When we were kids we called the cluster of high-rise condos on the Galt Ocean Mile “God’s Waiting Room” because of their reputation as the final stop for ancient snowbirds on their temporal journey. Although these snowbirds never found their foutain of youth, many reached remarkably advanced ages.
Although my cousin was young (or at least young-ish) when she bought her condo in the late 1980s her neighbors certainly were not, and soon after she moved in, I met her elderly neighbor, Mrs. Sausolito.
Mrs. Sausolito came to dinner one evening accompanied by her paunchy husband and her mother, an evil-tempered harpy. Her husband carried a pan of sausage and peppers. Her mother carried a cane. Mrs. Sausalito carried her asthmatic toy poodle, Jacques.
They were an odd looking family. Mr. and Mrs. Sausalito both had jet-black hair even though they were in their late 60’s. Her mother was in her 80’s and had a towering gray beehive. Jacques sported a snow-white bouffant; he was a teenager in human years and an old man in dog years.
After that dinner I rarely saw Mrs. Sausalito. In the interim, my cousin married several times and moved around South Florida, renting out the condo when she was married and moving back when she was single. Now, since she was retired and temporarily between husbands, she moved back to the Galt. Soon after, she invited me to dinner and, to my surprise, Mrs. Sausalito was there too. Her husband and mother were nowhere in sight but she carried a white toy poodle named Jacques.
Mrs. Sausalito still had jet-black hair although by all reasonable calculations, she had to be in her 90s. “I remember you,” was how she greeted me. She looked me straight in the eye and said, “I bet you think I dye my hair. Well, Dearie, I don’t. So now you know.” I nodded, speechless. She looked at Jacques who was having an acute asthma attack. “You remember Jacques?” she asked me; “you met him many years ago.”
‘Well,” I said cheerily, “I’m sure this is a different Jacques.” Mrs. Sausalito glared. “No, this is the same Jacques you met before.” My jaw dropped. “How about some wine?” she asked my cousin.
The wine loosened Mrs. Sausalito’s tongue and after dinner she got confidential. “Jacques is the best friend I ever had,” she said, kissing him on the nose. I muttered a platitude about how sorry I was that Mr. Sausalito had passed, but Mrs. Sausalito waved her hand dismissively. “He was a stick in the mud,” she said, “but he sure made some good investments.” She nodded vigorously. “I prefer Jacques’ company,” she said.
I saw an opportunity. “How old is Jacques now?” I asked.
“I got Jacques in 1974 when we moved in,” she said without batting an eye. I did the arithmetic and looked at my cousin, who shrugged. Later, when Mrs. Sausalito went to the bathroom, leaving the wheezing Jacques behind, I whispered urgently to my cousin, “Does she really believe that dog is 37 years old?”
My cousin laughed. “The condo stopped allowing dogs in the 80’s,” she said. “But the policy was that residents who already had dogs were grandfathered in until the dogs died.” She sipped some wine. “So when a dog dies, the owners rush out to get an exact replica. Then they give it the same name and swear it’s the same dog.” She paused. “There’s a 45- year old dachshund on the 20th floor,” she said reflectively.
I was thinking that the Galt was a veritable Canine Fountain of Youth when Mrs. Sausalito returned. “I must be on my way, Dearie,” she said, scooping Jacques up. “I don’t like to leave Mother alone too long.”