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He makes a simple statement sound like a threat: “Harmony doesn’t need another short-order cook.”
“I’m not applying for a job, sir.”
“What are you doing here, Harry Potter?”
“Seeking the meaning of my life.”
“Maybe your life doesn’t have any meaning.”
“I’m pretty sure it does.”
“Life is meaningless. Every life.”
“Maybe that works for you. It doesn’t work for me.”
He clears his throat with a noise that makes me wonder if he indulges in unconventional personal grooming habits and has a nasty hairball stuck in his esophagus. When he spits, a disgusting wad of mucus splatters the pavement, two inches from my right shoe, which no doubt was his intended target.
“Life is meaningless except in your case. Is that it, Harry? You’re better than the rest of us, huh?”
His face tightens with inexplicable anger. Gentle, sentimental Donny has morphed into Donny the Hun, descendant of Attila, who seems capable of sudden mindless violence.
“Not better, sir. Probably worse than a lot of people. Anyway, it isn’t a matter of better or worse. I’m just different. Sort of like a porpoise, which looks like a fish and swims like a fish but isn’t a fish because it’s a mammal and because no one wants to eat it with a side of chips. Or maybe like a prairie dog, which everyone calls a dog but isn’t really a dog at all. It looks like maybe a chubby squirrel, but it isn’t a squirrel, either, because it lives in tunnels, not in trees, and it hibernates in the winter but it isn’t a bear. A prairie dog wouldn’t say it was better than real dogs or better than squirrels or bears, just different like a porpoise is different, but of course it’s nothing like a porpoise, either. So I think I’ll go back to my cottage and eat my candy bars and think about porpoises and prairie dogs until I can express this analogy more clearly.”
Sometimes, if I pretend to be an airhead and a bit screwy, I can convince a bad guy that I’m no threat to him and that I’m not worth the waste of time and energy he would have to expend to do bad things to me. On other occasions, my pretense infuriates them. Walking away, I half expect to be clubbed to the ground with a tire iron.
Three (#ulink_50b8bd88-f7a7-58fb-9d68-625502be84a8)
THE DOOR TO COTTAGE 6 OPENS AS I APPROACH it, but no one appears on the threshold.
When I step inside, closing the door behind me, I find Annamaria on her knees, brushing the golden retriever’s teeth.
She says, “Blossom once had a dog. She put an extra toothbrush in the hamper for Raphael, and a tube of liver-flavored toothpaste.”
The golden sits with head lifted, remarkably patient, letting Annamaria lift his flews to expose his teeth, refraining from licking the paste off the brush before it can be put to work. He rolls his eyes at me, as if to say This is annoying, but she means well.
“Ma’am, I wish you’d keep your door locked.”
“It’s locked when it’s closed.”
“It keeps drifting open.”
“Only for you.”
“Why does that happen?”
“Why shouldn’t it?”
“I ought to have asked—how does that happen?”
“Yes, that would have been the better question.”
The liver-flavored toothpaste has precipitated significant doggy drool. Annamaria pauses in the brushing and uses a hand towel to rub dry the soaked fur on Raphael’s jaws and chin.
“Before I went snooping, I should have warned you not to watch television. That’s why I came back. To warn you.”
“I’m aware of what’s on TV, young man. I’d as soon set myself on fire as watch most of it.”
“Don’t even watch the good stuff. Don’t switch it on. I think television is a pathway.”
As she squeezes more toothpaste onto the brush, she says, “Pathway for what?”
“That’s an excellent question. When I have an answer, I’ll know why I’ve been drawn to Harmony Corner. So how does the door open just for me?”
“What door?”
“This door.”
“That door is closed.”
“Yes, I just closed it.”
“You lovely boy, pull your tongue in,” she instructs the dog, because he’s been letting it loll.
Raphael pulls in his tongue, and she sets to work on his front teeth as just the tip of his tail wags.
The caffeine has not yet begun to kick in, and I have no more energy to pursue the issue of the door. “Up at the service station, there’s this mechanic named Donny. He has two personalities, and the second one is likely to use a lug wrench in ways its manufacturer never intended. If he comes knocking at your door, don’t let him in.”
“I don’t intend to let anyone in but you.”
“That waitress you spoke to when you rented the cottages—”
“Holly Harmony.”
“Was she … normal?”
“She was lovely, friendly, and efficient.”
“She didn’t do anything strange?”
“What do you mean?”
“I don’t know. Like … she didn’t pluck a fly out of the air and eat it or anything?”
“What a curious thing to ask.”
“Did she?”
“No. Of course not.”
“Did she keep almost breaking into tears?”
“Not at all. She had the sweetest smile.”
“Maybe she smiled too much?”
“It isn’t possible to smile too much, odd one.”
“Did you ever see the Joker in Batman?”
Finished with Raphael’s dental hygiene, Annamaria puts the toothbrush aside and uses the hand towel to mop his face once more. The retriever grins like the Joker.
As she picks up a grooming comb and begins to work on Raphael’s silky coat, she says, “The little finger on her right hand ended between the second and third knuckles.”
“Who? The waitress? Holly? You said she was normal.”
“There’s nothing abnormal about losing part of a finger in an accident. It’s not in the same category as eating a fly.”
“Did you ask her how it happened?”
“Of course not. That would have been rude. The little finger on her left hand ends between the first and second knuckles. It’s just a stump.”
“Wait, wait, wait. Two chopped little fingers is definitely abnormal.”
“Both injuries could have happened in the same accident.”
“Yeah, of course, you’re right. She could have been juggling a meat cleaver in each hand when she fell off the unicycle.”
“Sarcasm doesn’t become you, young man.”
I don’t know why her mild disapproval stings, but it does.
As though he understands that I have been gently reprimanded, Raphael stops grinning. He favors me with a stern look, as though he suspects that if I’m capable of being sarcastic with Annamaria, I might be the kind of guy who sneaks biscuits from the dog-treat jar and eats them himself.
I say, “Donny the mechanic has a huge scar across his face.”
“Did you ask him how it happened?” Annamaria inquires.
“I would have, but then Sweet Donny became Angry Donny, and I thought if I asked, he might demonstrate on my face.”
“Well, I’m pleased that you’re making progress.”
“If this is the rate of progress I can expect, we better rent the cottages by the year.”
As she makes long, easy strokes with the comb, the teeth snare loose hairs from the dog’s glorious coat. “You haven’t already stopped snooping for the night, have you?”
“No, ma’am. I’ve just begun to snoop.”
“Then I’m sure you’ll get to the truth of things shortly.”
Raphael decides to forgive me. He grins at me once more, and in response to the tender grooming that he’s receiving, he lets out a sound of pure bliss—part sigh, part purr, part whimper of delight.
“You sure do have a way with dogs, ma’am.”
“If they know you love them, you’ll always have their trust and devotion.”
Her words remind me of Stormy, the way we were with each other, our love and trust and devotion. I say, “People are like that, too.”
“Some people. Generally speaking, however, people are more problematic than dogs.”
“The bad ones, of course.”
“The bad ones, the ones adrift between good and bad, and some of the good ones. Even being loved profoundly and forever doesn’t necessarily inspire devotion in them.”
“That’s something to think about.”
“I’m sure you’ve thought about it often, Oddie.”
“Well, I’m off to snoop some more,” I declare, turning toward the door, but then I don’t move.
After combing the long, lush fringe of fur on the dog’s left foreleg, which retriever aficionados call feathers, Annamaria says, “What is it?”
“The door is closed.”
“To keep out the mercurial mechanic, Donny, about whom you have so effectively warned me.”
“It only opens itself when I’m approaching it from outside.”
“Your point being—what?”
“I don’t know. I’m just saying.”
I look at Raphael. Raphael looks at Annamaria. Annamaria looks at me. I look at the door. It remains closed.
Finally, I take the knob in hand and open the door.
She says, “I knew you could do it.”
Gazing out at the night-shrouded motor court, where the trees discreetly shiver, I dread the bloodshed that I suspect I will be required to commit. “There’s no real harmony in Harmony Corner.”
She says, “But there’s a corner in it. Make sure you’re not trapped there, young man.”
Four (#ulink_85d58d98-b426-5ec0-8f7f-752eb8a79bc1)
IN CASE I AM BEING WATCHED, I DON’T immediately continue my snooping, but return to my cottage and lock the door behind me.
Not many years ago, nearly 100 percent of people who thought they were being constantly watched were certifiable paranoids. But recently it was revealed that, in the name of public safety, Homeland Security and more than a hundred other local, state, and federal agencies are operating aerial surveillance drones of the kind previously used only on foreign battlefields—at low altitudes outside the authority of air-traffic control. Soon, the bigger worry will not be that, as you walk your dog, you are secretly being watched but that the rapidly proliferating drones will begin colliding with one another and with passenger aircraft, and that you’ll be killed by the plummeting drone that was monitoring you to be sure that you picked up Fido’s poop in a federally approved pet-waste bag.
Having returned to my cottage, I consider switching on the TV to a channel running classic movies, to see if Katharine Hepburn or Cary Grant will suggest that I should sleep. But the caffeine will soon pin my eyelids open, and I suspect that I need to be at least on the brink of nodding off before the invader—whoever or whatever it might be—can access me through the television.
