14

They shopped with a vengeance, Tara quite sure that whatever Susan’s problem (emotional, physical, they were the only possibilities), nothing could assuage it as well as a little blatant self-­indulgence. They went first to Bloomingdale’s, where Tara insisted Susan try on (she almost, but not quite made her buy it) a Saint-­Laurent pants suit; then upstairs to housewares and a beautiful but not even remotely useful set of pickle dishes, some Israeli glass goblets that looked like early Tiffany, and finally the silver section, where Susan, worn down by Tara’s therapeutic cheer, did spend much too much money on a plated staghorn candlestick (“Susan, it’s gorgeous and you’re going to have it!”). Then to Alexander’s for some serious and sensible buying (towels, summer shorts for Andrea, a new swimsuit in case they did get to Fire Island).

At two o’clock, with two respectably filled shopping bags in tow, Susan walked Tara to the office but once again declined to go upstairs with her.

“If I’m fired,” she said, feeling better (the shopping had worked), “I’m fired. I may as well go home and make pot roast like every other self-­respecting housewife.”

“You coming in tomorrow?”

“Dunno.”

“Want to go to a movie tomorrow night?”

“Maybe.”

“I’ll call you.” This without thinking.

“Call Lou. It’s the same number.”

“Be calm and don’t forget,” Tara called over her shoulder as she climbed the steps in front of their office skyscraper, “spend money!”

Recognizing the wisdom of her words, Susan hailed a cab (move over, Bendel’s ladies) and went home.

To it.

The moment she opened the front door, Susan knew something was wrong.

She could hear nothing, but she knew.

She put her bags down in the doorway of the living-room, peered in, nothing out of place there, crossed the hall, glanced in the kitchen, the same, and walked down the long central hall to her bedroom.

As she drew near the doorway, she heard it.

The call of hell. The soundless filth.

Her hands went over her ears as she hurried into the room, saw the table upended, the phone, open, live.

She slammed the phone and receiver together quickly like cymbals, cutting it off, out.

And then, sitting on the floor next to the bed (how had it come into her home? When? How long had it been there?), she heard another sound.

A muffled growl.

“Sweet William?” she called out.

The growl continued.

“Sweet William?”

She searched the room for him (his noise never stopped), under the bed, behind a chair, beneath the dresser (the growl, never broken, was her beacon), and then she saw the closet door, slightly ajar.

“Honey, it’s okay, I’m home.” And she opened the door.

He was lying in the back, behind her shoe rack, coiled there, his mouth and chest drenched with spit, his thin black lips raised, the stained old teeth bared, his ears slammed down on the sides of his head. Lying there, snarling, driven to madness.

He had been there all the while. Forced to listen to it while she and Tara shopped. Biting the air as they laughed. Foaming and moaning as his mistress (who loved him and had led him to this) enjoyed herself.

“Oh, sweetheart,” Susan said, almost crying at the sight of him, “it’s all right. Mama’s home.” And she went to touch him.

His teeth, old and brittle though they were, ripped into her hand like spikes.

She leaped backward, out of surprise as much as pain, and the dog sank its head back down into itself, the nonstop growl growing louder for a moment, then back to its former soft chant.

She went into the bathroom and ran cold water over her hand to stop the hurt. There was little blood, small wells of it in the puncture wounds, bruises forming rapidly. And then, mixed with her concern and guilt over Sweet William, she felt anger at Lou for insisting the weapon be brought back into their home. Now he would see she was right; her hand would be the proof.

Her hand would be the least of it.

She turned, the sound of Sweet William’s terror louder now, and left the bathroom. Stepping into the bedroom, she saw him. He had come out of the closet, his head slung low, hanging there cocked, staring at her with demented eyes, teeth showing, brown and spotted, spittle hanging down in threads, the hair on his back standing straight up in clumps.

“Sweet William . . .” she said, and his jaws opened in response, the snarl gagging him for a moment. “Sweet William,” she repeated, entreated, and his head sank lower, his lips pulled higher to expose the teeth.

She tried for the doorway, slowly, but he saw her intent and was there first, no longer a dog, now a demon, enjoying her fear.

“Sit, boy,” she said, and he snarled, taking his first step toward her, head lowered for the attack.

“Sweet William, listen to me!” And she backed up toward the bathroom door, still ajar.

He circled her quickly, snarling, gagging, cutting her off from that exit.

“Sweet William, it’s me!”

He lunged forward, teeth biting together, inches from her leg. Susan stepped back quickly, felt the bed behind her, lifted herself on to it, legs out of reach of the teeth.

“Sit, boy! Sit!”

He came up to the bed, stood on it, front paws only, his spit falling on it in droplets. He lunged for her again. She moved backward, against the wall.

“Sweet William, it’s me! Stop it!”

In one movement he was on the bed and he drove his teeth into her leg. They screamed together, she from the pain, he from the frenzy of attack.

“God!” She pulled him off her, and with the strength pain had given her, hurled him off the bed.

He hit the floor, yelped, and was on the bed again, teeth bared, showing her blood on them.

Susan leaped from the bed and was across the room, almost to the door, before she heard Sweet William hit the floor, another yelp, and felt his teeth in her ankle.

She pulled herself and him to the door and prying his jaws apart, crying, shouting, “Stop it! Stop it!” threw him backward and slammed the door on him.

She sat on the floor of the hallway, looking at her leg (bright red), listening to his growls coming from under the door and then the sound of his nails as he tried to dig his way back to her.

She washed the leg in Andrea’s bathroom (the wounds, though painful, were merely punctures) and wrapped a towel around it as a makeshift bandage. Carefully sponging up the droplets of blood (on the tub, the floor, even spattered halfway up the sink) lest they frighten Andrea, she tried to decide what to do. To call the police (call? She amended it to get) would mean Sweet William’s death, and frightened of him though she was, she loved him. He hadn’t attacked her; it was that thing lying there spewing its venom. No, Sweet William was its victim as surely as she was. The first victim, she thought, and avoided the implications of that thought.

Then there was a crash, shattering glass.

She went to the bedroom door and listened. Had he broken something in his frenzy? Lamp, mirror, bathroom glass?

No sound.

“Sweet William?” She pressed her ear against the door. “Sweet William?”

Nothing.

Slowly, pressing her body against the door, prepared to slam it shut if need be, she opened it.

One of the windows was broken, shards of glass protruding from its corners pointing to the jagged hole in the middle.

The hole through which Sweet William had hurled himself to the cement, eleven stories down, rather than attack his beloved mistress again.

Tara arrived at the apartment shortly after nine, having called and been told. Susan was lying on the living room couch, a true bandage on her leg. (Lou had put it there though she refused to speak to him other than to say, “It’s your fault. I told you it would happen!”)

“I don’t want him in here,” Susan said as Lou brought Tara in.

“Honey . . .”

“I don’t want him in here!” And Lou, hesitating for a moment, weighing his own guilt and anger, chose the latter and slammed out of the room to his bedroom.

“What on earth happened?” Tara saw the pink spotted gauze on Susan’s leg and ankle.

“He was my puppy—” and Susan held a pillow in front of her face and wept, suddenly and deeply, into it. “He never hurt a thing. He wouldn’t even chase squirrels in the park, he was so gentle. . . .” (And her own squirrel, floating face down in the pool at the Frick, came back to her.) “It starts with animals. If they get too close to me—” the logic was unassailable to her—“it kills them. At the zoo the animals knew it. They were afraid to look at me!”

“Honey, calm down.” Tara took her injured hand in her own, only then seeing the wounds.

“I’m marked, Tara! I’m marked by hell!” Her uncontrollable sobs prevented any further speech or thought.

Tara had to ask Lou where they kept their gin, and as they stood alone in the kitchen (Susan lay in the other room, whimpering now), she asked him, “Is she still seeing her shrink?”

“She says she is.” And as he mixed the gin and vermouth, he added bitterly, “She says a lot of things.”

“What do you think made the dog do it?”

He looked at her, at his wife’s friend (not his) and handed her the drink. “He was probably protecting himself.”

Tara thought it was a disgusting thing to say, even if his wife wouldn’t speak to him. Even if it was true. She took the martini to Susan without saying another word to Lou.

“Here, honey, drink this.”

Susan accepted it gladly and felt comforted by the burning in her throat—a sensation she normally disliked—for she knew that after it followed, if not peace, at least some pharmacological calm.

“I’m not crazy, Tara. I’m not.”

“No one said you were.”

“No one had to say it. It’s all over your face. And his. God, Tara, I think I hate him!”

“No, you don’t. You’re just angry with him—” and she thought of his hateful remark. “You’re both going through a rough period.”

“What am I going to do?” And then, at that moment when calm was so desperately needed, a thought far more horrendous than any so far came to her: What if Andrea had been home when the phone was off the hook?

Tara stayed with her until midnight, by which time Susan, lulled by gin, thought she might be able to sleep. She showed Tara to the door, locked it and went into the kitchen. From a drawer she removed a large pair of scissors (their heaviest) and quietly walked to her bedroom.

Lou was sleeping under an extra blanket, the cardboard he had taped to the window only partially cutting out the cool night air.

She walked quietly around to his side of the bed and looked at him.

Did she indeed hate him?

She knelt on the floor beside him.

Is it possible to hate someone you’ve loved? To truly hate him?

Yes, she decided it was.

And with that, she sliced through the phone cord, leaving his weapon impotent.