Free Chow Down by Laurien Berenson Page A

stood.
    â€œHello?” I called out. No one answered. Only my own word echoed back.
    A door slammed. I thought I heard someone moan.
    Then I heard the patter of little feet and Yoda came flying down the steps, trailing her gossamer ribbon leash. Without even stopping to think, I leaned down and opened my arms. The little Yorkie flew right into them.
    â€œIt’s all right,” I said, as she pushed her tiny body into me and burrowed close to my chest. “You’re going to be all right.”
    Damn, I thought. I really hated lying to a dog.

7
    I t was lucky I’d stopped to get Faith that drink of water. As things turned out, she and I didn’t get back home to Stamford until midafternoon.
    On the other hand, if we hadn’t paused for those few minutes on the third floor of the Champions building, we wouldn’t have been in the stairwell when Larry Kim went tumbling down the flight of steps and broke his neck on the landing. Timing is everything, or so they say.
    In my case, I think it might be more like bad luck just tends to follow me around.
    Aunt Peg would probably be the first to agree with that assessment. She was the one I’d ended up pouring out the whole story to, when Faith and I finally got home. Davey had had a play date scheduled that afternoon with his best friend, Joey Brickman. Sam had gone to drop him off and then run some errands.
    We’d settled all that by cell phone. What Sam hadn’t mentioned was that I would find Aunt Peg waiting for me when I got home. She was sitting on the deck, sipping a tall glass of ice tea, and reading through a book of breed standards. Not surprisingly, she was surrounded by my bevy of besotted Poodles.
    â€œWhat are you doing here?” I asked.
    Aunt Peg loves to drop in without warning but usually she manages to make her visits coincide with times when someone’s home.
    â€œHolding down the fort, apparently.” Peg slapped her book shut and set it aside.
    Imagine that. I hadn’t even been aware that we’d needed holding down. Just in case I was missing something, I ran quickly through a mental checklist. The house was standing, the Poodles looked healthy, no Indians were attacking . . .
    Nope, we were good.
    â€œYou’re white as a sheet,” said Aunt Peg. “Let me pour you a glass of tea. Maybe you’re pregnant.”
    She threw in that last bit like it was a casual afterthought. Nobody in the vicinity was fooled.
    â€œI don’t think so.” I poured my own glass of tea and added a mint leaf to it. “If I look pale, it’s probably because we just got back from the opening reception at the Champions Dog Food—”
    â€œI thought you were due back several hours ago.”
    â€œWe were. The reception ended before noon. But unfortunately, as we were leaving the building one of the other contestants fell down the fire stairs and broke his neck. He was dead before the ambulance got there.”
    â€œOh, dear.” Aunt Peg didn’t sound nearly as upset as most people would have under the circumstances. There’s nothing she likes more than a good set of complications. “Accident?”
    â€œI don’t think so.”
    â€œLet’s go back outside and sit down. You’d better tell me all about it.”
    As if from the moment that I’d first seen her minivan parked in the driveway, there’d ever been any doubt of that.
    Davey’s and my previous house had been a small Cape Cod in a tightly packed family neighborhood. Lots were cramped; privacy almost nonexistent. Sitting outside in our other yard, with houses so close on either side that we could almost reach out and touch them, Davey and I never knew whether we might be subjected to the blare of a nearby radio, the aroma of dinner cooking on someone’s barbecue, or uninvited visits from the neighbor’s cats.
    Things were very different at the new house. Our deck was beautiful, and the