The Lost - J. D. Robb [45]
“What the hell?”
I wake up.
Back to the kitchen. I didn’t protest. Bad dog, caught in the act. Sam was so groggy, I couldn’t tell if he was mad or amused because his new dog had kicked him awake. Except for “What the hell?” he had nothing to say. But he made his point when, after closing the kitchen door on me, he pulled a dining room chair in front of it.
I see now that there was still a part of me that believed this whole thing was a hallucination. It died a tragic death when Sam dragged that chair in front of the door. This isn’t funny anymore, I thought. I have got to get out of this. The fact that I had no idea what “this” was didn’t daunt me. I had spent my first and last day as a dog. Tomorrow: liberation.
I figured out where we were going on our walk when we got to the bottom of York Lane and turned right on Custer Road. Monica Carr’s house. Benny and her twins were the same age, and they played well together. When I had been working (which was most of the time) and Sam had had something urgent to do (which was not very often), Monica was good about taking Benny, even on short notice. Monica was pretty good about everything, truthfully. I would hate to think that’s why I had never much liked her.
“Morning!” she called from the doorway of the renovated two-story brick colonial she got to keep in the divorce, waving, wiping her hands on a dish towel. “My goodness, who’s that?” Me, she meant. Benny dropped Sam’s hand and ran toward her, already launched on a complicated explanation of the origins of his new dog. “Ethan, Justin, Benny’s here!” Monica called back into the house. And then she squatted down in her skintight biking shorts and put her arms around Benny and kissed him, and he stopped talking long enough to hug her back.
What? What?
Ethan and Justin were adorable, two blond-haired angels with mischievous senses of humor and hilarious laughs. When they saw me, they fell all over me, thrilled and fearless. What fun children were! Human toys. Benny started the Sonoma saga over again for their benefit. Ethan and Justin always made me soften toward Monica; she must be doing something right, I’d think, usually after some less charitable assessment. But the truth was, Monica did almost everything right, and I was just never saintly enough to find that endearing.
“Hi.”
“Hi.”
Their tones, Sam’s and Monica’s, pulled me up short. I stopped roughhousing with the boys and moved closer on my leash.
“How have you been, Sam?” Such sympathy she put in the simple question; it sounded like a caress. An extra caress, to go with the solicitous hand she had on his arm. “How are you holding up?” She tossed her head to shake the glossy black bangs out of her eyes. She smelled of delicate sweat, if there was such a thing, and also of cinnamon, yeast, something fruity . . . Raisin muffins, that was it. From scratch, of course, probably very high in fiber, and she’d made them either before or after her five-m ile morning jog. What time was it, eight? “Have you got a minute to come in? I have a coffee cake ready to come out of the oven.”
Coffee cake, same thing. Sam said he wished he could, but he was in a bit of a hurry, didn’t want to be late for his appointment. No, no, she agreed, it wouldn’t do to be late for that. What appointment? Nobody told me anything.
Monica offered to keep me as well as Benny, but Sam said no, thanks; that was nice of her, but Benny would be enough for her to handle. All three boys groaned their disappointment. I felt let down, too; I’d been looking forward to some time alone with Sam, but if he was going out anyway, I’d much rather have stayed at Monica’s with Benny. So much for what I wanted,