Ruffly Speaking

but highly intelligent, a gifted child, perhaps, or a wise and kindly extraterrestrial. “What is it? Tell me what it is,” we heard her say.
    “We’d better let her know about the fireworks,” Rita said. “Steve’s probably right, and she can’t hear them.”
    As Rita stood up, Doug’s face took on a look of boyish mischief. He boomed like the cannons that get shot at the conclusion of The 1812 Overture and, when Rita gave a startled glance over her shoulder, switched to the “Marseillaise.” With an upswing of his arms, he led all of us in a march toward Ruffly. Doug’s rich, trained voice was infinitely better than Morris’s enthusiastic bellowing, and Doug lacked Morris’s expansiveness. Even so, the performance was unmistakably Morris’s.
    Once we were assembled in the kitchen, Doug became himself again. “Stephanie, I am so sorry. I never thought. This is unforgivable. Ruffly is working, and we’ve gone and interrupted him.”
    But we hadn’t. Ruffly’s concentration was so intense that if the Boston Pops had deserted the Esplanade for Highland Street, the dog would probably have kept to his task, which consisted of posing stiff-legged before one of the glass doors to the deck while becoming all ears. The dog’s little body was so rigid that the air around him seemed to vibrate. No one spoke. To prevent Rowdy from breaking the respectful silence, I caught his eye, raised a finger to my lips, and rested a hand on his head. Ruffly suddenly quivered all over, veered around, pawed at Stephanie’s dress, gave one sharp bark, and again pointed his nose at the glass door.
    “Ruffly, what is it?” Stephanie spoke exactly as if she expected a verbal reply.
    Like an adept translator, Rowdy whined a question.
    “Shh!” I told him.
    Ruffly’s answer came suddenly and almost violently. He barked so loudly that Rita’s and Stephanie’s hands s hot to their aids. His black-and-tan head twisted around toward Stephanie; his paws frantically scraped the door Panels.
    “Desperate to do his doo-doo?” Doug asked frivolously.
    Stephanie’s perfunctory smile was half-frown. Her hand fingered the squash blossom necklace as if she were counting rosary beads. “This isn’t how he asks. Whatever it is, he thinks it’s important. I’d better check it out. Ruffly, I’ll find out. I understand. We’ll go see what it is. My turn now. Good boy.”
    She reached for the door. I grabbed Rowdy’s collar and tried to remember where I’d left his leash. Reading my mind, Steve spotted the leash on the counter, fastened it to Rowdy’s buckle collar, and handed it to me.
    “Training collar?” I asked. I usually remove the slip collar and leash together. Then I remembered that to prevent Rowdy from choking himself, I’d taken off the chain when I’d tethered him to the deck post earlier in the evening. I’d probably left it outside.
    Doug, Rita, and Steve had followed Stephanie and Ruffly to the deck, where Doug was bending over the gas grill.
    “Doug, that’s not what Ruffly means.” Stephanie followed the determined little dog down the steps to the yard.
    Rita was fiddling with the controls on her aids. “Holly, do you hear anything?”
    I listened. “No. Not really. Steve, can you hear the fireworks?”
    “No. Rita? Turn the volume way up on those things.”
    Rita had once explained to me that the pioneers of psychology studied mental processes by examining their own inner lives. It seemed to me that if the introspective method ever came back in vogue, I could switch careers and dredge a book out of the depths of my own stupidity-Never before had it crossed my mind that Rita might hear better with her aids than I did with my so-called normal ears.
    Doug straightened up. “Does anyone smell smoke?”
    I sniffed. “It’s the charcoal. Could that be what Ruffly is—?”
    “Probably not, unless it’s generating sound,” Steve said. “Rita, are you picking up anything?”
    “Static. Loud background noise. Cars. Rowdy’s tags.” She paused. “Where’s Ruffly?”
    “Down here somewhere,” Doug called from the yard.
    I abandoned my search for the training collar, and Rowdy and I descended the stairs. As we did, I could smell the glowing charcoal and a lingering hint of steak and salmon. So could Rowdy, who lunged toward the Weber grills. “ This way,” I told him. “And there’s nothing there. All you’ll do is burn yourself.”
    The immediate vicinity of the house was bright with