whirling dervish. And don’t let those pathetic pink gums upset you. Grinders do the job. Soft food for a few days. Animals have incredible resources for quick recovery since they don’t drink, smoke or eat Aero bars. When are you coming to—”
“I? Me? Can’t you . . .” Then two images struck her. Freya alone in a kennel, Miriam in another strange and sterile place. The personal touches Evelyn had mentioned did not include a pet. Belle would have to play nursemaid, an onerous chore. At least, it wasn’t a child. Dogs she knew.
After work, the last person in the Petville waiting room, she collected the poodle, whining minorly, tiny black nose poking through the wire of the small plastic cage. “Call it her little house, like Miriam does. Pop her in at mealtimes when you can’t eyeball her, and at night, of course, unless you want to share your bed,” Shana advised.
“Share my—”
“It’s the fastest way. A pup won’t soil the place it lies,” Shana said, flicking back a long, black ponytail streaked with silver. Around Miriam’s age, she jogged an hour with her two comical bull terriers, keeping herself lean and trim. Then she disappeared for a moment and returned with a small yellow bottle and what looked like a horse doctor’s syringe.
“Don’t tell me she’s diabetic already,” Belle said in rising horror. At the nursing home, she’d performed many routine medical tasks for her father, but never given a shot. The very concept was like chalk on a blackboard.
Shana roared with laughter. “This is a puddingy antibiotic for pups. Shove it down her throat twice a day. After any operation, infections are a danger.” Then from her pocket she pulled a medicine bottle with ten needle-like teeth, the roots half an inch long. “Some ‘parents’ like to keep these as mementos.”
First the cage, now this complex assignment. Juggling the ridiculous paraphernalia, Belle felt doubly preyed upon by responsibilities. With a bill smoking her Visa, she bundled the dog to the van, the “house” banging against her legs. At the Garson Foodmart, she assembled an armload of pop-top hockey puck tins of gourmet delights, pâté de foie gras, beef bourguignon, chicken à la king. A buck a shot plus a small bag of puppy chow. Five times Freya’s expense for one-twentieth the weight.
That evening, the shepherd seemed to tolerate the pup, though confused that it arrived sans mistress and didn’t depart after dinner. From the poodle’s well-scoured food dish, no problem wolfing the plat du jour, Belle observed as she filled and squeezed the plastic apparatus. The little dog smacked dark red lips and sucked like a weanling.
Later Belle hustled the dogs to the yard for ablutions, checking her watch. She’d have to take the pup out once or even twice during the night. For easy access, she opted for the pullout couch in the walk-out basement rec room, newly appointed with carpet and ceramic tile. Grudgingly, she arranged her down comforter, pillows, Freya’s sheepskin, the omnipresent cage, and turned on the baseboard heaters, missing the warm woodstove. Five minutes later, outside at the patio doors, Freya waited patiently, her queenly head gazing off into the darkness.
“Where is that . . .” She snatched a robe and pushed into the cold, veering to the side yard, following tiny prints in the new snow. A brutal north wind assaulted her ears and tossed icy waves, forming a white bank ten feet wide against the shore. In the reflected yellow light from the windows, the pup was cowering, frozen at the bulk of an upturned ash bucket, a darkling monster. Reassured by the human, it squatted promptly, shuffled off for a more critical deposit and pranced back inside.
“Get in your little house,” she said, mustering a firm voice. The dog obeyed with a whimper which turned to a weep, then shrill barks that blasted her skull. “How did Miriam ever stand this?” She tossed her book aside and switched off the lamp, waiting another eternity while Freya circled the cage in concern. With a snort, she hauled the brat into bed, set her alarm for two and hoped for the best. Freya would never forgive this indulgence, but a piqued pet was the least of her worries.
She made a mental note to beg for an ad hoc arrangement with the DesRosiers, Ed and Hélène, to stop on their noon walk to let the dogs out. Freya’s talented bladder was good for ten to twelve hours, but the poodle needed intensive care. The last sensations she recorded were the burble of a snout under her chin and a baby’s sigh.
Hoping to welcome Jesse home during a hasty lunch hour, Belle opened the office next morning with guarded optimism. Her answering machine had two messages from people who had declined to renew their contracts and chosen a cut-rate firm. Palmer Realty was becoming a fly-by-night, two-penny, dot.nothing operation. Scarcely had the rooms warmed than in strolled Brian Dumontelle, billed cap under his arm. His blond mini-goatee was trimmed and his shoes gleamed despite the grit and salt on the streets. In his late thirties, over his uniform he wore a heavy blue parka with the emblem of the Sudbury Police. His cheeks were ruddy and his smile broad as he brushed snow from his shoulders, studying her face with an uncomfortable, almost mesmerizing attention. “Got your call,” he said. “A den and a gazebo? Sounds great. Maybe this time will be the charm.”
Belle summoned her business smile, hoping that exercising facial muscles would convince the brain. “Fingers crossed.” Maybe she was in a prickly mood, but there was something overly familiar about the way Brian leaned over the desk and placed his broad hand proprietarily on her back as they left, as if steering a possession. Still, the commission would make a down payment on another van, not a new one, heaven forbid, but a decent late model. Then she paused at the hypothetical balance sheet. Miriam would need a lawyer. And Belle would have to pay her salary in the meantime, not throw her to the humiliation of unemployment or welfare. But then she might qualify for legal . . . her pulse quickened and her thoughts charged months ahead as she bumped into Brian, thoughtfully wiping snow from her windshield with his leather glove. He winked as if the brief contact had been deliberate.
Tabular Street was a quiet cul-de-sac in the south end. Brian’s prospect, a late-seventies backsplit, had been recently sided (vinyl is fynal) and landscaped with Norwegian spruce and compact Alberta firs, a dozen bushes covered city-style with burlap over triangular frames, like a frontier tribal encampment. He nodded approval at the two-car garage and pulled on a pair of boots to stomp around the snow-covered backyard, pounding the gazebo to test its sturdiness.
Inside, Brian admired the kitchen and bathroom refits and new carpeting. “I’m definitely interested. Think the price is firm?” he asked.
Belle gave a knowing smile, her professional allegiance with both parties. “Make an offer, but I caution you not to insult them. An old Italian family. Well-connected.”
He smiled broadly, revealing large white teeth, the canines faintly wolfish. “Come on. No such thing as the Sudbury Mafia, despite rumours about black market Chianti.”
He named a fair number, which she agreed to carry to the seller. Then he glanced at his watch, a Patek Phillipe model. “Let’s celebrate with lunch. You’ve refused so many times that I’m beginning to think you don’t like me.” A mild challenge crossed his sculpted lips. Faded blue like ice in a stream, his irises glowed under lashes more white than blond.
Business and pleasure, an evil combination. But if the sale was nearly clinched, hail and farewell. “I’m alone at the office, and I need to get back. Something quick. Vesta Pasta?”
“Au contraire. Upscale for an upscale lady. I’ll confess something. I checked the house out yesterday, and I was so confident about the sale that I reserved.”
A stranger to triple-digit restaurant bills, Belle had never dreamed of entering Verdicchio’s, Sudbury’s premier restaurant in an unassuming location in a business park on Kelly Lake Road. A modern green
