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By Root 334 0

do virtually anything for a short while. Though we’ve been close at times, after a few weeks of frequent contact with me, Chloe suddenly has enough and doesn’t call again for months. Last I heard, she was in northern California working in a zoo, which is perfectly fitting since the strongest thing we Murphy women have in common is a bordering-on-fanatical love of animals. My mother has close to thirty black standard poodles that she breeds and shows for a living. She and her second husband, Richard, live and breathe poodles. They rarely eat or sleep and have not been to the movies in five years.

My mother has left a message simply asking me to call. Something must be the matter. It’s still a bit early for most people but not for my mother, who usually rises at five. I dial her number.

“Mom,” I say when she answers, breathlessly, on the eighth ring, “it’s your older daughter.”

“Ruby?” She seems unsure.

“Yes. How are you?”

“Oh fine, I’m grooming right now,” she says. I can hear a blow-dryer going in the background.

“You called?” I ask.

“Oh, so I did,” she says. I hear a different sound in the background, something like a small airplane engine, revving. Several dogs start barking. My mother hollers at them to shush.

“I was just calling to say hello,” my mother says.

I hear myself gasp.

“Everything all right?” she asks in a tone that instructs me to answer affirmatively.

“Oh. Yes. I think so.”

“Yes?”

“Yes. Things are fine.”

“Job?”

“Good.”

“Stinky and Lulu?”

“Very good. Fat. Stinky anyway.”

“Still?” My mother sounds incredulous. She only met the cat once about three years ago when she visited me en route to a dog show on Long Island, but she likes to remind me that he’s obese. She urged me to try him on a raw diet and I did; however, the pounds did not come flying off.

“I really do think he has a metabolic problem,” I tell her.

My mother humpfs in my ear.

“Well then,” she says.

“Well,” I say. “Everything’s okay?” I venture, before losing her for another three months to her strange world of furry black dogs.

“Oh yes. Lilian had six puppies. Two boys and four girls. And we put in a new bathroom,” she adds.

“Oh. Wow. That’s great,” I say. “I painted my bedroom ceiling leafy green.”

“Oh,” my mother says.

It occurs to me to tell her about Attila, but of course I don’t. What would I say? I’m dating an apprentice jockey who may have a hit out on him? My mother might not be surprised but she does love me and she does worry and there’s just no need to agitate her. Besides, she has heard of many of my men through the years and no sooner would she memorize their names than they were gone.

“Well, don’t let me keep you,” I say after a pause.

“Yes, I should get back to it,” my mother says, turning the blow-dryer to a louder velocity.

“Bye, Mom, love you,” I say.

“You too,” she says, hanging up.

I EAT A FEW more bites of Cheerios and then lose interest. I warily eye the piano. I haven’t had a lesson in two weeks and I don’t have one scheduled. Since Mark Baxter, my gifted but difficult young teacher, does not treat me well unless I show marked progress, I figure I’ll let it all slide until the Attila situation is cleared up. Not that I feel particularly confident that things will ever calm down with him. Attila Johnson is a chaotic man. It’s part of his appeal.

I get up, put my cereal bowl in the sink, and am about to go take a shower when the phone rings.

“Yes?” I say, half expecting to find that it’s my mother, having suddenly remembered that she did in fact call me for a reason. It’s just Jane though. My closest girlfriend, whom I’ve ignored these past weeks.

“You’re up?” she says by way of greeting.

“Evidently yes, how are you?”

“Are you going to work? Where’s the jockey?” she says, pronouncing jockey like an insult.

“The man has a name. And the Coney Island Museum is only open late in the day in the off-season. Surely you know that by now.”

“I forgot. I’m sorry. And how’s Hannibal?” Jane says.

“I sincerely hope you called for a reason,” I say, trying for my surliest tone, even though if anyone in