The Wicked Flea Read online

  COUNTERTRANSFERENCE!!!

  Chapter 7

  Instead of going home after my session with Dr. Foote, I set out to pay a purely social call on a pair of elderly sisters, Althea Battlefield and Ceci Love, who were friends of mine and lived in Newton. Rowdy and I had met Althea on our therapy dog visits to a nursing home, and after she’d moved out of the facility and in with Ceci, I’d stayed in touch with both sisters. After my head trauma, they’d insisted on my staying with them for a few days. Incredibly, Ceci had welcomed my big, hairy, demanding dogs as well. She knew the medicine I needed most. Both sisters were now my adopted aunts. Althea looked about a thousand years old, but was only in her nineties. Ceci, the baby of the family, would object to a bald statement of her true age. Althea was tremendously tall and bony, with big hands, big feet, and a large brain capacity that she had put to use throughout her long life by devoting herself to the study of Sherlock Holmes. Although Ceci took advantage of Althea’s immenseness and scholar-liness as foils for her own petite frivolity, she had been trained in investment strategies by her late husband, a stockbroker, and was far less featherbrained than she took pains to appear.

  My appointment with Dr. Foote had been at 2:10. It was after three when I pulled up at Ceci’s house, a beautifully tended white colonial in a charming gas-lighted neighborhood of big houses with big yards. Real gaslights. But the yard was what I envied, a half acre or so that ran downhill behind the house and was fully enclosed by a high, sturdy fence, originally erected for the Newfoundlands Ceci had owned. When I’d met her, she’d been mourning the death of the last of her beloved giants, Simon, whose oil portrait occupied the place of honor above the fireplace in Ceci’s living room.

  Soon after I rang the bell, Ceci opened the door and launched into one of her usual nonstop and overwhelmingly hospitable greetings. “Holly, I’m so glad to see you, and Althea will be terribly sorry to have missed you, and I should have told you when you called, but I forgot, Hugh and Robert have whisked her off, so you’ll have to settle for me, if that’s all right, and Quest, of course, I’m dying for you to meet him!”

  Ceci liked to present herself as a vision in champagne. Her soft, pretty hair was tinted that shade, her face was always carefully made up in pinkish beige, and she favored flowing jersey garments in pale, pink-toned tans. Today she wore a light beige knit dress with a swath of black hairs across the skirt. The accidental ornamentation constituted my introduction to Quest, a Newfoundland she had just adopted from a breed rescue group. “Quest is shedding,” Ceci said, “not that I mind, I’m perfectly used to dog hair. Home isn’t home without it, is it? Althea begs to disagree, and she was determined to change his name to something from Sherlock Holmes—can you imagine a Newfoundland named Mycroft? And he is not fat!—but I said that being abandoned by his owners because he was supposedly defective was terrible enough, and it’s hard on any dog to adjust to new people, and I was not going to make things more difficult for him by changing his name, and there’s nothing wrong with Quest, is there? Especially when you consider that he’s been rehomed. ” Her smug expression suggested pride in the term, which was the new and fashionable way to refer to the rescue and placement of unwanted or abandoned animals. Ceci hated to feel outmoded. “In other words,” she explained, “he was on a quest, but his search ended right here.”

  As I trailed after Ceci, I tried to ask polite questions about Hugh and Robert, who are dear friends and admirers of Althea’s, but Ceci was obsessed with her new dog, who turned out to occupy a gigantic cedar-filled dog bed at the far end of the living room in a sort of mini conservatory with a tile floor, potted palms, and wicker furniture. The black bear of a dog looked at least as old as Althea. He was fast asleep.

  “Quest, wake up!” Ceci demanded. To me, she said, “As I may have mentioned, Quest has hip dysplasia, only mild to moderate, thank goodness, but no one else wanted to adopt him, and his age didn’t help, either, although we’re not quite sure what it is, maybe eleven, maybe more, but possibly less, so he wasn’t exactly the dog of most people’s dreams, but with Althea the way she is, we couldn’t have a young dog bounding around and bumping into her, but I had my heart set on a Newfoundland, and Quest is really very sweet and gentle, and he’s the perfect dog for us. Quest, wake up! We have company!” Turning to me again, she confided in an unnecessary whisper, “We think he may be a little hard of hearing.”

  As if awakened by the whispering, Quest raised his mighty head. His eyes had the opacity of old age. Like other giant breeds, the Newfoundland has a short life span. I’ve known Newfies to live to thirteen, but the average is more like nine years. Considering Quest’s elderly appearance and the hip dysplasia, he rose to his feet rather easily. The condition, a malformation of the ball and socket at the hip, is eventually accompanied by osteoarthritis, which is, in effect, the body’s effort to stabilize the unstable joint. Make your left hand into a tight fist. That’s the top of the dog’s thigh bone. Wrap your right hand snugly around it. That’s the part of the pelvis known as the acetabulum. The ensemble, a good femoral head set snugly in a correctly formed acetabulum, is a good hip joint. Loosen your right hand. Or make your left fist into a strange shape. Or pull your fist all the way out of the surrounding hand. As Tolstoy intimates in Anna Karenina, all happy hip joints are alike, but unhappy hip joints are unhappy in lots of different ways. And there you have dysplasia. Tolstoy, great family vet. I needed a new one, just as I needed a new man in my life. Steve Delaney had been both. Too bad Tolstoy was before my time.

  After offering a hand for Quest to sniff, I said, “Hi there, big dog. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

  “You can pat him,” Ceci assured me. “He’s a glutton for affection. For a Newf, he’s not really very protective. But you’re used to that.” Malamutes are not guard dogs or watch dogs. That’s what she meant. As I stroked the giant dog, Ceci went on to say that she was convinced that he came from show lines. “Doesn’t he have a lovely broad head? Good ears. His gait is less than ideal, but he can’t help that, can you, Quest? And he does very, very well, considering. And his antiinflammatories help a lot, don’t they?” On all subjects and in all circumstances, Ceci was a garrulous person. But when it comes to dogs, especially their own dogs, even laconic dog people turn voluble. Ceci continued for the next half hour, by which time we were having tea and cookies in the living room. Although Quest appeared to see and hear very little and to fall asleep at every opportunity, he followed Ceci in an endearing way and was now dozing at her feet. “He needs exercise,” Ceci rambled, “not that he can be expected to go running, which would be beyond me, if it comes to that, and he has the run of the yard, so to speak, but when he’s out there, he doesn’t actually run—dogs don’t, do they, unless you have more than one?—so I’ve been taking him to Clear Creek Park, where there’s a very nice dog group. Have I mentioned that Quest just loves other dogs?”

  “That’s wonderful,” I said before seizing the chance to follow Dr. Foote’s advice. “Speaking of the need for companionship, Ceci, I thought I might just mention that, um—”

  Before I could finish, she broke in, her face alight with glee. “You need to meet men. Of course you do. I understand completely. My marriage to Ellis was a very happy one, you know.” She glanced fondly at the tiny framed photo of her late husband that sat on a side table, then up at the mammoth portrait of the Newfoundland, Simon, that hung over the fireplace.

  “I thought I should say something,” I told her, “and not expect people to guess. Or think I wanted to be alone. Especially with Rowdy and Kimi, I think maybe, uh, the three of us can seem sort of self-sufficient.”

  “I have the perfect man for you,” Ceci announced. “He’s part of the dog group.” In asking an elderly woman about relatively young men, I’d had in mind the brokers at her late husband’s firm, maybe, or men who’d grown up in her lovely neighborhood. “His name is Douglas, and he is a lovely person. He has such a funny dog, a hound mix, heaven knows what, everything, adopted from a shelter, a sweet dog, big, smaller than Quest, of course, but a big dog, Ulysses, and the dog group could use your help. As a matter of fact, I was going to ask for your advice even before this came up, because, you see, it’s really rather awkward, but one of the nicest people there, Sylvia, has a dog that, if the truth be told, does not belong off leash. And I know that look on your face, Holly! No dog belongs off leash, but the dogs at the park stay together in a little group, and they have such fun, and it’s wonderful exercise for them. The only problem, really, is Zsa Zsa, Sylvia’s dog, who has a less than ideal temperament and is making things difficult for all of us.” Temperament is a dog-talk euphemism. A “bad temperament” usually means that the dog bites. Weak versions of the phrase—an “iffy temperament”—usually mean that the dog hasn’t bitten anyone yet.

  Just to be sure, I asked, “Has Zsa Zsa bitten anyone?”

  “Oh, no, no, no, not so far, not exactly, and she’s much worse with other dogs than she is with people, although I must admit that I don’t feel entirely comfortable with her, and she has a really unfortunate way of bothering people who don’t even like dogs, which is most unwelcome because not everyone at the park is happy to have the dogs play there, and the rest of us knock ourselves out, really, to be responsible and not to make matters worse by giving dogs a bad name.”

  “Zsa Zsa jumps on people?” I guessed.

  “And chases after them, especially runners. And people on bicycles. But the worst part is that she picks fights with other dogs, and we don’t know what to do about it without offending Sylvia.”

  “Maybe you can’t. Have you tried talking to Sylvia?”

  Ceci made girlish faces. “Sylvia doesn’t seem to appreciate the extent of the problem, because you won’t believe it, b
ut Zsa Zsa is a golden retriever! Of all breeds! They’re usually angels, but you know that, don’t you? You used to have them.” Did I ever! My native breed. “And Sylvia’s son-in-law,” Ceci continued, “Wilson Goodenough—such a striking name— has tried to talk to her, I’m sure, because Wilson is a perfect paragon of responsible ownership, and Zsa Zsa embarrasses him, and I’m sure that if he could do anything about her, he would. Wilson did persuade Sylvia to stop breeding Zsa Zsa, but that’s as far as he got. But what I’m driving at, Holly, is that we could use your help, and so we’ll go to the park with Quest in a completely natural way.” Ceci smiled impishly. “We won’t say that you’re there to meet Douglas, you see,” Ceci declared. “We’ll say that you’re there about Zsa Zsa. You and Douglas can just bump into each other.”

  “Oh?” I said.

  “That way,” Ceci concluded, “Douglas won’t be scared off.”

  Chapter 8

  I awoke the next morning' at the undogly hour of four and couldn’t get back to sleep. At quarter of five, after a shower, breakfast, coffee, and a hit of E-mail, I should have done some work, but as I’d told Dr. Foote, fatal dog attacks are not a sunrise topic. I had a second project, but Rita and my third-floor tenants had made me promise to conduct the research for it only when they were out of the house. They’d also made me swear to ventilate the building after each experiment. I’d have done that anyway. You can grind chicken livers and mix them with commeal, or douse calves’ liver in garlic powder and sherry, or just nuke a slab of lamb’s liver in the microwave, but no matter what kind of liver you use and how you cook it, it stinks. Dogs disagree. Yes, indeed, as you’ve probably guessed, my new project was a cookbook. The original working title had been A Hundred and One Ways to Cook Liver. It soon became apparent that I’d underestimated the scope of my subject. Two Hundred and One...? Five Hundred and One...? Or even (gasp!), A Thousand and One Irresistibly Tempting Ways to Cook Liver, Liver, and More LIVER?

  Times best-seller list, here I come!

  Anyway, in Ceci’s case, the observation about elderly people waking early was true, and she’d mentioned that her dog group began to gather in the park at dawn, so I felt free to call her and accept the invitation to accompany her. I offered to drive and consequently needed room for Quest, whose monumental size would mean that I’d have space in the back of the Bronco for Rowdy or Kimi but not both. I hate to bad-mouth my own dogs, but strictly between us, it’s often hard to estimate which one will act worse in a particular situation, especially when the situation involves anything remotely akin to sharing a prized possession, such as food, water, space in our car, or, for that matter, the God-given dominion of the Alaskan malamute over every other creature in the solar system. When it comes to dog aggression, a rule of thumb—rule of dew claw?—is that same-sex dogs are more likely to fight than are dogs of opposite sexes. But Kimi makes her own rules, which stipulate, in essence, that she’s the one who does. Rule. The universe.

  In brief, my intuition advised that Rowdy would behave slightly better than Kimi. To protect Rowdy from the hideous sight of a male Newfoundland occupying space in his car, I removed the metal travel crates from the Bronco and incarcerated Rowdy in a blessedly opaque Vari-Kennel. Furthermore, Ceci and I wisely abided by a second rule of dew claw, the one that says to introduce dogs on neutral turf. Rowdy and Quest met a few houses down the street from Ceci’s rather than in Rowdy’s precious, if ancient and dented, Bronco.

  The moment Rowdy saw the monumental black Newfie, he obviously came to an important decision, which was that Quest did not exist. After a single initial glance, Rowdy stared right through the big dog. Inside his Vari-Kennel on the drive to the park, Rowdy didn’t growl, rumble, or fuss at Quest’s proximity. Why protest the presence of a dog who wasn’t there? Even a dog whose weight had practically broken my arms and back when I’d half lifted him into the car? When we arrived at the park and took both dogs out of the Bronco, Rowdy surveyed the scene with his usual curiosity. Clear Creek Park, I should mention, was not some stingy patch of vegetation, but a generous area of perhaps thirty or forty acres that included open fields and dense woodland. Now, Rowdy scanned the blacktop parking lot, the tennis courts, a playground, a large wooded area in the distance, the cloudless sky, and a vast playing field, its grass still green, where four people in bright parkas huddled together near a group of frolicking dogs. He took in absolutely everything except Quest. Etiquette provides a term for this extreme form of snubbing. As I recall, it’s known as the cut direct.

  “Oh, I do think that our boys are going to be dear friends,” Ceci gushed. As always, she was carefully made up and becomingly dressed. Her champagne-colored jacket had a hood trimmed with what she had assured me at stupefying length was artificial fur. Although I’d heard all about her devotion to Newfoundlands, I suddenly realized that one source of her attraction to the breed was the startling contrast between her pale daintiness and the breed’s dark monumentality. “Rowdy has been very good with Quest, hasn’t he? Good boy, Rowdy! You can always tell when dogs form friendships, can’t you! You can see it in their eyes. Rowdy, you’ve taken a real liking to Quest, haven’t you? What a good dog! Oh, there’s Noah. He’s the round little man, and those four brown shepherd mixes are his, all from shelters, he’s such a noble soul, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and Jonna, isn’t that cute?”

  It seemed to me that the hour, seven-thirty A.M., was too damned early for cute, especially canine cute, but I was delighted to hear the enthusiasm in Ceci’s voice. Althea had spoken to me in private about her worry that Ceci felt obliged to spend most of her time at home. Althea actually liked to have her sister go out, not only because Althea didn’t want to be a burden, but because Ceci’s unending chitchat grated on Althea’s nerves. Now, making her way eagerly toward the group of dogs and people, Ceci picked up her pace and tried to cajole Quest to do the same. “Sweetheart! Let’s go play with our friends! Let’s go!” she enjoined loudly. Quest raised his tremendous head a bit and may have picked up his lumbering pace a trifle, but Ceci was satisfied. “He just loves coming here, don’t you, sweetie? Who is Mommy’s best boy? Is Quest? Is Quest Mommy’s good boy who loves to play with the other doggies?”

  In public! With someone listening! I cringed at the prospect of Ceci’s introducing me in a similar fashion to Douglas, the man she had in mind for me: Now Dougie, this is Holly-Wolly, and she is Mommy’s best girl, isn’t she? She’s a good girl who just loves to play with the men, aren’t you, Holly? But Douglas wasn’t there; Noah, owner of the four Gospels, was the only man in the group. The three women with him were presented to me only as the mommies of Chomsky, Princess, and Henry David Thoreau. Chomsky was a soft-coated wheaten terrier, a male in desperate need of grooming. That’s the hitch about wheatens. They’re cheerful, perky, friendly, cooperative, charming, medium-size dogs, perfects pets, except that they absolutely, positively need regular brushing, bathing, and trimming, and when I say need, I’m speaking (as usual) from the dog’s point of view. If that soft coat gets filthy and matted the way Chomsky’s was, the dog’s skin becomes irritated and sore. Why do people who hate grooming insist on getting these high-maintenance breeds?

  As is perhaps all too apparent by now, the attitude of dog-show types toward pet people is the attitude that concert pianists take toward enthusiastic amateurs who struggle to pick out “Go Tell Aunt Rhody” on the glockenspiel. Our justification for the insufferable condescension is that they know nothing, we know everything, they’re always wrong, we’re always right, and what’s more, when we try to educate them, are they grateful? No! Gee, I can’t imagine why. For once, I refrained from lecturing. Fortunately, the remaining two dogs were black Labs and thus had short, smooth, easy-care coats. Princess was young, lean, and fit, but poor Henry David Thoreau was grotesquely fat, like a whale with legs, as I did not say aloud.

  As Ceci had said in pointing him out, Noah was a round little man. He had the fuzzy brown hair and the warm, safe appeal of a teddy bear, an image he probably sensed and hated. Even so, his red parka, which matched the red collars on his shepherd-mix dogs, would’ve been suitable for the L. L. Bean toy known as L. L. Bear. Together with the mommies, clad, respectively, in purple, blue, and yellow, Noah extended an enthusiastic greeting to Rowdy and expressed a gratifying interest in him.