Free Stepdog by Nicole Galland Page B

somehow made me Significant. She leapt at me, joyful, her forelegs grappling against my lower chest, her tongue flicking out snakelike hoping to reach my face. She was frenetic, as if she’d just discovered a long-lost sibling on a passing raft in the Pacific. I pushed her off me and brushed away stray dog hairs; she continued to leap, to prance on her hind legs, to throw herself off balance by the ferocity of her own wagging tail.
    â€œAll right, calm down,” I said, feeling both flattered and irritated by the attention. She immediately sat, her tail thumping the rug, and stared up at me expectantly.
    â€œDon’t stare,” I said. I took off my raincoat and hung it on a peg by the door, as she continued to stare at me expectantly.
    â€œDon’t stare,” I growled. I went into the bathroom to towel off my hair; came back into the living room and settled myself supine on the couch to the natterings of All Things Considered, and groped around the coffee table for the remote to the telly, hoping Sara had a sports package (definitely wishful thinking).
    The dog, with repressed wiggles, sauntered over to the couch, then sat down right beside me so that she could stare into my face close up, in case I might do something interesting. This made me very squeaky-bummed.
    â€œSara didn’t teach you don’t stare ?” I asked. She moved her head closer to mine and then nudged my shoulder with her nose. Twice. Then a third time, since I was being dense about responding to her and she wasn’t used to that.
    I pointedly ignored her, simply lay back and stared up at the ceiling listening to NPR since I couldn’t find the remote. Eventually she went back to treetop-scouting.
    I don’t mind an hour or so of NPR, but after a while it all becomes repetitive. I got up and turned off the radio. In the sudden silence, Cody jerked her gaze from the window to me, with joyful expectation, as if I had volunteered to replace Robert Siegel as the day’s entertainment.
    â€œWell, now,” I said. “It’s a bit of a situation here, isn’t it? How about I play you some tunes, and in exchange, you promise not to stare at me for the rest of the day?”
    She stared at me.
    But Cody, to be fair, was a gratifying audience, at least for the guitar (she went under Sara’s bed when I tuned the fiddle). In particular, she was fond of the opening riff to “Smoke on the Water,” instantly flopping into tarty-dog pose upon hearing it, as if she wanted nothing more than to be ravished by Deep Purple.
    It really wasn’t a half-bad way to pass the day.
    But one day turned into a spate of wretched weather: three days of heavy, torrential downpours followed by another three of driven drizzle. One of those cold damp weeks when the lights have to stay on all day because daylight never got above 60 percent.
    So what I thought was a one-off became a new routine. It was good to get back into the habit of daily practice, but that didn’t quite fill up the hours either, and being stuck inside with the dog was hard. She watched my every move, she followed me from one room to another, always expectant, always wanting something. Sighing when I didn’t provide it. Sliding into tarty-dog pose in a final plea for attention. Sighing while in tarty-dog pose when I continued, for my own sanity, to ignore her.
    And even as the rain began to clear, the mercury began to drop. I realized with a sinking feeling I’d be earning the green card byspending much of the coming dark New England winter being stalked by a dog in someone else’s small apartment.
    Sara green-lighted me on adding a sports package to the cable so I could at least catch some footy and watch Manchester United trounce Liverpool. It took the dog a while to get used to my shouting at the telly and dancing a jig when United beat Liverpool. Again. Over the years I’d grown to enjoy American sports, and all the Boston teams,