Ruffly Speaking

as turquoise as the stones. Her hair was black, with only a few strands of white, pulled straight back into a knot at the nape of her neck.
    As I gaped at Stephanie Benson’s jewelry, struggled to regain my composure, and checked out my camera and tape recorder, she covered my awkwardness by telling me how happy she was to help with the article. “They tell us we’re pioneers,” she said. “Everyone knows about guide dogs, but hearing dogs are equally remarkable, and part of our job is to get the word out about them.”
    Before long, Stephanie Benson had supplied coffee and settled me in Morris Lamb’s big living room, which still, of course, had its same old floor-to-ceiling windows and sliding glass doors, open today to let in leaf-filtered sunshine. The room now held a collection of formal furniture that honestly seemed better suited to a rectory than to Morris’s cube: maple tables, pale yellow wing chairs, an ottoman, two upholstered couches with no fireplace to flank, a museum-quality highboy with shiny hardware. Stephanie Benson’s Oriental rug was too small for the living room floor; and in the adjoining dining room, the ladder-back chairs jutted up discordantly, and the long, wide oval table created the impression of a dance floor so elevated that would-be waltzers would need a step stool to reach it. Morris had furnished the place in stark wood and vivid colors, but he was such a hopelessly pndulgent dog owner that, in his day, every piece of furniture not actually occupied by a Bedlington at least bore the marks of one, puppy-chewed legs or telltale splotches w here a stain remover had reneged on its manufacturer's
    Promise.
    Stephanie had seated me directly opposite her on one of the couches. The coffee table between us held, in addition to two delicate violet-patterned white cups and saucers, my little tape recorder, which Stephanie gave me permission to use before I even had the chance to ask. When I interview people who are self-conscious about their voices, I end up trying to scribble down what they’re saying instead of being free to listen. Stephanie said, “You want to tape this? Go ahead. Then you won’t have to bother writing, so we can talk." Ruffly stationed himself on the floor next to Stephanie. As she and I talked, his eyes darted back and forth between us as if following the ball in a conversational tennis match.
    Before I could begin the interview by making warmup small talk about Matthew, Leah, and the Avon Hill Summer Program, Stephanie took the initiative. “First,” she said, “I’m going to tell you why I have a hearing dog. Everyone always wonders. Here I am, the rector of St. Margaret’s. We spoke on the telephone. When you talk to me, I hear you. And I may sound slightly ministerial, but I don’t sound deaf. Did I cheat?” Her turquoise eyes watched me. I wondered whether she could hear me catch my breath. Ruffly could: Those waving ears held momentarily still. His owner’s smile widened.
    “I assume not,” I answered.
    “Well, the answer is simple, Holly. Virtually no one can manage hearing aids twenty-four hours a day. It’s unendurable, and you end up with ear infections. So you take them out at night, and the dog is your smoke alarm-Your burglar alarm. Your alarm clock. That’s literally true. I set the clock for Ruffly; it’s no good to me. When it goes off, he wakes me up. That’s part one of the answer, the simple part. The other part is that if I’m walking down the street, I don’t necessarily hear a car even when it’s right next to me, but Ruffly does, and if someone calls my name from a block away, there’s not a chance I’ll hear it, but Ruffly knows my name, and he knows every name anyone’s likely to call me, so if someone hollers “Mrs. Benson” or “Stephanie” or whatever, he lets me know. Or if my back’s turned. It’s... I don’t know how to explain it—it’s nothing he was specifically trained for— but he can tell if someone’s talking to me. Before Ruffly, people must’ve thought I was a terrible snob! Because I’d muddle along listening and lip-reading, which is mostly guesswork, you know, and then someone would start a conversation, and I suppose I just wouldn’t answer, or they must’ve seen me on the street and tried to say hello, and I’d just go sailing off ignoring them.”
    “Is that how you happened to get a hearing dog?” Stephanie laughed. “The precipitant actually was teakettles. I’d burned out