What the Dog Ate (39 page)
“As a matter of fact, yeah. I’ve
been talking to my boss about—”
“Russell? Are you there?” Maggie
looked at her phone. The call had dropped.
She put the phone down to wait for
him to call back and drank the small cup of smoothie.
That
really is good
. She picked up a dish towel and wiped her hands.
She spun around as she heard
someone rap on the glass front door. He was back-lit, but she recognized his
tall figure and broad shoulders instantly. She let out a little yelp of glee
and she and Kona ran to open the door as Russell leaned into the glass, his
hands cupped around his eyes against the glare. He smiled as he saw them
bounding across the floor at him.
“It’s so great to see you.” She
opened the door and he came in. He gave her a quick, firm hug and rubbed Kona’s
back. He was tan as ever in his white polo shirt with his company’s logo and
navy blue shorts. She noted his legs looked like he’d kept up with the cycling
after she left.
“I’m here.” He held his hands out
as if he’d completed a magic trick.
“Your grasp of the obvious is
really top notch,” she said as they grinned at one another. “I can see that
you’re here.” She looked him up and down.
“No, I mean, I’m here—Jacksonville.
For good. I moved here.”
“What?” Maggie screamed and hugged
him again. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Kona wiggled, responding to their
energy.
“I wanted it to be a surprise.”
“Mission accomplished. I can’t
believe this. How did this happen? It’s for your work?”
“Yeah, I’ve been talking to our
company’s owner about starting a branch office ever since I was here in
February. He loved the idea. He’s been wanting to expand and there are
boat-loads of doctors’ offices here. So, that’s why I’m here; to start up our
new southeast branch.”
“When did you get here? I can’t
believe you’ve been keeping this from me.” She hit him on the arm with her dish
towel.
“I moved a couple of days ago. I’m
in a furnished temporary rental for now.” He pointed his thumb in the general
direction of his apartment. “Wanted to figure out exactly where the office’ll
be before I settle into something more permanent.”
“This is insane. I can’t believe
this.” She bounced up and down like a child. Kona danced from foot to foot. She
pictured them riding their bikes every Sunday. There was a great Cuban
restaurant near her house she wanted to take him to. Maybe they could go there
tonight. She had tons of ideas for great locations for his office and knew just
the neighborhood he should move to... OK, it was her neighborhood... but it
really was a
great
neighborhood.
“There’s something else.” He rubbed
the back of his neck. “I moved here with someone. We’re living together.”
Maggie stopped bouncing. Kona sat
down. “Oh.” The brakes were applied rather harshly to her happy image of them
on their bikes. “Well, that’s great news, too. You’re just... full of surprises
today, aren’t you?” Her hand went to her jade pendant.
He’s
finally committing to someone. And they’re going to be right here, under my
nose
.
“I want you to meet her. I know
you’ll like her.”
“I’m sure I will. We’ll all have to
get together—real soon,” she started to head back around the counter. “I was,
uh, working on something back here. I kinda need to finish it up before that
meeting I mentioned, um, when you were on the phone.”
“You can meet her right now. She’s
outside. I’ve told her all about you. And she’s one helluva gorgeous blond, so
we should get out there before someone steals her from me.”
Ohmygod. He
wants me to meet his new beautiful, blond girlfriend and I look like hell. I
haven’t taken a shower yet this morning. I don’t even have any makeup on
.
Of course, Russell had seen Maggie unshowered and makeup-free many times on
their weekly rides, but that didn’t mean she wanted to meet his new girlfriend
when she wasn’t looking her absolute best.
“Come on,” Russell held the door
open and motioned for her to follow. “She doesn’t bite.” He called out, “Honey,
here’s Maggie. The woman I’ve been telling you about.”
Maggie walked toward him. When she
got close enough, he grabbed her hand and pulled her through the door; Kona
tagged along.
There, tied to the hitching post in
the shade, was a beautiful yellow lab puppy. Her tail wagged furiously when she
saw Russell.
“Maggie, this is Dorothy,” Russell
said as he bent and scratched the top of the dog’s head.
Maggie felt as though her bones had
turned to mashed sweet potato. The dog provided an excellent excuse to collapse
onto the rectangle of Astroturf in front of the hitching post.
“Dorothy, it’s
so
good to meet you,” Maggie said as she received several dozen kisses from the
wiggly puppy. Kona peered at the small dog over Maggie’s shoulder. Russell
crouched down next to them. “You got a dog.”
“Your grasp of the obvious is
really top notch.” He grinned at her.
“But… I thought a dog was too much
of a commitment.”
“I never said that.
You
did. I said I couldn’t have a dog because I’d have to
be home every night. Remember me—traveling salesman?”
“Oh, yeah.” Maggie thought back to
their conversation all those months ago. Maybe she
had
put words in his mouth. “But, aren’t you still going to be traveling?”
“No, not much. I’m going to run the
office. I’ll hire all the salespeople, and they’ll report to me. I’ll have to
go to San Diego once in a while, but I’m hoping Dorothy and Kona here will get
along and maybe you can dog-sit for me.”
The dogs sniffed each other, tails
wagging.
“Looks like they’re going to get
along great,” Maggie said. “So, Dorothy, huh?”
“Yup. You remember what you said to
me your last night in San Diego?” he asked.
“Of course I do,” she kept petting
the yellow dog while he spoke. She didn’t look at him.
“And then I asked you if you
thought I didn’t have any brains, which I guess I didn’t, since I kinda ruined
the moment there... Anyway, now when I look at Dorothy, it reminds that I need
brains, heart
and
courage if I’m going to get what I
want out of life.”
She looked up and said, “The brains
alone don’t cut it, do they?”
Two tails were already wagging. Two
more joined in.
They were both silent for a moment,
until Maggie stood up. “Wait one sec, I have something I want Dorothy to try.”
She ran inside and poured two cups
of the bacon and sweet potato smoothie. Once back outside, she crouched down
between the dogs and held a cup for each of them as they lapped up the
contents. Dorothy never took her big brown eyes off of Maggie.
“Well, that’s done it,” Russell said.
“I think she’s in love with you.”
“I think maybe I’m in love with
her, too.” Maggie left the cups on the ground for the dogs to finish working on
and stood up. She put her arms around Russell’s neck, and he held her tight.
They both laughed as Kona squeezed
in between their legs, but they did not separate.
There was his intoxicating smell:
soft leather, ginger, and rain on the ocean.
She
smelled like bacon.
~ The End ~
First of all, I want to thank my
hubby, not only for being an inspiration for Maggie’s hard-working character,
but for causing me to take a writing class to fill some of my alone time
waiting for him to get home from work at night. In all seriousness, a big
thanks to him for putting up with me when I was so often in dreamland thinking
about my characters, and for when he’d come home from work, starving, and I’d
look up, frenzied, and say, “Let me just finish this scene!” He never once
grumbled when I would wake up in the middle of the night with an idea and start
madly scribbling in the dark. I will be forever grateful.
I also want to thank the folks at
UCSD Extension for the classes I’ve taken, and especially Nicole Vollrath for
encouraging me to turn my short story that read “more like a novel” into one.
Thanks to everyone at San Diego Writers Ink and notably Judy Reeves whose class
helped me add a pivotal scene to the book.
To my early readers Patricia,
Gayle, and Louisa: bless you for sticking with me through the various
iterations of this book. A huge thanks to my sister, Terry, for searching
diligently for my typos and misspellings through every. single. draft! I also
very much appreciated the fact that she missed some edits the first time
through because she was caught up in the story.
Cheers to my entire family for
being hilarious and inspiring me to try to be my funniest. It would be nice if
they were dysfunctional, so that they’d be ripe material for plot lines and
character ideas, but functional is good and makes for pleasant holiday
get-togethers.
Thank you to Andy Brown at Click
Twice Design for the wonderful cover. I am also grateful to Ellen Venturella-Wilson
and her husband Joe for the photo of their beautiful chocolate Lab, Charley,
used in the cover art. I “met” Ellen and Charley through Bone Cancer Dogs (
www.bonecancerdogs.org
) and Tripawds
(
www.tripawds.com
), online communities
for people like us whose pups got bone cancer. We lost our beautiful tripawd
Abby, who is now one of Charley’s angels, looking out for him and helping him
keep kicking cancer’s butt!
Thanks to the La Jolla Writer’s
Conference, where I had the chance to read the bacon scene with Dave and
That Woman
in front of the wonderful person who would
ultimately become my agent.
Which brings me, finally, to a huge
thanks to my agent, Taryn Fagerness, for all her help and for believing in me.
This book would not be what it is today without her amazing support.
Originally from Southern California,
Jackie Bouchard settled with her husband and pup in San Diego, after living in Bermuda
and Canada, and on both the East and West coasts. Jackie used to be trapped in
the hamster wheel of corporate America, but she was lucky enough to escape and
now fully understands the term “struggling writer.” Jackie loves: reading,
writing, and, yes, even 'rithmetic (seriously, algebra rocks), professional
cycling, margaritas, dogs in general, her crazy rescue pup specifically, and
her hubby. (Not in that order.) Jackie dislikes: rude people and writing about
herself in the third person. Her work has been published in
San Diego CityBeat
and the San Diego Writers, Ink's
anthology,
A Year in Ink, Vol. 3
. This is her first
novel.
~~~
Connect with Jackie at: