A Dog's Perfect Christmas Page 18

  Winstead picked up on Daddy’s sadness and nosed his leg in concern.

  “We sure put a lot of wonderful miles on that odometer, didn’t we, Winstead?” Daddy whispered.

  Winstead wagged. Where did the car go? What are we doing?

  “Things change, buddy.” Daddy stroked Winstead’s head. “You can fight it and be defeated by it, or you can embrace it. Right?”

  Winstead remained unhappy. He wanted to go for a car ride.

  Daddy slapped his hands together with a muffled, gloved impact. “How ’bout we go for a walk?”

  Walk! Even better!

  * * *

  Ruby was frantic. She put her front paws on the back of the couch and watched in berserk alarm as Winstead and Sander headed down the sidewalk, clearly taking a walk without her!

  The house was completely empty. Ruby whined and ran to Winstead’s bed, but of course Winstead wasn’t in it. Ello was not in her room. The twins were gone, too, and attacking a toy offered Ruby no comfort whatsoever.

  Distraught, Ruby could only think of one thing to do, which was to go to Sander’s closet, pull out a shoe, and chew it. Then she ripped apart a magazine that had been left on the floor next to his chair. Then she returned to her post at the window. She was alone. Abandoned. They had forgotten all about her!

  She managed to gnaw a hole in Winstead’s bed and yank tufts of material out, hating the way the stuff clung to her tongue, but unable, under these emergency conditions, to stop.

  Finally the door squeaked and banged and Ruby tore through the house. Sander was stomping his feet as he unclipped Winstead’s leash. Ruby frantically leapt on Winstead, who sniffed back suspiciously. She put up her paws and tried to jump up to Sander’s face.

  “Yes, hello Ruby, good dog,” he greeted her gruffly.

  Obviously sensing trouble, Winstead padded back to Sander’s bedroom, and Ruby followed. The big dog put his nose to the tumbleweeds of bed stuffing strewn on the floor. He was not wagging.

  Sander entered the room and pulled up short at the mayhem. Winstead looked up at him guiltily.

  “Oh, Ruby,” Sander muttered mournfully.

  * * *

  Monty met Hunter at the double doors at the end of the atrium in Hunter’s building. His two helpers swiftly pulled the pins on the hinges, frigid air swirling around their feet as they pushed the Monte Carlo into the center of the room, where anyone standing at the windows on all four sides of the five-story chamber could see the incongruous sight.

  Kim gaped at him. “You can’t park a car in the building.”

  “Well, actually, I can,” Hunter replied, watching Monty and his men efficiently return the doors to their places.

  Kim threw her hands in the air. “I need a mental health break.”

  Hunter was polishing the car’s finish to a gleam when he saw Kim, in coat and hat, stalk out the door and into the cold day. He sighed and called up to the executive floor to have their assistant come down to cover the main reception desk. Then he stood, waiting, watching the windows above him.

  It was like opening a can of tuna in a house full of feral cats. One by one, the software engineers pressed against the glass and stared down as if Hunter were an exotic zoo animal. Gradually, they drifted into the atrium.

  Hunter grinned at them as they gathered around the classic automobile.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  Sander’s baby-blue convertible had its top down and its hood open to expose a clean, empty engine compartment. By Hunter’s reckoning, every software geek in the company had been lured down to admire the thing. Hunter stood on the Monte Carlo’s back seat, taking in their expressions.

  “This is a 1980 Chevrolet Monte Carlo. It’s a classic. We’re having a contest, and the winner gets the car.”

  They all stared in amazement.

  “So here’s how to play. You’ll find printed forms in all the common areas, including right there on the table, there.”

  The geeks immediately snatched up the papers and began examining them critically, like lawyers searching for loopholes in a contract.

  “You’ll see that there are two sections on each form to fill out. One is basic data—place of birth, number of children, all that. The second section is an essay for writing out the biography of the person. A narrative … not just dry facts, but the actual story of their lives. The goal is to fill one of these out for every employee in the building. Each form you hand in is an entry into the contest to win this immaculate, classic car. Each biography will be assessed for accuracy and awarded points. So the person who completes the most accurate entries will win the car. Simple.”

  He could tell by their expressions that nobody thought it was simple. Hands shot up. “Stephen?” Hunter called.

  “So what if someone sabotages you by giving you all wrong answers?”

  “Well,” reasoned another engineer before Hunter opened his mouth, “if you lie to everyone, your lie becomes the truth. If you say to everyone you were born in Cuba, then it doesn’t matter where you were born in reality, because you said to everybody it was Cuba.”

  “Cuba,” someone snorted derisively.

  “So why not lie inconsistently?” another coder objected.

  That stumped the others for a minute.

  “Okay, well, you’re going to have to be talking to each other anyway,” Hunter reasoned. “You could compare answers. If Gordon says he was born in Cuba to one person and Canada to another, you’ll know he’s lying.”

  “And if someone lies, we’ll freeze him out,” Gordon declared triumphantly. “No one will talk to him. He won’t be able to do any entries of his own.”

  “So there’s an incentive to be truthful and to talk to as many people as possible,” Hunter concluded with satisfaction.

  “Is accurate the right word, though? What about completeness?” someone challenged.

  “Or creativity?”

  “Readability?”

  “Not creativity,” someone jeered.

  Hunter was smiling. Engineers. “Sure,” he replied noncommittally.

  When he left the atrium, everyone was buzzing, but it soon proved to be difficult to write while standing. Eventually they moved upstairs, where the furniture was configured to make consulting with one another more convenient.

  * * *

  Sander grunted as he lifted Barbara’s urn from its shelf. He carried it tenderly, holding it as if it were an infant as he moved to his chair. When he sat, he put his arms around it, hugging her to his chest. For a long moment, he sat silently while Winstead folded his lanky limbs and collapsed into his bed.

  “Hey, Barbara,” Sander murmured. Winstead flicked his eye open at the words. “I have something I need to talk to you about.” He sighed and, when he spoke again, his throat hurt. “Remember in the hospital when I was reading to you and you interrupted me and told me you wanted me to get married again? You said you knew I loved you, but this was death-do-us-part, so I was released from my wedding vows. And I said no, I could never love anyone else. I only have room in my heart for one woman. Well, that’s true, Barbara. I love you and I will never love anyone else the same way. But I’ve met someone, and…”

  Sander closed his eyes. What was he really doing? He was holding his wife, the woman he had loved forever, trying to explain something that had only recently occurred to him: one’s heart could grow bigger and make room for someone else without evicting the former tenant.

  Finally, Sander leaned forward and tenderly touched the smooth surface of the urn with his lips.

  * * *

  Juliana was reading in her hospital bed when Hunter came in. He bent down for a kiss and she pulled him close to prevent him from making it perfunctory. When he drew back, they were both smiling.

  “How is the patient today?”

  “I keep telling them I’m well enough to go home. I mean, I’m off dialysis and everything, and they keep saying I have to stay for a few more days. Looks like I’m going to miss Christmas.”

/>   Hunter shook his head. “Oh, no. We wouldn’t have Christmas morning without you, honey.”

  Juliana frowned, picturing her children getting up for Christmas and not being allowed to unwrap their gifts. Did Santa Claus skip our house? What explanation could they offer the twins for why December 25th wasn’t a holiday this year? “That wouldn’t be right, Hunter. Let’s not ruin Christmas for them. No, I’ll be fine.”

  “Ruin Christmas…” Hunter repeated.

  “Just set my gifts aside. I’ll open them when I’m home. Probably the 27th, they’re telling me.”

  “You sure?”

  “Okay, no. Not completely. But I don’t want them believing I’ve chosen the hospital over the family.”

  “Well, they’re only three. They’ll probably recover from the trauma pretty quickly. Your decision, though.”

  “Let’s not ruin Christmas.”

  “Okay,” Hunter agreed. “Let’s not ruin Christmas.”

  * * *

  Sander stood when he saw Lucille sweep through the doors of the restaurant. He waved at her and she beamed at him, handing her fur coat to the hostess.

  Her hair was carefully done, loose curls falling to her shoulders, and her eyes were particularly vivacious—some makeup thing, he supposed. When she reached him, her momentum carried her right into his arms and he returned her kiss as if they were alone. When she broke away, eyes sparkling, she did a little twirl in front of him. “You like?”

  Her black skirt was lacy and flowing, and her blouse managed to resemble lingerie. Her cleavage was coyly on display in a material that tricked the eye into seeing more than was actually revealed. Sander allowed himself to linger in his examination because she was, after all, asking for his studied opinion. “I like it very much. You look beautiful, Lucille.”

  She nodded her approval at his response, allowing him to pull her chair back and seat her. “I wanted to dress for the occasion.”

  He sat. “Occasion?”

  She gestured around the room. They were in a small, intimate restaurant atop a hotel built in 1930.

  “I thought maybe you brought me here for a reason.” She reached out and traced his knuckles with a fingertip. “I hope you don’t have to rush back to your home tonight, Sander. I thought we could go to my place for a little dessert.” She looked up at the approaching waiter. “I think I’d like champagne.”

  Sander ordered himself an iced tea. Lucille gave him a questioning look, but he simply turned and gazed out into the night, the small town glittering with festive lights that threw soft puffs of diffused color onto the snow.

  “You like driving, Lucille? Just getting in the car, cruising out into the country, looking at the woods, the fields?”

  “I’d drive anywhere with you.”

  “That was something Barbara loved to do.”

  She reacted warily, not sure what he was saying. “I won’t be able to compete with your dead wife, Sander,” she finally whispered.

  He shook his head. “I would never ask anyone to do that.”

  “I’m my own person.”

  “No doubt in my mind.”

  She leaned forward, regarding him intently. “I have a feeling we’re about to have a very important conversation.”

  * * *

  Winstead did not understand what was happening, and it made him nervous.

  First: this new car. Why weren’t they in Daddy’s old car? Or alternatively, the big minivan with the children and Ruby? Now it was Winstead alone in the back with no additional seats behind him, only a small space. As much as he preferred to have Daddy to himself, this change in routine felt deeply disquieting.

  His anxiety increased when Daddy stopped the car. There was something in the way Daddy turned and looked at him that suggested to Winstead he was about to be abandoned.

  “I’ll be right back, buddy,” Daddy assured him.

  And with that, the absolute worst thing happened: his person eased out of the vehicle and shut the door without taking Winstead with him. Winstead watched in near panic as Daddy strolled up a short sidewalk and knocked on a door. Within moments, the door opened and Daddy disappeared inside.

  Winstead paced back and forth on the back seat, as if looking out one window would give him different information than the other. He yawned and painted marks on the glass with his nose. He jumped over his seat into the space behind it and then immediately jumped back. He sat, trying to be good, and then barked, no longer caring.

  He wagged in relief when, after what seemed an interminable length of time, his person reappeared out of that same door, trailed by a woman whose movements seemed familiar.

  When Daddy opened the door opposite the steering wheel, the interior of the vehicle filled with the woman’s flowery scent. She slid into her seat and looked around in admiration.

  Winstead anxiously tracked Daddy as he walked around the front of the car. When the driver’s side door opened and he finally climbed in, Winstead was almost frantic with gratitude. He leaned forward to lick Daddy’s ear, but his person dodged his head away.

  “My, my, Mr. Goss,” the woman commented. “A Porsche? I didn’t even know they made an SUV.”

  “Well, I needed a back seat for the grandboys, and I simply had to escape that minivan. It was reducing my testosterone levels.”

  The woman laughed and twisted in her seat. “Hello, Winstead.”

  Winstead identified the essential smell that was this woman, barely discernible under the billowing clouds of perfume wafting from her. He recognized the odor from a place where Daddy often took him and Ruby and the twins to play. Winstead wagged uncertainly. He had no idea why they were in the car in the first place, and he was equally unsure why this woman had come with them. He sat alertly as they pulled away from the curb.

  “I imagine,” the woman observed, “the minivan probably did put a damper on your ability to impress girls.”

  Daddy laughed. “Girls,” he repeated. He glanced at her. “There’s only one girl I’m trying to impress now, Claire.”

  The woman cocked her head. “Oh?”

  “That’s right.”

  “So you’ve decided on one of us? Is this the last episode of ‘The Bachelor’? May I ask who the lucky winner is?”

  “Me,” Daddy responded. “I’m the lucky one.”

  They drove silently for a while. When Claire reached out and touched Daddy’s shoulder, Winstead finally understood why she was in the car.

  * * *

  “Happy Christmas Eve Eve,” Hunter greeted Kim.

  She gave him a glum look. “We shouldn’t have to work today. It’s a holiday.”

  “Actually, it isn’t.”

  “It’s unfair.”

  “Okay, sure.”

  “The boss wants to see you.”

  Hunter considered that, nodded.

  Something seemed strange about Mrs. O’Brien when Hunter poked his head in her door. It took him a minute to figure out what it was: she was smiling.

  “You asked to see me, Mrs. O’Brien?” Hunter asked cautiously.

  She shook her head. “Call me Valerie.”

  What was this? Had she been visited by three ghosts last night?

  “Why don’t you sit down,” she suggested.

  Hunter settled warily into his chair. He thought fleetingly about how convicted criminals were offered a final cigarette before the firing squad did their work.

  “You know, I’ve had my doubts about everything you’ve been doing, but I have to say, this contest of yours has really turned things around. My staff tells me that everyone seems to know so much about each other now.”

  Hunter nodded. “Turns out we have three college-level volleyball players in our ranks, along with several who played in high school. Who knew? I hear they’re putting together a team.”

  “And I heard from sales that two of the engineers are going bowling with them over the holidays.”

  Hunter nodded silently, unsure where this was going.

  “I
’ll admit, when those cardboard boxes went up, I thought your career was over and that you were taking me down with you. But now it seems everything’s on the right track. It’ll be some time before we see whether or not there’s any sort of improvement in productivity, but from what I’ve heard from my peers in this industry, if you can get your engineers working harmoniously, it makes all the difference. Congratulations, Hunter,” she continued, beaming. “I’ve made my recommendation, and it’s sure to be accepted. After the first of the year, you’ll be the director of facilities for all company operations. I’ve prepared your compensation package, and I think you’ll be pleased.” She tapped a thin folder on her desk, then leaned forward and lowered her voice. “I’m going to need your help going forward. There’s a lot of fat in our operation. Too many branches—three in California alone. We need to consolidate, reduce head count. You’ll be my go-to for all of it.”

  Hunter stared numbly. “Huh,” he said.

  * * *

  Christmas morning.

  Hunter eased the minivan to a halt in the hospital parking lot. He shut off the engine and turned to look at his family. “Okay, guys,” he enthused. “We ready for this?”

  Ello was holding the soft-sided duffel bag in her lap. Inside, Ruby was wiggling and kept thrusting her head through the partially unzipped top.

  “The puppy just needs to be quiet until we’re past the front desk,” Hunter told her.

  Ello nodded, clearly tense.

  “Am I doing the right thing here,” Hunter asked his father, “or am I teaching my children it’s okay to be outlaws?” He glanced at the twins. In many ways, they already were outlaws.

  “It’s a puppy at Christmas,” Sander argued. “No one should have a rule against that, not even a hospital.”

  “The woman at the front counter scares me a little,” Hunter admitted.