The Dog Park

“Christ,” he said. “That’s crazy.”

I said nothing, waiting for a nice whip of sarcasm.

He waited, too, probably for me to make some crack about his attitude, launch into the ruts of priors.

Instead, Sebastian took an audible breath. “How is he handling it?” he asked.

I looked down at Baxter again, who flipped back to a sit. He thumped his tail, then tilted his head as if he expected something, a trait I couldn’t recall him doing before. “He might be getting a bit of child star syndrome,” I said. “Possibly impatient. But otherwise he’s great.”

I put Baxy’s food on the floor and he gave my wrist a quick lick in thanks before he nose-dived into the bowl. “Nah,” I said to Sebastian. “Not really. He’s still our little guy.”

“I miss him,” he said again.

“I know,” I said again.

We chatted for a few minutes about some clients who had recently retained me again to outfit them for a wedding, about the magazine editors I’d had lunch with last week who’d promised work, about a good friend of Sebastian’s who had sold a book, about Sebastian’s family.

It would be the last normal conversation we would have for a long time. If I had known it, I might have thought to couch what I told him next. “The national news is going to run it.”

“What?” A distinctive snip to his voice that I knew meant displeasure.

“Baxter’s video.”

“What national news program?”

I wasn’t sure. I told him a producer had called.

“What was his name?”

I looked at the stack of cut up, old index cards that I used for notes in the kitchen. I read off the person’s name.

“Jesus, are you serious?” Sebastian said. “I know that guy. Does he know Baxter is my dog?”

“I don’t think so. I didn’t mention it because it didn’t seem like you’d want people to know that.”

He exhaled in a short burst, as if through clenched teeth. “I have to go.” He hung up.

Yet an hour later, he was knocking at the door of my condo.

I peered through the keyhole and saw him. This is my condo, I thought. Mine.

Of course, Sebastian knew the doorman, who had simply let him up. Still, the building staff also knew we were divorced. It annoyed me that they would give him free reign, without so much as a warning call to me, even if it was to tell me he was elevator-bound.

I glanced down at what I was wearing—yoga clothes for a class I planned to attend—gray pants, a thin, hot-pink top. I reached back and pulled my hair over one shoulder, smoothing the front and tucking the other side behind my ear. It occurred to me only as I was in the middle of the action that I was doing it because that was how Sebastian liked it.

But he definitely wasn’t in the mood to appreciate my hair.

He strode inside. “Hi.” He stopped suddenly, as if realizing in that instant he didn’t live there anymore.

“Hi?” I tried to keep the irritation from my voice, but it was hard.

“Where’s Baxter?”

“He’s playing at Daisy’s house.”

Sebastian looked a little blank.

“You know Daisy,” I said. “From the dog park.”

“I didn’t know they had play dates,” he said.

“Usually when one of us has to work. Maureen came and got him after we got off the phone.”

Sebastian nodded. “Well, I just wanted to tell you, in person, that I got ahold of him.”

“Who?”

“Paul.” The national news producer. I opened my mouth, but Sebastian kept talking. “They’re not going to run it.”

9 (#ulink_313eda54-a46c-58e4-8314-77f45db70cdf)

After Sebastian spoke those words—They’re not going to run it—I spun around and marched to our bedroom. I mean, my bedroom!

“Hey, Jess,” I heard Sebastian say, still in the kitchen.

I kept walking, breathed in deep, then again and again. I had promised myself that I wouldn’t let Sebastian make me sad or angry anymore.

I stepped into the bedroom and closed the door. I inhaled slowly. I was alive without him, I reminded myself.

After a minute I opened the door and, trying to tone down the marching, walked back to the kitchen. Sebastian sat on one of our kitchen chairs (my kitchen chairs), a leg crossed, ankle resting on the knee. He looked at me with a confused, maybe a little scared, expression. I couldn’t read him like I used to.

“Why would you do that?” I asked.

“What?”

“Get the producer to cancel the piece on Baxter.”

“Because it’s not news.”

“What do you care if your dog is on a news program?” I asked. “Even if it’s not ‘news’?”

“I happen to be a journalist who works in real news and I don’t want anyone associating me with the dog video.”

“Are you embarrassed by Baxter?”

“Of course not. Jesus.”

“By me?”