The Mountaintop School for Dogs and Other Second Chances (3 page)

I smelled bacon.

M
RS. AUBERCHON WAS
in the kitchen, getting ready to make oatmeal for the guest. She'd sent a message to the Sanctuary asking for information, but so far nothing had come. Maybe they'd predicted among themselves the new girl wouldn't last, which Mrs. Auberchon had told herself one minute after meeting her.

She wouldn't last a week. She might even be gone by tomorrow. She'd almost been gone today!

Mrs. Auberchon's back was to the doorway. The sound of a “hi” made her turn around. She'd forgotten to close the door.

“You're off-limits, miss,” she announced. “This is a private area.”

But the girl did not apologize and back away like they always did. She leveled her gaze and stayed put. She had a spine to her. If Mrs. Auberchon didn't know how old she was, she'd have taken her, at first glance, for a teenage runaway. They hadn't had one of those for a while: lost souls with that sad way of children pretending to be grown-ups, making their way to the Sanctuary because of some ad they'd sugared in their fantasies to be the answer to a longing, a dream, a prayer. And here they'd be again within days or even hours of starting their training programs. They'd come down off the mountain smelling like dog breath and wet fur, complaining that the work was too hard, the illusion too shattered, like Dorothys who never found Oz and didn't have a Kansas to go back to. They'd disappear when Mrs. Auberchon said no to pleadings for free lodging. She'd point the way to the bus, and they'd tell her she was hard, she was mean, she thought animals were more important than people.

“I smelled the bacon,” said the girl.

The bacon was for Mrs. Auberchon's own breakfast. These were the last slices she had until her next shopping day. She was looking forward to a sandwich and the last of the Florida oranges from a box a rescue group sent to the Sanctuary as a gift. The box had mistakenly arrived at the inn; she'd felt she deserved to take a few for herself. She also had the last slice of a coffee cake with walnuts and raisins from Mrs. Walzer, the woman who baked the Sanctuary's treats. Her own meals were never the same as the meals she served to guests.

“I'll bring your tray to the lobby,” said Mrs. Auberchon. “You can have it there or take it upstairs. Your choice. We haven't got a dining room, in case you were looking for one.”

Still the girl didn't move.

She didn't grow up wanting, observed Mrs. Auberchon. She was city, or maybe city-close suburban. Good teeth, good complexion. Short, thick, light-brown hair. Long neck, high cheekbones, high forehead. She was skinny, but not like one of those anorexics. Her clothes had to be petites. No frills. Mrs. Auberchon never went into the bunkroom when it was occupied, but if she did, she knew she wouldn't find makeup things with this girl. She was not like some of them, who'd spend an hour putting stuff on, then come back all upset to do it over because a dog had licked their faces.

A college girl. Mrs. Auberchon could always tell. They'd had them before, fancy degrees in some subject you can't do anything with except think about it, and then there's nothing to show for it later but unemployment. Was coming here an act of escape? Was she putting something behind her, some tragedy, some heartbreak? She wasn't a runaway, although she certainly did seem lost. She was probably often nervous. She was . . .

Sad. But not like depression. She was sad like she didn't know a way to be anything else.

Yes, that was it. Funny how you can tell, when they're still young, if they were children who knew what it was like to be loved, just loved, just taking it for granted that a mother or father or both would of course be always saying, “I completely love it that you're my child.” It was the same way with dogs. Everyone connected to the Sanctuary could tell in one minute if a new dog had ever been loved, not that they got many who had. It was something in the way they looked at you, something in their eyes that wasn't blank.

“What's it like up there? At the Sanctuary, I mean.”

“Oh, I wouldn't be able to tell you firsthand,” said Mrs. Auberchon. “I've never gone.”

“I guess you haven't been here long.”

“It's a little over ten years now.”

That was as far as Mrs. Auberchon was willing to go with talking about herself. She had a rule of never confiding in guests. She'd already gone too far. Maybe the girl sensed this, maybe not. Her next question was impersonal.

“I was wondering, about the sled puppies, how did the kid with the Jeep get the sled back up the mountain?”

“On the roof rack.”

“Oh.”

The girl looked mad at herself for failing to notice that the Jeep had a roof rack. Where had Mrs. Auberchon seen that look before? In mirrors.

“I was wondering about Shadow too,” said the girl. “Did he come down by himself, like the puppies? Without a human, I mean.”

“Oh, the dogs aren't allowed to roam around on their own. The Sanctuary has volunteers.”

Again the look, even harsher, sterner. That did it. With a sigh, Mrs. Auberchon pointed to a chair at the small table in the corner. She didn't have it in her to explain that there was no need for this girl to meet anyone from the Sanctuary she didn't have to, seeing as how
she wasn't going to last.

“I guess you can come in and sit down,” said Mrs. Auberchon.

She poured a cup of coffee and put out milk instead of the nondairy creamer she kept for guests. She put her shaker of sugar on the table, not the tiny paper packets.

Then over at the stove, she happened to glance at the girl in time to see her lift the shaker and aim it at her mug. But at the last minute she seemed to change her mind. Sugar spilled out on the flowered oilcloth runner, a little heap of it.

Mrs. Auberchon didn't mention it. She didn't want to be critical. She didn't want to be mean. She apologized for having no eggs, and fixed a bacon sandwich quickly, with deli cheese, not guests-only Kraft slices. The toast was from her good loaf, not the supermarket brand in the freezer. She placed the Florida orange on a dessert plate, with the piece of cake.

The girl was ravenous. There was no further talking. Mrs. Auberchon washed the frying pan, then went out to the back to clean up the poop from the huskies. When she returned to the kitchen to see how the girl was doing, she was good and prepared for the smile she expected—a smile and a thank-you and a warm little glow. Maybe, she was thinking, this would be an all-right time to break her rule of never starting a conversation with a guest. She had realized she didn't know the girl's name. Of course she'd have to ask. Maybe the girl would like another cup of coffee. Maybe . . .

The chair was empty. On the table, the orange peels were tidily stacked on a paper napkin. On the plate were bread crumbs, orange pips, a few fatty bits of bacon, plus raisins picked out of the cake. Mrs. Auberchon had forgotten about the spilled sugar until she saw it again. But this time it was in a line: a white filament, like dry snow, between the daisies of her oilcloth. The line was perfectly straight, as if formed with a sharp, flat tool. Why would that be there? Was the sugar spilled on purpose, arranged this way? Why didn't the girl clean it up?

Well I never, Mrs. Auberchon was thinking. She had a natural dislike of anything that didn't make sense. And look what happens when you're nice to someone! Messes! She had worried this girl was sad! She'd felt bad for her like a dog who never was loved! She rushed for a sponge. That girl didn't thank her for the special breakfast! She would never be invited to this table again!

W
HEN WAS I
going up the mountain? I couldn't find Mrs. Auberchon to ask. No one else was employed here. No other guests had checked in.

I'd left messages on the Sanctuary's voicemail. I only had one phone number, and it went to an automated message the four times I called. The only way to email them was through their website. My messages had not been answered.

I was starting to feel a little frantic. I had to be careful with myself. I knew what could happen if, suddenly, my new self disappeared, perhaps for forever. I didn't want to be lost. I thought I had already cemented that with myself. I wanted to be the Evie who fell asleep with her head full of dogs, not the Evie who panicked and went for giving up. I wanted to be the Evie who found the Sanctuary's website in the first place, like a dog who's good at searches.

I didn't want to be the Evie who disappeared. In the program I was in, I had told a counselor that I felt I suffered from multiple personality disorder. I'd done some reading on it. I had thought I laid out a good case, like the Evie who'd gotten into what I'd gotten into was not the real me. And what did she tell me? First, “Sorry, but you're not an MP, Evie.” Then she pointed out that I had just described to her the life of a little girl who had parents in different houses because of a split, and the split kept going on and on, and I had given the whole description without using the words
parents, divorce, multiple homes,
and
little girl,
which she thought was pretty clever of me. And I sat there thinking, fuck, she looked in my file. I sort of had poured out an awful lot to the intake worker when I entered that program. I didn't remember most of it.

I never went back to that counselor. She'd also told me to do a certain thing whenever I felt I was on the edge of tipping over into something awful, as if the earth had just wobbled the wrong way and no one but me got thrown off. She told me to go somewhere quiet and be alone with myself and hug myself.

I was stunned. I had just told her what it was like for me to feel I was disappearing. I'd compared it to being alone in the vastness of space, without anyone knowing where I'd gone, and there isn't oxygen and I can't see the light of even one star, and she tells me to hug myself?

But I did it.

It was afternoon at the inn. I was alone and I was doing it again, curled up on my bunk, my right hand on the side of my left shoulder, my left hand on the side of my right. I kept telling myself, I'm a grown-up in the world, I'm a grown-up in the world. I'm a
hatchling.
I just came out of an
egg.

Then the sound of the Jeep woke me from a nap I had not meant to take.

It was gone by the time I made it downstairs, but I didn't have to worry about my next plan of action. There was nothing for me to do but get into my jacket and boots and hat and gloves and go outdoors to the side yard and look at the dog in the pen. Now I knew it was a pen, not a playground for toddlers.

The dog was a black short-hair with a white chest, white muzzle, and white patch from between his eyes to his nose. He was fairly large, and bull-solid. I found the notes on him propped up by the fence gate, in a paper-size sleeve of clear plastic.

He paced back and forth on one path across the middle of the pen, over and over. Every time he reached a certain section of fencing, he stopped, sat down, raised his right paw, and whacked the fence sideways, with the motion of a tennis player's backhand. The chainlink rattled slightly every time. When the fence didn't fall as he seemed to expect it to, he got up and turned around and started over.

 

Hank. Male, neutered after arrival. Labrador/Pit. Approximate age of five. Weight is seventy-one. History unknown. No information. Was left anonymously at a shelter which lacked resources for treating/sustaining him. Outlook for adoption: zero. Level of aggression remains high. Do not introduce in his presence until further notice any hand-held wooden object such as fire logs and kindling, including sticks of any length. Do not walk in tree area before checking first for fallen branches. Currently under mild sedation, to be maintained until further notice.

 

Back and forth he went, back and forth, his feet landing every time in the same paw prints. He kept striking the chainlink with the same amount of force. His expression didn't change, so I couldn't tell what his disappointment was like. He took no notice of me, but when I neared the fence, he growled.

I wished I could have thought of a way to make contact with him. I wished I could have told him, “As you can see, I'm not a dog, but I think I know how you feel.”

I hadn't dressed warmly enough. I needed another sweater. I wanted to stay outdoors to wait for the Jeep to appear again, for surely it would. Back inside I went.

In the lobby, Mrs. Auberchon was putting wood in the stove. She looked over her shoulder at me. I asked if I could warm my boots by the heat, and she nodded and said, “I haven't done the shopping. What you had for lunch, you'll be having for supper, just to let you know.”

Lunch was awful. I'd found it on a tray outside the bunk door: kidney beans from a can cooked in chicken broth from a can, with corn and peas that also came from cans. But I ate all of it, and the too salty saltines, and the bowl of syrupy peach slices tasting more like a can than like peaches. I decided not to complain.

“I'll probably be leaving for the Sanctuary before supper,” I said. “Don't you think so?”

Mrs. Auberchon answered with a shrug. In her hand was a split log. The sight of it made me so nervous, I couldn't say another word. I took off my boots and left my gloves there too. So I was in my socks when I went upstairs, and my hands were bare.

A little dog was on my bunk.

I guessed the gender to be female. She was lying there curled up, eyes closed, ears relaxed, breathing serenely. She was small and white, with light dustings of beige. Her ear flaps were short. She was bigger than a pug, smaller than a spaniel, and thick all over—not plump but small-scale bulky. She had short legs and pointy little feet, and a coat neither long nor short, like a lawn that isn't tidy but could go a while longer without mowing. Her fur looked coarse, but to the touch it was soft, as I discovered when I went to her, to pat her and say hello.