Suzette Anderson was working Fly on hand signals, and several other people I knew only by their faces were working on various commands. “Dogs on the inside! Ready! Forward!” Marietta’s upbringing as an army brat had not gone for naught. “About turn! Halt! Forward!” I was waiting for the night her smoke-graveled drawl ordered us to “present leashes!” I have to say, though, that for all her brusqueness with people, I’ve never, ever seen her be rough on a dog.
She ran us through a snappy routine of forwards, fasts, slows, about turns, halts, and circles for ten minutes, then had us line up along one wall. “Sit your dogs! Leave!” A chorus of “Stay” sounded down the line, and we humans walked away. A few green dogs needed their people close and attached by the umbilical cord known as a leash. The rest of us scattered higgledy-piggledy ten, twenty, thirty feet from the line of canines.
“Before we get to other announcements and brags from the weekend, I’m sure many of you have already heard the sad news about Abigail Dorn. You probably remember Abigail working her Border Collie, Pip, here. For those of you who haven’t heard, Abigail died over the weekend. ”
A murmur ran through the group, and a short, plump woman with a face and hairdo much like those of her Shar-pei, wheezed, “That’s so sad! What happened?”
I didn’t hear Marietta’s explanation. Tom Saunders and Drake had walked in and I was busy thinking, Now, that’s my kind of male. Strong, graceful in a muscled masculine way, with—what do they say in those romances?—raven hair edged with a hint of silver. Tom wasn’t bad, either.
Right on cue, Tom shot me one of his grins. He sat Drake between Jay and a Golden Retriever, told him to stay, and walked across the ring to stand next to me. My cheeks felt warm, and a few other parts heated up as I became reacquainted with hormones I’d forgotten I had.
My brain wasn’t entirely disabled, though, and I heard someone half whisper, “No great loss if you ask me” and another someone reply, “No kidding. Guess her karma finally caught up with her dogma.”
I also managed to register that Marietta was calling for a moment of silence. People training in the individual practice ring stopped what they were doing, and Suzette and Fly strolled over to the wooden fence between the two rings. Everything got very quiet for about five seconds, and then Fly started to bark.
“Now, Fly, stop that!” Suzette addressed the yapping dog in a stage whisper. Yip yip yip , Fly replied. I watched the fingers of Suzette’s right hand ball into a fist, pop open, and spread, over and over. Every time they opened, Fly yipped. And I happen to know that Suzette’s command to shut the dog up is Quiet , not Now, Fly, stop that.
Tom waggled his eyebrows, Groucho style. “Subtle.”
I was about to answer when Marietta congratulated Jay and me on our success on Saturday, and went on to acknowledge other members’ victories, large and small. “And the really big brag is two in one—Fly is a new Obedience Trial Champion and Utility Dog Excellent.” She stopped and looked around the room. “Where in the heck are Suzette and Fly? They were here a minute ago.”
She was right. Suzette was nowhere in sight.
Marietta shrugged and got us back to work for a few minutes, then lined us up for recalls. Somewhere behind me I heard snippets of conversation about the long-standing rivalry between Suzette and Abigail, but what got my attention was a breathy, “I didn’t think Suzette meant it when she said she’d like to kill her.”
15
Giselle Swann waddled over and took the spot behind me in line, distracting me from the accusatory gossip about Suzette and Abigail. Precious, her minuscule Maltese, watched her warily from the end of his leash, a pink bow tilting his silky white topknot to a rakish angle. I thought of asking why he wore one topknot, like a Shih-tzu, rather than the conventional two that
She ran us through a snappy routine of forwards, fasts, slows, about turns, halts, and circles for ten minutes, then had us line up along one wall. “Sit your dogs! Leave!” A chorus of “Stay” sounded down the line, and we humans walked away. A few green dogs needed their people close and attached by the umbilical cord known as a leash. The rest of us scattered higgledy-piggledy ten, twenty, thirty feet from the line of canines.
“Before we get to other announcements and brags from the weekend, I’m sure many of you have already heard the sad news about Abigail Dorn. You probably remember Abigail working her Border Collie, Pip, here. For those of you who haven’t heard, Abigail died over the weekend. ”
A murmur ran through the group, and a short, plump woman with a face and hairdo much like those of her Shar-pei, wheezed, “That’s so sad! What happened?”
I didn’t hear Marietta’s explanation. Tom Saunders and Drake had walked in and I was busy thinking, Now, that’s my kind of male. Strong, graceful in a muscled masculine way, with—what do they say in those romances?—raven hair edged with a hint of silver. Tom wasn’t bad, either.
Right on cue, Tom shot me one of his grins. He sat Drake between Jay and a Golden Retriever, told him to stay, and walked across the ring to stand next to me. My cheeks felt warm, and a few other parts heated up as I became reacquainted with hormones I’d forgotten I had.
My brain wasn’t entirely disabled, though, and I heard someone half whisper, “No great loss if you ask me” and another someone reply, “No kidding. Guess her karma finally caught up with her dogma.”
I also managed to register that Marietta was calling for a moment of silence. People training in the individual practice ring stopped what they were doing, and Suzette and Fly strolled over to the wooden fence between the two rings. Everything got very quiet for about five seconds, and then Fly started to bark.
“Now, Fly, stop that!” Suzette addressed the yapping dog in a stage whisper. Yip yip yip , Fly replied. I watched the fingers of Suzette’s right hand ball into a fist, pop open, and spread, over and over. Every time they opened, Fly yipped. And I happen to know that Suzette’s command to shut the dog up is Quiet , not Now, Fly, stop that.
Tom waggled his eyebrows, Groucho style. “Subtle.”
I was about to answer when Marietta congratulated Jay and me on our success on Saturday, and went on to acknowledge other members’ victories, large and small. “And the really big brag is two in one—Fly is a new Obedience Trial Champion and Utility Dog Excellent.” She stopped and looked around the room. “Where in the heck are Suzette and Fly? They were here a minute ago.”
She was right. Suzette was nowhere in sight.
Marietta shrugged and got us back to work for a few minutes, then lined us up for recalls. Somewhere behind me I heard snippets of conversation about the long-standing rivalry between Suzette and Abigail, but what got my attention was a breathy, “I didn’t think Suzette meant it when she said she’d like to kill her.”
15
Giselle Swann waddled over and took the spot behind me in line, distracting me from the accusatory gossip about Suzette and Abigail. Precious, her minuscule Maltese, watched her warily from the end of his leash, a pink bow tilting his silky white topknot to a rakish angle. I thought of asking why he wore one topknot, like a Shih-tzu, rather than the conventional two that
Similar Books
