Pants on Fire by Maggie Alderson Page B

flowers that arrived at the office for her every day.
    Billy was rather quiet. In fact, he was reading the paper. Great. And it was the real estate section, not even the times of movies or something interesting like that. Rory leaned down to give Scooby some bacon scraps and smiled up at me when he saw my feet on her back.
    â€œI hope you don’t mind me er . . . borrowing your dog,” I said, feeling as if I’d taken a liberty.
    â€œNot at all. I’m glad you like her. Do you have a dog back in England?”
    â€œYes.” My eyes immediately filled with tears. “He lives with my parents, but he’s my dog. Gaston. He’s a French bulldog.”
    â€œWhat’s the difference between a French bulldog and a British one?”
    â€œWell, the main thing is he’s not nearly as ugly as a British bulldog and he’s as black as a liquorice allsort and he has a white bib on his chest and his ears stick straight up and when he runs his front legs go from side to side, it’s the sweetest thing . . .”
    A sob escaped. How embarrassing. “I’m so sorry, but I really miss him. Scooby’s fur feels similar.”
    â€œWell, you can borrow Scooby as a footrest any time you’re missing Gaston. You’d be happy to help, wouldn’t you Scoobs?”
    We both put our heads under the table to look at her at the same time. She glanced from one to the other and gave a big doggy yawn. Rory really did have a sweet smile.
    Billy was now absorbed in the business news, eating with one hand and holding the paper with the other. Rory clearly felt it was his responsibility to make conversation with me. I was glad somebody did.
    â€œSo why did you move here?” he asked.
    I still didn’t have a pat answer for this question worked out.
    â€œOh you know, I just felt like a new challenge and I’ve always liked Glow and I was sick of London—terrible traffic jams, too hard to do anything, so expensive, and it seemed like an exciting time to come out here.”
    And my fiancé was shagging PROSTITUTES and all the men were wacko and hated me . . . I changed the subject.
    â€œSo, Billy tells me you’re a farmer.”
    â€œYes. So they tell me.”
    â€œMy brother is a sort of farmer. He went to agricultural college, to do something called ‘estate management,’ which just seemed to involve going to lots of parties at big houses and shooting a lot of innocent creatures. Did you do anything like that?”
    Rory’s expression changed. His shoulders went a bit slumpy and I had the feeling I’d said the wrong thing. Oh no—the brothers. The father. The farm. I’d forgotten the full horror of the story. What had Billy told me?
    â€œNo. I went to art college,” he said. “Not very useful for cattle farming, I know, but then I never expected to be a farmer.”
    I decided to go by my grandmother’s principle and seize a difficult subject rather than tiptoe around it. “Billy told me about your brothers, Rory. I’m so sorry, it must have been awful for you. Such a terrible shock.”
    He looked surprised, but also relieved that he didn’t have to explain the tragic story to me himself.
    â€œThank you,” he said, quietly. “It has been pretty tough.”
    â€œWhat were you doing at art college?”
    â€œPainting. I had an MA already and I was hoping to get a part-time teaching job and carry on doing my own work, but I had to go and help Dad with the farm. I couldn’t let him sell it—not on top of everything else; that would have been the last straw. The property’s been in the family for over a hundred years—that’s a long time in Australia.”
    â€œSometimes doing the right thing is so hard,” I said. “You’re very brave to stick to your principles like that. Do you still paint?”
    â€œNo. I just closed that part of my brain down. I couldn’t