Black Ribbon

industrial-size chafing dish containing liquified cheese so free of trayf that a Hasidic rabbi could have lapped it up in good conscience.
    The Orthodoxy of the dish did, however, enable me to escape from Eva Spitteler, who lingered in fierce dispute with the cheese-sauce server while I fled. Hailed by Maxine, I had
    the good fortune to end up at her table with the VIP’s—Eric Grimaldi, Phyllis and Don Abbott, Sara, Heather, Cam, and Ginny. Eric was, of course, a Sporting Group judge; Phyllis, an obedience judge; Ginny, a tracking judge. Sara and Heather were extremely well known in agility. Cam was there partly because she was married to John R.B., an emerging AKC pooh-bah in his own right and the son of the legendary R.B., and partly because she wrote her column, showed a lot, won a lot, and knew a great many people, most of whom liked her and respected her judgment. I was there as a representative of Dog’s Life, thus as the recipient of the courtesy owed to my employer, and as a stand-in for my editor, Bonnie, who was too good a friend of Max’s to publish anything really negative I might write about Waggin’ Tail, anyway. Bonnie, however, couldn’t spice up my article with the authentic zing of first-person enthusiasm that my inclusion among the notables was probably meant to inspire.
    My luck, though, consisted less of finding myself in elevated company than in discovering myself protected from the food-griping that would dominate the conversation everywhere else in the dining room of Waggin’ Tail. Not that dog people are picky eaters. Far from it. The food at most dog shows makes lunch at the typical American high school cafeteria taste like a banquet at the Tour d’Argent. But we do want value for money. A few bucks for a plastic-encased ultrasoggy tuna on dry-roasted cardboard was one thing; gourmet-crustacean prices for Welsh rarebit were quite another. My position at the VIP table had another bonus, or so I imagined: Since my place was the last vacant one, there was no way I could end up having to endure yet more of Eva Spitteler, or so I was assuring myself when an unseen force slamming against the back of my chair sent me lurching forward so hard that my solar plexus collided with the edge of the table.
    “Hey, sorry about that!” The voice drowned out my involuntary moan. “You wanna move so I can get in here?”
    I’d been right: Eva and I wouldn’t be at the same table. Instead, we’d be back to back.
    “Shit!” Eva exclaimed. “Shit! You guys got real lobster! I’m going back.” And away she stomped.
    Across the table from me, Maxine blithely raised her fork toward her mouth. “Just ignore her!” Balanced on the tines of Max’s fork was what my Maine-bred eye identified as a chunk of tail meat. “She has done nothing but complain about everyone and everything. Some people are never satisfied.”
    Phyllis Abbott, who was seated to my immediate right, charitably opined that Eva was a very unhappy person. At my left, Eric Grimaldi gave what I took to be a grunt of agreement. Maxine leaped on the idea. “Sara? Heather? Now, you heard that! Does that make you feel better?” Before either could reply, Max addressed the table at large: “There was actually an attempt of sorts to lodge an official complaint.”
    “About us,” Sara explained.
    Heather corrected her. “More about agility. The obstacles weren’t quote sufficiently challenging unquote for somebody’s quote natural unquote at agility, and they better be raised pronto, and... Holly heard her. What she intends to do is to go and use our equipment when we’re not there. She said it this morning when everyone was there, and when Sara ran into her this afternoon, Eva—this is unbelievable!—she made a pretend gun out of her fist, and she pointed it at Sara, and she said, ‘One A.M.!’ Is that childish? Like it’s the OK Corral.”
    “Also,” said Sara, “she complained to Max that we were ‘surly.’ Surly! Hah! All we did was remind everyone not to use the equipment when we weren’t there. We didn’t single her out. What we should’ve done was toss her out on her ear.” Heather said damningly, “That’s one person with what I’d call zero aptitude for agility. The dog, maybe you could work with. But her? Forget it. The whole problem is that she just does not understand dogs.”
    “If that, uh, basic affinity simply is missing,” pronounced Phyllis Abbott, “there really isn’t a great deal to be