The Accidental Tourist by Anne Tyler Read Free Book Online Page A

friendly!”
    “Well, fine,” Macon said.
    “We just got on like a house afire. Seems he took a shine to me, I couldn’t say why.”
    “Wonderful,” Macon said. He cleared his throat. “So could I have him back, please?”
    “Caroline will bring him.”
    “Ah.”
    There was a silence. The woman waited, facing him and wearing a perky smile, with her fingers laced together on the counter. She had painted her nails dark red, Macon saw, and put on a blackish lipstick that showed her mouth to be an unusually complicated shape—angular, like certain kinds of apples.
    “Um,” Macon said finally. “Maybe I could pay.”
    “Oh, yes.”
    She stopped smiling and peered down at the open folder. “That’ll be forty-two dollars,” she said.
    Macon gave her a credit card. She had trouble working the embossing machine; everything had to be done with the flats of her hands, to spare her nails. She filled in the blanks in a jerky scrawl and then turned the bill in his direction. “Signature and phone,” she said. She leaned over the counter to watch what he wrote. “Is that your home phone, or your business?”
    “It’s both. Why? What difference does it make?” he asked.
    “I was just wondering,” she told him. She tore off his copy, in that splay-fingered style of hers, and put the rest of the bill in a drawer. “I don’t know if I mentioned before that it so happens I train dogs.”
    “Is that right,” Macon said.
    He looked toward the door where the first girl had disappeared. It always made him nervous when they took too long bringing Edward. What were they doing back there—getting rid of some evidence?
    “My speciality is dogs that bite,” the woman said.
    “Specialty.”
    “Pardon?”
    “Webster prefers ‘specialty.’ ”
    She gave him a blank look.
    “That must be a dangerous job,” Macon said politely.
    “Oh, not for me! I’m not scared of a thing in this world.”
    There was a scuffling sound at the door behind her. Edward burst through, followed by the girl with the ponytail. Edward was giving sharp yelps and flinging himself about so joyfully that when Macon bent to pat him, he couldn’t really connect.
    “Now, stop that,” the girl told Edward. She was trying to buckle his collar. Meanwhile, the woman behind the counter was saying, “Biters, barkers, deaf dogs, timid dogs, dogs that haven’t been treated right, dogs that have learned bad habits, dogs that grew up in pet shops and don’t trust human beings . . . I can handle all of those.”
    “Well, good,” Macon said.
    “Not that he would bite
me
, of course,” the woman said. “He just fell in love with me, like I think I was telling you.”
    “I’m glad to hear it,” Macon said.
    “But I could train him in no time not to bite other people. You think it over and call me. Muriel, remember? Muriel Pritchett. Let me give you my card.”
    She handed him a salmon-pink business card that she seemed to have pulled out of nowhere. He had to fight his way around Edward to accept it. “I studied with a man who used to train attack dogs,” she said. “This is not some amateur you’re looking at.”
    “Well, I’ll bear that in mind,” Macon said. “Thank you very much.”
    “Or just call for no reason! Call and talk.”
    “Talk?”
    “Sure! Talk about Edward, his problems, talk about . . . anything! Pick up the phone and just talk. Don’t you ever get the urge to do that?”
    “Not really,” Macon said.
    Then Edward gave a particularly piercing yelp, and the two of them rushed home.
    Well, of course she wasn’t there. He knew it the instant he stepped inside the house, when he smelled that stale hot air and heard the muffled denseness of a place with every window shut. Really he’d known it all along. He’d been fooling himself. He’d been making up fairy tales.
    The cat streaked past him and escaped out the door, yowling accusingly. The dog hurtled into the dining room to roll about on the rug and get rid of the