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“You’re welcome,” I yelled after her.

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C L A I R E C O O K

The door to the Olde Marshbury Taverne opened, and the father of the bride emerged. He was holding Precious straight out in front of him, and he had a pile of money tucked between one hand and the dog. He walked right over to me and said something about the Board of Health. Or possibly it was the Whore of Wealth.

And then he gave me Precious, still in her cornflower blue taffeta dress with the brooch. “Sleep it,” he said.

Or maybe it was, “Keep it.”

PRECIOUS WAS STANDING UP
on my makeup kit, which I’d placed on the passenger seat of my bug, so she could see out the window. We were both pretty bored, so I offered her a drink from my water bottle. She didn’t spill a drop. I had no idea dogs could be water bottle trained. After I checked carefully for moving cars, since we didn’t have a leash, we went for a walk around the parking lot so she could pee again. It might have been my imagination, but she seemed grateful for the opportunity, and for a while there, I thought we were starting to bond.

Then I decided she’d probably want to do the first thing I always did after I got home from a wedding: take off the stupid, uncomfortable dress I was wearing. So I leaned over to unfasten the brooch on her dress. She growled at me.

“Whoa,” I said. “Don’t get testy. It was only a suggestion.” After that, we just checked each other out for a while. I had no idea what kind of dog she was, since I knew nothing about dogs. She looked kind of like a flying squirrel, except for the ears. She had the ears of a fruit bat. I wonder what she was Summer Blowout

51

thinking about me. Maybe she thought I had ears like a fruit bat, too.

I checked my watch. I decided that if I watched Precious for another half hour or so, I would have earned that last batch of bills. It seemed to me that there were two ways to look at things. One was that for a take-charge kind of person, I was allowing far too many things to get dumped on me. The other was that I might have no husband and no life, but I sure was making some good money today.

I reached around in the bottom of my shoulder bag and found my cell phone. I switched it from silent to ring. I looked at the screen. “Wow,” I said out loud. “Two whole messages.” Precious looked over with real interest, I thought, so I held out the phone so she could hear them, too.

The first one was my mother. “Just checking in about those semiabandoned children of yours,” she said. She sounded awfully perky.

I wondered what she’d say if I told her that I now had a semiabandoned dog. She’d probably just offer to get me another phone number. My mother had a number for everything.

“I’m tied up for the rest of the weekend, honey, but Tuesday night is free if you’re open.”

I shook my head at Precious. “Can you believe that’s my
mother
?” I whispered. “How can you be too busy for your own daughter?”

“And Bella,” my mother’s voice continued, “I think you should change your voice mail message. I know you’re trying to be funny, but the truth is it sounds angry and bitter.”

“But I
am
angry and bitter,” I said to Precious. It was kind of nice having someone to talk to.

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“Talk to you soon. Love you.”

“Nice message,” Sean Ryan’s voice said suddenly. “I’ll try you again later.”

“Ohmigod,” I said to Precious. “That was Sean Ryan.” My phone rang. I looked at it. Then I looked at Precious, and I could have sworn she nodded.

I pushed the green button. “Hello,” I said.

“Hi,” Sean Ryan said. “It’s Sean.”

“Sean,” I said slowly, as if I were trying to place him. “Oh, right. The college fair guy. How’d you get my number anyway?”

“Uh, caller ID?”

There were no secrets anymore. It seemed like my best bet might be to just keep my mouth shut.

“I guess I should have checked for a message first, but I was happy to see your name, so I just pressed Call.” Precious jumped over onto my lap. She climbed her way up me until her paws were on my shoulders. She licked my cheek.

I giggled.

“Am I amusing you?” Sean Ryan asked.

“No,” I said. “It was someone else.” Now he wasn’t saying anything.

“Listen,” I said. “I just wanted to ask you a few questions about kits. Maybe I could buy you a cup of coffee one of these days? At a public restaurant?”

“Sure,” he said. “As long as it’s well lit.”

“Okay,” I said. “What town do you live in?”

“Marshbury.”

“Me, too,” I said. The thing about small towns is you only think you know everybody who lives there.

“Okay,” he said. “How about Starbucks in ten minutes?” Summer Blowout

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“Isn’t that kind of sudden?”

He laughed. “It’s just that I’m not sure I could handle another phone call with you. Did anybody ever tell you you’re not exactly easy to talk to?”

“No,” I said. I looked at Precious and rolled my eyes.

• 8 •

“WHAT IS
THA T
?” SEAN RYAN ASKED.

“A dog,” I said. I’d put Precious in my shoulder bag so I could sneak her into Starbucks, and she was peeking out around the zipper. I was afraid the dog-in-the-purse thing might make me look like an aging Paris Hilton, which was kind of creepy, but I couldn’t really think of an alternative. I probably should have brought her back into the Olde Marshbury Taverne first, but I didn’t want to have to give any of the money back.

So I figured I’d just let her take the ride with me and kill some more time. It couldn’t possibly take more than a half hour or so to find out about kits. Then, when we got to the Starbucks parking lot, I’d tried to leave her in my car, but she looked so sad I just couldn’t do it to her.

“I meant what kind of dog,” Sean Ryan said.

“No idea,” I said.

Sean Ryan shook his head and smiled his crooked smile.

“Moving right along,” he said. He held the door to Starbucks open for me.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Excuse me, Miss?” a man in a white shirt said about two seconds later. “But we don’t allow dogs in here. Board of Health.”

“Are you sure you don’t mean Whore of Wealth?” slipped out before I thought it through.

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“What?” Sean Ryan and the man in the white shirt said at exactly the same time.

“Never mind,” I said. “Okay, I’ll wait outside. Can you get me a grande mocha latte with skim milk and extra whipped cream?” I asked Sean Ryan. “I have money,” I added.

“You’d better,” he said.

WE DECIDED TO WALK THE BEACH
while we drank our coffee. The tide was out, and people were packing up and heading home to start dinner. Precious was having a great time, running ahead of us, then circling back to make sure we were still around. Every once in a while she’d stop and dig in the sand, or roll over on her back and wiggle around in some seaweed. Technically, she should have been on a leash, according to several prominently displayed signs, but if anyone said anything, I figured I could just stick her back in my shoulder bag.

“You’re right,” Sean Ryan said. “She does look a little bit like a flying squirrel. I’d guess half terrier, and maybe half Chihuahua. And probably eight pounds, soaking wet.”

“Every anorexic’s dream,” I said. “Okay, let’s talk kits.” Sean Ryan sat down and patted the sand beside him. I sat down about three feet away. He reached over and drew a line in the sand between us, and I laughed. Precious ran over to us and started digging a hole.

Suddenly, I had a mouthful of sand. While I was spitting it out, Sean Ryan picked Precious up, turned her around, and put her back down again. The sand started flying in the opposite direction.

“Thanks,” I said. I put my teeth together and sand crunched 56

C L A I R E C O O K

between them, so I drank the rest of my latte, hoping that would help. “Okay, so how exactly did you end up test-marketing a guidance counselor’s kit?” I asked.

He pushed his coffee cup into the sand so it wouldn’t tip over, and leaned back on his elbows. “Well, the guidance counselor was a friend of mine back when I lived in Vermont, and he got in touch with me again when he came up with the idea.”

“You used to live in Vermont?”

“Yeah, Burlington. Great place to live. Until you get divorced. Anyone you’re trying to avoid, you’re going to bump into every Friday night on Church Street. We didn’t have any kids, so long story short, I couldn’t wait to get out. You know, fresh start and all that.”

Talking about former lives was so depressing. Blah. Blah.

Blah. It was too bad people couldn’t just shed one life and move on to the next one. No explanations, no old stories. No having to think about what went wrong and how excruciatingly painful and embarrassing it was. No need even to think at all.

Just strip off one life and step into the next one.

Sean Ryan cleared his throat, and I jumped. “How long ago was that?” I asked.

He pushed himself back up and took a sip of his coffee.

“About five years now.”

“Did you ever throw a rock at her car?” Sean Ryan kind of spit and snorted at the same time, and a fine spray of coffee covered us both. “Holy crap,” he said. He rubbed both hands over his mouth. “Did anybody ever tell you you’re dangerous?”

He reached into his pocket and pulled out a handkerchief.

He handed it to me.

“I was just asking,” I said. I dabbed at the parts of my face that felt wet, then gave it back to him.

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He reached over and wiped a spot of coffee off my forearm.

Maybe there’s just something sexy about a guy who carries a handkerchief, but I had this sudden crazy urge to lean forward and kiss him. There is nothing like a good kiss on the beach.

I pulled my arm away fast. His handkerchief dangled like a white flag.

Sean Ryan shrugged and started dabbing at the dots of coffee on his own arms. “I’d have to say I’m not really a rock-throwing kind of guy,” he said.

“Don’t be so superior,” I said.

“Okay,” he said. “Antifreeze. In her coffee. But I only thought about it a couple of times.”

“But you didn’t actually do it?”

“I’d be in prison, wouldn’t I?”

“Not if you were good at covering it up,” I said.

“You really threw a rock at your ex’s car?” I nodded.

“When?”

“Ages ago,” I said. “Okay, yesterday. But I was a different person then. I’ve mellowed considerably.” Sean Ryan reached over to get the coffee beaded up on Precious’s fur. Precious grabbed the handkerchief between her teeth and started shaking her head back and forth. Sean Ryan rolled over to his hands and knees, and they started playing tug-of-war.

Precious let go of the handkerchief and started scratching behind one ear. Sean Ryan and I both picked up our empty cups from the sand before they could blow all over the beach.

“So,” he said. “Is there a story to the half-sister-and-husband thing?”

“Yeah,” I said. “He’s now my ex-husband.”

“Well, that’s certainly succinct.”

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I didn’t say anything.

He shrugged. “Okay, so what do you know about makeup that nobody else does? I mean, I’m not exactly well versed in the subject. But, say, can you just glance at people and see what would make them look better?”