by Sue Pethick
“Everyone’s a critic,” Nathan said, as he mopped up the spill.
Jennifer smiled. “This has been lovely, Nate. Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
She looked down at the table. “I feel like I should ask you back to the room, but …”
“It’s okay,” he said, taking her hand. “You need this time to concentrate on Boomer. There’ll be time for us later.”
“Thank you.”
“Unless,” he said, smiling. “You’ve changed your mind.”
She shook her head.
“No, actually. I haven’t. I just thought I should say something after you set all this up.”
They put Boomer back on his lead and headed out to the truck.
“Oops, I almost forgot,” Nathan said as Jennifer put Boomer inside. “Hold on, I’ll be right back.”
He ran back across the parking lot and ducked into the restaurant to talk to the manager.
“We had a great time,” he said. “Thank you all again.”
The man nodded graciously. “Of course. It was our pleasure.”
“I was wondering,” Nathan said. “If I give you my e-mail address, would you mind sending me a copy of that video? We didn’t think to take one of our own.”
“Nice try, buddy,” the manager snapped. “Go take your own damned video.”
CHAPTER 22
When Jennifer got up the next morning, Boomer was still asleep on the bed—something that hadn’t happened since that first morning in Joliet. Seeing him lying motionless on the bed brought on a fresh flood of anxiety, something that was never far away in spite of Nathan’s advice not to worry. Was Boomer just sleeping off last night’s meal, or was something more serious going on?
She crept quietly out of bed and started getting dressed. After their visit to the Round Barn yesterday, this was supposed to be a “fun” day with Nathan in charge, but perhaps it’d be better if the three of them just took it easy. Last night’s dinner had been pretty special, after all, and Nathan was the one who’d convinced her not to try and squeeze excitement out of every second of the trip. Two low-key days in a row would be no big deal.
By the time she was ready, Boomer had roused himself and jumped down from the bed.
“Good morning, sleepyhead,” she said, watching him saunter toward the bathroom. “I certainly hope you’re not thinking of drinking from that toilet.”
He made a quick course correction and headed for his water bowl. Jennifer smiled.
“No, I didn’t think you were.”
There was a knock at the door.
“That must be Nate.”
Jennifer opened the door and her breath caught in her throat. Standing there in jeans and a body-hugging T-shirt, his hair still damp from a morning shower, Nathan looked good enough to eat. Impulsively, she leaned forward and kissed him.
“Wow. Can I go away and come back again?”
“Don’t be greedy,” she said, stepping back from the door.
Boomer had finished his drink and was coming toward Nathan, his tail sweeping side to side, his entire body signaling a warm, if somewhat subdued welcome. Nathan bent over and started beating a firm tattoo on his side.
“You guys ready to have some fun today? I found a great place for us to go.”
“I don’t know,” Jennifer said. “Boomer seems kind of tired. I was thinking maybe we’d just take it easy.”
“Oh, Mom,” Nathan whined. “Don’t be a buzzkill.”
She smiled, looked away, and thought about what he’d said. Was she being a buzzkill? Back in Illinois, she’d been ready to go home, thinking that she and Boomer would never be able to do anything that was special on their trip. If it had been up to her, the two of them would be back at home now, and she’d be sitting the deathwatch. Instead, Boomer had visited farm animals in Missouri, judged a dog show in Oklahoma, and even had dinner at a Texas steak house. If Nathan had been right about those things, maybe he was right about this, too.
“All right,” she said. “Let’s go have some more fun.”
*
“A squeaky-toy factory?” Jennifer said when they were finally on the road. “How on earth did you find out about that?”
Nathan was in the passenger seat, looking at the brochure he’d been given at the motel.
“The desk clerk told me about it. They give tours every day at eleven and two. I figure if we stop in Tucumcari for lunch, we’ll get to Santa Rosa just in time for the second tour.”
“And you’re sure Boomer can go in with us?”
“That’s what the man said.”
She looked at Boomer in the rearview mirror. He wasn’t sitting up with his nose out the window like usual, just lying quietly on the seat with his head hanging over the edge. The same uneasiness she’d felt when she woke up began to creep over her again.
“Does he look okay to you?” she said.
Nathan took a quick glance over his shoulder and shrugged.
“Sure, why?”
“I don’t know. I just hope that steak wasn’t too rich for him.”
“He’s fine, Jen. I promise you. Can’t a guy take a break without everybody freaking out?”
She nodded. “I’m sure you’re right. Sorry. How’s the writing coming along?”
“Hmm? Oh, fine. Just, you know, knocking out the words.”
He seemed distracted, and Jennifer decided not to say any more. God knows, she didn’t like having people ask her how things were going when she was in the middle of a project at work.
“The scenery out here is so beautiful,” she said. “The plateaus in the distance are really interesting.”
Nathan folded up the map.
“High plains,” he said. “Most of New Mexico is dry and high.”
She nodded. “I used to travel a lot when I was modeling and I thought I knew what the country looked like. Taking this trip, though, I realize what a small part of it I’d actually seen. It’s just … vast.”
He looked at her.
“Can I ask you something? If you don’t want to tell me, it’s okay.”
“Oh, boy. Here it comes.” She laughed. “All right, what is it?”
“Why is it that beautiful women always act as if they don’t know how good-looking they are?”
Jennifer threw him a sidelong glance.
“Are we talking about me?”
“See there? You just proved my point. How about a serious answer?”
She sighed and pretended to think about the question, but she was stalling for time. The fact was, Jennifer had asked herself the same question many times over the years. Why did a compliment always trigger an automatic denial? She’d seen other women do it and had done it herself so many times it was almost a physical reflex.
“It’s not as easy to be a good-looking woman as you might think.” She rolled her eyes. “I know, ‘Waa, waa, poor me,’ but it’s true. Other women don’t like you, for one thing, so you get a lot of nastiness for something you can’t really help. Plus, there’s this pressure not to do anything else with your life because then you’re taking something away from a not-so-great-looking woman. Somehow, just winning the good looks lottery is supposed to be enough.”
“You’ve already gotten more than your fair share.”
“Exactly. The only thing you’re allowed to do is be beautiful. The problem is, if you play along then once that’s gone, you lose everything.”
Nathan considered that.
“Yeah, but at least you’re never lonely. Not many gorgeous women sitting home alone on Saturday nights.”
“You’d be surprised,” she said. “Most of the men I meet are too intimidated to ask me out, and the ones who do are generally looking for someone to make them look important to other men. God help you if you get tired of being someone’s arm candy.”
He gave that some thought.
“Did you always know you were beautiful?”
“God, no. When I was fourteen, I was the ugliest girl on the pl
anet. Five foot nine and not much over a hundred pounds with buck teeth and a rat’s nest for hair. I was so skinny that if I put my ankles together a weaner piglet could run between my thighs.”
Nathan made a face. “I don’t believe that.”
“It’s true,” she said. “Luckily, we couldn’t afford a lot of mirrors or I’d have had terrible self-esteem.”
“What saved you? Besides the lack of mirrors, that is.”
“My dad,” she said. “He told me I was the prettiest girl in the world, and even though I didn’t really believe him, I knew he wasn’t a liar, either.”
“So, what turned the ugly duckling into a beautiful swan?”
“Victor Otchenko—Vic Ott to you. I was looking for a summer job and he’d put an ad in the local paper for people to give out handbills. He said I had potential.”
“What did your father think of that?”
“Not much, but he died a few months later and we were desperate for money. Vic convinced my mother to sign a contract making him my manager and started grooming me—literally—for a modeling career. The hair, the teeth … he fixed everything. In many ways, I’m still grateful to him for that. Which is a good thing, since it made it easier to pay him all that alimony when we divorced.”
“Yikes.”
“He’s remarried now.” She smiled. “I was tempted to send his wife a thank-you card on their anniversary.”
*
They arrived in Santa Rosa with ten minutes to spare. As they drove through the town, Jennifer marveled at the number of lakes there were in the area.
“It’s like an oasis in the desert.”
“That’s exactly what it is,” Nathan told her. “The ground underneath us is limestone, which is essentially sand that’s been packed together into rock. When water trickles through it, the rock starts to break down, leaving gaps that fill with water. If the ground above gets thin enough, you get a sinkhole and the water fills it up. Voilà, you have a lake.”
“Too bad the weather isn’t better,” she said. “I’ll bet Boomer would love to get out and play in the water.”
“Maybe, if we’d been here in the summer, but it’s too cold now. Besides, we have something even better to do.” He pointed. “And there it is.”
The toy factory was in a nondescript building on the outskirts of town. Other than a small hand-lettered sign, there was nothing to indicate that it was a manufacturing facility at all. Jennifer parked her truck near the front door, and the three of them got out.
“Are you sure this is the right place?” she said.
“According to the brochure, it is.”
They opened the front door and stepped into a room not much larger than Jennifer’s closet at home. Inside were two chairs upholstered in pea-green Naugahyde, a plastic Parsons table, and a water cooler. On the left was another door and what looked like a fast-food drive-up window. As the door closed behind them, a buzzer sounded. A few seconds later, a teenaged girl appeared at the window.
“Can I help you?”
“Yes,” Nathan said. “We’re here to take the tour.”
Her eyes widened.
“Really? Oh, hey. That’s cool. Hold on a second, I’ll get one of the guys to show you around.”
Jennifer turned and gave Nathan a skeptical look.
“Two tours a day?”
“I’m just going by what the brochure says. I can’t be held responsible for false advertising.”
She heard a key in the lock, and the door on their left swung open. A small Hispanic man stood there, looking as pleased and surprised to see them as the girl had. The embroidered patch on his shirt said Isidro.
“You come for the tour?” he said.
Jennifer nodded. “Yes, if it’s not too much trouble.”
“Oh, no trouble. Come in, come in. Welcome.”
As he turned and led the way inside, Jennifer looked back at Nathan.
“I don’t know about this.”
“Oh, go on,” he said, giving her a push. “It’s a fun day, remember?”
They proceeded into a large metal building with high ceilings, concrete floors, and little or no insulation. Small dark-haired women sat at long rows of wooden tables, bundled against the cold. Some were sewing pieces of brightly colored cloth together; others stuffed the sewn-together pieces with foam and the plastic squeakers that would make noise when chewed or shaken. It wasn’t a sweatshop, exactly, but Jennifer couldn’t help thinking how tedious it must be to sit at those tables day after day.
Isidro, however, didn’t seem the least bit troubled, and as they walked past, he proudly pointed out the design area, the cutting tables, and the bolts of material that would be made into items shipped to happy dogs all over the world. Thinking of the pile of toys that Boomer had stashed away at home made Jennifer smile. Maybe the women here thought of the dogs that would be receiving their handiwork, she thought. If they did, perhaps the work itself didn’t seem so bad.
As they passed from the assembly room to the packing and shipping area, the teenage girl they’d seen up front joined them. She seemed keen on inserting herself into the tour and interrupted Isidro several times to ask them where they’d been and where they were planning to go next. Jennifer found the girl’s questions annoying, but Nathan seemed to have an infinite supply of patience and Boomer was enjoying the pats and compliments the girl lavished on him. She decided that the best thing to do was to just keep her answers short and get through the tour as quickly as possible. Unless something spectacular happened soon, though, this was not going to qualify as a “fun” tour.
Isidro was pointing out the huge bins of finished toys waiting to be packed into boxes, when the girl asked if she could give Boomer a toy. Jennifer nodded curtly.
“What kind’s his favorite?” she asked.
Seeing that Jennifer was weary of the girl’s incessant badgering, Nathan stepped into the breach.
“He likes cars,” he said. “I think he has a Lightning McQueen at home.”
“Oh, we make a car that looks just like Lightning McQueen,” she said. “Here, I’ll get one for you.”
Before Jennifer could object, the girl had grabbed Boomer’s leash from Nathan and ran with him toward a bin full of thousands of red race cars.
“Hey!”
“No worries,” the girl said. “I’ll bring him right back.”
Nathan placed a hand on Jennifer’s shoulder.
“It’s okay, we’re inside. They’re not going anywhere.”
Isidro frowned as the girl got on tiptoe and reached for a toy.
“Cuidado!” he warned. Be careful!
“You want a car, Boomer?” the girl said. “I’ll get you one.”
Grabbing the side of the bin, she leaped up to get a toy car.
“Oops!”
The bin overturned, sending a tsunami of toy cars tumbling onto the packing-room floor. Boomer dove into the pile, grabbing the toy cars one by one and shaking them violently.
“Look at him go!” Nathan yelled. “He’s in dog toy heaven.”
The sound of squeaky toys being stepped on, shaken, and dropped echoed through the metal building, increasing Boomer’s frenzy. Nathan was howling with laughter, as were several of the other employees, but Jennifer could only titter nervously. It wasn’t like Boomer to attack his toys so violently. He might be having a good time, but he was making a mess, and the toys he was savaging would be too damaged to sell. They needed to get him out of there before he ruined the whole batch. She hurried forward, hoping to get things under control.
The overturned bin had been righted and Isidro was waving his arms, trying to keep Boomer away from the undamaged toys as the other workers scooped them up. Jennifer waded into the sea of red cars and retrieved the dog’s leash, then tugged him out of the fray. Boomer’s sides were heaving; he seemed to be gasping for breath. She checked his mouth and felt a shock when she saw the blue tinge on his gums. As she lifted her head to tell Nathan, Jennifer caught a glimpse of
the girl who’d overturned the bin, sliding a cell phone into her pocket.
What the hell is going on?
“Let’s get out of here,” she said.
Nathan sobered quickly.
“Why? What’s the matter?”
“I’m not sure, but Boomer looks bad. I’ll put him back in the truck while you ask Isidro what the damage is. After that, we’re out of here.”
CHAPTER 23
Black clouds hung like funeral bunting overhead, the bleak gray sky reflecting Nathan’s inner turmoil as he drove determinedly to Albuquerque. A storm that had been brewing in the west, dumping a foot of snow in the Sierras and torrential rains across northern Arizona, was about to overtake New Mexico. The sooner the three of them got to their motel, he thought, the better.
Jennifer had her face turned away from him, staring out her window. The two of them hadn’t said much since stopping for dinner, but Nathan knew she hadn’t forgiven him for the disaster at the toy factory. He’d resisted the idea for the better part of an hour, but finally admitted to himself that it had been his fault. He might not have known that things would get out of hand, but when they did, he’d done nothing to intervene. He should have kept a tighter hand on Boomer’s leash; he should have stopped the girl when he saw her trying to climb up into the bin; and most of all, he shouldn’t have laughed. If he hadn’t, he thought, Jennifer might not be so angry.
He still wasn’t convinced, however, that Boomer had been in any danger.
In spite of Jennifer’s insistence that there was a blue tinge to the dog’s gums, no one else had seen it, and Nathan suspected that it was fear that had caused her to imagine she had. She’d taken only the briefest of glances before declaring that Boomer’s gums were blue, after all, and it wasn’t easy seeing into a dog’s mouth without a flashlight. Given that Boomer had been breathing hard and that Jennifer was always thinking about the vet’s warning, it would have been easy for her to see something that wasn’t there.
