Eli looked down at the coffee mug in his hands, a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
Cora persisted. “Tell me I’m not crazy. You’re keeping her!”
“I am, I am. I was trying to think of a cool way to tell you but I’m awful at keeping secrets.” He squinted at Cora. “Are you tearing up?”
She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. “Yeah, I’m such a lightweight when it comes to dog stuff. It doesn’t take much to get me going. But this news deserves some happy tears.” She sniffled. “I am so, so, so grateful that she’s staying with you. It’s perfect!”
He rifled through his laptop bag and produced a small cloth handkerchief. “My mom gave me a bunch of these. Chronic postnasal drip. But this one is unused, I swear!”
Cora laughed and dabbed her eyes with the soft square of fabric. “This is such a relief. I wanted you to keep her but I didn’t know if you were ready for a dog. And I didn’t want to ask outright. I was sure that I could find her a good home, but that might mean that I’d lose touch with her. Her staying with you... well, I hope we’ll keep in touch.”
“Of course we’ll keep in touch,” Eli said gently. “I mean, I hope so, too.”
“When did you know she was the one for you?” Cora asked.
“The first minute I saw her. I had an immediate connection to her. Which was weird, because I’ve never been a small-dog guy.”
Cora understood the alchemy of a perfect dog-human match.
“Is everything going okay with her? Like potty training and all that?”
“She’s perfect. No accidents. And she goes to the door and barks when she needs to go out.”
“Speaking of barking... ,” Cora said with a grimace.
“I forgot to tell you! The barking problem is gone. Theonlytime she barks is when she needs to go out. None of that awful nonstop stuff like she used to do. She’s totally different now.”
“Amazing. But now I feel doubly bad about her life with Beth Ann. Have you heard anything?”
“Nope, nothing. They’re cleaning out her apartment. I guess her parents hired a company to scour it down before they try to sell it.”
“They’ve got their work cut out for them.”
“I’m still in shock that it was so bad. Beth Ann was quirky, sure, but I never thought she was hoarding.” He shook his head.
“Yeah, it’s kinda scary how well some people can hide their true selves.” She shrugged and looked out the window at the people rushing to work, wondering how many of them were who they appeared to be.
“Hey, I wanted to ask you something,” he said. “This might be prying, because it seems like there’s all kinds of secrecy surrounding it, and you don’t have to answer me if you don’t want to.”
“I don’t think I’m going to like this,” Cora said, grimacing.
“Is ChienParfait your website?”
Her eyes bugged.
“You need to work on your poker face,” Eli said, answering himself.
“How did you—where did—?”
“I’ll admit that I used to like Boris’s show because I didn’t know better, but Fran told me what you thought of him. I looked into him when I realized that he was going to be in town and I stumbled on aWashington Postvideo interview with him. Being the nerd that I am, I immediately went to ChienParfaitand who did I see on the site but our mutual friend Sydney. I mean, I knew it had to be you.”
“So did you hate it?” Cora winced, anticipating the worst.
“Well, it introduced me to a totally different side of you. I mean, you know your dog stuff, but some of the Ershovich posts... you get kind of intense. I translated the titles, too. Yikes. Not what I expected.”
“Yeah, I get fired up about him. It borders on ranting, huh?”
“No, no ... it’s great stuff. I like the passion. You’re not making personal attacks about him, and your arguments make sense. I actually read your entire blog, and you’ve got plenty of happy stuff mixed in there, too. I like your voice. You should write a book.”
