What the Dog Ate (5 page)

She went to her closet and grabbed
a laundry basket. Methodically, she scoured every room looking for things Dave
had been too forgetful or too lazy to take. The shelves under the TV yielded a
testosterone-fest of DVDs; the office closet coughed up a collection of musty
college texts; his half of the bathroom cupboard held an assortment of
near-empty toiletries. She pulled photographs off the walls and out of
bookcases.

In their room, she stopped in front
of the large, abstract painting over the bed: a stylized seascape they’d bought
years ago on a trip to Maine. One of Maggie’s favorite vacation pastimes was
wandering local galleries looking for a special keepsake. This particular piece
had been their biggest splurge. Sometimes they would lie in bed and tilt their
heads up to look at it, especially if one of them had been through a
particularly bad day. They’d snuggle together and remember their “Happy Place”
where they’d taken long walks on the windswept beaches. It hurt to look at it
now. She thought about taking it down. But she thought the giant empty space on
the wall would only make her feel worse; remind her of the gaping hole in her
life.

She turned away from it and was
confronted by the eight-by-ten from their wedding, hanging on the opposite
wall. She pulled it down and studied it. They were so young. Dave’s jet black
hair hid his ears; her auburn curls cascaded over her shoulders. They were so
happy. When a fat tear splattered on the glass, she dropped the picture into
her collection basket, and then bundled all of it into bags in the garage. She
resisted the temptation to set the lot of it on fire and decided that, for now,
just having it out of the house would have to do.

Back inside, she went into the
office and turned on the computer. She plugged in her iPod, found “their” song,
I Got You Babe
, and deleted it.
What
a stupid song
. But at least it was the UB40 and Chrissie Hynde version;
much cooler than the original by Sonny & Cher. And it had seemed
appropriate at the time. They were young and didn’t know. And they couldn’t pay
the rent. And they did grow. Apart.

Maggie sighed.
Need
to pull myself together. I’ve got shit to do. I’ve gotta cancel the cleaning
service. Need to save money and I’ll have time to do it myself now, anyway. And
I need a lawyer, a real estate agent... a new life. What do I look under in the
Yellow Pages for
that
?

~~~

Her last day at BioHealth, Maggie
made it through her goodbye party with only a few tears as she hugged the
members of her team. She tried to be oh-so-professional while shaking William’s
hand.
Never know when you might need a reference. Don’t
burn those bridges. Fight those pyro desires
... She gritted her teeth
and thanked him for “everything.”

She walked out of the building for
the last time carrying the paltry remains of all the time, energy, and life
blood she’d put into the place. It amounted to a wedge of carrot cake wrapped
in foil and a cardboard box of crap: a mug, ceramic coaster, and baseball hat,
all with the BioHealth logo; a framed photo of her staff hamming it up at the
Christmas party; and an assortment of goofy “from all of us” birthday cards
that marked the passing years she’d spent there.

She sat in her car, unsure what she
was feeling. Regret? Excitement? Relief?

God, I hope I’m
doing the right thing. This seemed like a great idea when I thought Dave might
come back. But now, I’m going to have all this free time... and no one to spend
it with
. She looked back at the building as she started the ignition.
No. It’s better this way. That job was sucking the life out of
me. I’m going to make a new life now. Right?
She watched the lights of
the office recede in her rearview mirror as she drove away.

On the way home, Maggie replayed
William’s “greatest hits” of irritating moments, to reassure herself she was
doing the right thing. She snapped out of it when she saw a glowing Safeway
sign and remembered that after seeing Dave at the grocery store she’d left
without getting the last, yet most important, item on her list. She couldn’t
get through the coming weekend without it: ice cream.

After picking up several pints of
her favorites, an idea struck her. She strode to the meat section and grabbed a
package of thick center-cut bacon. She hadn’t bought bacon in seventeen years
because Dave had stopped eating it shortly after they got married. She went
home and made herself a gigantic BLT for dinner. She even cooked two slices for
Kona.

Damn Dave. Poor
dog’s never even tasted bacon
.

Maggie spent most of Sunday morning
lying on her favorite roost, the sofa. It beat being upright and trumped the
bed, where she felt the keen absence of Dave from “his side.” She could lie
still on the couch for hours. Although sometimes she tried different positions,
to break things up: feet on the arm, feet off the edge, face down, fetal,
laid-to-rest.

What if I lay
here and never got up?
She stared at the ceiling, hands folded on her
chest.
Pros: Dave would feel guilty when he saw my name in
the obits.
He’d
have to deal with selling the house.
It’s one way out of accounting
...

Kona ambled over and snuffled her
ear.

Cons: Dave
would get Kona. It might be a while before anyone found me. Would Kona eat my
dead body?

“Would you, Kona? Would you eat
your momma?”

He trotted away and rummaged in his
toy basket. He came back with his ball. She rested her hand on his head, said
“Sorry, Buddy,” and rolled over to face the back of the couch. She was nodding
off when the phone rang.

“Mags, come on, pick up.” Kevin.
“Please? OK, that’s it. I’m coming over there.”

She’d better answer. Better to talk
to him than have company. “Sorry, I was outside.”

“Hey, you’re there. Good. I, uh,
wanted to see how you’re doing.” He paused and when she didn’t say anything,
went on. “I’ve got Padres tickets for this afternoon. I know it’s kinda last
minute, but what do you say? Come have a dog and a beer with me?”

“I’m not feeling too good. I was
just taking a nap.”

“Oh, OK. Well, maybe we could go
out to dinner this week?”

“I’m starting a new job, so...” She
trailed off. She didn’t want to lie outright and say she’d be busy. She was
starting a new job—but not for two weeks. He didn’t need to know Clean N’ Green
asked her to start June first. “I’ll call you when things are calmer. But,
thanks.”

It was sweet of him, but she didn’t
want to go. Didn’t want to get dressed, wash her hair, abandon her slippers.
Didn’t want to chat or pretend things were normal. And she couldn’t really talk
to him. Not at a ballgame. And not without crying.

Maggie and Shannon had analyzed
their brother many times, mainly trying to figure out why he never stayed with
the women he dated. They hadn’t come up with an answer. But one thing that was
easy to pinpoint was the reason for his extreme discomfort around crying women.

When Dad had died so young of a
heart attack (Maggie always thought of it as a “heart ambush,” since they might
have seen an attack coming), she’d been a freshman, living in the dorms at San
Diego State, two hours away from home in L.A. Shannon had been spending her
last semester of high school in Paris on exchange. She’d come home for two
weeks but they’d all decided that Dad would want her to go back. That meant
Kevin, only thirteen, was left home alone with Mom. They knew he’d tried to
help, but she was devastated. How could she not be? And Kevin was just a kid,
ill-equipped to deal with their mother’s grief. He’d seen enough of a woman’s
tears to float an armada; enough to last his lifetime.

Maggie remembered a time he showed
up for dinner without his latest girlfriend.

“Where’s Cindy?” she’d asked.

“We went to a matinee of
Happy Gilmore
. And she cried.”

“She cried at an Adam Sandler
movie?”

“Yeah. You know the part where his
dead mentor, the alligator and Abe Lincoln all wave at him from the beyond? She
said it was ‘
so
touching.’ I took her home and broke
up with her.”

As Maggie hung up, she thought, that’s
why he thought of baseball; there’s no crying at Adam Sandler movies and
there’s no crying at ballgames.

She took advantage of her momentum
and gathered a load of whites. She couldn’t put it off, having pulled on her
last clean pair of underwear that morning.

Something caught her eye as she
shoved clothes in the machine. A dress sock of Dave’s hid between the washer
and dryer. Even after her purging, reminders of him lurked everywhere: the
switch plate in their bathroom, cracked because he’d tightened it too hard;
their dark leather sofa (she’d wanted the sage green velvety one, but Dave
hated it; she’d had to settle for velvet throw pillows); the monolithic TV in
their bedroom (she’d have let him take it if she hadn’t been so angry; she
planned to put it on craigslist). Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad to sell the
house; escape the memories. Easier though to just trade places with that sock;
crawl into a dark nook.

I’m reduced to
feeling jealous of a sock
.

She threw it in the trash and
started the washer. She leaned against the cool metal machine, gathering energy
for the trek back to the sofa. Kona peeked around the corner with his favorite
stuffed rabbit in his mouth, eyes wide with the hope of a game. The corners of
Maggie’s mouth flitted upward, a brief happy blip on the radar of her face.

She squatted down and he offered
her the rabbit. She tugged at it gently. “I’m sorry I’ve been ignoring you,
Buddy. How about a walk?”

His ears perked up. She didn’t feel
like it—out the window to the west San Diego’s “May gray” afternoon clouds
rolled in off the ocean, matching her mood—but she felt guilty. Kona would race
around the yard now and then, but mostly he moped around the house with her.

Although it was cloudy in the west,
the sun still shone in the neighborhood. She hunted for her sunglasses, but
couldn’t find them. An old pair would have to do. She grabbed her Padres cap
off the shelf of the closet, pulled it low, and they headed out.

She heard kids screaming “not it!”
in a backyard; the whir of a lawnmower. The cut-grass scent wafted toward them.
Maggie normally loved this type of quintessential spring Sunday. But today she
searched the western sky, ready for the clouds to smother everything in a damp blanket.

As they walked past the oleanders
bordering his property, Maggie saw her neighbor, an old man in a seersucker
shirt and plaid Bermudas, stop short with his mower, watching them.

“Hello Mr. Gunderson. Hello, Pip.”
She greeted the poodle who sashayed over and rubbed noses with Kona through the
fence.

Mr. Gunderson opened his mouth. He
seemed flustered. Was it possible he knew about Dave, was he going to say
something?

I don’t want to
talk to this man about my personal life
. She tugged at Kona’s collar,
but he sniffed furiously at the fence post.
Damn dog. Knew
we should’ve stayed home
. An abundance of pee-mail must have built up in
his absence from his route, and Kona seemed determined to catch up on all of
it.

“You, um...” Mr. Gunderson pointed
at her, then moved his hand, with its gnarled tree root fingers, to his straw
hat and tipped it at her. “Enjoy your walk.”

Kona added a reply to the post and
pulled Maggie in search of further correspondence.

Odd. Thought he
was going to say something more
.

The Freedmans, who lived across
from her, drove past in their minivan. Mrs. Freedman pointed and her husband
turned to look at Maggie.

What the heck?
She walked behind Kona, distracted.
Wait a minute; I bet
they all know. They must have seen That Woman coming and going while I was away
.
Maggie imagined that skinny stick, mincing up to the door in a mini skirt and
cropped T-shirt that read, “I’m just here for the adultery.”
For God’s sake, Dave, the neighbors knew before I did! I bet
they’ve all been gossiping about what a fool I am
.

Once home, Kona headed to his water
bowl; Maggie went to the powder room to wash her hands. In the mirror, she
found her missing glasses. She must have set them on top of her cap last time,
then pulled off the hat, along with her shades, and tossed it in the closet.
Her reflection showed a pair of sunglasses over her eyes, while a second pair
sat on the brim of her hat.

Ohmygod. That’s
what Mr. G. was gonna say; that’s why the Freedmans pointed. They weren’t
feeling sorry for you or gossiping, you idiot
. She laughed at her
ridiculous image for a second, then watched her face crumple into sobs,
realizing it didn’t matter whether the neighbors knew or not. The truth was
that
she
knew what had gone on in her house.

Repulsed by the pathetic figure in
the glass, she snapped out of her crying jag faster than usual. She resolved
the next time she started to cry to go stand in front of the mirror.

~~~

Monday morning, her first official
day without a job, Maggie woke at five. She wondered why the alarm hadn’t gone
off; then remembered she hadn’t set it. Didn’t her body know she had nowhere to
go? No one waiting for her? She’d hoped to sleep through most of the morning,
but now, here she was awake. And aware that no one was concerned with her whereabouts.
She wanted to go back to sleep, but knew there’d be no returning to sweet
unconsciousness without the siren song of some serious sedatives.