Pinch of Love (9781101558638) (25 page)

“I like,” I say. “Thanks.”

“EJ called me, so I called Dennis. He has some of Nick's old photographs on file at
The Wippamunker.
He doctored up a flyer and photocopied it. He and the new guy drove around town and put them up all over the place.”

“But it's only been, like, not even three hours since he went missing.”

France gives a little shrug. “What can I say? When Munkers get behind something, they get behind something.”

“He was wearing a fairy charm.”

She twists up her face. “Huh?”

“Ahab. On his collar. You know. It's silver. Handmade. Little different-colored beads. Looks like a little fairy. With wings.”

France scribbles the detail onto a notepad. “Little silver and glass fairy with wings. Got it.” She spoons some purple yogurt into her mouth. “Was he microchipped?”

“Yes. All the greyhounds at the adoption place were microchipped before being placed in homes.”

She nods. “That's really good. The dog officer was just here, and he said dogs with microchips have a really high chance of returning. It's a proven statistic.” She stands and presses her palm to the glass. “We'll find him, Zell.”

 

 

GARRETT DRIVES ME HOME. I thank him the whole way and beg him to let me pay for gas, but he refuses. “This was for the Captain,” he says.

He walks me up the porch steps. At the door he embraces me, a real hug, long and full, and I let myself sink into his body, his warmth.

“You'll get him back, Zell,” he says into my hair.

I want to say that I believe this. That in a few hours Ahab will get bored of the hunt and start making his way back here. But the truth is, I'm not sure. I'm just not.

“Breakfast?” asks Garrett, smiling gently.

“Breakfast.”

 

 

I SHOWER AND BREW MORE COFFEE. I go to draw a hip socket—femur head rotating smoothly inside pelvis's ridgelike acetabulum—but I sketch, instead, Nick. He guards an icy outcropping, and his soldier-angel wings are azure and orange, like the flames that unfurled from the present in my oven. And at his side, Ahab, in full dog-battle regalia, peers over the ledge.

 

 

EJ

 

Every morning before work EJ cruises the streets of Wippamunk, searching for Ahab. He shines his high beams into dense patches of underbrush. Some days he even hikes a little into the woods, which makes him realize how out of shape he is.

He searches in the daylight, too, leaving Travis in charge of the Muffinry. Travis is capable. Punctual, no, but capable.

It's two in the afternoon, and there's the usual lull in traffic, after the lunch rush and before the end-of-the-school-day rush. Past the Blue Plate Lounge, EJ catches a whiff of French fries, which reminds him of the old-grease smell in the cafeteria where they slept in New Orleans. Pastor Sheila sequestered herself in a corner, out of courtesy, because she snored, but EJ thought her snoring actually was kind of cute. Father Chet took over another corner, and Chief Kent was by himself, too. Dennis and Nick put their sleeping bags close to each other toward the middle of the room, so they could talk about
Wippamunker
stuff, and mull over ideas for their story and photo spread. Nick showed Dennis the days' shots on his camera; it was sort of their before-bed ritual. And the remaining three—EJ, France, and Russ—hunkered together. Some nights they giggled and whispered like kids at a slumber party.

One night, toward the end of the trip, after Pastor Sheila and Father Chet flew home early, EJ couldn't stop thinking about the woman they met the first day, Verna, who told them about her neighbor's corpse caught on a telephone pole. He thought about the bronzed baby shoes of Verna's only son, who died in Vietnam. He laid awake and imagined random scenes from her life. Verna carrying a big tub of potato salad to a backyard barbecue. Verna draping tinsel on a Christmas tree. He supposed about an hour had passed since everyone turned off their flashlights. Then he heard his name whispered. It was Nick.

“I'm awake.” EJ clicked on his flashlight to see Nick, in his sleeping bag, worm toward him.

“How about that church today,” Nick said. They'd worked all day, rebuilding a parish hall next to a Baptist church. They swung hammers alongside a local imam, and a rabbi, and a Catholic priest.

“Yeah,” EJ said.

“I wish I was handier,” Nick said. “I'd like to learn more about carpentry and stuff.”

“You should come with Charlene and me.”

“Where?”

“She wants to show me her new church. They're building it now. It's gonna be really big, and they're making the outside look like Noah's ark.”

“That's pretty cool,” Nick said. “I
would
like to see it.” He paused, then said, “I miss my woman, Silo. I miss her a lot.”

“How is she? How's her heart?”

“I guess the tests so far are inconclusive. They still haven't figured out what's going on. But I have a feeling everything's gonna be just fine.”

 

 

EJ'S PHONE RINGS. Real time, real place. It's Charlene.

He blinks the water from his eyes, pulls over to the side of the road, and clears his throat. “Hello, sweetness,” he answers.

“Hey, big guy. Find the dog yet?”

“Oh, man.” He switches hands and turns down the radio. “Ahab's chances aren't looking too good. So many things could have happened to that dog. What if that fisher bit him and gave him rabies? Or what if the fisher scratched him, and he got a blood infection, and crawled under a bush somewhere and died of a fever? Or what if he froze? Zell makes him wear a coat and boots even when the thermometer reads fifty degrees. And it's in the twenties lately.”

“You're torturing yourself with these thoughts,” Charlene says.

EJ closes his eyes at the sound of her warm-honey voice. He feels washed with sudden gratitude: Dogs go missing; people fight, divorce, and die; but he can call Charlene any time, day or night, and she consoles him.

“It does you no good to think about these things,” she says.

“Nick loved that dog. Zell, too. I mean, they
loved
that dog.”

“It's not your fault. It's nobody's fault. Dogs chase cats. That's the nature of things.”

He sighs. He taps his phone on his forehead a few times, then returns it to his ear. “Would you hate me, Charlene? I'm pretty sure
I
would hate me. But I'm a man. You're a woman. Would
you
hate me?”

“She'll come around, EJ.”

“I miss Nick.”

“
I
miss him, and I only met him a few times.” Her breath sounds funny—drawn out and deliberate.

“Where are you?” he asks.

“Out back, doing a little yoga.”

He chuckles. He doesn't even really know what yoga is, but he pictures her stretching her arms overhead, her eyes closed, a soft smile on her face. “I'd bet you look pretty cute doing yoga,” he says.

“Well, then, you'd stand to win a lot of money, sugar.” She inhales slowly, exhales slowly. “Listen. Life isn't simple. But the beauty of it is, you can always start over. It'll get easier.”

“Oh yeah?” He rolls down his window and waves, urging a car to pass. “When?”

 

 

Nick

A
FEW DAYS AFTER AHAB'S DEPARTURE, Gail drives down from Okemo and helps me search the town. We drive around for two hours in her SUV. But we don't see the Captain.

Now we sit at the Muffinry's most coveted table—the one by the front bay window—at noontime. Gail wears a belted cashmere sweater and peanut-size diamond earrings. She picks up her chocolate-marshmallow muffin and holds it next to her face. “Look at this,” she says. “It's bigger than my head. Last night I did an hour on the elliptical and an hour on the rowing machine just so I could come here with you and eat this whole thing. Otherwise, I might as well rub it directly onto my ass. Murtonen's Muffinry is the only place I miss—actively
miss
—since I moved to Vermont.”

Gail peels off the top of the muffin. Steam licks her chin. “But that's beside the point,” she says. “I want to talk to you about something.” She pops a bite of muffin top into her mouth and throws her head back. “Jesus H. Christ, that tastes good.”

I know she's thinking about her guest bathroom and the mural. “I told Dad to tell you to paint it a nice ecru,” I say.

“Look. I'll
pay
you.”

“Can't you hire a college student to finish it?”

“Hmm.” She rips open five sugar packets, dumps their contents into her coffee, and stirs slowly. “That's not a half-bad idea. A college student.”

“Put an ad on Craigslist,” I say. “Offer a couple hundred bucks. You'll have a dozen starving art students lined up at your door faster than you can say—”

“No. I want you to finish that bathroom, Zell.” She looks at me hard. “Not some college student who doesn't know me, who doesn't know
us.
”

“Then you're going to have to wait. Because I can't do it right now.”

She clears her throat and sets her spoon carefully on the table. “Because of Ahab?”

“I don't know. I just can't.”

“You know, Terry says Ahab just ‘went off on a toot.' It's what the British say when dogs decide to leave home for a bit. Isn't that adorable? His parents' beagle goes off on toots all the time. And he
always
comes back unscathed. Listen, I'm
sorry
about Ahab. I know what he meant to you. But it's too early to give up hope. And I don't mean to rush you into finishing the bathroom. I just think you ought to follow it through. Isn't it time? Besides, maybe it will help take your mind off things.”

The bell jingles then, and I look up from my coffee to see Father Chet striding through the door. I don't think I've talked to him since the memorial service. He catches my eye, smiles, and approaches our table. My heart stops beating. Five seconds. Six seconds. It beats again, furiously at first.

“Father Chet,” I say. “What are you doing here?”

“I thought Murtonen's Muffinry could use some color,” he says. He tips back his head and laughs. “Hello, Row-sel-
len
. I have not seen you in a long while.”

I try to give him a little smile. “Likewise. Nice to see you.”

He nods at Gail, then bends forward a little and whispers something in French. It sounds like
noose um blah blah blah.

“I don't know what that means, Father,” I say.