An Available Man Read Online Free Page A

to seep in, and she wept enough tears that day to refill the emptied fishbowl. The first lesson.
    Bingo had been adopted when Julie was twelve and in the midst of a social crisis. Her best friend had become someone else’s best friend. She was positive nobody liked her; she
needed
a dog. Nick was a senior in high school by then, already moving away from home in his thoughts and plans, but in a rare gesture of solidarity he backed Julie up. Dogs were cool. They were funny and smart and they protected you. And sure, he’d help out whenever he could—he could teach their dog some neat tricks.
    The whole family went to the animal shelter together, but Julie got to choose among all the frantically yapping, leaping, and wagging caged beasts. It was going to be her dog and, only peripherally, Nick’s. Bee dropped hints about size and shedding and housebreaking. There was a two-year-old, purebred miniature poodle, a sedate and pretty little apricot-colored dog she’d tried to bring to Julie’s attention. “Look, sweetheart, I think
she’s
picked
you
!” Later, she would admit to having being shamelessin her attempts to influence Julie’s choice, but it didn’t matter. Julie was smitten by a large mixed-breed puppy that wet himself and her with joy as she lifted him into her arms. Part beagle, Edward guessed, from the eyeliner and floppy ears, and part collie from its luxuriant, molting coat. God knew where the short fluffy tail came from.
    Julie was allowed to name the dog, too, and Bingo was his name-o. What was wrong with Fido, Buster, or even Spot? If he ran away, as beagles were prone to do, Bee was afraid she’d seem like some crazy church lady with a winning card, scouring the neighborhood calling his name.
    B-i-n-g-o! B-i-n-g-o! The song went mercilessly through her head and Edward’s, as did the puppy’s yowls of loneliness during those first nights in his new home. They tried all the old tricks to fool him into thinking he was nuzzled against his mother in the blanket-lined carton: a loudly ticking clock to replicate the maternal heartbeat; a heated, towel-wrapped brick; and even a stuffed Lassie preserved from Nick’s babyhood that Bingo shredded in his despair.
    Eventually, he settled in. When the novelty of feeding and walking him quickly wore off—Julie found both canned dog food and poop-scooping unbearably gross, and Nick went off to RPI—Bee and Edward took over. Bee’s clinic was a five-minute drive from the house, so she came home for Bingo’s middle-of-the-day walks. Edward took him out at night. After Julie left for Fairleigh Dickinson, Bee said that at least Bingo wasn’t college material, that their nest wasn’t completely empty.
    When she was dying, the dog stayed close by her. Edward disapproved of anthropomorphizing animals. Some of them learned to live with us, but they still retained innate aspects of their own species. Stray dogs tended to find one another and move in wolf-like packs, and even well-fed house cats let outinto the garden preyed on birds. He’d discouraged Julie from tying ribbons in her new puppy’s fur, or polishing his toenails. When she lifted a silky ear and whispered “Who does Bingo love?” it was for her own assurance and consolation. Her familiar voice was what he responded to. He would have writhed in ecstasy if she’d recited the Declaration of Independence.
    And reports of dogs howling at the moment of their owner’s death seemed anecdotal at best. But there was something to the idea that they could sense and react to the moods of human beings. The household was tense with apprehension and sadness that centered on the sickroom—Bee and Edward’s bedroom—where a hospital bed had been set up next to the regular bed, and where Bingo chose to hang out. The hospice nurses didn’t object, even when he was underfoot; they seemed to find his presence there entirely natural. They often petted him as they went by, even if it meant washing their hands over and