The Kingdom of Dog Read Free Page A

rehabilitation. When I came back to Bucks County, I was hiding behind emotional walls I thought I needed to protect me from further harm. He had showed me that I could enjoy myself again, that I could love another creature without fear.
    After dinner I checked some emails, with Rochester curled around the back of my desk chair as if keeping me under control. Then we went into the bedroom and he jumped up on the bed next to me as we watched TV together.
    The next two days zoomed past, filled with party planning and press relations details. I barely had time to take Rochester out for a couple of quick trips during the day. I had debated leaving him home the day of the party; despite his loving nature, he was something of a loose cannon, and I was afraid he’d sneak out of my office and terrorize the party guests with his big paws and lolling tongue.
    But I couldn’t leave him at home from early morning until late at night. So I settled for bringing in extra toys and a brand-new rawhide bone, which I gave him as the caterers began arriving. Then I warned him to be good, and locked my office door.
    I walked down to the ballroom and spotted one of the laborers carrying a huge pile of tablecloths bundled with plastic cling wrap. “Those are the wrong color,” I said. “Eastern’s blue is a light blue, like the summer sky. These are navy.”
    The laborer continued walking in the room, dropping the pile on a round wooden table. “They told me blue. These are blue.”
    â€œThese are navy blue.”
    He looked at me like I was nuts, and I pulled out my cell phone to call the caterer’s office. Mike MacCormac came in as I was dialing, trailed by two football players who were often his shadows, both wearing Eastern football jerseys. Juan Tanamera and Jose Canusi were Puerto Rican kids from Jersey City, both fullbacks, and you never saw one without the other.
    â€œThose are the wrong blue,” Mike said.
    â€œI know. I’m on it.”
    â€œYou shouldn’t have let it get this far,” he said. “Did you specify the right color to them? Did you check before they packed the cloths up for transport?”
    â€œCalm down, Mike. I said I’m taking care of it.”
    â€œJesus Christ. It’s going to kill us if we don’t get Eastern’s colors right. You know how many alumni will bitch and moan?”
    â€œI know, Mike. I told you, I’m on it. ” Or I would be, as soon as he left me alone long enough to make the call.
    Fortunately he saw a couple of guys setting up the bandstand in the wrong corner of the ballroom and took off, shouting, “Do I have to micromanage every single person around here?” Juan and Jose looked at me like they were his enforcers or something, but I glared at them and they followed him across the room.
    I took a couple of deep breaths. I couldn’t go off on Mike the way I had the homeless man the other day; Mike was my boss, and if I lost this job I’d be out in the cold. Just remember that guy, I thought. There but for the grace of God go I.
    The grace of God, that is, and Rochester, who kept me sane and made me feel loved. Just before the guests started arriving, I took him out for a quick run around the back of Fields Hall. One great thing about my office, besides the gorgeous view of the campus, was the easy access to the outdoors. If I wanted to, I could avoid the labyrinthine corridors of the former mansion and just walk around the outside of the building. The ballroom was just around the corner.
    Even in the middle of winter, the Eastern campus was a beautiful place, but the college hadn’t always been in such verdant surroundings. It had been founded as a charity school for orphan boys in 1835 with a meager enrollment, scrabbling for donations from the public to keep its orphans in sackcloth and schoolbooks.
    It attracted the attention of old man Fields, a shrewd operator and himself an orphan from