His head was bigger than hers.
Definitely not a Golden Retriever.
Peter, her house-swap partner, had said on their Skype call, in the most casual, cheerful tone imaginable, “No worries about Webster.” (Who hadn’t been in view during the call, and how had she not noticed that?) “He has a dog door, and the dog walker will come every afternoon to take him out for a couple of hours, seven days a week. She’ll brush him every week and take him to the groomer’s, too, and pick up the poo. All you’ll need to do is fill his food and water dispensers, and when you are home, he’s great company.”
“I’ve never had a dog,” she’d tried to explain. She’d already been so deep into this, though, had fallen in love with the location and the view and even Peter’s wife, Jessa, and their five-year-old son, Aiden. Peter had an Adam’s apple and glasses and a shock of straight, light-brown hair that fell over his bony forehead in exactly the way a seismology professor’s ought to. His wife was dark-haired and calm, and they were about the best people you could imagine staying in your home.
Peter said, “He’s the perfect family dog. Best nature in the world. Just wants to lie down beside you, though he’ll happily fetch a tennis ball if you want to throw it, or go on an extra walk with you if you want his company. Otherwise, you’ll barely have to do a thing. You could feel safer, too, being there alone, as he’ll bark a few times if somebody comes to the door.”
Aiden said, “He’s the best dog ever. He just wants to be friendly!”
Had she been sure about it? No, she had not. This was her adventure, though, right? Her reboot. All right, she’d never had a dog. Or a cat. Or a gerbil. She’d researched Golden Retrievers, though, and every single site had said that they were sweet, calm, and loving. Friendly to everybody, and she wouldn’t have to do any of the work!
Well, they’d got the friendly part right, because this Non-Golden Whatever-it-was was definitely friendly. Right now, he was leaning up against her like he’d push her over, his tail going a mile a minute, whacking her hard and sending the purse and house keys she’d put on the coffee table flying.
He was also taking up half the space in here. That was because this was the smallest living room she’d ever seen in her life. No, seriously. Her half of her college dorm room had been bigger than this. Her bathroom was bigger than this. It featured a leather sort-of-loveseat facing the front door, because a couch wouldn’t have fit, a narrow shelving unit on either side of the TV, a minuscule coffee table, and a wicker chair in the corner. That was it, other than all the … all the everything covering the walls.
New Zealand was supposed to be minimalist! She’d read it! She’d even seen it. Her ex-stepmother’s apartment, visited for that single, miserable Christmas vacation back in the dim adolescent recesses of time, had been furnished in cream and chocolate brown. She’d noticed, because she’d liked it. In fact, that was why her Atlanta place was decorated as simply as it was, that and her lack of time. Not that she’d achieved Lauren’s results. Her stepmother’s place had been warm and inviting, and Elizabeth’s … not so much. The design part, though, was the one thing she’d figured she could count on with this move. What was this?
It wasn’t just the pictures in rustic wooden frames that covered the walls, together with sayings like “Love Lives Here” burnt into more rustic wood. There was a ticking red clock with a rooster head sticking up above and two dangly legs that were apparently the second hand, because they moved back and forth like the rooster was walking, and a wall mirror whose frame was made of bright, lacquered red and gold. Not terrible on its own, but right next to it was an enormous piece of fabric art, macrame or something similar, a sludge-green and blue thing made of thick, fuzzy yarn, so hideous that you couldn’t tear your eyes from it, hanging from a heavy branch. She hoped nobody had paid for that. A collection of dolls was set on curio shelves that sprouted from every wall, staring at her out of their glassy eyes like something from a horror movie. Books crammed the shelving, and every other possible item that somebody hadn’t been willing to part with was set in front of those books, like there were a few extra square inches of space left, so why not fill them? Shells. Pretty rocks. Jars of colored sand. More framed pictures. More dolls, sitting propped against the books and staring.
This room was her nightmare.
Two steps over, and you were in the kitchen, which was a single, not-very-long wall with a refrigerator at one end, a two-burner stove in the middle, a small oven, and a dishwasher drawer beneath the sink. If you turned around from the sink, you could set your plate on the tiny table, because, yes, there it was, just that close. She guessed that three people could eat there if they weren’t very big. Or if they took turns.
There were more signs in here. One said, “Happiness is Homemade.” The big one, over the table, was a sort of blackboard-type item with “Recipe for a Happy Home” at the top, then a whole list of things that she didn’t want to read. She definitely saw “Spoonful of Gratitude” on there, though.
Right. It’s an adventure. You don’t cook anyway, you’re never home, and there’s a whole long street chock-full of restaurants a five-minute walk away. Wonderful, clean, sparely decorated restaurants, because the New Zealand style is spare and clean. Like Sweden.
Except for this house.
Stop it. You’re fine. You have maps. She’d created an annotated plan, in fact, of all the highest-rated restaurants on Ponsonby Road and its side streets. The breakfast places opened at six, and the dinner places closed at eleven or twelve. For the first time in fourteen years, she might be eating something other than hospital food.
It was an adventure.
Good thing she hadn’t gone for the Northern Territory. She couldn’t even handle shells and signs. Crocodiles and humidity would have done her in.
She was about to go check out the bedroom, but there was something in the way. Something big and black and furry. Webster had stopped prancing and was sitting in front of her, his block of a head on one side, his tongue hanging out. She said, “Webster. Move.”
He must not know that one, because he just cocked his head more.
Also, there was a puddle of drool on the floor.
She walked approximately three steps and ripped off a paper towel. And then she stopped.
Yes, there was a view of the harbor. There it was, right down there. And the Harbour Bridge, too. Of course, there was also a view of how you got onto the bridge, which would be via the six-lane motorway pretty much directly below her hillside, which was the source of the roaring noise she’d heard, and which hadn’t been in any of the pictures.
Still. If your eyes stopped halfway down, the view was great. The end wall of the kitchen opened up all the way onto a deck, there was a square of fenced green yard below it with a clothesline, and you could just look past the motorway, right? And wear headphones.
She had to look past the motorway. What else was she going to do, pay the mortgage on her house—her beautiful, three-story, three-and-a-half-bath, furnished-in-black-and-white-and-pale-wood townhouse with its patio and balcony and enormous laundry room—and pay to live someplace else? If she could even find someplace else, because Auckland’s rental market was ridiculous.