The 22nd and 24th President of the United States of America

Grover Cleveland hates my guts.

He's clever about it though; playing his cards close to the vest and generally displaying a wilderness cunning that has survived generations of domestication and translated fully intact to his Mommy's living room. The first time she leaves the two of us alone I look over at him seated across the coffee table - his white moustache and goatee neatly trimmed - and for some reason I feel underdressed. While he has been politic if not friendly thus far, his brown eyes are not warm as he regards me in the lengthening silence.

"So, Gee Cee," I say, making an effort to reach out. "How's life treating you?"

He blinks. Stares. Then gives a little noise like a throaty cough, sort of an, "Eh-oooh." He looks at me for another second, then turns away with clear disdain.

I'm bugged, or fretted, or something, but before I can respond Grover's Mommy comes back into the room and I snap my mouth shut, cutting off anything sharp. 

*   *   *   *

The next day at work, Tony Dilmont raps on our mutual cubical wall shortly after nine and his face and fingers appear over the top, hovering above me like a Kilroy-Was-Here drawing.

"So Mitch," he says eagerly, "how'd it go?" Tony has been married for three years and is convinced that every “single” person in the office is regularly engaging in wild sexual escapades with an exotic variety of partners. At least he seems to hope that somebody is.

I can only shrug. "Good, or not bad, at least. We got along okay, but I think her dog hates me."

"Her say what?" Tony asks. His head moves from side to side and there's a metallic squeal from within his cubical. Tony is standing on his chair, and it's trying to twist out from under him.

"Her dog. She's got this little terrier-thing, named Grover Cleveland."

"What?"

"Dilmont!" Our supervisor's voice booms out from across the office.

"Look, I'll talk to you at lunch," Tony says before he disappears and the sound of industrious key-strokes erupts from his side of the wall. Before I go back to my own keyboard I have time to think: What is this? Junior high school?

 * * * *

We set a second date for the next weekend, but after careful consideration, I find that I don't want to wait that long. I call her on Wednesday, trying not to sound overanxious, but feeling it slightly.

"Well, sure," she says, I think trying not to sound overanxious.

Jeeze, we are in junior high.

I suggest a drink after work. The office full of cubicles I work in is on the seventh floor of a building two blocks away from a virtually identical building which houses her office full of cubicles on the fifth floor. There is a coffee shop halfway between, where we met in the first place, and it seems to me it would be a simple matter to meet up there after work.

"Oh, well, not right after," she says. "I have to get home and feed Grover."

She lives out in West Seneca. With the rush-hour traffic that would be better than an hour round trip. We both try to come up with another idea, but finally forget it and agree to wait for the weekend.

I'm really starting to dislike the dog.

* * * *

Despite scheduling conflicts arising from the terrier's dietary needs, his Mommy and I still manage to see each other a few times over the next month. It goes well, maybe even remarkably well, with the exception of the time that I spend out at her place, where Grover Cleveland still holds office.