Pug Hill (20 page)

I look over at him and he’s smiling; a really cute, really boyish smile by the way, and his teeth aren’t banged up at all, the way I tend to sometimes think British teeth might be. I try not to think how in so many of the books I’ve read, how the love interest is
always
British, how the happy ending
always
involves a cute British guy. But I do.

I smile back at him and then I
cahnt
really think of what to say, which isn’t so unusual because I can’t think of what to say a lot of the time. And so I just smile again, and he smiles back, and I can’t help wondering if maybe this is how it happens, if maybe this is how my search ends. I think how cinematic it would be, what a great ending this would make to the movie I would so prefer my life to be. Imagine: if after all my years of coming to Pug Hill, I meet someone, who by virtue of being British is, of course, happy-ending preapproved, and who also likes to just come to Pug Hill to sit here and see the pugs.

“Do you quite like pugs then?” he asks.

“I do,” I say and smile again, still. I feel a little funny and I wonder if this is how a person feels when she knows that her search for love is over, when she knows that everything is going to turn out okay. I’m not sure how, but I think I always imagined that it would have felt somewhat different from this.

“Pugs were quite a big thing for the duke and duchess of Windsor, you know,” he says.

“Indeed,” I say. And I know that
indeed
is sort of a British thing to say and that, as you know, I am not British. I am just caught up in the moment, in the so-close-to-perfect-ness of the moment.

“My wife misses England a lot and I thought a proper pug might do the trick, because of the duke and duchess,” he says and smiles at me so sweetly. I think,
Of course he has a wife,
and then I think how I wish it weren’t true. I stare out at the hill and I think that there is a reason people should wear wedding rings, so that people like me will know that while they are handsome and David Duchovny-like and have a nice accent along with the bonus of nice teeth and are admiring of pugs and talking to me, they are also FUCKING TAKEN!

“Yeah,” I say, “that’s a good idea,” and that’s a good thing to say. It works out well because I imagine to him, it sounds like I am talking about the procuring of a pug for his homesick British wife, even though I’m not.

I smile somewhat feebly and we both go back to looking at the pugs. After about five uncomfortable minutes—minutes that I imagine are probably more uncomfortable for me than they are for him—he turns back toward me and says, “I don’t think I could
stahnd
the exposed arsehole day after bloody day.”

Apparently, my thinking for that one brief, exhilarating moment that he was my soul mate and then finding out that he was, of course, not, was not enough in terms of disappointment for one afternoon.

I look at him even though I don’t want to anymore, and he is actually
sneering,
disdainfully I might add, at all the beautiful pugs. And even as prone to jumping to conclusions as I am, I just can’t believe that I thought, for even the fleetingest of fleeting moments, that he might have been my British chick-lit happy-ending soul mate. Whoever my soul mate may be, I know that at the very least, he has to like pugs. Even if only dorky guys like pugs, like Pamela says. I’m wondering if it would be rude if I stood up right now. I wonder where’d I go though because I don’t want to leave Pug Hill on this note. But I also would really
rahther
not stay here with him anymore.

He sighs. “I think I’ll have to find a proper British breed.

“Maybe a mastiff,” he says after he’s given it a moment of thought. And even though I don’t want to talk to this man anymore, even though I kind of hate him, I feel, for the sake of English mastiffs everywhere, that I need to jump in.

“Don’t pick an English mastiff,” I say. “The city isn’t good for them.”

He cocks his head to the side, looks at me quizzically. “Because they’re so large?”

“Well, that,” I say.

“I see plenty of large dogs in the city,” he counters.

“No, the thing you don’t know is that besides it being hard to be such a large dog in the city, English mastiffs scare easily.”

“How do you know?” he asks. I do not in fact know if English mastiffs really do scare easily, I only know that Boswell did.

“We had one, my family, when I was growing up,” I explain.

“And she scared easily?”

“Oh, she really did,” I say. “Let me tell you about Boswell.” I turn more fully toward him, sit up a little straighter on the bench. I take a breath and make eye contact. Somewhere in the background it occurs to me that I am, in fact, about to make a speech, but that’s overshadowed by the fact that I need to tell him about Boswell.

“Fine name, by the way,” he says and I think, but don’t say, “Let’s try not to interrupt.” I think back to the time in my life that was all about Boswell.

Boswell came from New Hope. New Hope, Pennsylvania, that is, not New Hope, me. I was only four years old at that point, not so much had happened to awaken me to the longings to be a new person. Something flashes in the British guy’s eyes, I think it might be impatience.

I begin. “My mom found Boswell in New Hope, Pennsylvania. She went antiquing there one weekend and the antique dealers were dog breeders, too. We already had dogs: Morgan, a Saint Bernard; Adelaide, a bulldog; an English bulldog”—I hate to get off track but hope he takes note of the English part because maybe a bulldog would be a better idea for him—“and Mischief, a French poodle. When my mom called to try to get my dad to see the light about how a fourth dog, a soon-to-be-two-hundred-pound dog, was indeed a very good idea, she just kept repeating again and again how Boswell was magnificent. ‘She’s magnificent,’ my mom said again and again. ‘Such a regal quality to her gait, such a soulfulness to her eyes.’ ”

I want to close my eyes for a minute. I know that if I did, I’d be able to hear my mom’s voice, the mom of my childhood so many years ago, and I want to hear that. But the British guy doesn’t look quite as wrapped up in the story as I am. I figure an important part of public speaking, of a lot of things, actually, might be knowing when to get to the point.

“So, right, Boswell came home,” I continue, “and she was magnificent, she really was, but everything scared her and even though she’d been touted, in New Hope, as a wonderful watchdog, once Mom got her home, she spent the majority of her time underneath the kitchen table, chattering her teeth. And this was in the
suburbs.
”

I talk more about Boswell, about how magnificent everyone thought she was—how breathtaking everyone agreed—but so much more than that, how sweet to everyone she was, how loving she was, although she was perhaps not the sharpest tool in the shed. As I talk about Boswell, as the British guy listens rather attentively, I forget that I just decided that I hate him, and then decide that I don’t. I change my mind in honor of Boswell, because even though she may not have understood all that much, if Boswell understood anything, I like to believe she understood love.

“I see.”

“And I think it was hard on Boswell, harder still when, because of the magnificence and all, Mom decided to show her. She literally had to be carried out of the showring, and we think it was a long time after that until she was the same.”

“They are quite handsome dogs,” he says, and I agree that mastiffs are indeed quite handsome dogs, but I worry that even with my speech, I may not have changed his mind. Still though, I am inclined to give credit where credit is due.

“Boswell was very pursued by the neighborhood dogs,” I say this because it was true, and also, I throw it in as a deterrent. “That might get kind of difficult at the dog run.” Though tempted, I leave out the long part about the year and a half that Boswell spent pursued by Cosgrove, a ne’er-do-well mutt who lived down the street. I leave out the part about how Boswell had a hysterical pregnancy and went into hysterical labor on Christmas morning.

“Just like the baby Jesus!” Grammy McNeill had exclaimed, before we realized the puppies weren’t coming.

“Oh, Jesus,” Nana had said.

“Ah,” he smiles, indulging me. “Maybe it’s not the best city dog.” I smile back and I think it’s nice that he said that. I think also that there must be something in the air at Pug Hill. Here, you can be a bit crazy about dogs and their memories, and people won’t necessarily run from you as if you are insane.

“Well, it was a pleasure meeting you.” He pauses, and it occurs to me for the first time that I don’t know his name.

“Hope.” I reach out my hand.

He shakes it and says, “Marcus.”

“Nice to meet you, too. Good luck with the dog search.”

He stands and puts his hands into his pockets. We say good-bye and he turns to go, without a last glance at the pugs. I watch him for a while as he walks west, over another hill. I turn back to the pugs and pull my coat tighter around me. I think of love, not because of the British guy, of course not because of the British guy, but because of Boswell and her star-crossed love with Cosgrove, because if Boswell believed in anything I like to think she believed in love.

I take one last look at the pugs and get up myself and walk back toward home. I’ll meet Pamela soon for coffee, and then I’ll go home and get ready for the week. I’ll practice reading out loud for class on Thursday. I’ll stand very straight in front of my mirror, I’ll take deep breaths. I’ll make eye contact, even if it’s only with myself. I’ll Take the Room even if I’m the only one in it, because like so many things, it’s a start.

All week, I’ve gotten into work early each day and stayed late each night. I have not out-clocked Elliot, but I have put in many respectable hours on the Rothko. I’ve been here more than Sergei has. I’ve told myself that I’m spending all this time at work because I am diligent and dedicated, not because I am bucking for a promotion, because I don’t want to, all of a sudden, be competitive in the midst of all these things—good at being single, good at public speaking—that I now must endeavor to be. I have told myself that I have spent so much extra time in the Conservation Studio this week because I need to finish the red part of my Rothko, not because Elliot is here and so nice to look at across a room. I have told myself that I am here for all these reasons, but not because I suspect Pamela may have been trying to tell me that as solitary as I like to be, I might just be no good at being single.

As the Express 4 train hurtles from Eighty-sixth Street to Union Square, as I walk down lower Fifth Avenue, I think of how much I have practiced, of how many times I have read my poem over and over again. I feel like I’ve done my homework, and that’s always been a feeling I’ve enjoyed. I walk, almost confidently, into room 502. I’m ready.

I head for my seat, and I notice that there is a video camera set up in the back of the room.

There is a video camera.
I take a deep breath. I wonder if it would be simultaneously overzealous and kind of embarrassing to do The Lion in an attempt to calm myself. I decide that it would be. I sit down and turn around halfway in my chair-desk. I stare transfixed at the video camera, letting the gravity of the situation sink in.

There is a video camera in the back of the classroom.
It’s on a professional stand. It’s hooked up by a bunch of wires to a VCR that’s sitting on a cart behind it. There is a man with a goatee wearing a short sleeve T-shirt over a long sleeve T-shirt. He is looking through the video camera and fiddling with the lens. There is a video camera in the back of the classroom and it is freaking me the fuck out.

Beth Anne closes the door and I turn the right way in my chair, looking quickly around at the rest of the class as I do. Martine is not here. I wonder if it might be because of the complete absence of lactating women in the class. Lawrence has moved in closer in the horseshoe and has taken her seat. This makes me think she’s not possibly late but that she’s really not coming back. I have no idea why, but I think it’s too bad that she’s gone. Lawrence is wearing a bright white sweater; it makes me think immediately of nothing else but Clorox. Amy is here looking angry as always, and next to her is Lindsay, looking meek. With his legs stretched out in front of him, looking as handsome as he did before his frat-boy, dude-filled personality was revealed, is Alec. Rachel is back again, too, looking a little freaky.

“Claaaaaass,” Beth Anne says, stretching the word all out, making it sound grander and bigger and more important a word than it actually is. I can’t help thinking that maybe she is saying it like that because our class, once much larger than this, is now quite small.

“It looks ...” She pauses to glance at the clock and then stares back at us. “It seems that some of our friends might not be joining us tonight.” She turns to her desk and peruses a list on her clipboard. There is something in the angle of her neck, the bowing motion of her head as she studies the list that puts me in mind of a moment of silence.