Leftovers by Heather Waldorf Page A

cutters?” I ask.
    Victoria stops in her tracks, jogs across the kitchen and pulls open a cupboard full of all sorts of dusty kitchen junk. She rummages around a bit, finally extracting two cookie cutters: a Christmas tree and a snowflake. “‘Tis not exactly the season,” she says, handing them to me anyway.
    â€œThey’ll do,” I reply, switching the oven on to preheat and pulling out several cookie sheets from the drawer underneath.
    â€œThose aren’t chocolate chips,” Victoria says, sidling up to me and peering over my shoulder at the dough. “They’re
green
. Is that a—”
    â€œIt’s a pea.” Now run off, would you? Next to being ogled myself, I hate having what I’m doing ogled.
    Victoria’s nose wrinkles. “Mmm...interesting. Does this recipe have a name?”
    â€œMmm...Judy’s...Doggie Delights?”
    â€œGotcha,” she laughs, and with a spin, a wave and a swoosh of her red ponytail, Victoria’s out the door. (The rest of us humans may have descended from primates, but Victoria and Sullivan descended from Tasmanian devils.

    An hour later, forty-eight trees and fifty-six snowflakes are cooling on the counter. They are crispy but not burned; crunchy, just the way Dr. Fred says a good dog treat should be. He’s totally into plaque busting.
    Brant saunters in on break from his dog chores, grabs a bottle of water from the fridge and—
    â€œBrant! Don’t!”
    Too late. He pops a snowflake into his mouth.
    â€œBleckkkkk! Ewwww! Ickkkkk!” A horror movie plays out across his face.
    I laugh. I’ve been doing that more and more lately— laughing. I feel so surprised when it happens, embarrassed almost, like I’ve let out a loud unexpected fart.
    â€œSarah-ha-ha, you forgot to add the sugar,” Brant tells me.
    â€œNo, I didn’t.”
    Sucker for punishment, he bites into another cookie, a Christmas tree this time. He pulls the remainder of the cookie away from his mouth and squints at it. “Is that...a carrot? And what’s this other chunk?
A green bean
? You made
vegetable
cookies?”
    â€œI didn’t make them for you.”
    â€œDid I hear someone say...cookies?” Nicholas hurries through the kitchen door, wiping dirty ribbons of sweat from his face with the hem of his T-shirt. Sniffing the air like a hungry bear, he reaches over my shoulder and snatches a Christmas tree from the tray. He takes a bite. “Mmmph...not bad, Sarah. But...well...” He sucks crumbsoff his top teeth. “Not very good either.” But he swallows the cookie anyway and stuffs three more in his pocket for later.
    Brant tosses what’s left of his snowflake out the screen door to Judy. From the kitchen window, I watch Judy drop the rawhide, sniff the cookie tentatively, then suck it up like a turbocharged Shop-Vac.
    Amen.
    Nicholas and Brant leave to get back to their dog duties, muttering as they stomp down the porch stairs about how they hope I get back to making banana bread and apple crisp soon.
    When they’ve wandered back to the dog barn, I prop open the kitchen door and step out of the heat of the kitchen onto the shady porch. I close my eyes and turn my face up into the stiff river breeze that blew this morn-ing’s smog downriver. Fresh air flows through my hair and down my neck. It may be the only moment of quiet, and the closest thing to a shower, I’ll have time for today.
    My break has lasted all of fifteen seconds when a cold nose nudges my hand. I open my eyes and peer down at Judy. Stringy beige remains of the rawhide chew are stuck to her neck and front paws. Snowflake cookie crumbs are stuck to her nose. I untie her from the porch railing. “I knew you’d like my cookies,” I tell her, giving her ears a good scratch.
    Judy barks and shoves past me into the kitchen where she knows by smell that there are more snowflakes. Risking being