My Dog Days

(Rosa)

Jose, the doorman on the Upper West Side apartment on 67^th street tells me that nobody’s home at Rosa’s apartment so I’ve got to go up the maintenance elevator. I don’t know what that means. But Gerardo tells me to follow him so I do.

I have a big purse swung over my shoulder stuffed with plastic bags, weighty Human Rights books and highlighters. I have been wearing the same sundress for two days.

“Mary,” Gerardo says, closing the metal door. He punches in the floor number and pulls a lever. “How was your birthday?”

I tell him it was nice.

“Rosa, she’s good, right?”

“Yeah,” I go, “Rosa’s sweet.”

Rosa’s a black poodle. And I’m a professional dog walker. People on the street keep asking me if she’s a Portuguese Water Terrier… Maybe it’s not terrier, I forgot the last word in the name. Sometimes I admit I don’t know, other times I just say yes.

Gerardo lets me into the apartment through a side door. He turns around and heads back to the elevator, shutting the door behind him. Normally I go up the main elevator and go through the front door of the apartment. I’ve only seen the foyer. Now I’m standing in someone’s bedroom. A big one. I have no idea where I am.

 

Before I became a dog walker I’d assume people who had these sorts of jobs, working quietly for the rich, would take this sort of opportunity to snoop around. I assumed I would do that sort of thing; see what was in their refrigerator, in their closets. Turns out I was wrong. I’m paranoid most of the time. I don’t know what I’m paranoid about but for some reason whenever I’m alone in these big apartments I get the feeling that I am guilty until proven innocent and all I want to do is get out.

 

“Rosa,” I start yelling, awkwardly. If someone walks in I want it to be clear that I’m here for only one reason. A big black poodle. I trip through bedrooms, one leads to the next and finally I find a staircase that takes me down three flights of stairs. One wall of the living room is comprised of windows, and the room is three stories high. My mouth is wide open. I find Rosa, put her on the leash and get out of there.

 

(Corey)

Nobody knows what kind of dog Corey is because Mrs. Olsen got him from the pound. Mrs. Olsen is between 60 and 70 years old and is a painter. She lives a couple blocks away from Rosa near Riverside Park.

 

Mrs. Olsen is pretty much always smoking cigarettes in bed when I come.

 

“Mary!” She hollers, “I think I have mice.”

 

I’m never sure what to say to Mrs. Olsen when she ushers me into her bedroom, I stand at the doorway and usually nod along.

 

“No idea why these mice were interested in my bedroom—my bedroom!—until it hit me, I keep a bag of Corey’s treats by the bed.”

 

“Ohh,” I smile, “that must be it.”

 

She continues on. When I go into the kitchen I notice that the mousetraps have actual cheese in them. I find this very cute.

 

(Samantha)

I’ve walked in on Samantha’s owner, who is an orthodox Jew, naked once. And it was really, really awkward.

 

Samantha is a cocker spaniel and I don’t really like her that much. She’s moody. I’ve started to notice things like that, a dog’s mood. I hate that I’ve started to notice stuff like that—I’m not a dog person—but I have been spending every day for the last three weeks with them and it’s something I’ve picked up along the way. Dog temperaments.

 

I was bringing Samantha home from a walk. I still had my hand on her lease when I unlocked the front door of her apartment. She booked it inside and I let the lease go. She ran down the hall and disappeared. This was the second day on the job. I called for Samantha and followed her—I wanted to unhook her lease before I left. And that’s when I walked in on the man. Lying naked in his bed.

He stammered. I stammered. I decided he could probably get the lease.

 

“Bye!” I tried to say cheerfully as I booked it to the door.

 

“Did she poop?” He hollered from the bedroom.

 

“Three times!” I yelled back swinging open the door.

 

“Oh great!” I heard him call as I shut the door and took off to the elevator.

 

(NYU)

I’m hungry but don’t have time to eat dinner. I’m sitting on bench in Washington Square Park. My class is in a half an hour and I’m feverously reading. I love graduate school. I love school. It feels like dessert now, some very rich indulgence. When my classmates start arguing about a post modern theory presented in a gothic novel I want to laugh out loud at it all. I want to roll my head back and cry, “You can’t be serious!” Such investments my classmates stock in terminology, in words and books and pictures. It seems so frivolous to me now. These discussions. These books. Being allowed to rattle on about this sort of stuff. Being allowed to pretend it matters.

 

But I love graduate school.

 

(Brooklyn)

I take the “L” to meet Gavin at a bar in Brooklyn where he and a friend are about to perform stand up comedy. I’ve seen this show before. I know their act well. The bar is full and we have at least an hour before they’ll perform. I wish there was some way I could have taken a shower in between all of this but I don’t have a shower, or an apartment for that matter. I’m still wearing the same sundress. 

 

We both want a second drink. I look at him.

 

“No,” he says, shaking his head, “no way.”

 

“C’mon,” I protest. “I’ll buy your next one.”

 

“No you won’t. If I buy you this drink it will ruin my whole plan. I have ten dollars set away for tonight.”

 

“Please, I swear just this one.”

 

I don’t remember what ends up happening. He probably buys me the drink. Or two or three. We’re young and we’re completely broke. It’s New York City and it’s 2007. We’re waiting to be discovered or we’re waiting to move.

 

I have a love/hate relationship with New York City. On bad days I am completely alone and I don’t know what I’m doing with my life. But on the good days I forget about all that. It’s late and I’m walking home with Gavin. We’re laughing and talking about the future. There is so much future right now. It’s an endless carpet rolling out in front of us. We’re young and we’re broke and we’re in New York City. And it’s fine. It’s great. It’s exactly how it should be. It’s exactly how we’ve read about it happening—about our lives happening—in the books we read when were younger. When we still believed in books.