Pug Hill - Alison Pace [40]
“Sure,” I say, “I don’t see why not. But you sound weird. Is everything okay? Are you sure Dad’s okay?” It’s important to double-check things.
“It’s nothing like that, Dad’s fine. It’s just a lot for him out here with the dogs and all, if I’m not here to help.” My parents currently have three dogs, less than they’ve had at other times, but granted, Mom does have a point. These particular three dogs, Betsy, a neurotic-to-the point-of-possibly-insane Jack Russell terrier; Captain, a half-blind, diabetic Pembroke Welsh corgi, who very sadly was just diagnosed with cancer; and Annabelle, the French bulldog of whom we have spoken, are a bit of a production.
“So you can come?”
“Um, yes, I’m sure I can come, let me just check at work tomorrow. I’m sure it’s fine. Where are you going?” I ask. “Just out of curiosity,” I add on, because even though she has said that everything is fine, to me she sounds pretty much on the verge.
“I’m going to Canyon Ranch for the week.”
“Oh,” I say, “that’ll be nice.”
“Well, yes,” she says, and exhales again.
“Mom?”
“Yes?”
“You sound a little bummed for someone who’s just planned a trip to Canyon Ranch.”
“Yes, well, I guess, everything isn’t okay,” she sighs. “It’s Darcy.” It is always Darcy.
“The commune again?” I ask.
“Yes, the commune. And you know, C.P. in general.”
“Well, the commune thing is hard,” I say, “but I don’t think she’ll ever really go.” Neither of us says anything for a while as I, and I imagine my mother, too, picture Darcy, beautiful, golden, and rather materialistic the last time I checked, giving up all of her worldly possessions and joining a commune with the much-loathed C.P.
And you might be wondering what we’re talking about, now that all of a sudden, seemingly out of nowhere, we’re talking about a commune, and someone, much-loathed, with the name C.P. Yes, I can see now that I probably should have mentioned this before. Let me try to catch you up.
For every guy who hasn’t liked me, or hasn’t loved me, or who has loved me but just in a really unproductive way, and for every guy who has left me, there are five guys whom Darcy has had to beat off with sticks. Darcy, at this point, has pretty much made a career, and a very successful career at that, out of having boyfriends who are head-over-heels in love with her; boyfriends who in turn, make careers of their own out of pledging their undying devotion to Darcy. And Darcy, entrepreneur of love that she is, has started up a side business of selecting, out of all these men who vie for her heart, the most annoying and insufferable of the lot. And steadfastly shoving them down everyone’s throat.
My theory has always been that all the attention she’s always received for being so pretty, somewhere along the way got old, so she had to find other ways to get attention. For the last decade or so, she seems to go about this by selecting truly weird, bizarre and awful boyfriends, embracing them wholeheartedly and insisting dramatically that everyone else embrace them, too.
For the last two years, it’s been C.P. C.P, by the way, is short for Crested Possum. Before you infer from my tone that I’m not being open-minded, or that I’m being prejudiced or something because Crested Possum is a Native American, I’d like to point out that Crested Possum’s real name is Bradley Klein, and he’s from Short Hills, New Jersey. But apparently in a past life, or it’s in this life, deep in his soul—I can never quite get it straight—he’s sure he was/is a Native American. And Buddhist. Jewish-Buddhist I think, and also Zen. And so, C.P. decided recently that what his Inner Guide wanted to do was to live on a commune outside of Albuquerque.
“I really thought once the