I'm a patient dog.
Okay, okay, I'm not patient, but on this particular day, I
was acting patient.
Well, for a wire fox terrier, anyway.
Plastered as I was to our hostess's front door, I indulged
myself with just the occasional yip to remind Isabelle it
was closing in on my dinner hour. It didn't seem to be
working, mainly because her girlfriend, Heather, was
noisily boo-hooing in her ear.
A thump out in the hallway provided some much needed
distraction, and I reacted with my usual quick wit. There
is no better way to warn away ne'er-do-wells than to bark.
Ask anyone.
This got Isabelle's attention. As she ordered me to mind
my manners, her distraught friend jumped to her feet,
almost tripping over me in her haste to pull open the door.
I'm not sure who or what she expected to find out there,
but surely it wasn't the startled kid I saw. Figuring he
was up to no good, I did Heather a favor and bounded after
him. Isabelle ended my pursuit with a yank on my leash โ
which, by the way, smarts โ so I trotted back to her side.
No matter, the boy had left, my job was done.
Isabelle called me a bad dog, which she does often but
never with much conviction, so I took it as I usually do.
That's when I noticed the folded newspaper that had
magically appeared on the carpet right outside Heather's
door. Looking up and down the hall, I saw a few more
placed in front of other doors. Curious, no?
Ready to parlay the open door into actual leave-taking, I
strained on my leash a bit. Ignoring me, Isabelle gently
rolled the newspaper inside with the toe of her shoe and
then closed the door. Heather launched into a new round of
caterwauling. My stomach growled.
After five minutes, I tried a demure woof. After another
couple of minutes, I laid down and stared at the
newspaper. It was wrapped with a bright blue rubber band.
Interesting. I gave it a nip, but they don't make rubber
bands like they used to and the thing snapped. The paper
sprang open.
And that's when I saw him.
Right there in the margin above the headline. Three
pictures. One of a gooey piece of pie โ looked tasty โ
another of some guy shooting a basketball and the last one
of Rick, smiling.
My Rick.
What was his mug doing in the newspaper?
This was one of those occasions when I wished I'd learned
to read, but Isabelle gets all her news off her computer
and the screen is way too high off the floor to be dog-
friendly. I tried tugging on the leash. Figuring there
might be another picture of Rick hidden inside the
newsprint, I clawed at the paper.
You have to understand. Seeing Rick at this particular
juncture had to be fate. I'd been dreaming about him
lately. We'd be on the beach, roasting hot dogs. He'd
throw a stick, I'd run the other way, he'd dash after me,
I'd run the other way โ good, dog-worthy dreams of fresh
air and yummy snacks.
Since he'd walked out on me and Isabelle four years
before, I'd had to settle for dreams. I missed Rick. Some
of the guys Isabelle brought around were okay, but one or
two hadn't liked dogs. Of course, they didn't tell
Isabelle this. I just knew. A dog always does.
Anyway, lately I'd been thinking it was time for Isabelle
and Rick to get back together. I was tired of being the
victim of a broken relationship.
And now this.
Unfortunately, newsprint isn't the most resilient of
materials; within a few seconds, the thing began to shred.
At least that got Isabelle's attention. She scooped up the
tattered heap and handed it to Heather without so much as
glancing at the front page.
Rats.
I wanted her to see that photograph of Rick. I wanted her
to remember him. It had been ages since she'd spoken his
name. Concentrating real hard on Rick's face, I willed her
to look at the paper. I willed him, wherever he was, to
think about us.
Before I knew what was happening, the two women were
hugging goodbye and Isabelle and I were headed down the
hall toward the elevator.
This meant we were on our way home.
Kibble!
Feeling peckish, I walked extra fast. But that's not to
say I wasn't still pondering what Rick had done to get his
picture in the paper.
Or why he'd left us in the first place.... ***
With a sigh, Isabelle Winters pushed the Down button. What
an ordeal the afternoon had been.
Heather's husband had walked out on her. He claimed he
needed space. That phrase always made Isabelle feel like
scratching her head. What space? Where did this "space"
exist? In some alternate universe? What did you do when
you got there? Did you sit down and contemplate your navel
or stumble about, anxious should you bump into someone
else's "space"?
There were two twists on Heather's predicament. The least
important was the fate of Heather's small catering
business. How could she manage her upcoming commitments
without John's help? The more serious by far was that John
didn't know Heather was pregnant and Heather didn't know
if she should tell him. How could she get him back if she
didn't? If she did tell him and he did come back, how
would she know it was for the right reasons?
Three hours of this circular logic had Isabelle's head
aching. She'd murmured a few words of comfort and thrown
in her two cents (Forget the business for now! Call him!
Tell him about the baby!), but what else could she do?
Pawing at the carpet in front of the elevator, Marnie made
little anxious sounds. The doors swished open and Marnie
all but dragged Isabelle inside.
"You were not a good dog," Isabelle said, as she punched
the Lobby button. Looking down at her dog's upturned face,
she added, "I don't know what got into you. All that
racket. And destroying Heather's newspaper!"
Marnie blinked.
The elevator soon delivered them to the lobby. Marnie
pranced at the end of her leash, seventeen pounds of wire
hair terrier covered with crisp white, black-and-tan fur,
tawny ears bobbing, black nose sniffing, dog tags
jingling, dark eyes taking in the posh lobby of Heather's
apartment building.
One of the things Isabelle admired about her dog was her
endless enthusiasm. Another was her take-no-prisoners
approach to life.What she liked least, however, was
Marnie's absolute remorselessness. However, since scolding
her was pointless, holding a grudge seemed pointless, too.
Isabelle became aware of a man pushing open the outside
door to enter the glass-enclosed vestibule separating the
lobby from the outside. He turned immediately to face the
intercom.
As Isabelle pulled the door open for him, all hell broke
loose. Marnie, a blur of tri-colored fur, lunged, wiggled
and bounced as she circled the man again and again,
wrapping his legs in her leash, yapping and squealing the
whole time. Despite Isabelle's best efforts, the stranger
was soon trussed up like a calf at a rodeo.
Unnerved by Marnie's high-decibel yelps and the deep
sounds coming from the startled man's throat, Isabelle
murmured both apologies and reprimands as she struggled
with the leash.
She finally dared a glance at the man's face. For a second
her brain refused to accept what her eyes told her.
How could this be? "Rick?"
"Isabelle! I didn't know you lived here!"
"I don't. Do you?"
"No, I'm visiting a...friend," he said. "And you?"
"I'm visiting a friend, too."
Marnie, bound to Rick's legs and perched more or less on
his shoes, leaked delighted squeaks. He bent to pat her
head and tousle her V-shaped ears. Staring right into her
beady little eyes, he crooned, "Hey there, lamb chop, long
time no see. How are you?" With a swift glance up at
Isabelle, he added, "I see my girl is still...excitable."
"It was almost like she was expecting you," Isabelle
added, a catch in her throat. Lamb chop! The long-
forgotten puppy name brought back a host of memories, all
of them bittersweet.
She undid Marnie's lead so Rick could unbind himself. When
he gave her back the leash, their fingers brushed.
"Sorry," she said.
He smiled, and it was suddenly hard to believe more than
four years had passed since they'd parted ways.
Of course, when they'd been...together...he'd been in
graduate school, on the fast track, but still a student.
He'd worn his dark hair long, walked around in jeans and
sweaters, and slouched his six-foot-four-inch frame down a
notch or two to blend in. She'd been a few years younger
and still an undergrad, a good deal shorter, but wore her
dark hair about the same way he did and dressed in a
similar fashion. They'd looked like a couple even before
they became one.
Now he was Mr. Suave, hair professionally cut, wearing an
expensive raincoat over an even more expensive suit. Add
Italian shoes and perfect posture and he looked like what
he'd become โ the youngest member in Portland, Oregon's,
most prestigious law firm.
And so handsome there ought to be a law. "You look
wonderful," he said, raking her over with a gaze that used
to make her shiver. Thinking of her hair caught up in a
ponytail and the jeans and sweatshirt she'd thrown on in
haste when Heather beckoned her to Portland, Isabelle
mumbled a thanks.
"How is your family?" he asked politely. "Your father
retired yet? Your mother still golfing twice a day?"
"Dad's still working, Mom's still golfing," Isabelle said
fondly. "I took a job in Seaport about two years ago now."
He nodded thoughtfully, and she wondered if it was because
of all the memories they shared of the town in which she
now lived or because his estranged father also lived and
worked there. She decided not to mention that she saw his
father often, that they'd remained friends, that Rick's
absence in both their lives had taken a long time to heal.
Rick said, "I thought I heard somewhere that you're
teaching kindergarten."
"I have twenty-three kids," she said. "There's only a few
more days of school until summer vacation, so of course
they're all getting a little wild."
She stopped abruptly, right as she'd been about to launch
into an anecdote about one of her students. Why would big-
time lawyer Rick want to hear about someone else's kid?
"It's what you always wanted," he said. "I'm proud of you
for pursuing your dream."
Rick hadn't pursued his dream. He'd chased money instead.
And in so doing, he'd abandoned her. That's how she felt,
that's how she'd always felt. She tried hard not to show
it because it was water under the bridge.
"It's actually rather fortuitous I ran into you," he said.
She did not feel fortunate in any way. For four years,
she'd put Rick behind her to the point that when she saw
his father now, she didn't even think about Rick.
Liar, came an internal voice. You never put him behind you.
"I did, too!" she said.
Rick had been talking, but he stopped abruptly. She'd
spoken out loud. She knew her comment made no sense. More
than anything in the world, she wanted to escape this tiny
foyer.
She said, "It's been a very long day, Rick."
"Wait," he said, briefly touching her arm. "I want to hear
about your classroom โ"
"No you don't," she said, meeting his gaze. "They're just
a bunch of little five-year-olds. They wouldn't interest
you."
"I see," he said, his dark eyes flashing. "I'm too busy
raking in the corporate dough to care about a bunch of
little kids, is that it?"
Things were going from bad to worse, but damn, he was
making her angry. Pitching a little more fuel on the fire,
she added, "Or maybe you spend your time figuring out ways
to keep the bad guys out of jail."
He seemed to swallow a retort. Glancing at his watch, he
said, "I'd better go."
She'd been rude. She couldn't seem to think of a way to
apologize without making it worse. What did it matter
anyway? It had been years since she'd seen him, it would
probably be years more before she saw him again. If ever...
She said, "I have to go, too."
They stared at each other for a moment, then Rick grasped
her elbow, and leaning close, kissed her cheek. The
closeness of his strong body and the feel of his lips on
her face evoked still more memories.
"It was great seeing you again," he said.
"You, too," she told him, but she didn't mean it. Seeing
him had been painful. She felt rattled and slightly
nauseous.
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