AllFreeNovel
Share Us
The dog question turned out to be just a delay. “How about lunch next week? I know a killer Thai place down the street.” He shifted his chair an inch closer.
I sucked in a breath. “Thanks, but I generally like to eat in.”
“My treat. I’d like to hear how you got old man Talbot to drop his drawers so quickly the other week. I’d been telling Dennis he was soft on the price, but he didn’t listen.”
“I really didn’t do much.”
He leaned even closer. “Still, I think you did great for being so new at this. Maybe we could spend a little time, and I could give you a few pointers. You could give me some dog advice.”
I knew his kind, and there was only one pointy thing he wanted to give me. I nodded wordlessly as I sipped my water as noncommittally as possible.
“I see you didn’t come with a date either.”
His comments were becoming more obvious.
Dennis leaned forward before I could say anything. “She’smydate.”
The alpha lion had spoken.
His words shut Larry down like a blast of cold water from a fire hose. “I was just telling Jennifer how good a job she did with Talbot.”
Dennis ignored him and went back to talking with Jay Fisher on the other side.
I listened to their conversation for a moment, and when I looked back, Serena was asking Larry to switch places with her so we could talk.
I didn’t know if she was rescuing me from Larry, or wanting to size up Dennis’s date, but in the end, I didn’t care.
When dinner arrived, the choices were chicken or salmon.
Mrs. Fisher had received a plate of chicken and was having trouble cutting it. When the waiter got to me, I settled on salmon.
The conversations slowed a little as we ate, and Cindy, Serena, and I found common ground discussing Serena’s passion for her vegetable garden.
She forked a tomato from the salad. “These are like cardboard compared to what comes out of my garden. Why can’t they give us ones with some taste?”
I didn’t have an answer for that, and we turned to the subject of rose pruning.
Serena struck me as very grounded for a rich girl, but then I remembered Dennis’s comment about my rich-people prejudice. Maybe he had a point.
Larry seemed more likable after he mentioned his difficulty house training the puppy he’d recently gotten. “Binky just doesn’t get it. I’ve followed what the book says, but it’s not working.”
I felt sorry for the poor mutt already. Not even a dog deserved a name like that. Asking how he chose that name got me a grumbled answer having something to do with Tina, who had left the critter with him two weeks ago and hadn’t returned.
After hearing that, I felt sorry for Larry. But not sorry enough to have lunch with him.
“Try the training pads,” I suggested.
“I’ve tried those, but he sleeps on them and pees on the carpet.”
That garnered a muffled laugh from Cindy.
“The scent may not be right for him,” I offered. “Wipe some of his piddle on the pad, so he thinks he’s gone there before. That should work.”
Larry shook his head. “The package says they’re already scented like that.”
Dennis got in on the action. “You should know better than to believe all the marketing bullshit on a package.”
Larry looked crestfallen.
