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After a moment, Sebastian stood, too. He walked to the end of the folding table and fingered the various collars, leashes, embellishments.
He held up a pink string of flowers that would be placed on a white collar for a teacup poodle. “Promise me,” he said, “that you won’t put this on Baxy’s collar.”
“I promise.”
“So you like doing this?” Sebastian gestured with his hand at the dog accoutrements across the table.
“I don’t like it,” I said.
He looked at me, raised his eyebrows.
“I love it.”
Sebastian sighed. “I thought you were going to say that.”
“Why the disappointment?”
He breathed out heavily—not as weary as his sigh, but close.
“Seriously, Sebastian, what’s your problem with this?”
He shook his head.
“Really,” I said, “what is it?”
“No problem,” he said. He pulled his phone out of his pocket. “I’m going to call Paul, the producer, and I’m going to tell him to run the show.”
10 (#ulink_606b35a7-22d7-59a6-bda8-81b1e7445ca6)
Later I would think about how my showing Sebastian my dogwear business convinced him to call his friend the news producer. Therefore, I realized, I had essentially started my own demise—the outing of the past Jess behind the present one.
But it wasn’t that first national news piece that did it. Destruction takes a little while.
The night Baxter was on the national news, a few days after the phone call, Sebastian dropped Baxter off because I needed him to try on dogwear.
“I’ll get him tomorrow afternoon,” Sebastian said.
“Sure. Thanks for doing this.”
“Sure,” he echoed.
Awkward silence seemed to course through the kitchen.
“So Baxter is on the news tonight.” I figured he’d remember, but I wanted to see his reaction.
His face was neutral. “Yeah. I’m going to be at my mom’s.”
“Tell her hi.”
Sebastian nodded.
I looked at my watch. “Damn, it’s on soon.”
He glanced at his phone then. “Shit.” He sighed. “My mom has all her sisters coming over.” Sebastian loved his four aunts, but they could be a lot to take when they were all together.
“That’ll be fun,” I said.
He groaned. “I’m so tired from writing all day. I just don’t know if I can handle the coven.” His mom had the maiden name of Carey, so the sisters called themselves Carey’s Coven.
“You can watch it here,” I said.
Pause. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
And so Sebastian and I watched the news piece together at my place, the place that had once been ours.
The last time we’d shared an evening in the condo, or at least attempted to share, was the night we got divorced. Neither of us wanted to be alone, but we didn’t want to be with anyone else, either. Our attorney had said it would be a simple matter. You’ll just step up to the bench and answer, “Yes.”
But the lawyer hadn’t told us, or maybe he hadn’t understood, how painful it was to hear a judge, in a bored tone, say, The spouses’ irreconcilable differences have caused an irretrievable breakdown of their marriage.
From the corner of my eye I’d seen something like a wince from Sebastian when the judge had said that. I’d looked over and saw he was squeezing his eyes shut. Sebastian, the man who didn’t close his eyes to combat and war and gruesome situations, had clamped his eyes shut, as if to ward off tears or pain.
But the anguish had kept coming as the judge had intoned, The court determines that efforts at reconciliation have failed.
I’d closed my eyes then, too, trying to stop the questions in my own voice streaming through my head—Did I make the best effort possible? Could we put it back together? Did we fail? Did I fail?
We’d both been shocked at how simple the proceedings ended up being, when nothing about our marriage had been simple.
But that night when Baxter was on the news, everything was just...lighter. Sebastian’s latest article, a piece on militias in Libya, had just released, and the story garnered raves and much attention, making him relaxed, open. And I was certainly in a much better mood than the night we got divorced. And then there was our little boy—our Baxy—on TV, bounding across a street and saving a little girl in a yellow dress.
Clara’s mom was interviewed, holding Clara on her lap.
“Oh, watch this,” I said, nudging Sebastian on the couch next to me. I lifted one of Baxter’s paws and pointed it at the TV. “Watch, Baxy. They’re talking about you.”
As usual, Baxter registered little through the television.
The correspondent had arranged, toward the end of Clara’s interview, for Baxter to surprise her and her mom. When the door opened and Baxter bounded through it to Clara, she shrieked happily and laughed with delight, wrapping her arms around Baxy. I couldn’t imagine any viewer being unmoved. “Look at you, good dog!” Sebastian said, as Baxter bounced from my lap to his, panting with apparent delight at his parents sitting next to each other, happy.
“And hey, Jess, there you are,” Sebastian said. He looked at me. “You didn’t tell me they interviewed you.”
“I wasn’t sure you’d like it.”
“As long as they don’t ask to interview me.”
He looked back at the TV, listening to the correspondent’s voice-over. Jessica Champlin, Baxter’s owner, was surprised the star-studded collar she created for her dog would get such attention.
Then my voice on TV saying, “I’ve gotten orders from around the country for the collars and leashes.”
Sebastian held his hand up for me to high-five.
The news segment ended with a shot of Clara and Baxter, as she kissed his head. Then the screen flashed to that moment when Baxy tackled her, when the truck swerved around the corner.
“Well,” the newscaster said. “That’s something you don’t see every day.”
“Although we wish we did,” his co-anchor said.
Sebastian patted my leg as the news rolled into a segment about taxes. I muted the TV and almost immediately a series of low ding, ding, ding sounds came from my phone. I picked it up.
“I have thirty-four new emails,” I said. Ding, ding, ding. “And fifteen texts.”
“Really?” Sebastian moved closer to me. “Since when?”
In my in-box, there was a bevy of emails with similar subject lines—Want to buy a Collar. How can I place order? Saw your dog on the news. Want Superdog collar. Need Superdog Leash.
“A few minutes ago.”
Then it kept going—ding, ding, ding.
“There’s more,” I said, holding out the phone to show Sebastian. “A lot more.”
11 (#ulink_51dac531-0140-50bf-8d68-ffd2e6de4ac6)
It was Victory, the politician, who really kicked my business of dog styling into gear. She’d seen the news, too. She texted me the next morning, saying that she was being photographed that very afternoon for a women’s magazine. Because the magazine hired a stylist, she hadn’t needed to call me.
What’s the angle of the article? I wrote.
The piece dealt with fashionable, powerful women in state government. They wanted to shoot her in her office.
But since I saw your dog on the news, she wrote, I’m thinking we need a shot w/me and dog.
Projects authority, I wrote.
Right.
If you can master dog, you can master the country.
Exactly!
But also shows warmth.
I need warmth! Victory wrote. We’ve pushed ballbuster image pretty far.
A few minutes went by, then Victory texted, The magazine loves the idea of the dog in the shoot! Calling you...
“You know, it’s hard being a black politician,” Victory said when I answered. She rarely made use of hellos, something I liked about her, and she nearly always said something random without explanation. “Do you think DeeDee needs a bath?” she asked.
“Everyone needs a blow out,” I said. “When was the last time she was groomed?”
“Two months.”
“Then for a photo shoot? It’s time.”
“Any chance I can hire you to style her?” Victory asked.
I thought about the work in the office, much of it buried under boxes of materials that had arrived just an hour before. Still, this was exactly the kind of thing I wanted to stay open to. It was, I realized, the exact kind of work I wanted to expand into. Dog styling—probably not much work out there but even less competition.
“Absolutely,” I said to Victory. “I’ll find a grooming appointment. And I’ll pick her up.”
“God love you. And however you want her fur to look is good for me,” Victory said. “I’ll pay you your usual.”
“Sounds good,” I said. “What is Dee wearing?”
“Wearing? Like her collar? It’s the same one you saw last year.”
“The olive green one?”
“Yeah. It’s cute, right?”
“I think you want her to show a little sass.”
“Good point,” Victory said. “What’s your thought?”
I’d been sitting at the kitchen table, but I stood and headed for the office. “Do you see her in a baby-pink?”
“No,” Victory said. “I can’t look like a socialite with a purse dog.”
“One that’s already called DeeDee.”
“Precisely,” she said.
“Got it.” I picked up a few more things. “I’ll have options.”
We hung up, and I lifted a purple canvas strap with lime-green trim.
By the time I got to the photo shoot that afternoon, I’d made a few other collars and harnesses. As they were styling Victory’s office, I showed her the various collars I’d made or brought.
Melody, Victory’s thirteen-year-old, came home from school and helped us narrow the collars down further to the preppy purple-and-green one and a playful lavender one with white suns. We put both of them on DeeDee.
“Notice what you’re wearing?” I pointed to Victory’s own wrist, where she wore a watch and a bracelet. “The two at once?”
Victory looked down. “They look good together.”
“Right,” I said. “So do hers. Let’s leave her in both collars.”
“Yeah!” Victory’s daughter said, and snapped a photo. “I’m posting this.”
“You know she has more followers than I do?” Victory said as we walked DeeDee to the set.
