had also lost her dog. She was there for the same reason Alice was—in hopes that someone would offer a fresh strategy to find her dog. But Alice, peering sideways at Jody’s fetching suede navy wedges, could only think, Pay somebody to find your dog. Of course, she noted, that was perilously close to what she was doing with her paltry $2,000.
The chatter of the women’s stories featuring themselves and their exceptional dogs was muted by the baby talk that crept in from the edges. The dogs’ names were invariably babyish, even without the high-pitched and singsong lilt that seeped into the women’s voices. Never mind the dogs weren’t there to perk up their ears. Alice was as guilty as the rest of them. Maebelle: a proper name for a glitter-sprinkled fairy in a Disney film or, at best, for a chubby, rosy-cheeked five-year-old with silky blonde ringlets. What had she been thinking?
Okay, let’s get started, Julie said above the din, straightening her Pilates-tuned back to its full length, putting her formidable breasts on glorious display. She, the venerable hostess of the cabernet, had lost her dog Sebastian ten days ago. The reward offered for returning the golden-haired Tibetan mastiff was a cool $10,000. Alice absently wondered if she’d be given the award if she came across Sebastian. She supposed that would be crass. She’d have to at least pretend not to want it. I couldn’t, she heard herself saying without conviction, as she led the fluffy beast past liveried doormen in the vast, marbled lobby.
Ladies! And gent, Julie said with an affected giggle worthy of Lucy Steele. Alice stared at her, unsmiling, torn between pity and the tiniest glint of embarrassment.
I’ve printed out resources.
She handed a stack of flyers to Jody on her left. Alice took one, passing the last one to Nancy. She’d done her homework—or someone had done it for her.
□ FindShadow.com
□ HelpingLostPets.com
□ LostMyDoggie.com
□ PawBoost.com
□ PetAmberAlert.com
□ Petfinder.com
□ LostDogsofAmerica.org
□ FidoFinder.com
□ craigslist.com
□ Bestfriends.org
At the bottom of the page she’d listed several Facebook groups alongside two private investigators.
I know most of you are familiar with these but I thought it would be useful to be sure each and every one of you checked off all the boxes.
She’d actually printed empty squares to mark next to each source.
Now, there’s International Counterintelligence Services, what I call ICS, which is the only way to go if there’s any chance your dog has been taken overseas. Trust me. But the real star and just a bun of a woman is a Karen Tarnot and her incredible team of sniffer dogs out of Iowa—or is it Idaho? It doesn’t matter. I simply can’t say enough about Karen.
She then paused, appearing to need a moment to stifle a tear before continuing.
Don’t even consider using an unlicensed pet detective. Karen’s just magnificent and would have found Sebastian but the urban environment is so, so difficult—
Alice tried to overlook her sorry performance of a crisp BBC accent. Perhaps the affectation hid shamefully soft, long vowels and dropped consonants originating in obscure Southern roots her husband’s millions had effaced. The fuchsia toe polish, hulking diamond solitaire, and French tips said Yes.
Amid the rustle of papers and low chatter, Alice considered the gathering from above, her disembodied self in a scene it was almost unsporting to despise; the elevator doors had opened on the set of an overproduced Netflix series bent on pillorying New York’s monied elite.
The Christopher Wool and Rudolf Stingel pieces Alice sat staring at as Julie droned on about the advantages of a private detective were just set pieces, but they pulled her in, their astonishing presence in the intimacy of the living room deeply incongruous. She’d never seen a Wool or a Stingel outside of a gallery.
When her mother had died, she’d sold the art—my collection, as her mother had preposterously put it. Alice and Peter had counted on at least a quarter-million dollars from the sale of the forty-some paintings and prints. They had planned to pay off college loans and stash the rest. But then, The market’s just not what it was ten years ago, tastes change, intoned Lawrence, the head of fine art, Bonhams Los Angeles. There wasn’t a single piece worth his time.
To have what seemed like tangible ready money evaporate into nothing felt like a loss. Expectation did that. Oh well. Alice had kept a few of the pieces she’d stared fondly at as a girl, but the gloss had diminished, as if the absence of commercial value had eroded their allure.
Falling into the center of the Wool, Alice released all thoughts of the painting’s worth. She simply wanted the screen print in her bedroom to stare at, to commune with, to study and know until it became hers. She wanted to master its inexplicable potency. There was nothing extraordinary about the fairly plain, inky black blob—except that there was. Similar to a Rorschach inkblot, it evoked psychological complexity with its undefinable shape tapping into iconic sexual motifs. Was she drawn to it as a relic containing a trace of the artist’s essence? She didn’t care: what the image had become to her overflowed the ornate gilt frame, spilling into an unattainable significance that left her raw and empty, longing for the comfort of Maebelle’s warm body and undemanding adoration. Even the familiar presence of Peter would do.
Pulling herself back into focus, she sat up straighter. Revived by a sip of the inky wine, she tried to listen to Julie explain the intricacies of offering a reward.
Of course you can’t wire money or pay anyone who claims to have your dog. Anyone who finds your dog and wants to return it will simply return it. Anyone who wants the money before returning your dog is not likely to have any idea where the dog is. Don’t ever send money or use a third party.
Alice wondered what this meant—a courier? iTunes gift card numbers texted to strangers? Western Union? Julie went on.
Beware. There are all sorts out there who have no idea how valuable these animals are. Even if they want the reward—and I know not all of you have offered one yet—these people don’t know how to take care of a dog and yet they do know a stud when they see one—if you know what I mean.
She laughed at the innuendo as the rest of them stared at her, politely smiling as if quietly amused even if they were not.
Sebastian just looks like a champ—everyone sees it.
It hadn’t occurred to Alice that these dogs were worth money. Julie’s Tibetan mastiff was not quite the Tapit of dogs—with his $300,000 stud fee and the highest thoroughbred earnings in North America for five years straight—but in the dog economy Sebastian did quite nicely at $7,000 per mount.
Alice was not a joiner, but she had elected to be part of this group which, it seemed, was even more wrong for her than she’d known. How typical. She wanted Maebelle back for sentimental reasons. Although that was unfair. Calling her attachment to Maebelle sentimental trivialized it, as if her feelings for her dog were automatically less legitimate than her feelings for a human. The loss and longing felt real enough to her. What made the attachment less significant—the species? Of course, Alice knew. It was the reciprocity—or its complexity and quality—that diminished the relationship. Still, there was something to be said for unmediated, unrestrained devotion, whether it was caused by stupidity or not.
Trying not think about the intensity of her attachment and yet vaguely bored, Alice’s brain began to trail over the biological conditions that, at least in certain species, determined group coordination: defense. Murmurations of starlings were a response to a predator just over 25% of the time—most often a peregrine falcon, merlin, hawk, or owl looking for a snack.
This didn’t tell her much. She wanted to determine the group’s evolving dynamic, its purpose and potential. She wanted to break it