Anne Tyler - The Accidental Tourist

She changed her voice to match each character. Macon heard the thin whine of Norman’s mother, the stammering boyishness of Norman himself. He remembered last night’s dream and felt embarrassed all over again. He looked at her directly, hoping for flaws, and found them in abundance — a long, narrow nose, and sallow skin, and two freckled knobs of collarbone that promised an unluxurious body.

“Seems his mom woke up in the morning,” she was saying, “and there was Spook, sitting on the doorstep. But that was the first we realized he was missing. Norman goes, ‘I don’t know what got into him. He never ran off before.’ And gives me this doubtful kind of look. I could tell he wondered if it might be my fault. Maybe he thought it was an omen or something. We were awful young to get married. I can see that now. I was seventeen. He was eighteen — an only child. His mother’s pet. Widowed mother. He had this fresh pink face like a girl’s and the shortest hair of any boy in my school and he buttoned his shirt collars all the way to the neck. Moved in from Parkville the end of junior year. Caught sight of me in my strapless sundress and goggled at me all through every class; other boys teased him but he didn’t pay any mind. He was just so… innocent, you know? He made me feel like I had powers. There he was following me around the halls with his arms full of books and I’d say, ‘Norman? You want to eat lunch with me?’ and he’d blush and say, ‘Oh, why, uh, you serious?’ He didn’t even know how to drive, but I told him if he got his license I’d go out with him. ‘We could ride to someplace quiet and talk and be alone,’ I’d say, ‘you know what I mean?’ Oh, I was bad. I don’t know what was wrong with me, back then. He got his license in no time flat and came for me in his mother’s Chevy, which incidentally she happened to have purchased from my father, who was a salesman for Ruggles Chevrolet. We found that out at the wedding. Got married the fall of senior year, he was just dying to marry me so what could I say? and at the wedding my daddy goes to Norman’s mom, ‘Why, I believe I sold you a car not long ago,’ but she was too busy crying to take much notice. That woman carried on like marriage was a fate worse than death. Then when Spook runs off to her house she tells us, ‘I suppose I’d best keep him, it’s clear as day he don’t like it there with you-all.’ With me , is what she meant. She held it against me I took her son away. She claimed I ruined his chances; she wanted him to get his diploma. But I never kept him from getting his diploma. He was the one who said he might as well drop out; said why bother staying in school when he could make a fine living on floors.”

“On what?” Macon asked.

“Floors. Sanding floors. His uncle was Pritchett Refinishing. Norman went into the business as soon as we got married and his mom was always talking about the waste. She said he could have been an accountant or something, but I don’t know who she thought she was kidding. He never mentioned accounting to me .”

She pulled a dog hair off her coat sleeve, examined it, and flicked it away. “So let’s see him,” she said.

“Pardon?”

“Let’s see him heel.”

Macon slapped his hip and started off, with Edward lagging just a bit behind. When Macon stopped, Edward stopped too and sat down. Macon was pleasantly surprised, but Muriel said, “He’s not sitting.”

“What? What do you call it, then?”

“He’s keeping his rear end about two inches off the ground. Trying to see what he can get away with.”

“Oh, Edward,” Macon said sadly.

He pivoted and returned. “Well, you’ll have to work on that,” Muriel said. “But meantime, we’ll go on to the down-stay. Let’s try it in the house.”

Macon worried they’d meet up with Rose, but she was nowhere to be seen. The front hall smelled of radiator dust. The clock in the living room was striking the half hour.

“This is where we start on Edward’s real problem,” Muriel said. “Getting him to lie down and stay, so he won’t all the time be jumping at the door.”

She showed him the command: two taps of the foot. Her boot made a crisp sound. When Edward didn’t respond, she bent and pulled his forepaws out from under him. Then she let him up and went through it again, several times over. Edward made no progress. When she tapped her foot, he panted and looked elsewhere. “Stubborn,” Muriel told him. “You’re just as stubborn as they come.” She said to Macon, “A lot of dogs will act like this. They hate to lie down; I don’t know why. Now you.”

Macon tapped his foot. Edward seemed fascinated by something off to his left.

“Grab his paws,” Muriel said.

“On crutches?”

“Sure.”

Macon sighed and propped his crutches in the corner. He lowered himself to the floor with his cat in front of him, took Edward’s paws and forced him down. Edward rumbled threateningly, but in the end he submitted. To get up again, Macon had to hold onto the lamp table. “This is really very difficult,” he said, but Muriel said, “Listen, I’ve taught a man with no legs at all.”

“You have?” Macon said. He pictured a legless man dragging along the sidewalk with some vicious breed of dog, Muriel standing by unconcerned and checking her manicure. “I don’t suppose you ever broke a leg,” he accused her. “Getting around is harder than it looks.”

“I broke an arm once,” Muriel said.

“An arm is no comparison.”

“I did it training dogs, in fact. Got knocked off a porch by a Doberman pinscher.”

“A Doberman!”

“Came to to find him standing over me, showing all his teeth. Well, I thought of what they said at Doggie, Do: Only one of you can be boss. So I tell him, ‘Absolutely not.’ Those were the first words that came to me — what my mother used to say when she wasn’t going to let me get away with something. ‘Absolutely not,’ I tell him and my right arm is broken so I hold out my left, hold out my palm and stare into his eyes — they can’t stand for you to meet their eyes — and get to my feet real slow. And durned if that dog doesn’t settle right back on his haunches.”

“Good Lord,” Macon said.

“I’ve had a cocker spaniel fly directly at my throat. Meanest thing you ever saw. Had a German shepherd take my ankle in his teeth. Then he let it go.”

She lifted a foot and rotated it. Her ankle was about the thickness of a pencil.

“Have you ever met with a failure?” Macon asked her. “Some dog you just gave up on?”

“Not a one,” she said. “And Edward’s not about to be the first.”

But Edward seemed to think otherwise. Muriel worked with him another half hour, and although he would stay once he was down, he flatly refused to lie down on his own. Each time, he had to be forced. “Never mind,” Muriel said. “This is the way most of them do. I bet tomorrow he’ll be just as stubborn, so I’m going to skip a day. You keep practicing, and I’ll be back this same time Saturday.”

Then she told Edward to stay, and she accepted her money and slipped out the door. Observing Edward’s erect, resisting posture, Macon felt discouraged. Why hire a trainer at all, if she left him to do the training? “Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know,” he said. Edward gave a sigh and walked off, although he hadn’t been released.

All that afternoon and evening, Edward refused to lie down. Macon wheedled, threatened, cajoled; Edward muttered ominously and stood firm. Rose and the boys edged around the two of them, politely averting their eyes as if they’d stumbled on some private quarrel.

Then the next morning, Edward charged the mailman. Macon managed to grab the leash, but it raised some doubts in his mind. What did all this sitting and heeling have to do with Edward’s real problem? “I should just ship you off to the pound,” he told Edward. He tapped his foot twice. Edward did not lie down.