Wrapped Up in Crosswords (11 page)

“Bones? What happened to the traditional ‘men'?”

Belle held up the cutter. “I only bought one cookie shape. I considered getting one shaped like a Christmas tree, but then I thought, what would a dog do with a tree?”

“I can only imagine.” Rosco then nodded thoughtfully. “And how, may I ask, were you intending on separating Winston's, or rather Bartholomew's, gift bones from my bones—the ones I might find edible?”

“I hadn't gotten that far yet,” Belle admitted.

This time it was Rosco who chortled. “That's one of my favorite things about you … dining is always an adventure.” He gave her another tender kiss, but the loving moment was interrupted by the arrival of Kit, who jumped up and placed her white forepaws defiantly on the kitchen counter and then leveled a solemn gaze upon Rosco and Belle. The dog's black and brown muzzle was covered with white feathers; there were more stuck to the top of her head and a few pasted wetly above each eye, where they gave the impression of bushy eyebrows.

Belle gasped; she tried not to smile. “You don't suppose she's trying to emulate your Santa wig and beard, do you?”

The woof that greeted this comment was clearly one of disdain. Even the humans couldn't mistake its intent.

“I thought she'd outgrown her puppy chewing stage,” Rosco observed.

“Seems more like payback time to me,” was Belle's resigned response. “Maybe she's mad because Gabby had all the adventures today.”

“Or perhaps she's annoyed at you for cooking up a batch of treats for another dog?”

“But I'm planning to make more for their—”

Kit interrupted by woofing briskly again; then she charged into the living room with Belle and Rosco on her heels. There, a scene of almost comical destruction greeted the humans. Feathers clung to every object as if purposely attached with glue: A lamp shade was speckled with small plumes of white; the couch and chair looked as though they were about to sprout wings; the hooked rug had an unusual downy finish; even the ceiling was daubed with snow-colored tufts.

“This can't be the result of tearing apart a single pillow,” Belle said, while Rosco's sole comment was a scientific:

“Talk about a lot of static electricity. It's amazing; the feathers are almost perfectly spaced throughout the room. How'd she do that?”

Kit barked in annoyance again, then raced upstairs and flew back down again, a fresh and as yet undefiled pillow clenched in her jaws.

“Kitty, no! Bad girl! Give me that,” Belle ordered, but Rosco had begun to laugh.

“I'd say you're going to need to make Kit's days a heck of a lot more entertaining when Gabby spends her time with me. Maybe the sedentary life of a crossword editor—”

“Rosco! This isn't funny!”

“Actually, it
is
pretty comical. Look at this room. It's like the inside of a chicken coop.”

But Belle remained unamused. “This is a serious regression on Kit's part. Remember my beautiful red shoes—”

He corrected her. “
Shoe,
not shoes. It was only
one
red shoe. As I recall, she only liked to munch on a single piece of your footwear at a time.”

Belle frowned as she removed the pillow from Kit's mouth. “I can't imagine what's gotten into her.”

But Rosco was still chuckling. “Maybe she's trying to tell us she'd like a couple of little feathered pals. Is that it, Kitty? Is all this work supposed to be your idea of a message? Are you really a bird dog in disguise?”

Kit's irate and incredulous yap in response to this obviously fatuous query immediately brought Gabby, who sauntered down the stairs with her own contribution to the cause dangling from her mouth.

Belle shook her head. “And this one's taken to chewing paper …”

Rosco ceased his chortling in a trice. “Where did you find that, Gab?” He reached down to retrieve the wet and mangled sheet of paper, and his tone turned severe. “That's a very bad girl.”

Belle glanced at the soggy mess in Rosco's hand. “She got one of my crosswords … but what was she doing with it upstairs?”

Rosco balled up the paper and stuffed it in his pocket. He didn't answer his wife's question as he wracked his brain for a plausible explanation.

“In fact, where did she even
find
the puzzle? I never leave them out …”

“I guess you must have,” Rosco mumbled. “Ahh … wait,” he stammered. “Maybe she pulled it out of your trash can. Yeah, that's it. Then took it upstairs. She's probably had it up there for months … hidden under the bed.”

“Are you suggesting I don't look under the bed for months on end?”

“Well, I sure don't. What's under there, anyway?”

Belle thought for a minute. “Maybe that old hallway runner that was in my dad's apartment?… Or?”

“See.”

By now Kit and Gabby had had enough of this useless human parlay, and they embarked upon their own troubled consultation. Gabby, in full terrier mode, took the lead:

“What now, birdbrain?” she demanded of Kit. “We did everything Winston suggested, and we're in worse shape than we were before. I warned you this wasn't going to—”

“You expressed no concern with our stratagem whatsoever,” Kit barked back. “It seems to me—”

“I did so. And besides, the crossword Rosco made Belle tasted disgusting! I'll be surprised if I don't get lead poisoning!”

“Pencils are made of graphite, nowadays, my dear Gabby. And for your further edification, I had to rip apart an entire pillow. And do it in the few short minutes that the humans were sequestered in the kitchen.”

“It was your featherbrained idea in the first place!”

“Well, you agreed to the ploy!”

“With reservations!”

“Not that you shared with me!”

“I did, too!”

“You did not!”

“Stop it at once, you two,” Belle ordered, while Rosco put his hands to his ears. Then he took his wife's hand and gave it a soothing pat:

“What do you say to a romantic fire in the fireplace, a bottle of chilled white wine—?”

“Accompanied by two yapping canines?” she rejoined.

“Doesn't
quite
rhyme with ‘wine,' but you're close.”

Belle grinned. “I'd say you had an excellent suggestion.”

Rosco also smiled. “Good …”

“Vacuum up our feathered nest now or later?”

“I say let it rest. If the weather's not going to cooperate, this'll be our rendition of a white Christmas.”

“And look at the bright side; it's not going to melt. Ever.”

“How's about you fetching a bottle, corkscrew, and a couple of glasses, while I start the fire?”

“‘Fetch?'” Belle laughed.

“Okay, how about ‘retrieve'?”

As Belle went into the kitchen, Rosco looked at Gabby. Then he pulled the sodden crossword from his pocket, smoothed it as best he could, carefully refolded it, and returned it to his pocket. “That was a naughty girl, Gabsters. You almost ruined my Christmas surprise for Belle. But not to worry; I can still read it well enough to make a copy.”

Gabby whined once, which Rosco assumed was a sign of penitence, but which, in fact, was a display of complete dejection.

“Hooo boy …” she sighed as she curled herself into a small gray ball in front of the hearth.

“Ditto,” Kit groaned while she stretched a feather-filled tummy toward the warming flames. “We're in major trouble now.”

“You're darn tootin', sister.”

This time, Kit didn't bother to correct the puppy's commonplace verbiage. In fact, she realized she was beginning to find such expressions rather refreshing. “Hooo boy …” she also sighed.

“You ain't just whistlin' Dixie, Kitty,” was Gabby's muttered response. “Get ready for the invasion of the lovebirds.”

“At least we're not out in the cold like that stray in the park.”

“Yeah … mutts like that have to eat stuff with beaks and wings for breakfast.”

Kit's stomach rumbled. “Yuuucchhh.”

Thirteen

W
HEN
Stanley Hatch first saw his Secret Santa e-mail from Sara indicating that he'd “drawn” Martha Leonetti, a thud of worry banged across his chest.
Guys are so much easier,
he thought;
tie, work gloves, ski hat, belt, pen and pencil set, socks: the list goes on. A no-brainer.
Aside from Bartholomew, all the men attending the toy-wrapping party stopped into Hatch's Hardware at least once a week over the past year, eying one tool or another. If Stanley didn't know what they had their hearts set on, no one did. And if Hatch's didn't carry what a customer was yearning for, Stanley would hear about it anyway: “Man, I gotta get me a new pair of work boots,” or “They say
The Sopranos
is out on DVD,” or “This wallet's fallin' apart on me.” For the last two months, even Rosco had been yammering about what he was yearning for.
But did he tell Belle?
Stanley wondered.
Probably not.

But a gift for Martha? That was another story.

Ever since his wife had passed away, Stanley had taken to eating his breakfasts at Lawson's, where he enjoyed Martha's lively and often caustic sense of humor and her ability to put the grumpiest customers in their place—and even transform their sour expressions into ones of contentment. Lawson's wouldn't be the same without Martha Leonetti. But what to get her for a gift? Stanley's mind had drawn nothing but blanks, and now he found himself at the worrisome hour of ten A.M. on December twenty-third. The party at White Caps was scheduled to begin at four that afternoon. If he was going to attend, he had only six short hours in which to make his purchase. The predicament made him wonder whether he should skip the entire event. But that would leave Martha without a gift, and Stanley had a hunch she'd be far more hurt than she'd ever admit.

Leaving the hardware store to Will, his longtime assistant, Stanley walked along the sidewalk on his last-minute quest. Ace ambled beside him, sniffing the air in a lackadaisical manner. Dogs, Stanley decided, have an easy time of it during the holidays—gift-giving being totally off their radar screens. As the pair prepared to cross the street, Stan spotted Al Lever and Abe Jones at the far corner. Sensing they might be on the same mission, he turned in the opposite direction. Ace followed, and Stanley looked down and said, “One of those two probably drew me. No point in us peering over their shoulders and making their lives difficult, right, boy?”

Ace had his selective hearing set in full operational mode; he was enjoying the crisp December air too much to bother agreeing or disagreeing.
Besides,
Ace thought,
why would I care what Al Lever is up to? Does he live with a dog? Nooo …

Stanley paused at each and every store window as he strolled along, all the while keeping up a running commentary which he aimed at his four-legged companion. At the pet shop, the observation was, “Huh, how about that, the lovebirds are gone. Not that they were in the budget as a Secret Santa gift … but I bet Martha would have liked them. But maybe, a parakeet …?”

Ace snorted and shook himself. To Stanley, this translated as “Don't bet on it,” and he chuckled.

“Don't think so, huh, buddy? Okay … birds are out.” Stanley walked a few more paces down the block and stopped in front of the jewelry store, where he bent down to read a tag in the lower part of the window. “I wish they'd make it easier to see the prices from the sidewalk.” He craned his neck, trying to read the numbers on a small pendant. “That looks like Martha. What do you think, boy? The green would be nice with the pink of her Lawson's uniform.” He twisted his head to the other side. “Yikes!” Stanley stepped back as if the shop window had become radioactive. “Seven hundred dollars. That sure is pushing the envelope on Sara's price limit.”

Next was Intimate Proposals, a lingerie shop. He rubbed his chin and said, “Hmmm …” while Ace barked loudly, voicing his disapproval.

“Yeah, you're right … too early for that sort of thing.” Stanley frowned, then shook his head. “‘Too early?' Where'd that come from?”

The pair moved farther down the block and paused in front of Robertson's Stationery Supply.

“Hmmm,” Stanley mused a second time. “Maybe a nice pen? Or mechanical pencil? That mother-of-pearl set is attractive, don't you think?”

Ace turned and peered up into the shop window, but offered no noticeable response.

“She's always writing down orders at work,” Stanley continued. “On the other hand, it's not very personal. But then again, how well do I know her? And should I be getting her something that's personal? And what if she loses it? Customers are always borrowing waitresses' pens and not giving them back …”

The collie decided to lie down on the sidewalk in a warm patch of sunlight while Stanley made up his mind.

“You know, Ace, maybe it's a good thing I'm putting so much thought into this, rather than just getting her a darn poinsettia and forgetting about it. It's nice to feel something's important for a change, don't you think? What I mean is, isn't it amazing how small things like this can sneak up on you?”

Ace closed his eyes and sighed.

As Sara had promised, every name other than the two she'd targeted for her clandestine matchmaking stunt had been paired fair and square. Abe had drawn Sara herself, and Al had Belle. But unlike Stanley, who was still laboring over an appropriate Secret Santa gift, Al had yet to choose a remembrance for the most important person on his list, his wife, Helen—while Abe had a number of female “friends” he hadn't yet found “a little something” for.

“Not a problem,” Abe insisted as he steered Al toward Intimate Proposals. “We can cover the whole shooting match right here: Helen, Sara, Belle, all the ladies on my list. This is where I did my thing last year; it's called, ‘one-stop-last-minute-save-your-hide-shopping.' Stick with me, Al, and you're home free. And Helen will be thrilled.”