A Hell of a Dog by Carol Lea Benjamin Read Free Book Online

notice. Audrey was speaking in the afternoon. I wondered how she’d feel following Beryl, but when I looked up, she didn’t seem to be thinking about her talk at all, not the way she was locked in conversation with Marty Eliot.
    There were thirteen of us around the table. I hoped it wasn’t an omen. Nearly everyone, well, everyone except me, was engrossed in dinner and conversation with the person to his left or right. The real tension wouldn’t start to build, I figured, until people started lecturing, at which point everyone but the speaker would think he’d just heard a tale told by an idiot. Watching Betty make her way around the table, I was hoping no one had a video or slide show. God knows what might happen in the dark.
    Bucky was regaling Tracy with a great story, how he trained Meryl’s dog, went on safari with Sly, or prepared the Laddie Boy Bulldog for his latest commercial. Rick Shelbert and Alan Cooper were arguing across Cathy Powers’s dinner. Looking from one to the other, she seemed to be at a tennis match. Rick looked pretty angry, but he kept his voice down, and I wasn’t able to catch a word. Then Betty made her find. She was standing behind Audrey, pulling the world in through her nose. Suddenly she sat, her nose pointing to Audrey’s purse. She barked once.
    Chip stood so quickly his chair tipped over. He started around the table and then stopped cold. As he turned, everyone else did too. Now they were all looking at me. I stabbed a piece of potato with my fork, shrugging as I lifted it to my mouth and began to devour it whole. Surely no one would expect an explanation when my mouth was full. Anyway, how was I supposed to know that Audrey used controlled substances to help her make her otherworldly connections? For all I knew, she really did have second sight, or whatever the hell it’s called.
    Betty was praised and returned to her place, and everyone else went back to the conversation I’d so rudely interrupted with my prank. I was still being neglected, but at least I felt I had set the proper tone for getting out one’s aggressions. It wasn’t until the plates were being cleared that I noticed Audrey staring hard at me across the table. I smiled at her, but she didn’t smile back, her dark eyes burning in my specific direction.
    It wasn’t until she’d stopped working as a hairdresser and had started working with pets that she’d begun telling people she was one-third Indian—Seminole, I think. Or was it Cree? Whatever. I guess she learned a different biology than I did, but she was dark, and her hair was straight and black, and obviously she had a substance abuse problem. Who can say if that was or wasn’t genetic? I heard that when she lectured, she sometimes wore Native American garb. It ought to be a hoot, I thought, infinitely easier to take than watching Cooper electrocute his dog trying to convince us how quick and easy electronic training is.
    After dessert, there was brandy. The men started lighting up cigars, and the women all headed for the ladies’ room. I didn’t plan on trailing after them like Mary’s little lamb, but thinking about how women instantly bond and chat in the john, I changed my mind. Just as Sam lit her cigar, I reminded Dashiell he was on a stay and followed the crowd.
    Tracy and Audrey were at the big gilt-framed mirror, reapplying war paint. I apologized to Audrey for my little joke and went into the cubicle, figuring out of sight, out of mind.
    â€œI’m not sure,” Audrey was saying. “I mean, I was with him both nights in Phoenix, but I don’t like his method.”
    In any other circumstances, you’d think she was talking about someone’s method of lovemaking. But here, they could only be talking about training methods.
    For a moment they stopped talking. I heard a compact close. I smelled perfume.
    â€œHe’s married, isn’t he?” Tracy