Black Ribbon

dog entered at Passaic. Cam and Nicky could have traveled with someone else, but I thought that she’d probably driven her big, beautifully organized van. To reach the Abbotts’, Cam and John R.B. would’ve had to go out of their way, of course, past Basking Ridge to Chester, then back home. But the details didn’t matter. The map answered my question: Leaving the Passaic site, the Whites and the Abbotts had to head in the same direction.
    An obedience judge leaving a trial with an exhibitor to whom she’d just given a good score? Hey, no big deal. Among other things, conformation judges give opinions, but in obedience, scores are earned, not just handed out; and if an obedience judge awards an unearned point, the vigilant, outraged spectators write to Front and Finish, to the judge, and to the AKC; and the judge gets a call from On High asking what Went on. Judges’ decisions are final, and the AKC really supports judges. Even so, the judge in the obedience ring knows that she’s under close scrutiny, and she scores accordingly. Consequently, riding home with someone who’d earned a good score in her ring was a situation that an obedience judge would prefer to avoid, certainly not a situation that an obedience judge would like to see bruited about, but in almost all circumstances, it was no big deal.
    Almost all. There is at least one exception. Obedience fanatic, are you? If not, just take the following for what it was, a sentence spoken "to me in a dream that night, a dream in which Rowdy and Kimi were dashing wildly around in a grassy field. But if you think you know your obedience, here’s a challenge. That’s the first hint. The second is what the voice said to me in the dream, a simple piece of advice, a broad hint. Here it is: “Tie your dogs so they don’t run off.”
    I repeat. A challenge: “Tie your dogs so they don’t run off.” And therein lies the exception.
     

 
    WHEN THE SUN ROSE on Wednesday morning, I knew almost everything and could prove absolutely nothing. Eva had followed Phyllis to the parking lot at the Passaic show and watched her drive off with Cam White. Eva had known why the ordinarily innocuous act of riding with Cam constituted a serious indiscretion, but she hadn’t known just how serious. Phyllis’s shaky marriage, her husband’s ambitions, and her sense of who she was depended on her position as a respected AKC obedience judge. And Eva’s ambitions for Bingo had been like Don Abbott’s for himself: high and intense. Realistic? Realistically, were Rowdy and I ready to go up against Tundra and Anna Morelli at the national specialty? Realistically, was Rowdy prepared to limit his performance in the ring to the execution of the specified exercises and to delete from his repertoire such embellishments as the Drop on Back and Wiggle Feet, the Zoom out of Ring, the Slam into Handler, and that climactic crowd-pleaser, the infamous Kiss the Judge? Let’s get it straight: We’re talking dogs and hopes. Reality has nothing to do with it. At the forthcoming Long Trail Kennel Club trial in Vermont, Eva Spitteler had been expecting Bingo to earn every point. In threatening Judge Phyllis Abbott, Eva had wanted only to make sure that Bingo got the score he deserved.
    I’d slept restlessly. To protect the resort’s plush, posh red velour blankets from Rowdy’s fast-falling fur, I’d covered the bed with the sheet I’d brought from home. I wanted him next to me—and loose, too, not locked in a crate he’d have had to destroy if I needed protection. I got up three or four times during the night to go to the bathroom, to brush my teeth, to stare out at the lake. When the first light appeared, I gave up on sleep. I took a wake-up shower, got dressed, and fed Rowdy. A little later in the day, when I’d had some coffee, while I packed up the car, I’d be able to face Phyllis Abbott. I’d be able to lie to her, bluff, apologize for my silly misunderstanding. She wouldn’t believe me; she wouldn’t need to. Maybe she’d accept my groveling for what it would be: the assurance that I intended to do nothing. Maybe I’d drive the short distance to Bethel, Maine, to visit my grandmother. Maybe I’d go directly back to Cambridge. I’d make excuses to my editor and write whatever she wanted to see about Maxine McGuire’s dog heaven. But it’s hard to think creatively or to lie credibly before breakfast. I hesitated at the door and opened it only to prevent Rowdy from