The Song of the Sirens
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Marlene and Douglas get the call from the pet rescue one morning in late September. When they get home with the dog, there’s a woman carrying boxes into the other half of the duplex. Marlene guesses she’s in her fifties; lean, her silvering hair cut close, classically butch, in jeans and a button-up shirt. Scuffed black shoes. Her face weathered, her mouth taut, the tendons on her hands vivid.
They never speak to each other. At most the woman nods if they pass in the driveway. Douglas comes into the kitchen and says, Are you watching that old woman again? and Marlene says, I wouldn’t call her old.
One evening there’s a knock at the front door. The dog barks frantically from the kitchen, trying to climb over the gate they’ve set up. Marlene is on the sofa with her ninth graders’ Romeo and Juliet quizzes; when she opens the door, the woman is there holding an envelope. I got a piece of your husband’s mail, the woman says, her voice a cool alto. Oh, we’re not married, says Marlene, taking the [End Page 51] envelope and feeling herself go red. The woman shrugs. All right, she says. Her eyes are blue-gray.
Marlene says, We haven’t been introduced. I’m Marlene. All right, the woman says again. The dog’s barks are alternating with long, high whines now, underlined by the rattling sound of the gate. Marlene glances behind her. Sorry about that, she says. She’s always so interested in new people.
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The dog is hard to get used to. Marlene keeps tripping on the crate at the foot of the bed, and Douglas says he doesn’t have time to make breakfast anymore because he needs to take the dog for a walk. There’s cereal, he says, nodding at the cupboard. Marlene is constantly surprised to encounter the small body pacing anxiously at Douglas’s feet or lying in the doorway of whatever room he’s in.
They go out to dinner, and when they come back the dog runs straight past Marlene, wriggling and leaping at Douglas. I don’t think she likes me, says Marlene. Don’t be silly, he says, trying to pet the dog’s anxious head. Trixie, go see Marlene, he says, pointing. Go on! The dog yips and trots past Marlene out of the room.
When Douglas first suggested getting a dog, Marlene had pictured something large and subdued—maybe a Saint Bernard or an elderly golden retriever. But when they finally visited the pet rescue, the dog that ran up to Douglas was small and frenetic. Who is this good girl? Douglas said, crouching down. Who is this very good girl? Marlene looked at the label on the pen. Trixie, Female, Miniature Australian Shepherd Mix. A miniature, she said. I thought we wanted something bigger. Douglas’s fingers were embedded behind the dog’s ears. We talked about that, he said, nodding. But a small one would be easier to take care of. I think we should put [End Page 52] in an application for this one. The animal’s bright, manic eyes were fixed on Douglas’s face.
He’d been talking about a dog for months. They’d been at the rental office signing the lease on the duplex, and he’d said, Hey, look, this place allows pets. A week after they moved in, he suggested they go down to the rescue. Marlene looked at the boxes blocking the doorway, the extension cord snaking across the middle of the room. I don’t think we’re ready for a dog, she said. Two weeks later Douglas came up from stowing the last of the empty boxes in the basement and said, How about now? How about what now? Marlene asked.
She told herself it was the logical next step. First you move in together, then you get a dog, then it’s marriage and kids and a mortgage on some three-bedroom ranch until, presumably, death do you part. She’s been living with Douglas for...
