Painted Ladies

34

At eleven-oh-three Susan and I were leaning on the railing of the bridge over the frozen pond where late the sweet swan boats plied. Pearl was snuffling through the vestigial snow at the Arlington Street end of the bridge, alert for a discarded doughnut. No one would, of course, discard a doughnut, so I knew her search was aimless. Still, I liked to let her cultivate her hunting impulse. I didn’t want to impose our realistic limits on the soar of her imagination.

“‘To strive,’” I said to Susan, “‘to seek... and not to yield.’ ”

“Of course,” Susan said.

Pearl stopped suddenly and lifted her head. She did an olfactory scan of the air, head lifted, short tail out straight, body motionless and rigid, one forepaw raised. Then she put the forepaw down carefully, posed like that for another few seconds, and exploded on a dead run toward Boylston Street. Coming like a tidal wave through the gate from Boylston Street was Otto. They met in exuberant collision somewhere near the far end of the frozen swan boat pond. Otto bowled Pearl over and then tripped over her and fell down, too, and they rolled on the ground, mock fighting, with their tails wagging ferociously. Otto’s mother was there, with a good-sized man, who turned out to be Otto’s father. Otto’s father had a definite New York City look about him.

Both dogs got their feet under them and faced each other with their back ends elevated, front paws extended, chests near the ground, growling lasciviously, and head faking at each other. Then suddenly they straightened and began to dash in widening gyres about the Public Garden as pedestrians dodged and some cringed. Susan and I and Otto’s mom and dad stood watching like chaperones at a freshman dance.

“They’re adorable,” Otto’s mother said.

“Absolutely,” Pearl’s mother said.

There was a Scottie and a Jack Russell off leash in the garden as well as Otto and Pearl, and they made a kind of halfhearted attempt to get in on the frolic, but they couldn’t keep up, and neither Pearl nor Otto paid them any mind.

“We take him almost everywhere,” Otto’s mom said. “Do you like pictures?”

“I love pictures,” Susan said.

Otto’s mom took out a digital camera and began to click through the stored pictures as Susan leaned over, looking at them and saying “Oh my God” and “Totally adorable,” and things like that. What made me smile was that I knew she meant it. She loved looking at other people’s pictures, especially pictures of Pearl’s first real romance.

“Stop there,” Susan said. “Where is this?”

“Oh, that’s a gala we took him to,” Otto’s mom said. “We posed him in front of that painting because we thought it looked a little like him.”

Susan said to me, “Look at this.”

I looked. It was a picture of Otto, beaming and self-confident, in front of the painting of a prosperous-looking seventeenth-century merchant who did, in fact, look a little like Otto.

“Frans Hals?” I said.

“Yes,” Otto’s mom said. “It was a benefit for a small museum in New York of seventeenth-century Dutch art.”

“Same period when they founded New Amsterdam,” I said.

“Exactly,” Otto’s mom said.

As they had on their last meeting, Pearl and Otto finally burned themselves out and came and flopped down with their tongues hanging from their mouths. Otto’s dad bent over and patted them both.

“Do you know people at this museum?” Susan said.

“Oh, yes,” Otto’s mom said. “I’m on the board.”

“Is there anyone at this museum with a specialized knowledge of Dutch art, and the art business?”

“Sure.” She looked at Otto’s dad. “That lovely man, with the salt-and-pepper beard. You know, Carl something?”

“Carl Trachtman,” Otto’s dad said. “Probably the leading expert in the world in low-country art.”

Susan nodded at me.

“Do you suppose he’d talk with the big ugly one here?”

“He talks to me,” Otto’s dad said.

I grinned at him.

“Then I’m golden,” I said.

Otto’s dad smiled and took out a cell phone.

“We’re practically in-laws,” he said. “I’ll give him a call.”

“See,” Susan said. “I told you I’d find somebody.”

The two dogs were lying between us, Pearl’s head resting on Otto’s.

“She has a Ph.D. from Harvard,” I said to Otto’s dad.

“Wow!” he said, and punched up a number on his cell phone.