Geraldine

Moments before the vicious push from behind, I was thinking what a beautiful place the world is. Amid rhapsodizing about how the light lit the trees, I felt a hard shove, in that vulnerable place between my shoulder blades. My neck snapped back, as I stumbled forward on the wings of a hope I might remain upright, then came down hard on my knees. Apparently happy, peaceful thoughts are not a protection against rowdy teenagers.

I saw them, then, running in front of me, whooping, three boys and a girl. They were fast, but not as fast as Geraldine, my Boston Terrier. I hadn’t realized I had let go of the leash. This is what she had been waiting for all her nine dog years. After all those walks where I chastised her for lunging and barking at everyone from toddlers to elders, she was finally showing me what it was all for. She caught up with them in no time, running circles around them, nipping at their legs. The boys managed to run off. The girl fell, and Geraldine lunged and retreated, barking just short of a snarl. She and I both knew it was all for show. In a minute, she’d calm down and be eating out of the girl’s hand. Before that happened, the girl jumped up, grabbed the leash, and tried to drag her down the path. When that didn’t work, she yanked the skittering dog to her, picked her up, and ran.

“Bitch,” she yelled back at me as if it were my fault she had to steal my dog.

“Stop her,” I screamed, looking wildly around for help. “She’s got my dog. Help!”

I tried to get up, but my legs buckled beneath me. Then I was surrounded by people hurling questions at me, “Are you okay? What happened? Do you know them?”

“Just give me a moment,” I said, my mind reeling. My back felt as if someone had taken a sledgehammer to it, and I could feel my knees swelling under my jeans. Someone tried to help me up, but I waved them away.

“My dog!” I insisted. “Somebody please, go after her.” I tried to see around the forest of legs. The girl was gone and Geraldine with her. I scanned the concerned faces above me - an elderly couple I often saw on my walks; a mom with a stroller and toddler; a young woman looking at her phone. One or two looked down the now empty path, but no one budged. The next thing I knew the young woman was crouching next to me, her hand on my arm. “I called the police and an ambulance,” she said. “They’ll be here soon.”

“I don’t want…” I tried to say, feeling panic steal my breath.

The EMTs, who looked like they could easily run down a girl lugging a fifteen-pound animal, wasted time taking my blood pressure, distracting me with endless questions about my health, my ability to walk, my pain level. They gave me oxygen to help regulate my breathing, which helped immediately. They didn’t think anything was broken but recommended going to the hospital to have my knees checked out. “I’ll be okay,” I told them. “I just want to get my dog back.” Eventually, they had me sign a form that said I was refusing treatment. “I hope you find your dog,” one of them said as they left.

The cops told me there had been a lot of incidents with kids harassing people in the parks. It might even be the same kids, but no one had been caught yet. They took a description of the girl, although I could only say she had dark hair and wore bright white sneakers. Those sneakers had really stood out as they ran off with my dog. They took my information and said they would let me know if anything came up, then drove me home. Even in my shocked state, I thought that was a nice touch.

As soon as I got home, I called my sister, who lived two states away.

“What’s wrong?” she answered. My sister is a vet with her own practice, and I never call her during working hours.

I started with the easy part, being shoved in the park, my battered body, and wounded pride.

“Okay,” she said. “I wish you had gone to the ER, but if you’re sure nothing is broken, take a hot bath and some Tylenol, ice your knees, and rest. I’ll call you tonight.”

“And don’t work tomorrow,” she added.

I was silent.

“What aren’t you telling me?” she said.

“They took Geraldine,” I choked out, starting to cry. The story tumbled out. It was such a relief. My sister is a doer. She’d move heaven and earth to find Geraldine.

“I’m coming,” she said. “Meanwhile, call the chip people. They can help. You did get the chip, right?”

“You know I did. They put it in when she was spayed, years ago.”

“Good. I’ll be there tomorrow afternoon.”

I spent the rest of the day in bed, calling every vet and animal shelter in the area, and posting notices on all my local social media channels. Immediately, heartfelt messages came in, but no one had spotted Geraldine. Jaden, at HomeAway, the lost dog service, immediately posted a lost dog notice, sent me a PDF of a flyer based on details I had provided, and directed me to their website where owners shared stories of how their pets were found. “There’s a big network out there of people who care about dogs,” he said. “Try not to worry.”

The next morning when I tried to get out of bed, the pain in my back grabbed me with an iron claw. My knees were so swollen, it was hard to bend them. Using the app on my phone, I logged into work from a prone position, something I had never done before. Thankfully, I didn’t have any meetings or deadlines looming for a few days. I stayed in bed for another hour, not wanting to face getting up and having no dog to feed, take out, or open the front door so she could lie in the sun. I never thought I would be that kind of dog person, needily attached to their animal, considering the pet with every life choice. Is that hotel dog-friendly? Should I move? Should I date that guy with the cat? Geraldine was the third dog I had owned, and the connection grew deeper and deeper with each one. It was as if each departing dog handed the baton of my emotional care to the next dog.

Before the attack, I had been having dreams of losing Geraldine. In one, she nosed her way under the bottom rail of the pier that extended out over the ocean, one of my favorite places. As she dangled over the edge, I tried to pull her up by her leash, realizing in horror that her halter was slipping off and she would soon fall thirty feet into the roiling water below. I woke up before that happened, frantically searching under the covers for where she slept, snoring and farting. It could happen, I told myself, planning to never take her on the pier again, then revising it to never letting her get near the railing again.

There were no messages about Geraldine, so I spent way too much time reading stories of found dogs on the HomeAway site. I fell asleep mid-scroll and was awakened by pounding on the back door. Crazily, my first thought was that Geraldine had come home, but when I hobbled to the door, I saw my sister. “What the hell?” she said, rushing in and looking anxiously about as if I were being held hostage. “I’ve been trying to raise you for fifteen minutes. The neighbors were starting to get suspicious.” After checking out my sorry state, she made me toast and eggs, standing over me to make sure I ate. “You look awful,” she pronounced. “Go take a shower and let’s get out there.” But after launching a major offensive involving every vet’s office, dog shelter, shop window, and tree that would take a flier, even staking out the park for hours, we had to give up for the day. “Don’t lose hope,” my sister said, as she left that evening. “She’ll show up. Look at all those dogs at the shelter. They were all lost and now they’re found.”

“What’s the worst part of this?” my friend Zoe asked me over coffee the next morning. How could I pick just one thing? The worry over what had happened to her. Was she dead, suffering, mistreated, hungry, cold? No dog to snuggle up with at night or play endless fetch with? After nine years, my whole life was entwined with hers.

“It’s everything,” I said.

“I know it seems that way, but it’s not everything,” said Zoe. “You talk as if you don’t have a life. You’ve got a job you love, great friends, and a close family. You love your life.”

When I didn’t agree, she said, “Don’t you?”

I took a sip of my latte, nibbled the edge of my croissant. I did love my life, but it slowly dawned on me that sneakily hiding behind the feelings of helplessness, anger, and fear, was another feeling, one I never thought I was capable of. Shame. I was humiliated that such a thing had happened to me. It was so lame, having your dog stolen by some random teenager for no reason. “I’m not used to being a victim,” I told her. “I feel like such a colossal loser.”

She thought about it for a minute. “I guess you’ve been pretty lucky, then,” she said. “It happens to everyone now and then. Are they all colossal losers?”

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I guess I’m just saying things like that shouldn’t happen to me.”

She leaned over and poked the air around me. “Nope, just as I thought,” she said. “You were born without an invisible shield. Oh well, sorry, better luck next lifetime.”

A month later, I was walking through the park again, trying not to dwell on my dogless state. On my third rotation around the path, I saw a woman coming my way. Around her waist was a red and blue dog leash emblazoned with peace symbols. My dog leash. I had seen her before, always wearing the same purple bandanna over her hair, staring at her cell phone, and tapping furiously as if to send the world’s most important text. What was she doing with Geraldine’s leash? I followed her as she meandered around the park, stopping now and then to sit on a bench or going off into the bushes to have a conversation with herself. Suddenly, she whirled around in the middle of the path to face me.

“Why are you always behind me?” she said. “I don’t like people being behind me.”

Her stony glance followed my eyes to where they were glued to the leash.

“This leash was made in China,” she said. “I guess you’re wondering why I know that.” Without waiting for me to reply, she continued. “I know that because I’ve been to China many times. They sell these on every street corner. You think they’re made in the good old US of A, but what is anymore?”

Then she went on to a detailed story about her life in China, how she had grown up and gone to school there, the only blue-eyed blond-haired girl in the class, and how her parents had to take her out of school because she wouldn’t leave the classroom until she turned the lights on and off three times, and how she threw a fit when the teacher didn’t call on her and had to be escorted out of the class. When she paused for breath, I said, “I had a leash that looks exactly like that. It was attached to my dog, a little black and white Boston Terrier. I wonder if you’ve seen her.”

She stepped back. “I didn’t take your dog,” she said. “I would never do that and besides, I have a dog of my own, but I would never put a leash on her. She just stays wherever I tell her to stay.” Then she turned on her heel and walked away, looking over her shoulder to see if I was following, which I did until it was almost dark. After a while, I felt as if I were on a leash, tethered to this woman who I was sure had some connection to Geraldine. Finally, when I could barely see her in front of me, I gave up and went home.

The next day I was at the park at the same time with a box of Geraldine’s favorite dog treats. I bought a coffee and waited on a bench. At last, I saw the woman enter the park. As she passed by, I called out, “What’s your name?”

She ignored me and kept walking, but she let me catch up until I was a few paces behind. She didn’t have the leash on. “I brought you some treats for your dog,” I said. She turned around and eyed the box. “I’d never give her those,” she said. “Too many chemicals.” I pulled the box back guiltily. “Really? My dog loves these.” Her eyes lingered on my coffee cup. I extended it toward her. “Would you like…?” Before I could finish the sentence, she had taken it. Then she walked off with me following, stopping every now and then to sip the coffee.

“Tell me about your dog,” I yelled to her.

She yelled back. “She’s just a puppy and she’s not friendly to other people, not even dogs. If you met her, she’d try to bite you. She’s not a bad dog. It’s just the way she is.”

I took advantage of the small opening. “I’d like to meet her,” I said. “Dogs like me. And I love puppies.”

No response.

For the next week, I waited for her in the park, bringing something for the puppy, which she always rejected. Dog toys were toxic. Bully sticks were inhumane. She never had the leash with her again. I’d trail behind her like a caboose. Sometimes we’d talk back and forth; other times she would stop, turn around, and ramble through a long, revealing story about her life. How sometimes she’d sleep on people’s lawns at night. How the yoga teacher at a local studio had let her join classes but then asked her to leave because she was too disruptive. At first, I would interject a comment or an observation, but soon learned we weren’t in a conversation, but a one-sided river of thought. The only way to respond was to jump in and let it wash over me. There was a sweetness about her willingness to share so many details of her life. I just wished she would share more about Geraldine if there was anything to share.

***

“You keep doing the same thing, expecting a different result,” my sister said as we ate lunch together on Zoom. I had told her about my attempts to pry information from the woman in the park.

“Thank you, Ms. Einstein,” I said, my mouth full of ham and cheese sandwich. “I’m not sure what else to do.”

“Something different. Otherwise, this could go on forever. This woman is the only connection you have to Geraldine. You have to find out more about her. Find out where she lives. That’s a start.”

The next day, I sat in my car watching the woman in the park. I was close enough to see her but far enough away to be out of sight. It was heartwarming how she kept turning around to see if I was there. Finally, as the sun set and darkness settled among the trees, she left the park. I was about to start the car when she walked across the street and went into a large blue house set back from the street behind a circular driveway. After a few minutes, I got out, walked up the driveway, and rang the bell. I immediately heard a dog barking. A woman opened the door, shooing away a fluffy gray ball of a puppy. Suddenly, I didn’t know what to say. “Um, I, it’s…” I sputtered. But then the woman from the park came up behind her. “It’s for me, Mom,” she said, opening the door wide. “What took you so long?”

The mom laughed. “Agatha Ann, don’t be so rude. Invite her in.” The three of us stood in the foyer, fixed in uncertainty, until Agatha Ann said, “This is the girl who lost her dog in the park.”

“Oh, I see,” said the mother, looking at her daughter meaningfully.

“Call me Aggie,” she said, below her breath, motioning for me to follow. She took me to her room, which must have been her childhood bedroom, with a ruffled bedspread and dolls perched on bookshelves. There was a large map of China on the wall. Seeing her up closer, I realized we were nearer in age than I thought, but there was a strained look around her eyes and mouth that made her look older. She couldn’t have been more than thirty. The door opened and her mother came in with the leash I had seen Aggie wearing in the park. Only now, Geraldine’s halter and tags were attached to it.

“Agatha Ann,” her mother said, handing her the leash. “Don’t you have something you want to tell this woman?”

Aggie shrugged like a twelve-year-old. “Geraldine,” she said quietly, reading the name on the tag. Nice name. Then she was silent for so long; I was tempted to just take the leash and go. But then, her body seemed to change gears, and she looked me in the eyes for the first time. “I see you and your dog all the time in the park. You never look at me, but I know who you are. I was there the day those kids messed with you. I didn’t see what they did, but they ran by me. I saw that girl had your dog and I ran after her.”

“You did?” I said. “That was so brave. No one else did that.”

“The girl was getting away, but the leash was dangling behind her, so I grabbed it. She had to stop. I kept pulling and her halter just came off. Then Geraldine squirmed out of her arms and the girl ran off.”

“What happened to my dog?” I said, growing increasingly alarmed but amazed that Aggie had tried to help.

“She ran off. I never saw a dog run so fast. She was like a bullet. I looked for her everywhere, but I couldn’t see where she went.”

Her mother added, “By the time she got back to the park, you were gone.”

I looked at Aggie. “Why didn’t you tell me this before when I saw you with the leash?”

“It’s stupid, but I liked that you talked to me. You listened to me. No one does that out there. I knew you were only doing it so you could find out about your dog. I’m sorry. I was going to tell you. I swear.”

“It’s okay,” I said, feeling deflated. The whole thing was coming to a dead end, and Geraldine was out there somewhere without her tags. It cut my chances of finding her drastically. I suddenly felt exhausted. The puppy came over and flopped on its back in front of me.

“She likes you,” Aggie said.

We sat silently while I gave the pup a belly rub.

“Enjoy your puppy,” I said, getting up. “And thank you for telling me what happened. Thank you for trying to find Geraldine.”

Aggie walked me to the door.

“I’d talk to you anytime,” I said. “You’re a good person.”

“I’m trying to do better, to get better,” she said in a low voice.

“I think you’re doing fine,” I said.

***

“Anything?” asked my sister, the first question she asked whenever we talked.

“A few false alarms from the dog shelter, but no. Not yet.”

I had told her Aggie’s story. She was skeptical but that didn’t bother me. If she met Aggie, she’d understand.

“Well, remember, everyone is somewhere,” she said. “And that includes Geraldine.”

“I don’t know. It’s beginning to feel hopeless.”

“Have you tried asking people you see in the park? I don’t mean that woman. The park must be full of people. That’s the last place she was.”

“What do you mean, just walk up and ask people?”

“Why not? That’s what people do for missing persons, don’t they? Why not with dogs? Get Zoe to help.”

Neither Zoe nor I were comfortable going up to complete strangers, but together, we egged each other on. We went at different times of day, as our schedules allowed, so we wouldn’t always be seeing the same faces. Many of them had seen the flyers we’d posted, but no one had seen Geraldine. I started to look forward to our little adventure in the park. People wanted to help. One woman even took a picture of the flyer with her phone and said she’d send it around. But nothing came of it. Eventually, we’d meet and end up on a bench, lattes in hand. One day as we watched a group of middle school boys pushing, kicking, tripping, and shoving their way through a lacrosse game, Zoe said, “Hey, why don’t we ask the coach if we could talk to the kids about Geraldine? You never know and kids are always out and about, roaming the neighborhood like feral cats. They see everything.”

The coach was hesitant until a parent overheard and suggested he try it. He gathered the overheated boys in a fragrant ring around us. We showed them Geraldine's picture. At first, no response. Then one of the boys, tall, fleshy, and robust, his face abloom with exertion, nudged his friend, a lanky kid in a faded map of the solar system tee-shirt. “Isn’t this the dog we saw with the guy?”

“What guy?” said the coach.

“Charlie. He’s always panhandling outside CVS. We see him every day after school.”

A scene came into my mind instantly. The river of kids, the piles of backpacks dropped at the entrance, the man outside, always smiling and polite. A man I had avoided eye contact with for years.

“You mean the man who usually wears a blue Giant’s hoodie?” I asked. I waved the picture. “And he had a dog like this with him?”

“A few times,” said the tall kid, “but then he stopped bringing her because she barked at everyone.”

That has to be Geraldine, I thought. Bark first, ask questions later.

Zoe chimed in. “Have you seen him anywhere else, maybe with the dog?”

A hooded look passed between the boys.

“Please,” I begged. “We’ve been looking for months.”

“Over there,” said the tall boy, pointing behind us past the field, the path, the boundaries of the park, to the adjoining parking lot.

Everyone turned around.

“I don’t see,” I said, but Zoe did. “You mean the parking lot?”

The kid looked over at the group of parents and shrugged.

“Thanks, boys,” I said, wondering what they had going on in the parking lot that was such a secret.

We walked over, but there was no guy in a Giant’s hoodie and no Geraldine.

“Well, he’s not going to be there now,” said Zoe. “We could go over to the CVS and talk to him.”

“And say what? Please, kind sir, can I have my dog back? If he wanted to find her owner, he could have found a way a long time ago.”

“You’re right,” Zoe said. “We’re going to have to stake this place out.” Then she grabbed my arm so suddenly, I jumped back.

“What?”

“Don’t you remember, we used to hang out here at night, smoking behind the dumpster. That’s probably why the boys didn’t want to be too specific. I bet they hang out here too.” She pointed to a dumpster at the edge of the property. We circled it, trying not to inhale the smell of old garbage and older grime. Behind it, the ground was littered with disposable vape pens. Zoe picked one up. “Looks like pineapple express is a fav,” she said.

I knocked it out of her hand. “Don’t touch that,” I said. “It’s toxic.”

“Only if you smoke it,” she said, mimicking an inhalation.

Ignoring her, I said, “Maybe he comes here at night to sleep.”

“I wouldn’t assume he’s homeless,” said Zoe. “But he might come to dumpster dine.” She knocked on the side of the green dumpster, which rang hollowly. “It’s empty now, but later, there might be some pretty good pickings in here.”

“People actually eat what’s in there?”

“One man’s garbage…,” she said. “Some people don’t have a choice.” She motioned to the restaurants in the near distance. “Those must generate some pretty good leftovers.”

“So, what now? I don’t want to be hanging around here at night.”

We agreed to start at dusk and take it from there. After several nights, besides a menacing-looking family of raccoons and a group of boys who did, indeed, vape behind the dumpster, we didn’t see our man. We decided to give it a rest. Maybe he had seen us lurking and was lying low.

Early in the morning one day, as I power-walked through the park before work, I saw him - the man in the blue Giant’s hoodie. He was standing in the overflowing dumpster, holding up a McDonald’s bag. I crouched behind a bush, watching.

“Breakfast is almost ready,” he said, cheerfully, as he climbed down, smelled the food, and gave the thumbs up. “You take the egg, and I’ll take the home fries.”

I crept closer to get a better look and there was Geraldine, sitting at attention, the way she always did when food was near. Without thinking, I burst through the bushes, expecting her to charge over to me, crazy with excitement. Had I gotten it wrong? The pooch looked like Geraldine, but why was she barking at me? Why wasn’t she running over? Did she really not know me? I always used to joke and say the Boston Terrier theme song is “Love the One You’re With,” but I never thought I’d be the odd man out.

Charlie glanced at me warily but kept his attention on the dog. “It’s okay, Lulu,” he said, opening the food container. She ran over to him immediately.

I stepped back. “Her name’s Geraldine,” I said. At the sound of her name, she looked at me, her ears going up and down in confusion, then back at Charlie. He looked sad now, caught between the world that tossed him wonderful things and the world that took things away.

I watched as he fed her by hand, gave her a drink from his water bottle, and wiped her muzzle with the end of his sleeve. She had on a new collar and leash as well as some kind of braided necklace. He was taking good care of her, which surprised me until I thought about what Zoe had said. Did I consider this man a colossal loser, just because of his circumstances? What did I even know about him? All I saw in front of me was a kind and gentle man with a smile on his face, taking care of someone else’s dog.

When breakfast was over, Charlie sat on the ground, Geraldine by his side. His hand moved to pet her, but he stopped. The transition was already happening.

“I know she doesn’t belong to me,” he said.

“Then why didn’t you bring her to a shelter? There are signs everywhere.”

“I just needed a little more time.”

“She looks good,” I conceded. “You took good care of her. She’s obviously attached to you.”

“She’s a great dog,” he said.

I thought, now would be the time to hand me the leash, but I didn’t say anything. I hoped that now she had been fed, Geraldine would come to her senses and come to me. I wasn’t crazy about the idea of sitting in the dirt next to a stinky dumpster in a public parking lot, but I plopped down, hoping Geraldine would come over to play.

The next thing I knew Aggie broke into our little group, strode over to Charlie, and took the leash.

“This is my friend’s dog. I’ll take her now,” she said.

Even Geraldine responded to it, going into a sit and stay. Aggie walked her over and handed me the leash. Then she left as abruptly as she had come.

It felt as if we had just all been in a scene together and the director had yelled “Cut.” I wasn’t sure if it was the end of the play, though. Was there another scene where I handed the leash back to Charlie? “You need her more than I do,” the script would read. I ripped that up in my mind. It was time to go back to our lives as they were before.

“Thank you, Charlie,” I said.

If he was surprised that I knew his name, he didn’t show it. Instead, he came over, squatted and gave Geraldine a treat from his pocket, scratching between her ears. “Thanks for hanging out with me,” he said.

I saw Aggie in the distance, doing her loop around the park. I followed with Geraldine. When I turned around, Charlie was gone.

Wendy Dolber is the author of the novel The Guru Next Door, A Teacher's Legacy.