High in Trial

SEVEN

Nineteen hours before the shooting





For the longest time after Miles left, I continued to stare after him, thinking, Oh no, he didn’t. He did not just use the L word for the first time twenty minutes before I had to psych myself up for a run and he did not just walk away without giving me a chance to say anything in return. Was he kidding me? Seriously?

On the other hand, what would I have said? Our relationship was casual. I liked it that way. What was he thinking?

That was just it. He wasn’t thinking. Men rarely are.

By the time I finished walking Cisco and took him over the warm-up jump a couple of times, I’d decided I was making much ado about nothing. Miles hadn’t meant anything. He probably even didn’t remember saying it. Men were such idiots. As I walked the jumpers-with-weaves course with the rest of my group, trying to memorize a complicated S-turn and wondering if I could do a blind cross coming into the second set of weave poles, I started to wonder what kind of man could just toss off “I love yous” so easily. How did you even get into that habit? On the other hand, wasn’t it better to be too free with the words than afraid to say them at all? Or was it?

Standing in line waiting our turn, I came to the conclusion that I was the one who was the idiot and really, I needed to just let it go. Like my mother always said, the only thing more futile than trying to figure out why men did the things they did was trying to figure out what they were thinking when they did them. So I decided to just forget about it.

Unfortunately, in the process, I also forgot the S-turn and the blind cross, sent Cisco into the weave poles backwards, and called him off a jump so abruptly that he knocked the bar. Worse, I’m pretty sure the judge heard me say a bad word in the heat of the moment. No one likes to lose, and the only thing that made it bearable was the way Cisco bounced across the finish line with his tail waving and a big grin on his face, as happy to have blown the course as he’d been to win only a few hours ago. I couldn’t help but laugh. There’s a saying in this game: no matter what happens, you still get to go home with the best dog in the world. And so I did.

Home, for the duration, was the Pembroke Host Inn five miles down the highway from the trial site. I packed up our gear before the event was over—no point waiting for a ribbon you have absolutely no chance of getting, right?—and was back at the hotel by four thirty. Dog people, like elite athletes and senior citizens, like to dine early and be in bed by ten, and I wanted to get to the dining room before the salad bar was reduced to scraps of lettuce and pickled beets.

The hotel was a dog lover’s paradise. It was set far back from the highway and surrounded by a beautifully manicured green lawn in front, which, of course, meant nothing to seasoned dog travelers. We look for long winding paths and big open fields and well-marked dog walk areas with strategically placed trash cans. This one had all of those things, plus the added bonus of a central courtyard onto which all the sliding doors of the dog-friendly rooms opened, so the last doggie pit stop of the night could be made in your slippers and robe, if necessary. All designers of hotels should be so thoughtful. I wanted to nominate them for an award.

I stopped by the room just long enough to feed Cisco one of his specially prepared homemade energy meals from the mini refrigerator—oatmeal, chicken livers, eggs, milk solids, and mixed vegetables—and check my phone messages. Miles had texted twice: How did you do? and Running late. Call you after dinner. Melanie had tweeted two pictures of the Smithsonian that made me smile reminiscently and texted, Go, Cisco! My blue ribbon guy! A later text added, Touring the White House tomorrow. Boooring. Rather see you guys win another ribbon.

I texted back, Tell the Prez I said hi. Then, P.S. Maybe you’ll get to see the First Dog!

By this time Cisco had licked his bowl clean and lapped up half a bowl of water, so I snapped on his expandable leash, tucked the room key and a couple of pick-up bags in my pocket, and took him out for his evening walk. Just as in the Old West a cowboy always took care of his horse first, in the dog world we make sure our dogs are well fed and comfortable before we take care of ourselves. It’s only right.

We went through the hallway door, which led to the parking lot and the big open field beyond, and I noticed a couple of other dog walkers had the same idea. I saw Aggie with Gunny at the edge of the field and waved. She waved back, and we started toward them at a leisurely pace, Cisco in an ecstasy of sniffing the tracks of other dogs. When we reached the edge of the parking lot, I gave him a few extra feet on his expandable leash, and he hurried ahead of me.

I heard a car door slam behind me and glanced around to make certain no other dogs were heading toward us. Marcie was leaning against her blue minivan with one arm wrapped around her chest and the other hand covering her mouth, head bowed, clearly upset. I actually turned to start toward her, and then the driver’s side door opened and a man came around the van. I thought it was Neil until I saw the tender way he took Marcie in his arms to comfort her, and then I realized he was a much bigger man than Neil and quite a bit blonder. He said something in a low tone, and in a moment she nodded and smiled up at him. He kissed her.

“Well, well,” I murmured to myself. But that wasn’t the most surprising thing I saw. When they went around to the back of the van and opened it, two dogs got out—Bryte and Flame. And I distinctly remembered Neil saying he was taking Bryte home.

The man slung the strap of a day bag over his shoulder and they started toward the dog walk area on the other side of the building. It was at that moment that Cisco reached the end of his leash and looked back at me inquiringly. I called him to my side because I didn’t want there to be any misunderstanding about who was walking whom, then gave him the full twenty feet of expandable leash in which to explore, and we made our way across the field.

I spent a few minutes chatting with Aggie, and just as we were heading back to the hotel, Cisco saw Brinkley and his mom—whose name I finally discovered was Sarah—coming across the field. Of course there was no way I could take Cisco inside then, so we spent another ten or fifteen minutes letting the three goldens sniff and play-bow and romp with each other as much as their leashes would allow. We made arrangements to meet for dinner in half an hour and started back toward our rooms. The other two women went west and I went east, so I was probably the only one who noticed Marcie and her boyfriend walking the dogs across the field a few hundred feet away. I waved to her, and I know she saw me, but her boyfriend caught her arm quickly and they deliberately turned and went the other way. Odd, but I supposed they wanted privacy. Besides, just then I got another text from Miles and was reminded that I had enough to deal with in my own personal life without borrowing other peoples’ problems.



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