Second Lives Read online

  “Oh, nobody takes that seriously,” said the woman. “The families don’t want to stay on the beach after the lifeguards leave, anyway.” She pointed to the western end of beach, where the pulsing brown dot had reappeared. “Here he comes.”

  Something made Josh ask, “Do you want me to grab him, if I get a chance?”

  “Good luck with that,” said the man.

  “That’s very kind of you,” said his wife.

  The dog was now a blur of legs. Josh stepped toward the water, into the dog’s path, but didn’t look directly at him.

  His short ears flapping, the dog skidded to a stop in front of Josh. Josh slipped the fingers of his left hand under the dog’s collar at the same time as the dog pushed his nose into Josh’s right hand. “Hey, Tucker,” said Josh.

  The woman hurried forward to give Tucker a treat, and the man snapped the leash on the dog’s collar. “About time!” He added, “If it wouldn’t mean the end of my fifty-two-year marriage, this mutt would be out the door tomorrow.”

  The happy, healthy young dog named Tucker grinned at Josh, a loose-jaw doggy grin. Josh felt heavy and sore around the heart. Why had he gotten involved?

  “Thank you,” the woman said to Josh. “By the way, I’m Carol Harrison, and this is my husband Gardner.”

  Josh introduced himself, but now he wanted to get off the beach, away from all the frolicking dogs and their owners. Slinging his towel over his shoulder, he raised a hand in farewell. Carol said, “Goodbye, and thank you so much for your help, Josh! Tucker’s turned out to be quite a handful.”

  Her husband looked more angry than grateful, but he said, “Yes, thanks for grabbing him.”

  “Glad to do it,” said Josh. “Sometimes dogs behave better for strangers, because they aren’t sure what they can get away with.”

  Gardner grunted. His wife exclaimed, “Oh, I just thought of something, Josh. I guess you’re on vacation, but if you wanted a part-time job, with nice people— Obviously you have a way with dogs, and I know they need help at Coastal Canine. That’s where Tucker goes for day care.”

  “To work off his excess energy, supposedly. Hah.” Giving the leash a yank, Gardner stumped off down the beach. Tucker glanced back at Josh, and Josh could almost swear that the dog winked at him.

  “Of course, you probably just want to relax.” Carol smiled over her shoulder as she followed her husband. “Thanks again!”

  By now, a steady stream of canines, licenses jingling, and their people, pockets stuffed with dog treats and poop pickup bags, was flowing onto the beach. Bucking the current, Josh hurried up the path through the dunes to his car.

  Back at Barbara Schaeffer’s farmhouse, Josh took a shower in the cramped bathroom, which probably had been just right for Barbara’s tiny, wizened (he imagined) mother-in-law. Checking his phone, he discovered that it was well after six o’clock. No wonder he was starving.

  And it was getting on toward time for the first pitch at Fenway Park. Foresightedly, he’d already set up his TV on a carton of books, plugged it in, and placed a chair in front of it. During the packing this morning, someone—Carl—had thoughtfully taped the remote to the TV.

  From one of his grocery bags in the kitchenette Josh pulled a half-full jar of peanut butter and a torn bag of corn chips. Scooping from the jar with a chip, he leaned back in the chair, stretched his legs out, and turned the TV on.

  A static buzz, and a screen full of black snow. Oh, shit. It needed a cable connection, of course. Where was it? Not on the wall where he’d set up the TV. Why hadn’t Barbara tacked up a little note about that?

  After searching every inch of wall space in the apartment, Josh climbed down the stairs and walked around the house to Barbara’s kitchen door. Through the open window he heard her clanking dishes in the sink and warbling, “If ever I would leave you . . .” Her dog woofed.

  “Sorry to bother you,” said Josh when Barbara answered his knock, “but I couldn’t find the cable connection.”

  “The cable connection?”

  “For my TV,” said Josh.

  “Oh, cable TV!” Barbara was amused at Josh’s misunderstanding. She’d never had cable. Didn’t miss it at all. She did enjoy her DVD player—did Josh realize how many quality DVD’s you could get from the library, free?

  Josh took a deep breath, smiled faintly, and went back to the apartment for his car keys.

  Fifteen minutes later, he was sitting at a restaurant bar drinking a beer, with an order in for fish and chips. He’d only missed the first two innings of the Red Sox-Mariners game. Josh glanced up and down the bar, noting a young couple, a group of four or five men of different ages, and two women.

  Hey, thought Josh, I could hit on someone in a bar! When was the last time he’d done that? Not that he saw any likely women to hit on just now.

  There was a poof of stale cigarette smoke as someone sat down on the barstool next to Josh. A stringy man in a T-shirt and jeans, with a walrus moustache. He nodded at Josh. “How’s it goin’?” He told the bartender, “Jack Daniels on the rocks. And another beer for my friend here.”

  Josh protested, but the other man, who introduced himself as Rick Johnson, insisted. “No offense, but you look like you could use another drink. You here for the weekend, or what?”

  “The summer,” said Josh. “I’m renting from Barbara Schaeffer, on Old Farm Road.” Why did Rick think Josh needed another drink? Maybe because Josh was hugging himself—he’d been doing that lately. Releasing his arms, Josh placed both elbows on the padded bar.

  Rick was nodding. “Mrs. Schaeffer, used to be my math teacher.” He raised his glass to Josh and settled himself more comfortably on his stool. “You’re lucky you don’t own property in this town. I got my tax bill yesterday. Holy shit. I guess Harrison and his buddies expect everyone to just keep paying and paying. Almost everybody, that is. Some people get away with murder. ‘Agricultural exemption,’ what a racket.”

  Rick went on in this vein, and Josh realized that he didn’t need to feel embarrassed about accepting a beer from a stranger. Clearly, the beer was payment for sitting there and listening to Rick’s monologue. Or half listening, since Josh had the excuse of watching the game, which was shaping up to be a long one. The pitchers couldn’t get strikes, and the batters couldn’t get hits, dragging out each inning.

  Josh pulled out his phone and checked it. Nothing but a message from his sister, Vicky. He’d get back to her later. This was his summer vacation, after a year from hell, and he was not going to rush to do anything. Except hit the beach again tomorrow.

  Thou art the Great Cat, the avenger of the gods, and the judge of words, and the president of the sovereign chiefs and the governor of the holy circle; thou art indeed . . . the Great Cat.

  Inscription on the Royal Tombs at Thebes

  Chapter 3.

  As soon as the racket and smells of the animal shelter faded in the distance, the Cat crept out of the trees. If he’d found himself in his own neighborhood, he would have headed straight for his house and meowed at the back door.

  But this territory was nothing like his neighborhood, where the houses were close together and connected by sidewalks, and the yards were fenced. The Cat used to sit on top of the fence on the south side of his house, catching the sunshine and waiting for the spaniel to scramble out of the house next door. It was amusing to watch the little dog running around the lawn, barking at squirrels or digging in the flower beds. Once in a while the Cat would jump down, allow the dog to approach him, and touch noses.

  In this new place, he saw no houses at all, and tall weeds edged the road. Even early in the day, heat radiated from the blacktop, which wound on and on without traffic lights, past woods and fields and more fields and more woods. The traffic wasn’t as steady as at home, but the occasional motorcycle or truck zoomed past with alarming speed. Here the Cat sniffed at the flattened, bloody corpse of an opossum, there at the flattened, bloody corpse of a squirrel. The Cat sneaked along by starts and stops, shrinking into the weeds each time he heard an engine approaching.

  Once the Cat thought he glimpsed a familiar tree back in the woods. It looked like the blue spruce in his back yard, the tree he ran up when he was in high spirits. He pushed through a tangle of underbrush into the woods, willing himself to emerge at home. But when he reached the half-hidden tree, it was only a ragged orphan of a blue spruce, barely staying upright against a leaning dead oak.

  The Cat paused in front of the spruce for a moment, mosquitos whining around his head. So many trees, so tall and close together—they oppressed him. As he turned back toward the road, some odd-looking scat caught the Cat’s eye, and he paused again to inspect it. This scat smelled something like dog, although it was smaller and drier than dog turds. And—

  His fur bristled with sudden horror. This animal had eaten a cat.

  A monster that ate cats. The Cat’s mother had warned her litter to beware of such a creature, but he had not really believed her.

  The Cat backed away, peering all around in case the monster lurked nearby; he whirled; he ran the rest of the way out of the woods.

  Back near the road, the Cat continued to sneak along through the weeds. He was afraid of the woods, but he didn’t like the road, either. Moving forward, on and on, felt unnatural. The Cat had plenty of patience, but it was a waiting-in-front-of-the-refrigerator kind of patience. In this strange world of unending road and wild woods, there was nowhere to wait.

  The Cat was tired. He was hungry. He wanted his own house, with his own patrons. From the day when the Girl had chosen him, he had known that was where he was meant to be.

  On that day he and his littermates had been brought outside, without their mother, for the visitors to see. The Cat (the Kitten, at that time) had been dazzled with the sunshine and distracted by the scents of grass and flowers. A buttercup nodded in the breeze, and he pounced on it, just as the striped kitten pounced on his twitching tail.

  “I wish we could take all of them,” said the Girl, kneeling on the lawn.

  “I know, sweetie,” said the Man, “but Mom would have kittens herself if we came home with more than one. Just one—your choice.”

  The Girl sighed. “They’re all so cute! I kind of like the striped one . . .”

  While the Kitten was tussled with the littermate who’d grabbed his tail, an enormous Presence loomed over him. Mighty jaws fastened on the scruff of his neck, scooted him across the grass, and released him in front of the Girl’s knees.

  “Oh! Daddy, this one looks like Batman!” She lifted the Kitten gently onto her lap. “See what I mean? The black mask on his face, with pointy black ears?” She stroked the top of his head. “He’s purring so loud! I think he likes me.”

  Yes, the Great Cat had guided him to his ideal home that day. The Cat could not believe that the ideal home was no longer his. He was ready to overlook (although not forget) what the Woman had done. He wanted his own food dish and his own perch in the window by the bird feeder. He began to meow, long, plaintive meows.

  There was no one to hear him. The Cat crept into the shade of a milkweed plant and rested, listening to the buzz of insects. Should he go back the way he’d come? But when he stepped onto the dirt shoulder of the road again, he glimpsed a roof beyond the next rise. That was a hopeful sign.

  Following the road forward, the Cat came to an unpaved driveway with a chain across the entrance. He slunk under the chain and along the driveway, which looped past a row of sheds.

  At the corner of the first shed the Cat shrank back, assaulted by a pungent, hostile scent. To take in its full meaning, he dropped his jaw and lifted his lip, sampling the odor with the roof of his mouth.

  Keep out, said the scent. This means you. The scent wasn’t new, but it wasn’t old, either—perhaps from a few days ago.

  The Cat was shaken by the warning, but now he also smelled food ahead, somewhere in a landscape of dirt heaps and trenches. He’d eaten nothing since the moth he’d caught in the laundry room last night. He put one cautious paw after the other, sniffing fearfully. More and more deposits of the sharp scent: on weeds, on slabs of sheet rock, on the tires of a bulldozer.

  Stealing up to the edge of a trench, the Cat peered over. The food smells came from a sprawling pile of black trash bags. Several cats prowled through the trash, pausing to paw at split bags. One cat, a scrawny calico female, crouched over something edible, while three half-grown kittens shoved her and each other.

  The Cat watched them, disturbed and puzzled. Where did these cats live? In the sheds? Then why weren’t they eating from their special dishes in the sheds, instead of pawing through garbage?

  It didn’t seem right, but the Cat was so hungry that he found himself creeping down the slope to join the foragers. He was halfway there when all the cats lifted their heads, ears pricked. An engine paused up on the road.

  Next, a battered pickup truck rattled past the sheds, and two men got out. As one of them brought the bulldozer to life with a roar, all the cats leaped out of the trench and fled. The Cat paused at the top of a dirt hill and crouched to watch through a screen of weeds.

  The second man stationed himself at the door of the largest shed, and a line of cars formed. First was a bulky black car driven by a gray-haired woman. A shaggy gray dog stuck its muzzle out of a back window.

  The black car stopped in front of the shed, where the driver handed a card to the man. He punched the card and handed it back to the woman. Then—the Cat leaned forward to watch more closely—the workman tossed something to the dog, who caught it in the air and gobbled it up.

  The next car, driven by a bald man with a smaller dog in the front seat, pulled up to the shed and went through the same routine. And so on, down the line. Some of the cars and trucks had two dogs; some had none. But each dog that rode into the dump received a treat from the workman’s hand.

  The Cat’s mouth watered, although in his first life he’d turned up his nose at dog biscuits. I could ride in a car like that, he thought.

  As the Cat watched and watched, he found himself creeping down through the weeds. What if he jumped into one of the dog-less cars? Would that be the way to find a new patron?

  Near the slope of the hill he came to a row of bins. A woman with blonde hair and freckled skin was walking back and forth in front of the bins, reaching into a bag and tossing cans or bottles into this bin or that. The Cat meowed.

  The woman looked up at the weedy slope. The Cat meowed again, and her eyes fastened on his. “Well, hello, black and white kitty.” Her voice was low and throaty, like a purr.

  Stepping out of the weeds, the Cat meowed once more.

  The woman’s eyes crinkled. “You look like a panda—did anyone ever tell you that?”

  The Cat edged closer. Rubbing against the woman’s ankles, he sniffed her sandals. This was a person without a cat! Without even a dog! Could she be his new patron?

  “Oh, Panda, you’re sweet.” She crouched on her heels, rubbing the backs of his ears, then under his chin. Her hand smelled like coffee, an enticing scent. Now and then, in his first life, he’d found coffee grounds spilled on the kitchen floor; he loved to roll in them.

  “You aren’t a feral cat, are you?” said the woman. “I wish I could take you home. If Ryan wasn’t allergic . . .”

  Yes, this must be the new patron the Great Cat intended for him. As the woman stood up and walked to her car, the Cat pattered at her heels.

  But at the car door, the blonde woman looked down at the Cat with surprise. “Oh, no. I’m sorry, Panda. I gave you the wrong idea. I can’t take you home.” She opened the door a crack, and he gathered his haunches to jump in.

  “No.” She stamped at him. He shrank back. “I’m sorry!” She scrambled in, slammed the door, and started the engine.

  As she drove off, the bewildered Cat caught a glimpse of her face in the side mirror. The blonde woman had wanted to take him home—she had invited him to be her Cat. Then why—?

  Humans! Great Cat, what was the matter with them?

  For the rest of that long, hungry day, the Cat lurked in the weeds above the dump. Every time a black bag was hurled into the trench, he caught a whiff of the food mixed with the trash. Food: meat, fish, cheese, eggs. When there was a lull in the traffic entering the dump, all the cats would start to creep toward the trench. And then another string of cars and trucks clanked and rattled past the shed, and the cats would scatter again.

  Late in the afternoon the last car drove down the dirt road, unloaded its trash, and left. One of the dump attendants closed the shed and locked the door. The other man got in the bulldozer again and shoveled several loads of dirt into the trench. Then they both drove off in their truck.

  The cats reappeared, now trotting confidently to the trench. How they could find anything to eat under all that dirt? But look, some of the trash bags were only half covered. Jumping into the trench, the Cat shoved his head into the nearest split bag.

  The Cat tore at a leathery slice of toast. He gobbled an entire blackened hamburger, ignoring the repulsive charred taste. He gulped sour cottage cheese from an open carton. Finally sated, he climbed out of the trench licking his jowls. The Cat retired to the weeds at the top of the dirt pile, cleaned himself, and settled down to sleep.

  Later, as daylight faded, the Cat awakened with a sense of unrest in his insides. Apparently his stomach had assessed his trash-bag dinner and judged it inedible, after all. His body heaved. He was violently and thoroughly sick.

  My dog digs Mattakiset.

  Bone-shaped bumper sticker

  Chapter 4.

  For the next few days, Josh’s plan seemed to be working. The weather turned vacation-perfect. Josh rode his bike in the fresh, bright mornings and spent the hot, bright afternoons on the beach. The surf was free of rip currents, seaweed, and jellyfish, and Josh was careful to leave before five o’clock, when the lifeguards abandoned the beach to the dog people.