Bride & Groom

move to his house or elsewhere. I hated the idea. I’d had lots of canine siblings, but Rita and my cousin Leah were as close as I’d ever had to human sisters. I didn’t want to lose Rita.
    Because we’d lingered at The Wordsmythe, it was seven by the time we got home, but we’d been nibbling cheese, fruit, and cake, and weren’t very hungry. We’d fed the dogs before ’ my signing, so we just gave them brief turns in the yard, first Rowdy and Kimi, then India, Lady, and Sammy the puppy, Rowdy’s son, who was now a big teenage malamute but was doomed to be known for life as “the puppy.” In my view, the beautiful, sweet, funny, and charming Sammy was actually the puppy. Succumbing to my addiction, I checked my E-mail. After that, Steve sat at the kitchen table drinking cold beer while I made a salad. Even for the author of 101 Ways to Cook Liver, it was too hot to cook.
    “Claire is really something,” Steve said. “Comical.”
    I was at the sink washing lettuce, but turned my head to look at Steve. “Is she? I didn’t get to spend any time with her.”
    “You have to feel kind of sorry for her husband. I’ve met him. Daniel. He seems like a nice enough guy.”
    “So why do you have to feel sorry for him?”
    “A lot of her joking’s at his expense. About how rigid he is. Or selfish. Or how Daniel doesn’t appreciate her. Claire is funny. But she practically says that the only reason she married Daniel was that she wanted a baby.”
    “Did she get one?”
    “Yes. He’s five or six now. Gus. She talks about him a lot. Devoted mother. People say one reason she married Daniel was that she thought he’d be a good father.”
    “Is he?”
    “I guess so. That’s why he wasn’t there today. He took Gus on one of those Duck Boat tours that leave from the Prudential. Amphibious vehicles. Claire tried to get him to forget it, but he wouldn’t. She always says, ‘You know what Daniel’s like.’ I hope you never say that about me.”
    “I say it all the time. Besides, everyone knows what you’re like, Steve. You’re wonderful. Everyone always says so. And since you’re so wonderful, why don’t you open that bottle of Reisling that’s in the refrigerator. And pour me a glass.”
    I was slicing tomatoes, chopping fresh basil, and performing other such tasks without having to guard the food from Rowdy and Kimi. The only dog loose in the kitchen was Steve’s shepherd, India, who was not a food thief. In fact, India was that rarest of creatures, a truly obedient dog. Rowdy and Kimi were obedient dogs in the sense that they’d indulged the senseless human wish to put advanced obedience titles on them; when they’d felt in the mood and simultaneously found themselves in the obedience ring, * they’d cooperated. India, in contrast, reliably obeyed Steve. In marrying him, I was marrying into his family of dogs. India would fully accept me as Steve’s wife. Astute judge of character that she was, India had rejected Anita. In her own way, India already loved me, but she worshiped Steve and was truly a one-man dog.
    Sipping the wine Steve had supplied, I said, “It would be nice if someone would give us a big wooden salad bowl as a wedding present. Rita is making me register at Blooming-dale’s. Maybe I’ll pick one out.”
    Steve was silent for a moment. “You’re not really doing that. Are you?”
    “ We are. You and I are. Rita is making us do it. She’s taking me to some mall next Friday. You’re welcome to come along.”
    For once, he replied instantly. “No.”
    “Rita says that left to our own devices, we’d register with some kennel supply place. Cherrybrook. I said that we wouldn’t, because we already have all the dog stuff we need.”
    “We don’t need dishes. For us. Do we?”
    “Not really. But we do need a salad bowl, and if we take attrition into account, we could use a hundred sets of those wooden salad forks. Rowdy and Kimi eat them.”
    “Buy a salad bowl. And forks.”
    “Argue with Rita, not me. And with Gabrielle. She’s as determined as Rita.” Gabrielle was my stepmother.
    “I’m going to have a mother-in-law.” Steve sounded H as if the idea had just occurred to him, “Me. With a mother-in-law.” Anita’s mother had died long before she’d married Steve.
    “You love Gabrielle. So do I. And we can both be grateful to her for exerting some control over my father. She’s the first person who’s been able to do that since my mother died.” I was