Read Rachel Alexander 03 - A Hell of a Dog for Free Online Page A

begin serving.
    After the smoked salmon en croute and the arugula salad, and halfway through the filet mignon, except for Boris, who claimed he was a “wegetarian” and couldn’t eat an animal, apparently with the exception of the domesticated hot dog, the double doors once again opened, and there in all his glory was Bucky King, carrying a Tibetan terrier and flanked by two borzoi. You had to give it to the man, he knew how to make an entrance. His follow-through wasn’t too shabby either.
    “Sorry to be late,” he said. “I just flew in from the coast. Angelo,” he said, riding the TT up and down against his no doubt hairy chest, “had to tape Leno.” He sighed for emphasis. It’s a tough life, his expression said, and thank God I’m the one who gets to live it.
    He had a neck like a bullmastiff’s, a marine do, and an artificial-looking tan, like that stuff you schmear on from a bottle.
    He still had his New York accent, but he’d eighty-sixed his New York pallor.
    I waited in rapt attention for the rest of the puff puff, and had it not been for the fact that the gentleman to my left was trying to resuscitate his dead marriage, I would have pinched him hard on the thigh to make sure he didn’t miss a word of Bucky’s show.
    Then it came, the rest of the obligatory, laudatory, self-congratulatory explanation for the presence of Alexi and Tamara. Bucky looked down as if he’d just noticed them standing regally at either side. “Oh, yes,” he said, “we had to shoot a Stoli commercial, too.” He rolled his eyes to let us know how difficult it was, and what a brilliant trainer he was to have pulled it off.
    I looked across the table and saw Tracy blinking as if the light emanating off Bucky were too much for her unprotected eyes. Alan Cooper’s mouth formed a thin, straight line, and his left eye had begun to twitch. I felt Chip lean sideways again, as if he were about to whisper something in my ear, but then Bucky noticed Beryl.
    “Dame Potter,” he said, bowing from the waist, a neat trick since you couldn’t say he really had a waist. It looked more like the equator.
    “Oh, do sit down, Bucky,” she said. “Our food is getting cold. No one has the time to watch you make a spectacle of yourself.” Then she turned her attention to the rest of us. “The queen, it seems, has neglected to inform me that I have been knighted,” she said, “and until such time as she does, I’d appreciate it if you all called me Beryl.”
    I don’t know if Bucky’s tan changed colors. I wasn’t looking. I heard him putting his dogs on a down-stay. When I did look, he was taking his place at the table, next to a flustered Tracy.
    “Too heavy.” It was Alan’s subtle-as-a-sledgehammer-dropped-on-your-bare-toe stage whisper. I assumed he meant Bucky. Until he added insult to injury. “Not enough brisket.” My grandmother Sonya would have thought he was referring to her pot roast. But it was one of the borzoi he was bad-mouthing, a deadly sin if ever there was one. In this circle, you might get away with ranking out the owner, but never the pet.
    “The brand of dog food you each requested is being delivered to your rooms as we dine,” Sam said, “along with some special goodies for our hardworking demo dogs. If there’s anything else you need, please, people, speak up.”
    Three of the dogs barked when Sam said “speak,” which set the proper mood for finishing dinner. Sam had cued the dogs by accident, but there’s nothing dog trainers love more than signaling each other’s dogs on purpose, just for a goof. Giving a hand signal from behind another trainer’s back so that a dog on a perfect sit-stay lies down or comes instead of staying put is irresistible to the lot of us, even those few of us who might consider ourselves mature adults. Of course, if there’s another trainer within ten miles, you’d never correct your dog. You’d turn around smiling to show you can take a joke, then plan your