"She wants to know if she could stay on the couch," Liz translates.
"Sure," says Owen, "I don't see why not."
"Okay," says Jen the Golden Retriever after a moment's reflection. She licks Owen's hand three times. "Tell him I'll go with him."
"She says she wants to go with you," Liz tells Owen.
"Isn't that a little quick?" Owen asks. "I don't want to hurt her feelings, but. . ." Owen lowers his voice. "I sort of wanted a boy dog, you know."
Liz shrugs. "She's already made up her mind. But don't worry, dogs are really good at this."
"Oh," says Owen, shocked by how fast it all seems to be moving.
"Besides," says Liz cheerfully, "Jen's already licked you on the hand three times. After that, it's a done deal."
"I hadn't realized that," Owen replies.
"So I'll just need you to fill out a couple of forms, and we'll make it official," Liz says.
"Okay, but would you mind asking her if she gets seasick or anything? I'm on the boat a lot for my job," Owen says.
"I can understand Human, you know. Not all of us can, but I can. I just can't speak it," Jen says.
"And I love boats and I don't get seasick. Not much at least. Only if it's really, really rough."
"Jen understands English and she loves boats," Liz reports.
Jen continues with her instructions. "Make sure to tell him I like fresh water at least three times a day. I prefer wet kibble to the dry stuff. I like tennis balls, long walks in the park, and Frisbee. Oh, and I can use the toilet, so please leave the bathroom door open. Yay yay yay yay, I'm so excited!" Jen places her paw on Owen's shoulder. "I can tell you're going to be just great, Owen!"
"What's she saying?" Owen asks.
"She thinks you're going to be great," Liz wisely summarizes.
After they fill out all the requisite paperwork, Liz walks Owen and Jen to Owen's Jeep. Jen immediately hops into the backseat and lies down.
"Thanks for your help," says Owen.
"No problem." Liz smiles. "What made you decide to get a dog anyway?"
Owen smiles. "I hadn't really decided for sure until I came down here, and then Jen sort of decided for me."
Liz nods. "That's how it was with me and Sadie, too."
"The thing is," says Owen, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, "I sort of wondered if you might like to do the dishes again."
"The dishes?" Liz asks.
"Right," Owen says. "That was my awkward way of asking you over for dinner."
"Oh, is that what that was? I hadn't realized." And she really hadn't. Her experience in such matters is rather limited.
"You know, to thank you for Jen. You wouldn't have to do the dishes. Unless you wanted to, of course. I wouldn't stop you."
"Um," says Liz.
Sadie calls to Liz from across the parking lot, "Liz, telephone!"
"I have a call," Liz apologizes, heading toward her office. After a moment, she stops. "Give me a ring sometime! I'm always at work!"
Owen watches as Liz runs inside. Her blond ponytail (her hair had only recently grown long enough to wear that way) bounces up and down rhythmically with each of her steps. There is something pleasing and hopeful about that ponytail, he thinks. He waits until she disappears into the building and then he gets into his car and drives away.
On the drive home, Jen hangs her head out the window and lets her golden ears blow in the wind. She barks the whole way home. "I don't know why I like my head out the window, I just do,"
Jen says while they are stopped at a red light. "I always liked it that way, even when I was a pup.
Is that weird? Is it weird to like something and not even know why you like it?" Owen interprets Jen's barking as excitement and, indeed, his interpretation is perfectly correct.
Why do two people ever fall in love? It's a mystery.
A week later, Liz and Sadie find themselves at Owen Welles's smallish apartment. Jen bounds up to greet them.
"Hi, Liz! Hi, Sadie!" says Jen, who is really excited to see them. "Nice to see you! Owen's a pretty good boy! He lets me sleep in the bed! I'm trying to convince him to move into a bigger place with a yard! He's trying to cook, but I don't think he's very good! Be nice, though! Don't hurt his feelings!"
Owen smiles when he sees Liz and Sadie at the door. "Dinner's in here. I hope you like pasta."
Jen's opinion notwithstanding, Owen is not a bad cook. (Who ever said a dog knew much about cooking anyway?) And Liz is very appreciative of his efforts. It is the first time anyone other than someone in her family has cooked for her.
After dinner, Liz offers to do the dishes. "I'll wash this time," she says, "but you don't have to dry.
Or whistle."
Dishes washed, Liz, Owen, Sadie, and Jen go to the park near Owen's house.
"How are you getting along with Jen?" Liz asks.
"She's great." Owen smiles. "I can't believe I never had a dog before."
"You didn't have one on Earth?"
"We couldn't," he says. "Emily was allergic. Still is, I assume."
Liz nods. "The way you say her name ..." she says. "I can't imagine anyone ever saying my name that way."
"Oh, I doubt that," says Owen.
"It's true."
"You died too young," Owen reflects. "The boys were probably just intimidated by you. Maybe next time around?"
"Maybe," Liz says doubtfully. "I've got a lot of plans for that next time."
"If I had known you, I might have said your name that way," Owen says.
"Ah," Liz says, "but a person is only allowed to say one other person's name that way, and you're already taken. It's a rule, you know."
Owen nods but doesn't speak.
His silence stirs a strange but not entirely unpleasant feeling in Liz. His silence makes her bold, and she decides to ask Owen for a favor.
"You can say no, if you want," Liz begins.
"That sounds scary," Owen says.
Liz laughs. "Don't worry. It isn't scary, at least I don't think it's scary."
"And of course, I already know I can say no."
"So, the thing is, I'm sort of tired of Betty driving me around everywhere, but I need to learn threepoint turns and parallel parking before I get my driver's license. I died before "
"Sure," Owen says before Liz is even finished. "No problem."
"I could ask Betty, but we sort of have a bad history in the car "
Owen interrupts Liz. "I said, no problem. It's my pleasure."
"Oh," Liz says, "thank you."
"I wouldn't mind hearing about that bad history, however," Owen says. "In fact, maybe I should hear about it beforewe start."
Why do two people ever fall in love? It's a mystery.
Liz and Owen meet every day after work for the next week. She masters threepoint turns with relative ease but finds parallel parking more challenging.
"You just have to visualize yourself in the space," Owen says patiently.
"But it seems impossible," says Liz. "How can something whose wheels move forward and backward, suddenly move side to side?"
"It's the angles," says Owen. "You need to turn your steering wheel as extremely as possible, and then slowly back in."
Another week passes and Liz is still no closer to mastering the elusive parallel parking. She has almost given up hope that she ever will and is beginning to feel like a dunce.
"Look, Liz," says Owen, "I'm starting to think it's psychological. There's no reason you shouldn't be able to do this. There's something that's stopping you from wanting to parallel park. Maybe we should call it a night?"
That night, Liz contemplates the reason for her ineptitude and decides to call Thandi.
"Well, speak of the dead," Thandi says.
"I've been working a lot," Liz replies, "and Owen Welles has been teaching me how to drive."
"I bet he has."
"What's that supposed to mean?" Liz asks.
"When we were at the dog run, Sadie told
Paco that you've been seeing a lot of Mr. Welles."
Liz looks at Sadie, who is lying on her back so that Liz can rub her belly. "Traitor," she whispers.
"He's in love with someone else," Liz answers Thandi, "and besides, we're just friends."
"Uh-huh," Thandi says.
Liz tells Thandi about her problem with parallel parking, and asks her, an experienced driver of almost eleven months, if she has any suggestions.
"I think you don't want to learn to parallel park, Liz."
"Of course I want to learn!" she insists. "It's just hard! It's not like the rest of driving! It's not logical!
It involves visualization and leaps of faith and sleight of hand! You've got to be a freaking magician!"
Thandi laughs. "Maybe you don't want your lessons with Owen to end, if you catch my drift? I mean, if you had only wanted to learn parking and turning, you could have asked me."
"You? You haven't even been driving a year!"
"Or Betty?" Thandi suggests.
"Come on! You know our history!"
"I think you're falling in love with him," Thandi teases. "I think maybe you're already in lo-ove!"
She laughs.
And then Liz hangs up. Thandi could be such an incredible know-it-all. Sometimes Liz cannot even believe that Thandi is her best friend.
The next evening, Liz accomplishes parallel parking three times in a row without error.
"I told you you could do it if you put your mind to it," says Owen. He looks out the window. "I suppose we're done here," he adds.
Liz nods.
"Incidentally, what do you think was blocking you?" Owen asks.
"It's a mystery," Liz answers. She hands him his keys and gets out of the car.
Liz in Love
How do you know you're in love with someone?" Liz asks Curtis Jest during both their lunch breaks.
Curtis raises an eyebrow. "Are you saying you're in love with someone?"
"It's a friend," Liz says stiffly.
Curtis smiles. "Are you saying you're in love with a friend? Are you trying to tell me something, Lizzie?"
Liz's cheeks burn. "My interests are purely anthropological," she replies.
"Anthropological, eh?" His eyes dance in what Liz considers an inappropriate manner.
"If you aren't going to be serious, I'm leaving!" She is indignant.
"My, aren't we touchy! What's a little mirth between friends, Lizzie?" As he is getting nowhere with Liz's mood, Curtis relents. "Oh all right, darling, let's talk about love."
"So?"
"In my humble opinion, love is when a person believes that he, she, or it can't live without some other he, she, or it. You are a clever girl, and I imagine this is nothing you haven't heard before."
"But, Curtis," she protests, "we're dead! We have to live without people all the time, and we don't stop loving them, and they don't stop loving us."
"I said believes. No one actually needs another person or another person's love to survive. Love, Lizzie, is when we have irrationally convinced ourselves that we do."
"But, Curtis, doesn't it have anything to do with being happy and making each other laugh and having fun times?"
"Oh, Lizzie." Curtis laughs. "If only it were so!"
"It's very rude to laugh at a perfectly natural question," Liz says.
Curtis stops laughing. "I am sorry," he says, truly seeming sorry. "It's just that only someone who has never been in love would ask such a perfectly absurd question. I long ago decided to stay out of love's way, and I have since been a far happier man."
On the bus back to work, Liz thinks about what Curtis said. In a roundabout way, he answered her real question, Am I in love with Owen? The answer is no. Of course she isn't in love with him.
In retrospect she almost feels silly. For one, Owen is in love with his wife. And two, laughing, having fun, and being happy has nothing to do with being in love. Liz feels relieved. She can continue seeing Owen as much as she likes, safe in the belief that she doesn't love him and he doesn't love her. All this love business is trouble, anyhow.
Liz decides she is probably too young for romance. She will focus on work and her friends, and that will be the end of that.
Yes, in a way Liz is relieved. But in another way she isn't. In truth, she enjoyed entertaining the notion that Owen might love her, even a little bit.
The night after Liz mastered parallel parking, Owen finds himself with nothing to do. He spent nearly ten years alone and only three weeks with Liz. And yet he cannot remember what he used to do with his nights for the ten years before the three weeks. Owen stalks about his apartment.
He does the type of domestic things one does only when one is trying to fill up time: he cleans the space between the oven and refrigerator with a long wooden spoon that isn't long enough to accomplish its goal; he sweeps under his bed; he tries to read The Brothers Karamazov, the new translation that he's been trying to read since before he died without ever making it past page sixty-two; he tries to balance an egg on one end by placing a small mound of salt on his kitchen counter (it doesn't work); he carves a boat out of soap; and he throws out all the socks that have lost their partners. All that takes an hour, and then Owen collapses dejectedly on the couch.
"You should call Liz," Jen the Golden Retriever says to Owen. Unfortunately, Owen still does not speak Canine, so Jen's wisdom is lost on him.
"I bet Liz and Sadie are doing something fun," says Jen. "Why don't we go see them?"
Owen does not answer.
"Owen, you should really learn to speak Canine, because I could tell you a thing or two," Jen barks in exasperation. "You're in love with Liz, you know! It's perfectly obvious to everyone!" Jen scratches at the front door and howls. "Look what you've reduced me to!"
"Do you want to go out?" Owen asks her.
"Oh, you think?" Jen says sarcastically. "Come on, let's go! I'm taking you on a walk."
Jen runs Owen all the way across town, and before long, they find themselves in front of Liz's house.
Liz, Sadie, and Betty are all outside the house decorating for the holidays. Liz stands on a ladder, stapling Christmas lights to the roof. Sadie barks when she sees Jen and Owen approach.
"Hello, Jen! Hello, Owen!" Sadie says.
Owen smiles sheepishly at Liz. "It was Jen's idea, coming here. I don't want to bother you guys, or anything."
"You're no bother, Owen," Betty says. Betty's fondness for Owen has increased since he taught Liz how to parallel park. Betty has observed that driving lessons truly improved Liz's overall mood. "Liz, I can finish up. Why don't you go say hello to your friend?"
Liz climbs down from the ladder. "I was about to take a break anyway," she says coolly.
"I'm sorry," he apologizes, "it was Jen's idea. We should have called first."
"Thanks again for the lessons," Liz says in a slightlyfriendlier tone. "I'm sorry I was such a slow learner."
"It was my pleasure," he says, suddenly stiff and awkward. "When will you be getting your license?"
"Well, it turns out the Elsewhere DMV is mainly used to take people's licenses away. New ones are only issued on the second and fourth Tuesdays of the month and not at all in December. I have to wait until January."
Owen nods. "Good luck with that." He twists his wedding band around his finger, a nervous tic of his that Liz finds annoying.
"I should get back to helping Betty with the lights," Liz says. "Maybe you'll stop by my house again someday." Liz smiles and walks away.
Owen calls after her, "Maybe I'll stop by your house every day!"
Liz turns and looks Owen in the eye. "But I think my parallel parking's up to snuff, don't you?"
"We didn't really cover how to parallel park if you're on a hill. I doubt it'll come up, but "
"No," Liz interrupts, "it's better to be totally safe where parallel parking is concerned."
"That's what I've always thought," Owen says.
For Christmas, Liz gives Owen a book call
ed How to Speak Canine. Owen gives Liz a pair of fuzzy dice to hang from her rearview mirror. (Or rather, her grandmother's rearview mirror, as Betty's is still the only car Liz drives other than Owen's.) For the weeks leading up to Liz's driver's license test, Owen and Liz practice parallel parking on all sorts of surfaces. They parallel park on dirt roads, by rivers, under bridges, on the highway, near stadiums, at the beach, and yes, on hills. As test day approaches, Liz finds herself almost hoping she might fail.
On the night before the test, Owen grabs Liz's hand as she is leaving the car.
"Liz, I like you very much," he says.
"Oh," she says, "I like you very much, too!"
Owen is not sure if she means "O" for Owen, or just plain "Oh." He is not sure what difference it would make in either case. He feels the need to clarify. "When I said 'I like you very much,' I actually meant 'I love you.' "
"O," she says, "I actually meant the same thing." She closes the car door behind her.
"Well," he says to himself, driving back to his apartment, "isn't that something?"
The next morning, Liz arrives at the Elsewhere DMV at seven o'clock, the first appointment of the day. She passes easily. The test administrator comments that Liz's parallel parking ranks among the "smoothest I have ever seen."
"Congratulations," Owen says to Liz that night, "but you know, there's one place we haven't practiced parking yet. You may have your license, but I won't feel totally safe until we've done it."
"Really? Where?" Liz asks.
"Be patient. You are my driving protegee, and I can't, in good conscience, release you into the world until we've done this last thing."
"All right." Liz shrugs. "Do you care to tell me where this driving rite of passage will take place?"
"No," Owen replies with a smile, "I do not."
So Owen and Liz get into Owen's car yet another time. Liz drives, and Owen gives an occasional direction. He finally tells her to stop in front of a red neon drive-in movie sign.
"Are we going to the movies?" Liz asks, looking up at the enormous movie screen.
"No," Owen says, as he pays the attendant, "we are practicing your driving."
"I think you're taking me to the movies," Liz insists. "I think you're taking me on a date."