The Wicked Flea Read online

  Widener Library is a temple to academe, with tremendously long stone steps all across the front that lead up to the main entrance. The steps are reminiscent of those you see in pictures of pre-Columbian ruins, not that ascending them is any sort of prelude to human sacrifice, even in the case of undergraduates with failing grades, but Gabrielle was nonetheless right about Widener’s religious quality. “Yes,” I agreed, “there’s something wonderfully eternal about it. But there are people sitting on the steps.”

  “There’s no wind,” Gabrielle observed, “so it’s not as if...” She broke off. “Did you know,” she asked, “that Harvard is the second-wealthiest nonprofit organization in the world? Second only to the Roman Catholic Church.”

  “No, I didn’t know that,” I said.

  “Well, it is,” Gabrielle said, as if Harvard’s endowment somehow entitled her to deposit her first husband’s remains on university property. “Even so,” she said, “the earth is probably better. Mother of us all, and so forth. Right over there would do nicely, I think.”

  She pointed to a clump of young trees with Molly’s leash and then strode toward the chosen spot. Kimi and I followed. Reaching her destination, Gabrielle stopped, put the tote bag down, and bent over to remove its contents, which consisted of a flashlight, a sheet of paper, a pair of eyeglasses, and a square cardboard box. Before I could stop her, she turned on the flashlight.

  “Gabrielle, that’s not a good idea,” I warned. “And we really don’t need any extra light.”

  “We do,” she said. “Or I do, because I have a little something I want to read. You didn’t think we were just going to dump him on the ground and run off, did you?”

  “People are going to wonder what’s up.”

  “Let them!” she exclaimed. At the same time, however, having apparently thought the matter over, she turned off the light. “Oh, well, I know it by heart, I think.” Replacing the flashlight and eyeglasses in the tote bag, she opened the cardboard box. “Molly, sit!” Copying Gabrielle, I said, “Kimi, sit!” Onlookers, I hoped, might imagine that we were training our dogs.

  “The plastic bag is already open,” Gabrielle informed me. “I haven’t come totally unprepared. Well, I suppose we’re ready.”

  All on its own, my body adopted a prayerful posture; I could feel my shoulders straighten, my head bow, and my eyes close. Like Molly and Kimi, I waited silently.

  Gabrielle lightly cleared her throat and, in that resonant voice of hers, said with great solemnity, “Goodbye, Walter. ‘Strength without insolence, courage without ferocity, and all the virtues of man without his vices.’ Good-bye, good-bye.”

  The quoted words were familiar. No, more than merely familiar. I, too, knew them by heart. Had I chosen to do so, I could have continued where Gabrielle had left off:

  This Praise, which would be unmeaning flattery

  If inscribed over Human Ashes,

  Is but a just tribute to the Memory

  of Boatswain, a Dog

  Boatswain had belonged to Lord Byron, who had written the inscription for the Newfoundland’s monument.

  Gabrielle still maintains that it was my inexplicable coughing fit that alerted the Harvard University Police to our presence. In my defense, let me say that the fit was uncontrollable. But something certainly drew the attention of the young man in the Harvard University Police uniform, who came striding up to us and said in a what’s-this-all-about tone of voice, “Lovely evening, isn’t it?”

  “Bracing,” Gabrielle replied.

  “Something I can help you with here?” he asked. Under the circumstances, there was one right answer to that question: no. Even polite elaboration would have done nicely: Thank you so much for asking, but we’re just out for a stroll with our dogs.

  Gabrielle, however, always assumes that the entire world is on her side and that every stranger is about to become her best friend. She blabbed the entire story. The late Walter Beamon returned home with us.

  Chapter 2

  Subj: My Support—and a brag!

  From: [email protected]

  To: [email protected]

  ------------------

  Dearest Holly!

  I am fully supportive of your decision to see a psychiatrist. How lucky you are to have Rita as a trusted friend who can recommend the best possible person! Knowing your father as you do, you will understand that the wisest and most tactful course will be to say nothing to Buck about the psychiatrist, whom I have described to him as a neurologist. The departure from the precise truth is very slight. After all, both examine heads.

  Buck intends to E-mail you about the neurologist. I do wish that he could be persuaded not to write E-mail in ALL CAPS. He has repeatedly been informed that the usage makes his communications look as if he is SHOUTING. Buck's invariable reply to me when I draw his attention to the matter is that he IS shouting. Thank heaven, he is just kidding as usual. :0 (Is that right? It's supposed to be a smile, but it looks peculiar, like that painting, "The Scream," by Munch, isn't it?)

  Molly went R.W.B.* on Saturday. I was moderately pleased with the Reserve. Buck was not. Your father felt that the Winners Bitch was inferior to Molly and said that the judge, Lester Offenbach, chose the incorrect bichon over Molly because the other one had a pretty handler. It's certainly true that our own dear Horace Livermore is not pretty! But even Buck admits that Horace is an excellent handler. And Molly went W.B. on Sunday! Only one point, but who cares? Well, your father does, but I don't! I must confess that I am still not entirely comfortable in spelling out the B. in W.B., so to speak. Buck correctly points out that if "bitch" (There! I've done it!) were other than a proper term for female, the American Kennel Club would ban its use, as is certainly not the case since you-know-what is every other word spoken at AKC shows.

  We really must have another go at Harvard Yard. It's a shame that we were foiled in our previous attempt. I won't feel quite right until the deed is done.

  Your loving stepmother—Doesn't that make me sound like a witch!

  Gabrielle

  Chapter 3

  Subj: BORDER COLLIE

  From: [email protected]

  To: [email protected]

  -----------------------------------

  GABRIELLE SAYS THAT RITA HAS PACKED YOU OFF TO A NEUROLOGIST. REAL DOCTORS ARE OK, BUT DON'T LET ANY OF THOSE CAMBRIDGE TOFU GUM-MERS TALK YOU INTO THINKING YOU NEED YOUR HEAD EXAMINED. THE ONLY THING THOSE JOKERS ARE AFTER IS YOUR MONEY. THERE'S NOT A DAMNED THING WRONG WITH YOU THAT DOGS AND HARD WORK WONT CURE.

  GIVE SERIOUS THOUGHT TO THE BORDER COLLIE.

  Chapter 4

  Vee Foote. I ask you! What kind of stupid first name is Vee? It isn’t even a name; it’s an initial. And Foote? Dr. Foote? For a psychiatrist? It sounded to me as if her idea of treatment would be a swift kick. On reflection, however, I decided that a swift kick might be precisely what I needed. Besides a new vet, of course. As I’ve mentioned, my last vet, Steve Delaney, married...

  Well, enough about Anita Fairley-Delaney. For now.

  For whatever reason, I found myself in the Proverbial situation of the wicked, who, as the Bible says— Proverbs 28:1—“flee when no man pursueth.” Steve, having plighted his troth to Anita, was no longer pursuing me. My next-door neighbor and thoroughly admirable longtime admirer, Lt. Kevin Dennehy of the Cambridge police, finally had a girlfriend, a cop named Jennie, as opposed, for example, to a dog writer named Holly. I’d seen almost nothing of Kevin lately. He hadn’t even introduced me to Jennie, whom I imagined as thin, blond, and gorgeous, in other words, remarkably like Anita Fairley. Dog clubs and dog shows are lousy places to meet men. They’re disproportionately packed with women, and the men tend to be married or gay. Indeed, the world of dogs is a microcosm of the world at large, or so it often seems to me.

  “Hunting attracts men,” I told Dr. Foote, “but malamutes are useless for hunting, and besides, the last thing I want to do is kill animals. AA is supposed to be great, but I’m
not alcoholic, and it seems a little risky to make myself eligible. AA or no AA, I might not dry out.”

  “Tell me more about Steve,” said Dr. Foote, whose home office was in a big single-family Victorian house that must have been undergoing renovation. Or were the workers possibly putting up a kennel run? In any case, the curb was lined with contractors’ trucks and vans. Hammers banged. There weren’t any tricycles in the front yard or anything like that, and Dr. Foote was a little old to be the mother of toddlers. She looked forty-five or fiftyish, my senior by a decade or more, and had long, dark, gray-streaked hair that fell loose around her shoulders, Cambridge style, even though she lived in Newton, the suburb of suburbs, which according to an article in one of the Boston papers had recently won an award for being the safest city in America. The rankings were based on crime statistics, not on psychotherapy ratings, but Newton had also made the news lately for having the highest number of psychiatrists per capita of any city in the U.S. A connection there?

  Anyhow, especially because I’d never consulted a therapist before, it felt comforting to know that I was seeking help in not just any old safe place, but in the safest city in the entire country. Dr. Foote’s office had apparently been furnished to convey that same impression. The walls were lined with books, the carpet was a tweedy tan, and the chairs were upholstered in a velvety brown. There was nothing threatening-looking about Dr. Foote, either. She wore a loosely draped dress in gray jersey with a red-patterned scarf and chunky gold earrings. Her footwear consisted of black flats, not boots.

  “Steve,” I repeated. “No matter how we’d split up, I’d miss him. Even before he fell into Anita’s clutches, I was lonely for him. In so many ways, we liked the same things. Hiking with our dogs. Eating out. I don’t really cook. For people. I cook for dogs. But that was okay because Steve likes restaurants. And no one could ask for a more attentive—” I stopped. As maybe you’ve noticed, I don’t hold back a lot, but I didn’t feel like talking to Dr. Foote about sex. “Except that asking for someone else was basically what I did. I was unappreciative and ungrateful. And stupid. I miss Steve a lot. And India and Lady. With India around, I used to be able to let Rowdy and Kimi off leash once in a while, in the woods, where there were no cars anywhere nearby, because India would watch out for them. She’s a shepherd. German shepherd dog,” I explained. “Very responsible. Incredibly obedient. The perfect dog. I’ve thought about getting one myself.” Dr. Foote raised her eyebrows. For some weird reason, her mouth twitched.

  “A shepherd.Or a Border collie. But I can’t, really, not where I live. If I got a male, there’d be trouble with Rowdy, and Kimi wouldn’t accept another female, and I don’t have room for kennels. The timing’s bad, too. I’m not back to normal yet. I’m a lot better, a million times better. My memory is fine, except that once in a while, I have trouble—I’ll read an article, and when I get to the end, I’ll have trouble remembering the beginning. And I don’t exactly have insomnia. I just wake up too early. Like four A.M.”

  “That is early,” Dr. Foote agreed.

  “And then I can’t go back to sleep.”

  “What do you do then?”

  “Get up. Feed the dogs. Work. Not that I exactly enjoy writing at five o’clock in the morning, but I get a lot done. I’m doing an article on fatal dog attacks, which is a fairly depressing subject, obviously, but it’s particularly depressing before dawn. Or sometimes I take the dogs to Fresh Pond, which is the kind of thing I always tell other people to do instead of going to singles bars or taking adult ed courses.”

  Dr. Foote looked puzzled.

  “World’s best dating service,” I explained. “A flashy dog. Two of them. The theory is perfectly sound, and I don’t want to take up swing dancing, and I don’t believe in personal ads—I think they’re dangerous— but I walk the dogs all the time, so I already know all the other dog walkers at Fresh Pond and in the rest of my neighborhood, and I’m not interested in them.”

  “Have you let people know that you’re interested in meeting men?” Dr. Foote asked.

  I thought the question over. It struck me as sensible. Had I let people know? “More or less,” I replied.

  She smiled. “More or less?”

  I smiled back. “Less.”

  ‘They may assume that you’re not ready. Or not interested. You do have an air of self-sufficiency, you know.”

  “Me?”

  “You.”

  “Well, in a way it’s true. I mean, Rowdy and Kimi and I are... How do I say this? There’s a way in which we’re complete. Not exactly complete. A unit. One. We’re the we in my life, if that makes any sense.” The first thing I’d done on arriving at Foote’s house had been to scrutinize the premises for any sign of a dog. I’d found none, unless you count the possibility of a kennel run in progress.

  “Does it make sense to you?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “And is there room for another person there? In that we?"

  “Not just anyone. But yes, there is. The right one.”

  “I’d suggest that you let people know that.”

  Close to the end of the fifty-minute hour, we made another appointment. The “session,” as Rita, my therapist friend and second-floor tenant, calls such meetings, had been different from what I’d expected. Unlike movie psychiatrists, Dr. Foote didn’t have a foreign accent and didn’t ask weird or corny questions about my father and mother. Rita does have a foreign accent—New York—and she’s obsessed with parents. Mine, I might add, were not the reason Rita had talked me into seeing Dr. Foote. Rather, Rita had argued that the combination of my head injury and the loss of my relationship with Steve were too much for me to bear by myself. I’d countered with a lot of claims about dogs, friends, and relatives, but Rita, who understands me, had pointed out that if Rowdy or Kimi had suffered a concussion and a traumatic loss, and had sporadic memory problems and early-morning insomnia, I wouldn’t hesitate to seek professional help. According to Rita, I should be as good an owner of myself as I was of my animals.

  As I was passing through Dr. Foote’s waiting room on my way out, the door to the outside opened, and two thoughts leaped to my consciousness. The first was that since the bland-looking fortyish man who entered the waiting room was evidently Dr. Foote’s next patient, he must be totally out of his mind. The second was Rita’s assurance that seeing a therapist was invariably proof of sanity, not madness. The man’s appearance and demeanor supported Rita’s view. He was about five ten and had light brown hair, blue eyes, and a fading tan. Not that the mad are necessarily tall or short, pale or dark, but if they look and act like some of the obviously deranged people who hang out in Harvard Square, they seem anything but ordinary. Dr. Foote’s patient wasn’t wearing jingle bells, hadn’t embroidered bizarre words on his clothing, and didn’t shout or whisper to imaginary listeners. On the contrary, he was well groomed and wore a dark business suit, and he dealt with the awkwardness of confronting a possibly insane person, namely, me, by nodding his head almost imperceptibly and giving a slight, formal smile. With equal courtesy, I returned the acknowledgment. What are manners for, after all? Disguising embarrassment, among other things. You’d have thought we were in the waiting room of a V.D. clinic.

  Chapter 5

  Subj: Your referral

  From: [email protected]

  To: [email protected]

  -----------------------------

  Hi Rita,

  I tried to call to thank you for the referral, but your line was busy. In any case, thanks for referring Holly Winter. I really appreciate this gesture of confidence. As we discussed, I have a strong interest in neurology, as well as in loss, grief, and attachment, and always welcome referrals where these and other issues are paramount.

  The plans for the new kitchen and baths are taking shape. David and I are very excited about the project. You'll have to come and have a drink with us when all the work is done.

  Once again, many thanks for the intere
sting referral. I still have a few hours open I'd like to fill, so bear me in mind!

  Best,

  Vee

  Chapter 6

  Male dogs strut around and even roll onto their backs in public without visibly blushing at the prospect of embarrassing remarks about whatever surgery they may or may not have had. The canine inability to wish for medical privacy is not limited to males. If Kimi, for example, felt the need to consult a mental-health professional, and if her dog-psychiatric records eventually fell into her paws—or were dropped there by Rita—she wouldn’t object to my publishing them in Dog’s Life magazine or otherwise letting everyone on dog’s green earth read them. I, however, belong to a lesser species and am thus tempted to suppress documents I acquired months after they were written. Alternatively, I could annotate them at length. As it is, I’ll limit myself to a single comment: Had I but known!

  Winter, Holly

  P. referred for emotional aspects of recent head trauma w/ amnesia lasting ca. I week. Now neur. ok except for reported early A.M. awakening, minor difficulty in concentrating, and reported problems in sequencing. Denies headaches. Injury concomitant with marriage of p’s former lover (Steve) to “consummate bitch.” Claims new wife indicted for embezzlement! Also concomitant w/ marriage of widowed father. Denies rivalry, resentment of new wife. Note marked idealization of late mother. Describes occupation as “dog writer”! Can this be?? Reports owns two, idealized—See late mother note. Perseveration on topic of dogs, deflects own conflicts to the animals, consequent to trauma?