Foreign Affairs - Alison Lurie [150]
recognizes it at once: Fido has returned from Wiltshire. Slowly he becomes visible to her inner eye: considerably smaller than ever before, only about the size of a Welsh terrier now; dusty, travel-worn, and not quite sure of his welcome.
“Go away,” Vinnie says silently. “I’m perfectly fine. I’m not a bit sorry for myself. I’m a well-known scholar; I have lots of friends on both sides of the Atlantic; I’ve just spent five very interesting months in London and finished an important book on playground rhymes.” But even to her the list seems painfully incomplete.
The taxi pulls up in front of Vinnie’s house; she gets out, followed at some distance by a small invisible dog, and pays the driver. As she turns to enter her gate, she sees Fido standing by the wall, pale and shadowy in the summer sunlight, looking up at her with anxious devotion and wagging his feathery white tail.
“Well, all right,” she says to him. “Come along, then.”