The Accidental Tourist - Anne Tyler [41]
“Now you try,” Muriel told Macon.
Macon accepted the leash and pointed to Edward’s rump. Edward stood fast. Macon frowned and pointed more sternly. He felt foolish. Edward knew, if this woman didn’t, how little authority Macon had.
“Poke him down,” Muriel said.
This was going to be awkward. He propped a crutch against the radiator and bent stiffly to jab Edward with one finger. Edward sat. Macon clucked. Then he straightened and backed away, holding out his palm, but instead of staying, Edward rose and followed him. Muriel hissed between her teeth. Edward shrank down again. “He doesn’t take you seriously,” Muriel said.
“Well, I know that,” Macon snapped.
His broken leg was starting to ache.
“In fact I didn’t have so much as a kitten the whole entire time I was growing up,” Muriel said. Was she just going to leave Edward sitting there? “Then a couple of years ago I saw this ad in the paper, Make extra money in your off hours. Work as little or as much as you like. Place was a dog-training firm that went around to people’s houses. Doggie, Do, it was called. Don’t you just hate that name? Reminds me of dog-do. But anyhow, I answered the ad. ‘To be honest I don’t like animals,’ I said, but Mr. Quarles, the owner, he told me that was just as well. He told me it was people who got all mushy about them that had the most trouble.”
“Well, that makes sense,” Macon said, glancing at Edward. He had heard that dogs developed backaches if they were made to sit too long.
“I was just about his best pupil, it turns out. Seems I had a way with animals. So then I got a job at the Meow-Bow. Before that I worked at the Rapid-Eze Copy Center and believe me, I was looking for a change. Who’s the lady?”
“Lady?”
“The lady I just saw walking through the dining room.”
“That’s Rose.”
“Is she your ex-wife? Or what.”
“She’s my sister.”
“Oh, your sister!”
“This house belongs to her,” Macon said.
“I don’t live with anybody either,” Muriel told him.
Macon blinked. Hadn’t he just said he lived with his sister?
“Sometimes late at night when I get desperate for someone to talk to I call the time signal,” Muriel said. “ ‘At the tone the time will be eleven . . . forty-eight. And fifty seconds.’ ” Her voice took on a fruity fullness. “ ‘At the tone the time will be eleven . . . forty-nine. Exactly.’ You can release him now.”
“Pardon?”
“Release your dog.”
Macon snapped his fingers and Edward jumped up, yapping.
“How about you?” Muriel asked. “What do you do for a living?”
Macon said, “I write tour guides.”
“Tour guides! Lucky.”
“What’s lucky about it?”
“Why, you must get to travel all kinds of places!”
“Oh, well, travel,” Macon said.
“I’d love to travel.”
“It’s just red tape, mostly,” Macon said.
“I’ve never even been on an airplane, you realize that?”
“It’s red tape in motion. Ticket lines, custom lines . . . Should Edward be barking that way?”
Muriel gave Edward a slit-eyed look and he quieted.
“If I could go anywhere I’d go to Paris,” she said.
“Paris is terrible. Everybody’s impolite.”
“I’d walk along the Seine, like they say in the song. ‘You will find your love in Paris,’ ” she sang scratchily, “ ‘if you walk along the—’ I just think it sounds so romantic.”
“Well, it’s not,” Macon said.
“I bet you don’t know where to look, is all. Take me with you next time! I could show you the good parts.”
Macon cleared his throat. “Actually, I have a very limited expense account,” he told her. “I never even took my wife, or, um, my . . . wife.”
“I was only teasing,” she told him.
“Oh.”
“You think I meant it?”
“Oh, no.”
She grew suddenly brisk. “That will be fourteen forty, including the leash and the choke chain.” Then while Macon was fumbling through his wallet she