a license, shoplifted an article of clothing, cheated on a test, smoked a joint behind the gym—in fact, had any fun at all.
As an adult, she still heard the voice, though she’d shortened its name to Pru, and it often seemed more grimly real than her mother. Some people had imaginary friends. But she had to come up with an imaginary mother, as if the one who’d given birth to her wasn’t hard enough on her nervous system.
This is not the way you were supposed to be spending this week, Pru chimed in on cue.
She couldn’t argue. Buried somewhere in the bottom of her purse, probably wrapped around the twelve thousand in cash that she was supposed to have put in the bank, was a piece of white card stock embossed with cascading roses. Its words were burned into her brain by remorse hotter than the sun that shone on the Grand Canyon State.
The honor of your presence
is requested at the marriage of
Miss January Day Halli
to
Mr. Henry Hudson Blake
Saturday the third of June
Two thousand and six
at half after seven o’clock
Blah blah blah. Instead of looking like he’d been cast in the role of the perfect bridegroom, Hud was in Minnesota, and she had changed her name from January—or even the name she was usually called, Jane—to Jandy and embroiled herself in a custody fight with an annoying man named Sam who thought she was stupid.
Heads I win, tails you lose.
Seeming to hover in the air, the coin looked like a flame, an illusion caused by the reflection of the unrelenting sun. Memories of Theodore and Mary Therese Burger again pulsed through her heat-addled brain. Three million dollars in fines and fees and damages. The swimming pool of their Hollywood Hills mansion filled with headless chicken and duck carcasses purchased at Hong Kong Market. A Land Rover dredged out of Lake Arrowhead. Careers ruined. Families divided. All because two adults who desperately wanted to be free of each other couldn’t agree about which of them had the greater claim to an award-winning, eleven pound bichon frisé named Wallace.
No. She didn’t need that kind of drama. Let this Sam person win his coin toss and with it, custody.
She glanced down at the stocky dog who was scratching its ear with a hind paw, indifferent that its fate was being decided by a bogus coin toss. Except for being white, this dog was nothing like the pictures she’d seen of the Burgers’ little Wallace. In a world of canine celebrity, this dog would be the barrel full of muscle and fat that acted as bodyguard to the petite powerhouse that was Wallace. This dog would be invisible, in fact, unless some overly ambitious fan or photographer got too aggressive toward Wallace. And then…
She glanced again at the dog’s benign expression and thought, Not even then. This dog is just a big, dumb flea carrier. Although thanks to this dog, at least the fleas are getting somewhere, unlike me.
As much as it rankled her to admit it, Sam was probably right. If the dog had a choice, would it want to end up with a woman who thought of it as a big, dumb flea carrier? A woman who knew nothing about taking care of a dog? A woman who was sweat-soaked, exhausted, and couldn’t manage to steal a functioning truck?
The dog yawned, as if bored by the outcome of the coin toss.
Fine. Let Sam think she was that stupid. The sooner she stopped arguing with him, the sooner he’d take the dog and get out of her way. She was waiting for someone and didn’t need to be distracted by man or beast.
“Heads,” Sam said and let her see the coin in his palm. “I win.”
“I guess you got yourself a dog.” She looked down to see the dog staring up at her, its tongue hanging out from between pink and black gums. “What’ll you name it?”
Sam had removed his belt from his cargo pants and was making a loop to put around the dog’s neck. He glanced at her, squinting against the sun—her initial assessment that he was no genius was backed up by his failure to realize that his sunglasses were hanging from the front of his shirt—and said, “I don’t know. Maybe I’ll call it Sue.”
She scowled at the way he emphasized his words, and Pru jeered, Maybe he’s smarter than you think. Sounds like he knows Jandy’s not really your name.
Whatever, she answered. It’s not like I’ll ever see him again.
“A boy named Sue?” she asked.
Sam looked puzzled and said, “I would never have figured you for a Johnny Cash fan.”
“What?”
“What?”
They stared at each other, and finally she said, “Why would you name a boy dog Sue?”
“I wouldn’t. I chose Sue because that eye with one black ring made me think of Rudbeckia.”
Too much heat and too little sleep were apparently affecting her comprehension skills, so again she said only, “What?”
“The flower,” Sam said. “You might know it as black-eyed susan, but its real name is Rudbeckia. Perfect for her, because she looks like she has a black eye.”
“Oh!” she said, looking again at the dog. “It’s a girl dog.”
The expression on Sam’s face, and maybe the dog’s face, too, made it clear he was sure that the right person had won the coin toss and with it, possession of the dog. After all, if she couldn’t figure out a dog’s gender, what ignorance might she show regarding more serious matters like when to feed it, what shots it needed, and whether it had worms?
Ugh. Worms. Maybe it really was best that the dog was now wearing Sam’s belt.
“I hope you two will be very happy together,” she said.
Sam raised an eyebrow, probably because of her dismissive tone, but simply said to the dog, “C’mon, girl. Sue. Let’s go for a walk so you can take care of business before we hit the road.”
She felt a twinge of regret as the two of them walked away without a backward glance. She again thought of Wallace Burger, the bichon frisé. The big, dumb flea carrier wouldn’t have been Wallace’s bodyguard after all. She was a graceless, lumbering female who would probably never have been allowed near the little champion. And if she had been, onlookers would have wondered, What’s he doing with her? She’s way out of her league with him.
She shook her head. She was so tired that she was attributing unattractive human qualities to dogs. It was possible that she was just bothered by the dog’s indifference as it walked away from her. Who wanted to be judged unworthy of friendship by a dog? Dogs were supposed to like everybody, weren’t they?
She certainly didn’t care what Sam thought of her. So what if he’d been kind enough to help a dog? So what if he had nice eyes, interesting eyebrows, good skin, and a semi-attractive smile? He thought she was stupid, and she had no patience for that. One thing Hud never did was treat her like she didn’t have a brain. In fact, Hud almost always deferred to her decisions, including the one she’d made to postpone their wedding less than a week before it was scheduled to take place.
She glanced at the two-carat, emerald-cut diamond on her left hand and remembered to twist it around so the stone wouldn’t show. Then she climbed back inside the hot cab of the crippled pickup and stared at the flatbed tow truck she’d noticed when she pulled off the freeway. At least she was out of the sun. She didn’t dare go inside the rest stop and miss the tow truck driver. As soon as he showed up, she could get the pickup taken somewhere for repairs and then turn back the way she’d come. She’d been in the grip of some kind of road hypnosis, but now she was clearheaded.
Mostly.
Her eyes felt gritty, and she longed to close them. To keep herself awake—and maybe to silence Pru—she mentally replayed the last twenty-four hours. If she could make sense of her impulsive