Free Stud Rites by Susan Conant

knocking and calling to Leah, Pam Ritchie came striding down the corridor waving a sheaf of papers at me. She wore what looked like an old-fashioned prom dress, a three-quarter-length rose-colored gown with shoulder straps as thin as the spiked heels of her dyed-to-match shoes. Crystal had not, of course, suddenly drafted Pam to fill in for an absent bridesmaid. Pam was on her way to or from the Parade of Veterans and Titleholders, which called for evening dress. If I’m ever forced to handle a malamute while wearing formal attire, I’ll choose a floor-length gown and running shoes. Also, good coverage. When a malamute pulls, your pecs flex hard enough to snap any spaghetti strap. Topless handling is a fad that has yet to entrance the fancy.
    ”Isn’t that your room?” Pam demanded. ”I was bringing this to you.” She thrust the papers at me.
    ”I’m locked out. My cousin must be in the bathroom or something. Oh, the stud book! Thank you.”
    ”I’m sorry it took me so long. November 1990 through June ’93. Is that it?”
    I nodded. Like Nixon’s White House tapes, my copy of the Alaskan malamute stud book had had a significant gap: Until now, I hadn’t been able to look up the sire, dam, breeder, and owner of any dog with a registration published in the missing months.
    ”This’ll do it,” I told her. As a sort of extra thanks, I added how much I admired the old sign from the Chinook Kennels that she’d donated to the breed club auction. Pam replied that she was glad that someone appreciated it because, these days, a lot of people in malamutes didn’t even seem to know that Eva B. (”Short”) Seeley was the matriarch of our breed or that the dogs from her Chinook Kennels had gone with Admiral Byrd. As Pam was speaking, the lizardlike man, smoking yet another cigarette, appeared from the vending-machine room and, to my astonishment, uttered a series of succinct and obscene remarks about Mrs. Seeley that I am too grateful to her to repeat. If it hadn’t been for Short Seeley, Rowdy and Kimi wouldn’t exist. I owe her a retrospective and unpayable debt. She had a wonderful eye for a dog.
    Before the man had finished vilifying her, the outraged Pam was aggressively defending her memory: ”If Short were alive today, you wouldn’t dare say any of that! But now the poor woman isn’t around...”
    In response to the altercation, Rowdy and Kimi were breathing loudly on the other side of the door. They didn’t intend to do anything; they just didn’t want to miss the fun. Claws scratched. I banged on the door. ”Leah! Leah, open the door!” Rowdy began wooing.
    ”... know-it-all bitch...” I couldn’t tell whether the man meant Short Seeley or Pam Ritchie. From Pam’s viewpoint, it didn’t matter.
    As Pam was sputtering about Short Seeley’s sacred memory and demanding to know just who the man thought he was, Freida Reilly arose from the stairwell like a deus ex machina. ”Holly, get in there and make those dogs shut up,” our show chair ordered crisply. ”And you,” she told Pam, ”disappear.” Swooping down on the lizard, Freida snatched his can of Coke and the ice bucket into which he was dribbling ash. ”Please accept our most profuse apologies for this misunderstanding,” she gushed. And away she swept him.
    Ten minutes later, when I’d carried out my plan of drenching the trash barrel, Leah and I were analyzing the episode. Actually, we were just talking about it, but Cambridge is finally starting to get to me. Before long, I’ll be deconstructing narratives. Anyway, Leah was sprawled on her bed drinking a diet version of what I used to call tonic, a New England term dating, no doubt, to the era when Coke really was and the pause really, really refreshed; and I was cross-legged on the floor scratching Rowdy’s white chest and administering to myself the tonic of my adulthood, cognac, which I’d poured into a bathroom glass from the flask in my first-aid kit, the only medicine