Big City Eyes

Everyone hooted and cheered. Baby barked. His sausage body rippled and twisted. The cop tried to adjust his grip, moving his hands from the animal’s haunches to his middle, when Baby squirmed free and fell or leapt about four feet to the floor. He hit the ground on his side, and waved his legs before righting himself. Then he dashed at me and sank his teeth into my ankle.

“Eek.” I heard myself utter the tiniest squeal. Baby released my flesh and raced through the fruit section. He skidded a few feet, trying to stop, scrambled in an attempt to move in another direction, and then shot right back. Sergeant McKee seized the dog just before it attacked again.

“Oh my goodness, give me that poor angel.” Claire snatched Baby from McKee. “He was only excited, weren’t you, my honey?”

I looked down to see if my pants were ripped, and now heard laughter, which made me snap my head up quickly. All I saw was the group of shoppers staring, some slowly chewing. They might have been an audience riveted by an exciting movie but continuing, as if on automatic pilot, to shove snacks into their mouths.

McKee moved in close. “Are you all right?”

“Fine.”

“Eek.” I heard someone mimic the sound I’d made when I was bitten. Then snickers of laughter. “Eek,” someone else peeped. More titters. A wave of amusement swept the crowd.

“Do you want to press charges?” asked McKee.

“I don’t give a shit. I don’t give a goddamn shit, you idiots.” I walked out of the store.

No sooner did I reach the sidewalk than I was horrified. I’d insulted the Sakonnet Bay police. “Idiots,” I had said “idiots,” hadn’t I? And I’d flung “I don’t give a shit” at the cops in front of nearly half the town’s residents. My ankle hurt, it really hurt. I’m not good at pain. I’ve cried at the dentist’s office, winked tears simply from a novocaine shot, and now my ankle was throbbing. Why hadn’t they expected Baby to freak? They should have summoned an animal expert, phoned the SPCA, or taken the dog to the vet. Instead, they oiled it up and yanked it out.

I became aware that I was standing in a throng. People who had been peering in the window were now backing away from me. It was a dog bite. I can’t be brought down by a dog bite.

Fixing my eyes on the wall of the building, focusing on dry fragments of flaking paint, I forced myself to walk normally, making sure the heel of my right foot grazed the concrete each time I took a step. The cops might be watching. As well as everyone else. I wasn’t going to embarrass myself toe-hopping through the alley and across the public lot.

I sighed into my car as if I had fallen into a safe house.

I sat there not knowing what to do. Suddenly I was hot. Roasting. I fished my keys out of my purse and turned on the ignition so I could roll down the windows. I hit the wrong button and locked the doors first by accident. My eyes were wet. Tears of pain, I hoped, not humiliation. After rubbing them with the back of my hand, I tilted the rearview mirror to assess my face.

I looked like a clown in a sad circus skit. My normally peachy complexion was white, with a watery smear of mascara under each eye. My face, a pleasing oval, had grown mournfully long. Serious gray eyes had a panicky pinpoint intensity. So piteous was the image, it would not have seemed inappropriate if a teardrop had been painted on my cheek. Most alarming, however, was my hair. The burnished red had acquired a garish glint, and short pixyish strands stuck to my forehead and cheeks, while others, on top, torpedoed skyward.

I was beyond repair. I reset the mirror for driving, and forced myself to examine my ankle.

Using both hands, I hoisted my right thigh and gently lay the calf across my left leg. I folded up the hem of my slacks. The back of my tan sock was red.

“I’ll have a look at that.” Sergeant McKee materialized at the window, a spook, and without asking permission, stuck his head further in, an invasion of my personal space. “I’m going to push the sock down all around, okay?”

I didn’t answer, since I would have been talking directly into his hat. Also, I didn’t trust myself to speak. Who knew what the simple act of having someone fuss over me might unleash? As I pressed back, trying to merge with the seat so our bodies wouldn’t connect, I felt the sock resist separating from the sticky wound.

McKee pulled his head out the window. “It’s probably going to swell up a little. You might need a tetanus shot.”

“I’m fine.”

He folded his arms on the window ledge and drummed his thumb impatiently.

Suppose I became a joke? I just moved here, and already I’m a joke? I could see the sleepless nights ahead. The obsessing. The endless replay of worry. I’d heard those people in the store laughing.

“Let me drive you to the hospital,” he said.

“That’s not necessary.”

“Get out, goddammit, I’m taking you.”

“Okay.” Capitulating was such a relief that concealing it became paramount. I busied myself, dropping my keys back into my purse, organizing objects there. This must be post-traumatic shock. I was going to either shout insults or sob.

His car was parked behind mine. While I stood, mostly on one foot, he quickly cleaned up the passenger seat, tossing a bag of Fritos and a Rush Limbaugh paperback into the trunk. He must be a conservative, big surprise. This was a Republican town.

“I’m Tom McKee, by the way,” he said as we drove out of the lot.

“Lily Davis.”

“I remember. Do you have a doctor?”

I shook my head and then, since his eyes were on the road, bleated a short no as well. My doctors were in Manhattan. So was my hairdresser. I wouldn’t be caught dead getting a haircut in Sakonnet Bay. I considered whether to mention this, undoubtedly for perverse reasons—having already begun to irritate people today, I now couldn’t stop myself. I heard a beep.

“That’s my pager,” said McKee. “Ignore it. Mynten?”

“Excuse me?” I turned to find that he was offering me a hard candy in a wrapper with a twist at each end.

“What’s this?”

“An orange-mint thing. A throat lozenge. My wife buys them wholesale by the gross.”

“Thank you.” It didn’t taste bad, somewhere between medicine and a sweet: even better, sucking it gave me something to do. McKee removed his hat, balanced it on the armrest between our seats, and I got a good look at him for the first time.

He seemed about thirty-two. Five years younger than I. Maybe not. Maybe thirty-four. My obsessing was taking a new turn, compulsive age-guessing. He radiated health, almost glowed with well-being. That’s what struck me the most: how robust the sergeant looked, with fair skin and ruddy cheeks, as if he’d just come in for milk and cookies after riding his bike on a cold November day. From the side, he was compelling, mostly owing to an elegant, pronounced jawline. Less impressive from the front, I decided, as he glanced over. Something was out of sync about his features. Thick brows jutted over brown eyes that were possibly too close together, or perhaps the problem was that his nose, while straight, was slightly too wide. No, he was not quite handsome, but boyishly winning.

His dark brown hair was styled for Sunday school: short, side part, front combed up and over into a stiff wave. He might be excessively neat. He might also use mousse. Borrow his wife’s. A secret vanity. I imagined him pulsing a bit into his palm, rubbing his hands together, and then, in one motion, coating his hair from front to back. I must have been recovering, or I wouldn’t have been speculating about the officer and his hair products.

“Where’d you get those dumb ideas about deer?”

“Excuse me?”

“Deer don’t cross the road looking for love. Pumpkins, maybe acorns.” He was referring to the article I’d written last week about the increase in car accidents caused by lovesick deer or, depending on one’s point of view, the increase in the number of deer killed by careless drivers.

“As a matter of fact, deer do travel farther during mating season, and when they pair off they’ll cross the road to get to …” I couldn’t think how to describe it. “Their love nest, I guess.”

“Love doesn’t enter into it.”

Oh God, was he a hater of hyperbole? A stickler for accuracy? Like, I have to say, my ex-husband. I wasn’t going to concede, so I shut up. The beeper went off again.

“Isn’t that for you?” I asked.

“I’ve got a security company, and when I’m on duty my brother’s supposed to pick up. Don’t know where he is.” He looked exasperated by this problem. Did it occur often? He extricated his beeper from his front pants pocket, lifting his rear off the seat to do so. He was chunky around the midsection. “You should write about DUIs instead of Mary Burns.” This was a reference to another column I’d written, about a woman who had reported her underpants stolen from a dryer in the laundromat. I hadn’t realized until now how carefully my work was read. By everyone? Or just by him?

“DUIs. I’ll suggest that to the editor.”

“Under-age drinking, too. That’s another problem.”

I jumped on him. “Are you talking about my son?”