Rachel Alexander 03 - A Hell of a Dog

Beryl.
    But why the other two?
    In order to get that answer, I suspected I was going to need a little help from my friends.



WE TOOK SEPARATE CABS

    I rang the bell next to the wrought-iron gate and waited for Chip to come and open it
    “This is Tina Darling,” I said when the gate swung open. “Beryl’s daughter. She’s staying here tonight.”
    He took a look at Tina, stepped closer, put an arm around her shoulders, and walked her to the cottage. I locked the gate and followed behind them, Dashiell and Betty circling around me, sneezing with joy that I’d returned.
    Tina was so exhausted, she could hardly keep her eyes open. I took her upstairs to my room, turned down the covers, and when she sat, I bent and slipped off her shoes. Without saying a word, she lay back on the pillow, drew up her knees, and closed her eyes.
    “Do you want me to leave Dashiell with you?” I asked.
    She nodded without opening her eyes.
    He’d followed us up, his nails ticking on the oak stairs. He stood at the side of the bed, watching her, his forehead wrinkled with concern, dowsing for where she hurt. But this wasn’t a stomachache or a pulled muscle. The hurt Tina felt was everywhere, leaving room for nothing else.
    I patted the bed next to her, and Dashiell hopped up, snuggling against her. As I pulled the cover over both of them, I saw her arm reach out to embrace him.
    Downstairs, I poured two glasses of wine and joined Chip on the couch. “Chip, when Sam called to ask you to speak, did she tell you you’d be covering a spot left by another speaker who had seemed to abandon ship?”
    “She did. She said Tina had agreed to teach, but that at the last minute, she was unable to reach her for a confirmation.”
    “I was able to buy that one. She’d been after you for a long time. And the topic is one any number of people could have handled.”
    “But none as brilliantly as I did.”
    “Correct.” I took a sip of wine. “But for that speaker’s other slot, we have a situation that tests credibility. Tina’s forte is breed temperament. She contracts to deliver this important talk, the opening talk of the program, then fails to respond to all of Sam’s attempts to reach her. So far, it’s not too bad a stretch. But then, the day before the symposium, the only other person who could do as brilliant a job on the talk, someone who had refused repeatedly to come to the States to lecture, calls Sam and volunteers to speak on the very topic that is her specialty and that happens to be going begging.”
    “How do you know it was at the last minute?”
    “Because the evening before, Sam had asked me if I’d cover it, because she hadn’t been able to reach Tina, and she had to be sure everything was covered for the students.”
    “You would have been spectacular.”
    “This is true. But I never thought I’d be giving that talk. I assumed Tina would show, that she’d been away or something, which would explain her not getting back to Sam. I figured she’d be back just in the nick of time. Sam even saved a room for her, 303, the room on the other side of mine, just in case.”
    “But she didn’t show. And now you know why.”
    “She’d had an abortion,” I said even more softly than I was already speaking, wanting to be absolutely sure my voice didn’t carry up the stairs to Tina.
    Chip didn’t say anything right away, but he reached for Betty, who was lying on the other end of the couch.
    “Martyn?”
    I nodded, watching him get it.
    “But aren’t we back where we were before? Why the others? Why Alan and Rick, too?”
    “That’s what I’ve yet to find out.”
    “How do you plan to do that?”
    “I thought I might ask Beryl,” I told him.
    “You’ve got to be kidding.”
    “Not at all. Sometimes if you ask in the right way, you get whatever it is you’re after.”
    “I’ll keep that in mind.”
    “Good boy.”
    As he reached out for me, the same look in his eyes that Dashiell gets when I order in pizza, we heard the bedroom door open, and a moment later the bathroom door closed.
    “I never knew it could be like this.” He sat back, shaking his head.
    “I find it often is. I’ve been thinking of hiring a personal assistant to do for me all those things I no longer get the chance to do—converse, eat out, go to the movies, have sex.”
    “It sounds like marriage,” he said.
    Strings of light were coming in through the slats of the shutters. Chip reached out and took my hand. Sitting