Creature Discomforts

startling beauty. By comparison, mine was a species of mutant ape ravaged by a skin disease.
    Watching me, although not quite reading my thoughts, Malcolm Fairley spoke up with his usual joviality. “It’s in the genes! I’m not joking!” Lowering his voice only a hint, he added, “They’re the same way, of course. Dog nuts all.”
    In perfect seriousness, I asked, “Would you consider me a dog nut?” Not only Malcolm Fairley, but Effie, Gabrielle, and a couple of other nearby people laughed.
    “Very good!” Malcolm complimented me. “Wonderfully dry sense of humor.”
    “It is genetic,” said Gabrielle, who looked, I might add, far less apelike than anyone else there. Like my dogs, she had an appealing rightness. Whereas others appeared to suffer the hideously revealing effects of a skin and coat disorder, Gabrielle’s perfect bone structure was obviously designed to be seen and admired. Her muslin ruffles were utterly correct for her breed. I realize now that the great gift she shared with my dogs was the invisible, elusive ability to make everyone feel special. “The love of dogs, I mean,” she continued, eyeing me. “It’s genetic. In this case, like father, like daughter.”
    “Daughter?” Fairley asked. “In general, the foundation deals with—”
    “We’re at cross-purposes here.” Gabrielle slapped a mosquito. “I was talking about Buck and Holly. Her father and I met at a show. A dog show,” she explained, presumably for the benefit of the genetically challenged. “Buck rescued me.”
    “I think that’s very romantic,” said Tiffany, who had persuaded Kimi to stretch out at the base of a boulder and was now using the big dog as a hairy headrest. “How did he rescue you?”
    “Oh, everyone’s heard this already,” Gabrielle replied. “Malcolm knows the story, and poor Holly has suffered through it I don’t know how many times.”
    “Don’t mind me,” I said, suppressing any hint of eagerness. The notion of this heroic father of mine was inexpressibly comforting. I was ravenous for details.
    For once, Malcolm Fairley looked less than jovial. Still, he made a grunt of agreement. I felt sorry for him. Every time he looked at Gabrielle, he went all Bambi.
    “Well,” Gabrielle said happily, “I was supposed to meet Horace Livermore at the show, but Horace hadn’t been too clear about exactly where. Horace has a tendency to assume everyone knows him and he’ll be easy to find. But it isn’t necessarily true. Shows are all spread out.”
    “Horace is...?” Tiffany asked. “Maybe you said before.”
    “Molly’s handler. But she does not travel with him the way poor Isaac did. I always thought that was very wrong of Norman. In theory, I have Molly all groomed, although I’m not very good at it yet, and then Horace takes her into the ring. Or one of his assistants does, or he finds me another professional handler. Sometimes he has a conflict, when he’s supposed to be in two rings at once. Molly and I are not his most important clients.”
    Teasing Gabrielle, Tiffany said, “This is not very romantic so far!”
    Gabrielle patted her arm. “Well, no, Tiffany, it isn’t! Horace is a wonderful handler. Even Norman Axelrod admitted that. Norman’s gripes about Horace had nothing to do with how Horace presented Isaac. But Horace is not the romantic type. What I’m leading up to is that I drove through this simply terrible rain to get to the show, which was in Portland, at some enormous convention center. Shows are so chaotic! I got up at four o’clock in the morning, and then I drove all the way there. Then I did have the sense to carry Molly. To keep her clean, of course. But she’d been in the car all that time, and she really had to go. And once I got indoors, there were these rows of pens with cedar shavings and so forth, and I thought, well, here are the potties! So I let Molly in one, only it turned out that they were private. And some dragon of a woman came charging at me. And poor Molly still hadn’t had a chance to relieve herself. So what could I do? I picked her up and took her outdoors again, and I put her on the ground. She ended up dripping wet, with her feet all muddy.”
    “You have a great future with Harlequin,” Tiffany said. “This is getting more romantic by the second.”
    “Isn’t it!” Gabrielle went on. “Well, it does now. You’ll see! So there I was, carrying Molly back inside, and she really was a mess. Meanwhile, I still