Unsaid: A Novel by Neil Abramson Page B

replicate your test results with someone else asking the questions, then this project will end regardless of the dog-and-pony show you put on for Wolfe.”
    Once Jannick is gone, Jaycee opens the door to the Cube and Cindy jumps into her arms. She calms Cindy with the soothing sounds and gentle strokes that I imagine a mother would use to assure a frightened child.
    I know why Jaycee is unwilling to present the other person that Cindy spoke with. She can’t.
    That person is me.

4
    T he passage of another few days has David looking slightly more human. He has shaved and dressed in a pair of khakis, a button-down blue oxford shirt, and Sperry loafers.
    He paces nervously around a living room that likewise appears to have received a few minutes of attention since Max’s visit; there is still a mess, but now it has the broad outlines of a shape and the food remnants, at least, are gone.
    As David paces, he reviews the notes and questions he’s written to himself on a yellow legal pad. Chip, Bernie, and Skippy follow David’s movements from their places on the floor—four steps to the right, stop, turn, and then four steps back.
    David pauses for a moment and peers down at the dogs. “I need you all to be on your best behavior.” The dogs return David’s look as if they not only understand him, but are prepared to comply. But David doesn’t know them like I do.
    Soon enough, the doorbell rings and the dogs obediently follow David to the front door. Behind it, waiting on the porch, is a small,pencil-thin woman in her early forties. Her steel-gray skirt and starched white blouse are ironed to perfection. Her hair is combed into a tight bun the likes of which I’ve only seen in magazine advertisements from the 1950s for kitchen products.
    David opens the door. “Please come in,” he says. The woman extends her bony hand, and David shakes it gingerly.
    “I’m Margaret Donnelly, but you may call me Peg.”
    “Peg it is.” David waves her into the house.
    “What a charming piece of property you—”
    As soon as Peg crosses the threshold of the house into the hallway, Bernie can no longer control his excitement. He lets out a joyful “woof” and jumps on her. The unexpected force of Bernie’s two forepaws on her slender shoulders knocks poor Ms. Donnelly square on her ass. Although unharmed, Ms. Donnelly, apparently not a dog lover in the best of circumstances, begins to scream for help. Chip and Skippy now bark wildly at her, joining the game. The more the dogs bark, the more Ms. Donnelly screams.
    “Peg—Ms. Donnelly—just please calm down!” David yells at her as he tries to pull Bernie away.
    “They’re attacking me!”
    “They’re not attacking. They think you’re playing.”
    Amid the shrieking, Chip and Skippy can resist no longer and join the fray. Ms. Donnelly and the three dogs form a heap in the middle of the hallway. David tries to separate canine and human, but it’s like trying to remove a fly from a bowl of oatmeal—there’s no way to do it without taking some of the oatmeal, too. In the process of reaching and pulling, David accidentally grabs Ms. Donnelly’s breast. At this perceived violation of her person, Ms. Donnelly lets out a primordial shriek only a Saturday-morning cartoon character could replicate.
    I start to laugh. It is such an odd feeling that at first I don’t recognize what’s happening to me. But then I hear myself. I put my hand over my mouth to keep the sound inside. That doesn’t work. I feel the need to turn away even though I’m somehow sure that no one can hear me. I run out the front door almost doubled over in laughter.
    Suddenly Ms. Donnelly catapults out of the house. Her hair has been ripped from its neat bun, her blouse is covered with paw prints, and her skirt is so askew it is turned nearly all the way around. She runs down the front steps while pulling dog hair from her mouth.
    In her panic, Ms. Donnelly nearly trips over Henry, my huge orange tabby