Joint Custody Read online

  But then, she came into view.

  Actually, we heard her before we saw her.

  “What a handsome dog! Would it be all right if I pet him?”

  That voice. Slightly British. Sophisticated. Rich. It sounded like she was singing the words rather than speaking them.

  We looked to the source of that voice—oh, that face! Kind, intelligent, beautiful—she was perfect. I must admit, we were both so stunned by her, we froze where we stood. From my position looking up at her, her head seemed to be resting directly in front of the sun, which created a halo effect around her not dissimilar to the one around The Man when I’d first laid eyes on him.

  The Man and I reacted simultaneously, me barking my approval of Oh, my, god at the exact moment he spoke the words aloud: “Oh, my, god.”

  You’d have said it too. There was just something about her.

  “What?” she said, clearly puzzled by us.

  Immediately, we shook ourselves out of our joint trance.

  “I’m sorry,” The Man said awkwardly. “Ah, yes, yes, you may.”

  She smiled warmly at him then, charmed by his boyish awkwardness, before comfortably kneeling in her pencil skirt to greet me. Normally preferring to get to know someone first before responding, instead I instantly greeted her with love and licks, collapsing onto my back, a clear invitation to rub my belly, which caused her to laugh delightedly. In that moment, I think she was even more charmed by me than she was by The Man. And that laugh, such a beautiful sound—I could’ve listened to her laugh all day long. And that accent!

  “Your accent,” The Man said, proving we were on the same page, “it’s lovely. If you don’t mind me asking . . .”

  “London,” she said, “but we moved here when I was small. Funny thing, I kept the accent but my brothers didn’t.”

  “Oh. Like Henry Kissinger.”

  “Pardon?”

  “Henry Kissinger was Nixon’s secretary of state.”

  “Yes, I did know that. But what does Henry Kissinger have to do with me? Are you saying we sound alike, because I don’t think—”

  “NO! Oh gosh, no. All I meant was that Henry Kissinger has a brother, but while Henry kept the accent, his brother didn’t.”

  “That seems like a very odd factoid to have at your disposal.”

  “I am odd.” He shrugged. “And I like factoids.”

  “He sure is handsome,” she said, once again using the appropriate adjective for me. “What’s his name?”

  “His name?” The Man said.

  “Yes—he does have one, right?”

  The Man knelt down beside her so that now they were both petting me. Ah, heaven.

  “We actually just left the rescue shelter,” The Man said. “I guess I didn’t think that . . . It feels weird to randomly name him, you know? As if I own him or something . . .”

  I stared at The Man in awe. Oh, you perfect human, you, I thought.

  “I understand what you’re saying,” she said. “I had a friend who didn’t name either of her kids for the first two weeks of their lives because everything she could come up with just felt like a placeholder—settling, you know?—and she wanted to wait until she came up with the right name. Still, you’ll need something to call him, and you can’t very well just call him Handsome for the rest of his life, can you?”

  Lady, if you’re doing the calling, Handsome it is!

  “I don’t know,” The Man said. “It’s like with Prince Charming. I always felt like, shouldn’t the guy have a real name? Joe, maybe? I’m pretty sure the king and queen’s last name wasn’t Charming.”

  “No, I don’t suspect it was.”

  She looked at me, clearly enchanted with what she was seeing.

  “You know,” she said slowly, like an idea was dawning on her. “I think he looks like a Gatz.”

  “Gatz?” The Man echoed, as he looked me over, considering.

  “Gatz,” she said, like the reference should be obvious, but not in an insulting way. “Like in The Great Gatsby. It’s my favorite book.”

  For whatever reason, The Man was so bowled over by this revelation, he fell back a bit, practically falling despite his sensible shoes.

  “It . . . It is?” he said, awed.

  She looked over at him, nodding.

  At last, The Man burst out with what he could obviously no longer contain: “It’s my favorite book too!”

  In that moment, I realized she was The Woman—who else could she be?—and I think he also realized it then.

  The Woman looked at him more closely, taking all of him in, then she smiled widely.

  And that, that was love at first sight too.

  Chapter Four

  A little less than three years ago . . .

  That first day we met on the street, before we headed off home and she headed wherever she was going, The Woman offered to give The Man her contact info. Trading contact info—I guess it’s just something humans do.

  He’d seemed perplexed by the idea, causing me to bark at him forcefully like, Dude, don’t be an idiot! She wants to keep in touch! In a city of eight million souls, how are we going to find her again if we don’t have her contact info?

  “It’s just that,” The Woman had explained, for the first time sounding awkward herself, “I only thought: Maybe at some point you’ll need someone to watch Gatz? Although, I suppose you’ve probably got loads of friends who can do that for you . . .”

  I remembered what he’d said back at the shelter, about how he mostly stayed at home, about how he didn’t really like to go out, and I thought: Have you really looked at this guy? When it comes to friends, I’m pretty sure I’m it!

  Which would’ve been fine with me—it would’ve been fine with me for it to just be me and The Man forever and ever . . . until I saw her. And now, having seen her, we couldn’t let her get away!

  So when The Man still hesitated—which was just him being his usual awkward self, I think; you could tell he liked her—I gave him a louder bark, causing him to finally accept her contact info.

  Geez, already I was beginning to see that, without me, this guy would probably do all kinds of things wrong.

  Like wait too long to call her.

  But finally, as luck would have it, a radio station he had on did a retrospective of telephone-related songs. He kept trying to turn the knob to something else, but every time he did, I just nudged it back, meaning I had to listen to Electric Light Orchestra’s “Telephone Line,” Toto’s “Hold the Line,” and “Hot Line to Heaven” by Bananarama. Honestly, I thought Blondie’s “Call Me” was going to kill me because the radio station played the Alvin and the Chipmunks version and I felt myself getting dizzy from all those high-pitched chipmunk voices. Ooh, vertigo. But then Lionel Richie’s “Hello” came on—such a soulful song—and that finally did the trick.

  He called and asked her out, she said yes, and they agreed to have dinner.

  The Man had selected Nick’s as their destination, a local Italian joint with classic red-and-white-checked tablecloths with empty Chianti bottles functioning as candlesticks on the table, multiple colors from previous candles dripping down the sides of the bottles.

  Most people wouldn’t pick Nick’s for a first date, not if they were trying to impress the other person, since it’s not very impressive on the surface. Tourists don’t go there, millionaires and oligarchs certainly don’t go there, and Zagat doesn’t even know it exists. But for fifty-seven years they’ve been plating decent chicken Parm, and if, to a person who didn’t know better, it might seem like The Man was just phoning it in, I knew better. I knew that if he wasn’t ordering takeout, he was trying.

  And the main reason The Man had chosen Nick’s? Nick’s is as dog-friendly of a restaurant as you’ll ever hope to find, and there was no way he could do this without me. From the first moment o
f their relationship, I was the catalyst, I was the glue.

  After making sure the bandanna he’d placed around my neck was tied at a jaunty angle, The Man had similarly taken extra pains with his own personal appearance. Again, others might not see it that way. But I knew: ball cap with no stains on it and for once not on backward; the button-down shirt he had on open over his T-shirt and jeans similarly without stains—The Man had gone all out.

  I could only hope, as we headed out the door for the night, that she’d see it that way too. Anyone else might say he looked schlubby, but I thought he looked like a prince.

  As for her, what can I say? When we arrived, she was already seated at a table—we’d been five minutes late because he’d agonized for so long about which Mets ball cap to wear—and she looked, if anything, even more stunning than she had the first time we’d seen her. She was in professional attire once again, having come straight from the office, but she had a shade of lipstick on that screamed “Evening!” and, anyway, she would’ve still looked impressive if she were wearing a potato sack.

  The Woman stood from her chair as we came toward her, and when we arrived at the table, The Man went into a mild panic: Do I pull out her chair? Don’t I? But wait, she’s already been seated, so what do I do??? Sometimes it’s way too easy to read what’s going on in that overthink-it brain of his. Writers, man.

  Thankfully, The Woman didn’t appear to notice his extended internal turmoil as he went back and forth on what to do, although you’d have to forgive her if she did wonder why the heck we were all just standing there for so long.

  When she finally sat down herself, The Man realized he’d missed his moment. To cover up for any etiquette faux pas he might have committed, he cleared his throat with pseudo self-confidence as he took his own seat across from her.

  And to help him cover up, I performed the collapse-on-my-back maneuver, charmingly baring my belly for her to rub if she so desired. If I could’ve, I’d have pulled her chair out earlier, but sometimes you’ve just gotta go with what you’ve got.

  “I love that you brought Gatz with you!” She clasped her hands with joy before bending down from her seat to give my exposed belly a healthy scratch.

  The Man cleared his throat awkwardly before responding, “Um, yes, it’s why I chose Nick’s. They’re dog-friendly.”

  Dude! I thought. Way to state the obvious! The sign WE ARE DOG-FRIENDLY in the window is bigger than the sign saying Nick’s!

  “Yes.” She laughed with a laugh that was not at all judgy. “I did see the sign in the window announcing that fact.”

  Thankfully, it was time to look at the menus.

  A quick perusal of the menu yielded an order of chicken Parm and bottled beer for him, while she ordered the fettuccine carbonara, proving there wasn’t a food group on the planet that she had anything against, and the house red.

  Me, I got the pasta with melted butter and cheese. It’s not actually on the menu, but those of us in the know are aware that the kitchen is always happy to oblige. Sometimes I eat like a child, but I’m not at all ashamed of that fact.

  Orders successfully placed, The Man relapsed into a brief period of awkwardness, before jump-starting himself with the tried-and-true:

  “I’m so glad you said yes to coming out with me tonight.”

  “I’m so glad you asked me,” she replied.

  See? I’d have reassured him as the waiter delivered their drinks order, returning a short time later to place a bowl of water on the floor for me. This isn’t so hard! Now, quick, say something else before you lose your momentum.

  “Well, it’s the least I could do,” The Man said. “You did name my dog for me, after all.”

  “Gatz,” The Woman said admiringly of me with a happy little sigh.

  “Gatz,” The Man agreed, mirroring her emotions.

  And . . . back to awkward silence.

  Those silences were particularly difficult for me. If you don’t keep me entertained every second we’re in an eating establishment, it becomes that much harder for me to restrain myself from chasing down all the great food smells wafting through the air. And no matter how dog-friendly Nick’s is, no one wants me hopping into strangers’ laps to get closer to their freshly delivered, still-warm bread baskets.

  “So,” The Man said, taking an emergency gulp from his beer and only dribbling just a little bit, “I guess this is the part where a normal person would ask, ‘SO! What do you do?’”

  It’s like a dual-edged sword. On the one hand, I appreciate that he’s self-deprecating—nobody likes a guy who’s unwarrantedly cocky—and that he knows himself. But on the other, does he have to out and out announce to people that he’s not normal?

  “I work in publishing,” The Woman said, looking amused and like maybe she’d been harboring a secret. “I’m a book editor.”

  “Oh!” The Man said, sitting about as straight in his chair as he ever sits. “What a crazy coincidence. I’m a writer.”

  “I did know that.”

  “You knew that?”

  “I recognized you right away.”

  “Recognized . . . me?”

  “I’ve read all your books.”

  I could’ve knocked him over with my tail.

  Before he could respond to this shocking bit of intel, The Woman leaned across the table and whispered, “You could say I’m a fan.”

  The Man was pleased, shocked, and embarrassed. You could say he was plockarrassed.

  “Well, ah, ah—thank you! I, wow . . .” he said suavely.

  “But don’t worry,” she added. “I’m not a dangerous fan, not a stalker or anything scary. It was pure luck running into you on the street like that.”

  He could see she was telling the truth: fan, yes; stalker, no—got it.

  Uncomfortable and unused to having attention focused on him, let alone such beautiful attention, he parried back with a jovial,

  “So, editing! Do you enjoy what you do?”

  She gave the question careful consideration before a genuine smile broke across her face.

  “You know,” she said, “I really do. It’s the perfect job for me. Except for those days when meetings seem endless, I love everything about it. I love finding great books, I love the work itself—the process of taking a manuscript and seeing it through until it’s an actual book in bookstores. That moment you first see the book jacket you know is The One and all you can think is, ‘Oh, so that’s what you look like!’”

  Anyone could see this was a woman who was passionate about her work. As for The Man, he was equally passionate about his work—the writing—but more quietly so.

  “And oh!” she added. “The parties! I love going to industry parties. You never know who you’re going to meet or what they’re going to say. I only wish I’d been alive and doing this when Norman Mailer punched Gore Vidal in the face, to which Vidal, laid out on the floor, was rumored to have said something like, ‘Words fail Norman Mailer yet again.’ Are you familiar with that story?”

  The Man was.

  Although he did wonder: “So, you miss the days when the literary world was filled with brawls like the Saturday Night Fights?”

  “No, not the violence. But I do love the colorfulness of it all. The passion about everything and the willingness to fight it all out, even if only metaphorically.”

  Dinner plates arrived, and when the waiter placed mine on the floor, I particularly appreciated that he crouched down to grate some last-minute strips of fresh Parmesan cheese over my warm meal. It’s the extra little touches at Nick’s that mean so much. As for the other two, there came the commencement of pasta being twirled on forks, The Man only getting a single spot of red sauce on his previously clean shirt.

  “Wow,” The Man said, “the parties. Yeah, no—the parties are the one thing I absolutely hate about being a published author. Being expected
to show up at industry events, being expected to be ‘on’ all the time—you know? Not for me. If I could just write the books and never have to talk to another human being, I’d be the happiest man alive.”

  Then, perhaps realizing what a boneheaded thing he’d just said, he blushed.

  “Present company excluded, of course!” he added hastily with a zeal that was just this side of manic.

  Somehow, though, luckily, she was charmed.

  For dessert, we all shared the cannoli.

  Chapter Five

  Still a little less than three years ago,

  but also just a tad closer to now . . .

  I had to wonder if the first time she saw his apartment, she experienced it the same way I’d experienced it the first time I’d seen it.

  For me, it had been like, well, coming home.

  After spending my early formative days in a small cage, I suppose anything would’ve felt like an improvement unless it was, you know, less. The Man’s brownstone in Brooklyn, however, was beyond my wildest dreams. Space, but not too much space. The round table in front of the window with all the sunlight coming through it (great for barking at loud cars outside). The living area with the softest of chairs and comfy couch (that I would inevitably dig my teeth into when left alone too long). The kitchen stocked with enough items so that no one was ever going to starve, even if the kibble briefly ran out. The serviceable bathroom (site of future happy baths, after which an advanced case of the zoomies would always ensue) with the dampened toothbrush, proving that at least minimal laws of cleanliness would be adhered to. And the bedroom with its spacious bed, regarding which, immediately, he made me aware that my presence would always be welcome there.