Page 53 of Crazy Spooky Love
Marina laughs. “A dog’s for life, Melody, not just to land a shag with the local reporter.”
Artie’s jaw hits the floor and I spring up out of the chair, cheeks hot.
“That is so not what is happening here!”
She doesn’t reply, and after a second I drop back down and fling my arm across my eyes like an overemotional teenager.
“Oh God, Marina, why him? I can’t stand the sight of him but I can’t seem to stop thinking about him ripping my clothes off either.”
Marina’s eyebrows hit her fringe. “Close your ears and make coffee, Artie.”
She comes and sits next to me on the sofa and pats my knee for solidarity.
“Come on, now, Bittersweet. Remember when I had that short-lived and totally inappropriate crush on Bazza Bowman? From here up,” she slashes her hand across her slender neck to demonstrate from precisely where up, “I hated him, but from here down, every time he was within three feet of me all I wanted to do was play hide the sausage. It’s just one of those chemical things.” She pulls a face. “Sadly for both Bazza and me, it was more a case of hide the cocktail sausage, which just goes to prove my point. Some fantasies are best kept in your head.”
“You had sex with Bazza Bowman?” I say, distracted by her revelation. “You never told me that.”
“I try not to think about it,” she says quickly, rolling her shoulders and shuddering so hard that her high, dark ponytail quivers. “It only happened once in the storeroom behind his dad’s butcher shop.”
Marina briefly worked a weekend job for Bazza’s dad, and it now becomes clear to me why.
“I’m not casting aspersions on Fletch,” she says, holding up her crooked little finger like a diplomatic sex adviser. “More that you should never meet your heroes. That sort of thing.”
I cover her hand with my own and start to laugh. “I think that saying applies to people like the Dalai Lama or Michelle Obama.”
Artie brings a tray of steaming mugs over and sets it down on the coffee table in front ofus.
“About that dog…”
Who knew you could geta dog so quickly? Anyone would think the shelter wanted to see the back of the ball of blond fur that I’ve just manhandled into my mother’s kitchen and deposited on the floor.
My mother looks at the newest member of the Bittersweet family with blatant distaste.
“Only you could go to the dogs’ home and come back with a one-eared pug.”
The dog regards her balefully from his position on my foot.
“I had no choice, he followed me round and practically clung to my leg. Even the Magic 8 Ball said he was the one. He’ll grow on you. And he doesn’t have one ear, it’s just been bitten or something. They said he can still hear perfectly well.”
“What have you named him?” Gran peers over the edge of their dining table.
“I didn’t get to pick his name, Gran. He’s three years old so he already has a name. They advised against changing it because it’ll confuse him too much.”
Lucky for the pug, you might think. He doesn’t have to be saddled with Parsnip.
Hold that thought.
I flip open the rehoming pack and read out his details. “His previous owner was an American film and literature student who got him while he was at uni. His folks wouldn’t let him take him back there when he finished studying, so the dog wound up at the dogs’ home.”
Even I’m struggling to say his name without feeling like a fool.
Who in their right mind calls a pug Lestat?
“There’s a note from his previous owner,” I say, pulling it out of the pack.
Dear Lucky New Pug-Lover, please take the best care of my dark lord and good buddy, Lestat. Sorry about the name, I’m an Anne Rice fan and vampires rock my world. What can I say? I can assure you that the dog doesn’t go on nightly murderous rampages, if that helps. I wish I could have taken him back to the States with me, but he’d have hated quarantine and my folks would have, like, killed me. He’s one cool dude, but watch him because he’ll swallow pretty much anything, and he isn’t a big fan of cold weather, or rain, or wind. He’s a bit of a couch potato,truth told, but he has a wicked sense of humor and he snores like a freight train. You’ve been warned. Just buy earplugs, know what I’m sayin’? Man, you’re gonna love him, and I’m gonna miss him. Yours sincerely, Tom Jones
There is silence in the kitchen while we all contemplate the new arrival, and then my mother finally speaks.
