Charity watched Fred as his chin sank closer to the floor. "I can see how he'd do that. Peppy little fellow."
Nina ignored her. "And I have a plan for watering him. Come here." She walked to the big window next to her couch and shoved up the heavy old windowpane. "See?"
Charity followed her, and Nina gestured to the black metal fire escape outside.
"The fire escape is only about a foot down from the window." Nina stuck her head out. "This is the third floor, and the back is all fenced-in, and the gate is always closed except on trash day. So I'm going to train Fred to use the fire escape." She pulled her head back in. "Isn't that great?"
Charity nodded, and then patted her arm. "That's great, Neen. It really is."
"Don't feel sorry for me." Nina folded her arms across her stomach. "I've got everything I wanted. I was the one who left Guy, remember? I was the one who got fed up with the high life and living for his career. And it was the right thing to do. I love this apartment, and I love my job. It's just-I get lonely."
"I know." Charity nodded. "It's okay. I know."
"I'm forty," Nina said. "I know this is the prime of my life, I know this is when life begins, I've read all the articles, but I'm forty and I'm alone and-"
"I know." Charity put her arms around her and held her tight. "I know. You're going to be okay."
Nina nodded against her friend's shoulder. "I just wanted somebody to talk to at night and cuddle and watch old movies with. You know? So I got Fred."
Fred waddled back toward them.
"Well, it's a start." Charity let go of Nina and looked at Fred. "What kind of dog is Fred?"
"Part basset, part beagle, part manic-depressive." Nina frowned down at him. "Fred, could you cheer up, please? Look at what a great place you've landed in."
"Yeah, and the best is yet to come," Charity told him. "Wait till you see the fire escape she has for you."
Fred sighed and lumbered on, and they watched him cross the room, his toenails clicking on the hardwood, before Nina said to Charity. "I just need one little favor."
Charity nodded. "Sure."
"Could you babysit Fred for me while I go out and buy a leash and food? I'd take Fred, but he sticks his head out the car window, and the wind blows up his nose and makes him sneeze, and the dog snot flies back in the car." Nina looked at Fred with love. "It's pretty disgusting."
"I can imagine." Charity picked up her purple suede bomber jacket. "No, I will not babysit this mutt for you. He looks like he's going to end it all at any minute, and I don't want to be responsible if he throws himself off the fire sscape." She looked down at Fred with resignation. "Make a list. I'll go get him what he needs. Do they make uppers for dogs?"
"He's not really depressed," Nina told her as she went to find a pad of paper to make the list. "He's just deep. He has deep thoughts."
"Right. Deep thoughts." Charity shook her head again. "Make that list. And while you're at it, add Amaretto and icecream to it."
Nina stopped her search for paper. Amaretto milk shakes:ould mean only one thing: a My-Life-Is-In-Trauma party. And with Charity, who ran her life as efficiently as she ran the boutique, trauma could mean only one thing. "Not Sean,too?"
Charity nodded. "Sean, too. How do I do it? How can I live in a city full of men and always pick the rats?"
Nina searched for something comforting to say. "Well, they're not always rats."
"Oh, yeah?" Charity folded her arms. "Name the one who wasn't."
"Well…" Nina searched her memory. "Of course, I didn't know you for all of them-"
"Twelve of them," Charity said. "Twelve guys since I was sixteen, twelve significant guys since I was sixteen, twelve guys in twenty-two years, and I can't come up with a winner."
"You're sure it's over?" Nina tried to find a bright side. "Maybe he's just having second thoughts because you're getting so serious. Maybe-"
"I caught him in bed with his secretary," Charity said. "I don't think she was taking dictation. Not with what she had in her hand, anyway."
"Oh." Nina wrote down Amaretto and ice cream on the list. Amaretto milk shakes might not be the healthiest way to get over a life trauma, but it was Charity's way. Come to think of it, she could use one, herself. "Get chocolate syrup, too," she told Charity. "Let's go for the whole enchilada."
While Charity went shopping, Nina and Fred practiced on the fire escape.
"Come on, you can do this," Nina coaxed him, and together they climbed in and out over the low polished wood windowsill.
Fred was not crazy about the metal staircase, so Nina spread out a rag rug so he'd land on something soft.
On the other hand, he loved the leap from the window.
"Try not to overshoot," Nina warned him, but the fire escape was wide, and Fred was not aerodynamic, so after an hour, Nina was content that Fred would not be plummeting to his death from overexuberance.
She was also sure it was time for Fred to see some grass. "It's a shame you're not a cat. I could just get a litter box," she told him as she coaxed him down the two flights of fire escape with a piece of ham.
Fred whined a little as he eased himself down to the second floor.
"Shh." Nina glanced in the closed window of the second-floor apartment. "I don't know this guy yet. He keeps strange hours. Be very, very quiet here, Fred. We want the neighbors to love you."
Fred shut up and eased himself down another step.
"I love you, Fred," Nina whispered as she backed down the metal stairs. "You're the best."
By the time Charity came back, Fred had done the fire escape twice and was philosophical about it. "We'll take walks, too," Nina promised him. "But this is going to work."
"He can do it?" Charity walked back into the room after putting the ice cream in the freezer and shook her head, amazed. "I wasn't gone that long."
"Fred is very intelligent," Nina told her. "Watch." She opened the window. "Here you go, Fred. Born free."
Fred scrambled onto the box Nina had put by the window to aid his exit. He turned to look once over his shoulder, and Nina nodded.
Then he hurled himself through the window.
"Oh, my God!" Charity ran to the window, Nina close behind.
Fred sat on his rug on the fire escape, looking smug.
"Part basset, part beagle, part kamikaze," Nina said. "We have to work on his takeoff, but he's pretty good, don't you think?"
Charity stepped back from the window. "I think he's great." She smiled at Nina. "I really do. He smells, but he's great."
"Well, that's what I thought, too." Nina watched Fred sway down the fire escape to the backyard.
"Here's the rest of your stuff." Charity handed over the paper bag she'd been clutching. "Your change is at the bottom."
"Thanks, Char." Nina dumped everything out onto her round oak dining table and pawed through it, delighted, stopping only when she found a small jeweler's box tied with a silver ribbon in the middle of the pile.
"That's a baby present," Charity told her. "I'll give you a shower later."
Nina opened the box and took out an oval sterling-silver name tag engraved with Nina's address under a lovely script "Fred Askew."
"Oh, Charity, it's beautiful," Nina said.
"Just in case he gets lost." Charity watched as Fred's top half appeared in the window, wobbling back and forth as his toenails scrabbled on the brick outside. "Or stolen."
"I think I'd better put a box outside, too." Nina put the tag down and went to haul him in. "He seems to have a rear-end-suspension problem."
"Among other things," Charity said. "Listen, I've got to go."
Nina put Fred on the floor and straightened. "What about the Amaretto?"