The Wicked Flea

Walter Beamon returned home with us.
     

Chapter 2
     
    Subj: My Support—and a brag!
    From: [email protected]
    To: [email protected]
    ------------------
     
Dearest Holly!
I am fully supportive of your decision to see a psychiatrist. How lucky you are to have Rita as a trusted friend who can recommend the best possible person! Knowing your father as you do, you will understand that the wisest and most tactful course will be to say nothing to Buck about the psychiatrist, whom I have described to him as a neurologist. The departure from the precise truth is very slight. After all, both examine heads.
 
Buck intends to E-mail you about the neurologist. I do wish that he could be persuaded not to write E-mail in ALL CAPS. He has repeatedly been informed that the usage makes his communications look as if he is SHOUTING. Buck's invariable reply to me when I draw his attention to the matter is that he IS shouting. Thank heaven, he is just kidding as usual. :0 (Is that right? It's supposed to be a smile, but it looks peculiar, like that painting, "The Scream," by Munch, isn't it?)
 
Molly went R.W.B. * on Saturday. I was moderately pleased with the Reserve. Buck was not. Your father felt that the Winners Bitch was inferior to Molly and said that the judge, Lester Offenbach, chose the incorrect bichon over Molly because the other one had a pretty handler. It's certainly true that our own dear Horace Livermore is not pretty! But even Buck admits that Horace is an excellent handler. And Molly went W.B. on Sunday! Only one point, but who cares? Well, your father does, but I don't! I must confess that I am still not entirely comfortable in spelling out the B. in W.B., so to speak. Buck correctly points out that if "bitch" (There! I've done it!) were other than a proper term for female, the American Kennel Club would ban its use, as is certainly not the case since you-know-what is every other word spoken at AKC shows.
We really must have another go at Harvard Yard. It's a shame that we were foiled in our previous attempt. I won't feel quite right until the deed is done.
 
Your loving stepmother—Doesn't that make me sound like a witch!
 
Gabrielle
     

Chapter 3
     
     
    Subj: BORDER COLLIE
    From: [email protected]
    To: [email protected]
    -----------------------------------
     
GABRIELLE SAYS THAT RITA HAS PACKED YOU OFF TO A NEUROLOGIST. REAL DOCTORS ARE OK, BUT DON'T LET ANY OF THOSE CAMBRIDGE TOFU GUM-MERS TALK YOU INTO THINKING YOU NEED YOUR HEAD EXAMINED. THE ONLY THING THOSE JOKERS ARE AFTER IS YOUR MONEY. THERE'S NOT A DAMNED THING WRONG WITH YOU THAT DOGS AND HARD WORK WONT CURE.
 
GIVE SERIOUS THOUGHT TO THE BORDER COLLIE.
     
     

Chapter 4
     
    Vee Foote. I ask you! What kind of stupid first name is Vee? It isn’t even a name; it’s an initial. And Foote ? Dr. Foote? For a psychiatrist ? It sounded to me as if her idea of treatment would be a swift kick. On reflection, however, I decided that a swift kick might be precisely what I needed. Besides a new vet, of course. As I’ve mentioned, my last vet, Steve Delaney, married...
    Well, enough about Anita Fairley-Delaney. For now.
    For whatever reason, I found myself in the Proverbial situation of the wicked, who, as the Bible says— Proverbs 28:1—“flee when no man pursueth.” Steve, having plighted his troth to Anita, was no longer pursuing me. My next-door neighbor and thoroughly admirable longtime admirer, Lt. Kevin Dennehy of the Cambridge police, finally had a girlfriend, a cop named Jennie, as opposed, for example, to a dog writer named Holly. I’d seen almost nothing of Kevin lately. He hadn’t even introduced me to Jennie, whom I imagined as thin, blond, and gorgeous, in other words, remarkably like Anita Fairley. Dog clubs and dog shows are lousy places to meet men. They’re disproportionately packed with women, and the men tend to be married or gay. Indeed, the world of dogs is a microcosm of the world at large, or so it often seems to me.
    “Hunting attracts men,” I told Dr. Foote, “but malamutes are useless for hunting, and besides, the last thing I want to do is kill animals. AA is supposed to be great, but I’m not alcoholic, and it seems a little risky to make myself eligible. AA or no AA, I might not dry out.”
    “Tell me more about Steve,” said Dr. Foote, whose home office was in a big single-family Victorian house that must have been undergoing renovation. Or were the workers possibly putting up a