She nodded slow and deliberate. “You know what, Daddy?”
“What, sweetpea?”
“I think I’m getting too old for Cinderella.” She brushed her hands across her sparkly costume. “I want to go shopping for clothes at Justice.”
He rolled his eyes. “We had this discussion before. I’m not paying forty-five dollars for a skirt or thirty-five dollars for a T-shirt for a seven-year-old child.”
“I’m the only one in my class who doesn’t get to buy clothes at Justice.” Her bottom lip stuck out far enough for a bird to sit on it.
“How would you know that? Every girl in school wears the same school uniform every single day.”
“They telled me!”
“It’s out of the question. End of discussion.”
“You’re mean!” She crossed arms over her flat chest and kicked her feet under the dashboard.
All of a sudden he longed for the endless evenings watching Cinderella DVDs and reading every Cinderella book ever published. He was deep in Shit Lake and had a huge hole in his boat.
Patience, all he needed was patience.
“Who are you, little girl, and what did you do with sweet Amber Dempsey?”
“Very funny.” She rooted around in the console and removed all the candy she’d given him and threw it piece by piece in the pumpkin. She scowled, yanked the car door open, jumped down, and stomped to the front door.
He whooshed out a sigh. “Whatever.”
Marla set DD back in the basket and carried it to the kitchen. Dwayne had put a small bag of puppy chow and a chew toy in with her. Maybe she was hungry? She lifted her out and set her on the kitchen floor, where she peed a puddle the size of a small lake.
Oh joy.
“Okay then, DD. We start potty training.” A handful of paper towels and a spritz of Nature’s Miracle took care of the immediate problem. Marla gingerly held the sopping paper towels then shoved them through the doggy door and pushed DD through after them.
She waited a few seconds, opened the door, and stepped outside. “This is the doggy potty, DD.” Strolling across the yard, the Yorkie prancing behind, Marla gave her plenty of time to sniff and explore. DD got a big whiff of the wet towels once they made the entire circuit. Marla nudged them off the stoop with her foot, held DD next to them and said, “DD’s a gooood girl. Good girls pee out here, got it?”
No more accidents happened in the kitchen while Marla ate ice cream and DD nibbled on puppy chow. DD hadn’t had time to pee in the house again because Marla pushed her through the doggie door three times in the next hour, carried her to sniff the wet towels, and told her she was a good doggie. She’d forgotten what a pain in the neck it was to train a puppy.
The next day she took DD to work with her for the short time she planned to spend in the office. Staff members ooohed and aaahed over the tiny mutt, taking turns holding and hugging her. Even Ted.
Marla’s lack of sleep the night before descended quick and hard. The puppy had whined all night long, she’d had to take her outside half a dozen times. It was time to get DD out of there and catch a nap before Dwayne got to her place. A flutter in her chest at the thought of him unsettled her. “I’m not expecting any calls today, Jessie, but you know how to reach me.”
“Uh huh, I guess since the flowers didn’t work, Mr. Hunk switched to dogs? Can’t throw that little sweetie pie in the wastebasket, can you? I do hope the dark circles under your eyes were the result of a hot—”
“Bite me, Jessie.”
She didn’t expect him to show up before six thirty, and he hadn’t mentioned dinner, so just in case, she stopped at the store, bought a frozen pizza and a six-pack of Diet Dr. Pepper. DD didn’t make a peep, in fact, she fell asleep in the clever cloth dog carrier while Marla zipped through the grocery aisles. “I’m dead on my feet, and now you sleep, you little stinker.”
No nap. No luck. Marla resorted to putting DD in the padded picnic basket, carrying it to the hall bathroom then closing both the bathroom door and her bedroom door, and plopping a pillow over her head.
She kicked, groaned, and tossed the pillow across the room. How could a puppy who weighed less than three pounds make such a pitiful, ungodly racket?
DD quieted the second Marla opened the bathroom door. She lifted the lid and stared at the tiny, sweet, furry face and sighed. “Okay, baby girl, what am I going to do with you, huh? Sooner or later I have to sleep. I’m open for suggestions.”
At six on the dot, her doorbell rang. She dragged herself to the door, threw it open, and stared. Yes, it was Dwayne, whoopee-do.
“Whoa, honey, Marla, what happened?”
She turned, shuffled in the direction of the living room, and pointed at the fur ball dogging her bare feet. “That happened.” Doubling in pain when she slammed her big toe into the coffee table leg, she shrieked, “Ow!” and fell on the couch.
“Stay right there. I’ll get some ice.”
She heard him open the freezer door and root around in the ice cubes, open and close drawers then return to sit next to her. Her expression dared him to say anything when he spotted DD sitting on her chest gazing into her face.
“Put your feet in my lap, honey. Let me look at that toe.” He held her foot in his big hand, made a humming sound while he checked it out then applied the dishtowel-wrapped ice to her toe.
Yanking her foot back, she sucked in a breath. “That’s cold!”
“It’s ice.” He grabbed her ankle and pushed her foot back to his lap. “Hold still.”
She rolled her head from side to side on the arm of the sofa and whimpered, “I haven’t had more than
