Chapter 8 Sheba
Sheba
She was cursed with the kind of roommates mothers love—a postdoc in astronomy and a med student at Tufts.
The postdoc, Thad, went to Hawaii to observe sunspots for weeks on end.
The medical student, Celia, was getting a master’s in public health.
Jamie, on the other hand, worked as a canine companion—okay, a dog walker.
She strolled with a Rhodesian ridgeback and went running with a fleet and feckless Irish setter.
She bathed a phobic sheepdog named Puggles because nobody in his family would.
Individual attention for each animal. No group outings.
Every dog at his or her own pace. She did not jumble clients together, clutching all their leashes in one hand.
Because of this, she walked some of the most privileged animals in Cambridge.
The standard poodle of a Nobel laureate in economics, the golden retriever of a Miltonist, the beagle of an architect who designed transparent libraries.
First thing in the morning, Jamie and the golden ran once around Fresh Pond and sniffed the autumn air.
Mud and damp and bright decaying leaves and other dogs approaching.
Quick barks of recognition. Sidelong glances.
Please, please, please. Jamie held on while Sunny strained the leash.
Then, at Little Fresh Pond, she released him.
Hurled his tennis ball into the water where he swam, rippling with joy, paddling quickly, nosing tattered lily pads.
If only they were all so easy. Frank, the beagle, nipped. The poodle, Sheba, had a melancholy air, a sadness behind the ears that nobody could scratch.
“You have a good home,” Jamie told Sheba, as they walked on Avon Hill. “You have a great yard.”
Sheba ignored this. Tall, gray, elegant, never one to settle for a hug and a tickle, Sheba snapped up treats but wouldn’t beg for more. She gazed instead with searching eyes, as if to say, Is that all there is?
“What am I going to do with you?” Jamie said.
She dropped off Sheba and went home to her apartment, one-third of a blue Victorian on Russell Street.
Celia was asleep. Thad, the postdoc, was pacing as he talked on the phone.
He was a surfer, and he walked with a rolling gait, as though the earth was not challenging enough.
Jamie was the conscientious one. Opening the door, she saw that nobody had cleaned the kitchen and it looked bad.
It was so bad that after she scrubbed, vacuumed, and mopped, her roommates bought her lilies and roses at Whole Foods.
The arrangement came in a glass vase with a ribbon.
The lilies stank and shed pollen. The roses opened, but by morning hung their heads.
Jamie threw out the flowers. Washing the vase reminded her of the fish tank she had when she was twelve.
She would take a toothbrush and scrub out the algae, because there was no one else to do it.
Jamie’s oldest sisters, Lissa and Heather, were in high school, and she barely saw them.
Her third sister, Amanda, was in middle school, and Jamie saw her all the time.
Amanda looked at the tank in the sink and said, “Eeew no.”
“It’s just algae,” Jamie said.
“I don’t like fish,” Amanda told her.
“Why not?”
“Because they’re always dying.”
“We live, we die,” said Jamie, who had been reading Charlotte’s Web.
“Especially in aquariums,” said Amanda.
She’d been right about the fish. One by one, they went belly-up, until only two angelfish remained. These two attacked each other, nicking fins and tails, until the larger killed the smaller one. For a time, the larger swam alone in splendor. Then death came to him as well.
“They didn’t last long, did they?”
Jamie looked up startled and saw Celia dressed for class. “I guess not—but we can reuse the vase.”
“You’re so good.” Celia came from Hong Kong, and she spoke with an English accent. She said that she aspired to neatness. “When are you applying to divinity school?”
“In the fall,” said Jamie.
“You should get in, if there is a God,” said Celia. “Sorry.”
Jamie had been raised atheist. Technically, her parents were Jewish, but only technically.
Paul and Judy taught labor relations at Cornell.
They were atheist, socialist, and feminist, although Judy had been Paul’s student.
(Look, it was a different time, Paul said.) They had tried to instill humanist values in their four daughters, but each identified as Jewish.
Amanda, who was engaged to a Harvard law student, planned for a rabbi to officiate at her wedding. “Maybe you should be the rabbi,” she told Jamie when they walked together that afternoon.
“Div school isn’t training to be clergy.” Jamie wrangled the beagle, Frank.
“So you want to study all religions?”
“Belief,” said Jamie. “And why we believe and why we—”
Amanda interrupted. “You like Buddhism, right?”
“You don’t like Buddhism,” Jamie said. “You study. You practice.”
“Stop! I’m thinking who to introduce you to.”
Frank tugged the leash as Jamie said, “You don’t have to introduce me to anyone.”
“I know, but I want to.”
“You have paint in your hair,” Jamie told her sister.
“Really?”
“By your ear.”
“I’m going to introduce you to a Buddhist at our party,” Amanda said.
The party was at the Plough and Stars to celebrate Amanda’s engagement to Jonathan, the law student. Amanda wore a lime-green minidress and platform shoes. Jamie wore jeans and a pin-striped shirt. The band was so loud you couldn’t speak or hear. When Jamie said hi to Jonathan, he didn’t see her.
“Come here!” Amanda called. She kept pulling Jamie over to talk to people, but Jamie could not hear what they were saying. There was a guy named Simon with bright brown eyes and thinning hair. Jamie wondered if he was the Buddhist one. He wore a T-shirt printed I Would Prefer Not To.
“Are you a student?” Simon called above the music.
“Well—I’m going back to school. Hopefully.”
“Cool. What are you going to study?”
Jamie looked for Amanda, but she was gone. She could move fast in four-inch heels.
“I’m thinking about theodicy,” Jamie told Simon.
“What was that?”
“The-od-i-cy,” Jamie enunciated.
“Go, Homer!” he cheered.
Jamie did not correct him.
“I wish I was a student,” Simon said. “I envy you.”
“What are you doing instead?”
“Do you want to go outside?” Simon said.
Outside, the air was cool, and Jamie’s ears were ringing.
“I’m in cybersecurity,” Simon said. “I do recruiting.”
“I don’t know anything about cybersecurity,” she said.
“That’s okay.”
“At the moment I’m a dog walker.”
“You get to walk dogs?” he said. “Can I come?”
—
“He’s sort of overfriendly,” Jamie told Sheba the next morning.
Sheba sniffed Jamie’s wrist which smelled of soap and detergent, a crisp hopefulness. A little smoke.
“Should we let him walk with us?” Jamie asked. “Bark once for yes.”
Sheba did not bark. She looked at Jamie as if to say, You are too good for him.
But Jamie did not think she was too good. She told Simon she could walk with him any day but Sunday.
On Sunday mornings, she volunteered at the Porter Square T stop where the interfaith ministry held outdoor services. Father Anthony pushed a tea trolley stocked with grape juice, laminated hymns, and communion wafers. Jamie assisted.
While Father Anthony read the service, a woman named Dawna organized the contents of her shopping cart.
“The Lord is my Shepherd,” Father Anthony read. “I shall not want.”
“Yeah, right,” a shaggy man said.
After the homily, Jamie played her flute.
“What was that you played?” Dawna asked.
“ ‘Sheep May Safely Graze,’ ” said Jamie.
“What else you got?”
“Don’t listen to her,” the shaggy man told Jamie. “She’s fucking ignorant.”
But Jamie did listen. What was she doing playing the flute? Praying at the T stop? She should be giving out food and cash and lobbying Congress. The question haunted her. What else you got?
“Maybe I should be a social worker,” Jamie told Amanda, the next time they walked Frank.
“But you’d be terrible,” Amanda said.
“Why?”
“You’d just get upset.”
“Maybe I should be upset,” Jamie said.
—
The next day, Frank nipped Jamie’s finger. His owner was away overseeing a center for reconciliation in the Middle East.
“I get it,” Jamie told the dog. “You don’t have to take it out on me.”
Puggles bolted before Jamie could rinse the shampoo from his fur. He streaked down the stairs while Jamie raced behind.
As Jamie walked to Sheba’s place, Celia called to say that the washing machine had flooded the basement. Their landlord was on a ten-day bicycle trip.
Jamie was glad to find Sheba waiting at the window of her chocolate-shingled house. Sheba barked once as the housekeeper let her out.
“Hey.” Jamie offered Sheba an old rubber ball.
Sheba nudged it with her paw, but only to humor Jamie. She knew it didn’t squeak.
“Listen,” Jamie said. “We have a visitor. His name is Simon and he’s good with animals.”
Sheba looked at Jamie as if to say, What makes you think I am an animal?
“He’s just here to say hi.”
Sheba glanced at the gate where a young man was waiting.
“He’s just going to hang out with us for a little while.” Jamie fastened a leash to her collar, even though Sheba didn’t need one. “Shall we?” Jamie said, and Sheba could not say no.
Regal, stately, Sheba led the way to the garden gate. As soon as Sheba stepped onto the sidewalk, Simon held out his sweaty hand, palm up.
“Hello, beautiful girl,” he told Sheba. “Wow. You are gorgeous!”
Sheba stood unyielding while Simon petted her. He was indeed too friendly—but Jamie didn’t mind. They walked along and Sheba trotted in front listening to them chatter about school and Cambridge and roommates and jobs and finding what you love. Sheba glanced back at Jamie. Love already?