Must Love Dogs: New Leash on Life (9 page)

Scratch the surface and the
Gamiacs were like lumps of clay, soft and malleable. Maybe deep down inside we were all still in our formative years. Maybe it was never too late for any of us to change.

Chapter

Twelve

The door to John's office was closed.

I slipped a dog puppet over my index finger and knocked.

There was a beat of silence, followed by a businesslike "come in."

I opened the door a crack and wiggled my finger puppet through it.
"Ruh-oh," I said in my best imitation of Scooby Doo. "You're mad at me because I didn't call you back last night, right?"

I jumped as the door swung open to reveal the woman from the elevator smiling at me from about a foot away. Her teeth were flawless.

"Hey," she said. "You again. I'm Keli. With one
l
. And an
i
."

"Sarah. One
r
. One
h
." I shook my hand like a tambourine. "And one puppet."

"I love puppets. Except for the kind with the strings."

"
Marionettes," I said.

"
That's a cute name," she said. "Mine was Flossie. Like dental floss. But I think I gave her the name after I got rid of her." She turned to look over her shoulder. "What year was dental floss invented, Johnny?"

She flipped her hair as she turned to him. John Anderson shrugged and shook his head.

"He'll think of it. He knows everything." Keli giggled. "He reads every big boring book he can get his hands on. And don't ever get him talking about old pinball machines." She crossed her eyes and somehow managed to still look adorable.

I didn
't know where to look, so I focused on the puppet. You knew what you were getting with a puppet.

"
Hey," Keli with one
l
and an
i
said. "I've got an idea. Let's go out to lunch. Or we could work first and then have drinks. There's a new bistro down the street with super cute guys."

When I realized she was talking to me, I gave John a quick glance, but he was busy rearranging some mechanical pencils in a holder on his desk.
"Thanks so much," I said, "but I think I might already have plans."

Keli
flipped her hair and looked over her shoulder again. "Johnny?"

He glanced up.
"Thanks, but I've already met my quota of super cute guys for the week."

Keli
giggled. "Actually, I think I might already have plans, too. Maybe they're the same plans and we'll see each other there. Or we can do it next time."

The Mom Alert buzzer went off on her phone. She sighed, reached into her purse, made it stop.

She turned back to me. "It could be the grocery store. Do you shop at the Trader Joe's down the street from my tennis lessons?"

"
Possibly," I said. "Hey, don't you think you should have answered that? It might be important."

She rolled her eyes.
"With my mother, it's never important. Wait, I completely forgot I brought a present for my boyfriend."

John Anderson and I looked at each other across the long e
xpanse of quiet office. I swallowed back another
ruh-oh
.

Keli
pulled a professionally wrapped present out of her purse, stretched sexily as she handed it to him.

"
Thank you," John said.

"
You're welcome. I hope the big guy likes it."

For a split second half of my brain thought
Keli was referring to John's penis. This was the half that wasn't still trying to figure out
boyfriend
. In my defense, I'd grown up with three brothers who all had names for their penises. If you put
the big guy
next to
Duckie
or
Mr. Murphy
, it wouldn't even stand out all that much.

"
Uh-oh," Keli said. "I just remembered I have lunch plans. Maybe I'll see you there."

"
Thanks again," John said as he closed the door behind her.

Silence filled the room.

"The big guy?" I said casually.

John shrugged.
"What can I say? The two of them have a bit of a love fest going on."

"
Excuse me?"

"
They've only met a few times, but she's always buying him little presents."

Presents? What do you even buy for a penis? A scarf? Or ma
ybe some variation on those knitted nose warmers from the '80s?

John put the package next to his messenger bag.
"I guess I'd better wait and let Horatio open it."

"
Horatio," I repeated.

"
Seriously?" John Anderson said as we strolled down the street. "You did speed dating with puppets?"

"
Ha," I said. "Genius, if I do say so myself. But the finger puppets were your idea, so I'm willing to split the credit right down the middle. Anyway, we were a bit short on girls, but I don't think anybody really noticed. And it was actually more like speed pre-dating, though I'm happy to report that lunch plans were in fact made by the end of the session."

It was a gray murky day. The temperature was climbing and the air was sticky and getting stickier. John and I walked toward the restaurants that clumped around the square. We were going through all the conversational motions, but we didn
't hold hands. Awkwardness hung over us like a rain cloud threatening to let loose any minute. Had my not calling him back last night made him pull away from me? Or maybe it was Keli. I wasn't stupid. I mean, what woman buys presents for a guy's dog unless she has ulterior motives? She was too young for him. I hoped he knew that. And at the risk of being unkind, my first impression was that she wasn't the brightest crayon in the box.

I stopped to swing my shoulder bag up a little higher on my shoulder. It seemed way too big today, like a neon billboard flas
hing:
Toiletries inside! And a fresh change of underwear!
The thing about being in the city without a car was that you had to carry everything with you. If I were back in the 'burbs where I belonged, my car would be close by and my bag would be in it. That way if it turned out I didn't actually need it for an overnight, no one would have to know I'd even brought it with me. A car was a sidekick, always waiting nearby, Tonto to your Lone Ranger. A car was a security blanket. The city separated you from it, exposed you, made you vulnerable.

"Here, let me take that." When John reached for my shoulder bag, our hands touched and sparks flew. Whether the sparks were caused by static electricity or love or the uncertainty I'd been feeling since I watched Keli wiggle her butt out of John's office, I wasn't sure. 

Our eyes met. He was such a nice guy. Sweet. Fun. Smart. Generous. Gainfully employed.
Healthy as a horse. And far more patient than I had any right to expect him to be.  I should have called him back last night. Actually, I shouldn't have. I should have talked to him when he called. I could have closed the door of Michael's 4Runner and had the conversation right there. Michael was a grown man. He could have messed up things with Phoebe all by himself. And then once John and I had finished our conversation, I could have picked up the pieces. It wasn't like I had to turn my back on my brother in his time of need. I just had to balance things a little better.

"
Hey," I said. "Do you want to skip the restaurant and just grab a pizza and take it back to your place?"

"
It tastes so much better this way," I said. I reached across John's naked body for another piece of pizza.

He laughed.
"It's all about working up an appetite. Red pepper flakes?"

"
No thanks. You were hot enough."

He laughed again, put the jar of red pepper flakes down on his bedside table,
slid a little closer to me. It wasn't the world's best line, but it was pretty flirtatious if I did say so myself. In a relaxed, carefree kind of way.
Insouciant
came back to me from my college French class of a zillion years ago.
Sarah est une jeune fille insouciante
. Maybe I could find a way to slip it into the conversation. Although I guess I'd have to upgrade it from
Sarah is a carefree young girl
to
Sarah is a carefree no longer young woman
. I took a bite of my pizza, put it down on my paper plate on the bedside table. Reached for my seltzer.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw John glance over at his be
dside clock.

"
Am I boring you?" slipped out of my mouth. So much for carefree.

John sighed.
"I was just thinking about Horatio. I'm sure he'll be fine though. He's usually at puppy play care later than this anyway."

I swallowed back my own sigh. Horatio was a dog. I loved dogs. Ergo, eventually I would come to love Horatio, too. Of course, it would be helpful if he
'd stop trying to chew me to pieces, but I had skills. I'd worked with some difficult preschool students over the years, and come to think of it, some of them were biters, too. A combination of redirection, and firm, consistent time-outs usually did the trick. And just for the record, no matter how tempted you are and what the old wives' tales say, biting back doesn't work. It only reinforces the inappropriate behavior. And makes you look like an idiot.

I reached for my pizza and took another bite. Then I leaned over and hoisted my shoulder bag up onto the bed and started rummaging for the T-shirt and yoga pants I
'd buried in there.

"
Do you have somewhere you have to be?" John asked.

I smiled.
"I was just thinking maybe we could go get Horatio."

His face lit up.

The sun had come out, and while there wasn't actually a breeze, leafy green trees lined the sidewalks and acted a little bit like beach umbrellas. The tall buildings created more shade. The sidewalks bustled with sweaty people who had places to go and things to do. Maybe they were picking up their dogs early today, too. Or even their kids.

"
I've been doing some research," John said as we walked hand-in-hand to puppy play care, "and apparently Horatio sees you as a threat to his place in the pack."