The Other Wife. Shirley Jump

I could latch on to and despise.

      “Penny,” I said, shaking her hand and feeling weirdly like we were at a cocktail party, meeting for the first time over the crab dip.

      “I know you probably have a million questions,” Susan began, her voice filled with a nervous giggle.

      I nodded. Actually, I thought a million was a low estimate.

      “And I’d love to answer them,” Susan said. She was neater today, more put together in jeans and a black top, but still with the same damned shoes. “But they’ll have to wait.”

      “Wait? Why?” I wanted her to just tell me everything, to rip that Band-Aid off in one quick swoop.

      Susan shifted on those heels and bit her lip. Her lipstick was darker than mine, I noticed, a shimmery cranberry compared to my muted coral. “Well…I have a favor to ask you,” she said.

      “A favor? You’re asking me for a favor?” The whole day had become as surreal as a Jackson Pollock painting. I wanted to hit the wall, hit the mums, anything. Hit her, actually. “I want a favor, too. I want to know what you were doing with my husband.”

      “I can’t—” She pressed a hand to her eyes, then fluttered her fingers. “I can’t talk about that right now. I need a little space. I just found out about you, too, you know. You have to give me some time.”

      I didn’t want to feel sympathy for her. I wanted to hate her. Right now, anger was a lot more comfortable to wear than grief.

      But damn it all, she had that nice name and big blue eyes and looked like the kind of woman I’d have coffee with. Not someone I could give a permanent placement on my shit list.

      “Later, I promise,” Susan said, and for some reason, I believed her. “But for now, I need you to take care of something for me. It’ll be easy, I’m sure.” She smiled, then stepped back and gestured into the shadows of my porch. When she did, I saw a cage.

      It was small and tan, and filled with something that was so excited—or so vicious—it was shaking the plastic crate, causing it to tap-tap-tap on my wooden porch.

      “What the hell is that?”

      “Harvey the Wonder Dog,” Susan said with a burst of enthusiasm, as if she’d just given me a long-awaited Christmas present. She backed down my stairs and onto my walkway. “And he’s all yours.”

      “He’s what? But—”

      “I can’t take care of him,” Susan was saying, still moving very fast, considering her shoes. “Dave had left him at my house while we went into the city and then…” She left off the rest. “Anyway, I’ve brought all his things. You’ll love him. Really.” Then she was reaching for the door of her black Benz, a car much like mine.

      What had Dave done? Bought everything in pairs?

      “Wait!” I shouted, barreling after her. “What are you doing?”

      “Leaving.” Susan withdrew a set of keys from her pocket and thumbed the remote. “Sorry.”

      “You’re sorry… Sorry you married my husband? Sorry you showed up at his wake? Sorry you were on my porch, waiting for me to come home from burying him? Or sorry you dumped an animal on me that I don’t want?”

      Susan wheeled around, her hand on the door handle. “Sorry. But I’ve had him since Thursday and I can’t take care of him anymore.”

      “He’s your dog. Yours and Dave’s,” I said, the words thick as a turnip in my throat.

      “No, he’s not. I’m not even a dog person. He was Dave’s. I never even met Harvey or knew Dave had a dog until Thursday. Now, he’s yours.” Susan let out a sigh. “Think of Harvey as a part of Dave, left to you.”

      Then, before I could ask her anything else, Susan had climbed inside her car, slammed it into gear and left, leaving me choking in her exhaust.

      And apparently with one more member of the Dave Reynolds fan club.

      CHAPTER 3

      Harvey the Wonder Dog came with his own bed, a backpack of toys, his own special food and a rather vague set of notes, written in a six-by-nine composition book in Dave’s tight scrawl.

      The book had plenty of information about Harvey’s tricks—balancing a beach ball on his nose while standing on his hind legs, barking the “Star Spangled Banner,” complete with the high notes—and data on where he had appeared—Letterman twice, Animal Planet seven times, and Good Morning America once.

      But not a word about why Dave had kept this circus side of himself, or the extra wife, secret. After Susan left, I brought the dog into the house, opened his crate to let him out, then sat down to read. Three hours later, I looked up to find Harvey the Wonder Dog still in his cage, shaking like a leaf, apparently not wonderful enough to conquer his fear of my kitchen.

      How had he ever gotten up the gumption to appear on Letterman?

      Then I remembered the note on page three. For every good deed he did, Harvey received a treat.

      As I went to retrieve the bag of Beggin’ Strips that had come with the dog, I wondered if that had been Dave’s philosophy for everything. The new house, the tennis bracelet on my wrist, the love seat I’d admired in the showroom window of Newton Furniture—each thing bought after I’d done something that Dave decided needed a celebration. A new promotion, landing a big account—

      Accepting his proposal of marriage.

      I hated my husband right then, hated him as much as I had loved him. I felt the hatred boiling up inside of me, choking at my throat, begging for release. I wanted to tell him he’d screwed up my life but good by dying and then springing a secret existence on me at his funeral.

      I didn’t even want to think about what his dual marriage was going to do to our finances. To the life insurance, the 401(k) money. The house. Not to mention to my plans, my life.

      “I hate you,” I screamed at the walls. “I hate what you did. I hate how you left me. And I hate that you left me a dog instead of a goddamned explanation.”

      Harvey let out a bark and raised himself onto his hind paws, begging.

      My sister, who’d always been a bit on the flaky side, would have said it was Dave’s spirit, communicating through his canine counterpart to offer contrition. To me, it was a dog who’d spied the bag of treats in my hand and knew when to put on his sad face.

      “Sorry, Harvey. I wasn’t talking about you.” I withdrew one from the package and waved it in Harvey’s direction. “Here, puppy.”

      He bounded out of the crate, snatched the strip from my hand, then sat down in front of me, tail swishing against the floor. He didn’t eat it, just held it between his teeth, his mouth spread so wide it looked as if he was grinning. His pointy brown-and-white ears stuck up, tuned to my every move.

      “I don’t know what to do with you,” I said. “I’ve never even owned a dog, for Pete’s sake.”

      Harvey wagged his tail some more.

      “And I can’t take you to…” I looked down at the book, flipping to the page of upcoming appearances, “the Dog-Gone-Good Show on Thursday. I have a job, you know, and it’s not puppy chauffeur.”

      Harvey stretched his front paws across the floor, then laid his head down on them and let out a sigh. The Beggin’ Strip tumbled from his mouth and landed on the beige ceramic tile.

      “I’m just going to have to find you a good home.”

      Harvey looked up at me, wide brown eyes in a tiny, triangular face, and waited. He wasn’t an ugly dog, I reasoned. Why had Dave bought him? Trained him? Toured the country with him?

      And most of all, why had he kept him secret?

      A