Chapter 1 Read online

  She adjusted her chair a few inches higher and gave me a thumbs up. “See, I’m getting better at commands.”

  “That you are,” I said, though she’d never had a problem with people. “You know, that’s the attitude I want you to take with the dogs.”

  She smiled and punched a button to boot up the computer. “And here’s your treat.”

  We both sat there waiting, staring at the screen like pilgrims waiting for the manifestation of a miracle. Carmen tapped her foot impatiently while the computer went through its machinations. “We’re going to find you a man. Husband material.”

  “On the computer?” I raised a brow and looked her straight in the eye.

  She flipped her long hair behind her. “You’ve heard of computer dating, haven’t you?”

  “I know it’s gotten people in a lot of trouble. Like my mother’s friend. Met a guy and got involved in some steamy online sex talk. When her husband found out, he left her. Called it cyberspace betrayal.”

  Carmen ignored me. As soon as the DSL connection was activated, she grabbed the mouse and aimed the cursor at the search engine address bar. “You don’t have to worry about that. You aren’t married.”

  I squirmed in my chair and eyed her with suspicion. “Have you really done this before?” The idea of finding a man through an online dating site made me uncomfortable.

  “I told you. A couple of times…with my daughter. Here’s the sign-in screen for muchas-dates.com. First, we need to create an online name for you. Hmmm. How about dog woman?”

  “Makes me sound like a circus attraction. ‘Step right up, ladies and gentlemen and see the amazing dog woman.’”

  Great way to start a relationship. Using a fake name. “Couldn’t I just give my real name?”

  Carmen’s eyes widened. “No way, José! You want them to think you’re not with it? This is the way it’s done. Give me a minute to think.” Carmen wrinkled her brow as she tried to come up with a name for my husband-hunting alter ego. She thought out loud. “Dog, woman, poodle woman, poodle lover…” She snapped her fingers. “I’ve got it! Dog Nanny. You know, like that TV show, Nanny 911.”

  “It makes me sound ancient.”

  “Then you think of something better,” she demanded, her face inches from mine, but I drew a blank. “So how old are you?”

  “Thirty-two.”

  “Thirty-two! I’d been married fourteen years when I was thirty-two. And had two teenagers!” She looked at me as if I were an aberration of nature, like the dog-faced woman.

  I tried to defend myself. “Women wait longer these days. They get educated, establish careers…” I didn’t add I’d graduated from college ten years ago and still wasn’t really established or married.

  “Well, you have to start someplace,” she said, obviously undeterred by my advanced age. Her fingers moved deftly over the keyboard until a screen with fill-in blanks popped up.

  “Zip code,” she said, typing in hers. She bent close to the screen as she typed, “DogNanny.” Her fingers flashed over the keys.

  I leaned in closer, peering at the monitor while she clicked on the tiny boxes. “Are you sure this is safe?”

  “Of course. This is the way people—what do they call it—‘hook up’ these days. You can find anything on the Interweb. Shopping for a man is no different from shopping for a…for a dog! That’s how I found Noche and Blanco. Hmm, age range. What age you want? Let’s see, you look young for thirty-two. You want to go younger? You can have from eighteen up. That’s legal.” She gave me an appraising look. “You could handle eighteen.”

  “Carmen.” I shot her a warning look, but she just laughed, clearly having a better time than I was. I might want a husband, but finding one online seemed beyond desperate.

  When she typed in eighteen, I reached out and grabbed her arm. “If we’re going to do this, let’s be realistic. Thirty-two is young enough.”

  She looked at me, her eyes amused. “Whatever you say, dog woman.” She laughed again and typed in thirty-two. “But if I were you, I’d go younger. Get a fresh one.”

  I thought back to my first year in high school, when senior boys seemed like men. Now eighteen seemed totally infantile. “I’ve already had my share of fresh ones. One my age is fine. Or a little older.”

  “How old you want to go?” she asked, typing in fifty-two before I could stop her.

  “Wait, not that old. I don’t want some guy I’m going to have to take care of in his dotage. When he’s seventy-two, I’ll be only…yikes—in twenty years, I’d be fifty-two. “Put thirty-five. That’s three years. Old enough.”

  “Okay, but you’re limiting your choices.” She punched in thirty-five. “And you’re a woman,” she spoke as she typed, “looking for a man.”

  “What else would a woman be looking for?”

  “Other women,” she said, giving me a knowing look. “And men can look for men. Abilene must really be behind the times.”

  I didn’t bother to answer. The computer had Carmen in its electronic clutches. “Now, we’ll go to advanced search options. Are you looking for casual dating, a serious relationship, friendship, or activity partners?”

  That got my attention. “Wait a minute. What does that mean, activity partners?”

  She clicked on a blue line of text and read aloud to me: “Someone to play card games, someone for your softball team, book club, etc.”

  “What’s that last one, the one called play?”

  Carmen clicked the mouse, and a pop-up box appeared. I leaned over and read the explanation: If you’re up for purely lascivious liaisons, check this box.

  “Not hardly,” I muttered. “Check serious relationship.” Carmen stuck out her pinky, hit the enter key, and a list of ten guys appeared, some with photos so small and dark they must have been shot in a bar.

  One look at the names and I had serious doubts about Carmen’s idea. “You can eliminate Boobhound.”

  She slowly scrolled through the list.

  Police lineups crossed my mind. “Oh my gosh, look at that one!” A fiftyish, bare-chested man stared back at us. “His breasts are larger than mine!” Granted I was no Pamela Anderson, but what was this guy thinking? First lying about his age, then posting a photo like that.

  “Wait, this one doesn’t look so bad,” Carmen said.

  “Uh, he’s got a pile of dirty laundry behind him. I don’t think so. Scratch him, too.”

  She scrolled past a guy with his head thrown back, swigging a beer. “Hmmm, not this one, but don’t get discouraged. We’ll find one for you.”

  The optimism of these men was nothing short of fascinating. “Keep going.” I watched with awe as she scrolled past Wolfman, Dimwit, Red-Hot Fireman, and Slutlover.

  “Do these guys seriously think a woman is going to respond to a name like that?” I asked.

  Carmen peered intently at the screen. “You have to be patient. What’s the line in the Bible about separating the wheat from the chaff?”

  “Show me some wheat.”

  “Okay, okay. Here’s one. He says he’s an Iraq war veteran and he’s stationed close by at Fort Hood. That means he has a steady income and can follow orders.”

  “No thanks. I have nothing against the military, but I want a man who’s going to stay home, take out the trash, and help raise our future children.”

  “What about this one. Single Italian Stallion. Woo hoo!” She gave me a wide grin.

  I gave her a withering look. “Carmen, he has on a bow tie and no shirt.”

  “Maybe he’s one of those bear dancers.”

  “If you mean La Bare, the strip club for women, forget it.”

  “Okay, we’ve got more.”

  I had to admit the woman was determined.

  “How about this one? He says he’s looking for Miss Perfect.”

  “He’s covered with tattoos! And I’m not Miss Perfect.”

  “He doesn’t have to know that.”

  “Moving along,” I said.

&nb
sp; “Okay, okay, moving.”

  “Wait! That’s him!” I said, catching her off guard.

  “Where? Which one?” Carmen’s eyes widened with excitement.

  “That one.” I pointed to a guy seated behind the wheel of a Mack truck. “The one that says picture of me when I was younger and thinner.”

  We laughed so hard we gasped for breath. When the spasm passed, Carmen resumed her crusade and pointed the cursor to another part of the screen. “Maybe we need a silver or gold account. It says here you can watch videos, read their blogs, and send instant messages for a fifty-dollar upgrade.”

  “It’s the men who need to upgrade,” I said.

  “You can pay someone to do that. It’s called a profile makeover.”

  “These guys need more than a profile makeover. They need total body-personality makeovers. I think I’ve seen enough for one afternoon.”

  Her shoulders drooped. “Promise me you’ll try again tomorrow? If forty million other people are using computers to get dates, it has to work.”

  I felt sorry for her. She was trying to help, after all. “I’ll think about it,” I said, though I had absolutely no intention of following through.

  ****

  Though she’d failed as matchmaker, Carmen continued to improve as a dog trainer. As a result, the poodles were showing marked improvement. She took my advice more seriously now. Like not slipping them treats for no reason.

  Without fail, we worked the dogs consistently twice a day. Between times, Carmen and I added supervised playtime and mini-sessions to reinforce what they’d already learned. Occasionally, Nick dropped by between flying Berto one place or another, but usually Carmen and I were so engrossed in the training Nick and I had little time to talk, a fact that made my life easier. Too, best I could tell, he hadn’t stayed in the other half of the guesthouse since we’d returned from New Orleans.

  One day, as we worked outside, Carmen managed to keep Noche in a sit-stay for three minutes. “Good boy!” she told him in a high voice, then looked to me for approval.

  I gave her a thumbs up and smiled. “Looking good.” I praised Carmen right along with the dogs and could tell it pleased her. Noche rewarded me with a doggy grin. Against his black coat, his teeth gleamed like Chiclets. When Carmen squatted to pet him, his pink tongue reached out and gave her a wet kiss.

  “Good kiss!” I called.

  Carmen laughed and wiped her mouth on her sleeve. “Very good kiss.” She walked over to where I stood with Blanco and handed me Noche’s leash. “Trade dogs with me and watch this.”

  She unclipped Blanco’s lead. Then, holding a wiener poised over Blanco’s head to get her attention, Carmen walked in figure-eights around some trees with Blanco strutting beside her in heel position like a champion show dog.

  “Blanco’s turning into a dream dog,” I called to Carmen. “And you’re getting really good!”

  When they stopped, Carmen praised her profusely. Blanco gulped a piece of wiener and leaped into the air.

  “See how smart they are?” I beamed. “Didn’t I tell you?”

  “Yes,” she agreed, a big grin spreading across her face. Her smiles appeared more frequently, and she seemed increasingly relaxed. I still had reservations about how the dogs would perform in front of a crowd, but Carmen was more determined than ever. She was having a graduation party for them, and nothing was going to stop her.

  She’d also managed to get Noche and Blanco in the down position, though Noche sometimes thought it was a game and rolled onto his back. I couldn’t help thinking about Neuticles when he unashamedly exposed his real cojones.

  Noche’s escape had scared Carmen so much she’d given the dogs their own bedroom across the hall from hers and Berto’s. Carmen was now calling it “the nursery” and had begun redecorating the room in a doggy motif. She spent hours poring over catalogs, constantly asking my opinion on wallpaper and draperies. She even ordered special dog beds and comforters—Noche’s in blue, Blanco’s pink.

  One day, after a training session, as we sat on the grass under a tree and watched the dogs play chase with each other, she began to talk about her life as a young girl in Mexico.

  “My family was large, and we were very close. But very poor. I met Berto at a dance, and we got married a few months later. I was eighteen. Most of my friends married much younger.”

  “How did you end up here?”

  “It was Berto’s dream. And he knew English. I didn’t. It was easier then to get permission from the government. Berto got his citizenship and taught me English so I could get mine. So we’re legal.”

  I shook my head. “I never thought—”

  “Sometimes people say things. Hurtful things. That’s why I wanted my children to get an education.”

  “Did you ever think of going back to school yourself when the children left home?”

  Carmen looked off into the distance. “Women in my country—in Mexico I mean—they didn’t go to school and have careers like they do here. Not where I grew up, anyway.”

  “It’s never too late to start.”

  “What would I do? Berto makes all the money we need. Besides, I like being here with my niños.”

  She had a point. But I knew her well enough by now to think she might be happier with something besides the dogs to keep her busy. She seemed so lonely when Berto was gone, and I wouldn’t be here forever.

  “Berto is really going to be proud of you when he sees all you’ve accomplished.”

  “Yes, isn’t he? He’ll see what a good dog mama I am.”

  “We still have lots of work to do, and when Blanco comes in heat, you’ll have bigger problems.”

  “In heat?”

  “I mean if Blanco…” How to put it? “At some point Blanco will reach a time when Noche can get her pregnant. I’m surprised it hasn’t already happened. That’s why it’s important to have him neutered and her spayed. Otherwise—”

  “I remember,” she said. “Party time.”

  I laughed. “Yes, little poodles that will grow up to be big poodles. People need to be responsible pet owners. Too many homeless dogs as it is.”

  Abilene’s new adoption center would be a small step, but it was a step. The problem couldn’t be solved overnight.

  Carmen lay back on the grass and propped her head on her arm. “Convincing Berto won’t be easy. When he got neutraled…I mean got his bas…vasectomy…he didn’t want anyone to know. But the doctor said it would be dangerous for me to have more children—I wanted more, many more. In my country we have big, big families. Anyway, Berto had the operation because it was easier for him and best for me, but I could tell it bothered him.”

  Carmen was right about one thing, Berto would be a tough nut to crack.

  The next afternoon, Carmen went to the beauty shop, so I worked the dogs alone. When we finished, I brought them inside, removed their leashes, and helped myself to a diet Dr Pepper from the kitchen fridge. The house was quiet except for the dogs’ slurping spring water from their His and Hers dishes. Berto and Nick were out of town again on business.

  As I walked past the library, something caught my eye. The armoire doors were wide open, and the screen saver on Berto’s computer beckoned like a porch light to a June bug. Though I had no intention of going back to muchas-dates, I did want to check out the Lookin’ for Love Web site to see if anyone had posted an update on how the building was coming along.

  I lowered myself into Berto’s chair, jiggled the mouse to shut off the screen saver, and typed in the Web address. The home page popped up. The shelter appeared to be doing fine without me. The roof on the kennel’s main wing was going up in a couple of weeks.

  For some reason, I clicked on the “bookmarks” tab. There, right in front of me, was the muchas-dates link.

  What would it hurt to take a peek? Maybe Carmen was right. Maybe this was the modern way to meet men. It beat going to smoke-filled bars and waiting for some single guy to fall off a stool and declare his undying love
.

  Positioning the cursor, I clicked on the sign-in space, typed in DogNanny, and hit enter. I ignored the pictures I’d seen last time and skimmed for new entries.

  A park ranger looked promising until I read his list of hobbies—dancing, golf, and outdoor activities. I’d never been coordinated enough for dancing or sports. Though he was kind of cute, I eliminated him and moved the little elevator at the side of the screen further down. I craned my neck forward, trying to make out details from the postage-stamp photos.

  Suddenly the word “dog” leaped out at me. I moved closer. A guy in a gimme cap leered back. “Most guys are dogs,” he’d written. “My cat has to like you, and he’s not particular.” Sheesh.

  Then, as I moved my chair back, about to give up, there he was. He’d listed his dog as his number-one hobby; movies, number two. He was even a blood donor. “Needs little maintenance,” he’d written. Though he wasn’t dark and hunky like Nick, he looked nice in an average-Joe sort of way. In fact, his name was Joe, Joe Griffon, computer analyst. The name had a nice Irish-American ring to it. I detected a slightly receding hairline, but that made him even better suited for me. I’d had my share of perfect-looking men, men like Nick. I was on a quest for a husband now. My standards were lower. And Joe’s smile was wide and cheerful, not sullen or smoldering. Definitely not the kind of guy I usually dated. It could be a match made in, well, in cyberspace.

  I composed a short introductory message I hoped would pique Joe’s interest. “Hi, I’m a fellow dog lover looking for a committed relationship.” No need playing coy. I didn’t want him to think I was the kind of girl who’d go out with someone called Slutlover.

  After some thought, I added: “I’m new to Waco and would like to meet for lunch if you’re interested.” I figured lunch was safer than dinner or drinks. That way he’d have to go back to his computer job, and I wouldn’t be stuck with him more than an hour or so. I signed it Julie and hit send. No need to give my last name.

  Yes, Joe Griffon, a thirty-two-year-old computer analyst, might one day be the father of my children, though I wasn’t sure I’d tell them where we’d met. I’d probably say he spotted me from across the room in a restaurant, came over and told me I was the woman he’d been looking for all his life and where had I been.