The Truth About Dogs
We met at Speedy Romeo where he was bartending, while hardly tending bar. “I’m just here to pour the wine and beer,” he later told me, which shouldn’t have been a disappointment, but somehow still was. It showed much less attention to detail than the previous job entailed. All he needed to do was match the labels on the bottles to customer descriptions, and even that proved difficult for him — he’d already had to re-pour my order twice.
But Joanna thought he was cute, and so did I, which is why I let her flirt with him to get his number. Using her tried, and very true excuse, she laughed while flinging around her white blonde hair and said, “sorry, I have a boyfriend,” when he’d asked, and then followed up “but my friend doesn’t,” with a wink.
I wasn’t newly single or hot on the prowl, but had shed a few pounds from my six-foot frame that winter, and recently gotten my hair ombre’d blonde. These had been small rewards, meant to dull the frustration I experienced at my desk job, but mostly were only reminders of how trapped I felt, constantly trying to keep up with the Joneses. For five years, I had been working in the photography industry as an agent (the veneer slowly eroding over time) and could feel my thighs spreading in my desk chair. Nine hours every day, I was required to be in that chair, and more often than not, I’d find myself hunching over the computer, eyes blurring just to read an email. Except instead of replying, I‘d dick around on Facebook and read articles about how sitting for too long can kill you.
We had our first date at Buttermilk Channel, where we ate expensive oysters over beds of salt and I thought about how having dinner with someone really is a romantic experience, because it is an experience, and now it’s something the two of you have shared.
Jacob told me about Emily before that night.
“I’m still married to my ex wife,” he texted. “Just in case that turns you off.”
“Do you still live with her?” I’d asked.
“No, she lives in the East Village,” he’d replied.
“Then I’m fine.”
But I hadn’t been fine, and instead, bee lined for my laptop where I instantly put in her name. Emily Johnston. Jacob had told me she was also in the photography industry. I probably knew who she was, he’d said. I didn’t.
Her pictures were sad. That is, to say — they weren’t bad pictures, but they did hold a sort of weightiness that felt uncanny beyond art school. Photography can be a very important vehicle for sharing your pain, but at some point you had to make the rent, didn’t you? And her pictures didn’t feel like rent making pictures to me. They all started where they began.
I wasn’t intimidated by her, but she and Jacob still shared their dog, which meant they were still in each other’s lives. Still sometimes in each other’s instagram pictures. She was a beautiful woman, with a Marilyn Mon-mole on the left side of her face, right above the lip. A beauty mark. The mark someone receives when they are beautiful.
We looked nothing alike, my mane of long blonde hair and wide toothy grin the complete opposite of the thin lipped pictures I’d found of her online. Maybe that was why Jacob liked me. I was always searching for reasons why.
Jacob used to be very Christian, he tells me over text. Emily had been his first, it’s why they’d gotten married so young. But he doesn’t strike me as much of a Christian after our first date, when he throws me on his bed and bites my lip.
About a month or two after we start seeing each other, I travel upstate to live with my friend Erica and her husband Jimmy for the week. They were real artists, who lived in a sprawling mansion of a house upstate in Newburgh, NY, where the wall paper was peeling from the walls and the neighboring houses were crumbling to the ground. They had two porches, a giant garden, four cats, a hedgehog and a living room with the most beautiful paisley walls I’d ever seen.
Erica had been taking pictures for over twenty years. Her images captured uncomfortable, slices of little moments, beautiful memories in time that kept viewers desperate for more. I’d fallen in love with Erica the second I met her. Her no nonsense attitude a breath of fresh air in an industry I’d found so concerned with appearances.
Jacob was also planning to take the same week upstate, alone with his dog. I was extremely excited by the possibility he might come visit at the end of his trip to see the wonderful place I had been staying and meet the artists that I loved, so he could fall for me all over again. My good taste in location and company would be the final straw to convince him he made the right choice.
Erica had been asking questions all week.
“He has a dog?!” she responds when I tell her.
“I hate dogs.” Erica snaps. “It stays outside.”
Erica and I were both cat people, but I’d always liked dogs. They were stupid, but at least they were kind.
“See how he treats his dog,” Erica says to me. “It’ll give you a much better idea of what kind of man he is. You can’t expect a man who can’t take care of his dog to take care of you.”
“I used to have a dog!” Jimmy laughs across the dining room table.
“Yeah,” Erica replies. “And I hated that dog.”
“It stays outside,” she says to me again.
Once they arrive, all the cats scatter. Jacob’s dog is pulling at his leash the second he gets out of the car.
“Calm down,” I hear him saying to it. “Please calm down.”
Erica says I look better without makeup, but I’ve spent the morning perfecting how I look. Making sure my hair falls into natural, little tendrils, covering the dark circles under my eyes matte nude.
I exit the house to meet them in what I hope is my most relaxed walk.
“Hi guys,” I say openly.
“Hey,” Jacob says and quickly hugs me.
“How was the week?”
“Really good,” Jacob replies, eyes on the dog.
I lead them around the house and down to the deck. Erica’s neighbors have tried their hand at a new Pinterest favorite — a watermelon cake they’re ready to cut.
Almond butter frosting dripping down the sides, the humidity of the day has attacked the cake on all fronts. Erica’s neighbors are laughing, while I go inside to grab plates and napkins. Jacob ties his dog to one of the posts of the porch. The dog howls, and runs around in circles. Scratching at the deck, he whines at the cats who tease him by coming close, and then scattering as he pulls on his leash.
Erica comes out with a sharp knife and hands it to her neighbor. Excitedly, he makes his way towards the cake, and cuts sloppy triangles for each of us, placing them on delicate the china I’ve chosen.
I compliment the neighbors. “Great job, really,” I say.
“We know you’re lying, sweetie,” one of them replies. “But that’s very polite of you.”
“It matters what it tastes like, not what it looks like — right?” I hopefully remind them.
“You’re right,” the other neighbor says looking at his partner, then takes a big fork full and makes a face “but it doesn’t taste that great either.”
The two of them laugh toward one another, then look at Erica and Jimmy who start laughing too.
“It isn’t terrible,” Erica giggles between bites.
We’re all laughing now, except for Jacob who holds his plate awkwardly, unsure if he should take a bite.
Erica smiles at me, and motions to Jimmy to join her inside. “It’s too muggy out here,” she says. Jimmy gives me tiny wink when he follows her, and the neighbors go back to their house to “enjoy the AC.”
Jacob and I are left alone, eating watermelon cake outside Erica’s house. We look over the Hudson river.
“This is the most beautiful place on earth,” I say to Jacob.
“Mhmm,” he says back to me, mouth full.
Except before he can say any more, we both notice that Jacob’s dog has come free of his leash and started chasing Erica’s black cat, Moon-pie. Jacob races towards the dog, but he’s not fast enough to catch him as he bounds across the yard.
Barking loudly, we hear Moon-pie screech as she claws herself into the closest tree, while Jacob’s dog barks below.
“Take him back to the porch,” I say, as I try to cox Moon-pie down. She doesn’t budge. Erica sticks her head out the window after hearing the commotion.
“What’s that dog doing now?” she asks.
“I’m sorry,” I say.
“Me too,” Jacob says to her, and then looks at me. “We should go.”
I nod my head, because I know he’s right, even though I want him to be wrong.
“It’s really nice here,” he says.
“Yeah,” I reply. “It’s the best.”
Jacob takes the dog’s leash in his hand and walks around the side of the house. I follow him to the front where his car is.
“See you back in the city?” I ask.
“Yeah,” Jacob says. “I’ll see you.”
And I will see him again, a couple more times. I will join him for the things he likes to do, while he will be too busy for the things that I like too. But his dog won’t be with him, and the final time we sleep together, when he grabs my wrists and holds them back, I’ll wonder if this was what it was like, the last night he had with Emily. If he kissed her like she was the last woman on earth and told her he’d promise to do the dishes tomorrow.
How can you expect a man who can’t take care of his dog to take care of you?
