by Claire Cook
"Why'd ya have to go and hit me, lady?" the bus driver asked over the pressurized swoosh of the opening door.
"Cool your jets, sweet stuff. That's why God invented bus insurance."
My father stood bravely. "Dolly, darlin', I made these plans long before I ever met you."
"Then I guess you had plenty of time to unmake them, didn't you, Mr. Lying, Cheating, Good-for-Nothin' Billy Hurlihy."
Bob Connor stood up and walked bravely down the aisle. "Dolly, you made it!"
"Don't Dolly me, you little sneak. And what, might I ask, are you doing here?"
"Austin and I thought we'd better get over here just in case you needed any back up." Bob stopped a safe distance away from her. "And, by the way, those colors really bring you to your full potential." He took another step. "Don't waste your time on that old guy, Dolly. Come back and sit with us. We've been hoping another beautiful woman would show up."
Dolly put her hands on her hips, tilted her chin up at my father. "Well, I guess you had that coming." She turned to Bob Connor, grabbed his elbow. "Come on, Bobby. Dolly wants to meet your friends."
. . . . .
Carol leaned into the aisle from the seat in front of us. When that didn't give her enough of a view, she got up and walked back to our seat. "I knew it," she said. "I knew you two would end up together."
I covered my face with my hands. "Please make her stop," I begged. My family would not be within ten miles of us on our next date.
"Why do you say that, Carol?" John asked. He seemed to be enjoying this. I elbowed him.
"Well, I had a pretty good idea anyway, but as soon as I saw your page on the clipboard, I knew you were the odds-on favorite."
"Carol. Shut up. Now." To say I was blushing would be a major understatement.
"Okay," she said. She rested a hand on John's shoulder. "We'll talk later."
John and I looked at each other. "Do you think I'd die immediately if I jumped out that window or would it be long and painful, like this moment?" I asked.
"Relax, Sarah." John reached out, put his hand on my wrist. "It's okay. I'll pretend I never even knew there was a clipboard." He moved his hand until it was holding mine. "Just give me a quick rundown of the highlights of my page first."
. . . . .
Marlene greeted us at the entrance to the first balcony. She wore a black velvet jumper over a tartan plaid turtleneck. A gold tuba pin, holly sprigs poking out of its orifice, perched over her right breast. Marlene's brother Mark had his arm around a tall woman who looked suspiciously like the blonde on the poster at Pins and Needles. "Nicetaseeyaagain," he said to me.
"That's the woman from Cambridge, the singles lady," John said calmly as we stood sipping champagne.
I laughed. "Marlene? Marlene is the singles lady?"
"I'm only speaking to you long enough to tell you," I said to Carol in the marble bathroom a few minutes later, "that Marlene hosts singles soirees in Cambridge." I fixed my lipstick in the mirror and waited for Carol to acknowledge my find.
"Of course she does. Where do you think Dad went first on Thanksgiving?"
"Jeez, Carol. Can't I find out something before you? Just once? Dad went to a singles Thanksgiving soiree?"
"Um-hmm."
"And is this a singles symphony soiree?"
Carol laughed, adjusted the lace collar on her long velvet dress. "Sarah, Sarah, Sarah. Can't you for once just have a good time?"
. . . . .
"Hi." Phoebe walked into the ladies' room just after Carol walked out. I was leaning in toward the mirror, attending to my lipstick with the careful concentration of a child doing paint by numbers. I was in awe of women who could find their lips without a mirror. Phoebe, of course, took out her lipstick and applied it while examining a brass-and-crystal wall sconce.
"Sarah," she said, turning to look at me in the mirror. "I'm sure Michael's told you all sorts of awful things about me. But I want you to know—"
"Michael has never once said anything bad about you." Phoebe looked at me as if wondering whether to believe it. "Really. All he's ever said is how much he loves you. I don't talk about you with Michael any more than I'd talk about Michael to you."
Phoebe put her lipstick away in a small black sequined bag. "I'm surprised. I guess I thought you all sat around joking about how terrible I am. I probably shouldn't admit this, but your whole family makes me nervous. I feel like I'm back in high school and the popular kids don't like me one little bit."
This was the most I'd ever liked Phoebe. "I feel that way pretty much all day long," I said, "if it's any consolation."
. . . . .
"The First Noel" was mostly strings and it sounded like being in heaven. John Anderson reached over to hold my hand. "The Holly and the Ivy" turned into "Silent Night," which made way for "It Came Upon a Midnight Clear." In front of me, Phoebe put her head on Michael's shoulder. My father whispered something to Marlene, then wove his way back toward the bathrooms. Dolly brushed off Bob Connor's attempts at restraint and followed him.
Behind me, Carol whispered, "So, who wants to go after them?" Nobody said anything.
During the applause following "Feliz Navidad," John Anderson leaned over to whisper to me. "Maybe I'll go take a little look-see. Just make sure everything's okay."
As soon as he was out of earshot, Carol leaned forward and said, "Could be serious, he's already trying to get in good with the family. And he's got a lot of guts, heading into Dollyworld."
I drifted happily as Tchaikovsky's "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy" turned into a jazzy rendition of Duke Ellington's "Sugar Rum Cherry," thinking Dad would be sorry he missed this one.
. . . . .
Marlene sat down beside me. "Thank you so much for inviting us," I whispered, sounding like an overly polite seven-year-old. I wondered if Marlene was timing my father's absence, if I should make up an excuse for him.
Marlene smiled elegantly. "My pleasure. Billy has a lovely family. Perhaps you'll all come to dinner one night."
Even I knew whose turn it was to invite. "Or maybe you could come to Sunday dinner at our house?" I said, trying to convince us both I meant it.
"I'd love to." Marlene toyed with her brass pin. "Just let me know when the Dolly coast is clear."
"You know about Dolly?" Carol whispered from behind. She leaned her head in close.
"Of course, I know about Dolly. Although I have to admit today is my first actual sighting. Your father, by the way, is worth every bit of the commotion he causes."
"Shenanigans. Dolly calls them his shenanigans."
"I imagine she does." Marlene tucked a stray wisp of hair into her braid.
. . . . .
I stood behind John Anderson in the foyer outside the first balcony. He was standing in back of a bunch of cherubs and poinsettias, spying on Dolly and my father. "Anything good?" I whispered. I stretched up to my tiptoes to peer over his shoulder. Dolly had both arms clamped firmly around my father's waist, and her neck was arched back severely as she gazed into his eyes. My father's head was tilted down to her, his big shaggy eyebrows raised with some emotion I didn't want to think about.
"Well, just a minute ago, after a sizable holiday smooch, Dolly looked up at your father and said, 'Take me to heaven, big boy.'"
"Good line. I'll have to remember it."
"I hope you do." We smiled at each other. John took a step back, put his arm around me. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, wrapped box. "Here, this is for you. Merry Christmas, Sarah."
I opened it slowly, wiggling off the gold ribbon first, then slicing the Scotch tape with my fingernail so I wouldn't have to tear the paper. Resting on a bed of cotton was a gold navel ring, studded with a tiny, sparkly white jewel at either end. I blushed. "Thank you," I said. "It's beautiful." I kissed him on his cheek. "How did you, um, know?"
"Carol called me to make sure I'd been invited today. I guess my number was on the clipboard."
"Great."
"Any
way, we just got to talking."
"And my navel happened to come up? Is there anything you don't know about me now?"
"You mean like how Kevin wasn't good enough for you? On his best day?"
"Never mind. Let's change the subject." We both smiled. John put his arm around me and we walked back toward our balcony. "Guess what?" he asked.
"What?"
"Well, I was hoping to get your opinion before I make the final decision, but I'm pretty sure I'm getting a puppy."
"Aww, a puppy? What kind?"
"Well, there was a bit of a surprise in my building. Clementine gave birth to a litter of four last week. Turns out her rotten disposition was partly gestational. We're pretty sure they're half Yorkie, half greyhound. Long and skinny with big noses, ears like a fruit bat, scruffy fur. I was hoping you'd like to help me pick one out. Or I was even thinking two might be better, so they won't get lonely."
Despite myself, I felt hope rising somewhere in the general vicinity of my heart. John stopped walking and turned to me, and we kissed. A sweet kiss, with a promise of something more. It was as terrifyingly close to optimistic as I'd been in a long, long time. I tried not to jinx myself by wanting things too much. "You know," I said, "this probably isn't going to work out."
"The puppies?"
"No, us."
"Well, even if that's true, I think we should suspend our disbelief as long as possible."
"Okay," I said. At least I think it was I.
. . . . . . . . . .
Note from
Claire
Thanks so much for reading Must Love Dogs, my novel-turned-movie-turned-first book in the new Must Love Dogs series. I hope you enjoyed it! Reviews are becoming more and more important in helping readers discover books, so I’d really appreciate it if you’d take the time to share your thoughts. Here's the link: http://amzn.to/1fHzzY6. Thank you for your support!
Sign up for my newsletter at http://clairecook.com/newsletter/ to be the first to find out when my next book is released. Lots of fun giveaways and insider extras, too!
Here are the links to the next two books in the Must Love Dogs series:
Must Love Dogs: New Leash on Life (#2)
Must Love Dogs: Fetch You Later (#3)
And stay tuned for lots more!
If you'd like to know more about how the Must Love Dogs movie really happened, you might want to read my nonfiction book Never Too Late: Your Roadmap to Reinvention (without getting lost along the way), which is also a #1 Amazon bestseller in Women's Personal Growth!
Keep turning the virtual pages! I hope you'll enjoy a quick recipe, some book club questions, and an excerpt of Must Love Dogs: New Leash on Life (#2).
Happy Reading!
Claire
Must Love Dogs Extras
Sarah's Winey Mac and Cheese
Box of macaroni and cheese (Sarah prefers Annie's)
White wine (Sarah prefers chardonnay)
Your favorite wine glass
1. Bring 6 cups of water to a boil in a medium saucepan.
2. Stir in pasta and cook 7-9 minutes.
3. Drain and transfer to bowl. Sprinkle in cheese dust packet and add wine slowly while stirring until you reach the consistency you like. (Sarah uses approximately ¼ cup.)
4. Serve in your favorite wine glass. Makes the perfect solo treat or book club snack.
Book Club
Questions
You can find discussion questions for all my novels at ClaireCook.com. I love chatting with book clubs, so if you'd like me to call or Skype in—or visit in person if I happen to be in your neck of the woods—just send an email via the contact page at ClaireCook.com with information about your book club and some suggested dates, and I'll do my best to make one work.
1. What scene in Must Love Dogs made you laugh the hardest?
2. What gave you the biggest jolt of recognition?
3. In Must Love Dogs, personal ads are placed in a newspaper on actual paper, and a voicemail box is accessed via a telephone in order to listen to messages from recipients. Does this add to the charm of the novel? How has the Internet revolutionized dating through personal ads? Do you think it's a good thing or a bad thing?
4. Do you think the Must Love Dogs movie captures the spirit of the book? Why and/or why not? Which scenes from the book do you wish the movie had included?
5. What was your favorite "recipe" in the novel? Did you try it?
6. How would Must Love Dogs change if it were written from Carol's point of view? From Dolly's? From John Anderson's? Is there another character who might have narrated as effectively as Sarah?
7. Which traits of the Hurlihy family are shared by all families, and which are unique to them? Does your own family have a quirky little something that might have fit right in with the story? One that would top it?
8. Have you or any of your friends ever dated through the personals/online? Would you be more or less likely to after reading Must Love Dogs?
9. In the book, Sarah asks John Anderson, "What makes you think something's wrong with you?" Do you agree that people who are single often begin to think that something is wrong with them? Is there a version of this that applies to couples?
10. What are some of the ways in which people or society in general makes single people feel like second-class citizens? How has that changed for women, and men, over the years?
11. Some readers find Sarah's father, Billy Hurlihy, both lovable and exasperating. Based on what we know of his marriage to Sarah's mother, and his current love life, what do you think of him, especially as a husband and father? Is he likely to remarry?
12. As a preschool teacher, Sarah spends her days surrounded by children. As a member of a large, close-knit family, she is often in the company of her nieces and nephews. Do you think this makes it harder or easier for her to come to terms with the fact that she might not have her own children?
13. Would you want your child to be in Sarah Hurlihy's classroom at Bayberry Preschool? Why or why not?
14. Claire Cook always wanted to be a novelist, yet didn't go after her dream until she was in her forties. Was she wise to wait until she'd had more life experience, or should she have had the courage to pursue her dream earlier? Do you think either path would have led her to the same place? What does Claire's journey inspire you to go after in your own life?
Excerpt
Must Love Dogs: New Leash on Life (#2)
(Copyright © 2014 by Claire Cook)
My brother Michael was staying with me until his marriage got back on track.
"Don't you molly coddle him, Sarah," my father said. "Just give him three squares a day and make sure he has a starched white shirt to wear to the office."
"If he so much as looks at a beer bottle, hide his cell phone," my sister Carol said. "Do not, under any circumstances, let him drunk dial Phoebe. She was a witch with a capital B when he married her, and she'll be a witch with a capital B when we find her replacement."
"Why does Michael have to stay at your house?" my sister Christine said. "We have plenty of room, and no offence, but it's so not fair the way you always have to hog him."
After months, maybe years, of trying to hold his marriage together while he lived at home, Michael hoped that absence would, in fact, make Phoebe's heart grow fonder. So he moved out and now he drove his daughters, Annie and Lainie, to Irish step dancing on Wednesdays after school and took them out to dinner afterward. They also spent every weekend with him.
With us.
At my house.
"How much longer do you think it will be?" John Anderson finally asked. This seemed a reasonable question from the man who had become my significant other.
"Does until hell freezes over seem too pessimistic?" I answered.
After a bumpy start to our relationship, John and I had shared six months of dating bliss. We were now basically on hold. I wondered sometimes in the middle of the night if we'd accrued enough bliss points to get through this. And did bliss have
a shelf life? Would it expire of neglect before we could fan the flames again on a regular basis?
Tonight, my brother Michael and I were kicked back on my couch. A week's worth of starched white shirts in dry cleaning bags were draped over my treadmill. Two empty Sam Adams beer bottles flanked a half-eaten cheese pizza on the coffee table. I was a good sister.
I burped.
"Nice," Michael said.
"Thanks," I said.
Over the weekend, Michael and Annie and Lainie and I had pulled down my rickety old attic stairs and gone on a hunt for toys. My nieces weren't overly impressed with the relics of my childhood and were back downstairs and lost in cell phone games in no time. Apparently my brother felt otherwise, because right now he was playing with my Growing Up Skipper doll.
"She's two dolls in one, for twice as much fun!" I recited in my peppiest imitation of the 1970's commercial.
Skipper was Barbie's little sister. Like the Doublemint of our childhood that had been touted as two, two, two mints in one, this version of Skipper really was two dolls in one. When you first saw her, she appeared to be a sweet little blond elementary school student. But if you rotated her left arm back, she actually grew breasts right before your very eyes.
As if Barbie's impossible body hadn't screwed me up enough in my formative years. Thanks to Growing Up Skipper I'd spent at least a year of my prepubescent life circling my left arm backward like a one-armed backstroker while I knelt beside my bed saying my nightly prayers. After asking God to bless Mom and Dad and my three brothers and two sisters and all the starving children in China, I prayed for boobs, bigger than my sister Carol's, who was two years older and, please God, arriving before my seventeen-months younger sister Christine's showed up.
