“Why do you ask?” Viv glanced at Fee.
“No reason, just . . .” Fee’s voice trailed off and I found myself leaning forward to hear what she had to say. Just what? Don’t leave me hanging like this!
Viv frowned. Fee looked back down at her hat. “No reason. He’s just a brilliant rugby player, is all.”
She picked up her hat and turned away from us as she went to store it on a stand on the far wall where they kept all of their hats in various states of doneness. Viv looked at me and she blinked and then widened her eyes. When I shrugged, she pointed at Fee and mouthed the name Alistair and then held her hands up in a what does this mean? gesture.
I glanced at Fee, who was retrieving her next project, a pretty cap with netting, both of which were dyed the color of grass in spring. I quickly shook my head at Viv to indicate I had no idea. Was Fee interested in Alistair? It certainly sounded like it and given that Viv had been ignoring Alistair for the better part of a year, I thought Fee should go for it, but I didn’t say this out loud.
“Will Harrison be—” Viv began but my phone sounded from my bag, cutting her off. I pulled the phone out of the side compartment and glanced at the screen. It was Harry.
“Speak of the devil,” I said. I held up my phone and Viv waved her hand at me, indicating I should answer. “Hi, Harry, how goes practice?”
“I’ve got a situation, Ginger. Can I borrow you from the shop for a bit?”
I felt the blood rush out of my head. I braced myself against the table. “Are you hurt?”
“No, nothing like that,” he said. “It’s Aunt Betty.”
“Aunt Betty?” I asked.
“Yes, she’s at the dog show,” he said. “They’re refusing to let her in.”
“What?” I gasped. “Why?”
“I’m betting it has something to do with how she tore into Swendson last night,” he said.
“Oh, no,” I said.
“I’m too far away to get to her, but she called me and she’s distraught,” he said. “Is there any way you can head over there and keep her company until I can get there? I want to talk to someone before she throws in the towel on Freddy’s chance to be best in show.”
“I’m on my way,” I said. I ended the call and rose to my feet, downing my hot coffee. “We have a situation. Aunt Betty is at the dog show and they are refusing to let her in. I’m going over to sit with her until Harry gets there.”
“What?” Viv snapped. “But she has hats.”
I had to fight my smile. With Viv it would always come down to the hats.
“Care to come with me?” I asked. “You can advocate for the hats.”
Viv picked up her work in progress and placed it on a blank mannequin’s head. She turned to Fee and asked, “Can you handle the shop for a bit on your own?”
“Of course,” she said. “Go rescue Aunt Betty.”
* * *
* * *
The dog show was at the same place the cocktail party had been so Viv and I took the same route on the Tube. It was quicker today with less of a rush-hour crush. Halfway there, I realized I hadn’t eaten breakfast and my stomach made its unhappiness known with a righteous grumble that was thankfully drowned out by the sound of the train.
When we approached the big brick building, we found the crowd was just as thick today but there was an air of anticipation that was palpable. Dogs and their handlers were everywhere and, looking for Aunt Betty, I scanned the crowd. She was so petite; it was impossible to see her in the throng of people.
“Over there,” Viv said. She pointed toward a massive registration table.
It was festooned with a big banner that had the PAWS logo on it. Tucked off to the side in the corner was Aunt Betty with Freddy at her side. They wore matching light brown trilby hats with a dashing green ribbon around the crown and a matching one on the edge of the brim. They looked very smart and had their hats tipped at the same jaunty angle. Fun fact: historically when a woman’s hat is worn at an angle it always tilts to the right to accommodate her escort, a man, who would walk on her left between her and the street traffic.
Unfortunately, even the hat couldn’t hide the look of despair on Aunt Betty’s face. She looked so tiny and sad and rejected, like a kid looking for a friend on the playground, that I felt my temper heat. What had they done to her?
I began to stride forward and Viv fell in beside me. I imagined we looked like Beyoncé and Kelly Rowland in a GIF taken from one of their Destiny’s Child music videos, strutting forward and looking like we were about to kick some serious tail. I certainly felt like it. No one put Aunt Betty and Freddy in a corner.
“Aunt Betty!” I climbed the short steps up to the dais and stopped in front of her. “What’s happening?”
“Oh, Scarlett.” Aunt Betty reached out her free hand and grabbed mine as if she needed me to give her strength. “They’ve kicked me and Freddy out of the show. Even though I already registered and paid, they said they can’t find my paperwork and that’s that. They won’t even let me reregister, as if I’d be willing to pay that exorbitant fee twice.”
“Did they actually look for your paperwork?” Viv asked.
Aunt Betty turned to her and smiled, obviously grateful to have our support, and then shook her head, her smile fading. “No. The woman over there with the cowlick and the scowl flipped through some papers and said she couldn’t find it. I don’t think she really tried.”
“Well, she will this time,” I said.
I am a people pleaser, this is true, unless you are in a position of service and you refuse to serve. Then I’m going to call you out and badger you until I get what I want. I approached the woman with the short gray hair that did indeed have a cowlick that made it stick up. She smiled at me in greeting until she noticed Aunt Betty beside me and then she scowled.
“May I help you?” she asked.
“Yes, we are looking for our entrance papers,” I said. “The name is Betty Wentworth and the canine is Freddy.”
“I already looked. We don’t have those names.” Her chin jutted out.
“Well, since the registration fee has been paid, I suggest you quickly make some new papers,” I said.
“Prove it,” the woman said. She crossed her arms over her chest, looking very pleased with herself.
I silently prayed that Betty had brought a receipt with her and then I turned to her with a smile and said, “Any chance you have . . . ?”
Betty held up a receipt. I almost hugged her. Viv grinned, and I took the paper and turned back to the surly gal.
“You were saying?” I asked. I slapped the receipt down in front of her.
Her lips twisted into a little puckered-up moue of displeasure. This should not have given me as much satisfaction as it did. But it did.
“Ms. Stanhope, we have a situation,” the woman said. She rose from her seat and turned away from us to address a woman who was standing several feet back behind the registration table.
Stanhope. This must be the socialite Liza Stanhope, who had been there when Aunt Betty had registered, the one who had said a corgi would never win. I studied her. She was tall and thin, and everything about her seemed pointy. Her nose, her chin, the wicked narrow tips of her shoes. I was betting her elbows and knees could be lethal if she put in some effort.
She approached us, with her reading glasses perched on the end of her nose. Her face looked as if it had been stretched and lifted until it maintained a glossy sheen that resembled plastic. It was not a good look. Her hair was dyed an inky shade of black and was styled in waves that should have softened her features but didn’t. Large black pearls adorned her ears and a string of the same circled her throat. She wore a white blouse with the collar up, framing her face, over a pin-striped skirt in browns and greens with a wide brown leather belt.
She was holding a pen in one hand, and her
fingernails resembled red talons. She looked as if she would poke out the eye of anyone she was displeased with and I feared that someone was going to be me.
“What situation?” Ms. Stanhope asked. Her voice was low and soft and yet we could still hear her over the crowd. The hair on the back of my neck began to prickle.
“Hello, Liza,” Aunt Betty said, stepping out from behind me.
Liza Stanhope’s eyebrows lifted up on her forehead. “Betty.”
“Apparently, there’s been a mix-up with my registration,” Betty said.
“No, there hasn’t,” Liza said.
The two women watched each other and I glanced between them, back and forth, waiting to see who would make the next move.
“No?” Betty asked. She gestured to her receipt. “Then why do I have a receipt for payment and yet am not registered to be in the dog show?”
“Your registration has been misplaced, there’s no mix-up,” Liza said.
I felt myself sag with relief. I glanced at Viv and gave her a relieved smile. This was good, we were going to be able to figure this out and get Aunt Betty and Freddy into the dog show. Harry would be so relieved. Heck, I was so relieved. Viv didn’t return my smile. Instead, her head tilted to the side as she studied Liza Stanhope as if expecting more. She wasn’t wrong.
“And your registration is going to keep getting misplaced,” Liza said. Her gaze on Betty never wavered.
Uh-oh!
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I don’t quite understand.”
Liza didn’t bother to acknowledge me.
“You can’t do that,” Aunt Betty huffed. “You were right there when I filled out my paperwork. I gave it to you—”
Liza smiled. It was a slow shift of her lips, like a poisonous vine unfurling in the sunlight. “Huh, I have no recollection of that. How odd. I guess this is what happens when you threaten to poison our main sponsor in a drunken tirade.”
“Ah!” Aunt Betty gasped. “I was not drunk and it wasn’t a tirade. I was merely informing Mr. Swendson about some quality control concerns I had with his dog food.”
Like me and Viv, Freddy was glancing between the two women as if it was a volleyball match. He was seated at Aunt Betty’s feet, looking adorably confused. I reached down and patted his head. Viv glanced from Freddy to Liza.
“You almost lost us our biggest sponsor,” Liza snapped. “Now you are out of the show and so is your mongrel.”
“That was completely uncalled for,” Aunt Betty seethed. I really thought she was going to clap her hands over Freddy’s ears. “Say what you want about me, but leave Freddy out of it.”
“He’s with you,” Liza snarled. “So you bet I’ll leave him out. I’ll leave him out of the dog show for good.”
I was a little afraid the two women were going to come to blows. I glanced behind me to see if Viv thought the same and, if so, how did she think we should get Aunt Betty out of here before the whole situation got out of control. She wasn’t there.
I scanned the crowd of dogs and their people behind us. I didn’t see Viv anywhere. How could she have wandered off now? Wasn’t that just like her? Always disappearing when things were getting dicey. I don’t mean to complain but, honestly, I was so tired of having to figure everything out by myself. It was just exhausting.
“You can’t do this,” I said to Liza Stanhope. “She has a receipt. She paid. You need to let her compete.”
“Who are you?” Liza asked. She starred at me over the tops of her reading glasses.
“Scarlett Parker,” I said. “I’m a friend.”
“Well, Scarlett, if you’re such a good friend, you should have stopped her from accosting Mr. Swendson last night. He’s threatened to pull his sponsorship of the dog show if she’s in it,” Liza snapped. She looked in irritation at Aunt Betty. “What were you thinking? Do you have any idea how much money is at stake if he pulls his sponsorship?”
“And if his dog food makes dogs sick?” Aunt Betty countered. “That’s okay? We’re supposed to be helping dogs, not harming them.”
“What seems to be the trouble, Liza?” The woman who joined us was sturdily built and dressed in jeans, hiking boots and a hand-knit sweater. She had ruddy cheeks and her white hair was tousled as if she’d just stepped inside after striding across a moor in the wilds of Yorkshire.
“It’s nothing, Mary,” Liza said. Her voice was tight.
“It doesn’t sound like nothing,” Mary said. Her voice was mild but I sensed a note of authority behind it. Liza must have heard it, too.
“It’s just a registration mix-up. We’ll take care of it,” Liza said.
It hit me then that Mary must be Mary Swendson, Gerry Swendson’s sister and co-owner of the dog food empire. I thought it was interesting that Liza didn’t want to out Aunt Betty as the woman who had accosted Gerry the night before. I wondered why. In true administrative style, Liza just wanted to pretend nothing had happened and make it go away. Pro tip: that never works.
“Here you are,” Viv said. She popped up on the other side of Aunt Betty and Freddy. She held a packet of papers in one hand, a badge on a lanyard in the other. “Freddy is entered in the dog show—”
“What?” Liza Stanhope gasped.
Viv looped a lanyard around my neck. “There now. You and Freddy are all set.”
“Excuse me?” I asked. I looked from the badge to Viv.
She looked from me to Aunt Betty. “Given the circumstances, I think it’s best that someone unknown enters with Freddy.”
“And you chose me?” I asked.
“You’re the one who wants a dog,” she said.
“Who did this?” Liza fumed. “How dare they? I’ll have their jobs.”
“Given that they’re volunteers, that seems rather counterproductive, doesn’t it?” Mary asked. “And what’s wrong with this Freddy that you disapprove of him so?”
Liza’s upper lip curled up on one side, and I thought I heard her growl. “Nothing.”
Mary glanced over the table at Freddy, who was still sitting like a little gentleman. “Hello, there,” she said to him. “You were in the show last year, weren’t you?”
I wondered if she expected him to answer.
“Yes, he was,” Aunt Betty said. “Last year and the two years prior as well.”
Mary smiled at her. “Well, I hope this is his year, then.”
“Thank you,” Aunt Betty said. “I do, too. He’s entered with Scarlett this year, so maybe that will change his luck.”
I felt my insides twist with nerves. I was so out of my depth; I was surprised I didn’t drown on dry land.
“You look nervous,” Mary said. Her voice was kind.
“A little,” I admitted.
“Dogs are pack animals. Freddy will follow your lead so long as you establish your dominance,” she said.
“Dominance?” My voice squeaked. How mortifying.
“You need to be his alpha,” she explained. “The dog hierarchy is alpha, beta and omega, with the alpha the dominant above all others, the beta subservient only to the alpha, and the omega subservient to everyone. With you and Freddy, you need to be his alpha so he can be your beta.”
I glanced down at Freddy. His pointy ears had swiveled while he listened and I wondered what he made of this. His tongue hung out the side of his mouth and he looked like he wanted to please. Maybe this would work.
“I’ll see what I can do,” I said.
“Good luck.”
Mary left us and I noticed Liza’s face had turned a mottled shade of red. She looked like she was about to have security called to escort us out of the building.
“So glad this is sorted,” Viv said. She gestured to the exit. “Shall we?”
“This isn’t over, Wentworth,” Liza called after Aunt Betty.
Aunt Betty paused and gave her a
haughty stare and said, “Of course it isn’t. It won’t be over until my Freddy has won.”
Then she turned back around and gestured for Viv and me to fall in behind her and Freddy, which we did. Talk about your natural alpha. If they expected me to be able to do that, we were so screwed.
Chapter 6
“But I don’t know squat about dog shows,” I protested.
“Aunt Betty can coach you,” Viv said. “Now I’m done with this sea of humanity and canines. We have our schedule. Let’s go.”
I glanced at Aunt Betty. “Is this okay with you? I don’t want to take your place, especially if it will upset Freddy.”
She glanced over her shoulder at Liza Stanhope, who stood staring after us, looking like she was going to have a screaming hissy fit.
“Yes, I think you will do nicely,” Aunt Betty said. She took off her hat and plopped it on my head, then she tipped her nose up in the air and turned on her heel. I followed after her, trying to look more confident than I felt.
Harry met us outside the hall. Despite the chilly late-February temperature, he was still in his practice clothes, baggy shorts, a sweat-stained T-shirt, over which he wore a gray hooded sweatshirt. His hair was mussed and he had dirt on his knees. He looked fantastic and I had the sudden urge to take a bite out of him like he was an apple.
Viv jostled me with an elbow to my side. “Scarlett, are you all right? You have a weird look on your face.”
“Huh? Me?” I blinked. “Yeah, sure, I’m fine, good, great.”
Harry’s left eyebrow cranked up on his forehead as he studied my face. “What’s going on, Ginger?”
I took the opportunity to slip my arm around him and hug him to my side. Then I held up my lanyard. “Apparently, Freddy and I are competing in the dog show.”
“What?” He hugged me back while studying my fancy credentials as if he was waiting for the punch line.
“I’ve been banned from the competition,” Aunt Betty said with a sniff, making it clear how she felt about the situation. “But Vivian had the brilliant idea to sign up Scarlett in my place. So, we have a lot of work to do. The first competition is the agility test this afternoon and while Freddy can manage this himself, you do need to present him properly.”
Buried to the Brim Page 6
