~This story originally appeared in The
Kenyon Review (2009).
Will went with
Linda to the animal shelter because he had a crush on her and thought that the
trip would help her to see him in a good light.
She called Sunday morning, told him she needed a favor, and he said he
was free. A lie. He’d planned on going to yoga in the
afternoon for his back pains. He met
Linda a month ago at yoga, before she quit to join a more challenging class.
She
picked him up and told him in the car that she’d put a hold on a dog
yesterday. “Impulse shopping,” she said,
and that she needed a neutral party.
Will
felt absurdly hurt, but said, “I’m your man.”
The
shelter was south of town, in an area that was undeveloped two years ago, when
Will moved to Colorado . Tract houses were there now, and people were
raking leaves and washing cars. He saw a
sign for Shaeffer’s Miniature Animals and Petting Zoo, and in a small field
beyond the houses, children were looking into an oval pen.
“They
do something scientific to alter those animals,” Linda said. “It makes me sad.”
He
saw a tiny goat and something prehistoric-looking, a shaggy thing, perhaps a
yak, the size of a tricycle. Miniature
horses, their manes glamorously long, pranced among other mini-animals,
including a pint-sized pig. Children
pitched lettuce at the animals, and a bossy, regular-sized goose honked, and
nipped at the children’s ankles.
Will
knew that he’d recall this moment and the constriction in his heart. The boy he’d been. That’s what did it. The boy who despised circuses and carnivals,
and feared especially the clowns, back East, in the Adirondacks . He was seven when he and his older brother
saw the carnival parade--caissons of animals in cages, clowns lobbing candy at
people, and at the very end, a skinny, dark woman in gypsy garb, riding an
elephant. Will’s brother Eddie swore
that the woman winked at him.
Will
turned to Linda in the car and said that he’d just plunged back into a
childhood memory.
“It
happens to everyone. You’re probably
getting in touch with your inner child,” she said, and added that she was
working with a therapist to uncover childhood traumas.
He felt himself
entering a chamber, sealed off from everything, except judgment.
“Something’s
waiting for me back there, and I’m going to face it,” she said. “I’ve got shooting pains in my legs every
night. The residue of blocked
memory. Those pains. That’s what I’m currently working on.”
“Get over it,” he
wanted to say. Why did he have a crush
on her? She wore gaudy skirts and
blouses and a cloying lilac perfume. But
her hands—big, strong hands. She was a
potter.
“My back pain is
the direct result of an injury,” he said. “I fell off a ladder. Yoga has made a world of difference.”
“That teacher used
to put me to sleep, which was all right, I guess, because people do go there to
relax, but he tried to hit on me.”
“Gary ?
No, I don’t believe it.”
“Believe it. It happened after class. Why would I make up such a thing?”
It would be
pointless to defend Gary ,
so he kept quiet. He’d never attended
yoga before, and had nothing for comparison, but Gary was all right. He was in his forties, like Will, but pudgy,
which had surprised and pleased Will.
Sure, it took him awhile to get used to the tapes Gary played—a
monotonous flute and a chorus of humming voices—but the music later became one
of the attractions. Gary and his music
were dependable, as were most of the regulars in the class, lots of old people,
and a couple of younger ones, like Linda, and a trim, bald man who occasionally
skipped some poses, and stayed curled in the child’s pose, the very thing Gary
recommended at the start of every session. “It’s not a competition,” he’d
say. “You’re here to take care of
yourselves, and put troubles out of mind.
You’re doing something for yourself.
If it hurts, quit.”
Sheathed in black
spandex, Linda did all the moves and mastered a breathing technique that Will
liked to listen to. He’d hear her take a
gorgeous intake of breath, releasing it with a loud flutter. One time he’d seen her crying.
“I’m sorry for
what I said earlier about not believing you,” he said at the shelter parking
lot.
“I really like the
advanced class. First thing I do now is
to see myself as a hose, a long, bright green one, with many kinks, and my job
is to work out those kinks.”
“Sounds good. I might just try it myself.”
The shelter smelled
of damp concrete and disinfectant inside, and it felt chilly, even though sun
thieved through the curtains behind the front desk. Somewhere, beyond the reception area, Will
heard dogs wailing and birds shrieking.
“Remember
me?” Linda asked at the desk.
“The
terrier,” said the receptionist.
Linda
nodded. “I brought a friend with
me. I might’ve gotten a little carried
away yesterday, and this fellow’s here to bring me to my senses.”
The
receptionist looked at him, Will thought, as if Linda was a bad judge of
character, and then the receptionist left.
He
and Linda explored The Feline Room, cages of cats from floor to ceiling. Will read the cards that gave the cats’
names, history, and personality traits, always positive, he noted. He was peering at a hefty, declawed Maine
Coon cat named Cinders when a little girl and an elderly woman entered, the
girl in a fancy yellow dress and the woman in a blue running suit.
“Cinders bites and
spits,” the girl told Will, “and see that old tabby cat up there, that one
stinks.”
“Marcy’s an
expert,” the older woman said.
“Gram, just like I
told you, the rejects are still here, and someone walked off with Hazel.”
“It was meant to
be,” the woman told Marcy.
“They found Hazel
in a barn,” Marcy said. “Just an
itty-bitty kitten, cute as a button. She
had a baby brother, but he expired.”
“She can tell you
the facts about all the animals here,” the woman said. “Are you looking for a cat?”
Linda shook her
head. “We’re here for a dog.”
“Dogs are good,”
said the woman.
“Which one are you after?” Marcy asked.
“A terrier, ginger-colored, with white whiskers
and--”
“Bucky!” Marcy
exclaimed. “A long tail, crooked feet,
and a hide that could use some shampooing. He’s old.
He’s on the death list.”
“I
know that,” Linda said, and moved closer to Will.
The
receptionist led them to The Get-Acquainted Room, and opened the door a
crack. The dog tried to leap out, but
before the receptionist closed the door, Will saw a grimy snout and bristly
white whiskers.
“He’s excited,”
the receptionist said. “Bucky belonged
to an old couple in the country, but they got too feeble to take care of him,
so they dropped him off here.”
“When was that?”
Will asked.
Linda shook her
head. “Let’s just go in, and see how he
takes to us, okay?”
It wasn’t a
handsome, venerable dog. It wasn’t the
least bit dignified or even cute. It was
a plump dog with short legs, long nails, a right foot that jutted out, matted
hair, and a smell that made Will shudder.
“What do you
think?” Linda asked.
“He likes
you. He’s a happy dog.” Bucky was all over her, clamoring at her
legs, and shooting his paws up her skirt.
The tail was long, just like Marcy said, and Bucky was chasing it,
spinning around, snapping at his tail, and falling over. “You’ll have to get him all checked out to
make sure nothing’s wrong with him.”
“And
then what? Bring him back? I couldn’t do that to him or myself. I can’t help it. I get easily attached.”
“Get
attached to me,” he wanted to say, and projected himself into her house in the
hills, a place he’d not seen, but that she’d mentioned after yoga. It would be ample, with a deck overlooking
the river, a hot tub, and a generous bedroom.
“Take
him,” Will said.
Linda
might’ve been getting appraised as a potential parent for an overseas orphan
for all the paperwork. While she filled out
forms, he looked at the time. No yoga
today, and there was Linda, buying a leash, and talking about making vet and
grooming appointments, picking up toys, food, a collar, and ID tag. He kept his counsel even though he thought of
the expense and trouble she was going through.
In the car, she insisted that she had to begin attacking her errands. Bucky was surprisingly calm in the back seat,
as if the previous antics at the shelter were an act, and now that he found a
companion, he could relax.
Will rolled down
the window, but the car still stank.
“I know, I know,”
Linda said. “He’s homely and pungent,
but he’s the one. I felt it
yesterday. Thanks for coming along, and
not making fun of me. I’m a fool. I know that.”
Will was touched,
but a stupid thing came out of his mouth.
“I did something one time, when I was a kid. My brother Eddie had this poodle, Sassy. Very high maintenance. She used to bite me, but Eddie always said
she was just trying to play with me. I
don’t remember all the circumstances exactly, and the dog was old. She peed on the sofa, and I smacked her hard.
I’ll never forget the thud she made
when she hit the floor, but, by God, she looked up at me and licked my
hand. She tried to get back up on the
sofa next to me, but she died.”
“Oh, Will.” Linda rested her hand on his leg, and then
Bucky got stirred up in the back seat.
He yipped, stood on his haunches, lifted his chin, and rested his
crooked paws on his fat middle, like a little Mussolini.
“So, is there more
to the story?” Linda asked. “What did
you do about Sassy?”
“Lied. I told Eddie that Sassy probably knew she was
on her way out, like dogs do, when they’re old and sickly, and try to go
somewhere to die. I said that she’d been
acting peculiar, begging to go out, so I let her out.”
He couldn’t recall
how he’d felt, lifting Sassy off the floor, and placing her body at the base of
a maple tree, only that Eddie accepted the story as one befitting Sassy and how
she always got her own way.
He glanced at the
back seat. Bucky was trying to get up
into the rear window area. “The stories
that dog could tell,” Linda remarked.
“He was in the shelter for over a month, and before that he had a
history with his original owners. It’s
been a good day, a good day,” she said, and thanked Will again for his time.
“I could help
you. You’ll have your hands full, and
then you’ve got to introduce Bucky to your place and make sure he adjusts all
right.”
“I’ve got
someone.”
He felt a spike of
hurt and embarrassment and looked away.
Ribs of orange clouds showed in the sky above emaciated trees on the
outskirts of town, near where he lived.
“My partner goes
to your yoga class. She’s the one with
the curly gray hair. Kind of short, but
big on top.” She laughed. “Her hair, I mean.”
“Oh?” That woman was probably in her sixties, and
nondescript, except for her agility and her unfortunate hairdo, closely cut on
the sides, with tufted hair on top. She
usually wore baggy, tie-dyed clothing.
And didn’t she have a tattoo on her arm? Yes, an unoriginal rose. “I don’t recall her. I tend to zone out in class and do what Gary says by turning
inward.”
“She likes the
class, too,” Linda said.
Linda pulled into
his driveway, and he quickly got out of the car. Comfortably ensconced in the back seat, Bucky
stared ahead at the house with a haughty expression, as if to say, “So, this is
where you live. It’s old. It needs to be fixed and spruced up.”
“I’ll keep you
posted,” Linda said, and as she backed out of the driveway, Will leaned over to
pull some weeds and felt a sharp pain in his lower back.
“Son of a bitch,”
he muttered. “Goddamn it.”
He was in bed, an
ice pack on his back, when it came to him that he should’ve asked Linda why she
took him to the pound, and not the companion.
Maybe Linda got Bucky as a surprise present for the old contortionist. What a fool he’d been. Right now, the lesbians might be discussing
him while they lathered up Buddy, rewarded him with treats, and gloated over
their shared good fortune. The old mutt
would’ve been put under, and now he had two doting women.
On Monday, Will complained
about his back, and his colleague Brian, at Food for All, recommended a
chiropractor. It was Brian who had suggested
yoga, and also urged Will to invest in a back-friendly chair for the
office. The new breed, Brian. Up on cures for every ailment. Only in his late-twenties and already a
district manager, a position Will earned after years of being assigned to
ailing stores in Nebraska
that eventually had to be shut down.
He’d been relocated to the store in Colorado for the past two years, and living
in a condo until last fall, when he bought the house. The back injury came when he fell off a
ladder while cleaning the gutters.
“That chiropractor
will straighten you right out,” Brian said.
“I hardly slept a
wink last night. Even with the extra-strength
pain relievers.”
Brian shook his
head, but spared Will a lecture on the advantages of natural, homeopathic
remedies. It was probably the
painkillers, insomnia, and yesterday’s fiasco that made him feel sluggish. He excused himself and went outside. It was nippy out back by the loading dock,
but he had an unobstructed view of the foothills, where Linda lived, and where
he wanted to live, but the houses were out of his price range. Going up there with the realtor had made him
feel like an outsider, and brought to mind an image of himself as a boy,
peeking into the window of an elegant house on Silver Lake
It doesn’t have to
be one traumatic thing that happens to kids.
Why were people like Linda so intent on unlocking a major event? Nothing awful had happened to him. He and Eddie turned out all right. Eddie had a wife and kids and his own car
dealership back East. And as for
himself, he was proud of his job and accomplishments. He lived in a nice neighborhood, and was
getting accustomed to living alone just fine, not pining away for Ruth, the
woman he’d been involved with in Nebraska , an
elementary school teacher, who couldn’t just abandon her job to follow him to Colorado .
He glanced at the
foothills, their shape and color influenced by passing clouds, one hillside
burnished by sun, another darker, almost purple, but still more distinct than
the sunny side, so that he could see the exact shape of the trees and the way
their crowns and skirts responded to wind.
On his office chair,
he found a note from Brian: “Call Linda.”
“I’ll pass on
that. She has unhealthy fixations. Linda is contraindicated,” Will told
himself.
She answered on
the first ring, but it was hard to hear her.
She whispered his name, and he winced even though it felt stunning,
hearing his name in that breathy way.
“It’s not working
out,” she whispered.
With the partner,
he hoped. Maybe the partner was nearby,
trying to eavesdrop.
Jesus, Will
thought, when he heard panting on the phone—clearly the dog. “I’m pretty busy right now. Look, I’m sorry, but I don’t know what you
want.”
“Could you take
him? On a temporary basis. I can’t give you all the particulars now, but
I’d be eternally grateful for this small favor.”
“You’ve made your
bed, now lie in it. Go stew in your own
juices,” he could say back to her, as he’d done with Ruth, when he made
belittling farewell remarks about her hometown and the brutal Nebraska weather. He looked down at his unergonomic chair and
the phone message. A voice inside him
said, “Be kind. It’s easier to be kind,
and better than that awful jealousy and rage.
Do this for yourself.”
“I know I’ve put
you in a hard spot, but I trust you, Will, and I feel we made a
connection.”
“You’re full of
surprises,” he said, but whatever she said back was lost because the dog turned
operatic.
He jotted down
directions to her place, and then told her that his back hurt.
“I’ll fix you
right up,” she said, but she could’ve been addressing the dog.
He told Brian that
he was heading to the chiropractor and the health-food store to pick up natural
remedies.
Brian patted his
shoulder. “Good for you, old boy. Your
spine’s been sending messages, telling you to shape up.”
“Take it easy,
take it easy,” Will told himself, but the traffic drove him nuts, and why was
his heart racing? Linda, a woman
unavailable to him, asked him to lend a hand.
He wasn’t traveling to a lover’s place, but still that voluptuous
feeling that just around the bend something fabulous awaited. Of course, tribes of cyclists in their neon
outfits would be pedaling up the narrowest part of the canyon. To calm himself, he focused on the river and
the way that the sun tumbled over the sandstone cliffs, casting shards of light
on the water.
He took a left
onto a narrow dirt road that curved into an area canopied by evergreens. No houses in sight, and the air was cooler
and still, as if things were slowing down, even the thrumming crickets and
birds hushing up, and then he felt a quickening sensation in his chest.
He calmly walked
up the steps to Linda’s place with an image behind him, the picture that had
emerged of himself as a boy in the woods. He’d come upon a tarpaper shack, with windows
covered by sheets of plastic, smeared with rain and grime, and inside a wobbly
flame from a kerosene lantern making acrobatic shadows on the wall. He’d craned his neck to see more, and just
moments ago, the moldy smell of the window from years ago had come back to him,
and the flickering sight of three people inside--a man, woman, and a homely
little girl with pinched eyes.
And now he was at
Linda’s door, failing to register shock that it was a trailer home, a plain
beige rectangle, beyond which was a lush vegetable and flower garden, with
leaves as big as mittens.
“I had quite a trip
up here,” he told Linda in the tiny kitchen, its shelves crammed with dishes,
bowls, and cups that he assumed were her handiwork.
“I’m going to give
you some arnica oil for your back.”
He wondered where
the companion was, but asked about Bucky.
“He’s hiding under
the bed,” Linda said.
So, this is where
it happens, Will thought, in the bedroom, a bright room with a bay window and a
large bed covered by a patchwork quilt.
“It didn’t work
out,” Linda said, and got on her hands and knees.
The sight of her
hunkering down and dragging Bucky out titillated him. “Did he misbehave?”
“It’s a long
story,” she said. Bucky’s tongue lolled,
and his body trembled. The women hadn’t
cleaned him up, and his paws and snout indicated that he might’ve rooted around
in the garden.
“Your friend
didn’t like him?”
“She had an
adverse reaction, and this fellow hasn’t eaten a thing, but what a ruckus he
made yesterday, a regular whirling dervish.
Eleanor’s in the hospital.”
“Oh,
no. I’m sorry,” he said quickly.
“Everything
backfired. She used to have a terrier,
but he passed on. He’s buried out
back. Sick people often respond well to
animals. Sometimes they go right into
remission.”
His spine
tensed. This is what was happening up
here. Linda’s companion had cancer or
leukemia. He sat on the edge of the
bed.
“There’s no way
that I’m going to put her in assisted-care.
No way.”
“Good for you,”
Will said, a bit too exuberantly, he realized.
Bucky sat up, and used his front paws to drag his rump across the rug.
“That dog’s got
multiple personalities, or a mood disorder.
Charming one minute, and crazy the next,” Linda said. “Eleanor will come home. She’ll have her garden, her own bed, and all
the things she loves around her. That’s
the picture I’m working on.”
She got up.
He closed his eyes, and visualized water trying to surge through kinks
in a hose.
“I’ve got just the thing for you.” She gave him a jar of arnica oil for his back
and herded him toward the kitchen door, thanking him profusely for his
help.
“Why did you pick me?” he blurted.
“To tell you the truth, I figured you’d knock some
sense into me. Yesterday, I thought
you’d say, ‘Have you got rocks in your head?
Why take old damaged goods?’”
He forced a smile,
but felt wounded, and ashamed of thinking about himself when she had bigger
matters to contend with, but he was fixed on the artificial act he performed
yesterday to win her affection.
Something and everything had shut down in him, so that when Linda hugged
him and handed him Bucky’s leash, he felt nothing. Bucky followed him to the car, and climbed
into the open passenger door, as if the leash and human commands had become
superfluous.
Bucky collapsed on
the seat, and dozed off, as Will drove down the canyon.
The first bark
startled him. Bucky sat up and kept
barking. They’d entered a populated
area, maybe Bucky’s old territory, but it was hard to tell if he was sad or
happy. He was infatuated again with his
own tail and with the window.
Will pulled off
the road, put the leash on Bucky, and got yanked into the tall grass toward the
river, now a pale blue reflection of the late-afternoon sky, definitely not
vivid like the river in his hometown back East.
That river had been affected by dyes at the paper mill where his father
worked. On the day he and Eddie went to
the swimming hole, the river was maroon.
Eddie had attached a rope to a tree so he could swing out and cannon
ball into the deep part. Will had stood
on the shoreline, watching the colored waves cuff the sand and his toes. He heard Eddie yell, “Geronimo,” but missed
seeing Eddie’s flight, and later insisted that they had to go home. Eddie, colored like a beet, razzed him for
ruining his good time. “You chickened out.
Party pooper.”
Will wanted to
deck him, but as Eddie boasted about his terrific feats at the river, Will
pretended he was Eddie, climbing the tree, and swinging over the water. He’d even felt his own heart cooperating with
a rising and falling sensation.
Buddy just wanted
to do his business. That’s what all the
fuss had been about. He pooped and peed
in the woods, and was now lapping up river water.
“What a fatty,”
Will heard a woman say. He looked back
and saw a middle-aged woman in a bulky cardigan, black slacks, and fancy white
running shoes. “What kind is it?”
“He’s a male dog.”
She laughed, as if
she’d heard something hilarious. “No, I
mean what kind of mix is he?”
“A terrier.”
She leaned down
for a closer look. “I’ll bet there’s
some basset hound in him. Ooh, what a
stinker.”
“He’s not
mine. I’m helping out a friend.”
“That bowser’s got
basset hound in him. Oh, bless his
heart,” she said, when Bucky walked crookedly toward her. “Has he got arthritis?”
“I don’t
know. He’s old. He’s probably got a lot of things wrong with
him.”
She looked offended. “I have two cats, a calico and a
Siamese. They’re old and delightful, and
well-maintained. That dog there--”
“Bucky,” Will
said. The dog thrust a muddy paw at
Will’s slacks and rolled over to exhibit a slack belly soiled with muck.
“Bucky looks like
the product of neglect.”
Will felt a sword
of resentment move through him. “I never
cared for cats. Too haughty and
devious.”
She glared at him,
and then trudged off in her stupid athletic shoes.
Will put the leash
on Bucky, and got an awful whiff of that ripe smell. He pulled Bucky back to the car, rolled down
the windows, and felt a pitch of dread.
Pretty soon he’d be home, stuck with Bucky. “It’s only temporary,” he told himself, and
then recited what needed to be done.
“First, a grooming appointment, buster.
I’m the boss now. Forget your
other life. You’re not allowed on the
bed, and you are not to bark or make any begging sounds.”
Bucky was asleep,
his legs twittering, as if he were dreaming.
Will pulled into
his driveway. Linda and Eleanor might be
leaving the hospital now. His house
needed a paint job, and the leaf-filled gutters seemed to mock him. Tomorrow, he’d have to tell a pack of lies to
Brian, but he could say he picked up arnica oil for his back.
He got out of the
car with Bucky on the leash. The dog
looked around with a curious expression, as if to say, “How did I end up here?”
Will looked up
briefly, and felt transported to last fall, and the feeling he had that
something was going to happen. He’d
climbed up the last rung of the ladder.
One hand on the gutter, the other on the ladder, he’d felt it coming,
the ladder toppling backwards, and he’d given into it, not even trying to hang
on to the gutter.
Bucky moved about
the house like an appraiser, checking out the floors, furniture, and kitchen
appliances. Will placed two frankfurters
and a bowl of water on a paper towel on the floor. Bucky tore into the towel, but snubbed the
frankfurters and water.
He was too tired
to scold the dog and embark on the training regimen. Before heading upstairs to take a bath, he
dumped the jar of arnica oil in the trash.
The hot water in
the tub steamed the room and blushed his legs pink. No more would he play the fool for people
like Linda and Brian. He’d come home
today with a smelly mongrel. “You got
your comeuppance,” Ruth could tell him.
“What goes around comes around.”
“Geronimo,” Eddie
had yelled, and then there’d been a long wait between the war whoop and the
sound of Eddie hitting the water and finally coming up for air. It was the second part that rattled
Will—waiting to see his brother come up—and learning later that Eddie had
wanted to scare him. There’d been no
fractured skull, no brother drowning in a maroon river, and when Eddie kept
bragging about his fabulous experience, Will told him that he’d missed out on
something bigger—two people in the woods on the opposite side of the river,
having a picnic.
“So, what’s the
big deal? A picnic?”
Will explained
that it was hard to see things exactly, but a man and woman were sitting on a
blue blanket and drinking something from a thermos.
“I don’t get it,”
Eddie had said. “That’s something you
see every day.”
“Yeah, but then
they sprawled out on the blanket,” Will said.
“Were
they naked?”
“She
was. Buck naked. She was on top of him, and then you hollered
‘Geronimo,’ and she took off like greased lightning.”
“I didn’t see
anything when I went under the water. It
was muddy as hell down there.”
“I saw the woman’s
ass and back. She was tea-colored, I
swear.”
“What did the man
look like?”
Bucky sounded like
he was tearing up the carpeting outside the bathroom. Will leaned back and rested his head on the
curved lip of the tub. The man didn’t
hightail it out of the woods with the woman.
He hung around, waiting to make sure that Eddie was all right.
Bucky was panting,
scratching at the door, and whipping his tail at for it for extra emphasis. “Hey, relax,” Will shouted, but Bucky kept at
it.
Will got out of
the tub and opened the door part way. Bucky dropped low and cowered. Will wanted to shut the door; that’s all he
had to do, but he stood there, water dripping from his legs. What a sight, he thought. What a sight.
Bucky plunged
inside, and went right for the tub, as if performing a necessary trick he’d
mastered long ago. He heaved himself
into the soapy water with an “I’ll show you attitude,” and looked back at Will,
daring him to dispute who was boss and what happiness looked like.
*****
THE STORY BEHIND THE STORY
The
story might’ve been sparked by my longstanding fear of dogs, and how I once
went to the local pound, against my better judgment, to help a dear friend pick
out a dog. She must’ve known that I’d
support her every desire by going all along with her in the first place to
appraise a terrier she’d looked at
earlier on her own. To be honest, I
spent much of my time gawking at many cats in cages, and finding them all
unacceptable, despite the glowing placards on the cages attesting to each cat’s
pleasant disposition and suitability for becoming a lovable life-long
companion.
When
I saw the terrier my friend had chosen, I had to squelch the desire to say, “Do
you have rocks in your head? Have you
taken leave of your senses?” The dog
looked like the product of neglect, and I was hungry, and just wanted to leave
the place, so I did what I often do when friends parade new and unacceptable
mates for inspection and approval, I hold my counsel, and then I lie outright
by praising “the significant other.” In
the terrier incident, I came across like the voice of Satan by saying, “Take
him.”
*****
ABOUT LESLEE BECKER
Leslee Becker’s story collection, The Sincere Café, won the 1996 Mid-List
Press Fiction Prize. Her stories have
appeared in The Atlantic, Ploughshares,
The Kenyon Review, Iowa Review, Epoch, New
England Review, and elsewhere. She has received the Pirate’s Alley Faulkner
Society Award, the Nimrod/Katherine
Anne Porter Fiction Prize, Wallace Stegner Fellowship, the James
Michener/Copernicus Society Award, the Moondance International Film Festival
Award for Short Stories, and the 2014 Boston
Review Fiction Prize. She lives in
Fort Collins, Colorado, and teaches at Colorado State University.
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