After the house-hunting trip, back in her Illinois home of 20 years, Peg looked around the kitchen. She soaked in that feeling of familiar – the table leg chewed by Nipper when he was a puppy, the window that refused to lock, the mysterious dent in the refrigerator door.
Sighing, she turned her attention to the dog. “Ready to go for a walk, Nip?”
Nipper crouched by the side door, gnawing on his footpad. The leash hung on the knob. Peg shoved her size eights into the minus-100-degree-rated boots while double-zipping the thermotech coat, topping herself off with a black fur Cossack hat.
Clark sat at the kitchen counter, his head buried in his computer. “Ahhh, the month of March in the Midwest.”
Before Peg could retort, the 50-pound vizsla barreled through her puffy legs and out the door. “Okay, okay, I guess you do want to go for a walk today.”
Once in the car, Peg could see the dog’s beany brown eyes staring at her in the rearview mirror as she backed out of the garage. “What d’you think? Are we brave enough to make a big move like this?” Nipper cocked his head to one side then sat back in the seat to resume chewing on his footpad. In solidarity, Peg bit a hangnail off her thumb as she left the driveway.
Noticing the FOR SALE sign had blown across the front yard, Peg hit the brakes and got out of the car. Slipping on the icy ground, she wiped off the muddy sign and rehung it on its windy perch. Ever since they bought the house all those years ago, she thought the house looked like a surprised cartoon character. The top two windows opened wide-eyed, and the oval door gave the lip-like impression of someone getting goosed from behind. As she replaced the sign, she looked up at the windows. Icicles had formed tears under the shutters.
“You are not going to make me cry, Mr. House,” she said as she climbed back into the car. “But thank you for reminding me that I need to schedule Clark’s colonoscopy.”
Nipper wagged his tail, licked her face and whined with dog-joy at her return.
Waving to Trudy from across the brown slush of the field, Peg navigated around the dog, remnants of winter oozing from the ground. Trudy’s fluorescent purple coat obscured most of her frame. Her short hair spiked over the multicolored headband that covered her forehead and the top of her horn-rimmed glasses.
Peg and Trudy had stomped across this 40-acre dog park every day for the past 16 years. They remembered past discussions by the various geographic anomalies in the terrain. The flooded pond – the death of past dogs. The sinkhole in the middle of the field – the slutty neighbor who flirted with all of the husbands. The rotting tree stump – male brain deficiencies.
“Hi. Oh, watch out, be careful,” Peg warned her friend as Trudy’s Labrador, Tucker, bounded up to them. From the looks of Trudy’s backside, Tuck had already accomplished one back-of-the-knee body slam today. Trudy rubbed her rump and threw her hands in the air with a look of exasperation.
“I know. So much for the thousand-dollar dog training.”
As they started on their trek, the dogs took off after a rabbit. They hurtled across the wet meadow, back feet surpassing front feet with cheetah-like speed.
“So, how’s it going?” asked Peg, trying to sound as natural as she could.
“Fine.” Trudy sideways-glanced her friend as they walked. “Why’s your voice all weird?”
“What are you talking about? My voice is not all weird.”
“Yes. It is. I can tell. Something’s wrong,” Trudy persisted.
Peg didn’t speak.
“Spit it out.”
“Okay… sooo,” Peg began. “Clark… I mean we… are serious about this Key West move.”
“I knew there was something.” Trudy stopped in her tracks. “You have got to be kidding me. You told me you were moving to downtown Chicago. That’s so unbelievably shitty.”
Peg hooked her hand through Trudy’s pocketed arm and nudged them forward. “Wow, I thought you gave up cursing for Lent.”
“I know. I did. But since I didn’t use my Sunday waiver, I can make up for it today. It’s complicated but approved by the Pope. Whatever.” Trudy took a deep breath and briskly faced off in front of Peg.
“I just got used to seeing the FOR SALE sign on your lawn. What about the great high-rise you saw in the city? The one with the drop-dead views of Lake Michigan and the Magnificent Mile at your doorstep? The one where you said you’d have amazing dinner parties and invite all of your suburbanite friends? You said you’d drive out here three times a week for our dog walks. You can’t do that from Key West. Absolutely not. Can’t you promise him more sex if he’ll stop talking about Key West? Hell – promise him sex every day if you have to.”
“I did that, but after all these years of marriage, that doesn’t seem to work like it used to.”
Peg crooked her arm around her friend’s bloated winter-coat shoulders.
“I do love the idea of living in a high-rise in the city, but the dog’s an issue. I’m having a problem finding a place that’ll take a 50-pound vizsla. One apartment insisted on a picture of him, so I took the photo from across the yard thinking that maybe he’d look like the 13-pound Dachshund I entered on the application. Now they want to see a picture of me holding him. Maybe I shoulda said that I’m a midget. That’s why the dog looked so big.”
“You’re not supposed to say midget anymore,” corrected Trudy.
“Yea, I know… or even brainstorming. I guess that might upset people with epilepsy. Being PC’s getting stressful. I love the word brainstorming.”
“Clark is such an asshole.” Trudy added, “Asshole’s not a swear. It’s a body part. An unfortunate body part that has a nasty function – like Clark.”
“Trudy, it’s been 18 years.”
Trudy stomped her boot. “I was the most qualified accountant interviewing for that job. Clark was personally responsible for sabotaging me. He recommended one of his brofriends. I missed out on a spectacular opportunity to work at the biggest of the Big Four accounting firms.” She crossed her purple, puffy arms. “He is a big, fat, sexist, pig.”
Peg waited a second then said, “He’s not that fat.” She smiled and hip-bumped Trudy. “Listen, you’re great at your job and your entire company hangs on your every word. Do you think you’d have moved up so fast at a huge corporation?”
Trudy clenched her mittens. “I guess we’ll never know – thanks to Clark. He’s dead to me as far as I’m concerned.”
“He’s dead to you? Are you changing your name from Stanislowski to Corleone? What’s next, a horse’s head in his bed?”
Trudy stopped short. “That’s really sick, Peg, how could you ever think I’d do such a thing?” She walked on. “I would put Clark’s head in a horse’s bed.”
“Nice.” Peg shook her big-hatted head.
“So – Clark says this. Clark says that. What does Peg have to say? Do you even know anything about Key West? Do you want to make a change like this?”
“Well, no… I mean yes… I mean… I don’t know,” Peg stammered. “With the company sold, we can do this, and,” she ahemmed, “speaking professionally, we’ll be getting the payout over ten years. It’s a compromise, sure, you know Clark really pushed for the lump sum upfront, but even he couldn’t fight the facts. The payout over ten years will be way more lucrative in the long run.” Peg’s boots skidded over an icy rock patch.
Trudy microphoned her mitten and belted out, “Moneymoneymoneymonneeeyy.”
Peg grabbed Trudy’s mitt-mike and spoke into it. “But seriously, I know I’m not going to convince you that Clark’s not a bad person. But he really wants this to be a second honeymoon for us. I feel like I need to do this in support of him and our marriage.”
“You’re right.” Trudy gazed at the ground.
“I am?” Peg looked astonished.
Trudy smirked and ran ahead. “You’re not going to convince me that he’s a good person – he’s a dick.” Adding over her shoulder, “Again – not a swear.”
Peg jogged to catch up. “Where’re the dogs?”
Trudy pointed. “Over there, on top of the hill.” She turned to face the opposite direction. “Okay. Let’s think about this. You don’t have a job now that the company is gone. Clark will be doing consulting. What will you do there? What about friends and family?” Trudy swung around.
“You’re my only family since Mom died. And you’ll come to visit me. Clark’ll be working from home. We’ll be together. We’ll do warm-weather things.”
Trudy shook her head. “Do you even know how to swim?”
“I can sorta swim. I took lessons… in like the third grade.” She took a breath. “It’ll be good for me. Change is good.” Wisely, Peg decided not to tell Trudy where she last heard that phrase.
“So, in a nutshell, your life as you know it has been traded for a palm tree.”
“It’s gonna be an island life.”
“More like an island life sentence.”
“I know you’re mad, and to make it up to you, I’ll go up the disgusting hill and pick up Tucker’s poop.” Tucker was notorious for having the longest trail of never-ending excrement – almost always a double bagger.
Peg scrambled up the slippery incline, poop glove-bags on each hand.
Trudy yelled, “Whatever. Sure. You must honestly be thinking that you’re moving to Key West if you’re willing to go to such great lengths to keep me happy. I’ll call you if my toilet needs plunging too.”
“The house isn’t sold yet.” Peg used the heavy bags in each hand as ballast as she slid back to Trudy. “The market’s still bad. It could take forever!”
Peg and Trudy stood side by side in front of the SOLD sign.
Trudy pointed at the SOLD sign and stared at Peg.
Trudy kicked the SOLD sign and stomped away.
Peg stood alone in front of the SOLD sign.