Aunt Peg sighed and sank down in an upholstered chair. It didn’t look very comfortable but she didn’t seem to notice.
“This is never going to work,” she announced. “I don’t see how it can.”
“What won’t work?”
“Me, you, all of us. A hundred avowed dog lovers here for a week and none of us allowed to bring along a single dog for companionship.”
Bertie blinked and sat up. “I think you’re meant to enjoy the companionship of your fellow judges.”
“Pish,” said Peg. “Can a person gaze up at you adoringly? Rest his head in your lap? Laugh at all your jokes, even the bad ones?”
Well…yes, I thought. Maybe it had been too long since she’d had a relationship.
“I’ll never be able to sleep a wink.” Peg sounded grumpy. “Do you know how many years it’s been since I slept in an empty bed without a single Poodle to snuggle up to? Honestly, aside from the fact that I miss their company, I feel naked without my dogs. I don’t even know what to do with my hands.”
“You could bunk in here with us,” said Bertie.
“Don’t be silly. That’s not even remotely the same.”
“There’s always Richard,” I said without thinking. As soon as the words were out, I could have kicked myself.
Aunt Peg arched a brow. “That’s putting the cart before the horse, don’t you think?”
“Or maybe giving the milk away for free?” said Bertie.
“Nobody’s going to be giving anything away.” Peg was firm. “For free or otherwise. At least not until we test the waters a bit and see how compatible we are in person. That is supposed to be the purpose of dating another person, isn’t it? Things can’t have changed that much since the last time I was out and about.”
“Don’t look to us for dating information,” Bertie said. “Melanie and I are just a couple of old married ladies. If there’s any excitement to be had this week, you’re the one who’s going to have to supply it.”
“How very depressing for you, as I intend to have a rather peaceful week myself. I’m simply going to give my Poodle lecture, attend a few judiciously chosen seminars, and maybe enjoy a quiet dinner or two with Richard if time permits.”
“Right,” I snorted.
Like most things, Aunt Peg seemed able to manipulate time to suit her will. And unless I missed my guess, Richard was going to find himself being rushed off his feet.
I snapped my suitcase shut. The small noise was enough to draw Bertie’s attention.
She surveyed the results of my efforts, then looked at her own, still-full suitcase sitting on the floor by the door. Immediately she rolled off the bed, grabbed her bag, and dragged it over to the room’s single dresser where I had already staked out two of the three drawers.
“Don’t you have to, like, pee or something?” she asked.
Actually I did. But we had traveled together before and I knew perfectly well that Bertie had no honor when it came to her wardrobe and the concept of first dibs. There was no way I was letting her unpack unsupervised.
“Don’t think I don’t know what you’re thinking.” I shoved the middle drawer shut with my knee. “You snooze, you lose.”
Aunt Peg looked at us. “Are you two going to be like this all week?”
“Probably,” I said.
Bertie nodded.
“I was afraid of that,” said Peg.
3
The reception was supposed to start at six-thirty, but even before the appointed time people began to gather in a cozy bar area off the lobby. When that room was full, partygoers spilled out into the great room where a roaring fire crackled in the fireplace.
The idea of being fashionably late is a concept entirely unknown to Aunt Peg. Immediate gratification is more her style. And since Bertie and I had accompanied her downstairs, that meant we were among the first to arrive. By the time a crowd had begun to gather, we already had our drinks and had staked out a prime location near the door.
Aunt Peg watched that portal like a hawk, alternately greeting or commenting on the new arrivals. While I was busy reading the name badges that most people had affixed to their lapels, Aunt Peg seemed to know just about everyone on sight.
“Tubby Mathis,” she said, when a portly man with bushy eyebrows and thinning hair entered the room. “He judges hounds, after a fashion. I can’t imagine what he’s doing here. His mind is a closed book. I don’t think he’s learned a single new thing in the last decade.”
“Maybe he’s hoping to get laid,” Bertie said.
I choked on my Shirley Temple.
“Then he must be an optimist,” Peg said, dismissing him.
A well-matched, middle-aged couple came through the door next. If it’s a truism that longtime dog owners often look like their dogs, it’s equally true that longtime spouses also tend to acquire a similar veneer. Both members of this pair were fit and tan, as if they’d just returned from a vacation on some exotic beach.
They were holding hands as they entered the room, but almost immediately both were hailed by friends and pulled in different directions. They exchanged a brief look—shorthand between people who knew each other very well—and went their separate ways.
“Charles and Caroline Evans,” said Aunt Peg. “They belong to several kennel clubs, principally Windemere in northern Maryland. Both of them judge all over the country and Charles is a well-regarded speaker as well. He’s scheduled to give the keynote address tomorrow on ‘The Future of Dog Shows.’”
“I’ve shown under Caroline,” said Bertie. “She does sporting dogs and hounds. She can be tough, but she’s fair.”
“The same is true of Charles,” Aunt Peg replied. “He’s got the Working, Herding, and Terrier groups. One of the reasons they’re so much in demand is that between them they can cover so many breeds.”
“How long have they been married?” I asked.
Peg gave me an odd look. Anything that doesn’t pertain to dogs is immaterial, or at least of lesser importance, in her view.
“Forever. What difference does that make?”
None really, I thought. And the question was out of character for me. Or at the least usual me, the one I had known before I became pregnant. But now, along with rocketing emotions, I seemed to have lost my usual air of cynicism. Instead I was filled with a dreamy sort of optimism that looked for the good in everyone.
“I just thought it was sweet that they were holding hands.”
Aunt Peg snorted. “There’s nothing sweet about those two. Smart, driven, eminently respectable? Yes. Sweet, no. Not even on a good day.”
“Hey, look,” Bertie said as a pale, lithe beauty swept through the doorway. The woman had the practiced strut of a supermodel and a look of disdain on her face. “There’s Alana Bennett. I’m going to go say hi.”
Bertie was no slouch herself when it came to looking good. She was probably the only woman in the room who didn’t feel even the slightest bit threatened by Alana’s arrival. When the two of them joined up and walked to the bar together—silky blonde and fiery redhead, heads dipped toward each other as they talked and laughed—there wasn’t a man at the gathering who didn’t take notice.
“It’s a good thing Bertie has a decent head on her shoulders,”