Free A Bad Day for Pretty by Sophie Littlefield Page A

hated to admit it, Roxy seemed like a nice dog, with the sweet temperament of an animal at the passive end of the spectrum. She didn’t act like a dog that had been abused—kicked or hit or worse. What she had, instead, was that love-me-please-please-please eagerness that seemed born into a pup every other litter or so, the boundless trust and friendliness that in the right house made a perfect child’s pet, a loyal dog that would allow itself to be pawed and gnawed and dressed in doll’s clothes.
    In the wrong house, this sort of dog seemed to invite abuse. Much like some women—the sweet, naïve ones—when they got together with a man whose evil streak was of the vicious woman-hurting sort, it seemed like they couldn’t do anything to prevent the meanness heaped on them. Stella hated that, hated the way the innocent sometimes drew fury to themselves like flies to honey.
    But no one had done this dog wrong. How she had come to be in Todd’s company was a mystery, but the reason she was now boarding at Stella’s was not: Sherilee was allergic. Not the-occasional-sneeze allergic, but red-eyed, mucousy, hive-raising, miserable allergic. Stella had seen the evidence herself on the prior occasions that Todd tried to smuggle animals into the house: the kitten in his closet, the guinea pig he brought home from school after forging a note in his mother’s hand explaining to his teacher that the Groffes would be delighted to care for the classroom pet, Peanut, over spring break.
    Peanut had spent spring break at Stella’s, instead, and Todd had spent it grounded.
    But the dog was a whole new level of bold disregard for his mother’s comfort and respiratory health. Stella wondered where Todd could possibly have hidden her—and what he’d told Sherilee when Roxy was discovered. Sherilee would never have allowed her son to dump the dog on Stella; that must have been a covert op.
    “Don’t get too comfortable,” Stella said. “And—and you’re in big trouble. Big, big trouble.” She debated locking the dog in the bathroom while she cleaned the kitchen, but with her luck, Roxy’s tanks wouldn’t be empty, and she’d end up with a puddle on the bath mat.
    Stella glanced at the clock. Nearly nine. After the visit to Donna Donovan, she’d put in a full day with Roseann Lau cleaning up from the storm around the parking lot and the restaurant and shop, and helping Capper Tackett across the street board up the front window of Tackett Stamp & Coin, which had been shattered by an errant hubcap sent hurtling its way by the previous day’s winds. It was likely to be a few days before the glass repairman would be available.
    Once the window had been secured and the street restored to order, Stella called over to Dr. Herman’s office and finessed an appointment with him for the next day. All it took was pretending that she was Mrs. Donovan, and that her husband was curled up on the floor in a rictus of pain; she expressed her fears that Neb had somehow massacred another disk in his back, and assured the receptionist that she’d alternate heat and cold to give her poor husband a measure of comfort.
    Then she and Chrissy and Roseann and Capper and a few other Third Street merchants had dinner at China Paradise. Roseann, grumpy as ever, threw in a free order of steamed dumplings. Tucker ate most of them before the party broke up so he could have his bath.
    Now it was time for Stella’s standing appointment with Johnnie Walker Black, maybe a nice hot shower, and then bed; she was exhausted. She didn’t have the energy for this mess.
    Damn dog. She looked for kitchen twine in the cupboard, didn’t find any, and finally turned up a couple of extension cords. She tied one around Roxy’s neck in a square knot and looped the other around to make a sort of leash and set out the back door.
    “This ain’t no walk,” Stella said as Roxy bounded ahead of her, delighted to be outside, straining on the extension cord. “This is