natalie that was anything but despicable. But there it was, the same look that people have when they see a puppy, the way a dog can bring out the sweetness in a person. She'd seen the same look in the nursing home with Chris's grandmother, the way the old woman's face and eyes went clear and soft when Cooper was there. And here it was with Natalie, a secret part of her that lasted as long as it took to shoot three pictures.
Believe what you see.
Even if she believed it, which she did not, she'd never show these pictures to Rocky.

Chapter 36

R
ocky had already been to Home Depot outside Portland three times since Monday, and the guys in the plumbing department greeted her by name. There were two bathrooms in the house, one on the main floor and one upstairs. They were each the size of a Mini Cooper. Rocky could have started anywhere with the remodel, but for the sake of comfort, she wanted a bigger bathroom upstairs and new fixtures for both rooms. She also wanted toilets that were reliable and didn't require plunging.

When she had first hired Russell to work on the house, he explained that he had a long list of clients on the island and refused to work anywhere besides Peaks.

“I can fit you in between other clients as long as you can be patient. We can do it bit by bit. That's how I work,” said Russell after going through the house with Rocky. “I like the feel of this old place. If doing the bathroom remodels will make you happy for now, let's do that. And I suggest that you get all the outside work done in the summer. Like a roof—you are in desperate need of a new roof. Despite what Isaiah says, you've got basement troubles. Order a new sump pump right now, because you're going to need it.”

Russell wore a navy blue and white bandana tied around his head. He had a wife who worked at Whole Foods in Portland and two teenage kids. On Thursday nights, Russell went to his writing group, and so he had to stop working by three (since Thursday was also his night to cook dinner) and could start no earlier than ten on Friday mornings.

“We sometimes go pretty late if everyone shows up,” he said in explanation. “I do primarily poetry. Narrative poetry.”

Russell had instructed Rocky to go to Home Depot to look at toilets the week before, which she had done. When she had first stepped into the cavernous building supply store, she realized that she knew nothing about toilets. Signs hung from the ceiling dividing the store into areas: plumbing, electrical, lumber, gardening. Rocky had headed for the land of plumbing.

“Can I help?” asked a man in an orange vest with white lettering.

“I'm interested in toilets,” said Rocky.

The plumbing expert had led her to a row of toilets suspended from shelves seven feet tall, with each one tilted forward so that the customer had a full view of the shape and best profile of the toilet. This was the essence of being a widow: picking out a toilet at Home Depot without the benefit of one's husband and his opinion. Bob would have loved this.

“I have an old house that I'm remodeling, and I need two reliable, vigorous toilets,” said Rocky.

“All of these toilets are tested to take down twelve golf balls in one fast evacuation. Nowadays, all the water is released into the bowl instantly, as opposed to the ones installed in the nineties or earlier.”

“Twelve golf balls should do it,” said Rocky, amazed at the new euphemism for poop. She had spent a little more time there, selecting the size of each toilet and the height of each seat; eventually she picked out midrange models. After the store clerk promised to have the toilets delivered by the Casco Bay ferry, she had walked out into the sunshine of an early summer evening, having picked out the first toilets of her life.

Now, one week later, she was back to return one of the toilets: it was the wrong color.

“Hi, Rocky.”

Rocky studied the jumbo nametag for what she hoped was an imperceptible moment and said, “Hi, Mark.”

“How's the remodel going out on Peaks?” he asked. Mark was an early-thirty-something guy with a tattoo of a scorpion on his forearm. The wattage of his enthusiasm was far dimmer today.

“It's going okay. Consuming. Terrifying. But I got your phone message about the replacement toilet that I ordered and the new shutoff valve. Do you remember? You guys sent me two toilets and one was a blue toilet instead of white by mistake? Why did you add a $50 permit fee to the installation price? I'm just replacing old toilets with new toilets. No permit needed, right? My builder says we don't need it.”

Mark looked perplexed. His eyes went unfocused, and Rocky imagined him accessing all the data in his brain about permits and toilets. As a last resort, he clicked on the computer at the plumbing counter.

“You're right. I'm sorry. It's been a bad week,” he said.

Mark tapped away, deleting the $50 charge for a permit she didn't need.

“My girlfriend of three years broke up with me. It's been hard.”

Like a doll with two faces, one in front and one in back, Rocky's therapist head swiveled around and snapped into place. Mark looked different, softer, less like a potential plumbing adversary who might or might not help her get all the right stuff she needed. He was no longer a hurdle to jump over as she remodeled her house. A pilot light went on in Rocky's long-dormant psychology world.

The tail of the black arachnid rose ominously at the beefiest part of Mark's forearm as he typed.

“Have you ever traveled to Mexico or Central America?” she asked.

Mark pulled a sales receipt from the printer. “No. Why do you ask?” he peered over the top of the screen.

“Because of the scorpion on your arm. I've seen them in Mexico. But they're not as dangerous as their reputation would lead you to believe. Their bite is more like a wasp bite. They look dangerous, and yet they're really a lot of bluster.”

He looked down at his forearm as if he'd forgotten that the tattoo was there. “No. It's my sign,” he said, not hiding his sadness. Being a scorpion, astrologically speaking, might even have led to the demise of his relationship. If he was like most people after being dumped, he was looking everywhere for an explanation.

“Okay, I've fixed it. So now, with the installation and the valve replacement, it's $329, not $379,” Mark said.

He loaded the boxed toilet onto a flatbed pushcart and rolled it through the arena-sized store, with Rocky walking alongside him. She happened to have the truck, so she could easily take her new acquisitions back on the ferry. As they walked, Rocky felt something important shifting with each step through the big-box store. Their promenade was about more than a purchase. She hadn't felt this clear about who she was in a long time. She was remembering what it felt like to be a psychologist. It felt good—not the same as before Bob died, but good.

“What I want you to remember is that I'm a therapist,” she said. “No, I didn't mean to say that. I just wanted to let you know that I'm a therapist. I am.” She hadn't referred to herself in this way in well over a year. Not in fifteen months, according to the Dead Bob Calendar. She'd been the animal control warden. Was she a new amalgam of psychologist/animal control officer?

Mark turned to look at her as they glided past the storm door section. Rocky took a breath as they passed the long aisle of exterior lights.

“I've got two things for you, and they're important. Number one: don't listen to any sad songs. The minute that you hear a sad song, turn it off, leave the building, or put your thumbs in your ears. Number two: join a gym, a volleyball team, a bicycle club—anyplace where you can run your heart out. Aerobic exercise is as good as a mild antidepressant without the side effects. And you wouldn't like the side effects of most antidepressants unless you want to forgo erections.”

Rocky stopped there because she didn't want Mark to cry in the middle of Home Depot and she knew that if she said much more that was exactly what would happen and then he'd hate her later and maybe sell her the wrong kitchen faucet when it came time for the kitchen remodel.

If possible, his shoulders slumped even lower. “I'm doing okay. I've got a dog, and she and I go hiking a lot,” he said. He pushed the cart to a cash register and stepped around to become the cashier. Rocky knew he could have sent her to another cashier, but he wanted to talk a little longer.

“That's good,” she said. “What kind of dog?” She was relieved to hear that he had a dog, the best kind of therapist at times of loss and grief.

“She's an Australian Labradoodle. I would have gotten a dog from the shelter, but my girlfriend wanted a fancy dog, plus she's allergic to dog fur, and these dogs are strong on the poodle end of hair. When she left, she didn't want the dog. Or me.”

Rocky slid her debit card through the machine. “I have one more thing for you: do whatever that dog tells you to do. If she wants to go for a run, then go for a run. If she wants to retrieve sticks until your arm falls off, do it. Before you know it, she will have saved you.”

Mark pushed the cart out to Rocky's yellow truck and loaded it up. He closed the back gate with an affectionate pat.

Rocky got in the truck, leaned out the window, and said, “Mark, your Labradoodle will be pure chick bait. When you're ready, that is.”

Mark gave a shy smile. Rocky felt like a psychologist again, but new, still transforming, one who was trying to figure out her relationship with her own highlighted flaws. A psychologist who gave canine advice.