To Have and to Hold by Jane Green Page B

distinct lack of training—makes a mad dash to say hello.
    “For God’s sake, Humphrey!” Emily picks him up and puts him on her lap. “Anyone would think you’d never seen another dog before.”
    “How’s the training going?”
    Emily and Humphrey have enrolled in Doggie Dos and Don’ts, a local obedience class that meets on Hampstead Heath for an hour every Sunday morning, armed with a clicker and a pocketful of treats.
    “Great. As long as we’re in the living room in the flat, he’s the best-trained dog I’ve ever had.”
    “You’ve never had a dog before.”
    “Exactly. Although he does sit when I tell him to when we’re at home, and we’ve nearly mastered
down
as well. Watch.” Emily puts Humphrey back on the pavement and says sternly, “Sit. Humphrey, sit.” Humphrey looks at her, then turns around and starts sniffing the table leg. “Oh, fuck it,” Emily sighs. “Humphrey, you’re hopeless. If it wasn’t for Harry, I wouldn’t bother going to the class at all.”
    “Ah yes. Harry. So how is the sexy dog trainer?”
    “Sexy. And distracting. Which is probably why Humphrey’s so crappy at following orders. I spend most of the class focusing on Harry’s lips.”
    “Just his lips?”
    “Well, no, but”—she lowers her voice and gives Humphrey a sidelong glance—“I wouldn’t want to corrupt Humphrey too much.”
    “So has anything happened yet?” Alice had heard all about the first lesson, how Harry had repeatedly singled Emily and Humphrey out for demonstrations to the rest of the class, how Emily had flirted outrageously and been rewarded with several glances that lasted just a few seconds too long and a long conversation at the end of the class that had rapidly left the subject of dogs and moved swiftly into the personal.
    And then, the following week, Harry had asked if anyone was interested in going for a coffee after the class, and given that most of the class had already left by the time he asked, and that the only people still around were Emily and an elderly man called Lionel, it was pretty clear that he was interested in getting to know Emily better.
    (“I always knew I should have got a dog years ago,” Emily had said, after their third date. “Just think, if Humphrey and I had met ten years ago I’d probably be married by now with a swarm of screaming children around my feet.”)
    “Has anything happened? What on earth can you mean?” Emily asks.
    “What on earth do you think I mean? Have you slept with him?”
    “Of course I haven’t slept with him!” Emily shrieks in mock horror, immediately lowering her voice as the Primrose Hill wannabes break off from their conversations on their mobile phones to look at her with interest. “He’s lovely. I’m not going to screw it up by jumping into bed with him this early.”
    “So what have you done?”
    “Lots of snogging and a bit of feeling up.”
    “Feeling up top or feeling up bottom?” Alice grins, knowing that the only person in the world she could possibly ask a question like this, be as childishly silly with as this, is Emily.
    “Feeling up top, of
course,
” Emily says. “There won’t be any feeling up bottom until I’ve had my legs waxed.”
    “You
still
haven’t had them waxed? That’s disgusting!” (Alice, who goes to the waxing salon every six weeks without fail, has never understood how Emily can go for months without touching her legs. “Why bother,” Emily has always said, “unless I’m having sex? Of course
you
have to do it because you have a husband who expects smooth thighs, but the only person I sleep with on a regular basis is Humphrey, and frankly, as far as Humphrey’s concerned, the more hair the better, the more he relates to me.”)
    “But I think I may have to make an appointment this week.”
    “So D-Day is approaching?”
    “I think the time is nearly here for me to relinquish my born-again virginity.”
    Alice bursts into laughter.
    “It’s all right for you,”