The Dogfather

Cambridge poet, e. e. cummings. In spite of the mild spring weather, the dust mop’s owner wore a British-looking tweed jacket and skirt. On her feet were polar fleece socks and Birkenstock sandals. This time, the dust mop was not on the retractable leash that had given her the freedom to attack Kimi, but on a short leash.
    “You will observe,” said the woman, “that Elizabeth Cady’s Flexi privileges have been revoked. She proffers her profuse apologies.”
    “Her apologies are accepted,” I said.
    “Ta-ta! Off we go, E. C.!” With that, she led Elizabeth Cady away.
    I gave the Bronco another kick, went into the house, hugged the dogs, sat down at the kitchen table, pounded my fist on it, and burst into tears. Then I washed my face, made coffee, and called Leah. “My damn car is shot,” I told her.
    “No kidding.”
    “Leah, it’s not fit to drive.”
    “There are holes in the floor. It backfires. It refuses to start. It stalls. The gauges don’t work, and neither does the radio. For starters.”
    “Leah, no, it’s worse than that. This isn’t just the usual. I drove it today and barely made it back home. I know I promised to help you move Rita’s old love seat tonight, but I just can’t. I’m sorry, but if we try, we’re probably going to get stuck in the middle of the Square with a dead car and a couch. I really don’t dare to drive it.”
    “Anyone else would’ve dumped it a year ago.”
    “Well, I guess anyone else would’ve had the money to replace it.”
    “What are you going to do?”
    “Walk. Damn it! The one good thing about this car was that I owned it. I cannot afford car payments. But I don’t have much choice. I’m really sorry about the love seat, but it just won’t fit in Rita’s car.”
    “It’ll fit in Steve’s van. Easily.”
    “Leah, I don’t like to—”
    “I like to. I will. I’ll call you back.”
    Leah hung up. Five minutes later, the phone rang again. Leah announced that all our problems were solved, by which she meant that that she and her roommates wouldn’t have to wait to get the attractive and fairly new love seat Rita had offered her. Leah had interrupted Steve at his clinic and taken advantage of his obliging character by persuading him not only to let her use his van, but to help us move the love seat. In connection with Steve, the very word bothered me. Love seat. Why couldn’t Rita have discarded a piece of furniture with a loveless name?
    “There is no need to impose on Steve,” I told Leah. “Your friends can help, and—”
    “Steve doesn’t mind. He volunteered. And he’s bringing Sammy. My friends want to meet the puppy. Everyones’s going to get to your house around seven.”
    Rita rapped on my door at six-thirty.
    I greeted her by saying, “Leah is being high-handed and bossy about this love seat.”
    “She’s doing me a favor. The new one is being delivered tomorrow, and if Leah wasn’t going to take this one, I’d have to have it hauled off.”
    Rita is the sort of person who moves furniture by getting someone else to do it. She’s perfectly fit. As is appropriate for a psychologist, the impediment is strictly mental. Well, it’s also pedal, so to speak. Or podiatric? How can anyone who calls herself a feminist possibly wear high heels? That’s what I asked Rita.
    “To make sure I always have defensive weapons handy.” She kicked off her suede pumps, took a seat at my kitchen table, and poured each of us a glass of merlot from the bottle she’d brought. “And now you’re going to tell me that I could perfectly well learn to groom Willie myself and therefore should.”
    Willie is Rita’s Scottish terrier. Theirs is a perfect match. They’re stylish, high-maintenance creatures. Also, Rita spends her working hours trying to change her clients’ behavior and refuses to come home and make the same effort with her dog. Willie, for his part, is almost untrainable—that’s my opinion, anyway.
    “No, what I’m going to tell you,” I said, “is that I’ve finally given up on my car. Every mechanic I’ve taken it to in the past year has told me that I need to dump it. This morning, I realized that they’ve all been right. The thing has become outright dangerous.”
    Rita is sensitive to the difference in our incomes: She didn’t ask why I hadn’t replaced my car years ago.
    I said, “It’s a good thing I like walking. The second half of the advance on my liver book isn’t here yet. Not that it’ll buy