Almost as if he had been waiting for the chance of some privacy, the young Golden opened his eyes but kept his muzzle down on the seat. I bent down, putting my elbows on the car seat, and brought my face close to Cormac's.

"So, want some peanut b.u.t.ter, Cormac?"

Cormac stretched his face toward mine and licked my chin. I closed my eyes and let the pup s...o...b..r me down good. "Well, come on, pal. I hope you like crunchy."

FIVE.

I SAT ABOARD the swiveling stool behind the sales counter at the bookstore. I kicked the Birkenstock sandal off my right foot and stroked Cormac's head with my toes. He sat on his haunches looking through gla.s.s display case at the knees of the man on the other side of the counter.

I had rigged a gate at the open end of the counter to keep Cormac from roaming about the bookstore. Some customers were uncomfortable with him. Most days, I left Cormac at home to play in the yard, to chase any squirrels that dared explore the ground within the fence. He was healthy and active, with a great appet.i.te, and had grown fast. At six months, he now weighed about thirty-five pounds. The first couple of weeks I had to remind the boys not to hand over table sc.r.a.ps, though now and again I did treat Cormac to a teaspoon of peanut b.u.t.ter.

My daughter Emily stopped by the store on her way back to college. She'd come to Fairhope to her mother's place for the weekend. She walked in with a rawhide chew-toy for Cormac. "I can only stay a minute," she said, taking the wrapper off the chew. Cormac knew the treat was for him. His whole being was invested in his eyes and nose as he strained to detect what Emily was about to hand over. "My dog loves these things, too," she said. She told me her young Boxer was in the car, that she'd just got him one of the same chews at the pet supply store. She said she needed to get on the road to Tuscaloosa, gave me a hug and said goodbye, giving a little tug on Cormac's ear. "He's sure good looking," Emily said. With zero modesty I agreed, following her to her car and giving Charlie a pat on the head. Emily said she had tests and a big paper to write and wouldn't be back to Fairhope for three or so weeks. "I'll call when I head back this way," she said. She pulled away from the curb and I saw Drew walking down the sidewalk.

We went inside the bookstore and he came to the counter, leaning forward to get a better look at Cormac. "This mutt's bigger than Zeb, but he's twice as laid back," Drew said. "Some day we'll have to let the two of 'em run, so Cormac can pick up on a little rambunction."

"No thanks," I told Drew. "This guy's got the perfect temperament for a used bookstore." Indeed, the s.p.a.ce at my feet seemed to suit the young dog, whose curiosity only now and then got him on his feet. I told Drew that Cormac was naturally housetrained. "It's weird," I said. "Even in the backyard he only uses this one small area for his business. And, he's never once peed in the house. I put down newspaper, but he's not interested. Only answers nature's call outside where nature lives. I'm telling you, he's a high-cla.s.s pup. Most important, he's good company here in the store."

"I bet," Drew replied, a touch of sarcasm easily detectable. "You need some customers in this place, man."

"I'd settle for just one or two to buy a half dozen of my top-shelf books," I answered. "If I sold this one book," I turned on my stool and tapped the spine of the little green octavo volume Gombo Zhebes, "I could cover expenses for two months and take home some money, too."

"You gotta be kidding me!" Drew said. "Let me see that book."

"No. Better leave it out of harm's way," I said. "I wouldn't want to take your money if you broke it."

"Oh, bull," Drew said. "I'm not going to break a book."

"So, Zebbie hasn't given you any trouble?"

"Not much. He chased my goats a few times. I wasn't sure what I was going to do to curb the bad habit. Then one of my older billys took care of that." Drew smiled. "I'd headed out to the goat pasture to scold Zebulon when he got a flying lesson from Julius Caesar. He's kept away from the goats ever since."

Drew told me that Zebbie's other infractions were all minor, that he and Linda were glad to have him around. "And speaking of the little monster, I'd better go. He's in the truck. Plus, I've got a concrete truck due at the job site in ten minutes."

Drew went around to the end of the counter and called Cormac, who jumped up and went to the gate there, standing on his hind legs. Drew petted the red dog. "He is a good-looking retriever."

"Quite the regal beagle, he is," I said. "Plus, he can talk. He's a great conversationalist."

"Like I said, you need some human contact, man. You should start selling beer in this place." Drew headed for the door.

"I'm not kidding," I said, following.

"Oh I believe you," Drew said. "And, like I told you, Zeb can fly." He shook his head, then, "What in G.o.d's name are you talking about? I'm calling Diana to tell her you're drunk at work."

I laughed and told Drew to come back to the counter with me. I opened the little gate, stepped in and bent over to pat Cormac. His tail whipped from side to side, his eyes lit up. I found his chew-toy, a piece of rawhide twisted on the ends to look like a bone, and offered it to him. Cormac took it, and bobbled his head to adjust the rawhide toward the back of his mouth, holding it crosswise the way he might retrieve a stick.

"Okay, Mick," I said.

"I thought it was Cormac," Drew said.

"It's Cormac. And, Mick or Mickins, depending on the day or my mood," I said. "Sometimes he's just the d.o.g.g.i.ns." d.o.g.g.i.ns was our Tolkien-sounding word for canine friend. Cormac had not waited for me. By the time I returned my attention to him, he was already talking. All he needs to accomplish his special vocalizing is anything at all in his mouth: a leaf the size of a business card, a sock, a baseball cap. The sound he makes is like the moaning of E.T. in the movie before he said, "E.T. phone home." It may not be English, but the guttural, throaty articulation still speaks emotions accurately. There, at the back of Cormac's tongue, over his pink soft palate came sounds best described as like a mother's purring over a sad child, or a grandmother's mewling over her newest grandson.

"You call that talking?" Drew asked. "He just wants to bring you something."

"Well," I said, "It is something of a whimper, I admit. But deep and throaty, nonetheless, and endearing. Completely endearing." I challenged him to bring Zebbie to the bookstore for a sound-off contest.

"Zebulon won't concern himself with trivialities like this," Drew said. "His fierce warrior genes compel him to engage in more worthwhile fooling around."

"Like chasing goats?"

"For starters," Drew said. "But the book's not closed yet, pal." Drew punched me on the arm. "I better get going on that one." We walked to the door with Cormac following, talking all the while. He did, in fact, sound sort of silly grunting and moaning around the chew-toy. I leaned down and patted Cormac's head and he immediately a.s.sumed the sit position. He tilted his head up, kept talking, kept telling me, no doubt, how much he trusted me to take good care of him.

SIX.

"MAYBE I SHOULD'VE brushed you, Cormac." He sat beside me on the pa.s.senger seat, perked up, watching the world speed past the window. The clouds hung heavy and low and it looked like it might rain before lunch. "Sostie is coming to see us at the bookstore today."

Betty Fulton, a friend and author from Jackson, Mississippi, was to drop by for a visit this morning as she toured the South for her latest book, Love and Divorce on the Rocks. Her husband, my long-time friend, Scott Cannon, and their black and white Collie mix, Sostie, would be coming, too.

Betty had popped in for a visit about three years earlier while in town to do a signing at Page and Palette, another bookstore just up the street. Scott, who loitered in Over the Transom spinning tales of the wealth and power available to us both if we could only get in on the ground floor of the disposable bikini market. When Betty, tall and glamorous, walked in, Scott instantly hit on her. I learned later from Scott, confirmed by Betty, that he asked her that day if she'd marry him, then the blessed event took place almost a year later.

"You'll especially like Sostie," I said to Cormac. "She's such a cutie, and get this, as much a hound for peanut b.u.t.ter as you," The d.o.g.g.i.ns hiked up his ears and scooted over on the seat closer to me as if to indicate, "tell me more."

I took my eyes off the road for a second and lowered my voice. "My pal Scott did time in Ethiopia in the Peace Corps. Now listen up, Mick. This gets technical." I thought about Diana asking if we could skip my discourse on ancient Irish kings when telling people how Cormac got his name. "In Amharic, what they speak in Ethiopia," I said, "the word for three is sost. Get my drift?"

Cormac looked at me like I'd grown antlers or something. I took my right hand off the steering wheel and put it on Cormac's head. "Here," I said, "I'll quote Scott Cannon himself: 'Sostie is the name for our 3-legged rescue mutt-puppy because I didn't want Tripod or Lucky or some such goofy name.'"

I looked over at Cormac. "Oh, I said, she's an older woman, and very pretty with her three legs. What else do you need to know?" I'd done my bit at matchmaking, but his expression asked if there was more to be told. I patted him, and he accepted that I was finished.

I stopped by Latte Da coffee shop and picked up a pound of full-city-roast Costa Rican beans for my guests. In my store I ground the coffee beans and got a pot going. Twenty minutes later, Scott and Betty and Sostie walked into the bookstore. Cormac had pranced to Sostie's side before the door even closed. He was bigger than Sostie. They did the requisite sniffing, and some low-key posturing, and then settled down together in the middle of the bookstore floor on a braided oval rug in front of a burnt-sienna couch with lumpy cushions and well-worn arms. I poured the three of us a cup of coffee. Before I sat down I went back to the kitchen and got the peanut b.u.t.ter. I tossed the jar to Scott, along with a spoon.

"You do the honors," I offered. Both dogs were on their feet. Scott spooned out a treat for Sostie and Cormac, right onto the floor.

"On the carpet?" Betty said. "Come on, Scott."

"It's okay," I said. "Look at this carpet."

"That's not the point, Sonny," said Betty. "I'm still trying to train the dog." She pointed to Scott. "Him."

"Oh, just you watch," Scott said. "Two tiny wet spots that will be dried and disappear within a week."

Cormac finished his peanut b.u.t.ter and came to lie at my feet. Sostie jumped on the sofa between Betty and Scott. Scott asked about Cormac, said his face and demeanor reminded him of the Yellow Labrador who had stayed by his father's side for fifteen years. I told him about Zebbie, about Drew adopting him, and about our finding Cormac some seven months ago. "He'll be a year old March 21," I told Scott and Betty.

"He's going to be a big fellow," Scott said.

"I think so. Maybe seventy-five pounds when he's fully grown," I said.

Betty stayed quiet. "So, Betty, how's the new novel going?" I asked.

"Three weeks on the top ten best-seller list," she said, offhandedly, as though the information were not important. "Look, Sonny, what about you? On this tour, I've heard of three independent bookstores closing. I'm talking about shops that have name recognition. T-shirt worthy. I want to know what's going on with your store."

"Well, I think I'm going to have to close Over the Transom," I said, the words tumbling out. I couldn't believe I'd just spoken aloud the thing that I'd been thinking in a dusty, cobwebbed corner of my mind for some weeks now. Saying it was like making real what had been before only a possibility. I was disconcerted as though I just got the news myself.

"You have to fight for it," Scott said flatly. He got up and walked over to a bin of T-shirts. Sostie followed. So did Cormac. They sat and gazed up at Scott as he took a shirt and held it out in front of himself so he could read it aloud: There is nothing so important as the book can be. MAXWELL PERKINS [Because] All that man has done, gained, or been: it is lying as in magic preservation in the pages of books. THOMAS CARLYLE Scott checked the size, declared it a fit. "Do you mean what you've got written here?"

"You know I do," I said.

Scott draped the T-shirt over the crook of his arm while he pulled off his own white oxford and dropped it on the floor. Bare-chested, he pushed out his chest and curled his arms into a muscle-man pose, then pulled the T-shirt over his head.

Betty looked at me. "You want him back?" Scott and I had once been partners in a small publishing concern. Cormac, in the meantime, had grabbed the shirt on the floor and made off with it, dragging it to his spot behind the counter. Sostie trailed him, hopping along on her one front leg. Scott went after them, patting Betty's shoulder as he went past.

"Haven't you got something you could sell?" Betty asked.

"Everything I've got is mortgaged for more than it's worth." I told Betty and Scott that I thought I should schedule an appointment with a bankruptcy lawyer. "Just to discuss my options, you know."

"Oh, my G.o.d!" Betty said. "You can't be serious."

"Completely, I'm afraid." I told them the money I had in my store checking account could cover overhead for two more months.

"Does Diana know this?"

I told Betty she knew about the store's cash flow drying up. "But we didn't talk about meeting with a lawyer."

"Good," Betty said. "We've got to talk some sense into you." She got up and paced back and forth. She stopped and faced me. "What about the novel you've been working on? Why don't you sell that?" Her question surprised me.

"I don't think anybody would buy that book," I said. "And I still lack a hundred pages or so to finish it.

"How do you know no one will buy it?" she replied. "I sold my last three books on proposal. If you've got a good start, and they like it, they'll offer you a contract to complete it."

"What have you got to lose?" Scott chimed in.

"I will use my considerable influence in New York to get the ma.n.u.script read," she offered, completely serious.

Cormac pranced and capered, following Scott back to the middle of the room. Sostie came along as well. Scott said, "Betty can get this done. Her agent will read it right away and tell us what she thinks."

Cormac stood, put his muzzle on my thigh, and rolled his eyes upward at me. He did this more and more these days, and each time he parked his face there the world seemed a little less with me. This must be the part of being near a dog that's been shown to lower old people's blood pressure in a.s.sisted living places and such. I reached out my hand and rubbed his head. He wagged his tail. "Cormac thinks it's a good idea," I said, smiling.

"What more validation do you want?" Betty asked.

"It's a long shot, you have to admit," I said, wanting to bring some reality to the fantastical notion that a publisher would buy my book.

"Sure it is," Betty said. "But you miss a hundred percent of the shots you don't take."

"It beats sitting for the life insurance underwriter's exam," Scott said. I agreed and said I'd think about it. They said they had to get rolling to Tallaha.s.see. As I walked them to the door, I wondered how Cormac would behave as Sostie left the building. Had she smitten this young dog with her beauty? It seemed no. Cormac only walked as far as the front door. At the threshold he turned and went back to his place behind the counter, curling down for a nap.

I stepped onto the sidewalk to watch my friends walk away and felt the first drops of rain. Several parking s.p.a.ces on the street were empty and I saw no pedestrians. This damp, gray day could be well-spent at home relaxed in my leather chair, my sock feet propped on the ha.s.sock. Since I was fantasizing, I took it further, imagined my laptop on my knees, coffee on a tray table beside me as I worked on the great American novel. It was not a picture I could bring into clear focus.

I went back inside. It was 10:30. An hour and a half into a business day without a customer. I went to my stool behind the counter and woke up the Toshiba's screen: one internet order for a $35 used book, Lanterns on the Levee: Recollections of a Planter's Son by William Alexander Percy, a good 1941 hardcover 4th printing with a clean dustjacket. I looked at Cormac, asleep on a small rug. The hair on his shoulders was a little darker red than the rest and getting curly. He was a handsome, laid-back d.o.g.g.i.ns.

"You make it look so easy, Mick."

He didn't even blink. "If I get a book published, pal," I said, "I'll sure thank you for your part." I went to find the Percy book, wondering at the little hope stirring in my head, hope that I'd have to make good on my promise to Cormac.

I walked, pacing slowly between rows of shelves sagging only just perceptibly with their quiet books. Cormac was at my heels, his pink tongue hanging from the side of his mouth, his eyes bright with expectation that we were going on some adventure, tail swishing.

I walked back to the counter, then behind it. Cormac stopped on the customer side and stared at me. His tail stopped. He pulled his tongue into his mouth and c.o.c.ked his head. His eyes signaled confusion, as if, "Okay, so what are we looking for?" He sat, continued to look at me. I looked at him.

"I'm thinking about something."

For about the fifth time that day, as the day pa.s.sed, I strolled the floor of my empty bookstore.

"That's it," I said. "I've made up my mind."

I looked at the big grandfather clock in the corner near the front door. "It's five o'clock and time to go home, boy." I snapped the leash to Cormac's collar before stepping onto the sidewalk. I still couldn't trust that he wouldn't dash in front of a car coming down the street. He was a good heeler ninety percent of the time; the other ten percent he'd sprint without warning and ignore all commands, even the call of his name. These times a dog or cat or a person had one hundred percent of his attention. Until we got that behavior modified, the leash was the only safe option for going from the bookstore to the Jeep. I let Cormac jump into the pa.s.senger's seat, rolled down his window halfway, and closed his door. I went around and slid behind the wheel.

"Well, today we walked several hundred miles in a bookstore," I told Cormac. "But it paid off." I looked over at him. He was on full alert, his ears perked up as he watched a cat ease out from between some bushes and onto the sidewalk. "I made up my mind to send out the ma.n.u.script myself," I said. Cormac put his head out the window and barked. His tail swatted me on the face. I read somewhere that cats sleep about sixteen hours a day, two-thirds of their lives. This big red dog of mine, I believed, would spend about half his life wagging his tail. If Cormac wore T-shirts, I think his favorite would read: Wag more, bark less.

"Maybe I should've brushed you, Cormac." He sat beside me on the pa.s.senger seat, perked up, watching the world speed past the window. The clouds hung heavy and low and it looked like it might rain before lunch. "Sostie is coming to see us at the bookstore today."

Betty Fulton, a friend and author from Jackson, Mississippi, was to drop by for a visit this morning as she toured the South for her latest book, Love and Divorce on the Rocks. Her husband, my long-time friend, Scott Cannon, and their black and white Collie mix, Sostie, would be coming, too.

Betty had popped in for a visit about three years earlier while in town to do a signing at Page and Palette, another bookstore just up the street. Scott, who loitered in Over the Transom spinning tales of the wealth and power available to us both if we could only get in on the ground floor of the disposable bikini market. When Betty, tall and glamorous, walked in, Scott instantly hit on her. I learned later from Scott, confirmed by Betty, that he asked her that day if she'd marry him, then the blessed event took place almost a year later.

"You'll especially like Sostie," I said to Cormac. "She's such a cutie, and get this, as much a hound for peanut b.u.t.ter as you," The d.o.g.g.i.ns hiked up his ears and scooted over on the seat closer to me as if to indicate, "tell me more."

I took my eyes off the road for a second and lowered my voice. "My pal Scott did time in Ethiopia in the Peace Corps. Now listen up, Mick. This gets technical." I thought about Diana asking if we could skip my discourse on ancient Irish kings when telling people how Cormac got his name. "In Amharic, what they speak in Ethiopia," I said, "the word for three is sost. Get my drift?"

Cormac looked at me like I'd grown antlers or something. I took my right hand off the steering wheel and put it on Cormac's head. "Here," I said, "I'll quote Scott Cannon himself: 'Sostie is the name for our 3-legged rescue mutt-puppy because I didn't want Tripod or Lucky or some such goofy name.'"

I looked over at Cormac. "Oh, I said, she's an older woman, and very pretty with her three legs. What else do you need to know?" I'd done my bit at matchmaking, but his expression asked if there was more to be told. I patted him, and he accepted that I was finished.

I stopped by Latte Da coffee shop and picked up a pound of full-city-roast Costa Rican beans for my guests. In my store I ground the coffee beans and got a pot going. Twenty minutes later, Scott and Betty and Sostie walked into the bookstore. Cormac had pranced to Sostie's side before the door even closed. He was bigger than Sostie. They did the requisite sniffing, and some low-key posturing, and then settled down together in the middle of the bookstore floor on a braided oval rug in front of a burnt-sienna couch with lumpy cushions and well-worn arms. I poured the three of us a cup of coffee. Before I sat down I went back to the kitchen and got the peanut b.u.t.ter. I tossed the jar to Scott, along with a spoon.

"You do the honors," I offered. Both dogs were on their feet. Scott spooned out a treat for Sostie and Cormac, right onto the floor.

"On the carpet?" Betty said. "Come on, Scott."

"It's okay," I said. "Look at this carpet."