To keep my low-key despair at an arm's length I decided to make friends. So I took a class on meeting people and met people. But I didn't know how friendship was supposed to work. It seemed people made "plans," which were like professional meetings but with a lax agenda in a loud, crowded room. When I met people for "plans" they talked a lot, and I wondered how long I was supposed to listen before I cut in. Five minutes, ten, fifteen? Or did I just have to wait it out for as long as it took them to finish? A person could go on talking to you for the rest of your shared lives without pausing to take a breath. You saw people in marriages like that, where one just talked and talked until one or the other died. You could imagine the profound relief that would issue from the silent party when that inevitable death finally occurred. It was the happiest moment I could imagine a person experiencing.

I signed up for another class, taught by a dominatrix, about taking control of your life, but I could only relate to the parts about submission. Then I adopted a shelter dog, a chihuahua-terrier mix, who had a sad history. Whenever my new friends approached the dog, she wagged her tail, but if they tried to pet her she squinted and seized, and her limbs shuddered as though she were bracing against a hard head of wind. The former owners had named her Stub, and no matter what I tried calling her, Stub was the only name that would stick. She was stub-sized, anyway, small enough that at night she slept snuggled into the crook of my knees.
   
No specialist or therapist was able to change Stub's fear of affection, but she persisted in forcing herself into the midst of "plans" — my home dinner parties, weekend coffee dates and morning group workouts in the park. Again and again she approached others joyfully, only to shrink trembling from the proffered hand. Whenever that happened I did what the therapists had taught me, smoothing my hands up and down her little limbs and murmuring soothing phrases. I'd say, "It's okay," and I'd say, "I know that wasn't fun," and I'd say, "Bite their ankles — I dare you."

Emily Dezurick-Badran has stories in or coming from Tin House, SmokeLong, Atlas + Alice and others. She lives in San Francisco.

W i g l e a f               11-25-19                                [home]