Earnest (12 page)

C
HAPTER
21

A
nna was putting together a Weep-No-More bouquet of sunflowers for Edna Cartwright, whose husband, a freighter captain, had died of a heart attack on the way to Singapore. Edna's neighbors had gone together to order the flowers, and Anna wanted them to cheer her. She stroked the yellow petals and whispered, “Go out into the world and do your job.”

As she fluffed a matching bow around the Weep-No-More's vase, the phone rang.

“Can I order some flowers?” The man's voice was as rich as butterscotch. If he were a late-night radio host, women would fantasize about him.

“I take phone orders if you have a credit card,” Anna said.

“Do you deliver?”

“At the end of the day.”

“Great. I want you to take some flowers to my wife.”

“Any special occasion?”

“It's for a secret anniversary.”

“Oh . . .”
Secret!
Anna's imagination leapt to its feet. The flowers could mark the day he and his wife robbed their first bank, or divorced their former spouses and ran away together. If the latter, Anna could deliver the Humdinger or another of her specialties, the Floral Smooch. Anna also made an arrangement called the Golden Glow, of orange gerberas, gold cushion mums, and red daisies. That would work.

“What flowers would your wife like?” she asked.

“I'm not sure.”

Anna searched her mental catalog. He'd make it easier if he told her what the secret was—but, then, maybe she didn't want to know. “Do you want roses? Lilies? I could do a mix.”

“I'll leave it up to you.”

Yikes
.

Anna took the man's credit-card number and home address. He told her that his card should say, “Remember, Sweetheart?” He added, “Don't forget the question mark.”

Later, Anna was still trying to decide what bouquet best fit a question mark, when Joy showed up in pink skinny jeans and a black lace top. “Where's Earnest?” she asked.

“At the library. Today's his day to encourage kids to read aloud,” Anna said.

“Right. I forgot.” Joy settled on the stool next to the counter and rested her hands on her knees. “Slow day. All I've sold are a few motley birthday cards. I'm trying not to get freaky about my poverty.”

“You'll sell some gifts tomorrow.” Anna brushed ribbon trimmings into a pile on her counter. “I need some help. A man just ordered his wife flowers for a secret anniversary. I can't decide what to put together.”

“What's the secret?”

“He didn't say. I was thinking the day they eloped.”

“Way too tame. It's got to be more delicious. Sex has to be in there somewhere.” Joy held out her hand, palm down, and examined her coral-pink polished nails. “At the very least it's the first time they made love. Maybe in some weird place like a hot air balloon or on a McDonald's bathroom floor.”

The wheels of Anna's mind began to turn. “In a Macy's fitting room. Under the bed. On a golf course. In an aerial tram.”

“You got it. Now what about flowers?” Joy asked.

“Some dark, exotic ones. Black calla lilies. Queen of the Night tulips.”

“Queen of the Night would fit right in for sure,” Joy said.

Anna rested her fists akimbo and shook her head. “The problem is my inventory's low. I don't have any dark, exotic flowers.”

“Make the Humdinger. If you gave that wife a dandelion and crabgrass bouquet, she'd be thrilled because her husband remembered the secret. The Twit never remembered anything. Including that I was his wife.”

Anna threw the cuttings from Mrs. Cartwright's sunflowers into a plastic garbage can and wiped her hands on her blue apron. When she glanced out the bay windows, she saw a man hammering a sign into the front yard. His beard looked like the fur of a cadaverous alley cat.

“Joy, look.” Anna went to the window between Constance and Edgar, who'd lately perked up.

Joy crossed the room and peered out. “Boy, would Lauren ever like to get her scissors on that ghastly beard. A whole family of hamsters must be nesting in it.”

“The sign can't be for politics. There's no election,” Anna said.

By the time she and Joy stepped outside, the man had put his hammer into his backpack and started down the street. The sign he'd left behind was plastic-coated poster board stapled to two stakes. Across the top was printed, NOTICE OF APPLICATIONS FOR DEMOLITION AND BUILDING PERMITS. Naomi Blackmore was listed as the applicant/owner, and Randy Grabowski as the head planner. The proposal was described: “Remove current residence and construct a commercial building.”

“I can't believe it,” Anna fumed.

“This makes it official. Those putrid worms,” Joy said.

“I feel sick.”

“It's no surprise. We already knew Jeff filed for Mrs. Scroogemore's permits.”

“This sign's a finger in our eye.” Anna could practically hear bulldozers flattening Grammy's house. She could smell dust and see wood scraps, glass shards, and brick rubble overflowing Dumpsters. “It's not fair.”

“Hey! I just bought us some kettle corn.” Lauren hurried down the sidewalk, wearing animal-print harem pants and her Salvation Army Eileen Fisher sweater. As she got closer, she stared at Anna's and Joy's faces. “Who died?”

“Look.” Anna pointed at the sign as if it housed flesh-eating bacteria. “It's Jeff.” As Lauren quickly read the sign, Anna added, “I'm not sure what we should do.”

Lauren put a soothing arm around Anna's shoulders. “We'll think of something. We'll fight.”

“But how?” Anna asked.

“Bring on the tar and feathers,” Joy suggested.

“We'll find a way, Anna. Don't worry. We must have months before they'd come after the house,” Lauren said.

“That sign can't hurt us. It's just words,” Joy said.

“Yes, but we have to stop Jeff,” Anna said.

“Here. Have some comfort food.” Lauren held out her bag of corn.

Anna popped a kernel into her mouth. “I want to rip down that sign and burn it.”

“That wouldn't accomplish anything,” Lauren said.

“It would show how mad I am,” Anna said.

“We have to keep calm and strategize,” Lauren said.

“And never give up.” Joy grabbed a lusty handful of corn and spilled kernels on the sidewalk.

Anna narrowed her eyes and said, “This is a fight to the finish.”

C
HAPTER
22

T
he office of the mediator, Lincoln Purcell, occupied the first floor of a white historic house, which looked like Mrs. Blackmore's minus the turret and plus five fluted columns, thick as telephone poles. His assistant escorted Jeff and Alan to a mahogany-paneled library. Though French doors looked out to a rose garden, the room was dark. At a trestle table in the center of the room, Jeff studied the floor-to-ceiling shelves of leather-bound books, their spines as stiff as his was.

Alan looked through notes on a yellow legal pad while Jeff listened to ticks of a grandfather clock. Anxious for the damned mediation to begin, he thrummed his fingers on the table—until he heard Anna's voice, then toenails clicking on oak.

“Earnest is here!” Jeff jumped to his feet to rush into the hall.

Alan grabbed Jeff 's sport coat sleeve and pulled him back into his chair.

“I want to see my dog. It's been six weeks,” Jeff protested.

“Shhhh,” Alan warned.

Too late.

Earnest barked, quick staccato barks, every one of which ended in an exclamation point.
I heard Jeff! He's here! He's here!
Earnest's nails skidded on the hardwood as he charged the library door.
It's me! Let me in! I want to see Jeff!

Again Jeff got up, and Alan yanked him down. “Don't go out there. You and Anna will fight. You can see Earnest later. Now's not the time.”

Jeff heard a gladiatorial shuffle of paws and feet and knew that Anna was tugging Earnest's collar and trying to lead him down the hall. Resisting, he cried and fought his way back to the door. He whimpered and sniffed at the crack underneath as if he couldn't get enough of Jeff's smell.

As Jeff ground his teeth, he shook hands with agony. It crowned every other awful feeling he'd had since moving from the condo. His best friend on earth was out there, and he'd doubtless concluded that Jeff didn't care enough to open the door. Hurting Earnest's feelings like that was torture.

“Come on, Earnest. Heel!” Anna sounded exasperated.

The more exasperation for her, the better,
Jeff thought.

Suddenly, Earnest let out a small but urgent shriek. Someone might have hit him or stepped on his paw.

Alan grabbed Jeff 's sleeve before he could leap up again. “Mad Dog must be out there,” Alan said barely loud enough for Jeff to hear over Earnest's protests.

“If he so much as touches my dog . . .” Jeff said.

“You've got to go with the flow today. Zen. One minute at a time. Let this play out,” Alan said.

Inside Jeff, wild horses reared back on their hind legs to stampede the hall, but his respect for Alan made him pull in their reins and stay seated. Still, his long separation from Earnest infuriated him. It had been Anna's power play, aided and abetted by Mad Dog.

As Anna dragged Earnest away, Jeff buried his face in his hands and seethed. Every cell in his body quivered with anger. How in hell had Anna manipulated him into this situation?

Lincoln Purcell lumbered into the library like an amiable grizzly. He had broad shoulders, a chest as thick as a refrigerator, and thighs like hams. Somewhere in his past had surely been a football. His round Harry Potter glasses rested on a nose that veered slightly to the left, perhaps broken by knocking heads with fellow bruisers on the field.

He greeted Jeff and Alan with handshakes strong enough to drain the life from flesh, then fit his heft into a Windsor chair at the table's head. “So we're going to try and work out Earnest's future today,” he began. And for the next few minutes the three men discussed Earnest as if they'd just met in a sports bar.

Purcell listened with enthusiastic ears, and Jeff relaxed. “You'd wear out your arm throwing sticks for Earnest. He's a black hole for retrieving,” Jeff said.

“You love him, don't you?” Purcell said.

“He's my family,” Jeff said.

Purcell leaned forward. He flattened his palms against the tabletop and spread out his fingers like asterisks.

“I've talked with Alan”—Purcell nodded at him—“and with Sheldon Horowitz, Anna's lawyer. So I have a good idea what brings you and Anna here today. I don't intend to dictate that one of you wins and the other loses. My role is to see you through the mediation process and try to help you help yourselves.”

“That's pretty much what Alan's told me,” Jeff said.

“I'm sure Alan also explained that I'm not the one making decisions about your agreement today. Neither are your lawyers. The outcome is entirely up to you and Anna. It's your responsibility to get beyond your conflict.”

“That's not possible when we hate each other,” Jeff said.

“But you both love Earnest.”

“That's why we're here.”

“Then let me explain why it's best for you to work this out with me.” Purcell reached into his pocket for a handkerchief and began cleaning his glasses' lenses. “If you don't come to an agreement, your only recourse is court, and a judge will be interested only in legal issues. He won't work out an accommodation like you two could do today, and I wouldn't be surprised if he'd rule that you and Anna had to share custody.”

Jeff slammed his hand on the table. “I refuse to share Earnest with her! And how the hell would she pay his expenses anyway?”

“Temper that. If the judge ordered you to share, you'd refuse at your peril,” Alan warned.

Someone on the street could have heard Jeff 's exhale of pent-up angry steam.
No way in hell will Anna get Earnest.

Purcell put on his glasses again and returned the handkerchief to his pocket. “Usually mediators keep parties in separate rooms, but I'd rather get you both in my office so you can work out what's best for Earnest together,” he said.

The last thing Jeff wanted was to sit in the same room with Anna. “Does she agree?”

“Yes,” Purcell said.

Jeff would have preferred vacationing in a garbage dump to talking with her, but at least he could see Earnest. “To hell with it. All right.”

 

When Jeff opened the door to Purcell's office, Earnest barked and whined and tore across the room. He took a flying leap, hurled himself at Jeff, and nearly knocked him down. Whimpering, Earnest bucked and thrashed and danced around Jeff 's legs. He circled Purcell's antique desk, wingback chairs, and oak file cabinets, and returned, wriggling with excitement. Jeff could hardly sweep him into his arms and hug him.

Oh, where have you been? I thought I'd never see you again,
said Earnest's whines. Jeff felt them as palpably as silk brushing his cheeks.
I love you! I've missed you! I'm thrilled you're here!

Jeff set him down and kneeled beside him. He buried his face in Earnest's neck and smelled his doggy smell. “My buddy,” he murmured. Jeff mentally promised him,
I'll never let Anna keep you from me again.

Purcell pulled out a chair for Jeff at the conference table and motioned to him that the meeting would start. Only when he took a seat next to Alan did he glance across the table at Anna and Mad Dog, a skinny runt whose audacity still made Jeff burn. He dismissed Mad Dog as too loathsome to consider, but he locked eyes with Anna, three feet away, the distance for quarantine, but not nearly far enough for Jeff. He intended for his glare to make her look away. But she glared back, defiant.

“Why don't you take turns telling each other in a polite, respectful way how you'd like to resolve your conflicting interests in Earnest,” Purcell said.

“That's easy,” Jeff blurted out as Earnest wriggled under the table and lay down between Jeff and Anna's rows of toes. It did not escape his notice that Earnest was touching him
and
Anna. To link them together again as a family? Or to block them from kicking each other?

“My resolution to the conflict is to walk out of here with Earnest and take him home with me where he belongs,” Jeff said through clenched teeth. “I adopted him. I have the papers. He's mine.”

Streaks of war-paint red appeared on Anna's pale cheeks. The tufts in her hair looked like small bayonets. Her eyes shot twelve-penny nails at Jeff. His shot them back.

“Anna? I expect you'd like to take Earnest home too?” Purcell asked.

“I want Earnest with me like he's always been. I watch after him. He sleeps in my bed. I take him to work. I don't want Jeff to disrupt his life.”

“You've disrupted his life by keeping me away from him. You think he's happy about that?” As Jeff pointed an accusatory finger at Anna, his look of revulsion said she ranked lower than a rattlesnake scale.

Mad Dog puffed out his chest and snapped, “Mr. Purcell said to be respectful, Mr. Egan. I don't like your tone.”

“I'll use any tone I please.”

Alan tugged Jeff's sleeve again. “Easy,” he whispered. He could have been coaxing a man-eating glimmer from the eyes of a tiger.

“Okay, let's just stop here for a second.” Purcell formed a time-out “T” with his brawny hands. “I see anger in this conversation, but I'm not ready to conclude we're wasting our time. I'm asking you again to act like two adults who have the responsibility to reach a satisfactory resolution. Since you both want Earnest, I'd like to hear from each of you how you might share him.”

“Earnest is mine. I don't have to share him with anybody,” Jeff said.

“Edicts like that aren't going to advance our discussion,” Purcell said. “Let me put it this way: If I had the power to decree that you two share Earnest, what terms would you find acceptable? How could you work together?”

The silence, through which ran a streak of petulance, was the temperature of sleet. Jeff listened to the clock ticking in the library, and imagined punching Mad Dog in his feeble little chops. Anna wrapped her fingers together in an agitated pretzel.

“Hostility serves no purpose here,” Purcell reminded them. “Let me backtrack. Can we figure out
anything
you agree on?”

As Jeff considered the question, he slipped his foot out of his loafer and wriggled his toes in Earnest's fur.
Fighting with Anna would only hurt Earnest,
Jeff thought. Though he would never get over his fury, he owed it to his dog at least to contribute to this process.

“When one of us is with Earnest, the other should stay away. I'm sure Anna feels the same,” Jeff offered.

“Do you, Anna?” Purcell asked.

“Absolutely.” Anna flashed Jeff a look that would wither iron.

“Anna, can you agree that Earnest loves Jeff?” Purcell asked.

“Yes, I'll give him that.”

“How do you know Earnest loves anybody? He's just a dog. Dogs have no feelings,” Mad Dog said.

Go twitch your rodent whiskers elsewhere.
“Have you ever had a dog?” Jeff demanded.

Before Mad Dog could answer, Anna interjected, “Really. I can tell. Earnest loves Jeff.”

“So if Earnest loves Jeff, wouldn't it be best if they could spend time together?” Purcell asked Anna.

“Yes, I guess,” she said, begrudging.

“Any thoughts about where Earnest would be happiest living?” Purcell asked.

“In my apartment,” Jeff said.

“He'd sit there all alone. You're never home during the week,” Anna said.

“What about that, Jeff?” Purcell asked.

“I guess she's right.”

Jeff and Anna could not agree on much else. All morning Purcell tried to herd them to an orderly arrangement, but the discussion traveled off to varied destinations. Finally, when Jeff was starved for lunch, Purcell left the room. Twenty minutes later, he returned with a proposal, handed copies to Anna and Jeff, and said, “If this is acceptable, you can sign it and get on with your lives.”

Jeff and Alan read the document together at the table, and Anna and Mad Dog moved to chairs across the room. As they mumbled together, Earnest, lying on Jeff 's feet, began to pant as he often did when he was worried. From the number of times his name had been bandied about today, he must have concluded that something serious about him was going on. He may also have sensed that his future's road had forked, and he was anxious about which direction would be taken. Jeff reached down and patted him, but he kept panting.
Damned Anna
.

The proposal said that Anna would keep Earnest during the week, and Jeff would have him from Friday evening till Monday morning. Anna would pick him up at Jeff 's apartment, and Jeff would pick him up at the condo. Jeff would get Earnest on holidays and vacations. Anna and Jeff would each pay for Earnest's food on their days with him, and they would split his vet care costs. If unanticipated problems arose, they would contact their attorneys.