“Couldn’t you have used a plate? Is that packed in oil or water?” I say, inching closer.
She holds the can up and reads. “Water,” she says. She reaches into it and tweaks off another little piece for Freddie. He nibbles it from her fingers and then walks in front of her, purring, leaning into her with the length of his body.
“Well, thank God for small mercies.”
“You don’t have to worry. We’ve been very neat. Look,” she says, letting Freddie lick a smudge of tuna from her fingertips. “It never gets near the bedspread.”
“I thought you were vegan.”
“I am. Why?”
“Tuna doesn’t offend your sensibilities?”
“Pffffffft,”
she says, waving her hand at me. “Cats aren’t vegans. Besides, fish is practically a vegetable anyway.”
“And how do you figure that?” I ask.
“Their brains are tiny.”
“So by that token, does your brand of veganism include turkey?”
“Mom!”
I set the laundry basket on the floor by my dresser and join her on the bed. The springs squeak under our combined weight.
Freddie rolls around in delight, showing his surprisingly taut belly off to its best effect. Tufts of long gray fur stick from between the toes of his enormously wide feet.
“If you keep feeding him tuna, he won’t bother with rats,” I say.
“I’m going back tomorrow,” she says. “You can feed him rats all week, but I don’t see why he shouldn’t have a treat when I’m home.”
When I’m home.
My eyes prick with tears. I try to contain them for a few seconds and then decide the hell with it. I lean over and hug her.
“I missed you,” I murmur into what would be her hair if she had any.
She twists and wraps her arms around me, tuna can and all. “I missed you too, Mom.”
I sniffle into her shoulder.
Freddie meows and walks behind me. A moment later I feel padded feet climbing up my back as he seeks the remainder of the tuna.
While I’m exceedingly grateful for the moment of bonding with Eva, feeding Freddie tuna on the eiderdown has spawned several problems.
The first is that now he’s had tuna, dry cat food no longer passes muster. His downstairs bowl has gone untouched for days. However, apparently he still finds rodent heads palatable—heads, not bodies—which
leaves me in a bit of a quandary. Catching rodents is his raison d’être after all, but I had naively hoped he’d dispatch with them altogether, not just crunch off their heads and leave them in the aisle. The first time I found a headless corpse with its nasty pink twig-like feet yanked up against its body, I screamed and leapt backward—to the great amusement of the stable hands, I might add.
The headless rodents are everywhere—which of course proves my point that we really did need Freddie—but now I can’t decide whether I hate the headless bodies so much that I’d rather feed Freddie tuna and let the rodents keep their heads or continue with Operation Anti-Rat.
For the time being I’m staying the course and simply watching where I step. I’m also eternally grateful to the stable hands, who take the horrid little bodies away to I-don’t-want-to-know-where. So grateful, in fact, that I’ve started to keep a supply of donuts in the lounge.
I try to forget all of this when Freddie is turning circles on my lap, rubbing his weapons of mass destruction against my cheek and sticking his prickly-pear paws into my thighs.
But the second—and larger—problem resulting from the tuna on the bed is that ever since Freddie discovered the eiderdown, it’s the only place he wants to sleep.
It started on Sunday night, only a few hours after the tuna incident. The howling began shortly after Harriet and I crawled into bed and continued for a full forty-three minutes—I know, because I kept looking at the clock thinking that surely it would have to stop eventually.
I was wrong.
I tried ignoring it. I tried covering my head with a pillow. I tried gritting my teeth and pounding the mattress and praying to the Great Goddess of Cats. But then he began clawing and raking, using every one of his gajillion claws to try to dig his way through the door. And to think!—the extra toes seemed charming when I picked him. The screeching was so caustic, so penetrating, that Harriet turned circles of despair, whimpering and trying to bury her head beneath her paws.
Eventually I did the only thing I could. I let him in.
He trotted straight into the bedroom, leapt onto the bed, and settled quietly at the end—after giving Harriet a gratuitous swipe on his way past. Harriet grumbled and closed her eyes and then all was still. I stared in astonishment, and then slipped beneath the eiderdown, moving my feet from warm lump to warm lump, savoring the silence and wondering why I didn’t do this forty-two minutes ago.
But my relief was short-lived. It seems Freddie is nocturnal and naps only for short periods at night, when Harriet and I are trying to sleep. The rest of time he’s on the wrong side of the door. If he’s outside, he howls to get in. If he’s inside, he howls to get out. And when I get out of bed in the middle of the night to open the door because I JUST WANT IT TO STOP he sits on his strangely attractive pear-shaped hips, sweeps his thick tail across the floor, and stares placidly across the threshold. For the first few days I picked him up and tossed him into the hall, but that was pointless because within minutes he was on the wrong side of the door again.
Dan stayed over last night and witnessed this first
hand. And that is why he is coming over in just a moment to install a cat flap.
I’m waiting on the couch—one of the leather ones the previous trainer sold us when he returned to Canada—with Freddie turning circles in my lap, purring like a buzz saw, butting my face with his and leaving long silver hair all over my sweatshirt. I’m not encouraging him—I’m simply too tired to push him away. There’s no point anyway, since I don’t think he’d make the connection between my grumpiness and his having prevented me from having any REM sleep in four days. And so he purrs and rubs and kneads while I try to catch a nap.
Harriet sulks at a distance, staring daggers at the fuzzy usurper. She’s so upset she doesn’t even bother to announce Dan’s arrival.
He knocks twice and then enters, carrying a red metal toolbox in one hand, a jingling plastic bag, and a large cordless tool. He also has a pencil tucked behind his ear.
As he sets everything on the long table by the door, his eyes light on the plastic Petco bag. He pulls out the cat-flap kit, along with Freddie’s new red collar. “What’s this?” he says, setting the collar on the table and continuing to hold the kit.
“It’s the cat flap.”
“I was just going to cut a hole in the wall and put up a couple of hinges. How much did this run you?”
“Oh, not much,” I say.
Dan flips it over and locates the price. “Annemarie! Tell me you didn’t really spend this much on a cat flap!”
“But look,” I say, springing from the couch and coming to his side. “It has nice clear flaps and an airlock to
reduce heat loss. Plus, it’s got an electromagnetic thingamajiggy so that only Freddie can come in and out.” I lay my hand on the crook of his elbow. His flannel shirt is warm and soft, his arm solid beneath it. I’m feeling a bit deprived—for Freddie-related reasons, last night was full of nothing but
interruptus
.
“You’re in a stable. What else could possibly come in and out?”
“I don’t know,” I say, feeling a blush creep across my face.
“This is like the rad shampoo, isn’t it?”
He’s referring to the last time I got my oil changed and was talked into having my radiator washed with a special organic herbal concoction.
I bite my lip and nod.
He stares at me for a long time. “Okay. I’ll put it in. Because God knows, we don’t want you to end up with a horse wandering around your bedroom.”
Then he turns, opens his toolbox, and removes a metal ruler.
His knees creak and pop as he lowers himself to the floor.
“Do you want a towel or something to kneel on?”
“No, I’m fine. This won’t take long.”
He holds the metal ruler up against the bottom of the wall, flush with the baseboard. Then he takes the pencil from behind his ear and makes a couple of ticks on the wall. After he connects them across the ruler’s edge, he sets the ruler on the ground.
“Can you grab me the level?” he says, sticking his hand out toward me.
“The level?” I say.
“The thing with the bubbles in it.”
“Sure,” I say, springing into action. Fortunately, it’s near the top of the toolbox, along with a bunch of screwdrivers. I lay it across his palm, like a surgical nurse.
He checks his lines and appears satisfied.
“Can you pass me the Sawzall?”
“The what?” I say in horror.
“The reciprocating saw?”
I blink at him, and then swivel around to the toolbox.
Reciprocating saw, reciprocating saw—what in God’s name is a reciprocating saw? Here’s a saw, but I can’t see anything reciprocating about it. But it’s the only saw-like thing in here, so I hand it to him.
Clearly it’s not what he expects, because he turns immediately to look at what I’ve just laid in his palm. “That’s a keyhole saw. The Sawzall is on the table beside the toolbox. The cordless thing.”
“Oh, right,” I say, stumbling over Freddie, who has an uncanny ability to always be underfoot, particularly when you’re moving.
Dan takes the Sawzall from me, switches it on, and sinks its blade into the drywall.
Freddie streaks from the room.
As Dan cuts, I investigate the rest of the toolbox, familiarizing myself with its contents for future requests. And with the exception of mistaking a Phillips for a flathead, I manage fairly well, handing him the appropriate instruments until my beautiful new electromagnetic cat flap is in place.
I sigh with satisfaction, imagining my first uninterrupted night’s sleep in four days.
The damned cat refuses outright to wear the collar, and by extension, the electromagnetic key. He also seems capable of transforming his skull into rubber, because no matter how many times I refit it—and I tighten it as much as I dare, although admittedly it’s hard to tell exactly where his neck is under all that hair and it’s not the sort of thing you want to call wrong—he falls spinning to the floor, writhing so much I can’t tell one end from the other. Then he streaks from the room, leaving his new red collar and key in a heap on the floor.
To compound matters, the adage about teaching old dogs new tricks appears to be accurate. Although I scream her name every time I see her approach, Harriet keeps bashing her head into the clear flap. She invariably throws me a look of deep betrayal—why, I don’t know, because I try to warn her—and then skulks off to the corner with bruised nose and feelings.
And so, two days later, Dan is back uninstalling my cat flap so that I can take the electromagnetic key off Harriet’s collar and stop getting up every four minutes to let the damned cat in. Or out.
After Dan replaces my disaster of a cat flap with a plain and functional one, he stands up and wipes his hands. “It’s not too pretty, but you won’t have to look at it for very long.”
I open my mouth to ask why, but then I remember and it nearly knocks my legs out from under me.
Three days to my birthday.
As if reading my mind, he takes my chin in one hand and tilts my face toward his. His blue eyes burn into mine, and just as I wonder whether we’re going to retire to the bedroom, he turns to collect his tools.
“I have to go back to Canada on Sunday,” he says. “I want you to come with me.”
“Oh, Dan! I’d love to! But I can’t!”
“We’d only be gone a few days.”
“I know, but Eva’s three-day event starts on Monday. We have to arrive on Sunday. In fact, she was hoping you’d come with us.”
“Was she?” he says. His eyebrows raise in surprise. “Oh, shoot. I had no idea. In that case, I’m doubly sorry about the timing.”
So am I, because I had really hoped to face Roger, Sonja, and Jeremy armed with my shiny new fiancé.
I sleep like the dead that night, falling into unconsciousness almost immediately upon hitting the bed.
When I wake up, the sun is shining, birds are singing, and Harriet is licking my face. I gather her in my arms and let her kiss me. After a while, I drop my arm on the eiderdown.
It hits something that feels…wrong.
I jerk my head around. A chewed, headless corpse is inches from my pillow.
I scream for help from the stable hands, and while they dispose of the body, I boil myself, my bedding, and my dog. I put Harriet in the tub and scrub the bejesus out of her, and then scour her teeth with my spare toothbrush. I’d swish her mouth with Listerine if I could figure out how but I can’t, so instead I feed her dog biscuits and other hard things in an attempt to remove all traces of rat. Despite this, I declare a moratorium on dog kisses,
which causes Harriet no end of sadness. She can’t imagine what she’s done wrong, and mopes around behind me trying to apologize.
Later in the day, I drive to Petco and buy three cases of wet cat food because Freddie’s days as a barn cat are officially over. There will still be rodents in the stable, but at least they won’t end up headless in my bed.
It turns out I’ve been wrong all along about the biggest problem with Freddie.
The biggest problem with Freddie is that he had kittens this morning, right here in my bedroom. But since it’s my birthday and I’ve dropped three pounds—which appears sufficient for me to squeeze into my favorite blue dress—I decide to forgive him, even if his three babies do look like seven-toed rats.
As I head up the drive to the house, Mutti comes out the back door with an armful of calla lilies and roses.
Of course—it’s Saturday. She has taken flowers to Pappa’s grave every Saturday since his death, without exception. She’s more reliable than the United States Postal Service.
“Happy birthday,
Schatzlein,
” she says, coming to kiss me on the cheek. “May you get everything you wish for.”
“Well, I’ve already had one surprise.”
“What’s that?” she says, opening the door to her truck and laying the flowers inside.
“Freddie had kittens.”
“Mein Gott,”
she says, glancing skyward. “So much for your barn cat. Are you feeding them caviar yet?”
“Mutti!”
She climbs into the cab. “I left you something on the table. There’s fresh coffee in the pot.”
“Thanks, Mutti. By the way, I won’t be around for lunch.”
“Oh? I thought your big date was for tonight.”
“It is. I’ve got an appointment at a spa.”
“A
spa
?” she chortles.
“What? What’s wrong with that?”
“Nothing,” she says, shaking her head and starting the truck. “Nothing at all. Will I see you before you leave?”
“Yes. Dan’s picking me up at the house at six.”
“Come a little early. And then you can show me your hair or fingernails or whatever it is you’re having done,” she says. Then she rolls her window up and backs out.
There’s a vase of tulips in the center of the kitchen table, and beside it, a small gift-wrapped box.
I hold it for a moment, feeling its weight in my palm. Then I slide the ribbon off and remove the paper. The second I see the faded red velvet, I know exactly what it is.
“Oh, Mutti,” I say, my eyes filling with tears.
She has given me my grandmother’s diamond earrings.
Despite my previous existence as a patent lawyer’s wife, I have never been to a spa in my life.
I’m nervous as I pull into the parking lot, and even more nervous when I enter the lobby.
The counters are glass, the floors marble. There is the tinkling of a waterfall somewhere in the background, and I think I can also make out ocean waves. The women behind the counter are impeccably groomed, with serene expressions, perfect skin, and rosebud lips.
I feel entirely out of place—almost like a different species—and hang back near the door, thinking I might just slip out. After all, Dan decided to marry the me he knows—the me with hands hardened from stable work and short, broken fingernails. The me with bits of hay in my hair and bra and horse slobber smeared across my cheek.
But before I have a chance to escape, I am whisked away by a soft-spoken young thing who hands me a fluffy white bathrobe and a pair of paper flip-flops, and steers me into a changing room.
I spend the rest of the day getting waxed, buffed, massaged, plucked, scrubbed, polished, sculpted, and painted. And the me that emerges at the end belongs to that other species—the fragrant one, the pretty one.
I pay what seemed an outrageous fee when I booked my spa treatments, but now seems barely adequate.
There’s a full-length mirror by the door, and on my way out I stop to look at myself. I can’t believe the transformation. They’ve even managed to make my fingernails look nice—I resisted the manicure at first, but finally went for it when I remembered the important role my hands will be playing tonight, and it turns out that spa people are miracle workers. Even though I have no nails to speak of, they painted tiny white lines across the ends so that it looks like I do. I feel like crying in gratitude—but since that would ruin my professionally applied makeup, I simply press my manicured hands against my cheeks until I have regained my composure.
When I get in my car, I pull down my shade visor and have yet another look.
I suppose everything will go back to normal eventually, but tonight I’ll still be gorgeous. I imagine Dan’s
reaction as he lays eyes on me in my blue dress and my grandmother’s diamond earrings.
I sigh happily and start the car, because everything promises to be perfect.
Dan’s reaction is not quite what I expected.
“Oh—” he says, coming to a dead stop just inside our back door.
“What?” I say in horror. My hands spring to my head, checking for snakes, antennae, or other alien growths.
“Nothing,” he says, recovering. He steps forward and kisses me. “You look absolutely stunning.” He turns to Mutti, takes both her hands, and kisses her cheek. “Ursula, it’s lovely to see you, as always.”
“Dan,” says Mutti, smiling and nodding sagely.
I’m suddenly embarrassed, because it must be clear to him that I’ve figured it out and told Mutti.
Dan pretends not to notice. “Shall we?” he says, offering me his arm.
I take it, even though I have to stop by the back door to put on my coat, which he helps me into.
I have to fight to keep from bursting into delighted laughter. I feel like the star of an ancient courtly ritual, and I love it.
At Sorrento’s, the maître d’ comes out from behind his podium and greets us at the door.
“Mr. Garibaldi, Miss Zimmer, it’s so lovely to see you,” he says as though we’re old friends. He snaps his fingers at a waiter. “Gerard, take their coats!” He turns
back to us, smiling and solicitous. “Please follow me. Your table is ready.”
He leads us to what is clearly the best table in the house. There is a single rosebud in the center of each bread plate.
The maître d’ holds my chair out, and I manage that most delicate of balancing acts—lowering myself at the exact time the chair reappears beneath me. But the maître d’ is good at his job, and even manages to scootch me elegantly forward. Then he reaches for my napkin, unfolds it with a dramatic swoop, and lays it across my lap.
“Thank you,” I say, blushing.
I am handed a menu without prices.
“Would you like cocktails to start?”
“I’d love a glass of chardonnay,” I say, blinking my fabulous new lashes.
“I think we’ll have a bottle,” says Dan, squinting at the wine list.
“May I recommend the Catena Alta?” says the maître d’.
“That would be lovely,” says Dan, relinquishing the list with obvious relief.
And then we’re alone. Dan reaches his hand across the table, palm up, and I lay mine on top of it. For people who have known each other—and slept together—for as long as we have, we’re surprisingly tongue-tied. The truth is, I’m feeling pretty and bashful and a little bit shy, and enjoying the lead-up to the Big Moment.
“Are you ready to order, or would you like a few more minutes?” says Gerard, appearing suddenly at our side.
I pull my hand back, blushing.
“May I?” says Dan, looking at me.
“May you what?” I ask.
He turns to Gerard. “We’ll start with a dozen oysters on the half shell, and then the lady will have the Lobster Newburg—”
“Oh, no,” I break in. “Sorry, no. I’ll just have the consommé.”
Dan stares at me. “The
consommé
?”
“Yes,” I say, smiling. I can see why he might be confused—I do remember telling him that Sorrento’s makes the best Lobster Newburg in the world. But what I can’t very well explain to him—especially in front of Gerard—is that despite losing three pounds, I barely got the zipper done up on my dress. Also, I fully expect the evening to end up with us in bed—quite possibly with me on top—and the last thing I want is to be aware of my belly.
Dan clears his throat and glances up at Gerard. “Uh, okay. The lady will have the consommé, and I’ll have the filet steak, medium rare.”
“And the oysters?”
Dan looks at me, eyebrows raised in question.
I shake my head.
“No, it looks like we’ll be moving straight to the entrées,” Dan says.
Gerard gives a slight bow, and takes our menus.
We make ridiculous small talk during our meals, which I suppose is natural. I can hardly be expected to be a brilliant conversationalist when I know a proposal is imminent; and to be fair, neither can Dan. And so we end up smiling at each other as shyly as teenagers. I sip my clear soup from the side of my spoon and he makes his way through his steak, both of us exercising impeccable manners.
“Can I interest you in anything else? A little dessert, perhaps?” says Gerard, after our dishes have been cleared.
He and Dan exchange glances.
“Uh, yes,” says Dan, flushing. “We’ll have a bottle of Perrier-Jouët—”
Ooh! Ooh! Here it comes!
“—and two chocolate soufflés. A little bird told me your chocolate soufflé is to die for.”
“Oh, no dessert for me,” I say to Gerard, with a gentle wave.
“What?” says Dan. “But you said it was your favorite!”
“It is.” I lean forward, lowering my voice. “But I’m watching my weight.”
“It’s your birthday,” he responds—and if I’m not mistaken, there’s the tiniest hint of an edge in his voice. “Live a little.”
“No, really,” I say. “I’m full.”
Dan stares at me for a moment, then turns to the waiter. “Uh…well, in that case
I’ll
have the chocolate soufflé.”
A soufflé appears on the table, along with the champagne. Its bottle is beautifully painted, white flowers trimmed with gold on sage green stems, and I decide on the spot that I’m taking it home as a souvenir.
Gerard pops the cork, pours champagne into two flutes, and slides the bottle into a silver bucket of jingling ice. He smiles and disappears.
Dan holds a spoon out across the table. “Here, have a few bites,” he says.
“No, thank you. Really.”
“Annemarie, a single bite won’t make you fat.”
“No, but a succession of bites will, and I know I wouldn’t be able to stop.”
He continues to hold the spoon out to me. Eventually, after it starts to become embarrassing, he sets it down on the edge of the plate.
“Uh, okay then.” He pauses, clears his throat, and swallows audibly. “Well, as you know, I wanted tonight to be really special,” he says. He reaches into his jacket pocket. “This isn’t exactly the order in which I planned to do things, but, uh, well, that’s the way life goes sometimes, isn’t it?”
A navy blue velvet box—ring-sized—makes its way across the table to me. It seems to float of its own accord.
I take it with icy, trembling fingers, tears already gathering in the corners of my eyes. I smile and sniff, trying to keep my face arranged into something resembling lovely.
I open the box. The lid springs up with a snap, and there, pushed deep into a bed of plush velvet, is a pair of diamond earrings.
I am too stunned to move. Then a hand—mine, presumably—covers my mouth.
I close the box and drop it on the table. As I try to retract my hand, Dan catches it.
“Annemarie, I wanted to give you these later. In fact, I didn’t realize you already had diamond earrings, but obviously—”
I pull my hand away and stand up abruptly.
“Earrings?”
I say.
“Annemarie?”
I turn on my heel and cross the room to the coat rack.
I hear shuffling and bumping behind me, and then
Dan is beside me, his hand on my arm. “Annemarie! Come back to the table.”
I wrench my arm free.
“Earrings?”
He looks stunned. I glance around the room. It’s as though someone has stopped time. Gerard stands perfectly still, a soup bowl lowered halfway to a table. A diner holds a napkin to the corner of his lips. A woman has a tube of lipstick poised at her mouth, a compact open in front of her. The maître d’ is frozen. Every eye in the room is glued on us.
Dan leans toward me and continues in a lowered voice. “Annemarie, you’ve got it all wrong. Please come back to the table.”
“No. For the first time, I think I’ve got it right,” I say, struggling into my coat. I throw my purse over my shoulder and head for the door.
“Annemarie!”
I turn at the door and look back one last time. Dan stands at the coat rack, his arms slack at his side, his eyes wide. He looks angry and hurt, and all I want to do is throw something at him.
Instead, I run from the restaurant.
Within seconds, I realize that I have no ride home. I stagger three doors down to Denny’s—twisting my ankle in the process because I’m not used to high heels—hole up in a washroom stall, and call Mutti from my cell phone.
“Mutti!” I wail when she answers.
“Annemarie? What happened? What’s wrong?”
“I need you to come get me,” I snuffle. I wipe my
face with the back of my hand, and—finding it covered with makeup-colored slime—reach for the toilet paper. I gather a wad, wipe my eyes and cheeks, and then honk into it.
“Why? What happened? Where’s Dan?”
I fall silent and take three quick breaths.
“Dan. Who.”
There’s a slight pause. “I see,” says Mutti. “Where are you?”
My cell phone starts ringing as we reach the end of our drive. I dig it out of my purse with shaking hands.
“Who is it?” asks Mutti.
“Him,”
I say, spitting out Dan’s official new moniker and dropping the phone back in my purse.
As we enter the back door, it starts ringing again. I fish it from my purse and fling it onto the kitchen table. It skids to the center, ringing and spinning. I stand staring at it, my chest heaving.
“Why don’t you just turn it off?” asks Mutti, opening the fridge.
The phone falls silent and, a moment later, a large glass of white wine appears in front of me. As I reach for it, I catch sight of my stupidly manicured hands. I shove the wine away from me and drop my head and arms onto the table.
After a moment, Mutti’s hand appears on the back of my head, stroking my hair.
“I’m so sorry,
Schatzlein.
”
My cell phone starts ringing again. I shriek and jerk upright. Mutti picks the phone up and turns it off.
“There,” she says, nodding.
I pick up my glass of wine and snurfle through a sip, crying so hard it’s difficult to swallow. My swollen eyelids impinge on my field of vision.
When the phone on the kitchen wall begins to ring, a grim-faced Mutti marches over and turns off the ringer. Then she disappears into the hall.