“What color?”
“Pretty much every color a dog can be… he has a pointy face, and bright eyes…”
“Do you have a photograph?”
“I do on my phone… wait!” I root in my backpack where I’d shoved the leash and cardboard the elf had given me. It was a picture frame, and inside was a fabulous photo of Hudson all decked out in his elfwear. “Here he is. That’s my Hudson,” I say, with a little crack in my voice.
“Aww…” Scrivello says. “He’s a cutie. Looks like he’s smiling for the camera.”
Curtis takes a long hard look at the photo, as if he’s memorizing every detail. Meeting my eyes, he says, sincerely, “I’m going to do everything in my power to find your dog, Miss.”
In no time, we are combing the south side of the park, the way the police officers had been trained to do for a missing person. I look at my watch. It’s still morning. The sun is shining. I feel a smile spread across my face. Hudson and I would be safe and warm at home by lunchtime. Dinnertime at the latest.
*****
“Sit down there,” Officer Curtis, or Craig as I now knew him, said to me, motioning to a park bench around Central Park West. “You need some water. You’re going to make yourself sick if you don’t slow down. That won’t do you or Hudson any good at all.”
New York starts getting dark in the winter at about four thirty in the afternoon. We’re sitting in the ever-increasing blackness, and I have no clue what time it was. The only real light is coming from the twinkling snowflake decorations on the west side of the Natural History Museum. My feet are throbbing, and I am so frozen through I can’t feel my limbs anymore. Still, Hudson’s out there alone somewhere in the city. I can’t just give up. He needs me.
“You want a hot dog?” Craig calls from the steaming cart half a block from where I sat. I shake my head no. We’d been all over the south side of the park, east and west. The officers had radioed all their friends on beats on the north side with Hudson’s description, and they sent a report in to the station. There’s was nothing left to do.
“Drink this,” Craig said, handing me a bottle of water. He munches hungrily into his hot dog. “Listen, Charlotte, you need to go home and get some rest. Hudson has an identity chip. Someone will probably find him and bring him into a vet, or he could wind up at the pound. The first thing they do is scan. Plus, we have all kinds of people out there looking for him now. I’d keep on going, but my Moms has Bingo night at her church, and I promised I’d go home and take care of our dogs. There’s a houseful. We have three fosters right now, on top of our own three.” He chuckled. “This one, I call her Fang, is a puppy and she can’t stop gnawing on me with those little needly teeth.”
I think about how little and frail Hudson was when I brought him home, and tears pool in my eyes. I will myself not to cry.
“No, of course you need to go. You aren’t even on the clock.” I turn my back and wipe my eyes with the back of my hand. “I’m fine. Thank you for everything. You’ve been amazing.”
He stands up. “Well, I’m not done. I’ll make some calls, and tomorrow Scrivello and I will keep looking and asking around. Plus, we scanned that photo of yours, and my crew at the station’s been passing it around to the other precincts. I have your card, and you have mine.” He wads up the paper from his hot dog, and takes a step toward the 86th Street subway station. “Don’t worry. As a cop, I see things like this work out lots of times.”
And the other times? I think to myself. I need to be alone. I can’t feel all of this in front of someone I’d just met. To be honest, I can’t feel this much in front of anyone. I’m more comfortable being alone when things are going badly. It’s what I’m used to. “Go!” I tell him, forcing a smile. “It’s all going to work out.”
“Sure it is,” he said, smiling back. “You go home, now, and call all your friends and family. The more people you got working, the sooner you’ll find that dog of yours.”
“Right!” I said brightly. My gut feels hollow as I take mental inventory of my friends and family. Apart from my online friends, Charlotte’s chefs, there was… Aunt Miranda. And, of course, Hudson.
“Will do. I’m fine. Go home and take care of your pups.” I make myself start crossing the street toward the west side, so he could feel free to go.
“Alright then. You have a good night, Charlotte, and keep the faith.”
“I will!”
I watch him disappear up the block before I let my body sag. I know I have to get home and take some kind of action, but every step feels like dragging a bag of lead weights without my furry little friend by my side. I plod on. There’s a little dog out there who needs help, and I’m the one to help him. Just like before, just like when he came to me. He’s mine and I’m his.
When I finally reach my building and start up the stairs of my brownstone, I feel the loneliness right down to my bones. It’s like climbing Everest. I know why. When I open my apartment door, I know there will be nothing there to greet me but darkness and silence.
I wake up with a start in the half-light of the early Manhattan morning, facedown on my sofa in a puddle of drool. Panic electrifies my body as I re-remember Hudson is gone. My eyes feel like they’ve been doused in a combination of lemon juice and glue. They sting, but I can’t quite pull them open. I’d spent the early part of the night alternately laying down, feeling like a freight train was racing through my brain, then leaping up and pacing the apartment. I wonder how many hours of sleep I’d I’ve had. Two or three? I had been sure the police would call, or that someone at the shelter would get in touch to say that Hudson had shown up. My cell phone never left my hand.
As I moved from room to room, filled with an energy to act, but having nothing to do, I’d stop and pick up a squeaky toy here, or a morsel of kibble there, each time calling, “Huddie!” before realizing again and again, like Groundhog Day, that he wasn’t there. Everywhere I looked was another reminder of our life together. The framed photo of us at The Chelsea Piers Mixed-Breed Dog Show, the prescription bottle of antiseptic the vet had given us when he stepped on that nail on Amsterdam Avenue, the fluffy donut bed I’d splurged on from Orvis with his name embroidered on the front.
Awake now, and at the end of my tether I punch Aunt Miranda’s number in via “Favorites.” Actually, it should be “favorite,” since she’s the only one. Despite the pre-dawn hour, she picks up before the second ring.
“Oh hello, darling,” she launches in immediately. “I only have a split second, but I’ve rung to say I’m mortified I haven’t gotten in touch since the fiasco at the tree lighting.”
“You didn’t call me, I called you.”
“Be that as it may, I’m standing in The Russian Tea Room overseeing the set-up for an informal meeting of the G8 leaders, but you didn’t hear that from me. Would you believe the Prime Minister of Canada flat out refuses to sit at a table where smoked sable is being eaten? Claims it makes him gag. Usually Canadians are the least of my worries, always so polite.”
“I don’t care about the tree lighting,” I interrupt her, stripping off my sweaty clothes from the night before, and pulling on sweat pants and a sweatshirt.
“That’s the attitude!” she bursts in. “Shake it off and move forward. Let it go, or get revenge. No point dwelling. By the by, I’m still not up to speed with what happened, but rest assured when I find out, heads will roll. Say you aren’t cross with me.”
“I’m not, but…”
“Well, I should think not,” she cuts