I live near the south end so I always begin the day working my way north, just taking care of dogs. Dogs can’t wait for you the way other pets can. Once all the dogs have been walked and fed and groomed, I retrace my route and call on the pets who don’t have to pee outside. Cats and hamsters and rabbits and guinea pigs and birds. Not snakes. I don’t take care of snakes. I’m not exactly snakephobic, but it makes me go swimmy-headed to hold a squirming little mouse above a gaping snake’s mouth, so I refer those jobs to other pet-sitters.
No matter who else is on my daily list of calls, I always start with Billy Elliott. Billy’s a former racing greyhound who lives with Tom Hale in the Sea Breeze condos. Tom’s a CPA whose spine was crushed a few years ago when a wall of lumber at a home-improvement store fell on him. Then to make his misery complete, his wife left him and took their children and most of their possessions. Eventually, Tom got his act together, moved into the Sea Breeze and started doing whatever it is that CPAs do at his kitchen table. He and I trade services. I go by twice a day and run with Billy Elliott, and Tom handles anything having to do with me and money.
With all that had happened to him, Tom was about as closed off from the world as I was, but when I got to his condo that morning, there was a big Christmas wreath on his door. It wasn’t just a generic wreath, either, but a customized affair with a sassy red velvet bow and a toy greyhound perched above a nest of gilded pine cones. I stood a moment gaping at the thing before I unlocked the door and let myself into the dark foyer where Billy Elliott was nervously prancing on the tile floor. We kissed hello, I clipped the leash on his collar, and we slipped out of the apartment as quietly as thieves. On the ride down in the elevator, I considered asking him what had possessed Tom to have such a fancy wreath made for his door, but I thought it might hurt Billy Elliott’s feelings, seeing as his facsimile was the focal point of the wreath.
We ran tippy-toe across the downstairs lobby and went outside to the parking lot for our run. Billy Elliott knew the routine—run fairly slowly and pee on selected bushes until we came to the oval track encircled by parked cars, and then stretch out and run like hell, full out, galloping like crazy, just like when he was a young dog chasing a mechanical rabbit while crowds cheered and bet money on him. Except this time he had a wheezing blonde human slowing him down because her thigh muscles weren’t nearly as strong as his. When he had finally run out all his nervous energy and I was about to fall over from breathing so hard, we ran at a slower pace back to the Sea Breeze’s front door.
A woman with a Corgi on a short leash was just coming out, and we stood aside while they passed. The woman nodded, but the Corgi was embarrassed on account of wearing a pair of miniature deer antlers and an erminetrimmed red velvet jacket, so he kept his head averted. Billy Elliott and I exchanged a can-you-believe-that? look, but we didn’t let on how dorky we thought it was.
Upstairs, I could smell coffee brewing in the kitchen, and the lights we re on in Tom’s living room. I hadn’t noticed it before, but there was a lavishly decorated Christmas tree in the corner. Now that I knew it was there, I could smell it, too, a pleasant balsam odor. My gosh, not only a wreath, but a real Christmas tree! Tom and I don’t always talk when I pop in and out of his apartment, but you’d think something like plans to buy a Christmas tree would have come up at least once. I wondered how he’d managed to get the top ornaments on. To tell the truth, I felt a little put out that he hadn’t asked me to help him. I mean, I didn’t want a tree of my own, but if he wanted to have one I would have been happy to help him with it.
I yelled toward the kitchen. “Morning, Tom! Nice tree!”
He wheeled into the living room with a curious grin on his face and his mop of curly black hair looking slept on. Instead of his usual sloppy sweats, he wore a snazzy red velour bathrobe. He looked a little bit like the Corgi.
I said, “Wow, you’ve really got the Christmas spirit, don’t you?” I could hear the little defensive whine in my voice, but I couldn’t do anything about it.
He grinned even wider and made some inarticulate sounds that sounded like he was trying to deny it and claim it at the same time. Clinking sounds came from the kitchen, the sounds of mugs being removed from a cupboard, and a silky woman’s voice called, “Darlin’, did you ask me something?”
Oh. Now I understood. Tom hadn’t been hit by the Christmas spirit, he’d been hit by romance. And he hadn’t told me. He hadn’t said, “Hey, Dixie, I’ve got a woman in my life now, so when you come to run with Billy Elliott, you may meet her.”
For some reason, that made me vaguely angry, which was stupid, because Tom’s personal life wasn’t any of my business, and I was actually glad that he had a girlfriend after being alone for so long. But I was still sulky at the change in him.
I said, “Oh, excuse me,” and beat a fast retreat, knowing all the time that Tom would feel bad at the way I acted, but not able to do anything about that, either. I didn’t even hang Billy Elliott’s leash in the hall closet before I left, just left it sloppily looped over the arm of a chair.
The nasty truth was that I was jealous. Not like a woman jealous that another woman is with a man she wants, but jealous that Tom had found the strength to let his old love go and be happy with somebody new. I wasn’t sure I’d ever be able to do that, and I was afraid I would self-destruct if I didn’t, and soon.
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
DUPLICITY DOGGED THE DACHSHUND
Copyright © 2007 by Blaize Clement.
Excerpt from Even Cat Sitters Get the Blues copyright © 2007 by Blaize Clement.
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eISBN 9781429992190
First eBook Edition : January 2011
ISBN: 0-312-94770-4
EAN: 9780312-94770-5
St. Martin’s Press hardcover edition / March 2007
St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / November 2007