Ruffly Speaking

of someone like Alice Savery to take all those elaborate precautions to ward off imaginary dangers while failing to take ordinary measures to protect against real hazards. It’s virtually diagnostic.”
    “Rita, Rowdy did move toward her.”
    “He and Ruffly also saved Ivan’s life. Speaking of whom—”
    We’d almost reached the entrance to the little Sunday school playground that lay in back of St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church. Approaching from the opposite direction were Ivan and Bernadette, with one of the smallest Alaskan malamutes in existence and definitely the smallest malamute who’d been available for adoption anywhere in the United States. She’d arrived at Logan Airport a week earlier on a flight from Houston. Bernadette, Ivan, Leah, and I had gone together to pick her up. Ivan knew that she came from Alaskan Malamute Rescue of South Texas, and I’d expected him to give her some kind of cowgirl name. But the one he’d chosen without the slightest hesitation was Shakespearean and thus perfectly Cantabrigian. Helena, Ivan had patiently informed me, was a character in All’s Well That Ends Well. Ivan’s Helena, who had a sweet, gentle temperament, weighed only fifty-eight pounds, small for any mal, tiny for a Texas mal. But she was the right size for Ivan, and, of course, fifty-eight pounds less for the Houston landfill that year.
    “Now, Rita, keep Willie hugged in right next to you,” I ordered. “Rowdy, watch me! If Willie tears into another—”
    But Rita didn’t hear the rest of the warning. Neither did I. At the sight of another Scottie, Willie had gone into a frenzy of yapping that ended only when Leah handed Kimi’s leash to Matthew Benson, loomed over Willie, and commanded him to cut it out. Matthew kept a grip on Kimi, but he locked his eyes on Leah’s breasts. I reminded myself to pray for the safe return of Jeff and of Lance, the Border collie.
    “This was a big mistake,” Rita told me. “Why did I let you talk me into this?”
    The playground was, I’ll admit, becoming a little crowded and rather zoolike.
    “Relax,” I said. “Just think. If I hadn’t talked you into going to the audiologist, you might’ve ended up paranoid, just like Alice Savery.”
    “Holly, for Christ’s—”
    “Rita!”
    “Sorry. But... You know, we really don’t belong here. We aren’t even Episcopalian, and the dogs—”
    “Well, who knows,” I said. “There really is no such thing as an Episcopalian dog, is there? And there’s a little kid over there with a chameleon, and there’s definitely no such thing as an Episcopalian chameleon.”
    “No, but the owners of the other animals—”
    “It’s a Blessing of the Animals,” I pointed out, “not a Blessing of the Owners.” I lowered my voice and spoke directly into Rita’s aided ear. “And, believe me, one thing about Stephanie is that if she didn’t want us to be here, we wouldn’t be here.”
    “You still don’t get it, do you?” Rita demanded. “You still cling to that same unexamined attitude.”
    “I admire Stephanie,” I whispered. “It’s just that I don’t really—”
    “Of course you don’t,” Rita interrupted. “Bright, controlling woman, unusual career, very competitive, with an absolutely marvelous dog. So how could you possibly—?”
    “All right!”
    “There’s no need to be defensive,” Rita informed me. “There’s no way to assimilate reality without distorting it. Most of the interesting things in life don’t happen way out there somewhere, you know; they happen right in here.” She raised her hand to her temple.
    If Rita is correct, the Blessing of the Animals occurred not amid the greenery of the play yard behind St. Margaret’s Episcopal Church on a warm summer evening, but within the minds and souls of the Reverend Stephanie Benson, who conducted the service, and the people who joined her. Stephanie wore clerical garb, a long white gown with loose sleeves. Around her neck was draped a wide multicolored shawl that probably has an ecclesiastical name that I don’t know. Doug Winer wore white, to match Morris’s Bedlingtons, I assumed. Doug didn’t belong to St. Margaret’s, either, but Morris had, so maybe Doug disagreed with me about the existence of Episcopalian dogs. Besides, if canine breeds got assigned to human religious denominations, the Church of England and its U.S. affiliate would certainly have first claim on the Bedlington. Nelson and Jennie were as perfectly