White Dog Fell From the Sky by Eleanor Morse Page B

him, water geysered skyward.
    “Don’t worry,” she said.
“It looks bad, but it’ll be okay.”
    He jumped down in the hole and turned in
circles. Alice ran inside to call the water people. For once, the phone was working, a
kind of miracle. She came back out and told Isaac that the people would soon be
coming.
    She tried to stuff an old nightgown into the
pipe and was holding it there with the handle of a rake when the water blew past the
nightgown and shot back skyward. She climbed out of the hole. “Well,
that
sure didn’t work.” Daphne paddled around at the bottom of the hole in the
mud while water erupted above her head.
    A pickup truck drove into the driveway. At
first she thought it was the water people, but then she saw that the driver was Peter
Ashton, and beside him, Lawrence. In the back of the truck was Peter’s Alsatian
dog, chained to the bar behind the rear window, straining toward Daphne.
    “Isaac hit the water main,”
Alice said to Lawrence. “What’s that dog doing here?”
    “It’s the one the Moretons
recommended.”
    “You’re going to set him loose
on her?”
    “I wouldn’t put it like
that.”
    “The two of you were just going to
stand here and watch him screw her?”
    “They’re dogs, Alice. This is
what dogs do.”
    “Get him out of here!” she
yelled. “Get your goddamn dog out of here, Peter Ashton, or I’ll take him
out with a rake!”
    “For god’s sake, Alice, get
control of yourself!” said Lawrence.
    “I’m in control of myself. Get
that dog out of here.”
    Lawrence turned and climbed into
Peter’s truck, and the two of them drove away.
    “I’m very sorry,
mma,
” Isaac said. “I wasn’t thinking.”
    “It’s all right. It could have
happened to anyone. The water people will be coming soon.”
    He looked toward the geyser. “I must
go, madam. I’m very sorry to cause you trouble. I hope you understand why I cannot
stay.”
    She didn’t understand, not then, but
she said yes, of course, go if you need to.
    She fed Daphne and shut her in the kitchen.
A government truck pulled into the yard, and three men got out, two whites and a
Motswana. The Motswana clicked his tongue. “Oh shame,” he said. One of the
Europeans said it would take them some time to get the water shut off and the pipe
mended and suggested she might like to sleep elsewhere that night. There’d be no
water at least until the following day, maybe several days. She left a note for
Lawrence, telling him that there was no telling when the water would be back on, that
she’d be staying with the Gordons for a few days. She ended with, “Ican’t see you right now. Please drop a note in the mailbox if
you won’t be here, and I’ll feed Daphne.”
    She walked next door with her pillow and a
few clothes in a paper bag. She was covered with mud. “What a mess you are,”
Lillian said, peering out the door at her.
    “Isaac punctured the water main with a
pickax. The men are over there fixing it. There won’t be any water, probably for a
few days. Can I come in?”
    “Stay as long as you like.
Gerald’s away. You better take off your shoes, and I’d say a bath is in
order.” She dug out a blue towel and pointed her toward the bathroom. Alice turned
on the faucet. The walls were a shouting shade of blue. The sink, bathtub, and toilet,
all blue.
    The bathroom reminded her of Lillian’s
last dinner party, when she’d served Jell-O eggs on a bed of lettuce for one of
the courses. To make them, she’d blown out real eggs, sealed one end of each
shell, and filled them with different colors of Jell-O. When they’d set,
she’d peeled them painstakingly. Like the bathroom, they were absurd, a kind of
parody of a dinner party. The guests had been impressed, at least they said they were,
and Alice had watched Lillian watching them, one eyebrow cocked.
    The tub filled, and she sank into the water,
which instantly turned brown. Had she just left Lawrence for good? She didn’t
know.
    At the