“I really can’t,” I said again, trying to angle my body away. Between the spectators, the ring itself, and these two, I was hemmed in on all sides. “Not unless Bertie tells me to.”
“Bertie can go to hell,” the woman said heatedly. “Right this minute we don’t give a damn what she says.”
Miraculously, the ring steward materialized beside me, walkie-talkie in hand. “Is there a problem here?”
“Yes, there’s a problem!” the man snorted. Then, realizing abruptly who he was addressing, he moderated his tone. The AKC does not take kindly to displays of bad sportsmanship or nasty behavior of any kind. If the steward had to call the rep, the man would be flirting with sanctions. “This moron won’t give me my dog.”
The steward inclined her head in my direction, waiting for an explanation. I noted she didn’t correct him about the moron part.
“She probably is their dog,” I said. We could all see perfectly well that Rhonda’s wagging tail backed up their claim. “But their handler gave her to me to hold, and until—”
“Our handler is fired!” the woman interjected hotly. “And you have no right to hold our baby hostage.”
Baby? Hostage? Was it just me, or were these two people seriously nuts?
“Does she, boopums?” The woman lowered her head and made kissing noises in front of Rhonda’s nose.
The Bichon’s whole body was vibrating now. Mindful of the way she’d launched herself into the air earlier, I took a firmer hold.
“Where is this handler now?” asked the steward.
I nodded toward the ring. Bertie, thankfully, had just been awarded Winners Bitch. “She’ll be out in a second.”
And of course, having won Winners, she’d need to go right back in for Best of Breed. What a mess.
“All three of you,” the steward said firmly, “wait right there.” She waved the bitch who’d been second in the Open Class back into the ring so that Reserve Winners could be judged.
Tucking the coveted purple ribbon in her pocket, Bertie came and stood by the gate, waiting out of the way until it was her turn again. Obviously she’d been oblivious to our little drama. I sidled her way.
“Help!” I muttered.
“What?” Turning to look, she sized up the problem in an instant. Bertie was no dummy.
“Hi Jean, Mike.” Her smile was placating. “I didn’t know you were here today.”
Dogs that live and travel with professional handlers never see their owners before they go in the ring. A distraction like that would ruin their performance. Socializing, if permitted at all, takes place afterwards.
“That was obvious!” Jean snapped. “Would you please tell your incompetent assistant to give us our dog?”
“It’s okay,” Bertie said to me.
I handed Rhonda over. Or rather, I didn’t resist when Mike snatched her out of my arms.
“It is not okay,” Mike said loudly. I think he relished the fact that other spectators at ringside had begun to listen in. “We have to talk. Right now.”
“Right now, I’m going back in the ring.”
Reserve Winners had just been awarded. The steward was calling the entries for Best of Breed.
“Why don’t you let your assistant take her?” Jean gave me a dirty look. “She was good enough for our dog, why not Benton’s?”
Benton, I presumed, was the owner of the other Open bitch. Bertie didn’t answer. She did roll her eyes. The steward came over and shepherded Bertie to the back of the line where she belonged. Clearly nothing was going to be allowed to disrupt the judge’s schedule on her watch.
Judging for Best of Breed was over in a matter of minutes. One of the specials won the Breed, another was Best of Opposite Sex. The Winners Dog was Best of Winners, beating Bertie’s bitch and thereby securing the major for himself.
“I guess the judge gave you what he thought you deserved,” Jean sneered when Bertie emerged, ribbon-less, from the ring.
There was no use pointing out that, thanks to the steward’s smooth intervention, the judge had probably never even noticed what was going on. Nor that the outcome had been pretty much what I would have expected anyway.
“Look,” Bertie said in a soothing tone, “I can see you’re upset. Let’s go back to the setup and discuss this, okay?”
“You better believe it.” Mike’s stance was puffed up and edgy, that of a bully standing on the playground and looking for someone to hit. “You better believe that’s exactly what we’re going to do.”
I collected the Bichon puppy who’d been sitting happily in a spectator’s lap, and joined the back of the unhappy procession. The steward watched us remove ourselves from her jurisdiction with evident relief.
Back at the setup, Bertie quickly removed her Bichon’s leash and locked the bitch in a crate. I followed suit with the puppy. Not Rhonda; Jean was gripping her so tightly that the Bichon was beginning to look uncomfortable.
Join the crowd, I thought.
I glanced over at Bertie, wondering what she wanted me to do. I was happy to hang around and provide moral support. Then again, as the object of the owners’ ire, maybe I was better off making myself scarce.
As I hesitated, Mike poked a finger in my face. “You. Who are you, anyway?”
“Melanie Travis—”
“What the hell did you think you were doing in the ring with our dog?” Jean joined her husband’s attack. “You certainly weren’t handling her. Have you ever even been to a dog show before? It’s obvious you’ve never seen a Bichon—”
“Enough,” Bertie said firmly. “Don’t yell at Melanie. I’m the one you’re mad at.”
“We signed a contract with you.” Mike spun in her direction. “We hired you to show Rhonda.”
“Unless there were extenuating circumstances. It was all spelled out in the papers you signed. We spoke about this, remember? You agreed that there might be times when an assistant would take Rhonda in the ring.”
“When she was a puppy, maybe,” Jean said hotly. “But not in the Open Class! You might as well have slapped a sign on her that said ‘Don’t bother with me, I’m only here as filler.’ ”
“What happened today was unavoidable. Under normal circumstances, I don’t show two Open bitches, you know that. But the major was spot on and they both needed it—”
“Except that Benton’s bitch got the major and Rhonda didn’t!”
“Benton’s bitch finished today.” Bertie’s eyelid was beginning to twitch. Though her tone remained calm, I could see her control starting to fray. “She’s been with me since last fall. Rhonda still needs some singles as well as that second major. Benton’s bitch had seniority.”
“Fine,” Mike snapped. “Then you should have pulled Rhonda.”
“If I’d done that, the major would have broken.”
“Then you could have shown Rhonda for the singles.”
And earned the animosity of every other owner or handler who’d brought a Bichon to the show that day, all of them praying that the major would hold. Besides, if Bertie had shown Rhonda for the singles and, presumably, sent me into the ring with the other bitch, the major would have held. Any way you looked at this, it was a no-win situation.
“I’m sorry about the way things turned out,” Bertie said gently. “Rhonda has always enjoyed being shown. I had no idea she wouldn’t behave for Melanie. I fully expected her to be as competitive for the major as the other bitch was.”
“I don’t care what your intentions were,” Jean said, scowling. “The end result was that you turned Rhonda into a laughingstock. Nobody who saw her show today will ever be able to take her seriously again. Did you hear what the judge said? He asked if this was her first show. Her first show! My God, this bitch has been to the national specialty!”
Oh, for Pete’s sake, I thought. These two really needed to get a grip. Nobody was going to penalize Rhonda in the future for the way she’d behaved today. Chances were, nobody was even going to remember. Jean and Mike had so much emo
tion invested in Rhonda’s career they weren’t even thinking clearly.
“Look at it this way,” said Bertie. “Now that Benton’s bitch is finished, Rhonda will be my number one project. And with Bucks County and Trenton coming up—”
“You can’t be serious,” said Mike. “After the display you allowed today, you can’t think we’re going to let you continue showing Rhonda. You’re lucky we’re not considering a lawsuit.”
“I’m sorry you feel that way,” Bertie said. There wasn’t much else she could do.
“Yeah, you’ll be sorry, all right,” Jean snapped. “You better believe we’re not going to take this lying down. We’ll get even, just see if we don’t.”
Clasping Rhonda to her bosom, she spun around and stormed away. Mike was glowering at us, his hands clenching and unclenching at his sides. He still looked as if he wanted to hit somebody, but after a moment, he turned and followed his wife.
“Oh, crap,” said Bertie.
My sentiments exactly.
14
“I’m sorry,” I said when Jean and Mike had disappeared from view. “I guess I cost you a client.”
“Don’t apologize.” Bertie’s tone was firm: steel, edged with anger. “None of that was your fault. And clients like that I can do without. Rhonda’s a good bitch, but that doesn’t mean I can leapfrog her ahead of everyone else in my string.
“Besides, I have a responsibility to Benton, too. I’ve been showing his Bichons for three years. Those two just showed up in January. They’ll take Rhonda to another handler and he’ll treat them exactly the same way I did. I didn’t do anything wrong and neither did you.”
I looked at my watch. It was already after two. Aunt Peg had been judging for half an hour. “Are you okay now? Because if you are, I want to get over to the Poodle ring—”
“That’s right, I forgot. Peg’s judging, isn’t she? Go watch and have fun.”
Still I hesitated. “They won’t come back and do something awful, will they?”
“There’s nothing they can do. So their dog lost. It happens. The worst Jean and Mike Azaria can do is fire me, and they’ve already done that.”
The Poodle ring was at the other end of the room. As is often the case with indoor events where space is at a premium, the show’s planners had placed all three Poodle varieties in a ring that was sized for smaller dogs. That wasn’t a problem for the Toys and Minis, but any Standard Poodle class with an entry of more than three or four was going to feel pretty cramped.
By the time I got to the ring, Aunt Peg had finished judging Toys and was midway through her Minis. Sam was sitting ringside in a folding chair. His jacket was slung over the seat beside him, saving it for me. I picked up the jacket and sat down.
“I was beginning to wonder about you.” Sam leaned over and kissed my cheek. “I thought you’d be here a while ago.”
Though I have a cell phone in my car, I almost never turn it on. In this age of instant access, I must be the only person who actually enjoys being out of touch. Sam, who keeps his phone clipped to his belt, can’t understand my reluctance to be ever available. Mostly we avoid a lot of friction by ignoring the issue.
“Traffic,” I said. “And then Bertie grabbed me to help out with Bichons as soon as I came in. How’s Aunt Peg doing?”
“Guess.” Sam grinned.
I didn’t have to. This was my aunt’s sixth judging assignment since she’d gotten her license the previous November. Each time, she’d drawn a good sized entry and done a careful, considerate job of examining the Poodles brought before her.
No judge manages to please every exhibitor (the winners obviously go home in a happier frame of mind than the losers), but the fact that Aunt Peg was willing to discuss her judging after she was finished went a long way toward placating those who’d been hoping for a purple ribbon and left with something less. The losers might not agree with her assessment on that day, but at least they were assured that they hadn’t been the victims of politics or ignorance.
“Ooh.” I gazed into the ring as the Miniature Dog class winners came back to be judged for Winners Dog. “I like that puppy.”
Sam nodded. “Peg did, too. I wouldn’t be surprised if she gives him the points.”
Second guessing the judge from ringside is a favorite spectator sport. Never mind the fact that only the judge gets to actually handle the entries, feeling for correct bone structure and opening the mouth to check the teeth and bite. Everyone sitting outside the ring has an opinion, and most are only too happy to voice it aloud.
Aunt Peg agreed with my choice and put up the Mini puppy I’d been admiring. Not surprising, really, when you consider that she’d been the one to teach me most of what I knew. As her bitches began to file into the ring, Sam and I caught up on what had been happening since we’d last seen each other midweek.
I told him about taking Dox with me to school, about my conversation with Jill Prescott, and about the visit I’d paid that morning to George Firth. Keeping one eye on the action in the ring, Sam nevertheless managed to listen attentively and make appropriate noises in all the right places. Even so, I found myself reluctant to talk about the disturbance on Wednesday night after he’d left.
For one thing, maybe Aunt Peg was right. Maybe all I needed was a good electrician. For another, I didn’t want Sam feeling guilty that he hadn’t spent the night. Our relationship needed to get mended on its own terms, not nudged into place by outside considerations.
The afternoon passed quickly. Sam laughed at my description of Rhonda, the show-beast from hell, and commiserated with me over her owners’ reaction. We argued the merits of the Standard entry, promising ourselves we’d find out later why Aunt Peg hadn’t used an elegant white bitch who looked like a winner from our vantage point. We ate hot dogs smothered in sauerkraut and washed them down with big cups of soda. It was nice not to have to set a good example for a change.
By the time Aunt Peg finished judging Standards, the groups had already started. Three rings near the front of the room had been opened up and joined together to accommodate their needs. Exhibitors and handlers whose dogs hadn’t won their respective breeds were packing up to go home. As Sam and Aunt Peg headed for the big ring where the Sporting Group was in progress, I made a small detour.
Bertie was loading a stack of crates onto a dolly when I reached her setup. “I’m glad I caught you,” I said. “When you handed me that Bichon earlier, I threw my purse into one of your crates.”
Bertie nodded, not surprised. This was a commonplace occurrence, the exhibitor’s version of a low-tech security system. Half the dogs at any given show are snoozing in crates that hold handbags or wallets.
“Which one?”
I had a look, then reached inside a crate that held a Finnish Spitz. My leather purse was tucked beneath the quilted pad he was lying on.
“You’re lucky Gunner didn’t know it was there.” Bertie grinned. “He likes to chew.”
“Thanks. I’ll bear that in mind the next time you give me two and a half seconds to get ready to go in the ring.”
Bertie knew better than to rise to that bait. “I see Sam’s here,” she said instead. “Are you two going out tonight?”
“Not that I know of. We don’t have any plans. Actually I’m leaving here to pick up Davey at Bob’s house.”
“Let me see.” Bertie held her hands out in front of her, palms up, as though she were a scale weighing the options. “Dinner with Sam.” One hand shot up in the air. “Time with the ex.” Her voice, and the other hand, dropped. “Doesn’t look like too hard a decision to me.”
“I knew I shouldn’t have let Frank marry you. You were never this critical before you became my sister-in-law.”
“Sure I was. I just didn’t say so out loud.”
“You’re forgetting something,” I pointed out. “Sam hasn’t asked me to dinner.”
“So ask him.”
“I asked him the other night.” An edge crept into my tone. I hadn’t been
offering dinner at the time, but Bertie didn’t need to hear the specifics. “Now it’s his turn.”
“Fine by me,” Bertie said with all the complacency of a newlywed who was very much in love. “You’re on your own with that mess.”
Apparently so; and I wasn’t getting very far, either. Not only had Sam not brought up the subject of plans for the evening, he continued not to bring it up. As the Sporting group gave way to the Working dogs, I mentioned that I’d be going to Bob’s to pick up Davey after the show. Sam merely grunted in reply.
That mess, indeed. If I hadn’t been too much of a lady, I might have grunted myself. Instead, I moved over to stand beside Aunt Peg and filled her in on my visit with George Firth that morning.
“It doesn’t sound as though he’s about to change his mind,” she said at the end.
“They may have separated a while ago, but he’s still quite angry with Marian. Not entirely without cause, I might add.”
“Oh, pish. That doesn’t give him an excuse to vent his emotions on a poor, helpless puppy. George Firth is an adult, he ought to try acting like one.”
“There’s another problem,” I said. “Even if he did take Dox back, he wouldn’t have any place to keep him. The policy at his condo is no dogs allowed.”
In the ring, the judge moved a Bernese Mountain Dog to the head of the line. Beside me, Aunt Peg frowned. For a moment, I wasn’t sure if the grimace was in response to the judging or George’s lack of responsibility.
“If he doesn’t want the puppy and he won’t sell him back to Marian, then he ought to place him in a good home,” Peg said firmly.
Where the welfare of dogs is concerned, her feelings tend to be black and white. Aunt Peg’s determination to do the best for every canine she comes in contact with doesn’t allow for shades of gray. In any given situation she would opt for happy dogs over happy humans every time.
“At any rate,” I said, “Dox is fine for the time being. And if the problem doesn’t get resolved between now and the auction, Marian can still go and bid on him.”
I turned to have a word with Sam, only to find myself talking to empty space. While I’d been busy with Peg, Sam had disappeared.
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