Beside me, Aunt Peg was smiling contentedly. She’d leapt into the fray twice so far, both times on behalf of motions that had gone on to pass their votes easily. No doubt she was pleased with the way things were proceeding.
“Higher entry fees do make a difference,” Monica was insisting. Most members seemed to join into a discussion when the topic was important to them. Not Monica. She had something to say about everything. “Not everybody who shows dogs is made of money.”
She wasn’t looking at Cy and Barbara, but I got the distinct impression that the comment was aimed in their direction. Neither rose to the bait. Cy was adding sugar to a new cup of coffee; Barbara seemed to be examining the glossy shine on her nails.
“We’re only talking about a dollar or two,” Lydia said reasonably. “Most other clubs in the area have already raised their entry fees and the revenue could make a big difference to us.”
“Unless the higher fees cost us exhibitors,” Penny interjected hotly. “Some of us show dogs on a budget, you know.”
Louis spoke up from the other side of the table. “I think Lydia was merely trying to point out that when handling fees and expenses are taken into account, the entry itself is the least expensive item associated with showing dogs. Perhaps—”
“Perhaps we should make the little guy pay, as usual!”
“Here! Here!” cried Paul Heins. So far, his contributions to the meeting had been limited to those two words.
Louis LaPlante threw up his hands eloquently.
“Penny,” said Lydia, sounding tired. “I think you’ve made your point. Perhaps we’d better table that topic until the next meeting.”
Penny smiled triumphantly. The man seated beside her leaned over and whispered something in her ear. She shook her head impatiently and pushed him away.
Husband and wife, I decided. They had to be. In the way of some long married couples, they had even begun to look alike. Both had brown hair, worn short, and pleasant, if unremarkable, features. Penny wore no make-up; a watch, a plain wedding band, and a simple pair of stud earrings were her only jewelry. The man beside her had on a tie, one of the few in the room. It disappeared down into the neck of a wool vee-neck sweater that creased across the beginnings of a paunch.
“That’s Penny’s husband, Mark,” Aunt Peg leaned over and whispered. “They breed Dobermans.”
“Penny certainly seems to have a lot to say.”
“And none of it useful. If you ask me, the woman is a pain in the butt.”
I swallowed a laugh. Aunt Peg had been raised in gentler times. Coming from her, that was a world class insult.
“You haven’t touched your dessert,” she pointed out.
I shook my head. The mound of ice cream cake roll was now fully melted, which meant that it looked even more revolting than it had when it arrived. By contrast, Aunt Peg’s dessert plate looked as though she’d licked it.
“It’s all yours.”
I leaned back in my chair and crossed my arms over my chest as the meeting limped along. “Unfinished Business” turned into “New Business.” With the club’s show only six weeks away, we got to listen to reports from the various committee heads. Then Lydia announced that on the first Sunday in April she’d be hosting a reception for a former club member who’d moved away, but who was returning to judge in the area that weekend. Yippee.
If I remembered my Robert’s Rules of Order correctly, that meant adjournment was next. And none too soon, either. By now, Alice was probably picturing me dead by the side of the Merrit Parkway. In my brain-numbed state, I wasn’t sure that wasn’t a preferable alternative.
Aunt Peg finished her second piece of cake roll and sighed with satisfaction. I read once that people lose their taste for sweets as they grow older, but not Aunt Peg. If she was running true to form, she had a brownie stashed in her purse for the ride home.
“Do I hear a motion to adjourn?” asked Lydia.
I was so excited, I almost raised my own hand. Luckily, several actual club members quickly filled in. Nine-fifteen, and another twenty minutes to get home. All I could offer was an abject apology and a promise to take Joey the next eight times Alice got stuck. Hopefully, she’d accept.
I pushed back my chair and stood up. Aunt Peg was chatting with Lydia. Briefly I considered kicking the leg of her chair. Unfortunately, good manners won out.
“I’ll pick up your coat,” I said instead.
“Yes dear, go ahead. I’ll be along in a minute.”
I’d heard that before. When Aunt Peg gets going, she’s one of the world’s great talkers. Maybe after I’d gotten her coat, I could bring it back up and drape it over her head.
Joanne Pinkus was standing as well. “I can’t believe he’s doing that in here,” she said, sounding truly disgusted as she gazed across the room.
“Who?” I turned to look. “What?”
“Louis. Smoking that awful pipe. He knows how much everybody hates it.”
Around the table, everyone was packing up. Some, closer to the door, had already left. Sharon, Louis’s wife, was searching the top of the table, pushing aside the bread basket and checking under napkins. I wondered if she was looking for her glasses, which were hanging around her neck. My mother used to do that all the time.
While he waited, Louis had pulled out a meerschaum pipe. He tamped the tobacco in the bowl several times with his thumb, then flicked on a lighter and sucked the flame down through.
“At least he waited until the meeting was finished,” I said.
“He didn’t have any choice about that. Since we’re in a private room, we make our own rules. And pipe smoking is definitely out.”
We moved across the room and joined the crush of people at the top of the stairs. The surprisingly sweet aroma of Louis’s tobacco eddied around us. There were several wrinkled noses and almost as many frowns.
Farther down the steps ahead of us, Louis seemed oblivious. He was talking to a strikingly attractive redhead. I’d noticed her earlier sitting at the table, but she hadn’t had much to say during the meeting. Now, in the crowd on the stairs, she was standing so close to Louis that his lips were almost touching her hair. The pipe smoke didn’t seem to bother her a bit. Several steps back, Louis’s wife trailed along behind.
“Who’s Louis talking to?” I asked Joanne as we began our descent.
“Alberta Kennedy. Everybody calls her Bertie. She’s a handler, or at any rate, she’d like to be.”
“What’s stopping her?”
“Not enough clients. Not the best clients. She hasn’t been at it that long, and she’s still pretty much at the bottom of the heap.”
“She and Louis look like good friends,” I said innocently.
“Bertie’s good friends with anyone she thinks can help her along. If you know what I mean.”
It wasn’t hard to figure out. Tall and curvy, Bertie was dressed in a clinging blue silk jumpsuit whose low vee-neck accentuated two of her best features. Her shoulder length auburn hair was layered becomingly around a face that Botticelli could have painted—porcelain skin, full red lips and luminous green eyes. God had given this woman a plenitude of assets and when she pressed herself against Louis’s arm as she leaned across him to take her wrap from the coat check, I realized she wasn’t wasting any of them.
“That’s really gross,” Monica said in a loud voice.
I thought she was talking about Bertie and Louis, but when I turned to look, I found her glaring at Barbara Rubicov. Cy had just handed his wife a full length mink he’d retrieved from the coat check.
“I can’t believe anyone would have the nerve to wear a pile of dead skins to a dog club meeting.”
“Oh be quiet, Monica,” said Bertie. Her voice, like the rest of her, was soft and pleasing. “You’re probably just jealous because you can’t afford a fur.”
“I don’t want a fur!” Monica snapped. “Unless it’s attached to a live animal where it belongs.”
Cy linked his arm though his wife
’s. For a moment, I thought the two of them would simply sweep past Monica as though she didn’t exist. But Barbara was made of sterner stuff.
“This coat is made of ranch mink,” she said in a loud voice. “The animals were bred and raised for that purpose, much like the cow that provided the steak you ate tonight.”
“But ...” Monica sputtered. “There’s a difference!”
“There’s no difference,” Barbara said complacently. “Except in the minds of ill-intentioned trouble makers like yourself.”
“Good for you!” Louis muttered under his breath. Sharon, now beside him, jabbed him in the ribs. Heads held high, Cy and Barbara left the restaurant. Never a dull moment indeed.
I got in line and by the time I had our coats, Aunt Peg had appeared. We walked outside together. The night air was crisp and cold. I could smell the water of Long Island Sound, less than a dozen yards away beyond the parking lot.
“There now,” said Aunt Peg. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”
“Compared to elective surgery, possibly not. That doesn’t mean it’s something I’d like to do on a regular basis.”
“Oh pish. That’s just because you don’t know anyone yet. Once you get involved ...”
I’d probably want to strangle myself.
“Be honest,” I said. “You can’t tell me you think of those people as friends.”
“Well, maybe not all of them.”
I harrumphed softly under my breath. Aunt Peg has good ears. She probably would have caught that if a chorus of loud, keening howls hadn’t suddenly filled the air.
“Good Lord!” I said, the hair standing up on the back of my neck. “What is that? Did somebody run over a dog?”
“Beagles.” Aunt Peg frowned. “They make a frightful noise when they’re excited.”
“Excited? It sounds like they’re being tortured.”
As I spoke, a pair of the small tricolor hounds came flying around the end of the row of parked cars. Both wore sturdy leather leashes and they were dragging club secretary Monica Freedman in their wake. All three passed through a circle of light from the overhead beams, then disappeared into the next row. The Beagles had their noses pressed to the cold macadam. In hot pursuit of leftovers no doubt.
“Don’t tell me Monica brought those dogs with her again,” Lydia said, coming up behind us.
“I’m afraid so.” Peg shook her head. “Why on earth she’d think they’d want to spend all night waiting for her in the van is beyond me.”
“You’d think they’d get cold,” I said.
Aunt Peg gestured toward a minivan parked at the end of the row. “This time of year, she’s got all sorts of blankets in there. That car is a dog mobile.”
As if hers wasn’t.
“I just hope she’s cleaning up after them,” Lydia said critically. “This club doesn’t need to get any grief because her dogs left a mess behind in the parking lot.”
We reached Aunt Peg’s station wagon and stopped.
“Two weeks?” Lydia said to Aunt Peg. “Same place? Same time? One final meeting of the committee heads and the show should be all set.”
“Right,” said Peg. “I’ll be here.”
The howling had tapered off. Now it rose once again to a new crescendo. The sound had all the appeal of a banshee screeching in the wind. Tiny hairs kept bristling at my nape.
Imagine, they got to do this all over again in just two weeks. And I thought school teachers had all the fun.
Six
That weekend the weather finally broke. For the first time since mid-January, the thermometer climbed high enough to awaken hopes that spring might actually be on the way. The snow in our yard turned to slush and then mud. Davey and Faith loved it. Speaking as the floor washer, dog groomer, and the one who did the laundry, I was somewhat more ambivalent.
Saturday morning, Davey and Faith were outside playing hide-and-seek, my son’s favorite game. With the puppy for a playmate, the exercise has a whole new wrinkle. Davey hides, and Faith seeks. This saves me all kinds of time. As a mother who’s mislaid her son in more situations than she cares to count, being excluded from the challenge is positively gratifying.
I opened the back door and stuck my head out. “Want to go to the park? It’s much too nice a day to spend sitting around here.”
“Yea!” cried Davey. “Can Faith come, too?”
“Of course.” Faith was a member of the family now. It hadn’t occurred to me to leave her behind. Too bad Sam was in the middle of a week long jaunt to London, otherwise we could have invited him as well.
“How about Joey Brickman?”
“Let’s make a call and see.”
Alice, Joey’s mother, had not only forgiven my tardiness Tuesday evening, she’d understood. The woman was a saint. Then again, she’d been coping for years with a husband who worked all hours at a law firm in Greenwich. She was used to dealing with the temporally challenged.
What she wasn’t used to dealing with was chicken pox. Joey’s little sister, Carly, had them and was thoroughly miserable.
“No problem,” I said. Davey and Joey had gone through a bout together two years earlier. “I’ll pick Joey up and he can spend the day here. The night too, if you like.”
“No, just the day would be great. Joe should be home later.”
Joe was her husband. Neither one of us mentioned that it was Saturday, when most fathers were home all day.
“You’re a lifesaver,” Alice said gratefully.
“Just call me Supermom.” I laughed at my own joke. So far, my motherhood skills seemed to consist mainly of the muddling through variety. Fortunately, that didn’t make me any different than most of the other mothers I knew.
I loaded dog and child into the Volvo and we swung by the Brickmans’ to pick up Joey. Alice waved from the door as Joey came tearing down the walk. He threw open the back door and flung himself onto the seat like Rambo on a terrorist raid.
Faith yelped and hopped up to join me on the front seat. I didn’t blame her a bit. That boy must watch too many cartoons.
“Seat belt,” I said.
He was already reaching around to strap up.
“Check out the odometer,” Davey told his friend proudly. Cars are his passion. Everything about them fascinates him. “Pretty soon, it’s going to be all zeros.”
“What’s a ’dometer?” asked Joey. He had a thatch of dark curly hair, freckles everywhere, and he’d recently lost his first tooth.
Davey showed him where to look as I pulled away from the curb. I’d pointed out the day before that the meter was approaching all nines and Davey was delighted with his new knowledge. “That’s how you measure how many miles your car has gone.”
“Cool.” Joey looked at the large number. “How many is that?”
“Ninety-nine, ninety-nine hundred,” Davey said importantly. “Pretty soon it’s going to say a hundred thousand.”
Actually he’d missed a digit. It was going to say two hundred thousand. But who was counting? Probably just me, and the happy mechanic we all but kept on retainer down at Joe’s European Motor Cars.
“Wow,” said Joey. “Way cool.”
Way cool. Are five year olds easy, or what?
Apparently I wasn’t the only mother who thought the park would be a good idea on a beautiful early spring day. When we arrived, the playground area was filled with children. Almost immediately, Davey and Joey were drawn into a boisterous game of freeze tag, whose sound effects had all the resonance of heavy artillery.
I found a bench in the sun and sat down to watch. Faith hopped up and draped her front paws across my legs. At forty plus pounds, she still thinks of herself as a lap dog.
I threaded my fingers in behind her ear and scratched her favorite spot. The puppy danced happily in place. Poodles are generally very well behaved. Their main ambition is to please their people, which makes them a delight to live with. Faith was still at the stage, however, where a puppy’s exuberance often outweighed common s
ense—and things like putting two big muddy paws into someone’s lap could seem like a good idea.
Since she was there anyway, I ran my fingers through her neck hair, checking for mats. At ten months, Faith’s thick black coat was growing rapidly; and to create maximum effect in the show ring, she’d need every inch. The hair on the top of her head and the back of her neck had never been cut, but it would still take another year for her to grow out a full show coat. During that time, the hair was washed and conditioned, then either banded or wrapped to keep it out of the way.
Faith lifted her nose into the wind, wuffing softly. I tickled beneath her chin and her tail wagged slowly from side to side. Before Aunt Peg had given us Faith, I’d never pictured myself as a dog lover; now I couldn’t imagine the family without her.
“Hey Mom!” cried Davey. “Look at this!”
He was hanging upside down by his knees from the highest bar on the playground apparatus. As if that wasn’t exciting enough, he had Joey pushing him so that he swung wildly from side to side.
“Very nice,” I called back.
One thing I have to say for motherhood. It has given me nerves of steel. After five years with Davey, almost nothing fazes me. Threats to life and limb are commonplace; anything less serious I scarcely notice.
I leaned back against the bench, closed my eyes and turned my face up into the sun. Faith was warm and heavy in my lap and the sound of children’s laughter filled the air. When I was younger, I’d dreamed of this. I’d pictured myself right here—a working mother who was busy but very content, watching her children at the playground on a Saturday afternoon. This was where I’d thought I was heading when I married Bob.
Too bad I was wrong.
Bob and I met while we were in college, stayed together through graduate school, and then married almost immediately thereafter. Two incomes enabled us to swing the house. Bob mowed the lawn; I cooked the meals. Sometimes after dinner we’d hold hands like teenagers and walk around the neighborhood; more often, we’d hold hands and not go anywhere at all.
Bob worked in White Plains and I started part-time at a school in Stamford. I had visions of the two of us growing old together like Ozzie and Harriet. In my case, it turned out that love was not only blind, it was deluded as well.
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