Chapter 8 Sheba #2
They walked through leafy streets. They strolled through Harvard Square where people hunched at tables playing chess and a young man played the cello. He was sitting on a stool while a girl with long blond hair stood near, playing the violin.
Jamie was trying to explain. “I’m interested in suffering. I mean, don’t take it the wrong way. It’s not like I’m looking to suffer, or I have a morbid fascination, but—”
“You want to understand it?”
“Yeah. Exactly.”
“Like, why do bad things happen to good people?”
“No, it’s more like, why do bad things happen to anybody?”
A car was coming, and Jamie didn’t even notice as she followed Simon into the street. Sheba barked in warning.
Then Jamie and Simon remembered where they were and stepped back onto the curb. “She’s such a good dog,” Jamie told Simon. “Aren’t you?” she added for Sheba’s benefit.
Sheba did not nuzzle Jamie’s hand.
—
The next time, Jamie and Simon went without Sheba to Simon’s Coffee Shop.
At first it was a joke. Simon would say, let’s meet at Simon’s Coffee—no relation.
Then they began meeting there regularly.
Simon’s was narrow as a railcar. Its tables were lined up one behind the other parallel to the long counter.
The toasted bagels were not great. The chocolate chip cookies were big and soft and way too sweet, but the coffee was good—and there was something about how narrow the place was.
You felt hidden there, as though you could say anything.
“I’d like to go back to school,” Simon confided. “I don’t love recruiting.”
“What would you study?” Jamie asked.
“Photography.”
“What kind?”
“It’s unrealistic,” he said, “but I would work for National Geographic. I’d take pictures of endangered species and the effects of global warming.”
Jamie said, “I don’t think it’s unrealistic.”
They went together to the MFA and stood in front of Guanyin’s statue. The light was dim, and Guanyin sat casually on a pillar with one leg up and one leg down. Was she a woman or a man? Maybe a woman? Her skin was gold; her flowing robes were painted.
“Look at her face,” Jamie said.
“Peaceful,” said Simon.
“But she knows.” Jamie gazed at Guanyin’s downcast eyes and quiet mouth. The Bodhisattva knew all the problems in the world. All the troubles and the disappointments and the pain.
“She’s like an angel,” Simon said.
“She’s like Sheba.”
“Totally.”
—
“He’s not like other guys,” Jamie told Sheba when she came to get her at the house.
Sheba thought, Who, Simon? He is exactly like other guys.
“He wants to be a photographer.” Jamie scratched the back of Sheba’s head.
He wants you, thought Sheba. She saw the way he circled Jamie.
“He’s thoughtful,” Jamie said.
Sheba turned toward the fence. Simon was pulling up, locking his bike to a Resident Parking Only sign. When he took off his helmet, he ran his hand through his thinning hair.
As soon as he approached, Jamie jumped up to meet him. He looked at her and forgot to close the gate.
Jamie said, “I have to show you this tree.”
It was a massive beech with deep green leaves. Jamie and Simon looked up at branches that seemed to touch the sky. “It’s even bigger than the ones at the library,” Jamie said.
Simon said, “It’s definitely taller.”
“Who has a yard this big?” Simon asked.
“I know! In Cambridge? It’s crazy.” Jamie picked up Sheba’s leash and they all walked to the side of the house. “Look at this.”
It was the old barn. Sheba’s master kept it as a garden shed. Through the open door, Sheba smelled squirrels, potting soil, old musty crocus bulbs, damp flowerpots, everything good, but she waited outside as Jamie and Simon stepped in.
“Up there you can see the hayloft.”
“What’s up there now?”
Sheba’s leash trailed on the ground. She was forgotten.
In the shadows Simon was whispering, and Jamie whispered back. They were rustling softly beyond the potting soil, beyond the flowerpots. They were like wind in the trees. The softest wind. The smallest leaves.
Sheba was gone when they stepped out again.
—
They called and called for her. They ran through the garden out onto the street. “It’s my fault,” Simon said. “I didn’t close the gate.”
“No, it was me,” Jamie said. “I dropped the leash.”
Jamie whistled. Simon said she couldn’t have gone far. They split up—Jamie running down Lancaster Street, Simon biking up Mass Ave.
Sheba was not walking around the block, nor was she strolling on Mass Ave.
Simon biked all the way to Arlington and then circled back. He found Jamie crumpled on the stairs outside Susanna’s dress shop. She was trying to phone Sheba’s master.
Simon knelt at Jamie’s feet. “Don’t call him yet. We’ve just started looking.”
Jamie said, “I have to take responsibility.”
All that afternoon they walked through Avon Hill. They searched every street and cul-de-sac. Simon was sure they would find Sheba. Jamie was sure that they would not.
She stapled Lost Dog notices to every telephone pole. She told Sheba’s master she would return all her wages. She walked the streets. She pinned offers of rewards to bulletin boards as far as Christina’s Homemade Ice Cream.
Her roommates tried to help. Thad posted online. Celia brought Jamie tea.
A week passed. Ten days. Jamie couldn’t sleep.
She composed a resignation letter for her employers. She explained that she had been careless. She had experienced a lapse in judgment, and she took full responsibility. Regretfully, she could no longer continue walking dogs. Losing Sheba, she had betrayed a sacred trust.
Thad said, “I think this might be overkill.”
Jamie said no.
Simon called. Her parents called. Everybody tried to comfort her.
“How is it negligence if the dog ran away from her own backyard?” Jamie’s dad said.
Jamie said, “I left the gate open, and she ran away because of me.”
Eventually, she stopped answering her phone.
Amanda came over and sat on Jamie’s bed. She said, “So now you’re not speaking to Simon? Are you blaming him, or something?”
“I blame myself,” said Jamie.
—
On Sunday she assisted Father Anthony again. As they began the service at the Porter Square T stop, the shaggy man told Jamie, “You look like hell.”
Father Anthony said, “If anyone here has seen a gray standard poodle, please let us know.”
Cars whizzed past as Father Anthony said, “Let us raise our voices in the Hebrew prayer for peace. He led everyone in singing Shalom Aleichem but Jamie hardly sang at all.
“I saw the dog,” an old, bearded guy told Jamie after the service. “She’s near Davis Square.”
“What?” Jamie’s hand flew to her heart. “Please,” she whispered.
“You want to see her?”
Jamie nodded, because she could not speak.
“Okay.”
The bearded guy led the way up Mass Ave and Jamie followed, almost afraid to breathe. “How much will you give me for her?” the guy asked.
“What do you mean?”
“I never did anything to your dog,” the old, bearded guy said.
“She’s not my dog. Her name is Sheba and she’s not mine to lose.”
“Not mine to lose?” the old guy echoed lightly.
“Where did you take her?” Jamie demanded.
The old guy’s skin was leathery, his eyes bright, narrow, dark.
He wore jeans and a plaid shirt and a pair of black dress shoes.
He hurried past the post office and a decrepit Tibetan rug store and Jamie followed.
He walked even faster, and Jamie was practically running to keep up.
Then suddenly he stopped in front of a Bank of America ATM.
“Why are you stopping?” Jamie asked.
“I’m cash only.”
“Bring Sheba here,” Jamie said.
“Maybe I will,” the old, bearded guy said as he walked off. “Maybe I won’t.”
Jamie withdrew $200 from her bank account and then she waited. She watched a pair of students carrying a blue armchair. She saw a mother encouraging a tiny girl on a pink scooter. The sun beat down. Jamie began to think the old guy was never coming back—but she could not give up watching for him.
She felt she had been watching the whole day. She felt as though the sun would set, even though it had only been an hour. Then, in the distance, she saw a man walking down Mass Ave with a tall dog. She ran toward them, and the dog was Sheba.
She had no collar and no leash. Her fur was dirty, and she looked gaunt.
Jamie knelt at Sheba’s side, examining her, lifting her paws.
Sheba listened to Jamie scolding softly. “How could you? How could you leave like that? Were you punishing me? Is that what you were doing?”
“Where’s the money?” the old guy interrupted.
Still kneeling, Jamie offered up the cash.
The man snatched the bills and barely glanced at them before he kicked Jamie in the ribs. He kicked the breath out of her with his black shoe.
Jamie doubled over, even as Sheba exploded, barking. She bit the man’s arm and when he screamed and tried to fight her off, she charged at him again.
He ran.
She pursued him all the way to the edge of the traffic on Mass Ave.
He plunged in and sprinted across the street, but Sheba did not chase, because she knew not to run into the road.
She returned to Jamie who was scrambling to her feet. “Why did he kick me like that?” Jamie asked with a little cry in her voice.
Sheba knew why. The man kicked Jamie because he was bigger. He kicked Jamie because she was not on guard. Kneeling, she had given him an opening.
Jamie was trembling and Sheba stayed close. Stick with me, Sheba said silently, but Jamie wasn’t listening. She was already calling Simon.
“I found her. I’ve got her,” Jamie said. “Corner of Mass Ave and Meacham.”
When Simon arrived, he was driving an old maroon car.
He jumped out and rushed to Jamie and touched her where she hurt.
He took her hand and helped her into the front seat.
Sheba had to sit in back. From the rearview mirror hung a car freshener shaped like a little tree. The scent was fake pine needles.
They drove to Sheba’s house and Simon helped Jamie out. Then Jamie freed Sheba. The three of them stood at the gate. “No, don’t come in with me,” Jamie told Simon. “I have to do this myself. It’s my responsibility.”
Sheba pricked up her ears, because responsibility meant her, not Simon. She walked in triumph through the garden gate.
As she followed Jamie up the path, Sheba smelled the old smells and saw the old toys. Her rubber ball lay hidden where she’d left it in the grass.
Jamie rang the doorbell and Sheba’s master opened the door.
Jamie said, “I’m so, so sorry.” The story of the bearded guy came pouring out. But Jamie did not say that she had paid for Sheba—and she did not say she had been kicked.
Sheba’s master, Hal, knelt to embrace Sheba, who listened to him say how worried he had been. When at last he looked up, he told Jamie, “Come in.”
“I should go,” Jamie said.
“Not at all,” said Hal.
Sheba followed Jamie into the house and drank a bowl of water and ate a bowl of food. Sheba’s master told Jamie, “Sit.”
Jamie sat on a hard chair. Sheba crouched at her master’s feet, while he sat on the couch.
“Thank you for finding her,” Hal said.
Jamie said, “Don’t thank me.”
“All’s well that ends well.”
Jamie said, “I can’t forgive myself.”
“Try,” said Hal, “because I want you to keep walking her.”
“You don’t mean that,” said Jamie.
“I do.”
“Didn’t you get my letter?” Jamie asked.
“I got your letter and I read it.”
“Then how can you—”
“I don’t accept your resignation,” Hal said.
“What is the number one rule of dog walking?” Jamie asked. “Don’t lose the dog.”
Hal shook his head “Look, you can make this into a Greek tragedy if you want, but I don’t do tragedies. I’m an economist.”
“I can’t keep working for you.”
“At this point in time,” Hal said, “there is no one on the planet more trustworthy than you. Listen. You know I’m right. You’ll never let Sheba out of your sight again.”
“You’re too generous,” said Jamie, choking up.
“It’s not generosity,” Hal insisted. “Now back to work, okay?”
“Okay.”
Jamie stood and Sheba stood, looking at her. She longed to lick Jamie’s face, but she was careful not to give herself away.
Don’t you ever run away again, Jamie told Sheba silently.
Don’t forget me, then, Sheba answered, silent in return. It’s true that I belong to someone else, but you belong to me.
Sheba’s master said, “How about a bath? And check for fleas.”
“Come, Sheba,” Jamie said.
Sheba did not obey.
“Come on,” Jamie said.
Still, Sheba waited. She forgave Jamie, but she could not ignore her master on the couch or forget Simon lurking at the gate.
She knew how quickly the world changed. The squirrel you thought you’d caught escaped.
The love you thought you’d earned was cracked.
She wanted Jamie to reach for her. She wanted Jamie to want her, so she held back.
She had such height and elegance. Even in her filthy state, she acted like a queen.