Anne Tyler: The Accidental Tourist

When it was two hours till takeoff, he stood up. The airport was a thirty-minute drive at the most, but he hated feeling rushed. He made a final tour of the house, stopping off at the downstairs bathroom — the last real bathroom (was how he thought of it) that he’d see for the next week. He whistled for the dog. He picked up his bag and stepped out the front door. The heat slammed into him like something solid.

The dog was going with him only as far as the vet’s. If he’d known that, he never would have jumped into the car. He sat next to Macon, panting enthusiastically, his keg-shaped body alert with expectation. Macon talked to him in what he hoped was an un-alarming tone. “Hot, isn’t it, Edward. You want the air conditioner on?” He adjusted the controls. “There now. Feeling better?” He heard something unctuous in his voice. Maybe Edward did, too, for he stopped panting and gave Macon a sudden suspicious look. Macon decided to say no more.

They rolled through the neighborhood, down streets roofed over with trees. They turned into a sunnier section full of stores and service stations. As they neared Murray Avenue, Edward started whimpering. In the parking lot of the Murray Avenue Veterinary Hospital, he somehow became a much smaller animal.

Macon got out of the car and walked around to open the door. When he took hold of Edward’s collar, Edward dug his toenails into the upholstery. He had to be dragged all the way to the building, scritching across the hot concrete.

The waiting room was empty. A goldfish tank bubbled in one corner, with a full-color poster above it illustrating the life cycle of the heartworm. There was a girl on a stool behind the counter, a waifish little person in a halter top.

“I’ve brought my dog for boarding,” Macon said. He had to raise his voice to be heard above Edward’s moans.

Chewing her gum steadily, the girl handed him a printed form and a pencil. “Ever been here before?” she asked.

“Yes, often.”

“What’s the last name?”

“Leary.”

“Leary. Leary,” she said, riffling through a box of index cards. Macon started filling out the form. Edward was standing upright now and clinging to Macon’s knees, like a toddler scared of nursery school.

“Whoa,” the girl said.

She frowned at the card she’d pulled.

“Edward?” she said. “On Rayford Road?”

“That’s right.”

“We can’t accept him.”

“What?”

“Says here he bit an attendant. Says, ‘Bit Barry in the ankle, do not readmit.’ ”

“Nobody told me that.”

“Well, they should have.”

“Nobody said a word! I left him in June when we went to the beach; I came back and they handed him over.”

The girl blinked at him, expressionless.

“Look,” Macon said. “I’m on my way to the airport, right this minute. I’ve got a plane to catch.”

“I’m only following orders,” the girl said.

“And what set him off, anyhow?” Macon asked. “Did anyone think to wonder? Maybe Edward had good reason!”

The girl blinked again. Edward had dropped to all fours by now and was gazing upward with interest, as if following the conversation.

“Ah, the hell with it,” Macon said. “Come on, Edward.”

He didn’t have to take hold of Edward’s collar when they left. Edward galloped ahead of him all the way across the parking lot.

In that short time, the car had turned into an oven. Macon opened his window and sat there with the motor idling. What now? He considered going to his sister’s, but she probably wouldn’t want Edward either. To tell the truth, this wasn’t the first time there had been complaints. Last week, for instance, Macon’s brother Charles had stopped by to borrow a router, and Edward had darted in a complete circle around his feet, taking furious little nibbles of his trouser cuffs. Charles was so astonished that he just turned his head slowly, gaping down. “What’s got into him?” he asked. “He never used to do this.” Then when Macon grabbed his collar, Edward had snarled. He’d curled his upper lip and snarled. Could a dog have a nervous breakdown?

Macon wasn’t very familiar with dogs. He preferred cats. He liked the way cats kept their own counsel. It was only lately that he’d given Edward any thought at all. Now that he was alone so much he had taken to talking out loud to him, or sometimes he just sat studying him. He admired Edward’s intelligent brown eyes and his foxy little face. He appreciated the honey-colored whorls that radiated so symmetrically from the bridge of his nose. And his walk! Ethan used to say that Edward walked as if he had sand in his bathing suit. His rear end waddled busily; his stubby legs seemed hinged by some more primitive mechanism than the legs of taller dogs.

Macon was driving toward home now, for lack of any better idea. He wondered what would happen if he left Edward in the house the way he left the cat, with plenty of food and water. No. Or could Sarah come see to him, two or three times a day? He recoiled from that; it meant asking her. It meant dialing that number he’d never used and asking her for a favor.

MEOW-BOW ANIMAL HOSPITAL, a sign across the street read. Macon braked and Edward lurched forward. “Sorry,” Macon told him. He made a left turn into the parking lot.

The waiting room at the Meow-Bow smelled strongly of disinfectant. Behind the counter stood a thin young woman in a ruffled peasant blouse. She had aggressively frizzy black hair that burgeoned to her shoulders like an Arab headdress. “Hi, there,” she said to Macon.

Macon said, “Do you board dogs?”

“Sure.”

“I’d like to board Edward, here.”

She leaned over the counter to look at Edward. Edward panted up at her cheerfully. It was clear he hadn’t yet realized what kind of place this was.

“You have a reservation?” the woman asked Macon.

“Reservation! No.”

“Most people reserve.”

“Well, I didn’t know that.”

“Especially in the summer.”

“Couldn’t you make an exception?”

She thought it over, frowning down at Edward. Her eyes were very small, like caraway seeds, and her face was sharp and colorless.

“Please,” Macon said. “I’m about to catch a plane. I’m leaving for a week, and I don’t have a soul to look after him. I’m desperate, I tell you.”

From the glance she shot at him, he sensed he had surprised her in some way. “Can’t you leave him home with your wife?” she asked.

He wondered how on earth her mind worked.

“If I could do that,” he said, “why would I be standing here?”

“Oh,” she said. “You’re not married?”

“Well, I am, but she’s… living elsewhere. They don’t allow pets.”

“Oh.”

She came out from behind the counter. She was wearing very short red shorts; her legs were like sticks. “I’m a divorsy myself,” she said. “I know what you’re going through.”

“And see,” Macon said, “there’s this place I usually board him but they suddenly claim he bites. Claim he bit an attendant and they can’t admit him anymore.”

“Edward? Do you bite?” the woman said.

Macon realized he should not have mentioned that, but she seemed to take it in stride. “How could you do such a thing?” she asked Edward. Edward grinned up at her and folded his ears back, inviting a pat. She bent and stroked his head.

“So will you keep him?” Macon said.

“Oh, I guess,” she said, straightening. “If you’re desperate.” She stressed the word — fixing Macon with those small brown eyes — as if giving it more weight than he had intended. “Fill this out,” she told him, and she handed him a form from a stack on the counter. “Your name and address and when you’ll be back. Don’t forget to put when you’ll be back.”