5
“Answer, you bastard.” I have been calling Artie’s cell once every five minutes since Mitch and I landed safely at the Crossroads Convenience Mart. My behind is numb from the hour and a half spent riding pillion. Mitch had to grab my hand as I dismounted. With a grace I wouldn’t have expected, Mitch was off the bike and into the store ahead of me. By the time I’d phoned Artie the first time, Mitch was in line, a travel mug with the Harley-Davison insignia on it in one hand and a packet of peanut butter crackers in the other.
“I should buy you a meal.”
“I’ll have dinner at home.”
“Then let me get your snack. And your gas.”
“What, and cheat me out of being a gentleman? No. I was going to be doing this or something like it today anyway.”
“Artie isn’t answering his phone.”
“Let me try.”
“What do you mean?”
“He won’t recognize the number.”
I hold my phone steady while Mitch reads Artie’s number off the contact list. He pulls off his right glove, punches in the number. “Voice mail.” Artie has shut his phone off. “Schmidt, if you don’t want some serious trouble, get off the road and get the dog back to Justine Meade. If you don’t, you’ll be looking in your rearview mirror for the rest of your life.” My soft-voiced violin player has become a Hell’s Angel. “You see a Harley, you’d better hope your life insurance is paid up.” Mitch snaps his phone shut with a flourish. “Sorry, that’s the best I can do. Empty threats.”
“Thanks for trying.”
The look on my face is pretty telling, because he pats my shoulder with a hand that is improbably large for a man who fingers violin strings for a living.
“You weren’t playing hooky, were you?”
“I was thinking about it. Then you came along and I gave in to temptation. I just wish I could help you further, but I can’t. I have to go back pretty soon. This is as far as I can take you. I’m really sorry.”
“I can’t thank you enough.” I thrust a couple of dollars at the cashier, blocking Mitch’s attempt to pay for his coffee.
Mitch propels himself back outside, sitting sidesaddle on the Harley while I hunt down a phone book to find a nearby car-rental agent.
I know that this is going to prove an exercise in futility. I have maybe a couple hundred bucks available on my credit card, probably not enough to rent a car to take out of state. I’m not one of those spendthrift people. I haven’t run my credit card up on the temptation of using it for day-to-day living. I don’t own a flat-screen TV. I don’t even own a decent pair of shoes. No one had to teach me that using credit cards willy-nilly was bad. I didn’t go to college, so I wasn’t one of those kids who got handed a card at freshman orientation, then jacked it up, confident that Mom and Dad would cover the bill. I have lived by a pay-as-you-go policy all my life. Until Mack got sick.
It doesn’t take much to run up a vet bill. A simple well-care visit can set me back half a paycheck. But when Mack needed emergency surgery for an intestinal blockage, I never hesitated. The credit card was always for emergencies, and this one was a big one. I’ve been paying it down for a long time, but the balance remains stubbornly high. It was scary enough to have a $2,500-plus balance on a $2,500-limit card. It didn’t help that my day job at the health center ended when they lost funding and I was left to living on my job at the tavern. I’ve only been able to chip away at a little of that bill, a fact that sits on my shoulders like a ten-ton dollar sign. It colors every decision I make, even the one that has cost me my dog. I should have said no. I should have said I couldn’t afford to fly, I couldn’t get there. I should never have taken Artie up on his offer of a cheap ride to Boston.
I don’t regret the expense of that surgery. Mack is more than a dog to me. He’s my partner. We dance.
* * *
From the very beginning, Mack was easy to train. We aced puppy training and quickly got into obedience. But all that sit-stay, down-stay just didn’t showcase my Sheltie’s personality. Agility was more his style. Here’s the thing. I’m not a joiner; I’m not a performer. I’m the woman behind the desk, or the cash register. I’ve been so transient that I’ve never felt that belonging to anything made sense. A year here, a few months there. The need to keep moving is like an itch. Usually, I feel that urge after a breakup, or if a job has just gotten too annoying. My résumé, if I had one, would be a long list of short-term jobs. I’ve thought about training as a dental hygienist. Or a nurse’s aide. I like the health-care field. I’ve even taken a few courses as an EMT, but never finished. But we joined the Agility Club, and that is what’s held me in Washington for longer than any other place I’ve lived. And when Saundra Livingbrook introduced me to canine freestyle, I knew that Mack and I had found our game. Canine freestyle, dog dancing, is not obedience or field trials; it’s not a beauty pageant. It is egalitarian, open to all dogs, regardless of breed. The beauty comes from the enthusiasm of the dog for its work. All dogs that show a devotion to work and are easily trained are welcome. Trained, not like dogs, but like ballerinas. The talent coaxed out with hand signals and repetition, praise and bits of bacon. Lots of hard work. Mack took to it like the natural athlete he is. I could make my signals as subtle as could be and he’d see them. Those herd-dog eyes, mismatched though they are—one blue and one brown—catching my slightest movement. Hand up, palm out, spin; hand up palm out, one finger cocked, back up. Depending on the music, those movements look like a waltz or a rumba, like we are dancing, when, in fact, I am giving him signals, his eyes on me with such focus, the world could drop away. Mack never tires of it.
* * *
Mack waits for me to fasten his little tuxedo front on. His little white feet dance in place, happy that we’re getting ready to strut our stuff. He shakes himself from the tip of his little black nose down through his magnificent white ruff, along his silver-and-black body to the tip of his plumed tail tipped in white. He’s ready; he’s got his game face on. I adjust my own costume, a white jumpsuit embellished with silver sequins, a white top hat finishing the look for “Puttin’ on the Ritz.” There we were, in this high school gymnasium in Seattle, costumes on, Saundra doing a last-minute adjustment to the straps of my jumpsuit, my blue merle Shetland sheepdog already pumped to get out there. An announcer speaking our names: “Please welcome Justine Meade and her dog Maksim.” The spotlight is on us.
* * *
Mitch finishes his coffee and watches me as I write down the number of the only car-rental agency in this area. “They’ll pick me up; that’s what it says. You can head back now.”
“That’s okay. Let me drop you off.”
I really don’t want him to. I’m that certain that I’m not going to be renting a car, and I don’t want him to be a witness to it. My alternate plan is to get one of these truckers to take my last hundred dollars and let me ride with him. I’m trying not to think of how poorly that plan had worked before.
“I’m fine, Mitch. You need to get back home.”
Mitch swings his bad leg over the saddle but makes no move to start the motor. “I really don’t like just leaving you here.” I can’t see his eyes behind the aviator-style sunglasses he’s wearing. His red bandanna has slipped forward over his forehead. He looks tough, and can sound tough, but I know that he’s not. He didn’t have to tell me that he was a musician; he could have kept the Hell’s Angel persona, stuck with the impression he seems to want to make. We exchange cell numbers, carefully punching in the digits and saving, as if we’re going to stay in touch.
“Don’t you worry. I’ll be fine.” I step away from the motorcycle, give him space to maneuver.
He starts the engine, which comes to life with a heavy rumble, deafening beneath the gas station canopy. “Let me know what happens.”
“I will.” He’s got the bike pointed back the way we came.
“Wait.” I almost have to shout to be heard over the sound of the motorcycle’s roar.
Mitch wheels around to come back to my side.
“What happened? Your leg, I mean.” I’m not usually this rude, but given the circumstances of our meeting, this seems like a fact I should know about him, something as personal to him as the raw facts I’ve given him about myself are to me.
He doesn’t say anything at first, and I wonder if I’ve offended him with my sudden curiosity, or if he’s trying to come up with some smart remark like he’s done before.
“Nothing terribly interesting. Bone cancer. I was fifteen.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be. If I’d been able to play football, I probably wouldn’t have played violin. Things happen. Things happen for a reason.”
“I guess.” But to me, losing a leg seems a harsh price to pay for discovering a musical talent. I don’t add that I can’t see the reason for my particular situation, because it seems childish to compare losing a dog to losing a leg, but it’s what I’m thinking.
Impulsively, I hug him, and then he’s gone.
* * *
Mack and I step into the spotlight. The music begins. I tap my cane against the floor and Mack rises to his hind legs and, in perfect time with the music, turns in a clockwise circle, then extends his right front paw to me and I take it, bowing to him. By the time he leaps into my arms three minutes later, the crowd is clapping wildly.