The Wicked Flea

trouble, but who knows?”
    “What we need to do,” said Noah, the group’s unofficial leader, “is to make sure that everyone, including Sylvia, carries one of these horns from now on. Or a personal alarm. Especially Sylvia. The problem is that she has no control over Zsa Zsa. With one of these horns, she could stop Zsa Zsa before things got started.”
    I’d been trying to make myself heard. Giving up on getting the group’s attention, I spoke to Ceci. “This is totally out of hand! It’s hardly going to improve things at the park if all the dog walkers suddenly start blasting horns and alarms. People who already object to the dogs are going to have two things to complain about instead of just one. And isn’t there some kind of ordinance against loud noise?” I stopped. I’d assumed that Sylvia would catch Zsa Zsa and take her home. In fact, Sylvia was heading back toward the group with Zsa Zsa trailing after her.
    “You see what we’re up against?” Ceci commented. “I think maybe it’s time to go home.”
    But Wilson started toward his mother-in-law. He pulled a spare leash from his pocket. When he reached Sylvia, he handed it to her. He must have said something, but he was too far away for me to hear. Perhaps because Zsa Zsa’s head was still reeling from the blast in her ear, she proved easy for Sylvia to catch. Wilson didn’t help Sylvia. Rather, he and his lovely corgi headed toward the woods. With Zsa Zsa on leash, Sylvia, however, returned to the group. I expected her to reenter by apologizing to me for the unprovoked attack on my dog. Instead, she repeated all the questions the others had asked about the aerosol horn.
    Once again, I pointed out that arming the dog group with horns and alarms, far from solving public relations problems with other users of the park, would exacerbate the situation. Instead of complaining about dogs, the public would call the police about the noise, and when the police started showing up, all the dogs would have to be leashed. Eventually, feeling that I’d sounded enough loud and sour notes, I said lightly, “I’ve had one recent encounter with the police. I don’t really need another.”
    “Oh, people won’t make noise,” Ceci assured me, “unless they really need to, the way you did. You’re just not giving yourself proper credit for a wonderful idea, but I knew you’d know exactly what to do! And so you did! It’s just too bad that you-know-who wasn’t here this morning to see what a miracle worker you are.” Somehow managing to whisper at a volume only slightly lower than the boat horn’s, she added, in case my recent concussion was impairing my reason, “Douglas! That’s who I mean, but we won’t say a word to anyone, will we?” Returning abruptly to my reference to the police, she asked, “Were you arrested? Of course you weren’t. What could you of all people possibly have done, I mean, Holly, you are perfectly law abiding, you probably got a parking ticket, or maybe you were walking your dogs and forgot to carry a plastic cleanup bag and—”
    Sylvia interrupted her. “Were you arrested? How interesting!”
    To avoid a second fight between Zsa Zsa and Rowdy, I’d been back-stepping a bit. Consequently, I had to raise my voice to respond and thus ended up telling everyone the story of my new stepmother’s abortive attempt to scatter her late husband’s ashes in Harvard Yard.
    Sylvia was tickled by the idea. “Marvelous! Maybe that’s what I should do with Ian! He’s been sitting in an urn at home gathering dust. Dust unto dust, as they say, but—”
    Someone asked dryly, “Wedding bells in your future, Sylvia?”
    “You never know,” she replied, “although marriage isn’t exactly what I’ve been thinking about.” Smiling, she hummed a tune that everyone must have recognized: “There’ll Be Some Changes Made.”
    It always irks me to hear someone hint at some drastic change without going on to specify what it’s going to be. So what if Sylvia sounded hostile? What could she do that would have any effect on me? Nothing! If she dyed her hair chartreuse, moved to Brazil, and married two men, her green-coiffed South American bigamy would have no impact on me, except that I’d be able to accompany Ceci and Quest to the park without the risk of having Zsa Zsa attack Rowdy. Preoccupied with this senseless resentment, and still monitoring Zsa Zsa, I didn’t notice the pretty, petite young woman in black spandex until