Page 66 - Demo

The Yaegers lived on the penthouse level 20 floors noma that cost us a veterinary fortune. Now, I looked above us. They had us up for dinner about once a at Douglas sympathetically. “If not a dog, then what?” year. That evening Douglas dusted off one of his old- I asked.
world Rieslings while Claire began the usual arterial
assault with thick slabs of her homemade foie gras certain to kill us before our due. “I have news,” she said at the first lull. Christ, just what the world needs, she was finally writing the cookbook she was always talking about. But no, a hand to her perfect platinum hair, she said, “We’ve decided to adopt.”
“We’re joining the experiment.”
“You’re not,” I reacted with too much fervor. “I mean all that time you two spend in Europe, where is it Cap Ferret?” I pictured them like so many other annoying flyers taking their new canine on the plane. At least they would be purchasing theirs a first-class ticket. My wife Ruth, always the team player, asked, “What kind of dog?”
I was mid-swallow, food lodged in my throat. Ruth and I stole glances. I wanted to kick her under the table. She and I agreed the Upper East Side was get- ting ruined by them, these adoptions. So many it was getting hard to walk on the sidewalks. The problem used to be the avalanche of baby strollers. But now there were so many elderly people everywhere it was like crawling through slow traffic every block. Most of them walking badly bent over being kept in tow by their adopting caretakers, some attached to a leash.
Douglas rested his arms on the table. He and Claire, septuagenarians though not so far ahead of us, his thin wrists protruding from his cashmere cardigan sleeves. “Good lord, not a dog,” he said, his crisp voice that of a far bigger-bodied man. But something we could agree on. No dogs for us either. Despite my better judgment, we had gotten a dog for Jocelyn a long time ago. Our only child, she had begged and promised she would take care of its every need. We acquired a beagle she named Sandbag. I had to walk it every night myself. “He’s her responsibility,” I’d com- plain after coming back inside from the cold. “Todd, she’s only 12,” Ruth, our daughter’s great defender, said; Sandbag long since dead from malignant mela-
“After all, we have the means,” Claire said. “Peter and Kris are gone. We’re swimming in extra space.”
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“I will too,” I said, wanting any reason to leap from my chair.
An Adoption
“We won’t even be taking the state stipend,” Douglas said, all pomp.
“I know you have the resources. But humans come with baggage. And everything we read about. All the problems. The sidewalks are congested enough.” Claire raised her chin toward me. “Well, an older man or older woman?” I asked.
“The first thing you’re told is and not to think of them as old,” she said. “It’s in all the literature.”
“Why? Because you’re going to reverse aging? The program minimum is 80. That much I know. How long is the trial period? Three months, isn’t it? Not that
I’m up on all the rules. But for the first three months, technically they’re still wards of the state. The trial’s probably the one damn thing they got right.”
“We don’t believe in trials,” Douglas said calmly. “We’re taking an older gentleman named Mr. Lawson. His first name escapes me at the moment.”
Ruth took my arm to restrain me. “Todd, if it makes them happy.”
“Thank you, dear,” Claire said, standing. “Shall I clear our plates?”
“Let me help you,” Ruth said.
cliff BuRman