Creature Discomforts

point—”
    Quint interrupted her with a soft, growly, “Effie, not here!”
    Tiffany helped me out by whispering, “Quint means Opal and Wally Swan.”
    I swallowed a clam. “And...?”
    Tiffany looked aghast. As if confiding that Wally and Opal were convicted child molester serial chainsaw murderers, she whispered, “They’re developers! Swan and Swan. They build houses! And condo complexes, when they can get away with it. The whole idea of the foundation is keeping Maine green. And the whole idea of Swan and Swan is cutting down every tree on Mount Desert Island. Quint hates the Swans just as much as Effie does.”
    Despite Tiffany’s low volume, Quint must have overheard, because, in normal tones, he said, “Mount Desert Island has a fragile ecosystem. We’re bombarded by threats from the outside, like air pollution blown in from the Midwest, acid rain, acid fog, acid snow. But we’ve also got water pollution that originates here. And habitat fragmentation. You can’t preserve a habitat bit by bit, one spot here, one spot there. It’s an integrated whole. Take the rain forests. What happens there has a direct impact on what happens here. That’s why Malcolm is involved with Guatemala, too. The big problem right here, really, is overuse. You can literally see it on the popular trails. You can see and hear the cars, and you can smell the exhaust in the air. And yes, you can encourage the tourists to go to the less frequented places, but it just shifts the problem. It doesn’t solve it. And the more development there is, the more houses, the more motels, the more everything, the more overuse there’s going to be.”
    “You can’t ban visitors from a national park,” I pointed out.
    “More’s the pity,” Effie said.
    “Mr. Axelrod used to joke about shooting tourists on sight,” Tiffany said brightly. “That was his favorite joke: If it’s tourist season, why can’t you shoot them?”
    “What makes you think he was joking?” Effie asked.
     

Chapter Eight
     
    “ SHORT OF BRINGING poor Norman back to life,” said Gabrielle, “it seemed like the most useful thing I could do.” She was explaining how Axelrod’s mini poodle, Isaac, happened to be in her care. “Especially because Isaac hadn’t been feeling well—he’s fine now—and I wasn’t sure who else had a key to Norman’s house. Norman was not the most trusting individual. So I went over and let myself in. Poor Isaac! He was so happy to see anyone. He came dancing to the door, and I scooped him up, and I grabbed a few of his toys and his crate and brought him back here, poor boy. He’s no trouble. If anything, he’s not enough trouble! He’s a funny little duck. Some of these show dogs are all too used to being stuck in their crates and ignored for days at a time.”
    After a swim in the Atlantic, the happy-looking Isaac was far from ready to enter the show ring. In what I now see as a positive prognostic sign, however, I took pleasure in recognizing the link between Isaac’s enjoyment of his dip in the Atlantic and his breed’s origins, which despite the pop term “French poodle,” are German. Pudeln: to splash in water. The standard poodle, the largest of the three varieties—standard, mini, toy—was originally a water retriever. The miniature poodle, with a height between ten and fifteen inches at the withers, was bred down from the standard poodle and was never meant as a sporting dog. Even so! Here before my delighted eyes, his mane of apricot curls and his apricot pompoms drenched, his shaved hindquarters bare to the world, the adorable little Isaac unconsciously proclaimed his functional heritage. An unsettling reflection cut short my joy. How, I wondered, can someone possibly recall the derivation of the word poodle and the origin of that wonderfully intelligent breed while struggling to remember her own name?
    Darkness was now falling, but the temperature remained surprisingly mild, and the air was still. Although most of the food had been eaten, people continued to pick at their lobsters. After sucking the juice out of a leg, Gabrielle went on. “Horace Livermore, Molly’s handler, is always after me to send Molly on the circuit, but I can’t see it. He’s always pointing out that we could finish Molly in no time and get her Canadian championship if I’d turn her over to him the way Norman did. Horace Livermore has what’s called a string of dogs. Like a string of prostitutes. Isn’t that grand!