Stepdog Read Free Page A

beyond an urgent, suppressed whimper of joy. It spun gleefully in rapid, tight little circles anticlockwise, keeping its eyes peeled on Sara as it circled, its backside wagging as much as its tail.
    Sara bent down like Diana Spencer talking to a kindergartner; the dog stopped circling so it could meet her nose to nose, its arse still shimmying a Motown beat. Sara cooed and spoke as if it were a kid, like most Yanks do with dogs: “Halloooo, puppeee, I’m home! Were you a good girl? I bet you were a good girl”—all that bollocks. Suddenly I could see her both as a little girl and as a mother—both lovely aspects of her personality but neither one fitting the moment’s mood. She scratched the dog’s face. The happy whimper deepened and the body slightly stilled. Then Sara rose, stepped away, and said formally, as if the dog could really understand English, “Cody, I want you to meet Rory.”
    â€œHiya, Cody,” I said in greeting, and squatted down to be closer to eye level. In fairness, it was a lovely dog. It sprang to me, tail and backside wagging, damp nose raised hopefully toward me. I held up a hand to cover my mouth. “No kisses,” I said, “but aren’t you a lovely little fella.”
    â€œCody’s a girl,” Sara said sweetly.
    â€œLovely girl,” I said. I brushed her head with my fingertips. Beautiful coat. I scratched her ears. Her hair was silky as a baby’s. I started to massage behind her ears.
    Cody’s mouth moved into an actual grin. She collapsed submissively onto her back on the floor as if her bones had suddenly gone all jelly, her legs splayed—a very tarty position, even for a dog. She gave me an expectant look and her tail thumped the floor like a metronome.
    â€œAw, she wants you to pet her belly,” said Sara approvingly. “She likes you.”
    So the dog and I had a grand time bonding right inside the door. I rubbed her chest, which made her eyes roll back ecstatically. She suddenly leapt up and began spinning around in the tiny circles again (the dog, not Sara), stretched into a perfect Downward-Facing Dog, then flopped on her back again into the tarty-dog pose, all the while her hopeful dark gaze glued to my face, her tail flinging itself side to side. She was hilarious. This would be easy. I liked that pooch right away.
    But I liked Sara more. So after those few minutes, I rose up, and looked around the place. It was small but chic, with Sara’s organic-fair-trade/art-school-grad aesthetic. Sara was doing her coming-home routine: turning off the radio, checking the dog’s water bowl, bolting the front door.
    â€œOooo . . . boss lady’s taken me captive,” I said, pleased. “Even after she fires me, she’s still got me under lock and key. Bet you’ve got a lash hidden around here, too?”
    â€œAnd a gang of tenth graders ready to leap out and make fun of your fiddle playing. There’s a secret escape hatch,” she said over her shoulder, smiling as she pulled a batik silk curtain closed against the light from the street. “But you’ll have to torture me to learn where it is.”
    We stood there, at opposite corners of her coffee table, taking in the moment. I was starting to believe that this was, really was, A Moment. It truly was nothing either of us had seen coming, and yet here it was, so fast and so natural.
    It’s easy enough to describe a first kiss, because it’s a specific action. It’s harder to describe those few moments of chitchat, of tentative body language and bits of touching and little noises, that let two people tell each other: right, we’re going to bed together. Not to “get laid,” but because you seem fantastic and it would be such an honor—not just a pleasure but an honor —to be intimate with you. I looked her all over. She was curvy, with a graceful neck, and how could I ever have looked at those legs