Snow Job (5 page)

“When I come back I’l take him off your hands for a day or two while he’s stil off from school, and let him practice his driving. I know you hate to do it and there’s plenty of open road out by my place.”

“Wel , now you’re just bribing me. But I’l take what I can get. Rinse those bowls al the way off before you put them in that dishwasher, young lady.”

Elyce bit her tongue and refrained from saying, “I
know
, Mother.” It was hard to stop herself, but she liked to think she was growing too old for that sort of thing. Though not too old to rol her eyes and sigh noisily when her mother took her to task for failing to properly dry the handwashed items before returning them to their cabinets and drawers.

Some things never changed.

* * * * *

Once the agreement had been made, the time seemed to slip by at an astonishing pace. Elyce had dragged her ski clothes out of storage, taken one long look and promptly decided she needed to indulge in a new set of gear for the slopes if she wanted to be even remotely in style on the trip.

She loved to ski, but had to admit a large part of her attraction to the sport would always be getting to wear the cute outfits.

Her first effort to find the perfect new ski bib and parka, however, was fruitless. Late on a Friday, with only eight days left before she was to leave for Colorado with Karl, she ventured out again and had better luck. Buried on a sale rack, she found a sleek aubergine faux-fur-trimmed number that contrasted nicely with the dark blonde of her hair and the dark green of her eyes.

She had accepted another dinner invitation from Andrew for that night. But when Elyce returned home from her shopping trip, planning to spend some time getting ready to go out, she found an urgent message from Karl on her machine, asking if she could take Astro for the weekend. He had an unexpected business trip, he said.

Neither Emily nor Wil was able to take the dog until later in the weekend and the kennel they had always used was unfortunately booked solid. Glancing at the clock with an exasperated sigh, Elyce picked up the phone and dialed Karl’s number, so familiar because it had been her own for years.

“Wil you be able to watch him?” Karl asked with no preamble when he picked up the phone.

“Hel o to you too.”

“Hi. Sorry. Cal er ID, I knew it was you. So can you take

’Stro? I hate to ask, but I don’t have anywhere else to send him.”

“Of course I can take him.” She toed her shoes off and tried to struggle out of her jeans with one hand while holding the phone with the other. “Are you going to bring him by, or what?”

“Yeah. You’l stil be there in about an hour?”

“I’l have to be. He can’t stay in the house alone, he’l eat through the doorjamb.” Elyce spared a glance at the front doorframe, which stil bore the marks Astro had gnawed there on the one previous occasion she’d tried to leave him alone inside the house. Even that short trip to the store had resulted in mid-level destruction before she’d returned. Leaving Astro for an entire evening while she was out on a date was unthinkable. “Just bring him by, I’l be here.”

Forgoing the dressy slacks and top she’d set out for dinner, Elyce opted for a pair of wel -worn gray sweats.

Then she picked the phone up again and spent a moment steeling herself for the cal to Andrew before dialing with a sigh.

“Andrew Barron.” He sounded distracted, hurried, and Elyce felt a flicker of guilt over cancel ing at such a late hour. Perhaps he’d been rushing at work to finish on time, just to see her.

“Hey, it’s Elyce. I’m real y glad I caught you before you left the office.”

“Why, what’s up?” From his tone, he was already picking up on her guilt.

“Wel , how would you feel about a slight change of plan? You could come here, I could make dinner for us?

Maybe watch a DVD or something?”

After a moment of silence Elyce couldn’t interpret, Andrew replied, “Sure. I mean, I guess so. I thought you were standing me up or something.” He sounded relieved.

“No,” Elyce said instantly. “It’s only standing up if you get to the date and the other person doesn’t show up, and hasn’t cal ed to tel you or anything.”

“Oh,” he chuckled. “I didn’t realize there was actual y a specific rule about that. What if she leaves a message and I don’t get it in time?”

“It’s like a postmark deadline. As long as she cal ed before the date was supposed to start, it doesn’t count as a standing-up. Although there does have to be a legitimate reason for the cancel ation. As far as the guy knows.” She laughed.

“Maybe I shouldn’t ask what constitutes a legitimate reason.”

“Yeah, probably best not to go there,” Elyce agreed.

“So why the change of plans, anyway? Are you just tired of seafood or…?”

Elyce was relieved to know he was aware of the potential problem
there
.
“No, no. Actual y I just found out I’m going to have my dog here tonight, and I can’t leave him alone in the house. He has a separation anxiety thing. If he feels abandoned he’l try to chew his way out. He’s actual y broken windows before, stuff like that.”

“A separation anxiety thing? Is that like actual y having separation anxiety?”

“Um, yes. He has actual separation anxiety. Severe, actual y.”

“I got it. Wel , tempting as it sounds, and I hope there’s a rain check involved here, I’m afraid I can’t. I’m about as al ergic to dogs as I am to cats, is the thing. And you know what I had to pay to get a cat that doesn’t make me wheeze. Seems a shame to blow al that expense to spend the evening hanging out with a dog.”

“I hope you mean—”

“I mean your
dog
. Not you. I mean, I’d be hanging out with you
,
and of course you’re not a dog. Far from it, very far from it—”

“That’s okay. Real y, I understand. I don’t think I’d be a very good hostess if I invited you here knowing you were going to have an asthma attack for the evening’s entertainment.” She had giggled a little at Andrew’s endearing attempts to explain himself and felt a surge of fondness for him.

At the same time, though, she felt strangely relieved.

Possibly she was just tired from the week at work, and more recently from al the shopping, but a quiet evening alone at home curled on the loveseat with Astro sounded like heaven. “I’m real y sorry, though. And of course there’s a rain check. This was just unexpected. My ex couldn’t get a spot at the kennel, and it
is
actual y sort of my dog.” Elyce stopped, puzzled at herself. Why the white lie? Astro was
their
dog, hers and Karl’s, a joint acquisition from that very first day at the pound when they hadn’t even had to ask one another which puppy they’d be taking home. They always said that Astro had chosen them, not the other way around.

“I understand too, real y. Not a problem. So maybe tomorrow night?”

“I’l have him al weekend, I’m afraid.”

Andrew’s disappointment was evident in his voice, and Elyce couldn’t help but be flattered. “He gets to spend the weekend? Lucky boy.”

She giggled again, which was only slightly out of character. “Don’t envy him too much. It’s a very smal house and I think I probably snore.”

They laughed together, although it hadn’t been al that funny, and made a tentative plan for the rain check to be cashed the fol owing Friday evening instead. “No seafood.

Maybe even a movie,” Andrew suggested, and Elyce readily agreed.

Karl must have wasted no time packing Astro into the SUV and heading out. Roughly forty-five minutes later, he knocked on the door to drop off the pup. Astro was as thril ed to see Elyce as if it had been a year since his last visit, and he tore off to investigate the house and its smel s like it was some entirely new place. Karl was apologetic and appreciative, but barely had time to hand over the bag containing Astro’s blanket, treats and food dishes before zipping off into the night to get to the airport.

Sighing, Elyce flipped through her modest col ection of DVDs, pul ed out a few possibilities and an hour later, fel asleep on the couch to the sound of Astro’s snores over the familiar dialogue and music of
Singin’ in the Rain
.

* * * * *

Karl’s sister Emily rarely took “no” for an answer. His sister-in-law Kel y was cut from much the same cloth. So when Elyce tried to beg off their planned girls’ night out that Saturday on the basis of having to watch Astro, Emily immediately volunteered her dog-friendly home for the event.

“Scott can just take the girls over to Wil and Kel y’s and they can al do something over there for the evening. A little Daddy time.”

“But it seems sil y to rearrange everybody’s plans because of the dog. I mean, what if Scott and Wil don’t real y want to do the whole Daddy thing?” Elyce protested.

“They’re a little too late to change their minds on that,”

Emily pointed out. “Besides, it’l be good for them. And if it’s at my place, we don’t have to dress up. We can just order pizza and drink wine and wear our fat clothes. It’l be great. We’l watch girlie TV and make fun of the people getting makeovers.”

“How can I resist?” Elyce joked. “Are you sure Kel y’s up for that?”

Emily snorted. “A chance to get Wil to watch the kids while she drinks wine and critiques baffling fashion choices?”

“Okay, you have a point there.”

Just as Emily had predicted, nobody objected too strongly. By that evening, Elyce found herself firmly sandwiched on the couch between Karl’s sister and sister-in-law, enjoying the show but spending each commercial break getting a third degree that would have had a hardened criminal singing like a canary.

“You can’t real y be doing this just because of Mom, there must be something else going on,” insisted Emily.

“Are you pregnant?” Kel y asked bluntly.

“Kelly!” Elyce felt herself blushing at the scrutiny. “No!

It’s been nearly a year since we even… No.
No
.”

“He was at your place the other day,” said Emily. “It was the day after we saw you with that guy at dinner.”

“Is it just me or is that guy a little bit jerky?” Kel y asked Emily around a mouthful of pizza.

“It isn’t just you. Anyway, Karl said he talked you into the Christmas thing but he had this look, like there had been more than talk.”

Elyce hadn’t been quite sure how to take Emily’s bluntness when she first met Karl’s family, but she had come to appreciate how straightforward her sister-in-law could be. Say what one might about Emily, at least she never hid her agenda.

“We are
not
getting back together, Em. I’m sorry, you know I love you guys, but that real y isn’t what’s going on. I just didn’t want to be the girl who ruined Christmas. I stil don’t understand how nobody has told your grandparents about the separation. I mean, it’s been eleven months. In al that time, nobody spil ed the beans?”

For the first time that evening, Emily looked slightly uncomfortable. “I think, to be perfectly honest, we’ve al sort of let ourselves think that things were going to work out if, you know…if we al just backed off. That you two would work it out. Mom stil thinks that. She said she isn’t even going to mention this whole Christmas arrangement, she’s just going to pretend everything’s back to normal and hope it rubs off on you, so you come to your senses.”

Elyce mul ed that over in silence for a moment while Emily rose with the newly emptied pizza box to take it into the kitchen.

“Is that true?” Elyce asked Kel y, who stil sat eating her pizza and staring at the resumed show on the television. “Is that what you’ve al been thinking this whole time?”

Kel y nodded, not especial y happily, and wound an unruly strand of cheese back down to the pizza slice. “You guys were just always such a great couple. I stil can’t real y figure it out. I mean, you like each other stil . I don’t get it.

But I know I’m not the one in the middle of the situation, so I try not to judge.”

“He’s just… I can’t condone it. Land development? I don’t want to offend anyone…I don’t hold it against any of you. I know it’s just what the family has always done. But it isn’t even particularly green development either, or at least it hasn’t been in the past. He knew my stance on the environment long before we got married. It was one of the things we had in common. And I thought we were on the same page. This isn’t a negotiable issue with me.”

“I think we al know that now. But you knew what the family business was before you got married too,” Kel y pointed out.

“I respect everybody else’s opinion on the issue, Kel y.

Real y, I do. Even if I can’t agree, I do know that not everyone feels the same way about this. I know it’s their livelihood and it’s their tradition. But it wasn’t Karl’s livelihood. He had a job he enjoyed in another field and then deliberately, knowingly, chose to go to work in this business instead. It felt like a betrayal of trust, and that isn’t something I can just let go.”

An awkward silence fel between the two until Emily returned from the kitchen and shooed Astro from her spot on the couch, which he’d occupied as soon as her back was turned. “Check out the capri pants on that one.” She gestured to the television, where a makeover victim was being scolded for her insistence on wearing comfortable clothes. “Seriously, what was she thinking? Those things make her look like a trol dol .”